I do not want to put my nose in the argument between the GD gents about the current course of Glorantha (HW, RM et cetera). Not because I don't bother or because I don't want to argue with anyone. Simply because I didn't follow the whole Gloranthan Authors saga.
I'd like simply to tell you my "story" and impressions.
>From a customer's POV.
I met RQ3 in 1988 under the AHill management and bought many books from
Stratelibri. I was struck by the rules primarily (the RQ3 set of rules was
good and I already knew CoC, so I wished to play in another Chaosium
setting). _Later_ I was impressed by Glorantha (Generatela and Gods of G
were my favourite).
The real love began with Borderlands, an out of print boxed set of RQ2. In
the following years I bought other books and some fanzines (TotRM primarily)
but essentially I based much of the campaign on my _own_ work because I felt
_encouraged_ to do so from the style of Glorantha!!!
I blamed the lack of printing but, to say the truth, I always owned more
material than I needed. What I loved (and still love) in Glorantha is his
richness, open-minded attitude, his cultural perspective and
fantasy-realism.
I think that (after playing D&D, CoC, MSH and other games) the best thing
for a GameMaster/Narrator/Referee in Glorantha is the sense of freedom it
communicates. I would hate the adventure-modules in the D&D style where the
GM has simply to read aloud, throw dices and choose the spells to cast.
I feel encouraged to create and to be an author by the essence of Glorantha and I suspect that this was Greg's goal.
I have played for 12 years and I still feel that I could play for another
120 before exahusting the complexity and greatness of Glorantha.
Why? Because Greg is an incomparable genius? I don't think so (sorry Greg,
you may be a genius, I don't know: but I don't love Glorantha for that
reason).
I think that the reason-why Glorantha is Glorantha is that the ultimate
author are _myself and my friends_ and nothing which is written, canon or
discussed and debated in the GD, helpful as it may be, could force me to
adopt an idea I don't like (much like the Orlanthi laws, eh?).
We all wish for consistent/playable works, as customers. But as authors we are going to hate anything written by anyone else, or maybe by ourselves 5 years ago. The Glorantha Encyclopedia is a contradiction in terms and so we like it.
Equally we should not deny to others the right to be authors. Greg is the first but not the only author, I think. The RM boys are great authors but not the only ones. Martin Laurie is the author of SGU and that's all. He is not the Source of Everything Lunar.
I as a customer could buy TotRM and SGU, find them incompatible and think that this is a challenge: if I like both, to me is left the work to make them compatible. If I like only one I can discard the other source. If I like neither one, I can work out myself my Lunar Empire. e.g. I told that the Muslim parallel tickles me now, so I could use RW history as a source. Who would say that mine is not The Glorantha? And if he says, so what?
As a customer again, I am supposed to receive from the same source not contradictory material, but I stress here: _from the same source_. If I find that (for instance) SGU and TotRM are incompatible I should not cry "Scandal!", but I could choose (it's my right as a customer and the editors should be aware of that) to leave the Trademarked-Glorantha because it's "too incohesive". I have felt this temptation many times. In the end, if HW is going to be a mass-market game, incohesiveness is bad. The editors are trying to fix the contradictions, I suspect, in order to make the whole game more sellable. This I would do if I were in their shoes, at least.
Perhaps we should ask ourselves if we want to help Glorantha, and I say: leave arguments and contradictions aside, learn tolerance before criticism. Or if we want to help ourselves, our private Glorantha and our own vision: in this case arguments and debates will be endless...
Ok: I have tried to express my ideas. The result is not great, I am afraid.
Be patient with me ;-)
Feel free to ask for any explanation.
Ciao
Gianfranco
End of The Glorantha Digest V7 #583
Powered by hypermail