From: Alex Ferguson (abf@cs.ucc.ie)
Date: Mon 09 Oct 2000 - 14:52:51 EEST
Mikko:
> :Alex:
> : ...The first port of
> :evocative call for someone running (say) an Orlanthi campaign should
> :be, what is the Orlanthi truth? Second guessing oneself as to how this
> :might be different from (and sorry Nils, I still think the implication
> :is, inferior to) the objective truth, is a diversion or worse.
>
> This is weird. Glorantha is a world where cultures holding widely
> different worldviews clash. When your orlanthi come against Dara Happans,
> or Malkioni, you need to know how to handle it.
You do, but if this consists of knowing in advance which of them is
correct, or how precisely each of them persists in some easily
correctable deviation from the "objective truth", then I really amn't
interested. You may think this is "weird", but for me it seems
the _only_ way to avoid cheapening the portrayal of either culture.
Yes, you have to work out what happens when the two clash. No, I
don't think that's the same as having to know which of them is (the
more) objectively true.
> Even if you do it like that, you have a
> higher level of reality, and that is the Hero Wars mechanics, which the
> Orlanthi or the Dara Happans would definitely not know about.
I'm not sure which I find harder to credit: that the HW mechanics
are a higher higher level of reality than culturally-subjective
truths, or that if they were, Gloranthans would be so stupid that
they could persist in the latter to the neglect of the former,
if it were as easy to demonstrate which way Gloranthan reality
"really" worked as you seem to think it should be.
> One subjective worldview is not enough if, in the game, the characters
> are going to encounter things from outside their wordlview, or sentients
> holding different views.
I said "first port of call", I didn't say "be all and end all".
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