Hesitance towards Glorantha as a Setting

[Brand_Robins]

To 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.

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

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.)

But 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 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 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 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.

[joshua neff]

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.

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.

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.

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.

[Brand_Robins]

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.

[Bankuei]

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

[Emmerson]

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.

[Brand_Robins]

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.

At the risk of making an AOLer post...

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

[contracycle]

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.

[Mike Holmes]

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

[buserian]

Bankuei wrote:

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.

Where are you going to post/publish it?

buserian

[doubtofbuddha]

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

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).

[simon_hibbs]

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.

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

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!

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.

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.

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

[Brand_Robins]

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:

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.

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.

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 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.

[Bankuei]

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.

[Donald]

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.

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,

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.

[soru]

.
...

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

soru