Bell Digest v930503

From runequest Wed May  5 12:26:22 1993
From news@glorantha Mon May  3 17:16:54 1993
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From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer)
To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest)
Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily)
Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Mon, 03 May 1993, part 1
Precedence: junk
Status: O

This is the automated Daily RuneQuest Digest.

Send submissions only to "RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM", they
will automatically be included in a next issue.  Try to change the
~Subject: line from the default Re: RuneQuest Daily...  on replying.

Selected articles may also appear in a regular Digest.  If you 
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--
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The RuneQuest Daily is a spin-off of the RuneQuest Digest and deals
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~From: tzunder@cix.compulink.co.uk (Tom Zunder)
~Subject: Style
Message-ID: 
~Date: 1 May 93 15:47:56 GMT


I know, dark horror/future is in.

SO

When you commission Dorastor cover art, have a morbid, gothic illo just
like White Wolf use on their games.

Fantasy Role Playing in the Pit of Horror!

Might work..

Of course it should have a pretty striking and horrifically gothic cover
anyway when I tghink about it..

--------------------------------------------------------------------
                                        tzunder@cix.compulink.com.uk 
                                                   How Illuminating!
--------------------------------------------------------------------



---------------------

~From: peterw@computer-science.manchester.ac.uk (Peter Wake)
~Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Sat, 01 May 1993, part 1
Message-ID: <9305012231.AA28954@r2.cs.man.ac.uk>
~Date: 1 May 93 22:31:37 GMT

At first I found it hard to believe that RoC had sold poorly.
Why?  Because every shop I know that got copies in sold out of them in
a the first two days.  Virgin in Manchester sold out very fast.  I had
to get my copy from a friend who lives in Stoke.

However none of these shops seem to be reordering so I guess that is
why sales are bad.  Virgin sold out and they haven't had any more.
They don't seem to realise that they could be selling this product.
I think RoC would sell if it were in the shops.  If it hadn't been for
TotRM/this list I wouldn't know it existed.

Runequest cannot sell unless it is promoted.  I also think that to
compete in the current market the standards of layout and artwork
still must improve.  People say RoC and Sun County were great, but I
used to do layout work and editing and I do not think they were
anything more than workmanlike (all the best art was from the old
packs; old stuff was redrawn no better; colour was used not to convey
information but for the sake of it; the dot stippling was like a bad
rash, I could go on) and with poor production values courtesy of AH.
The amount of gloss and glitz is not everything but every little helps
to sell the product.  AH need to look at the new stuff for Vampire and
equal it in production value.  I'm not saying that I prefer WW but
their stuff looks good on the surface and that means a lot when you're
trying to sell a game to people that don't really know what's in it.
The RQ die-hards will buy whatever the art look like, but Joe
Cyberpunk player doesn't know s**t about Runequest and won't buy it
unless it looks cool.  This goes twice over for first time rpg buyers.
Runequest art has improved since Eldarad and those other art turkeys
but it still doesn't cut it with Shadowrun, AD&D, Cyberpunk or WW.

Runequest doesn't have the monopoly on quality background and scenario
material that it once had.  There is so much stuff out there now, from
Talislanta and the Skyrealms of Jorune to GURPS and Vampire.
Runequest needs to use every trick in the book to compete.

Ken has said in the past that AH cannot afford artists and glossy
covers.  That he would rather spend the money on putting out a new
supplement or paying a writer.  I agree that substance should be
treasured over style, that Ken is making the best choise he can.  I
also believe that if AH do not put money into RQ they will not get
the market back.  Perhaps Chaosium sold the rights to the wrong company.
If AH can only afford to put out two or three packs a year, and those
with mediocre production values then perhaps it is time to try and get
AH to sell their rights to someone prepared to put the money in.
--
Peter Wake

---------------------

~From: awr0@aberystwyth.ac.uk
~Subject: CD-ROM
Message-ID: <9305021548.AA23044@deca.aber.ac.uk>
~Date: 2 May 93 17:48:55 GMT

There is one big big big problem with CD-ROM, the cost of the machines that
are needed to use them. There would also be a problem with it's flexibility.
Do you go to your club/place of RQ worship and bring your PC with you?

Get real. If AH are going to release something, a battle simulator for RQ
battles would be better, so that a GM could quite happily accurately move 
people around a play area, but then again that's also a lot of effort which
is quite happily taken care of by simple grid maps and lead figures.

Adam Reynolds.


---------------------

~From: seh0@aberystwyth.ac.uk
~Subject: Err.....CD Rom?
Message-ID: <9305021549.AA23055@deca.aber.ac.uk>
~Date: 2 May 93 17:49:00 GMT


Err....if Sun County and River of Cradles aren't selling well as books that 
anyone can use, how likely is it that they will make enough money selling 
CD-Rom with gear on it to an even more limited market?

If I was working at AH, I wouldn't touch the idea with a barge-pole.  Too 
much risk, not enough reward.

Arrivaderci

Stephen M Hunt
Better Red Than Dead

---------------------

~From: paul@phyast.pitt.edu
~Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Sat, 01 May 1993, part 1
Message-ID: <9305022037.AA05150@bondi.phyast.pitt.edu>
~Date: 2 May 93 20:37:15 GMT


A few things:

1.  Is there an email address for Tales of the Reaching Moon?

2.  New Disease: 

  Aura Rot, or Gloranthan Leprosy, is a variant of Soul Waste which eats away
portions of a person's aura.  

Etiology:  The aura is thought to represent the image of the
body on the Spirit Plane, and the symptoms of the disease reflect this.
First a blemish will appear on the person's aura, visible with Second Sight.  
The blemish will soon blacken and that portion of the aura will disappear.  This
breaks the connection of that portion of the body with the person's spirit and
she can no longer feel anything in the affected area.  The infection spreads
slowly inwards and those parts where feeling has been lost will sicken, die, and
fall off.  Because the underlying pattern for regeneration has been lost, 
Regeneration will not restore the lost members.  The progress of the disease is 
thought to be irreversible.  

Epidemiology:

  The disease is difficult to catch.  Those exposed to it through close contact
over an extended period, (including attempts to Cure Disease or cast Touch 
spells on the affected person) have a +5 to their
POW on attempts to resist the progress of the disease.  Those in merely casual
contact have an effective +10.   and difficult to get rid of.  "Common 
Knowledge" states that the disease is incurable - even many healers believe
this.  It is in fact difficult to cure, with a -25% on all attempts to Cure
Disease.  Treat Disease may slow the progress of Aura Rot, but will not cure it
unless a critical success is made.  The disease will occasionally burn itself 
out (with a critical success on a CON roll).  Divine Intervention will burn out
the disease but if its progress has gone too far the affected person will die
(albeit free of the disease.)

  Most societies look with horror on those affected by this disease and cast 
them out of their communities.  Afflicted Sun Domers are sent to medititation
towers.  Orlanthi cast them out as wanderers but are required to give alms to
the afflicted, usually throwing less-desirable food items over the stockade to
them.  Only a few Healers are willing to tackle this disease because of the
high chance of catching it themselves.

  We used this disease in a little scenario, testing how charitable people were
and how much faith they had in their Gods.  If people are interested this could be described.

---------------------

~From: paul@phyast.pitt.edu
~Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Sat, 01 May 1993, part 1
Message-ID: <9305022106.AA05153@bondi.phyast.pitt.edu>
~Date: 2 May 93 21:06:23 GMT



Notes on the Etyries Cult

  Etyries, daughter (or cultist) of Issaries, embraced the Lunar Way and
traded her way to Godhood.  Her cult has many interesting customs, some Lunar,
some derived from Issaries, and some all her own.

{\em  Counting and Bookkeeping:}
   Etyries temples, like those of Issaries, usually feature a counting board on
display in the central area.  This is a checkerboard on which tokens (sometimes
elaborately carved and decorated) are used to represent temple assets and
acquisitions.  A typical board will be ten by ten, with position on the lowest
row used to represent 0-9 items, second row 0 - 90, etc.  Different types of
token represent different assets (bushel of bloodbean, Lunars, etc.) and squares are large enough to hold many tokens.  Cult
initiates have the duty of updating the Big Board.  At the end of the trading
day the records on the board are checked against the written records and every
week (ideally) Inventory is taken.  Some larger temple will hold Inventory only
once a season.

  Cult Books are kept on the same system as the counting board.  In order to
avoid erasing and rewriting each pair of facing pages in a Book will have a
pictorial representation of a Credit Board (things coming in) and a Debit Board
(things going out).  Credits and debits are entered with amounts and dates.  In
an Issaries Book, credits are entered in black ink and debits in red 
(representing their Life Blood leaking away) ; in an Etyries Book the practice 
is reversed.  Some merchants keep their books in a sort of code, with 
hieroglyphs of their own devising representing different goods.  

  Due to the Lunar love of duplicate records, Etyries books are kept in a 
system known as "double entry" invented either by the goddess herself or a
cult hero of the same name.  Issaries keep to their traditional methods.

  Etyries merchants are happily embracing a portable version of the Counting
Board supposedly introduced by cultists trading with Kralorela; this is a
device which uses sliding beads on a set of wires instead of tokens on a 
checkerboard.  While this device cannot represent different goods at the same
time, its portability and ease of use have assured its adoption in the cult.
Issaries merchants either continue to resist its introduction, or have not yet
puzzled out its secrets.  It is rumored that some of these 'suan-pan' are 
inhabited by Spirits of Arithmetic.

{\em  Trade Practices:}

  Etyries cultists, associated with a single continent-straddling Empire, are
much more conscious of their cult's image than are Issaries, each largely 
independent.  Thus a cult bureaucracy has grown up to enforce more-or-less
fair trade practices throughout the cult.  Guidelines on dealing with primitive
peoples (such as Orlanthi) are disseminated in the _Handbook of Exploitation_,
a trade manual.  This red-leather bound book sets standards of fair dealing and
penalties for "extortionate" trade practices.  It all boils down to the First
Rule:

  Deals are to be entered into freely on both sides, with both sides benefitting
in some way.

  The Second Rule:
  Deals should include listed penalties for non-compliance.


More on Etyries available if desired.

 - Paul

---------------------

~From: mace@lum.asd.sgi.com (Rob Mace)
~Subject: RQ direction
Message-ID: <9305030753.AA18871@lum.asd.sgi.com>
~Date: 2 May 93 17:53:55 GMT

MILLERL@WILMA.WHARTON.UPENN.EDU (Loren J. Miller) writes:
>
> mace@lum.asd.sgi.com (Rob Mace) writes in response to Ken Rolston:
> > Ken, doesn't your focus on entry-level products, not fit with your
> > statement that people that don't have RQ2 stuff are not a big market.
> 
> Rob has a good point. I would take it the other direction, though. Rob
> doesn't think that entry level scenarios, such as RoC and Sun County,
> appeal to seasoned RQ players because they repeat old material. I
> agree, somewhat, but think that longtime players will still buy them
> because they want the relatively small proportion of new material
> *and* they don't want to ruin their valuable old collectors' items.

Some of the old RQ players like myself will buy them.  But a lot more
will not.  Of the RQ players I know (all old timers) about 30% bought
RoC and SC.  About 80-90% bought GoG and Glorantha.  The reason for this
was the major lack of new info except for the beginning scenarios.  Also,
it is not just the fact that the scenarios were beginning.  Most old
gamers I know are not that interested in buying scenarios.  They have
been playing long enough that they don't have problems coming up with
their own.

> Rob concludes that AH should concentrate on deep background and
> advanced scenarios because that will appeal to the longtime RQ
> players. I think this is an important market segment to attack, but
> it's only a significant market in England, the rest of europe, and in
> Australia. There are too few active RQ players in the US to support
> these kinds of products. Read the Petersen interview (or was it a
> Stafford interview?) in TotRM for background on this. To sell in the
> US you will need introductory products that appeal to new RQ players,
> and you'll need to promote RQ3 so that new RQ players can find copies
> easily.

I agree with the idea that RoC and SC are better for attracting new
players.  I just found Ken's assertion that new players was not a
big market, to be in conflict with what he was publishing.

I want RQ to succeed, and not die.  For it to do that it need to make
money for AH.  If that means publishing products such as RoC and SC, 
then I am all for it.  I would rather RQ live and publish stuff that
is not the ultimate in what I want to see, then to have it die.  However
if these are not the types of products that are going to bring in the
sales then I think Ken should make a change.

> The old
> scenarios are perfect for beginners, and they are collectors items
> that longtime players would also purchase so that they don't have to
> get their pristine copies of Cults of Prax all dog-eared. The old
> scenarios would not be dogs, they would not sit on the shelf, they
> would sell to both groups. The only people who might lose money would
> be the profiteers who have hoarded copies of the old scenarios and
> force people who want to use them in games to pay collectors' prices.

And those poor people that bought from one of the profiteers just before
the repint came out.  Before the Troll Pack reprint I saw copies of the
original sell for $70 and saw asking prices of $150.  At the last DunDraCon
an original copy was in the dealers room for $20 and did not sell.

> > You mentioned to me at DunDraCon that Sun County, and RoC had not sold
> > any better then Daughter's and Eldarad.  Perhaps this is one of the
> > reasons.
> 
> I think the reason why Sun County and RoC didn't sell is because RQ
> has been invisible for so long that nobody except the fanatics pay it
> any attention.

But why did they not sell better then Daughter's and Eldarad?

> Hell, I couldn't convince *THE COMPLEAT STRATEGIST* to
> even order ONE COPY of ROC so that I could buy it.

At least around here(SF Bay area, California) it is not that bad.  Here
RQ just gets poor shelf space so you have to search for it.


Adrian Brownlow writes:
> By the way I like the idea of cults being printed in a separate booklet,
> unfortunately this means that you'd have to do boxed sets and I hate boxed
> sets.

I also liked the idea, and I don't think it would mean boxed sets.  They
could be shrink rapped just like the maps were in RoC.

Rob Mace





---------------------

~From: mace@lum.asd.sgi.com (Rob Mace)
~Subject: being 'Gregged'
Message-ID: <9305030932.AA18927@lum.asd.sgi.com>
~Date: 2 May 93 19:32:42 GMT

Ken Rolston writes:
> "STAFFORD (AND OTHER PROFESSIONALS) HAVE TO GET THE STUFF I NEED INTO PRINT.
> THIS IS HIS WORLD. IT'S HIS RESPONSIBILITY TO MAKE IT WORK."
>    I am only slightly ironic here. Greg and the rest of us has created the
> problem of a complex, detailed fantasy setting, and in many ways we bear the
> responsibility for keeping campaigns going in Glorantha fandom.
>    However, I have great respect for people like Steve Maurer and Steve Marsh
> who have taken responsibility for their visions of Glorantha, and who have
> developed them themselves for their own campaigns. Our local variant RQII
> campaign set in 1580 in Sartar is the best FRP gaming I've done in years --
> and all our GM had to start it on was the map in TotRM 6 and assorted
> fragments from ancient supplements. Glorantha's greatest fault  is its tragic
> capacity to strangle creative thought. I'd like to see discussions of the
> various ways that folks have managed to get the Gloranthan Dogma monkey off
> their backs.

I have been playing in Steve Maurer's campaign for 11 years so I will give
this a shot.  First however I think it is useful to talk a bit about why
people have found it desirable to not be 'Gregged'.  Here are some reasons
I know of.

   Even if you say "Well that is not how it is in my campaign." you will
   end up making a potentially sizable portion of some product you just
   bought useless.

   Saying "Well that is not how it is in my campaign." means that the
   way it is in my campaign is not the way it is in anyone elses
   campaign.  Lots of RQ GM's would like to see their stuff published
   and having it contradict what Greg comes out with means that it
   probably never will be.

   Having basically one Glorantha has been great for cross campaign
   fertilization.  The San Francisco Bay Area where I live is probably
   one of the few areas left in the US with a good concentration of
   RQ gamers.  I guess this is because Chaosium is here.  A lot of
   Glorantha campaigns started separately here and over the years a
   number of them have developed into a sort of Glorantha meta-campaign.
   Five of the players in Steve's current group also GM Glorantha and
   both the events and characters from their campaigns have moved back
   and forth to create this meta-campaign.  What made it possible for
   all these campaigns to come together years after they were started,
   was the strong consistent Gloranthan base.

However, in the end all one can do when 'Gregged' is say "Well that is
not how it is in my campaign." or make the events/facts merge as best
as possible.

I think people here at least stopped worrying about being 'Gregged'
when they realized that it was inevitable.  This is because even
if nothing that you add to Glorantha gets contradicted old published
things will get contradicted by new things.  This has happened for
a few reasons I know of.  Sometimes Greg has changed his mind.  Other
times he has forgotten what was published before.  I know this was
the case with the new origin of Wyverns in Elder Secrets.

So we try our best to stay consistent, at least in flavor, with what
has been published and what we know.  And we don't swet it to much
when something changes.  By this point we have had to go through it
many times already.

Rob Mace

P.S.  RQ3 was a huge blow to cross campaign fertilization.  Before RQ3
one could go to a con, ask for a characters in the say 75%-90% range,
and know what you were going to get.  Because RQ3 got rid of things
like stacking limits, and because of all the ways people patched things
like sorcery, you could not tell what you were going to get.  This
made it much harder to run con games.  I think that since a lot of
people get interested in new games by seeing them run at cons, that
this was one of the contributors to the downfall of RQ.