British vs. West Coast play of Runequest

[Ian Cooper]

Hi Ron,

I am curious to uncover more behind your assertion in a couple of posts that British  Runequest play became 'a wargame' and differed from West Coast play which included narrativism. How did you see this manifested? Being British I am curious to see how you feel West Coast play differed.

I confess immediately that as an ex-Runequest player Hero Wars was a revelation to me in 'how to lay a game' (and a liberation), but it was a challenging jump at first. I wonder if this difference in play style made the transition trickier here.

Ian Cooper

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Ian,

I've taken the liberty of moving this discussion to the Hero Wars forum.

Good question, and I'll be the first to admit that a lot of my thinking on this topic is based on circumstantial evidence. Some of the components or impressions involved, some or all of which may be flawed, are as follows.

1) In various snippets or side-comments in the main texts, Stafford mentions that his 1970s RQ players tended to want to kill things and act like outlaws, contrary to his intentions of play. That's cited as one of the reasons he moved them out of Dragon Pass and up north to the Griffin Mountain area.

Now, he kept playing, and if later work like The Haunted Ruins is any indication, a much more Narrativist or create-theme oriented approach to play got going. (Granted, THR might have come earlier; I don't know. It does represent his preferred mode of play, from the horse's mouth.) I'd cite Prince Valiant as a sure-fire indicator that he was aiming in this direction.

2) I knew a lot of people in the San Francisco Bay Area during the late 70s and early 80s, as I grew up near there, and the gamers were all RuneQuest-heads. Why? The mystical-magic theme stuff was a big deal to them, and they cared greatly about their nascent Rune Lords' personal mythologies.

3) I've read a hell of a lot of websites and supplements built from the British mode of play, and much of it seems be concerned with the movement and feeding of troops, and figuring out just where Fazzur camped on what hilltop on what date. A great deal of it seems to be similarly concerned with 'porting real/historical armies and battles into Gloranthan history (e.g. Tarsh War with its Russian basis, down to the furry hats).

Same goes for a lot of the stuff I find in term of Lunar material specifically - the Brits seem very happy to catalogue units and platoons and insignia for the whole friggin' Lunar Army, with very little emphasis on the idea of a Lunar hero in a saga. Whereas the Californians are, to a man, rabid Orlanthi rebels with a one-man, one-saga kind of attitude.

AGAIN
I freely admit that all of this is circumstantial. It's built completely on a high-altitude, pattern-based approach, using many different sorts of observations. Not only are exceptions possible ("My pal Nigel from Liverpool is a total Hero Wars kind of guy!") ("My pal Tex from Dallas is a total crunchozoid crit-hit RuneQuest kind of guy!") but my generalizations may be incorrect.

Best,
Ron

[Ian Cooper]

It's late. So I hope this makes some sense. It rambles between a personal history and some thoughts on gaming and national character.

Well my knowledge of West Coast games is just as limited. Strangely my perception from this side of the pond was that there on the West Coast there were a lot of so-called 'farmer-campaigns', focusing on clan-level Orlanthi events of ordinary individuals in strained circumstances often drawing their inspiration from Icelandic sagas. Might be a misconception here too. It was a style of play that seemed particularly popular after King of Sartar.

There was, to me, schizophrenia in the direction suggested by various campaign supplements as to the preferred style of play. Borderlands and Dorastor, which centered on campaigns woven around communities struggling to make a place for themselves in the world conflicted with the Pavis based games which looked back to an older dungeon and looting style of game. Even in the presentation of the Haunted Ruins there is an obvious struggle, between the way Greg played it, with his rallying cry of 'Trolls have kin too' and a determination to prove that they were not just monsters but people, and its presentation as something of a dungeon crawl. There were always hints, such as the Sartar High Council, an early free form that appeared in Wyrms Footprints in which the players played the high council of the land, originally to show them the larger consequences of their action, but later to provide a different perspective. The hints were definitely always there that another mode of play was trying to escape. But the earlier supplements never seemed to have the courage to play that way, or maybe my friends and I were younger and had less idea how to play that way. Call of Cthulhu was far more influential in changing our style of play. Perhaps the gaming vocabulary was not defined them for Greg to show people how to play Glorantha that way.

Looking back to my play in the '80s though I do remember that Runequest became popular because it was perceived as more 'gritty and realistic'. It was I think a reaction to elements of D&D that seemed to gamist to adequately suspend disbelief. However grit and realism rapidly becomes equated with detail and complexity, which then became dominant. You refer I think to the 'exploration' of simulationist play (sorry new to some of your vocabulary) and I think that exploration of what it was to live in Glorantha, playing out day-to-day life seemed for a while to be the dominant mode of play here. A sort of Sim Glorantha. Some of the detail also came from fans who were no longer role players but readers of Glorantha and whose creative energy tended to be directed toward further defining the world by intellectual examination, not through play. The 'farmer-campaign' dominated. The bringing of historical detail into Glorantha began to emerge particularly when Greg was absent from it creatively, and I suspect has to do farm more with history providing a convenient yardstick and source for creativity than an attempt to 'wargame' Glorantha. But agreed I think that exploration of the mythology's meaning to the individual, of telling stories, was far less of a focus than a definition of your place in the larger historical context.

There is an aside here relating to what was happening in Australia, which was I believe different again, with fans like John Hughes who delved into the mythic side of Glorantha and sought to focus on its treatment of myth as unique and on telling stories, and Michael O' Brian with his mantra of Maximum Game Fun (MGF), but I suspect that belongs in a different post. We could also tangentially mention Robin Laws assertion that American gamers like to be conquering heroes and British gamers like to be survivors (reflected also, I think, in the difference between LoTR and S&S in the contributions to the genre produced by differing national character). We might suggest that has something to do with experiences in the Second World War or even earlier.

Partly because this was the dominant mode of play and partly because Games like Prince Valiant and Over The Edge seemed to pass us by on this side of the pond (well me anyway) the arrival of such a strongly narrativist system came as quite a shock to may old time RQ players, who were deeply simulationist, especially as Hero Wars did not seem to appreciate its audience might need a lot more schooling on the philosophy behind the game. Even now the official lists are filled with disappointed simulationist gamers trying to 'fix' Hero Wars as a simulationist game. More discussion is spent there on 'adjusting' mechanics than discussing telling the story.

I was liberated by the shift of focus to story from mechanics, even though I did not at first appreciate exactly what I was seeing, I recognized its direction. It brought me back into gaming after a period of absence, created by the failure of simulationist gaming to really engage me any more. I expect others might be liberated, if they understood what they were being offered. I learnt more about what Hero Wars was trying to say outside the traditional Gloranthan circles, even reading your own Sorcerer and Sword than I did amongst many of the fans who perhaps will be ironically the last to accept Greg's preferred way of play. I posted a link to this site there recently, in an attempt to broaden their perspective.

Mind you, I might not be typical I always preferred Lieber and Howard to Tolkein.

[Ron Edwards]

Ian,

My God. What a powerful post. I agree with every word, both temperamentally and in terms of my reactions/perceptions to the material you've mentioned.

Not much more to say, my friend. I think a link to this thread should be required reading.

Best,
Ron

[Ace]

Facinating post Ian.

Its interesting to me that "culture shock" about game styles cuts both ways.

When I bought the Hero Wars deluxe set and Anaxials roster a while back  and thinking "What the hell is this?"
When I started playing Runequest (back in 1982 I think) It was the first simulationist game system I ever saw. I was enthralled with that mode of play.

The new Hero Wars seemed like a totally different game to me and I must admit a bit of a disappointment to me both in presentation values and in tone.

I guess I  just missed the crunchiness of RQ2 and 3.

I think its too bad we can't switch player bases I would love to play with those old Sim grognards myself....

Anthony

[simon_hibbs]

Hi Ian,

3) I've read a hell of a lot of websites and supplements built from the British mode of play, and much of it seems be concerned with the movement and feeding of troops, and figuring out just where Fazzur camped on what hilltop on what date. A great deal of it seems to be similarly concerned with 'porting real/historical armies and battles into Gloranthan history (e.g. Tarsh War with its Russian basis, down to the furry hats).

It may seem that way, but if you'd actualy had an opportunity to play Tarsh War or any of it's (unpublished) sequels, I think you would have a different impression.

It's true that several prominent contributors to the british RQ/Gloranthan fan world are history buffs (actualy professional historians in several cases) and so the 'period' detail is pretty good, but the style of play is solidly in the freeform/heroic action mould. This is 'Zulu' and 'The Four Feathers' cinematic action adventure in a military setting, not tabletop miniatures hell.

The people we are talking about here are also among the same group that wrote the freeform games "How the west was one", "Home of
the Bold" and "Life of Moonson". If anything rules-light freeform gaming as the movers and shakers of Glorantha are the hallmarks of British gloranthan gaming, more than militarism or gamism.

Same goes for a lot of the stuff I find in term of Lunar material specifically - the Brits seem very happy to catalogue units and platoons and insignia for the whole friggin' Lunar Army, with very little emphasis on the idea of a Lunar hero in a saga. Whereas the Californians are, to a man, rabid Orlanthi rebels with a one-man, one-saga kind of attitude.

Have you actualy read Tarsh War? It's hard to believe you have. Roleplaying Lunar heroes is exactly what it's about. Saga? There are two sequels to Tarsh War that have been run at a number of conventions, following the continuing exploits of the main characters, to their deaths and even beyond the grave. (I consider my exploits as a undead General Thrax in the frozen wastes of Pent, sacrificing my troops for the greater good of the Empire, as a personal best in roleplaying experiences).

AGAIN
I freely admit that all of this is circumstantial. It's built completely on a high-altitude, pattern-based approach, using many different sorts of observations. Not only are exceptions possible ("My pal Nigel from Liverpool is a total Hero Wars kind of guy!") ("My pal Tex from Dallas is a total crunchozoid crit-hit RuneQuest kind of guy!") but my generalizations may be incorrect.

I can only cite the two best Gloranthan fanzines in print - Tales of The Reaching Moon and The Unspoken Word as final rebuttals. Greg has said many times that without the corps of British roleplayers keeping the flame alive through the 90s, Glorantha would still be dead. We didn't do that by making lists of armies.


Simon Hibbs

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Simon,

Oh my. Let's see ...

I've acknowledged that I'm not too sure about my generalization anyway. I could well be wrong; I addressed Ian's initial post out of curiosity and desire for feedback, not out of certainty or for purposes of accusation.

I used Tarsh War pretty extensively for some Hero Wars play. It shows a lot of the same features as, say, Griffin Mountain - one can squint and see that someone, somehow, had a lot of character-driven and story-heavy play going on, but mostly what's on the pages are portraits and lists of stuff. It translated well toward relationship-driven, moral-problem type play, but the effort of translation has to be made.

One difficulty here is that I'm not really talking about freeform vs. rules-heavy at all. My outlook doesn't equate the former with "story" and the latter with "wargame." So freeform-methods, present or absent, don't necessarily show or illustrate the kind of distinction in play that I'm after.

Another is that Tarsh War (and the community that generated its play) may well be a false example of the trend, and that trend might exist among another cohort of players entirely.

None of my posts have been aimed at discrediting or invalidating British role-playing in/about Glorantha, and please don't read them with that assumption clouding the communication.

Finally, if there's one thing I'm not really interested in getting into, it's the whole "More Greg than Thou" debate that often insinuates itself into Gloranthan discussions. I've got a bag of "Greg says ..." to dip into as well, and it won't get us anywhere to keep dipping into our bags and waving quotes at one another.

Best,
Ron