More about west/east play of RuneQuest (split)

[simon_hibbs]

Given the tenuous nature of the RPG imaginary construct, doubt and ambivalence about it's "true nature" and what have you can only, IMO, be destructive.  Far better, IMO, to exploit a singular and cohesive vision strongly expressed; even if that is achieved by consensus.  

I think that's exactly what Issaries Inc are doing. Nothing in their publications expresses any abivalence about how the setting is presented, so far as I can see.

The meta game may well have been entertaining to the participants, but quite naturally that excluded anyone who was not interested in that game as opposed to that of the actual printed product.

Well, the HeroQuest yahoogroups discussion list in specificaly intended to be a discussion forum about Glorantha as it appears in HeroQuest, and as it pertains to HeroQuest gaming. Discussion about variants and metagame issues of the kind I think we're talking about here are banished to the Glorantha Digest ghetto. Again, there's a problem - it gets fixed.

Now, I'm not suggesting the community is perfect. We do have our disagreements and I sometimes get irritated by the moderation policy on the HeroQuest yahoogroup (I have a rather broad idea about what is relevent to play), but overall it's a large and pretty inclusive community.


Simon Hibbs

[contracycle]

I think that's exactly what Issaries Inc are doing. Nothing in their publications expresses any abivalence about how the setting is presented, so far as I can see.

So have they explained all the confusion over, say, the identity of Arkat, then?

[simon_hibbs]

So have they explained all the confusion over, say, the identity of Arkat, then?

No more than we in our world know for sure exactly how and why Kennedy was assasinated, and Arkat died hundreds of years ago. Are you seriosuly suggestign a setting is bad because some of the events in it's history are in dispute?

In Glorantha there are many competing theories about Arkat, and the evidence is not clearly in favour of any one of them. Does that make Glorantha unrealistic, given that there are plenty of similar situations in our world?

Ok, this is a big digression. I assumed you were talking about the internal consistency of the published setting, but clearly I was mistaken.


Simon Hibbs

[pete_darby]

There's a consistent level of ambiguity: it's been established that the Arkat/Nysalor/Gbaji problem is due to the two antagonists being the mythical embodiments of enlightened truth and elightened deception. That being a given, the truth of the conflict cannot be known.

Similarly, Greg has ring fenced some elements as "for Player / GM development," (the kingdom of Charg). He's made it much more explicit where the mythical nature of Glorantha allows multiple "exclusive truths" to be true. Stars are holes in the sky dome, doorways in the houses of the gods, individual deities and balls of burning gas so far away the mortal mind cannot comprehend. Not simultaneously for the same person (pace illumination), but certainly all demonstrably true for those whose mythic reality supports each truth.

Which is quite different form the old problem in Glorantha of "The Pavis boxed set implies that the Lunar Emperor is X, whereas Lords of Terror clearly states Y, while Nick's freeform last week that Greg played in said Z."

Oddly, while writing this, Tom Jones came on the radio singing "Daughter of Darkness, stay out of my life..." Players of the Glorantha game will know what I'm talking about.

[Nick Brooke]

So have they explained all the confusion over, say, the identity of Arkat, then?

Why should they? The mysteries of Glorantha are a feature, not a bug, of that game setting.

I agree that problems can arise in play when "visible, obvious" aspects of Glorantha are presented unclearly or inconsistently (and, of course, when they are Gregged).

I do not see why it is such a problem for you that deep cultic secrets, the true nature of the gods, the hidden meanings of myths, and other such matters -- which few or no Gloranthans are aware of, and which can be profitably explored through play -- are not rigidly defined in a One-True-World fashion from the outset. (I've never seen the appeal of shouting, "we demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!").

But if you do want to continue presenting your views, at least try to be constructive. Persistent single-note sniping will win you no friends, in this or any other forums.

Cheers, Nick

[pete_darby]

But if you do want to continue presenting your views, at least try to be constructive. Persistent single-note sniping will win you no friends, in this or any other forums.

Cheers, Nick

But hasn't it given a fantastic opportunity to demostrate to newbies that even sniping will result in a series of enlightening and informative responses?

Everyone learns something new when Lankhor Mhy responds to Eurmal.

Maybe that should be the new Gloranthan internet slogan;

Glorantha: more newbie and troll friendly than you thought.

edit
Checking back, I did imply "clearly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty," didn't I.

In reference to Greg Stafford's control over Glorantha.

I think it must have been satire or something...

I meant to say that Glorantha has ambiguity built in: it's as consistent and as flexible as myth.

[contracycle]

But if you do want to continue presenting your views, at least try to be constructive. Persistent single-note sniping will win you no friends, in this or any other forums.

Thank you for patronising.  I asked a single QUESTION, any sniping you impute is of your own projection.

I do not see why it is such a problem for you that deep cultic secrets, the true nature of the gods, the hidden meanings of myths, and other such matters -- which few or no Gloranthans are aware of, and which can be profitably explored through play -- are not rigidly defined in a One-True-World fashion from the outset. (I've never seen the appeal of shouting, "we demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!").

Because, as I said previously, the tenuous nature of the imaginative construct that is RPG makes doubt and uncertainty a severe, potentially fatal, problem.  Yes, I DO demand ridly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty, for otherwise we are back in the meta-game: there is doubt and uncertainty IN the game, and also doubt and uncertainty about which bits are doubtful or uncertain.

I meant to say that Glorantha has ambiguity built in: it's as consistent and as flexible as myth.

That is exactly what I was worried about.  My concerns have not been alleviated.  Appeals to the alleged ambiguity of real world myths seems to proceed from assumptions I don't accept and which are not - in the Hero WARS material I have - discussed anywhere.

Simon hibbs wrote:

No more than we in our world know for sure exactly how and why Kennedy was assasinated, and Arkat died hundreds of years ago. Are you seriosuly suggestign a setting is bad because some of the events in it's history are in dispute?

Not if they are in dispute amongst fictional people in a fictional world.  When they are in dispute among real players of the game in the real world, then yes, I do.

In Glorantha there are many competing theories about Arkat, and the evidence is not clearly in favour of any one of them. Does that make Glorantha unrealistic, given that there are plenty of similar situations in our world?

Not if I, as the GM required to make rules calls and decisions, have a clear grounding in the fact of that ambiguity, and how I am to resolve it, and whether or not a later publivcation will invalidate my solution.  Absent these things, it is a problem, yes.

Pete Darby wrote:

But hasn't it given a fantastic opportunity to demostrate to newbies that even sniping will result in a series of enlightening and informative responses?

No, it has not.  The tone is not as ascerbic as it was on the yahoogroup yet, but many of the stock responses that were issued then are reproduced now.  As I mention above, excusing this by a sort of simultaneous in-game/meta-game relativism is not, to me, satisfying at all.

There's a consistent level of ambiguity: it's been established that the Arkat/Nysalor/Gbaji problem is due to the two antagonists being the mythical embodiments of enlightened truth and elightened deception. That being a given, the truth of the conflict cannot be known.

OK, now this is more the meat of my question.  In the HeroWARS impress, there is no discussion of how this is to be understood and used at either level.  These contradictory positions, mechanically validated by magic, are simply stated.  I am not armed with some sort of explanation of how or if those contradictions are to be resolved.  How I, as a GM, are to use in a game these contradictions in the game world.  So my question is, has this been addressed in the HeroQUEST impress?  You say "it has been established", but has that been established in the HW/HQ material?

I am not asking for everything to be fixedly true in all respects.  But if the game is intended to have ambiguity as a feature rather than a bug, then some discussion of that ambiguity, and how it is to be used, should be present.  Without such an explanation, the setting is just contradictory and that is all.  It is  quite possible for a game text, directed at persons inside the game world, to be contradictory, ambiguous, or downright lies.  But the GM's information at the metagame level should not be inconsistent or contradictory without an explicit discussion of how to use it.  Has that as yet been addressed?

[pete_darby]

Okay, this has been adressed, maybe not explicitly as you'd like, but it has.

1) YGWV, which started as Your Game May Vary, finally in the HQ book as Your Glorantha Will Vary.

2) Don't recall exactly whether this was in any rulebooks, but the common response from Greg and others over this question of "in the Prax book it says this, in the Orlanthi book it says that" is "determining which viewpoint wins out over the other is one of points of a Gloranthan campaign. That's where the stories are."

3) Various of the myths are a bit of a clue: the conflicts between Orlanth and the Red Moon, or Arkat and Nysalor, or the fall of the Godlearners all seem to me to be stories of competing philosophies of the nature of Glorantha reified through manipulation of myth. I always thought the background of the world was always saying that ambiguities and opportunities to interact with the mythological nature of the world are features, not screwups.

You're disappointed by stock answers, but they've become stock answers because they fit with Glorantha as played and enjoyed by everyone answering you, not because of some cliquey Gloranthan heirarchy

What are the assumptions about RW myths that we have that you feel are mistaken? Because if, as I suspect, Glorantha is built on those assumptions, then nothing we say about the "official" version of Glorantha is going to allay your concerns. YGWV.

[joshua neff]

It's #2 that is the reason I like the ambiguity of the Glorantha material as presented. Generally, I'm with Gareth--I want my setting material presented definitively to make gaming easier. White Wolf has an annoying tendency to make setting details undefined in a way that makes using the setting somewhat frustrating (at least for me). But with Glorantha, the ambiguity is precisely where a lot of story is, & I like that.

[Nick Brooke]

Line by line replies, like negative empty posts, are not only No Fun but are also a violation of Forge etiquette: I'll stick to the meat, and urge Gareth to do likewise.

the tenuous nature of the imaginative construct that is RPG makes doubt and uncertainty a severe, potentially fatal, problem.

I disagree, and so do many others; given your reception in other forums, I suspect you'd agree this is "most others" in the Gloranthan community.

If I understand you correctly, you are saying (1) you would find it impossible to play any game in a modern setting without first knowing who shot JFK (regardless of how relevant this was to the game you were playing), and (2) that the answer given by the setting's designer (whether it be Lee Harvey Oswald, the Mafia, the Cthulhu Cult, the Illuminati, or whatever) should be adhered to by all groups using that setting (or, contrariwise, that if you didn't like that answer, you shouldn't use that setting).

I'm saying that if it ever became relevant to my game (and I don't imagine it would), I'd want to run with my answer -- the one that suited my players, my scenario, my campaign -- rather than blindly follow whatever the designer thought would work best when they used that setting. The closer you get to actual play, the further you should be getting from the published setting, in my opinion.

(More theatrically: are you trying to use the game's setting for a Tragedy, a Comedy or a History? And would you require exactly the same background to be in force for each of these modes, every time you attempted it, or would you vary it according to the needs of your game? Was Richard III a Good Man, a Bad Man, a hunchback, a proto-fascist -- or was Elizabeth I's reign a time of courtly romance, religious intrigue, slapstick farce, or piratical derring-do -- now pick one, and only one, then never discuss or explore the alternatives).

there is doubt and uncertainty IN the game, and also doubt and uncertainty about which bits are doubtful or uncertain.

In context, this presumably means you couldn't work out whether there was any intended ambiguity in the Arkat/Gbaji/Nysalor triangle. This leaves me rather confused, as I can't imagine which Gloranthan sources could have led you to imagine this. If you believe that this issue (or e.g. the nature of the gods, the secret of the God Learners, etc.) has ever been presented sans doubt and uncertainty, please let me know where (NB: the key sources are probably available on Issaries' website; reviewing my piece on Whatever Happened to the One True Glorantha? may lend some perspective to this).

Clue: there is no shortage of intentional doubt and uncertainty in Glorantha. It is usually blindingly obvious when it appears. It is positively encouraged in Hero Wars and HeroQuest (cf. "cool and ambiguous references," in the hero creation rules).

Not if they are in dispute amongst fictional people in a fictional world.  When they are in dispute among real players of the game in the real world, then yes, I do.

I wouldn't describe the (presumably ideal) Gloranthan community you're envisaging here as particularly "vibrant." But maybe you see exploring a setting through discussion as necessarily disputatious. For my part, I know I've learned a lot about Glorantha by talking to and corresponding with other, more creative people, and learning from them by sharing ideas -- but if there's no room for real people interested in a fictional world to discuss (or indeed "dispute") any aspects of that world, then what happens to the community... and, eventually, to the setting and the game?

(More lyrically: what room is there for heroes, or for Hero Wars, if the world is set in stone and holds no secrets or surprises?)

I am not armed with some sort of explanation of how or if those contradictions are to be resolved.  How I, as a GM, are to use in a game these contradictions in the game world.

It's one of the first and most prominent boxed bits in the HeroQuest rulebook - YGWV - Your Glorantha Will Vary. See p.3 of this PDF (83 kb).

Do you have a problem with that? If so, you're probably not cut out for gaming in Glorantha. (And I'm genuinely sorry about that). But issue #3 in The Forge as a Community probably applies if you want to keep arguing: as I wouldn't ever choose to game with you, then why on earth should I worry about the kind of games you'd prefer to play (esp. as these evidently aren't being published)?

"Live and let live," sez I: and isn't that what YGWV is all about, after all?

Cheers, Nick

[simon_hibbs]

Simon hibbs wrote:

No more than we in our world know for sure exactly how and why Kennedy was assasinated, and Arkat died hundreds of years ago. Are you seriosuly suggestign a setting is bad because some of the events in it's history are in dispute?

Not if they are in dispute amongst fictional people in a fictional world.  When they are in dispute among real players of the game in the real world, then yes, I do.

So there should be no historical fact in Glorantha that is not defined, and therefore no scope whatsoever for referees to excercise their own creativity and run the game the way they want? Would our world be a better world if there was only one possible film or TV show that could be made about JFK's assassination, and no other story of what happened could be told? Which would you choose, the JFK (film of that name) version, the one in Dark Skies? The one in the Red Dwarf episode? Which of these do you think poison our enjoyment, and which _one_ of them should be the only one?

In Glorantha there are many competing theories about Arkat, and the evidence is not clearly in favour of any one of them. Does that make Glorantha unrealistic, given that there are plenty of similar situations in our world?

Not if I, as the GM required to make rules calls and decisions, have a clear grounding in the fact of that ambiguity, and how I am to resolve it, and whether or not a later publivcation will invalidate my solution.  Absent these things, it is a problem, yes.

What has this got to do with rules? How do the rules of the game change if one version is correct and another is false? If I run it a different way in my game than you do in yours, is your game realy damaged because of that? Would the answer be different if it wasn't my game that differed from yours but Greg Staffords? If so, why?

All of roleplaying is about asking the question "What if?". 'What if' I were fighting the lUnars, how woudl I do it? 'What if' our party attaempts to sto Jar Eel from assassinating the Pharaoh? 'What if' we ally with the trolls and sack Furthest? Every campaign asks different questions and every group finds their own answers because the players, acting theough their characetrs, make different choices than those others would make. My running of the Cradle scenario might turn out totaly different for yours, so your Glorantha will vary from mine, or Nick's or Greg Staffords.

That is inevitable and healthy, and enhances our fun. Saying 'you can't ask that question', or 'that way to play it is wrong' only damages it. Even the established facts of Glorantha are up for grabs if you want to play it differently, so why shouldn't there be some areas where no definitive answer is given in the first place?


Simon Hibbs

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

We have just reached the point in this thread when the desire to convince the other person, as well as to Appear More Right, has overtaken the debate.

The actual positions in the debate are clear, and I acknowledge Simon and Nick for their solid presentations. But challenging one another to "top this" needs to stop. And the debate, in and of itself, has long passed out of the topic for this thread.

So it's time for this thread to be closed. Please take any remaining valid points (see the key concepts in my Sticky) to new threads.

Best,
Ron