Glorantrivia

[RosenMcStern]

Hello Ron,

Just a trivia question about one of your essays, rather than one of your games. This has turned into a "grammar nazi" contest on the Italian forums (assuming this one is not to be considered an Italian forum, as I see a prevalence of Italian posters here). Asking the author about what he meant is simpler, so it is just what I am doing now.

With regard to this note that you wrote in your review of Hero Wars back in 2000 - and before you ask, I also read your recent essay about using big settings and how Glorantha is a good example of them, and I appreciated it:

(4) Glorantha is one of the only two settings to survive from the early days of this entire hobby (the other is Tekumel). Now, it is owned by its author. He owns the company. That setting is now joined with an innovative system, and Hero Wars stands in the ranks of independent role-playing games. For Greg Stafford, should he be reading this review, from a self-styled champion of indie-RPGs: WELCOME, FRIEND! WELCOME!

The trivia question is: with "Now", did you mean that in 2000 the setting was owned by its author, as opposed to "it was not owned by Greg Stafford before"? Or is "now" just used as a preamble to the statement, as in "You see, it is owned by its author". As non-native speakers, we could not reach a general consensus about which interpretation was correct.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi, and welcome to the forum.

At the time of writing, I was referring to a re-organization of material which separated the term "Glorantha" from the term "RuneQuest," among other things that might have included the BRP system, the Call of Cthulhu brand, or the company name The Chaosium. Therefore by "now," I meant that Glorantha was its own separate concept from these historically associated items, specifically the BRP, which hadn't been the case before. My understanding then and now is that prior to this re-organization, ownership of Glorantha was not entirely clear-cut.

Again, at the time of writing, I had only limited access to the information, nothing more than what was on the internet and what Greg and I had talked about briefly. I've learned since then that the circumstances of separating all these terms were complicated, and I have no real desire to try to discover the details. Even mentioning the re-organization in this review, which was nothing more than a single factual phrase, was enough to bother at least one person.

A slightly more substantial issue concerns the difference between (1) fanbase-driven addition to the setting and (2) general information to be interpreted individually as local groups see fit, which seems to be associated with this re-organization of ownership as well. I'm interested in #1 as a long-time user* of Gloranthan content but learning just how it's associated with #2 seems like it would cause more problems than I care to deal with.

If your discussion at the other site concerns who"really" owns Glorantha or anything else tied to these issues of identity politics within the RuneQuest/Glorantha fanbase, then I want to stress that I have no interest in those issues, I have no special or even ordinary information that's relevant to them, and, either back in 2000 or now, am not trying to make some subtle point or jab about them in that review.

Does that answer your question, and does it address the issues that led you to post?

I would love to discuss and enthuse about Glorantha, by the way. I'm preparing notes for a Grazer/Black Horse Trop game right now.

Best, Ron

* That really sounds wrong. "User" is slang for a drug addict in American English. And yet somehow it seems appropriate too ...

[RosenMcStern]

At the time of writing, I was referring to a re-organization of material which separated the term "Glorantha" from the term "RuneQuest," among other things that might have included the BRP system, the Call of Cthulhu brand, or the company name The Chaosium. Therefore by "now," I meant that Glorantha was its own separate concept from these historically associated items, specifically the BRP, which hadn't been the case before. My understanding then and now is that prior to this re-organization, ownership of Glorantha was not entirely clear-cut.

So you actually used "now" to denote time. But you were referring to the disentangling of Glorantha from other related subjects that had been (co)owned by Greg. It answers my question, thank you very much.

As a matter of fact, I think that ownership of Glorantha was a clear-cut subject even before (Chaosium held it) but Greg was not ok with the previous situation. But this is a subset of the corporation-versus-individual controversy, and hardly relevant to the kind of debate I expect to find here. Moreover, it is a past story.

But you also answered other points I was wondering about, besides the "linguistic" issue:

If your discussion at the other site concerns who"really" owns Glorantha or anything else tied to these issues of identity politics within the RuneQuest/Glorantha fanbase, then I want to stress that I have no interest in those issues, I have no special or even ordinary information that's relevant to them, and, either back in 2000 or now, am not trying to make some subtle point or jab about them in that review.

I had guessed this. The Glorantha fanbase is as unique as the setting, and getting deeply involved in it is a HeroQuest of its own. I can imagine why you do not want to be implicated in some kinds of debates. By the way, this point was rather clear - if one tries to read between the lines - in your essay "Setting and emergent stories".

If there is an opportunity for it, I will be very glad to discuss Glorantha and other related stuff, but it is probably best kept in the other forum "Other stuff" once we have cleared the point about your old review.

What system are you using for your Grazer/Black Horse County game? Is it the original Hero Wars? I cannot remember other places where the Black Horse Troops are described in detail.

[Ron Edwards]

Excellent - I'm glad I was able to help with your question.

Let's go over to the Other Stuff forum just as you suggest, where we can geek out about people who ride horses (or sort-of horses). If you know anyone who can participate in such a discussion, please let them know - the more resources I can gather, the better.

Best, Ron