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Author Topic: Making Authentic Myth in Your RPG World  (Read 4058 times)

RPGPundit

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Making Authentic Myth in Your RPG World
« on: April 13, 2021, 12:01:54 AM »
How do you effectively portray mythic lore in your OSR, DnD or ttrpg setting? Here's some tips to make it more authentic, complete with a detailed example.

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Ghostmaker

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Re: Making Authentic Myth in Your RPG World
« Reply #1 on: April 13, 2021, 09:06:36 AM »
Using Greek and Roman myths as a guideline, develop 2-4 versions of each tale. Make sure there's some contradiction between them. Have fun as your players attempt to unravel the truth from the myths.

"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." --The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

hedgehobbit

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Re: Making Authentic Myth in Your RPG World
« Reply #2 on: April 13, 2021, 12:17:37 PM »
I've tried coming up with myths for my campaign but I could never solve what I call the Apollo Problem: Is the sun the flaming wheel of Apollo's chariot, or is it the flaming eye of Horus, or is it a giant ball of gas floating millions of miles away? Only one of those things can be true, and it's possible for the PCs (through things like divination, crystal balls, or just flying real high to take a look) to figure out which of those tings is the actual truth.

So, once you postulate that the gods are real, physical beings as they are described in myths, it then becomes impossible for myths to exist as they did on our Earth. This is also true of myths that change over time. For example, some of the stories of the holy grail come from a time when the grail was a cauldron instead of a cup. But if those myths actually happened, it would still be a cauldron and the myth wouldn't have developed the way that it had.

The only way for the myths to make sense is to turn the gods into abstract energy beings that appears to different people in different ways which isn't how anyone believed the gods to actually be.

Greentongue

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Re: Making Authentic Myth in Your RPG World
« Reply #3 on: April 13, 2021, 01:26:40 PM »
Always a problem that you have a modern audience and they just don't have the "proper" mindset.
Back to, "Your character believes" which is just not the same.

ScytheSong

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Re: Making Authentic Myth in Your RPG World
« Reply #4 on: April 13, 2021, 01:35:36 PM »
I've tried coming up with myths for my campaign but I could never solve what I call the Apollo Problem: Is the sun the flaming wheel of Apollo's chariot, or is it the flaming eye of Horus, or is it a giant ball of gas floating millions of miles away? Only one of those things can be true, and it's possible for the PCs (through things like divination, crystal balls, or just flying real high to take a look) to figure out which of those tings is the actual truth.

So, once you postulate that the gods are real, physical beings as they are described in myths, it then becomes impossible for myths to exist as they did on our Earth. This is also true of myths that change over time. For example, some of the stories of the holy grail come from a time when the grail was a cauldron instead of a cup. But if those myths actually happened, it would still be a cauldron and the myth wouldn't have developed the way that it had.

The only way for the myths to make sense is to turn the gods into abstract energy beings that appears to different people in different ways which isn't how anyone believed the gods to actually be.

This last paragraph isn't true, at least for ancient Egypt. The animal-headed people you see in temple and tomb paintings are called out explicitly as being representative of qualities of the gods, not representations of the gods themselves. I wish I had the references in front of me, but there is one version where the myth seems to have started out with four opposing sets of ideals -- Dry and Wet, Eternal and Mortal/Changeable, Light and Dark, and Active and Inactive. Who then combine to form various lesser deities that are similar ideas -- one example I can think of is that Mortal and Active mate to give rise to Life, while Eternal and Dark give birth to Caves/the Underworld. The funniest one is when the second-generation Memory mates with Eternal and gives rise to Writing (who is later associated with the other pantheon's Thoth).

This actually is thought to have happened all over. The myths and physical attributes of the gods were seen by the educated classes (especially post-Plato) as guides for the rubes to understand the nature of the gods, but not the actual form of the gods. (See Ovid for an example of using tales of the gods to make a satirical point about Imperial Roman life...)

Edit: So, answer the Sun question, sure your average peasant in Greek-speaking lands thinks the sun is Apollo's chariot, while the average Egyptian peasant believes that it's the Eye of Horus, or the glinting of Osiris's headdress, or the god of Light trudging across the sky to go home to his Dark spouse (depending on where or when in Egypt you are), but there is an answer that is known to the sages (for instance, that the Sun is a ball of flaming gas that passes around the globe that is the Earth), and the gods themselves are there to make sure that the sun's progression through the year is kept orderly.
« Last Edit: April 13, 2021, 01:42:43 PM by ScytheSong »

Chris24601

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Re: Making Authentic Myth in Your RPG World
« Reply #5 on: April 13, 2021, 01:41:01 PM »
The only way for the myths to make sense is to turn the gods into abstract energy beings that appears to different people in different ways which isn't how anyone believed the gods to actually be.
Or don’t try to use the “multiple choice options” thing for anything contemporary to the story.

One thing it’s easy to forget about is that the only reason for multiple choice mythology in the present is that we’re getting multiple recountings from different places and different times about things that occurred long ago.

Back in Athens c. 500 BC, your local peasant of the day wasn’t hearing five different versions of the story of Hercules; they heard the one official recounting of the local priesthood.

We only have a multiple choice version of the stories because we’ve also gotten recountings from Sparta, from 300 years earlier, from 600 years later, from syncretised translations into Latin, and the interpretations of different scholars across hundreds of years each reflecting the values of their age.

It’s sorta like taking texts about the nature of Medieval life written in 1700, 1970 and 2020 and saying there are multiple interpretations of what life was like then... whereas today in 2021 we are going to view the more recent scholarship as accurate and the stuff written back in the 1970’s as the misinformed product of its age (ex. interpretating medieval depictions of armor as being “Studded Leather” vs. today knowing now they were depictions of Brigandine).

So the way to apply this realistically to your setting is to only apply “multiple choice” to historical events (ex. Different versions of the creation story or origins of the gods or the gods who came before the present ones), not to the present day religion/cosmology.

If you want to add versimultude there add the “multiple choices” as past interpretations that are now seen as flawed by present scholarship (studded leather vs. brigandine) or dogma (ex. the Catholic view of sex pre- vs. post- Theology of the Body and Humane Vitae)... but make clear that there is one version that is actually considered true (even if the accepted version is actually false).

Another bit I find works well for the Apollo problem is declaring that the physical universe is a reflection of the spiritual truth. When you use telescopes to look at the moon you see a big ball of rock orbiting the planet that reflects light from the sun; but this is merely the physical expression of the spiritual world where the realm of dreams reflects the divine light of inspiration down upon mindkind in the form of dreams.

Then the theologians can get into all manner of arguments over the exact nature of those spiritual associations while still having a concrete answer for those who look with their eyes.

The above also works better if your mortals can’t just routinely hop into the spirit world to get those spiritual answers confirmed, just like we can’t hop up to Heaven and confirm whether the Jews, Catholics, Islam, one of the Protestant churches or none of the above have the right interpretations).

Ghostmaker

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Re: Making Authentic Myth in Your RPG World
« Reply #6 on: April 13, 2021, 01:41:13 PM »
I've tried coming up with myths for my campaign but I could never solve what I call the Apollo Problem: Is the sun the flaming wheel of Apollo's chariot, or is it the flaming eye of Horus, or is it a giant ball of gas floating millions of miles away? Only one of those things can be true, and it's possible for the PCs (through things like divination, crystal balls, or just flying real high to take a look) to figure out which of those tings is the actual truth.

So, once you postulate that the gods are real, physical beings as they are described in myths, it then becomes impossible for myths to exist as they did on our Earth. This is also true of myths that change over time. For example, some of the stories of the holy grail come from a time when the grail was a cauldron instead of a cup. But if those myths actually happened, it would still be a cauldron and the myth wouldn't have developed the way that it had.

The only way for the myths to make sense is to turn the gods into abstract energy beings that appears to different people in different ways which isn't how anyone believed the gods to actually be.
I strongly recommend watching some of the Overly Sarcastic Productions' videos on Youtube, as Red talks about how myths form, congeal, and mutate.

Myth is not fact. Quite the opposite. And when you're developing a campaign world set in a medieval era pre-Renaissance, myths can contradict themselves (and often do). The gods may have a vested interest in keeping things confused (preventing someone from sussing out a weakness, or discovering something they'd prefer stayed hidden).

hedgehobbit

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Re: Making Authentic Myth in Your RPG World
« Reply #7 on: April 13, 2021, 02:47:03 PM »
Another bit I find works well for the Apollo problem is declaring that the physical universe is a reflection of the spiritual truth. When you use telescopes to look at the moon you see a big ball of rock orbiting the planet that reflects light from the sun; but this is merely the physical expression of the spiritual world where the realm of dreams reflects the divine light of inspiration down upon mindkind in the form of dreams.

It doesn't appear that I made my point clearly, as this is what I am saying.

If you postulate a fantasy world in which the gods exist as they were described by ancient people, that is as actual physical beings that control their own actions, then the myths associated with those gods cannot also be true as the reality of the gods would prevent any contradiction of myth (only one being can be responsible for moving the sun across the sky for instance).

But if you make a game world where the myths are all true, even when they contradict each other, then the gods can't be actual physical beings and need to be more abstract divine expressions.

So, when creating myths for a game world that has actual gods, the way myths would be created is entirely different. They are, in effect, historical recordings of actual events rather than accounts invented decades or centuries after they presumably happened. Which means that myths in such a fantasy world wouldn't resembled myths of ancient Earth.
« Last Edit: April 13, 2021, 02:49:21 PM by hedgehobbit »

ScytheSong

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Re: Making Authentic Myth in Your RPG World
« Reply #8 on: April 13, 2021, 03:31:56 PM »
Another bit I find works well for the Apollo problem is declaring that the physical universe is a reflection of the spiritual truth. When you use telescopes to look at the moon you see a big ball of rock orbiting the planet that reflects light from the sun; but this is merely the physical expression of the spiritual world where the realm of dreams reflects the divine light of inspiration down upon mindkind in the form of dreams.

It doesn't appear that I made my point clearly, as this is what I am saying.

If you postulate a fantasy world in which the gods exist as they were described by ancient people, that is as actual physical beings that control their own actions, then the myths associated with those gods cannot also be true as the reality of the gods would prevent any contradiction of myth (only one being can be responsible for moving the sun across the sky for instance).

But if you make a game world where the myths are all true, even when they contradict each other, then the gods can't be actual physical beings and need to be more abstract divine expressions.

So, when creating myths for a game world that has actual gods, the way myths would be created is entirely different. They are, in effect, historical recordings of actual events rather than accounts invented decades or centuries after they presumably happened. Which means that myths in such a fantasy world wouldn't resembled myths of ancient Earth.

I take it you aren't familiar with Glorantha, then? Because Glorantha actually has everything you're talking about here, and makes it work. The trick is that there's a separate Godtime where the mythic reality is real, and Heroes and their communities can go Heroquesting into the Godtime to experience the reality of their myths -- including one community (Heortlings) going to the feast hall of their primary god (Orlanth) and experiencing -- or even participating in -- a myth of their gods where they cast down the false sun and restore the true sun to his glory, while another community (Estoraleans) will Heroquest into the hearth of their Mother goddess, and participate in the reciprocal myth where their gods repulse the attempt of the enemy gods from placing their imposter on the true sun's throne. And, to make things wilder, even though the two myths are antithetical, they both are true in the Godtime, and each community will get the blessing of the True Sun for participating in the Heroquest. It's wild.

S'mon

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Re: Making Authentic Myth in Your RPG World
« Reply #9 on: April 13, 2021, 03:37:18 PM »
I've tried coming up with myths for my campaign but I could never solve what I call the Apollo Problem: Is the sun the flaming wheel of Apollo's chariot, or is it the flaming eye of Horus, or is it a giant ball of gas floating millions of miles away? Only one of those things can be true


S'mon

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Re: Making Authentic Myth in Your RPG World
« Reply #10 on: April 13, 2021, 03:43:58 PM »
I take it you aren't familiar with Glorantha, then? Because Glorantha actually has everything you're talking about here, and makes it work. The trick is that there's a separate Godtime where the mythic reality is real, and Heroes and their communities can go Heroquesting into the Godtime to experience the reality of their myths -- including one community (Heortlings) going to the feast hall of their primary god (Orlanth) and experiencing -- or even participating in -- a myth of their gods where they cast down the false sun and restore the true sun to his glory, while another community (Estoraleans) will Heroquest into the hearth of their Mother goddess, and participate in the reciprocal myth where their gods repulse the attempt of the enemy gods from placing their imposter on the true sun's throne. And, to make things wilder, even though the two myths are antithetical, they both are true in the Godtime, and each community will get the blessing of the True Sun for participating in the Heroquest. It's wild.

Yeah. It's not rocket science - although Glorantha does do it exceptionally well.

My own secret for maintaining a Mythic feel as GM is to remain resolutely agnostic as to the True Truth of the setting, which in many cases isn't even a meaningful concept.
If you start off like Captain Kirk going "This apparent deity is actually an Abstract Energy Being!" then you've already failed.

S'mon

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Re: Making Authentic Myth in Your RPG World
« Reply #11 on: April 13, 2021, 04:26:37 PM »
How do you effectively portray mythic lore in your OSR, DnD or ttrpg setting? Here's some tips to make it more authentic, complete with a detailed example.



Seems to me that some of the Superheroes and their tales have attained a quasi-mythic status - Superman, Batman, Spiderman and Captain America do seem to have a kind of mythic quality about them, to a large extent from being retold so often.

Steven Mitchell

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Re: Making Authentic Myth in Your RPG World
« Reply #12 on: April 13, 2021, 04:41:52 PM »
More than one GM (and fiction writer for that matter) have had fun with the setting premise that there is some kind of typical fantastical myth about the gods but the reality is some materialistic, mundane, possibly scientifically advanced group creating the illusion.  Then the story is about exposing the man behind the curtain (to make the obvious allusion).

Some day I'm going to run a setting that turns this on its head:  Some beings with god-like powers have, for inscrutable reasons, decided to create a myth that they maintain their powers via vast technological superiority which is then covered with a patina of fantastical illusion.  The twist is that the fantastical illusion is meant to be seen through.  Then people challenge the gods on that basis and find out the hard way that the technological superiority is the deeper curtain. :D

I think I could get some good "character beliefs" interacting with a mythic quality out of that setup.  Of course, you can't publish that as a setting and make it work.  It's one you need to do yourself.


ScytheSong

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Re: Making Authentic Myth in Your RPG World
« Reply #13 on: April 13, 2021, 04:49:38 PM »
More than one GM (and fiction writer for that matter) have had fun with the setting premise that there is some kind of typical fantastical myth about the gods but the reality is some materialistic, mundane, possibly scientifically advanced group creating the illusion.  Then the story is about exposing the man behind the curtain (to make the obvious allusion).

Some day I'm going to run a setting that turns this on its head:  Some beings with god-like powers have, for inscrutable reasons, decided to create a myth that they maintain their powers via vast technological superiority which is then covered with a patina of fantastical illusion.  The twist is that the fantastical illusion is meant to be seen through.  Then people challenge the gods on that basis and find out the hard way that the technological superiority is the deeper curtain. :D

I think I could get some good "character beliefs" interacting with a mythic quality out of that setup.  Of course, you can't publish that as a setting and make it work.  It's one you need to do yourself.

Didn't Gor do something like that? By Book 3, Tarl has discovered that the Priest-Kings are secretly using advanced technology to control the Gorean population, but by book 20(ish) other Earth transplants have discovered that the Priest-Kings have no control over the process of transport between Earth and Counter-Earth, and that some deity is probably doing the transport as a method to disrupt their control? It's been literally decades since I read the books, but that part stuck in my head.

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Re: Making Authentic Myth in Your RPG World
« Reply #14 on: April 13, 2021, 06:06:52 PM »
If you're going to go with the gods as science, might as well go with a good one.