DrunkonDuty
he/him
An interesting parallel between comics publishing and mythology. I can see where you're coming from there.
I would say that the existence of a central doctrinal authority makes a difference in the accretion process. With a central authority to determine dogma it really does become a case of retconning. Those bits not liked are pretended not to have happened. "Gnostics? What the hell are Gnostics?" "Black, lesbian superman? Are you crazy?" Actually I'm just guessing about Superman. But the point is history can be re-written and those who disagree merely told they are wrong.
Whereas when there is no central authority, such as the very early Christian Church of the 1st and 2nd centuries each group was able to come up with it's own interpretations without having to worry about outside influence/reprisals. Much like early gaming. There were these bunch of game worlds; Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Mystara, The Realms all doing their own take on DnD. There was interaction/cross-pollination between them but none of them cared that the others were doing things in different ways. Certainly no-one would have considered telling someone off for doing it differently. No badwrongfun to be found. Simply: "Oh, your Gruumsh lost his eye in a fight? Cool. Mine always had one eye. That GM's Gruumsh sacrificed an eye in a direct parallel to the Odin myth." Everyone going their own way in a polycampaignic* (RL) world.
Then the whole thing becomes more complex as the DnD community expands. There are more texts and more details contained within the texts. The communal ideas solidified and attempts were made to create an orthodoxy. (In order to simplify things? Mmm. Orthodoxy as a reaction to overly an complicated system?)
Let's look at the early Realms articles in Dragon, the ones where Elminster is having a fireside chat with the reader. Standard DnD icons, let's say Red Dragons, were presented as being like X. Now all Ed Greenwood was saying was "this is how I do them in my campaign, borrow it if you like." But because the ideas were printed they suddenly gained great gravitas. It helped that many of the ideas were new and exciting. Later writers referred back to these earlier ideas for a variety of reasons: Because they liked them. Because they expected others to like them. Because they wanted to create a continuity. Because they thought these ideas were in some way official. Because the ideas had gravitas and thus couldn't simply be dropped. Because they were the basis of existing ideas. Because new players came along and assumed that these were the rules and had to adhered to.
But not all writers treated all ideas equally. After all there's still the underlying axiom of: "It's your game, play it how you like." Cherry picking begins. And shortly thereafter arguments start to arise about people having picked the wrong cherries.
This is the bit I have trouble understanding. Whether in terms of forming a religion or a fictional religion I don't see why people feel the need to argue with one another. OK, the arguments are easier to comprehend with something that's meant to be a universal truth: If someone doesn't believe in a "universal truth" then they are in some way wrong. Or worse yet it creates feelings of insecurity in the believer (I suspect the latter is what creates truly vicious arguments.)
Why people take gaming this seriously I don't know. Actually I don't know why people take religion this seriously either.
Another complication is the fact that the material is written in different voices. Some of the material is deliberately painted as being the POV of a particular fictional character, some of it is presented as objective reality (within it's own campaign.) Some unsophisticated readers have definitely confused things due to this. (I've seen evidence of it here and on other forums as well as face to face.)
Then there have been well-intentioned attempts to create a catholic whole of the shamozzel**. I'm not sure why the need was felt to do this, but there's lots of things I don't understand. ANyway, the need was felt to create a single overarching meta-game. Crystal spheres were born. These kept everything together but at the same time neatly apart. That oxymoron aside I still don't get why people felt the need to try to bring other peoples' games into one big inclusive whole. To allow characters to jump from one campaign to another? A GM will either allow it or not, regardless of "crystal spheres." Sorry, derailing myself. A new, complicated level was added to an already clumsy system of "belief." WHich was then made more complex as ways to pierce the crystal spheres came along.
You've now got Living Campaigns that attempt to create an orthodox system so that players around the world can all play the same adventures. This I understand is to let people play the same character in different games with different people. Nice idea, too much paper work for me.
All of which is really just to help illustrate my earlier point about the parallels in development between DnD religion (although I seem to waffled my way far past talking about the DnD gods) and real world religion.
cheers all,
Glen.
PS:Tonguez: are you perchance studying comparative religion? (I meant to ask earlier, head like a sieve.)
*This may be the ugliest neologism I have ever come up with.
**I don't think I spelled that right.
I would say that the existence of a central doctrinal authority makes a difference in the accretion process. With a central authority to determine dogma it really does become a case of retconning. Those bits not liked are pretended not to have happened. "Gnostics? What the hell are Gnostics?" "Black, lesbian superman? Are you crazy?" Actually I'm just guessing about Superman. But the point is history can be re-written and those who disagree merely told they are wrong.
Whereas when there is no central authority, such as the very early Christian Church of the 1st and 2nd centuries each group was able to come up with it's own interpretations without having to worry about outside influence/reprisals. Much like early gaming. There were these bunch of game worlds; Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Mystara, The Realms all doing their own take on DnD. There was interaction/cross-pollination between them but none of them cared that the others were doing things in different ways. Certainly no-one would have considered telling someone off for doing it differently. No badwrongfun to be found. Simply: "Oh, your Gruumsh lost his eye in a fight? Cool. Mine always had one eye. That GM's Gruumsh sacrificed an eye in a direct parallel to the Odin myth." Everyone going their own way in a polycampaignic* (RL) world.
Then the whole thing becomes more complex as the DnD community expands. There are more texts and more details contained within the texts. The communal ideas solidified and attempts were made to create an orthodoxy. (In order to simplify things? Mmm. Orthodoxy as a reaction to overly an complicated system?)
Let's look at the early Realms articles in Dragon, the ones where Elminster is having a fireside chat with the reader. Standard DnD icons, let's say Red Dragons, were presented as being like X. Now all Ed Greenwood was saying was "this is how I do them in my campaign, borrow it if you like." But because the ideas were printed they suddenly gained great gravitas. It helped that many of the ideas were new and exciting. Later writers referred back to these earlier ideas for a variety of reasons: Because they liked them. Because they expected others to like them. Because they wanted to create a continuity. Because they thought these ideas were in some way official. Because the ideas had gravitas and thus couldn't simply be dropped. Because they were the basis of existing ideas. Because new players came along and assumed that these were the rules and had to adhered to.
But not all writers treated all ideas equally. After all there's still the underlying axiom of: "It's your game, play it how you like." Cherry picking begins. And shortly thereafter arguments start to arise about people having picked the wrong cherries.
This is the bit I have trouble understanding. Whether in terms of forming a religion or a fictional religion I don't see why people feel the need to argue with one another. OK, the arguments are easier to comprehend with something that's meant to be a universal truth: If someone doesn't believe in a "universal truth" then they are in some way wrong. Or worse yet it creates feelings of insecurity in the believer (I suspect the latter is what creates truly vicious arguments.)
Why people take gaming this seriously I don't know. Actually I don't know why people take religion this seriously either.
Another complication is the fact that the material is written in different voices. Some of the material is deliberately painted as being the POV of a particular fictional character, some of it is presented as objective reality (within it's own campaign.) Some unsophisticated readers have definitely confused things due to this. (I've seen evidence of it here and on other forums as well as face to face.)
Then there have been well-intentioned attempts to create a catholic whole of the shamozzel**. I'm not sure why the need was felt to do this, but there's lots of things I don't understand. ANyway, the need was felt to create a single overarching meta-game. Crystal spheres were born. These kept everything together but at the same time neatly apart. That oxymoron aside I still don't get why people felt the need to try to bring other peoples' games into one big inclusive whole. To allow characters to jump from one campaign to another? A GM will either allow it or not, regardless of "crystal spheres." Sorry, derailing myself. A new, complicated level was added to an already clumsy system of "belief." WHich was then made more complex as ways to pierce the crystal spheres came along.
You've now got Living Campaigns that attempt to create an orthodox system so that players around the world can all play the same adventures. This I understand is to let people play the same character in different games with different people. Nice idea, too much paper work for me.
All of which is really just to help illustrate my earlier point about the parallels in development between DnD religion (although I seem to waffled my way far past talking about the DnD gods) and real world religion.
cheers all,
Glen.
PS:Tonguez: are you perchance studying comparative religion? (I meant to ask earlier, head like a sieve.)
*This may be the ugliest neologism I have ever come up with.
**I don't think I spelled that right.
