The whole idea behind MGF was that Glorantha is only useful as we (that's ALL OF YOU and ME) actually use it. It is not a real world. It has no existence apart from what we write about it and the stories and games we make up with it. People who write scholarly articles based on minutae they find in fanzine articles that have been out of print for 25 years are missing the point. <sam-kinnison-mode> IT'S A GAME! </sam-kinnison-mode> It's nice to make pieces of it unique, and to have kooky animals and plants that demonstrate real-world principles of biology, but it's better to concentrate on making it fun for everybody. And by everybody I mean men and women, adults and children, not just power-tripping adolescent males. I think Glorantha can be fun for all these people, and that MGF expresses this better than MCI and MLTGF and MLD. Sometimes a short concept expresses something better than a legalistic list of concepts for every eventuality. It's certainly easier to remember.
And I don't think that exploding ulerian were-hobbits or little- -all-in-a-row-hack-n-slay-the-monsters games are an example of maximum game fun, any more than a no-combat campaign with all the PCs as desperate KOW peasants tapped to idiocy would be fun.
PCs as your basic unintelligent gorp, a la Creeks and Crawdads, might be fun though. That is a MGF idea that doesn't require much roleplay, uses a lot of rolling, and is very silly. Say PCs are gorp with one extraordinary ability each, and they are very dumb. Whenever they experience something different they need to roll dice to see if they attack, flee, or get to do something else. "You see a broo." "I eat!"
Q: On what level of Gloranthan reality is the gorp campaign fun?
4L A: Not on the transcendental or emic level, perhaps on the etic level, on the story level, and definitely on the game level.
MLD A: Gorp aren't fun. Not enough diversity.
MCI A: Gorp aren't fun. They're just bashing monsters.
MLTGF A: Gorp aren't fun. They get soooooo boring after 6 months of play.
MGF A: Who cares?! Feed me! Give me to eat!
Now I have to admit, having satirized John's words, that I agree with his essential point, that it is valuable to go beyond your basic high adventure and action plots. But how? I see that Chaosium occasionally writes plots that go beyond the cliches, but for CoC and Elric!, not for RuneQuest or Glorantha. This is what I want John to turn his formidable intellect to, the question of how to get more out of the game than just action. How do you get beyond a steady diet of action cliches while keeping it fun? How do you develop your group of players to get past the cliches, without losing their interest and having them leave your game for "Magic: The Gathering" or DOOM?
Is there a story structure that is recognizably Gloranthan, that conveys the mystery of the place, its loony California sense of humor, its cruelty and viciousness, and the love that infuses the place? How can we use that story structure in a roleplaying campaign? How do you tell that story? What story structure can carry this load?
I have a feeling that if you can answer this question you will have lead us to the Tanelorn of RuneQuest players everywhere: Universally usable HeroQuest rules.
whoah!
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End of Glorantha Digest V2 #251
WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html
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