While people are discussing what they'd like to see in a new Glorantha game, I'd thought I'd throw a few clacks into the pot...
As others have mentioned, I'd consider the game a sucess if it contains a relatively simple and consistent set of mechanics that scale *well* across the levels of competence of *all* interesting Glorathan actors. Heroquesting isn't SuperRunequesting. Fine. Just give us a system that will model what it *is*, and in which one can play characters of the order of Snodal, the Red Emperor, or Janisor. Nowhere in the system should there appear a phrase like "this is a terror utterly beyond the capabilites of the players, but we thought we'd throw in some stats so they'd know how insignificant they are."
The game should be about Glorantha. Seems pretty obvious, eh? But if people will be saying things like "Healing is more effective in the game than it is in Glorantha." then I will consider the game a failure.
Speaking of Glorathan fidelity, I hope that some of the playtesters are people who don't care about it at all. Rules raping powerhungery munchkins may be annoying, but if they can't break your system, no one can.
Sorcery and Eastern Mysticism might not appear in the
core rules, but when the rules ship the game designers should
already have a clear idea how they (and all syncretic
combinations) would be integrated into the core. Also, at
some point, it'd be nice if the East and West were more fully
developed. Kralori is a vague "China-like" smudge at the
present, and Malkionism sometimes seems like little more than a
convenient place to dump all the unpleasant baggage of
Judeo-Christian monotheism and European philosophy. But both are
ancient civilisations, with "their own cosmic secrets".
It would be nice if the the emotional and spiritual importance of belonging to cults was highlighted. In the real world many people participate in religions for reasons other than getting their swords magically sharper. Runequest was a ground breaking game in this territory, but the new game can be even stronger.
(Maybe I should give an example. From time to time people will complain that, say, the cult of Babeestor Gor gets magic that is way too useful. Logically, they'll say, every warrior would want to join this cult, but we know this isn't the case, therefore the write-up is wrong. It would be nice if after reading the nextgen description, people were left feeling: "Gee, worshiping Babeestor Gor is a pretty harsh and tough thing to do, worshiping Ernalda is much more emotionally rewarding. But I can see why some few people are drawn to it - --to fight victimisation.")
It'd be nice if the combat system had lots of interesting tactical choices, but that it were possible to resolve combat faster than it is in RQ.
Mark
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