Western European and Judeo-Christian mythology tends to feature a universe where everything follows rules that make sense to humans. Greek Mythology, especially Greek Mythology taught in junior high and high school, focuses on the written records from the late Greek Empire. This recorded mythology probably features more stories that feature such rules, including gods and the supernatural following set rules. In the Judeo-Christian Mythology supernatural creatures tend to follow rules that can be understood by humans.
I'm not an expert on most mythologies, but am something of an expert on some Native American and Alaska Native mythologies. An important feature of many NA and AN mythologies is a supernatural world that does not follow rules that make sense to humans. The spirits can be fickle and unpredictable.
Having made these two generalizations, I will make two more generalizations. 1E D&D featured some rules that could be viewed as consistent with fickle and unpredictable gods and supernatural influences. Rolling a die to see if you die from taking too much damage and a greater number of random (dice determined) effects and events could represent unpredictable gods and rules. 3E and PF have fewer random dice determined death mechanics and events, and could be consistent with a universe with gods and supernatural creatures that follow rules that can be understood by humans.
Any thoughts or comments on these generalizations?
The old D&D aesthetic is partly derived from the Swords and Sorcery genre (like Fritz Leiber) that Gygax et al. preferred. The gods were often aloof, whimsical, or cruel. However, this is not all that fun for clerics (or players in general, especially as time investment increased in PC generation), so I think some deviation towards post-Pagan beliefs happened over time.
I agree that consistent rules that make sense are good for players. But I like gods and supernatural creatures that can be aloof, whimsical, cruel, and/or unpredictable.
I'm a PhD student in American Indian Studies (or will be in three weeks, it might be a few weeks to early to describe myself as a PhD student). My area of research is Native Capitalism, with a secondary area of research/scholarship on how traditional belief systems and mythology affect 'worldview' and economic behavior. Worldview is a vague and all-encompassing term that is defined as
1. The overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world.
2. A collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by an individual or a group.
(I'm getting to the point relevant to gaming in a long-winded, rambling way) So mythology and traditional beliefs affect worldview, and both in turn affect economic behavior (and presumably other aspects of life, but demonstrating a connection from mythology and traditional beliefs to worldview to economic behavior is a pretty big work in progress in its own right). Here is a story I use, an Inuit (Eskimo) story:
Some Inuit traditional stories tell how the Inuit were created by Sedna the evil sea witch (evil sea witch is probably a European translation). An important Sedna story tells that she spurned the men of her village and married a dog spirit. The men of her village took in a boat to throw her into the ocean. She was hanging onto the edge of the boat, so they cut off her fingers. Sedna fell into the water, and went on to rule an undersea kingdom (Inuit believe you pass through water on the way to either reincarnation or the afterworld, so Sedna decides what happens when an Inuit dies and is sometimes categorized as a death goddess in Euro-American books of mythology). Meanwhile, her fingers became the whales, seals, walrus, and land animals that the Inuit live off of. Because she has no fingers, the sins of the world collect in Sedna's hair. Sins of the world is probably a European translation, but a pretty direct one. The Inuit traditionally believed that you must live in harmony with your community, with the animal world, and with the spirit world. When there is disharmony Sedna becomes upset and takes the animals away. A shaman or medicine man must placate her, bringing her gifts and telling her how beautiful she is and brushing out her hair. Then she returns the animals, and the Inuit do not starve to death.
Important elements of the story include that Sedna is not governed by rules that humans must follow. She does not have to live in harmony with her community, and is free to cause disharmony as a spirit. When humans try to impose human rules on her she becomes more powerful, and gains power over humans and animals. She is fickle and unpredictable, she can inflict harm on people on a whim and can grant favor as easily. Sedna can be viewed as representing natural forces that can be unpredictable.
This relates to understanding Native Capitalism, and in turn can be relevant to a game world. A basic description of capitalism includes increasing production to make more money to increase production to make more money ad infinitum. Native Capitalism does not have a focus on increasing production to increase profit. Native Capitalism, whether it is a tribe with a casino or an Alaska Native Corporation, involves using 70 percent of profits for community development, money to members, or some combination of the two. The federal laws that created Alaska Native Corporations and allow tribes to have casinos stipulate the 70 percent of profits for community development and money to members, but these are consistent with Native values. If the world is an unpredictable place, it makes sense to invest in the community rather than investing in increasing production. And this aspect of unpredictable world vs. world with rules that can be understood could affect how a game world works. In a 1E style game, there could be a stronger commitment to community because the world is a dangerous, unpredictable place. In a 3E/PF style game, there would likely be an increase in venture capitalism type behavior and a decreased sense of community.
Edit: I'm suggesting these last two as possibilities and not certainties. I can make a reasonably strong argument that Native Capitalism is consistent with traditional beliefs, but certainly cannot support a causal relationship.
I don't think the divide is quite as sharp as you indicate between Western European and Native American mythology. Faerie for example doesn't work by rules that make sense to us. Fickle and unpredictable definitely applies.
To sum up your hypothesis is that the less random nature Pathfinder over that of 1E AD&D fails to simulate the less than predictable nature of Native American mythology and its more suited to structured European mythology.
It is a strange thing we do, as scholars, when we stand on one side of the glass and tell ourselves that the stories we are making up about the things on the other side of the glass are based upon facts.
thejeff wrote: I don't think the divide is quite as sharp as you indicate between Western European and Native American mythology. Faerie for example doesn't work by rules that make sense to us. Fickle and unpredictable definitely applies. I was just thinking that. The mythological Greeks, in particular, did not have a well-developed notion of natural law or of probability, which is why, for instance, whenever every time someone throws something, one of the gods specifically guides it to hit (or miss) the target. Similarly, faeries are pretty much defined as "rules that don't make sense to us."
But beyond that, much of the development from 1st to 3rd edition and beyond was for playability rather than abstract theory. People generally like narrative predictability in games, hence the preference for point buy systems in recent games (including non D&D-based games). Random wandering monsters not only violate verisimilitude but also make the game less fun because you never know when you're approaching the boss monster. There was a game, back in the dark ages, designed as a joke... it was called "snow," and basically, every time you did anything, you rolled a die. If you rolled a 2+, you succeeded, and if you rolled a 1, "it snowed" and everyone died. No one ever played this game sober or longer than five minutes, because it was not actually that fun except as a silly gag.
The idea of tying this to "native capitalism" is ill-founded, in my opinion. If anything, there's more commitment to community in 3rd edition because characters are better designed to work together as a group. (E.g. teamwork feats, crafting feats for the group, in-game bonuses for flanking and similar group tactics, &c.)
@thejeff: I stand corrected. It might be more accurate for me to say that 3E and PF feature Western European-influenced gods that follow consistent rules, and those consistent rules tend to follow the Judeo-Christian model of supernatural creatures following rules that can be understood by humans.
@The 8th Dwarf: Yes :)
@Terquem: ?
@Orfamay Quest: I'm using "native capitalism" to present the theoretical framework of mythology of an ordered universe and mythology of an unpredictable, dangerous universe. I agree that a decrease in random effects makes the game more playable. And the commitment to community comment applies to NPC communities. My observation is that working together varies quite a bit in PFS play, I assume groups of friends (non PFS play) work together or not work together much like in 3E and earlier editions.
So my posts contain to elements. The first is a hypothesis summed up by The 8th Dwarf, and the second is an observation on how the predictability or randomness of the supernatural would affect NPCs in a game world.
I majored in the Classics and Ancient History. Greek myth was anything but structured, the Romans, Christanity, the fall of the Western Empire, the Renisance, Enlightenment and Victorian periods had various effects from Merging non Roman Gods into the Roman gods, neglect and destruction of the myths, the loss of manuscripts, to the categorization and neat pigeon holing of Greek myth. So what comes down to us today is what is left, what is saved and what is edited to fit an agenda.
If we look at the history Trojan War for example before Homer there were as many different versions of the story as there were Rhapsodes (Bards) to tell it. Even after Homers version is written down, we can find fragments multiple versions of the story itself by other Authors, each different basses on the city of its author.
The nature of the stories is how, humanity is at the fickleness of the gods, and how the gods fighting amongst themselves has dire effects on the lives of mortals. It is also a lesson not rail agianst the goods as they will screw you over for fun and doubly so for disrespecting them. In the Iliad the Gods would get involved in battle effecting the outcome of fights.
None of the Greek Gods, (maybe with exception of Prometheus and he was a Titan) had the good of Humanity at heart. Zeus on several occasions wanted to wipe the slate clean.
Now mix this in with the fact that every City had its favourite gods, it's own origin story of the gods and you will find a lot Greek myth to be far richer, more interesting and very confusing.
Fitting all this into the 3.5 Paradigim, the dice are the Fates and luck, the GM is the gods both can to a greater or lesser extent influence the futures of the PCs in much the same way as 1E.
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