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AS you may know (See my City of 10,000 Magicians thread), I am working on starting a Glorantha HeroQuest game.

Last night a player of mine brought up so concerns he has over it, and tonight we had a discussion about it.

I am not sure exactly how to handle it. A transcript of the conversation (posted with his permission) is below. Any suggestions?


Player: Don't get me wrong I want to try the HeroQuest game.
Player: But to be quite honest, the setting is not very appealing.
Player: What I'm hoping is, I can work past my problems with the setting and have fun with my character.
me: ok.
Player: Yeah
Player: So we'll see how it goes
Player: I need to at least give it a chance. =)
me: So what exactly do you dislike about the setting?
me: if you sent anything I missed it...
Player: Sure hold on
Player: Player: I don't know, it just doesn't interest me very much. It seems like a lot of mythological fluff with only a bit of real substance behind it.
Player: Whether or not that's right, it still feels that way.
me: what do you see as substance?
Player: Stuff that makes me feel like this is a place that actually exists.
Player: Politics, economy, culture, etc etc.
me: erm
me: Thats all in the Imperial Lunar Handbook...
me: the two-page write-ups are brimming with cultural stuff
Player: Yeah, but even when I looked at the Darjinni..
me: and it talks all about economy and politics in there
Player: It was just like "Well yeah that's kind of cool...but eh"
Player: I don't know.
me: I mean myths are discussed a bit, but thats because they are important to the politics, economy, and culture.
Player: I really wish I could better explain to you what's bothering me.
Player: =/
Player: But I'm not even sure I completely know.
me: hmm.
me: Yeah
me: I wish I knew too.
me: :-P
Player: One of the things that did throw me off though is that when you told me about how Dragonnewts became a Dragon by shedding all their personality traits and everything
Player: And it kind of made me think "Well there's another thing about this world that is going to make me adjust the way I want to play my character to have any semblance of achieving my goals"
Player: I like the idea of doing things my own way, carving out my own path.
me: "The life of a dragonewt consists of always bettering himself, mastering his emotions and reactions to events so that he may advance to the next stage of being. Each stage of dragonewt development requires that the dragonewt constantly strive to master specific emotions and personality traits. The goal of every dragonewt is to react with conscious deliberation at all times."
me: That is a more thorough explanation of it.
Player: What emotions and personality traits am I supposed to master?
Player: That's still rather vague.
me: Crested Dragonewts: The crested dragonewt must master his Aggressive-Passive, Brave-Cowardly, Energetic-Lazy, Stubborn-Docile, and Unreliable-Dependable personality traits. These are the most primitive traits and emotions that the dragonewts must master.
 
Beaked Dragonewts: To advance to the tailed priest stage the beaked dragonewt must have mastered his Curious-Apathetic, Leader-Follower, Impulsive-Cautious, Nervous-Calm, and Suspicious-Trusting traits.
 
Tailed Priest: The goal of the tailed priest is to become a full priest of the dragon religion. To do this he must be able to take the form of a dragon, and have mastered these personality traits that allow him to deal with the outside world: Honorable-Dishonorable, Greedy-Generous, Impatient-Patient, and Extrovert-Introvert.
 
Full Priest: The full priest strives to complete the mastering of his personality traits so that he may begin to learn to master the world around him. The traits that he must master include: Clever-Dull, Innovative-Conservative, Optimist-Pessimist, and Constructive-Destructive.
Player: And what do you mean about by "master"
Player: Does that mean eliminate?
me: " The goal of every dragonewt is to react with conscious deliberation at all times."
me: And I am explaining to you how dragonnewts do it.
me: You are already not doing it their way.
me: However, the thing is what you are seeking to accomplish will eventually require heroquests
me: Probably multiple ones
Player: And that's cool. But I was getting frustrated because it just seemed like the already established world stuff was getting in the way of me doing what I wanted to do.
Player: Like "You do it this way or you get crap"
me: They are difficult to begin with..trying to do obscure ones are even more so.
me: Well see the thing is...
me: This isn't like D&D.
me: Culture and society actually matters
me: You can make your own way...
me: Its just that much harder.
Player: I'm not worried about culture and society. I can work past those. That's conflict.
me: Its like deciding you want to, by yourself, not only become the ruler of your country but ignore your culture and the members of it on top of it while at the same time ignoring traditional revolutionary tactics entirely.
Player: What I was getting the impression is to make my "acension" I had to do it the DragonNewt way. Which went against my original character concept even further because for some oddball reason they don't use "Dragon Magic" because it keeps them from following the path to becoming a dragon, which makes no sense to me.
me: "A seeming irony of their life is that the dragonewt regresses, become weaker and less suited for advancement every time that they use their powers. Each use of their immense magics gets the dragonewt more and more enmeshed in the problems of existence by creating debts which must be paid before passing onto perfect draconic being."
Player: Yeah. I honestly don't like the concept of that.
me: Well see the difficulty I am having is this...
Player: And I don't want to give the impression either that I'm expecting to become a Dragon in a skip and a heartbeat.
Player: But I don't want to have to take one clear path to do it.
Player: I want to be able to carve out my own way and have it be possible, because when going into this game I thought that was the premise.
Player: It's a game of possibilites that isn't bogged down by a rule for everything like D&D
me: hmmm....
me: ok.
me: Thats fine.
me: Let me think about this for a bit.
Player: Ok
me: see if I can come up with a solution
Player: Because even in D&D, if I wanted to create my own Kingdom, there are a million and one ways I can go about doing that.
Player: Everyone of them possible, but none of them assured.
me: see
me: This isn't quite the same as conquering a kingdom.
Player: I understand that.
Player: But this is a goal oriented game.
Player: That is, your character is trying to achieve a certain goals.
Player: But if they only way to achieve those goals is through set methods already established.
Player: Then that's not fun.
me: Its more along the lines of saying "I want to become a god in the Forgotten Realms but I want to ignore the fact that gods need worshippers"
Player: But see that's different, because many Gods have cheated their way into the position and then gained followers.
Player: Look how Cyrick did it.
Player: Not very traditional, don't you think?
me: He got his position because Ao gave it to him.
me: If the worshippers didn't accept him he would have shrivled up and died.
me: how about this...
Player: I thought he became a God because he killed Leira and someone else, and stole their portfolios during the Time of Troubles
me: no
Player: Eh, nevermind then. I must be thinking of someone else.
me: He killed Leira after he was already a god.
Player: I know someone cheated their way into Godhood.
me: How abotu this? We start over from the beginning. Your character isn't a reincarnated dragonnewt. He wants to become a dragon. He doesn't have any dragon magic.
Player: Ok, what type of magic does he have?
me: up to you. Common, Theistic, Animism, or Sorcery. But you have to realize that, except for common magic, that all of it requires you to follow some sort of divine being. And common magic won
me: won't help you when you with your heroquests.
Player: Again a conflict with the mythology, heh.
Player: I suppose the Dragon Spirit could work for that.
me: Its where magic comes from in Glorantha
me: eh.
me: How about I just ask the group if they would rather play in a different world?
Player: Not just on my account.
me: maybe others feel like you do?
me: ::Shrugs::
Player: You could ask them.
Player: But if they don't.
Player: Then I'll cope.
Player: Seems to me, that I'm the only person that minds heh
me: Brian's complete and total indifference annoys me.
Player: The problem I'm having with all of this is instead of a DM plot motivated game, this is a PC plot motivated game where you try to achieve your goals. But instead of being able to try to create exciting and creative ways of accomplishing those goals, it seems so restrictive.
me: Well, how would you like to achieve these goals?
Player: I'd like to discover that in game.
Player: Research, explore, find out new things, new avenues
Player: Sweat for it, think hard about it.
Player: And then feel like I accomplished something when and if the plan I created and designed actually turned out to work.
Player: Not the assurance of success. But merely the possibility of well thought plans working and not "Oh well, that doesn't exactly fit with any cultures/mythologies perspectives or beliefs, so sorry"
me: hmmm
me: As you know I frequent a message board that talks about HeroQuest and glorantha and the like
Player: Which is why HeroQuest so sounds so awesome.
Player: But Glorantha turns me off.
Player: Right
me: Would you mind if I made a post about this and included a log of our conversation with our screen names removed?
Player: Sure
me: Cause I want to ask for advice
me: and I would rather use your words than try to convery it.
Player: No problem.
Player: I want to try something new. And I like the sound of how HeroQuest runs and the objectives of the game.
Player: But I look at the setting and it almost completely neuters the very essence of what I like about it.

See my problem?

Hi Jesse,

It sounds like your player thinks he has to fit in to some sort of pre-determined path set forth by the Glorantha material.  In fact, that is not what Heroquest is designed for.  

Instead, when a player asks "so what emotions am I supposed to master?"  Consider saying: "What emotions do you think it would be interesting to master?"  And when he asks "What do you mean by master?" you might respond: "You can define that in play."

I hope that's useful.

QuoteInstead, when a player asks "so what emotions am I supposed to master?" Consider saying: "What emotions do you think it would be interesting to master?" And when he asks "What do you mean by master?" you might respond: "You can define that in play."

Or, similarly, ask him what emotions he thinks he needs to master or increase to become a dragon? What exactly is a dragon to him? Does he need to suppress some emotions and enhance others?

Also, if he doesn't know the answers to these, tell him that's fine, part of the fun will be exploring Glorantha to find them. The City of 10,000 Magicians may be built on top of a true dragon (though that has never actually been proven), so start searching for it. In Kralorela is a true dragon that sometimes awakens to prophecy for whoever comes to it. Sounds like a good place to start. At least three true dragons live in Dragon Pass, he should look for draconic experts to guide him. And look, The Servants of the Almighty Dragons (in Masters of Luck and Death) includes a whole passle of experts on dragons.

You should try to convince him to dwell on the many theories about dragons that abound in Glorantha, rather than letting him dwell on the belief that there is One True Way. Even the earliest documents about dragons make it clear there is no one true way.

Hope this help.

bueserian

Well what other theories about dragons exist?

About the only one I am familiar with is the dragonnewt one....

You must keep in mind that Greg's original Dragonewt information was written up in terms of Pendragon-style personality trait pairs. This needs tweaking to work in HeroQuest, especially as the basis for Dragonewt behavior is mystical refutation of the material in favor of the transcendant. They gain draconic powers, but the use of these powers is contrary to the tenets of their brand of mysticism and entangle them further in the world they wish to transcend.

This is difficult (at best) to model using any game system, which is why the Mysticism rules from Hero Wars were dropped; they failed to convey it properly. Honestly, your player's hero sounds like a follower of the Path of Immanent Mastery, better known among the Kralori as the False Dragon Way. The Path was an experiment created by the Godlearners in an attempt to harness draconic power to their will. However, without the wisdom of draconic detachment behind it, the members of the Path could not transcend to dragonhood, became monsters and were destroyed.

Perhaps the hero's aim is to find the bridge (or perhaps he or she is the bridge... a very mystical concept, that) between the Path's teachings and the True Dragon Way.

Can you tell me any more about this path?

If it seems like there are a number of options available to him it would seem that he would be more likely to find it palatable.

Of course this leaves me with no clue what to do about the guy who is tried of fantasy settings....


Jesse D.

Hi Jesse,

Here are some old threads you might find helpful:

I just picked up Glorantha (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=517)
Where to begin? (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=266)
Using old RQ material in HeroQuest/Hero Wars (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=6711)

Best,
Ron

I have the same objections that your friend has. I don't play in Glorantha, because I don't want to learn it, and have to abide by it's canon.

Now, the faithful will say either that A) the canon is worth it, or B) HQ allows you to ignore the canon. Personally, I'm not interested in A, I want to discover more of the world in play than that mode allows. I['m sure that if I were a Gorantha wonk that I'd feel differently, but I'm not. Maybe someday, when I have lots more time...

As for B, the problem is the same as with any world that has lots of canon. Which is what's true, and what's not? I'd rather not have to have the "worry" of wondering what I'm messing up. I'd actually rather know that the information that I was making up didn't contradict something else. Less is more here. Hence why I'm using Shadow World. It's lack of addressing these cultural issues in such detail is precisely it's strength for this purpose.

So, as I see it, you have two good options. Get to know Glorantha and love its detail level, or play somewhere else. For the player in question, the problem is that he learned just a little about how to become a Dragon, but missed many of the salient details. That means that he had some time to form his own opinion of how this might work. Then he found, to his dismay, that it's all laid out in the texts and it's not like what he thought. If he'd known all the details before hand, he would maybe have had a different opinion of whether or not it was something that he wanted to do.

Well, at that point, the only way to please him is to just change how things work so that he likes them. But if we're going to do that, if I have to Vary My Glorantha because the players (and myself) aren't invested in the canon version, then it's easier to use another setting. Where we all know that we're just going to be creating these things on our own, and never have to "read up" to "get it".

Hope that I'm shedding some light, and not projecting too much.

Mike

Whilst it's worth thinking that a character will be embedded in their culture, there's no reason the player cannot control how that culture works.  Much canon Gloranthan stuff was made up by fans - i.e. by the players.  Why should some guy on a mailing list ten years ago get to set cultural parameters in a way that some guy in your group doesn't?  Cause your guy hasn't read enough 2nd Ed Runequest books?

Unless Greg Stafford is actually part of your gaming group, Greg's views about Glorantha are less important than the views of the least well informed guy at your table.

To be clear, I'm saying: Greg is wrong about how Dragonnewts work - your guy is right.  Work with him to make Glorantha fit your group, don't work with on your players to make them "fit" Glorantha.

To join the chorus with Ian: Issaries already have the money from the book. They don't care overmuch how much of it you use, and there's precious little "official" dragonewt stuff out there, especially for HW/HQ, so they can't exactly push mush more on you to... to be mercenary about it.

And why not ignore canon? It seems most of the writers do in their personal campaigns, where it clashes with what's in their games.

And just one little point.. I seem to remember from the Q&A transcripts I've seen, whenever Greg is asked a question about the Dragonewt, or "true nature" of dragons, he always steps in with "No-one can know the truth about dragons! They're beyond human comprehension!"

So, I think it'd be very hard for anyone to use Greg or cannon to "prove"your answers to the nature of dragons "wrong..."

As a glorantha wonk, I'd say:

That's the orthodox position for dragonewts native to Dragon Pass. There are at least 6 more or less organised heretical views in the region, and dragonewts elsewhere (e.g. Ralios, Kralorea) are almost completely different.

Whats more, there are several hundred different human mystical or pseudo-mystical groups which claim to know the secrets of draconic incarnation. Some of them are not completely wrong. No sourcebook ever could describe all of those secretive societies, and certainly I doubt one will ever contain the statement 'This is a complete list of all such organisations. None others exist'.

And finally, this is the Hero Wars, this is the time in which religions get started. If your characters can prove he is right about how to become a dragon, then he is right, and the fact that nobody ever did it his way before is irrelevant.

Which is not to say anything goes, nothing is defined. With Glorantha, you not only have creative freedom where you want it, you also, even more usefully, have constraints on your creativity, if you choose to accept them. For example:

- given the orthodox dragonnewt religion, dragon-pass based draconic heresies you make up should be recognisably in opposition to that. What cool variants can you come up with?

- dragonewts from elsewhere will probably still believe something compatible with their 'biology', if they are actually dragonewts and not some similar reptilian race. What kind of world view would make sense for a physically-reincarnating self-upgrading race?

- I don't think human mystical-transformation societies are currently politically dominant anywhere big outside Kralorea. How do they relate to the local powers that be? Do they have political ambitions?

And so on. Glorantha is fractal, every time someone states something as a rule, take that as a cue to create 7 local deviations from that rule.

You can define all this in advance, or, often best, just set it up as a 'cool ambiguous reference', to be worked out in detail in play.

soru

These were all great replies and were very informative and useful in "general", not just for this particular situation.

I showed some of your points to the player and he agreed with me on their informativeness. In the end though, the player decided that he wanted to go with another character concept (which I think works for both of us pretty well). For this one though, I am letting him create the culture that he is from as well as the unique little aspects of it that will allow him to mold it completely to match his concept.

Thanks very much though. :)

DoubtofBuddha, your player seems annoyed by the restrictions on his character. However, any creative enterprise requires restrictions. It is in the interplay between law and total freedom that creation happens. More concretely, it is in the tension between, say, traits like "Traditional/Bigoted Barbarian 17" and "Striving for a Better World 17" that players get to make interesting choices and find out who their character is. That said, a Dragonnewt is so utterly weird it's a very tough starting point.

For those who feel overwhelmed by the Canon (and I've had a few bruising encounters with it  and its self-appointed guardians myself), I'd just say that 1) the comment on restrictions and tension applies, and 2) the Canon at least provides a reference point against which to rebel and supply your own ideas.  If there is a part of the Gloranthan Canon that appeals to you, read up on it, use what you want, and add your own thoughts. But of course the bottom line is if it doesn't appeal, then why bother.

Keep in mind that Greg does not want people to be bound by Gloranthan canon, which is why the entire "Your Glorantha Will Vary" issue exists as a tenet of the HeroQuest rules. There is a vast body of accumulated lore, to be certain, but most of it has been distilled into either HQ itself or Glorantha: Introduction to the Hero Wars. Before the publication of Thunder Rebels, there had never been a more comprehensive look at a major Gloranthan culture (although Trollpak covered the Uz in great detail). Thus, most "canon" tends to be very general.

I just erased a huge rant. I'll summarize. Everyone knows that YGMV. Consider that, maybe, that doesn't solve the problem in this case. It doesn't do anything for me, for instance, and I'll bet that it won't for the player in question either.

Mike

Quote from: Mike HolmesEveryone knows that YGMV. Consider that, maybe, that doesn't solve the problem in this case.

Sorry Mike, but your problems with Glorantha have always seemed like a cop-out to me. You fret about not being faithful to the setting, despite the fact that HeroQuest encourages you to do exactly that, and run off to another setting with which you are familiar. All it seems you are saying is that you do not want to run a game set in Glorantha for fear of having your own material contradicted by published sources. Did you feel the same about Shadow World when it was still evolving as a setting?

Glorantha is changing, growing and most of the material which has found its way into print under the Issaries banner is a result of fan influence on Greg's original vision. The esoterica is fanboy material; most people will never read Entekosiad, let alone King of Sartar or Revealed Mythologies, nor should it be necessary. Just because the run-of-the-mill poster on the Glorantha Digest knows lots of fiddly details about the various cultures does not mean you must.

Any material that does not fit the stories you and your players want to tell should not matter, regardless of whether it is official, "generally accepted Glorantha", or what-have-you.

Personally, I dig Glorantha. I think it's pretty neat. Even the aspects that I've heard others criticize (like the Ducks), I find pretty nifty.

But I haven't run HeroQuest in Glorantha for a number of reasons.

1) I don't feel comfortable enough yet with the details of the setting. I mean I know some of it. But I'd like to be a bit more familiar with it. I don't mind if My Glorantha Varies, but I'm still working my head around the basics ("Introduction to Glorantha" and the info in HeroQuest) so that when My Glorantha Varies it does so for a specific thematic (or dramatic) reason and not because I'm just ignorant.

2) I've found that players (especially in this area) are getting really old in their way of thinking about things. They don't want to learn anything new. Around here, it seems that if it's not Forgotten Realms, Star Wars, Marvel or some other setting already well-known to the group that there's just no interest in it.

But a recent development shed some light on both of these issues.

A guy I used to play with wants to run the Wheel of Time rpg. I've heard the books are pretty good but haven't read them. I simply have no interest. I could not care less. He brought me a handout explaining the setting, somewhat. I read it and it read like a chapter out of a history book with dates, names, places, all stuff I already knew I would not remember. This was nice but I was entirely lukewarm to freezing on the whole idea.

Why?

Am I developing the same rigidity as those of the groups that I just canned because they didn't have the inclination to "try something new"?

Maybe.

But in my defense, I was/am a bit tired of D&D. I've played/run it for far too long of a stretch. The Wheel of Time rpg just looked, to me, like another form of D&D with the serial numbers filed off. I am probably wrong. But I don't have the inclination to follow up on that certainty.

Also in my defense, this was one of the guys that refused to try out HeroQuest because he wasn't interested in "learning something new." The irony (and audacity) of his recent request was not lost on me and did influence my decision (considerably) to not play in his game.

So, now that I've reassured myself that I'm not a curmudgeon, allow me to try to tie all of this together.

If I got to run HeroQuest, I would certainly do it with a whole C.S. Lewis style rip. I would start the PCs out as newcomers to the setting. So that way the players are learning as their characters are learning. As the players learn more, they'll discover more options in the setting that are available to them. But I'd probably start the campaign as an exercise (to a degree) in Simulationism where the characters are, somehow, transplants to the world. Very Dorothy in Oz. But I have a reason, somewhat.

Roleplayers, at least around here, are incredibly lazy. These guys want to be SHOWN a setting, not have to learn about it. Learning about it through play is a good thing to them. 10 or so pages of reading up front = Bad.

But having them start out as characters in Glorantha makes all sorts of assumptions about what they could (or should) know about the setting. At the very least (at the VERY least) they should read the HeroQuest voices write-up for their homeland and any homelands info from the main book. But, if you're giving them pretty much free reign, they'll have to browse all day to even find a homeland that might interest them. If you limit their choices, however, to a small geographic area (such as saying that all PCs must be Heortlings), I think you run the risk of alienating those who may not be interested in playing a Heortling.

So, for me, the decision is that, when I run a Glorantha game, the PCs are definitely going to be just as new to the setting as the players. This gives the players no investment up front in preparation for the setting (which, IME, players will often not follow up on anyway). Later, after a while familiarizing themselves with the setting, we'll send Dorothy back to Kansas and they can build their PCs with a working knowledge of the setting and some experience in it. Those who are happy with their PCs, however, can always choose not to click their heels three times.

That's how I'd vary my Glorantha. I don't think you're running into any sort of problem with the setting. It just sounds to me like you have a player who's more interested in learning about Glorantha through play, rather than having to study up on it. I can respect that. New settings can be confusing and the larger they are (or more unfamiliar), the more daunting they seem.

Just my 2-1/2 cents going on a dime.

Scott

QuoteSo, for me, the decision is that, when I run a Glorantha game, the PCs are definitely going to be just as new to the setting as the players. This gives the players no investment up front in preparation for the setting (which, IME, players will often not follow up on anyway). Later, after a while familiarizing themselves with the setting, we'll send Dorothy back to Kansas and they can build their PCs with a working knowledge of the setting and some experience in it. Those who are happy with their PCs, however, can always choose not to click their heels three times.

As a matter of fact, this is a tactic that Greg Stafford himself used in his house campaign back in the late 70s or early 80s. The famous scholar Redbird was actually a D&D character who was transplanted into Glorantha and the RuneQuest rules. As played (by Rudy Kraft?), he was not happy about having lost all of his cool magic, and his efforts in the campaign were at least in part motivated by trying to get those nifty powers back, one way or the other.

One of the early issues of the Tales of the Reaching Moon fanzine reported that he came to an unhappy end -- I think trolls are snacking on him?

But, back to the point -- bringing heroes into a strange fantasy world (or some variant of that theme) is a common (perhaps even overdone) theme of many fantasy and science fiction stories -- all the Well World novels (+others of Chalker's works), the Thomas Covenant series (+others by Donaldson), many of Barbara Hambly's books, the Incomplete Enchanter, the Amber series, the Sliders TV show, various time travel movies, Last Starfighter, and Army of Darkness, to name just a few of the books I can see on my bookshelf from my desk or shows I have seen over the years. And as a common theme of the genre, such a tactic is more than appropriate for HeroQuest. It's a great idea.

Are you going to have each of the players write a 100-word narrative describing their favorite DnD character? :)


buserian

Quote from: buserian

QuoteBut, back to the point -- bringing heroes into a strange fantasy world (or some variant of that theme) is a common (perhaps even overdone) theme of many fantasy and science fiction stories -- all the Well World novels (+others of Chalker's works), the Thomas Covenant series (+others by Donaldson), many of Barbara Hambly's books, the Incomplete Enchanter, the Amber series, the Sliders TV show, various time travel movies, Last Starfighter, and Army of Darkness, to name just a few of the books I can see on my bookshelf from my desk or shows I have seen over the years. And as a common theme of the genre, such a tactic is more than appropriate for HeroQuest. It's a great idea.

Are you going to have each of the players write a 100-word narrative describing their favorite DnD character? :)


buserian

Thanks. It was really the only approach that I could think of that would be FIFO with Glorantha. Honestly, there are still some questions I have about the setting. For example, one of the first things established in the Introduction to Glorantha book is that Glorantha has 4 major types of magic: Animism, Wizardry, Theism and Mysticism. It took me a bit of digging to realize that Mysticism just didn't make it into the new HeroQuest book.

I knew that this Dorothy in Glorantha idea was entirely unoriginal but it did seem to be the most direct path to getting a group unfamiliar with Glorantha to play in it, IMO. Rather than give the players a packet to study up on, I'd just tell them: don't worry, you're not supposed to know anything about the setting.

Some of the approaches I've considered:

1) Having people stat themselves as PCs and doing the whole lost at sea (we live on the coast) thing to have them wind up in Glorantha. There are some serious pitfalls to this approach. But I think it would be fairly easy to get the game going.

2) Have people choose a D&D character (as you mentioned) and have a spell mishap or something teleport them to Glorantha.

3) Have people choose their favorite dead D&D character and have it "summoned" to Glorantha from beyond the land of the dead.

4) Pull a Nobilis on them. Have them all be business people doing lunch. They return to their office to find the elevator doors open to... Glorantha.

Even better I considered a variant where some of the players were cops and some were fugitives. The pursuit leads them straight to... Glorantha (where their pistols, etc., slowly begin to disintegrate).

It makes me chuckle to think of "From Dusk til Dawn" opening up into Glorantha rather than a Vampire Bar. We could drop them in Durulz country and call it "From Duck Til Dawn." :D

5) Or we could do a total C.S. Lewis and have the PCs be children. I think Glorantha would work fairly well for the whole Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe treatment. It would be low-powered Sim, but it could really add to the fantasy element quite a bit.

It's flattering to know that Greg has already done this. I reassures me that I'm not completely off my rocker.

Scott

IMO, something of a problem this presents is that Glorantha does not seem like a real, developed setting as you would find in another RPG.  IT's "work in progress" status, the conflicting fan material, make developing a glorantha setting almost as much work as writing a setting of your own.  The work investment required for glorantha GM's is substantially higher than for most games, it seems to me.

Hi guys,

I wouldn't say that HeroQuest has "more" work involved than most other games out there, but rather, a different focus of work.   While its definitely true that work has to be put out by the group as a whole initially, in terms of defining the culture and situation for themselves, prep between sessions and the amount of effort in play is a lot less than other systems.

I found myself searching and searching for more information, until it occurred to me that Glorantha IS the "interpret as you will" setting that many games mention but fail to support.  The setting forces you, as a Narrator, as a player to put some input into the world.  For some folks, that's exactly what they've always looked for, and for others, its not their cup of tea.

In this case, HQ departs from most games, and leaves a lot of folks running on habitual assumptions stranded.  I think a section on the sort of group preparation necessary before play would have been an excellent section to put in before the character creation.  

Chris

As a Gm new to glorantha, with players who are also new to glorantha I can sympathise with some of the problems posters are finding with starting up with heroquest. While I agree heartily with the YGMV statement from the book, I would also like to be able to get a good grip on what the established world has to offer, sure I can make up what I like about glorantha, but the world has been in print for a long time and has a stalwart band of followers and they can`t all be wrong in liking this strange magical world. The problem with the books I have at the moment (players guide, guide to dragon pass, Tarsh in flames, Thieves arm, and cult compendium) is that it is difficult to tie the information together in a coherent fashion, whatever you seem to read about the world ends up in just piles of loose ends, gods, famous persons, places that are mentioned in text with no explanation of who they are or how they fit. If you try and tie up these loose ends on the net you usually end with just more loose ends. While I`m sure this makes a rich and vibrant land, but it is frustrating if you are trying to pick up the basics about the world.

There seems to be the suggestion in some of these posts that if  you dont already know about glorantha then you should make up your own version using the information you have, which is fair enough as far as it goes but doesnt really address the problem of  players and Gms who would like to run games in the official setting getting acquainted with Glorantha as a setting.

I am currently 4 sessions into a Heortling Gloranthan campaign, I chose Heortland as the setting for the game cos it was the only part of Glorantha I was familiar with from demo games run by the RHQN, and because it was the area I could find most coherent information on. My players are enjoying it depite reservations (they thought ducks , and most of the creatures were laughable and the fact that they couldnt really see how it was going  to be different from any other fantasy setting). In my group players very rarely do any work on developing the setting other than their character creation, so every setting we run is a case of developing and explaining the world as we go.

Here's one:

I don't like the Bronze Age setting.  I don't like the hierarchies and societal structures dictated by it.  I also don't like the tech level - I just feel more comfortable with heroes in chainmail and longswords, rather than bone axes and leather jerkins.

Any suggestions?

Quote from: Deacon BluesI just feel more comfortable with heroes in chainmail and longswords, rather than bone axes and leather jerkins.

Esvular and/or Seshnela?

Both have heroes who tend to have chainmail and longswords, have societies based on something other than a bronze age model, and are (generally) losely enough touched by canon that you can have your will with them. Seshnela works well for your average feudal adventures, and is well fitting to Pendragon or Lionheart type games. Esvular is more urban and urbane, trade based and cosmopolitan, less heirarchical and gives lots of room for wandering adventurers and free-wheeling politics.

Or you could always go with Scripty's Conan conversion, but that would be a non-Gloranthan suggestion....

Quote from: Deacon BluesI don't like the Bronze Age setting.  I don't like the hierarchies and societal structures dictated by it.  I also don't like the tech level - I just feel more comfortable with heroes in chainmail and longswords, rather than bone axes and leather jerkins.

Glorantha isn't a bronze age setting, it just happens to be that bronze is the most commonly used metal.

To clarify that, there are many cultures in Glorantha that are far in advance, both technologicaly and culturaly, than any bronze age culture was on earth. Just look at the Lunar Empire which is similar in it's achievements to the Roman empire, or the advanced feudal cultures of the West that rival Europe in the middle ages in many respects.

The fact that the most comonly used metal is Bronze has caused some confusion on this issue. Another factor is that one of the earliest campaign sourcebooks was Griffin Mountain, which detailed the essentialy stone age culture of the Votanki.


Simon Hibbs

Quote from: RaconteurX

Quote from: Mike HolmesEveryone knows that YGMV. Consider that, maybe, that doesn't solve the problem in this case.

Sorry Mike, but your problems with Glorantha have always seemed like a cop-out to me. ...

No, I can sympathise. Some people just prefer to roll their own setting, and I think that's fine. HQ is well suited to that.


Simon Hibbs

Hi Chris,

You wrote:

Quote from: BankueiHi guys,

While its definitely true that work has to be put out by the group as a whole initially, in terms of defining the culture and situation for themselves, prep between sessions and the amount of effort in play is a lot less than other systems.

...

I think a section on the sort of group preparation necessary before play would have been an excellent section to put in before the character creation.  

Chris

Since you're so good at breaking stuff like this down, could you make up maybe a "topic heading list" that would have been used for such a chapter in HQ.  (If you wanted to go nutty and break down your whole process, I'd love that, too.)

Thanks,
Christopher

(and this might be a new thread)

Quote from: RaconteurXSorry Mike, but your problems with Glorantha have always seemed like a cop-out to me. You fret about not being faithful to the setting, despite the fact that HeroQuest encourages you to do exactly that, and run off to another setting with which you are familiar. All it seems you are saying is that you do not want to run a game set in Glorantha for fear of having your own material contradicted by published sources.

That's exactly one of my problems. How is it a cop out?

QuoteDid you feel the same about Shadow World when it was still evolving as a setting?

More than you can know. The published metaplot of SW is horrifically problematic. I think that I alienatied the author Terry Amthor with my opinions about that, and related problems.

Fortunately I can take the metaplot as just resource material - back engineering it into potential plot again. What I don't have to worry about in SW is there being a detail of how a culture works, or rituals, or anything like that. Given the intent to play in RM, none of that was worked out. Which makes it eminently sutable for my purposes. (Note that there are probably even better settings, I just happen to know this one, and like certain things about it - it could as easily have been something like Forgotten Realms if I knew anything about it).

QuoteJust because the run-of-the-mill poster on the Glorantha Digest knows lots of fiddly details about the various cultures does not mean you must.

Of course not. But, again, why play in a campaign that could be taken objectively if only to fail to do so? If you aren't going to play the game by the canon, then why play the setting at all? See, in Shadow World, I don't ignore any of the canon lightly (with the exception of what I do to the metaplot above). Everything that's there is taken as the basis for play by default. Sure I'll change things as need be (I've had to make some adjustments just to support the HQ system, for instance). But the idea is to not ever have to change something if I don't have to do so.

See, I'm a canon guy. I like for the setting to be "Hard", for it to have some objective "reality" that's unalterable for the most part. Because that gives me a feel that you can only get in RPGs. Now, the problem with Glorantha is that, in order to play the canon, you have to be an expert - even the non-fan stuff, even just the stuff that Greg has produced (it's uniqueness actually works against it here). Further, since that's the case, you are constrained in your creativity to the extent that the setting is "complete".

Which is why I like SW better. It's very incomplete. Now, you say, but then don't you lose that feeling of objective reality? No, I don't. Because it's not making things up that makes it seem less objective. You have to make things up in every RPG. Even if I were an expert in Glorantha, even that world isn't so complete that I wouldn't have to make stuff up. The stuff created from scratch is just as immersive as canon, as long as it makes sense with the existing canon.

No, the problem is changing things that already exist. When I have to do that, that's when the objective reality feature dissolves before my eyes. That's when it feels that we're just using Glorantha as inspirational, rather than playing in Glorantha. Yes, I realize that's what they encourage. It's what I can't stand.

BTW, I have the same problem with any liscenced material, and am on record there as finding that problematic, too. I can't play in Middle Earth, despite knowing it well, because I don't want to alter it in my own mind. It's fine the way it is. Glorantha, too is rather "complete" (though, I'd admit that the Heroquest/relative universe idea goes a long way to ameliorating that). I don't want to add on to Greg or anyone else's vision, or play off of it, I want to make my own. SW is incomplete enough, "skelletal" enough, that that's what I feel when I play.

I could start from complete scratch I suppose. But what I really want is a compromise between complete and non-existent. A solid starting place, from which to create.

Now, again, this is my own personal problem, and I don't expect that others will feel the same way. If you know the canon of Glorantha, and like it, and play it, then good for you. If you don't mind altering things in play to suit your needs, that's great. It just doesn't work for me. And I think I'm not alone (though I may be in a tiny minority).

Mike

At the risk of following up on the post above...

Quote

Quote from: Brand_Robins

Quote from: Deacon BluesI just feel more comfortable with heroes in chainmail and longswords, rather than bone axes and leather jerkins.

Esvular and/or Seshnela?

I have to agree with the complaint, sorta. Glorantha, aesthetically, is a cultural mishmash. You have all manner of cultures side by side (as they are in the real world, often) because all that diversity is interesting and deep.

But compare it with Conan's Hyboria. Sure Hyboria is composed of all manner of cultures. But, interestingly, there's a single overarching aesthetic that covers the entire region - everywhere Conan goes. I think that what Deacon may be stating is that Glorantha in having bronze age cultures next to others delivers a unique aesthetic. Which means that you have to get it to enjoy it. As opposed to the "standard fantasy" aesthetic that we already know, or other, simpler aesthetics that seem to drive RPG play well.

I think that Glorantha is, in some ways, too good for RPG play. I admire Greg's work tremendously - I just don't always "get" it. Elves are plants? For RPG play, I want to just "get it". (Now someone will say that I can just inject my own aesthetic, and we're back to the post above).

Mike

Quote from: Brand_Robins
Esvular and/or Seshnela?
Esvular is more urban and urbane, trade based and cosmopolitan, less heirarchical and gives lots of room for wandering adventurers and free-wheeling politics.

See, this is cool - but it sort of underscores my difference of taste.  There are a handful of cultures that play at or near the tech level I like (Esvular, Dara Happa, Tarsh to a limited extent); the majority, however, seem to be on the primitive side (Bison People, Grazers, Heortlings, etc).

To be honest, though, the HeroQuest main book uses "primitive" PCs for all of its sidebar examples - Bison people, Heortlings, Puma men, etc.  So while the image of Glorantha as the Dark Ages may be unfair, it's not completely unfounded - I'm just reading what's printed.

Also, though I can't quite put my finger on any particular source, I get the idea that the Lunars are the "bad guys" of the Hero Wars - or at least the "misguided souls" who bring about all the badness.  Hell, one of the later campaign supplements is called Orlanth is Dead!, which I take it is not meant to be a triumphant celebration.  So I wouldn't want to run a campaign full of villains or haughty imperialists, and this limits my choices further.

Again, this is largely a matter of personal taste - I prefer my barbarians to be on the "outskirts" of the game world (geographically or metaphysically).  If I'm misinformed, or unaware of the rich possibilities of civilized adventure, then please let me know.  I'd love to be wrong about this.

Quote from: Deacon BluesTo be honest, though, the HeroQuest main book uses "primitive" PCs for all of its sidebar examples - Bison people, Heortlings, Puma men, etc.

True. (Well, there is the Teshnite, who isn't a primitive, but he's ... odd. He wants to invent surfing after all.) There certainly is a focus on the bronze age in Glorantha -- largely because so much of the metaplot focuses on the Lunar vs Heortling conflict, I think, and both of those cultures are bronze/iron age in many ways.

Quote from: Deacon BluesAlso, though I can't quite put my finger on any particular source, I get the idea that the Lunars are the "bad guys" of the Hero Wars

This is something that was but is changing. Back in the older Runequest material the Lunars often were the bad guys, or at least seen that way by many fans and support materials. The Lunars were the evil empire, the Lunars were Chaos, the Lunars ate your baby. Now, however, that is changing and books like the Lunar way and Sons of Kazgant are showing that the Lunars aren't evil and aren't anymore misguided than anyone else. (Ron's "Rape" article in Deadalus, for example, shows that the Heortlings and Orlanthi are really quite misguided in some important ways that the Lunars might not be.)

Quote from: Deacon BluesBut yea, I know the feeling you have, cause I occasionally get it to when going over older material.  If I'm misinformed, or unaware of the rich possibilities of civilized adventure, then please let me know.  I'd love to be wrong about this.

Well, as you're talking about impressions and opinions you can't really be wrong wrong. However, I do think there is potential for Glorantha that you aren't seeing because of the Dragon Pass/Heortling focus the game has had.

A couple of examples, at the risk of tooting my own horn, would be the seeds I did for the Ring of Heroquest Narrators. The Knight of Ghosts and Shadows (http://www.iamwrong.co.uk/rhqn/display_article.php?art_id=8) is a Seshnella seed that deals with ghostly knights, corrupt bishops, and a medieval society that features not one barbarian. It is very (consciously) Arthurian. Five Husband's Vengeance (http://www.iamwrong.co.uk/rhqn/display_article.php?art_id=9) is a seed set in Teshnos, dealing with intrigue, seduction, and jealousy in the palace of a great prince with decadence, dancing girls, and generals, but no sign of barbarians. Heron Twins (http://www.iamwrong.co.uk/rhqn/display_article.php?art_id=10) features semi-primitives, but they're an Egyptianish group of primitives who have rich and ancient spiritual traditions that are coming into conflict with those of the new empire. (Of course, it's also a bronze ageish empire, so....)

Really, if you want to get out of the Bronze Age and barbarians, it is doable in Glorantha – you just won't have the most central or detailed support available. (Until I get off my ass and start putting together/pitching a Teshnite book....) You can check out the Imperial Lunar Handbook, it has some good non barbarian iron-age stuff in it, but much of the stuff you'll want is on the web, you just have to dig for it.

Quote from: Deacon BluesTo be honest, though, the HeroQuest main book uses "primitive" PCs for all of its sidebar examples - Bison people, Heortlings, Puma men, etc.  So while the image of Glorantha as the Dark Ages may be unfair, it's not completely unfounded - I'm just reading what's printed.

Check out the Hero's Book & the sample characters on the Glorantha website. Much different. Also, you may get a different view if you read the HeroQuest Voices stuff.

Quote from: Deacon BluesAlso, though I can't quite put my finger on any particular source, I get the idea that the Lunars are the "bad guys" of the Hero Wars - or at least the "misguided souls" who bring about all the badness.  Hell, one of the later campaign supplements is called Orlanth is Dead!, which I take it is not meant to be a triumphant celebration.  So I wouldn't want to run a campaign full of villains or haughty imperialists, and this limits my choices further.

The Lunars are the bad guys? Pah! Heortling propoganda. The Lunar Empire isn't bad any more than it's good. It's a huge, imperialist power, sure. It's also multicultural, non-patriarchal, & inclusive to other religions. It has its bad aspects, but it also has a lot of good aspects. It's much more complex than just an "evil empire." (Actually, I get the "evil empire" vibe from Seshnela much more than the Lunars.)

"Orlanth is Dead" isn't a celebration to the Heortlings, but it is to the Lunars. Again, it's not black & white.

So long as I'm here, I might as well put in my two cents about metaplot/setting accesability/life/the universe/everything.

I'm an old Tribe 8 fan. For those of you who don't know Tribe 8 had one of the most aggressive metaplots in RPG history, and often was guilty of hiding things from the GM as well as the players. It was a beautiful metaplot, and really loved by a lot of those who played with it, but it was also vastly intimidating to many people, annoying to many more (illusionist railroading Dream Pod 9 demons!), and opaque even to most of those who did play and like it.

I got into Tribe 8 at the beginning, and for about year (2001ish) I was involved in writing every Tribe 8 product that came out. Because I'd started in the game as a fan I stayed involved in the fan communities when I was writing (I hate the artificiality of the professional/fan dichotomy that many writers seem to hold). Everyone knew that I knew the metaplot, and everyone wanted me to spill things because they felt they needed them to play. This (along with other things) led to several bad situations in which there were arguments about metaplot, GM knowledge levels, and the official status of canon.

I was, in most of those discussions, firmly in the "canon doesn't matter – screw with it to your heart's content" camp. In my home games of Tribe 8 I killed off goddess and demons that were metaplot players left and right, replacing them with new gods and devils as dictated by player actions and the drama of story and relationship grids (similar but different to Ron's relationship maps). I honestly felt like people were making mountains of molehills, and that they were copping out on a lot of things by claiming they needed official answers from the company to questions that really weren't that interesting or important. I felt that in a world as rich and detailed as Tribe 8 groups could make their own material out of what was presented and make the metaplot their own without having to worry about silly things like canon.

I was wrong.

Now, a lot of people did just what I said above – so I wasn't wrong in thinking that it could be done. I was wrong in assuming that everyone thought the way I did, processed information the way I did, or had the same level of comfort with the game world that I did.  I was a privilege player – I had been in the game since the start, I had read the original setting bible, I knew the end of the metaplot, I'd written for the game, and so I was very familiar with everything going on, felt in control of it, and had a scholastic mastery of it that made me comfortable in messing around with it.

People that were new to the game, people that did not know the future of the metaplot (everyone that wasn't writing for the game), people that didn't own all the books, people that wanted to use the world as it was before they started messing with it – or didn't want to mess with it at all because at that point why play in the setting – and people that didn't feel like the world belonged to them because it so obviously belonged to a separate group all lacked the tools I had, and so were rightly miffed when I so cavalierly told them to just use what they wanted and not fear contradicting this straw man called canon.

We're facing a similar problem with Glorantha, I think. There is a group of long term players, people who have read the books, talked with Greg, mastered the setting, have the knowledge, and are academically strong in things Glorantha. There is another group of new comers who lacks all of those tools and feels like strangers in a strange land. The first group telling the second group that there is no problem getting into the setting, using the setting in game, and ignoring this straw man called canon is just repeating the same arrogant mistake I made with Tribe 8.

I am not saying that Glorantha is flawed – I don't think it is. Hell, I'm very soon going to be published in the setting and I've been into it for all of 6 months. I am saying that when we talk about ways of getting into and using the setting we have to allow for the fact that different people have different relationships with the material, and assuming that because we are comfortable with it means that everyone can easily be comfortable with it is not a direction that is going to lead to a lot of positive results. When dedicated and intelligent fans of the game like Mike, Scripty, and myself all say "I am having X problem in dealing with Glorantha as a setting" a response of "X is not a problem" is not helpful.

YGWV is a lovely, and important, mantra for the trivia and canon obsessed fans of Glorantha and is, I honestly feel, a solid step towards opening up Glorantha to newbs. It is not, however, a proper answer to people having difficulty in getting into or grappling with the setting. It makes a very proper response to someone saying "You can not do X and such in your game because Y was printed in Z." As a response to "How can I make Teshnos work for me, I'm having trouble understanding the setting" is it at best dismissive and oblique and at worse utterly maddening and frustrating. Don't tell me that I can change setting when I ask what the setting is. I bloody well know I can change it. If I'm asking it is because I want to know the answer that others have given.

I've said on other forums that it's true that my Glorantha has varied – it has varied right out of being Glorantha at all. Of the HeroQuest games I've played or run only one was in Glorantha, the others often tried to start there, got tired of digging for information and dealing with being told that we were copping out, and ended up being set in mythic Ireland, Shadow World, or Hyberboria. When I want to play in Glorantha I want to play in Glorantha, and that is not always an easy thing and its something that even the best intentioned of the old guard occasionally makes more difficult and frustrating with their attempts to be helpful.

In short: Glorantha is a difficult, sprawling setting with a lot of brilliance hidden there in. I think we will get farther as a community if we help each other discover the gems and work through the problems than if we bob and weave, telling newbs to look it up in the Lhankor Mhy where it may be tangentially referenced in the cult of the storm bull write up on one hand, and telling them that they can change and make up whatever they want because YGWV on the other. A more balanced, wholistic approach will yield better results.

Hi guys,

Christopher-

New thread has been made.  Check "HQ Prep for Play".  

Brand-

I agree with you completely.  As a "newer" person to Glorantha, my biggest frustation was hearing YGWV, and being constantly corrected on the various cultures or interpretations.  It was rather like hopping into a game with complex rules, but no one can tell them to you...

The two major things that I would have liked to see in the core book would be perhaps less cultures, more indepth.  I think the cause for listing all the cultures was an attempt to show the breadth of Glorantha, but it missed a lot of the depth in the process.  Second, I feel there should have been more text on the process of Interpretation, making Glorantha your own.

As it stands now, I'm currently writing up an article that's basically a "How to" guide or a primer to help folks get on their feet and playing.

Chris

Thankyou Brand that sums up the problem as I am experiencing it exactly.
I dont have a problem with making stuff up, but I want to know more about Glorantha so I dont feel Im missing something.

Quote from: BankueiAs it stands now, I'm currently writing up an article that's basically a "How to" guide or a primer to help folks get on their feet and playing.

At the risk of making an AOLer post...

Out-freaking-standing. This is the kind of thing that a lot of us really need.

I know "me too's" are bad form on this board, but Brand and Mike have both expressed my feelings much more clearly and diplomatically than I was ever able to.

Thanks to Brand for that post. I think he was far more eloquent than I've been.

Well, to get back on topic, Jesse, do you think that your player's problem is related? If so, any idea of how to get things back on track for him?

Mike

Bankuei wrote:

QuoteAs it stands now, I'm currently writing up an article that's basically a "How to" guide or a primer to help folks get on their feet and playing.

Where are you going to post/publish it?

buserian

Quote from: Mike HolmesThanks to Brand for that post. I think he was far more eloquent than I've been.

Well, to get back on topic, Jesse, do you think that your player's problem is related? If so, any idea of how to get things back on track for him?

Mike

Oh, I think you guys hit the nail right on the head.

However, the new character he made is right on track so I don't think that we can really get him "back on track."

His new character fits in the setting very well, and I am largely letting him define his home culture.

However, I do think that for the next HQ game I run I will probably give the players the option to choose between Glorantha and a group-defined setting (with the players as a group making up their own home cultures and me creating neighbors and connections between the lot of them).

This whole discussion, to me, just comes down to a matter of taste, but what's wroing with a discussion about that? :)

[quote="Mike Holmes"] See, I'm a canon guy. I like for the setting to be "Hard", for it to have some objective "reality" that's unalterable for the most part. Because that gives me a feel that you can only get in RPGs. [/quote]

This is very different from my own attitude. To me, Roleplaying games are almost entirely about playing games of "What If?" . In an RPG you and the players get to decide whatever you want. You might start from a published source, either an RPG, or film or series of books, but then you make it your own. RPGs by definition must deviate from cannon the moment the players or GM exercise their creativity, not doing so is called 'acting'.

Every campaign I run set in Glorantha expresses a slightly different take on Glorantha. One was based on a non-cannonical interpretation of the orrigins of the Humakt cult. Another used a non-cannonical version of the city of Karse. There were certain aspects of the setting that I stated up-front to the players that I was deviating from, and I think that worked well. The idea of doing alternate history games set in Middle Earth is another example of this approach.

QuoteSo I wouldn't want to run a campaign full of villains or haughty imperialists, and this limits my choices further.

Quote

Well, the RQ era source "Strangers in Prax" contains excelent examples of heroic and admirable Lunar characters. Just look at the personal stories of the Seven Mothers themselves!

Quote from: "Brand_RobinsThe first group telling the second group that there is no problem getting into the setting, using the setting in game, and ignoring this straw man called canon is just repeating the same arrogant mistake I made with Tribe 8.

Ok, but it's something I actualy do – if I want my campaign to devaite from cannon for some reason, it does. I accept that some people aren't comfortable with doing that, but it is doable because I do it. There are large areas of Glorantha I'm not particularly interested in, of which I know as much as a newbie. That's never been a problem for me.

Quote from: "Bankuei"Iagree with you completely. As a "newer" person to Glorantha, my biggest frustation was hearing YGWV, and being constantly corrected on the various cultures or interpretations. It was rather like hopping into a game with complex rules, but no one can tell them to you...

Whe we discuss Generaly Accepted Glorantha, and there's a known fact about the world stated in a cannon source, then that's what we discuss – if it is different in my or your game that's fine but we make it clear when talking about varaints that they aren't cannon. I have my own version of the city of Karse, as I've said, but I wouldn't dream of trying to impose that in discussions about the city on the Glorantha Digest. If Joerg (the guy that knows most about the city in terms of cannon) posts stuff about it, what have I got to say? Not a lot. I don't see that as being a problem.

Perhaps this comes down to confidence. I love Glorantha as a setting and I am a nerd about some (ok, many) aspects of it, but my game belongs to me and my players, not to Greg Stafford or anyone else. To my mind what cannon says about this or that in no way devalues my game, or yours, if they happen to be different.


Simon Hibbs

Confidence is a large part of it. The issue, however, is where that confidence comes from and what its about. I'm quite sure someone like Mike would be confident in his ability to master the trivia of Glorantha if he really wanted to. I'm also sure that a guy like Scripty has no problem divorcing the game from its current setting and reintegrating the rules with a completly different setting, even if it takes more work than playing in Glorantha. And we've seen without a doubt that doubtofbuddha is willing to try new things and overcome his previous expectations. All of those things require a lot of confidence and courage. I'm also very confident of my ability to research and make things that will work for the world, it's let me get published in the world. (Though for me it's less courage and more arrogance, but we'll leave that lie for the moment.)

Like I said back in my long-assed-post-of-death, people do exactly what you're talking about. There were a lot of Tribe 8 fans who were able to pull off exactly what I thought they should be able to, and there are a lot of Glorantha fans who can do the same. The issue is that not all of us can, but our inability to be as comfortable with the setting as you are has to do with something more than just our lack of confidence, or our lack of confidence has to be caused by something other than simply being unwilling to try new or difficult things – as we've all proven time and again that we can and will do those things.

I think we can see a few shades of it peeking out in these comments:

Quote from: simon_hibbsThere were certain aspects of the setting that I stated up-front to the players that I was deviating from, and I think that worked well.

Quote from: simon_hibbsThere are large areas of Glorantha I'm not particularly interested in, of which I know as much as a newbie. That's never been a problem for me.

Quote from: simon_hibbsWhe we discuss Generaly Accepted Glorantha, and there's a known fact about the world stated in a cannon source, then that's what we discuss – if it is different in my or your game that's fine but we make it clear when talking about varaints that they aren't cannon.

I hate to get esoteric, but I'm gonna go into genre theory here for a moment. Glorantha, for the terms of genre theory (not the literary use of the word genre) is a genre of its own – it is a set of expectations, constraints, dialogues, and process of systematization that results in distinct set of texts and paratexts around which creation occurs. Glorantha isn't just a setting (though even a simple and static setting can be a genre, it's a far tighter pull than Glorantha is) because what is Glorantha isn't just what is in the HeroQuest rulebooks, it's a community discourse that has built up for years and resulted in its own shared code between the producers and interpreters.

For those whom I've probably lost and alienated by this point, let me assure you that I see this (overall) as being a good thing. Greg's vision of a living and mythic setting could not be realized without this kind of discourse and semiotic intertexuality. Glorantha is mythic because it is not a set of simple details that can be put down on a list. It is mythic because it is more like a rubric through which secondary creation and evaluation can occur at a community level (whether that community be the play group or the greater Gloranthan fan community).

The problem that we're running into, in those terms, is that people who are already comfortable with the genre – both in its strict application and in application of difference – are starting to talk with people who are new to the genre. It is like watching Akira with someone who has never seen anime, or having someone with no experience with Romantic literature read Prometheus Unbound. The experience, to the newb, is confusing and difficult, as they do not yet understand the genre rules and symbols well enough to know what is going on. They can tell something is, but they get frustrated because they can't quite put their finger on it.

As with watching Akira or reading Prometheus Unbound, the response from the existing Gloranthans is "don't worry about it" or "just watch the movie, it all makes sense at the end." The problem is that they are doing so from the position of someone who understands the genre-set well enough that they can make sense of it themselves, and blithely (and often falsely) assume that because they have confidence and mastery of the genre tropes then anyone with confidence can gain them and gain understanding as well. Most people I've watched Akira with, or taught Prometheus Unbound, won't get the trope set unless it is explained to them – unless they're inducted into the genre.

In the quote about how you know some areas of Glorantha not at all you reveal something. There are areas of Glorantha (the setting) of which you know as little as a newb. However that also means there are areas about which you know a great deal. In gaining that setting knowledge you also would have gained genre knowledge. So even in areas of the setting in which your knowledge is weak, your grounding in the genre of Glorantha is still strong enough to support your interpolation of something that will "feel" Glorantha because you know the meta-text of the genre.

So it isn't just that the rest of us lack confidence – what we lack is a genre vocabulary and mastery. We do not have the ability to interpolate as easily as you do because we are not genre-steeped. There is a field of knowledge which we do not have and which is very difficult to glean from the books. (Incidentally, I'd also suggest that one of Mike's problems with Glorantha vs Shadow World is that Mike wants a setting, not a genre – but I don't want to put words in his mouth.)

So the question then becomes, how do we gain such knowledge and how can you help? Well, we could just stick in there and hope we gain familiarity with the genre. That does work, but it is often long and frustrating, and most people will probably give up before it happens. (How many people, having seen Akira and been frustrated with it, never go on to watch enough anime that they eventually get it?)

The other possibility, and the one that I think offers the most hope, is for Glorantha-philes to focus less on trying to help newbs with either setting minutia ("on the 5th page of Cults of Prax, which is out of print, it says that the 3rd son of the 4th daughter was...") or with non-specific do it yourself advice ("YGWV, so make up the Solar Pantheon!") is to give advice in terms that are genre-understanding building.

For Prometheus Unbound the way this works is to talk about the assumptions of Romanticism, of Shelley's other works, of the tone and symbolism, and all that kind of stuff. You give the reader not a detailed background of Greek myth, but an understanding of where Shelley was speaking from. For Glorantha a similar treatment could work. Explain what the guidelines of Glorantha are, why dragons are dragons rather than what the canon trivia of dragons is, what the assumptions of play in Glorantha are, and things such as that.

In part this work has started. Things like Chris's "Prep for Play" thread are all about getting people to understand the way a Glorantha game is usually set up – a genre issue. "Well of Souls" also did a good job on this, introducing the concepts of community and heroquesting in terms of what they accomplished in game and as a way of defining setting as opposed to detail lists and trivia. Someone in this very thread did a post about why and what dragons were in Glorantha, and why the Dragon paths were as they are. The problem with the post is that it talked about the history of Glorantha (setting detail) too much and no enough about how the troubled PC could work with the idea of dragons in the setting to make the game their own while still being Glorantha in genre.

In other words, don't explain what Glorantha is or how to play in it with a list of setting details or with a wave of the hand and a "make it up" directive. Talk about what the things are that keep Glorantha Glorantha even when you change the details, about the suppositions and underlying assumptions of the game, about how the world is used to tell stories, and then use the setting details as support of that advice. In doing so you'll be teaching newbies the genre tropes that allow you to have your confidence, rather than throwing details at them and hoping they gain the genre tropes.

Hi Brand,

Directly linked into the conflidence issue is the method in which Glorantha is presented.  Unlike other games, which are more strict about the canon presentation(text only, in specific line of books), Glorantha is spread across a vast array of books and internet sources.  For most new people, we're not going to take the effort, or be able to, hunt down a great deal of the now out of print texts.  So we turn to the easiest source, which happens to be players with more experience and history.

While this method may have advantages, such as being able to dialogue for a better understanding, it also has several issues as well.   The one lesson we learned from the "Telephone" game in school, where a sentence is whispered from one person to the next, all the way down the line, is that not everyone has equal communication skills.  This then, is where many people get discouraged, since trying to figure out what is canon, from "This guy's take on Glorantha" to "This guy's personal communication issues" becomes more work than many people are willing to invest.

Along with that, a few folks with less able communication skills may in fact, come across very negative when they correct("inform")" people about the canon.  "Of course so-and-so had 53 forms, and Fire is the 46th!  Geez, are you stupid or what?!?"  Enough comments like that scare people away.  Not saying that this is a bigger problem with the Glorantha community than elsewhere, but that since the social network is where the game lives, this problem becomes more exaberant than settings where the information lives in the text primarily.

Chris

ps- I haven't decided where my article is going to be posted.  Hopefully it can float into another issue of Daedalus at some point.  Worse come to worse, it'll find a place on the HQ groups on Yahoo.

Quote from: Brand_Robins
Someone in this very thread did a post about why and what dragons were in Glorantha, and why the Dragon paths were as they are. The problem with the post is that it talked about the history of Glorantha (setting detail) too much and no enough about how the troubled PC could work with the idea of dragons in the setting to make the game their own while still being Glorantha in genre.

One of the problems with dragons (and dragonnewts etc.) in Glorantha is that canonically they are not player characters. So as soon as a narrator lets a player take a dragonnewt as a character HGHV giving him the job of writing a complete non-human society which is both interesting and playable when the canon states that dragonnewt motivations are incomprehensible to humans. Dragons are even worse because they're not D&D dragons but the equal of the gods themselves.

So what can be said to a novice narrator who asks about a dragonnewt character? Don't allow it seems  rather dogmatic, There's no canon so you're on your own is accurate but not exactly helpful, as is YGWV. That leaves giving a few pointers based on the individual writer's idea of dragonnewts.

Quote from: Brand_RobinsIn other words, don't explain what Glorantha is or how to play in it with a list of setting details or with a wave of the hand and a "make it up" directive. Talk about what the things are that keep Glorantha Glorantha even when you change the details,

I suppose the biggest part of what makes Glorantha is that it is a different world from any other and much of that difference is a deliberate decision to encourage and exploit those differences as gaming material. So when a novice picks a non-human character for play expecting a basically human character with a few cool powers it clashes uncomfortably with what more knowledgable players and authors think. This is why the Issaries publications and most of the fan material concentrates on human cultures and AFAIK the only non-human culture which has been written up in any detail is the Uz one.

Quote from: Brand_Robins.
...

Incredible post. Glorantha as a genre makes so much sense I wonder why noone ever thought of it before.

soru

Quote from: DonaldI suppose the biggest part of what makes Glorantha is that it is a different world from any other and much of that difference is a deliberate decision to encourage and exploit those differences as gaming material. So when a novice picks a non-human character for play expecting a basically human character with a few cool powers it clashes uncomfortably with what more knowledgable players and authors think.

Actually, I agree with this. The question, then, is how to express this to newbs having trouble without stomping the idea or just saying YGWV.

In the case that started this thread there is also another conflict going on, and I'd like to look at it for a second before going on about my question. One of the things doubtofbuddha's player was concerned with is the conflict between a sort of narratvist ideal of PCs making up the world and defining it through their actions and the established world that is Glorantha. This can be problematic, as a lot of forge-style narrativism doesn't necessarily mesh perfectly with using a setting with official and pre-set canon.

In Ron's "Sorcerer and Sword" he talks about how people like Howard didn't make the world, then have the characters move through it. They made the characters and then had them clash with the world. That kind of credo has become a big part of a lot of narrativist play, and the player was obviously fighting with some version of it when he made comments like "But I was getting frustrated because it just seemed like the already established world stuff was getting in the way of me doing what I wanted to do" and "I want to be able to carve out my own way and have it be possible, because when going into this game I thought that was the premise... But this is a goal oriented game. That is, your character is trying to achieve a certain goals. But if they only way to achieve those goals is through set methods already established, then that's not fun."

So what we've got is a clash/misunderstanding between protagonism through world-forming actions and protagonism through interaction with existing setting bits. I think both are possible, and that there also doesn't have to be as big a clash between the two as we seem to get into.

So, back to the question of how to deal with the PC wanting to play a reincarnated dragonnewt constructively. I have a hard time doing this, even in example, as I know crap all about dragonnewts. However, I might try something like this:

One of the reasons that Dragonnewts have such fixed paths is because they're normally NPC material. Glorantha tends to be very human-o centric in it's PCs, and that's one of the reasons the player is feeling such strain. However, one of the tenants of HeroQuest is that the Hero Wars are about Us vs Them – and that can include Human Vs Not. (This is a discussion of the normal genre tropes of Glorantha. It gives warning that what they are doing is contrary to the normal expectations of the genre, but then attempts to find a way to help the newb negotiate a path between their game and the genre to make both work.)

The PCs struggle to become a dragon or a human could thus become a part of the herowars itself. The PC will have to be clever to do this, following the examples of characters like Jar El or XXX or YYY – all of whom changed the world in fundamental ways. (XXX and YYY would be other people who did big crap to change the world, like the Lunar heroquesters who hold back winter or the Char-Un starting the Skyburn, or other examples that I don't know the world well enough to pull up right now.) These characters had to do quest like XXX and YYY, and you may even want to look at the material about the Red Goddess and how she started as a mortal woman with a gods soul and became the ruler of the sky. The PC would be attempting something on the same order as Sedanya, but with a lesser magnitude, and so should expect to face challenges similar to what she went through. (Insert link to Lhankor Mhy here – use the details that are relevant with direct sources.)

The other thing you, as GM, might want to look at is the time just before the Dragonkill, when humans started interacting with dragons and dragon-newts, even learning Dragon magic. Maybe the character's soul could have come from that time, when forbidden magics were practiced that resulted in dragons rising up to kill the whole region? The PC would have to deal with the fallout of that time and the hate and fear of dragons it causes in everyone else. (Insert links and references here, using details to support the general theme and tone.)

As for the players worries about being able to do it, he should understand that the reason its hard is it is something no one has ever done. In most RPGs people have taken over kingdoms, so doing it isn't new. Becoming a dragon, however, is something new to Glorantha, and so will require the player to make up a lot of it – going into the realm of making up setting himself. (And thus we come back to the protagonist clashing with the setting and defining it by that conflict, rather than as a character interacting passively with an already established rule.)

QuoteSo what we've got is a clash/misunderstanding between protagonism through world-forming actions and protagonism through interaction with existing setting bits. I think both are possible, and that there also doesn't have to be as big a clash between the two as we seem to get into.

Insightful. You're talking here simply about the preference for setting based narrativism (Glorantha, as ROn frequently points out) or character based (freer settings). I think that's certainly key.

Mike

Quote from: DonaldDragons are even worse because they're not D&D dragons...

You mean it would be better if they were? ;)

QuoteSo what can be said to a novice narrator who asks about a dragonnewt character? Don't allow it seems  rather dogmatic, There's no canon so you're on your own is accurate but not exactly helpful, as is YGWV. That leaves giving a few pointers based on the individual writer's idea of dragonnewts.

That's a very short list. I think there are a whole ton of options available. The easy way out is to play a Dragonewt from an unusual background - raised by humans; from a small Dragonewt community isolated for centuries; from a foreign Dragonewt culture on the other side of Glorantha, etc. This way the chracter knows as little about the part of Glorantha the game is set in as the player, and there's enormous freedom of interpretation available. You don't have to know a thing about Glorantha to go this route.

I realsie I'm not being very helpful and I wish I was getting across better. I suppose I have been playing in Glorantha a long time, but even back in the old days I only owned a small fraction of the cannon sources available ( no copy of WB&RM, Nomad Gods, or any copies of Wyrms Footnotes, etc) and just made do with the RQ2 boxed set and Cults of Prax, then later a copy of Cults of Terror for almost a decade and it never stoped me from running games. The same goes for other games I'm not a cannon nerd for, the cannon is all fine and dandy but my game belongs to me and my players. I don't think saying that is any kind of cop-out.


Simon Hibbs

Quote from: simon_hibbsThe same goes for other games I'm not a cannon nerd for, the cannon is all fine and dandy but my game belongs to me and my players. I don't think saying that is any kind of cop-out.

Simon, no, it's not a cop out. Nobody has said it is. What's a cop out is suggesting that this will work for every other player that's not you, just because it works for you.

Are you saying that?

Mike

Quote from: simon_hibbsThe same goes for other games I'm not a cannon nerd for, the cannon is all fine and dandy but my game belongs to me and my players. I don't think saying that is any kind of cop-out.

No it isn't. I didn't mean to say it was either. My whole point was that just because it works for you (it obviously does!) it doesn't work for everyone. You've got a mastery not just of Glorantha, but of futzing with canon in general, I think, and that makes it easy for you.

It also makes you a great resource. I know I've learned from your posts in the past -- it's just occasionally been difficult to bridge the gap between our genre understandings. I'm not trying to slag the old guard here, I'm just trying to find ways for the "Them" and the "Us" to be able to understand each other more and communicate more easily and effectively.


Edit: Crap, cross posted with Mike.

Quote from: Brand_RobinsI'm not trying to slag the old guard here, I'm just trying to find ways for the "Them" and the "Us" to be able to understand each other more and communicate more easily and effectively.

Sure, and i think this thread has been better for this than any previous similar thread on the HW/Glorantha forums.

I'm realy very pleased with this forum, it enables discussions that are strongly related to HW and Glorantha, but that are a few steps back from it, allowing a wider perspective where a similar discussion on the HW list might be criticised for being off topic.


Simon Hibbs

Quote from: Brand_RobinsThis can be problematic, as a lot of forge-style narrativism doesn't necessarily mesh perfectly with using a setting with official and pre-set canon.

I can't see the conflict myself, deciding to play HQ in Glorantha is no different from deciding to play Sorcerer in 1920s New York. In either case the decision to introduce space travel to that setting takes it outside canon creating two difficulties which the GM has to resolve. Firstly does everyone agree with what's meant by space travel in that setting and secondly what other effects does that have - such as where are the spaceships launched from? who makes them? who flies them? etc. Asking an expert either on Glorantha or early 20th Century history doesn't help because it's up to the players and GM although I suspect the Gloranthan expert is likely to be more tolerant of the question.

Quote from: Brand_RobinsIn Ron's "Sorcerer and Sword" he talks about how people like Howard didn't make the world, then have the characters move through it. They made the characters and then had them clash with the world. That kind of credo has become a big part of a lot of narrativist play, and the player was obviously fighting with some version of it when he made comments like "But I was getting frustrated because it just seemed like the already established world stuff was getting in the way of me doing what I wanted to do" and "I want to be able to carve out my own way and have it be possible, because when going into this game I thought that was the premise... But this is a goal oriented game. That is, your character is trying to achieve a certain goals. But if they only way to achieve those goals is through set methods already established, then that's not fun."

Then someone has a fundamental misunderstanding of Glorantha. *Anything* is possible there but there exist ways of doing things that have been tried before which make them easier. I guess the implication of that is that new players and narrators should get the hang of interactions and heroquesting before creating characters who have no lesser goals than changing the world by themselves.

This reminds me other another difference between Glorantha and many RPGs which is community. I am unaware of any Gloranthan hero who acted alone and the greatest spent years gathering support before they reached the point where they could even attempt their goals. So when a player has a personal goal for their character which is going to require a lot of magical resources the narrator and player need to agree a community who can, in their Glorantha, reasonably provide those resources and have an incentive to do so.

Quote from: simon_hibbs

Quote from: DonaldDragons are even worse because they're not D&D dragons...

You mean it would be better if they were? ;)

In the sense of being more manageable for the GM. The only way I can see using a dragon in Glorantha with any normal group of player characters is as something to avoid - an irresistable force acting in GM defined way.

Quote from: simon_hibbsThat's a very short list. I think there are a whole ton of options available. The easy way out is to play a Dragonewt from an unusual background - raised by humans; from a small Dragonewt community isolated for centuries; from a foreign Dragonewt culture on the other side of Glorantha, etc. This way the chracter knows as little about the part of Glorantha the game is set in as the player, and there's enormous freedom of interpretation available. You don't have to know a thing about Glorantha to go this route.

I would say that fits under "There's no canon so you're on your own". Basically you've created two new cultures, one Dragonnewt and one human which are friendly to one another and the GM has to fill them out although much can be done through play. Not easy for someone who is new to both the rules and background.

Quote from: simon_hibbsI realsie I'm not being very helpful and I wish I was getting across better. I suppose I have been playing in Glorantha a long time, but even back in the old days I only owned a small fraction of the cannon sources available ( no copy of WB&RM, Nomad Gods, or any copies of Wyrms Footnotes, etc) and just made do with the RQ2 boxed set and Cults of Prax, then later a copy of Cults of Terror for almost a decade and it never stoped me from running games.

I suspect it was easier then because RQ hadn't drifted so far from D&D that importing ideas and characters from that world clashed. Now the HQ book gives the outline of ten cultures and it's obvious that's only a small sample. I doubt the lack of WBRM was a handicap, for a long time I didn't realise they were set in the same world. In some ways the Internet has made things more difficult, now a GM can ask a question and get several conflicting answers and references to numerous obscure sources whereas previously you might get the chance to ask someone who had once spoken to Greg.

Quote from: simon_hibbsThe same goes for other games I'm not a cannon nerd for, the cannon is all fine and dandy but my game belongs to me and my players. I don't think saying that is any kind of cop-out.

Agreed wholeheartedly.

Quote from: DonaldI can't see the conflict myself, deciding to play HQ in Glorantha is no different from deciding to play Sorcerer in 1920s New York.

Except that if you pick up HeroQuest you're defaulted to Glorantha, where if you pick up Sorcerer you're not defaulted to New York. So if you're in 1920's New York with space travel you've chosen that setting for a reason -- probably a reason having to do with what your PCs want. Glorantha, otoh, doesn't get chosen so much as is chosen for you.

Also, it's way easier to get information about 1920's New York. Reams of it, vast copious massive volumes of it, or just easy and clearly written pamphlet sized documents about -- or anything in between. We also already have a lot of "genre" familiarity with 1920s New York as we've all seen dozens of books, movies, pulps, comics, etc that are set there. Getting the same information about Glorantha can be like pulling teeth and most of us won't be nearly as familiar with the genre as with the roaring 20s in a city that's less than 100 miles from where we live.

The difference in choice, in availability of information, and in player perception is a narrow and tricksy issue -- but it is one that does effect how people view the world and how happy they are with it. It's also probably one of the reasons why a significant chunk of people are playing HeroQuest -- but not playing in Glorantha.

Quote from: DonaldThen someone has a fundamental misunderstanding of Glorantha.

That would be the whole point, now wouldn't it? The question is how to get them to understand it while still allowing for their Glorantha to vary, and so and so and so on....

Quote from: DonaldI guess the implication of that is that new players and narrators should get the hang of interactions and heroquesting before creating characters who have no lesser goals than changing the world by themselves.

A fair implication, and one I'd agree with in general. Of course, to be fair we don't know that the character had no lesser goals -- only that the player was worried about the character EVER being able to achieve the greatest goal. This is decently useful advice, but a bit prejudicial. What you say next, however....

Quote from: DonaldThis reminds me other another difference between Glorantha and many RPGs which is community. I am unaware of any Gloranthan hero who acted alone and the greatest spent years gathering support before they reached the point where they could even attempt their goals.

Now that is good, useful info about using the Gloranthan genre to make non-standard ideas work! You must get community support -- lots of community support. That's part of the genre that a lot of newbs don't get, and that needs to be shown, demonstrated, and explained to help them get it.

So the question is how would someone go about getting community support to help them become a dragon and bridge the gap between dragons and humanity? I know you suggest the narrator come up with it -- and that's valid -- but are there any existing Gloranthan communities that might be swayed? The guys in the east who worship dragons already? Dragon-newt allies, lunar rebels, magicians who've lived since before the dragon kill? Anything?

Brand said:

QuoteNow that is good, useful info about using the Gloranthan genre to make non-standard ideas work! You must get community support -- lots of community support. That's part of the genre that a lot of newbs don't get, and that needs to be shown, demonstrated, and explained to help them get it.

So the question is how would someone go about getting community support to help them become a dragon and bridge the gap between dragons and humanity? I know you suggest the narrator come up with it -- and that's valid -- but are there any existing Gloranthan communities that might be swayed? The guys in the east who worship dragons already? Dragon-newt allies, lunar rebels, magicians who've lived since before the dragon kill? Anything?

All of the above:

The guys in the east who worship dragons already. They have always paid attention to what is going on in Dragon Pass.

Dragon-newt allies -- as mentioned a couple of times in this thread, I think, the Servants of the Almighty Dragons (in Masters of Luck and Death) are almost custom-designed for this guy.

Lunar rebels -- well, Heortling rebels, anyway -- see below.

Magicians who have lived since before the Dragonkill -- Forang Farosh, in the city of Tink in Dragon Pass, was alive during the EWF era, and knows a lot of draconic lore. Also, one of Kallyr's companions, Orlaront Dragonman, is an expert on dragons. There has been speculation for several years that these two are actually the same person, but I don't know if it was ever decided. The Dragonrise supplement will hopefully answer this.

Other options: there are dragonewts in Ralios who don't seem to be quite the same as the ones in Dragon Pass, they might have different ideas about how to deal with humans.

There is some myserious place in Prax (near Tada's High Tumulus) that seems to have something to do with dragonewts; Obscure Plinth? Not much is known about it, but it might be a good place to start, in terms of being able to make up what you want about it.

And, if all else fails, any EWF ruin could provide at least a place to start.

buserian

Quote from: buserianAnd, if all else fails, any EWF ruin could provide at least a place to start.

Good stuff. Heck, if doubtofbuddha's character doesn't use this I may well end up using it -- maybe as an enemy for the PCs, someone who is doing just what that PC wanted to do.

It'd be the start of a good story at the very least.

Honestly, the player moved beyond his draconic concept long ago.

So he won't be using it. However I have to admit some temptation to use the idea myself. I imagine I could do all sorts of things with it.

Maybe make a Heortling foil who is attempting to get into the same city as the PCs with the intent of awakening the dragon (after she makes of with the local lore) this would be most... "counterproductive" to the PCs goals.

Quote from: Brand_RobinsExcept that if you pick up HeroQuest you're defaulted to Glorantha, where if you pick up Sorcerer you're not defaulted to New York. So if you're in 1920's New York with space travel you've chosen that setting for a reason -- probably a reason having to do with what your PCs want. Glorantha, otoh, doesn't get chosen so much as is chosen for you.

Also, it's way easier to get information about 1920's New York. Reams of it, vast copious massive volumes of it, or just easy and clearly written pamphlet sized documents about -- or anything in between. We also already have a lot of "genre" familiarity with 1920s New York as we've all seen dozens of books, movies, pulps, comics, etc that are set there. Getting the same information about Glorantha can be like pulling teeth and most of us won't be nearly as familiar with the genre as with the roaring 20s in a city that's less than 100 miles from where we live.

There's reams of information about Glorantha, a lot of it available on the web. Much of it is incomplete and contradictory but the same is true of information about New York, particularly once you include fiction set there. From this side of the Atlantic I have as much reliable information about Glamour as I have about New York. The difference seems to be that in a fantasy setting some GMs have a desire to know everything about the world so that their players can't throw them whereas in a real world setting they assume their knowledge is complete.

Quote from: Brand_RobinsThe difference in choice, in availability of information, and in player perception is a narrow and tricksy issue -- but it is one that does effect how people view the world and how happy they are with it. It's also probably one of the reasons why a significant chunk of people are playing HeroQuest -- but not playing in Glorantha.

Which shows that although Glorantha may be the default, HQ is not Glorantha dependant. The decision may be more separate in Sorcerer but the choice is still there in HQ. It's certainly true that some people are inspired by the background while some find it too alien and confusing. That was true twenty years ago with RuneQuest and there's no reason why it should be different now when Glorantha has a lot more background.

Quote from: Brand_RobinsSo the question is how would someone go about getting community support to help them become a dragon and bridge the gap between dragons and humanity?

Busarian has covered the details pretty well but I would just like to add that a community won't give their support unless there's something in it for them. It may be repayment of an obligation incurred to the PC, it may be a collateral benefit from the heroquest but in game mechanics terms the PC needs a good relationship with the community and considerable persuasive skills. So the first thing a player with world changing goals needs is to find a community that has some sympathy with that objective and build up a relationship with them.

Quote from: DonaldThe difference seems to be that in a fantasy setting some GMs have a desire to know everything about the world so that their players can't throw them whereas in a real world setting they assume their knowledge is complete.

Actually, I think it comes down to a comfort with "genre." While we may not have many more "hard facts" about a real setting than we do about a fantasy setting, we're all familiar with the tropes of the real world setting at a very base level. I've seen New York in so many movies and books that even if there is a lot of contradiction, I still have a lot of the basics down at a subconcious level. I may even be wrong about them -- but at least I feel confident.

Glorantha, on the other hand, is something whose tropes I've never seen in a movie, nor read all that many books about. I don't have a dad who lived there, or a general-world consensus knowledge about it.

It isn't about being comfortable with the details, or knowing all the details, those are just the symptoms that we think are important. What really matters is being comfortable with the underlying tropes of the setting/genre. You can know every single detail of a setting and still not be able to use it, and you can know very few facts about a setting but use it with no problem, depending on how well you grasp the genre underlying it.

(I'd also suggest that the reason that guys like Smion are able to get into and modify any setting with such facility is because they're talented genre readers. The innate ability to subconciously break something down to genre terms frees them of the dependancy on setting "facts" by giving them the confidence that they can match the setting "feel" without worrying about mitutia.)

So, chaps, what are the genre conventions of Glorantha?

I'm just riffing here, so bear with me...

1. Myth Matters
2. Community Matters
3. Three mutually hostile otherworlds have collided, creating the world. You can get magic from them.
4. Monsters are people too, but they still hate you.
5. Using myth makes you powerful: abusing myth will make it bite you BADLY

Heh... google for genre conventions and click "I feel lucky." It's a small web after all... and, at number 9. Chad Underkoffler on 4-colour...

Quote from: Mike Holmes
Simon, no, it's not a cop out. Nobody has said it is. What's a cop out is suggesting that this will work for every other player that's not you, just because it works for you.

Are you saying that?

I've tried not to, because clearly different people have different tastes in this regard. It can be very hard to reach agreement on issues of taste, but I do hope we can come to an appreciation of the reasons for our differences and the value we each get from our preferences. It can be tricky ground to tread though. I realise my posts can be provocative and I hope I haven't gone too far.


Simon Hibbs

Quote from: pete_darbySo, chaps, what are the genre conventions of Glorantha?

I'm just riffing here, so bear with me...

These sound good to me. I'd also add a corollary to 1 & 2 that is something along the lines of "myth is what makes community coherent, but also what drives wedges between communities."

A lot of the other points then spill into that -- multiple other worlds, people monsters that still hate you, power from myth and backlash from misused myth -- they all tie in thematically with the relationship between community, mythology, and epistemology/metaphysics.

So that's a good list to start with, as it gets to the heart of a lot of issues and gives some good overarching support. Each of the points could be further expounded, with the understanding that all derivations are contingent.

So things like: Humans can become gods or demi-gods in stature, but only with the support of a community and only by disrupting the current divine power dynamic. (Old Sedenya being the biggest example of this, but Harrek and JarEel and their ilk also demonstrate.) Of course, just because it's doable doesn't mean that its easy, or that it can be done without making the world worse....

There are very few absolute evils. Almost everyone has a point and legitimate reasons for what they do. Even the Goddess of Rape can have a point. There are factions and beliefs, but none of them has total claim to righteousness.

Myth is subjective – different cultures can see the same gods in different ways, or see different gods as being the same.

You should be prepared to be Greged at any point. ;)

Should we maybe start a new thread about this?

Hi Pete,

To drop in a couple of themes:

1.  What's really at conflict is values

Since magic responds to all religions pretty equally, there's not empirical proof that any one is more right than the other, so the real conflict comes about "How to live?" and "What is right?", and no amount of magic will tell you that.

2.  There are limitations, going too far leads to disaster.

Tied deeply with the first theme, you can see this from Orlanth slaying Yelm, people trying to create gods, to the result of escalating HeroQuests leading to the destruction of Glorantha itself.  What should be done?  Although all cultures claim to have a handle on it, its shown that each through their traditions, turns out to cause just as much chaos and trouble as fix or avoid it.  

The Hero Wars are about making a new path, one that cuts away the bad, and keeps what is good.  Of course, finding out what that is, the uncharted ground, that's the heart of it.

Chris

The discussion about the themes/tropes/genre conventions of Glorantha is interesting. Sure these things are characteristic of Glorantha, but they only intrude peripheraly into my actual play experience. They are background atmosphere rather than foreground issues for the vast majority of the time. Presenting all these to newcomers with an implicit expectation that unlkess you're including all these elements you're not playing HeroQuest 'properly' would IMHO be a recipe for disaster.

When I think about genre and Glorantha I think of all the different story genres I can set in Glorantha. Spy thrillers, action adventures, romances, film noir, stories of all of these genres can and indeed have been be set in Glorantha. The fact that the setting is so broad and does not present any particular partisan view in a prefered way opens it up to infinite variations of interpretation, so my advice would be to pick a genre you're familiar with and see how you can use it to tell stories in Glorantha, then introduce the mythic flavour as you become familiar with it.


Simon Hibbs

Sure, they only intrude peripherally, but the point is to find stuff, if there is any, that if it's contradicted would make the game not-glorantha: I get the sneaking suspicion that the list is going to be damn short, but there you go.

For example, My 5th point, and Brand's second (myth will bite yo uin the ass, you can become a god, at a vast risk and price), to my mind boil down to : The universe will MAKE you take responsibility for your actions.

But sure, this shoudl be split off... kind of reminds me of a couple of other lists, a-googling I will go....

Simon, what you're saying is that there are no genre conventions for Glorantha. That, basically, it's a "do what you want with it setting". I don't agree with that, I think the system nowadays supports something more like what Pete's talking about. In fact your supposition is actually sorta scary.

But the point is moot. Brand is telling you that what's needed are the genre conventions, and you're saying there aren't any. Well, isn't that a problem right there? Or should we just accept that having no genre conventions make it a better game for everybody?

QuoteIt can be very hard to reach agreement on issues of taste,

In fact, often it's impossible, taste being a personal thing. Further, I'm not seeing the mandate for us to agree. Takes all sorts, right? Why can't we just agree to have different viewpoints on this?

I will take you at your word that you're really interested in trying to understand each other's tastes - that's very kind. The problem is that when I state my taste, you say, "But, all you have to do is understand that nothing is canon in Glorantha." Even when I've posted that this is missing the point. I just find that hard to see as trying to understand my position so much as trying to change my mind about something that's related to my personal preferences.

See, somewhere along the way it seems that my problem with the setting became, to you, an attack on the setting, as if to say, "Aha! See! All you playing the Glorantha setting are freaks!" But I've said nothing of the sort - nobody has. It's completely my problem, and I think that y'all are doing the right thing for you by playing your way. I wouldn't want you to change anything that you're doing. In other words, I completely see the "value" you get from your preference.

It just doesn't work for me. Further, I'm not sure at this point that there's really any point in trying to explain why further. Because I have a solution that's working swimmingly well for me. If you still really think that I'm missing something, then please look back at my previous posts to this thread, and ask some questions so that you can better understand my position. Because, so far, your solutions indicate to me that you really don't understand the problem that I have.

Mike

Quote from: simon_hibbsSpy thrillers, action adventures, romances, film noir, stories of all of these genres can and indeed have been be set in Glorantha.

And nothing I'm suggesting says it couldn't. "Genre" in my posts is not being used exactly as you're using it. Even if it was, there is also no reason you can't have cross or multiple genre works. In fact many of the favorite works of RPG history (and several in literary history) have been just such.

For the kind of "genre theory" I'm talking about see this article here: http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/intgenre/intgenre.html -- it explains it more clearly than I do, I'm quite sure.

One of the key issues you'll see raised in that article is that in many works the genre acts as the background, the spine, the frame -- allowing the specific content of the individual work to stand out more strongly. So your other point, about the genre issues being background, would be quite correct. My point is that building off of that background understanding allows for the specific content to be interesting, where specific content with no background understanding is just confusing and annoying.

Quote from: Mike HolmesBut the point is moot. Brand is telling you that what's needed are the genre conventions, and you're saying there aren't any. Well, isn't that a problem right there? Or should we just accept that having no genre conventions make it a better game for everybody?

Perhaps it's down to us meaning slightly different things by genre. I'm still in the dialogue though and reading what everyone is posting, and I agree Brand's posts make a lot of sense. I'm just trying to articulate my feeling that I've played in many genres in Glorantha. I'm not entirely sure that Glorantha is a genre, but I'm avoiding taking that stance explicitly because I want to hear more about how other people thionk it is without actualy geting into an argument.

Quote

QuoteIt can be very hard to reach agreement on issues of taste,

In fact, often it's impossible, taste being a personal thing. Further, I'm not seeing the mandate for us to agree. Takes all sorts, right? Why can't we just agree to have different viewpoints on this?

Er, we do, don't we?

QuoteI will take you at your word that you're really interested in trying to understand each other's tastes - that's very kind. The problem is that when I state my taste, you say, "But, all you have to do is understand that nothing is canon in Glorantha." Even when I've posted that this is missing the point. I just find that hard to see as trying to understand my position so much as trying to change my mind about something that's related to my personal preferences.

I'm not saying that nothing is cannon in glorantha, there's plenty of cannon. I'm just saying that when I run games I do not feel that I have to stick religiously to cannon, and describing how and why I vary from it. That's my preference, but not yours. Vive le difference!

QuoteSee, somewhere along the way it seems that my problem with the setting became, to you, an attack on the setting, as if to say, "Aha! See! All you playing the Glorantha setting are freaks!"

I haven't said that, and I realy don't see how you can think I've implied it either. Especialy since I often don't play the glorantha setting strictly according to cannon anyway. I've also discussed this issue with regard to other settings, I don't think this problem is unique to glorantha but occurs for any setting which is detailed to such a great extent.

QuoteIt just doesn't work for me. Further, I'm not sure at this point that there's really any point in trying to explain why further. Because I have a solution that's working swimmingly well for me. If you still really think that I'm missing something, then please look back at my previous posts to this thread, and ask some questions so that you can better understand my position. Because, so far, your solutions indicate to me that you really don't understand the problem that I have.

No, I do understand the problem. I very much get the value you derive from having almost complete creative freedom with respect to your setting, without any concern that there might be other 'cannon' versions of the setting out there that may differ. It must avoid a lot of potential confusion.

I'm just trying to explain how I put YGWV into practice, that it is a viable technique that is capable of resolving many of the problems people seem to have with running games in Glorantha. Of couse whether or not those solutions are to the taste of individual gamers will vary.


Simon Hibbs

OK.

Let's see, you don't feel like you're being attacked (which makes the "cop-out" comment seem odd, but), and you understand my POV, and you long ago stated your point. So why are we still talking about this on this thread?

Just addressing the genre issue?

Mike