Oh well.
John, we are in a life ordeath situation here, so I hope you'll take the following words for their positiveness, not as any kind of aggression ...
:-(
John :
> Glorantha's setting and ethos reflect an essentially seventies gaming
> outlook, and this is showing more and more.
I completely disagree with this.
IMO the gaming public is now completely fragmented, wherever it isn't dominated by the d20 orthodoxy (that I Alas! contributed unwittingly to establish).
Our outlook is vehemently 21C, and that is why Glorantha has a restricted audience : because 21C is the mother of all dissensions ...
> This is not as obvious to
> those of us within the community, as a substantial majority of us
> started our gaming in the late seventies/ early eighties and have
> primarily travelled with RQ/BRP and the Chaosium stable. This outlook
> is reflected in the types of stories we tell, the apparent lack of a
> sustained interest in fiction beyond game mythology (not that I mind
> myths :)), and even in the style and type of artwork we share and use
> in our publications.
Speak for yourself.
For my part Glorantha is, has always been, and will always be a tool to improve my relationship with reality and literature and etc.
Mythology, art, stories, RQ, HW, HQ, publications, they're all just tools, and the kind of games I like narrating have very little to do with late seventies/ early eighties outlooks. Otherwise, I'd just be playing endless variations of "Munchrooms" ...
> Hero Wars jolted many of us into the nineties, but gaming has changed,
> and Glorantha has been increasingly slow in recognising, let alone
> addressing the fact.
I'm sorry, I disagree. Glorantha has been increasingly deprived of the necessary funds to address current RPG marketing needs.
> Glorantha is a ghetto, and the ghetto walls are getting higher all the
> time. The more familiar we become with Glorantha, the more we can
> delve deeper into its life and mysteries, but the learning curve for
> outsiders and newbies becomes steeper and steeper.
Oh please John, it's particularly depressing hearing this from YOU.
The basics of Glorantha are dead simple.
The problem is maybe that no-one is interested anymore in writing them down nor playing at that basic level.
But anyway, we've been dealing with the learning curve since 1982 or thereabouts, so we've too much of an inclination not to tell the ignorant newbies exactly how much they'll never understand without assistance from the GD ...
> This ghetto-isation was exacerbated a few years back even within the
> community when the Digest (at the time our chief vehicle for
> exploration) went through a period (thankfully now passed) of
> increasingly esoteric (and to those not involved, incomprehensible)
> and increasingly heated discussions, backed up by a One True Vision
> and last word mentality.
But unfortunately, this attitude is now infecting the HeroWars list.
John, there was no game at the time, and almost no official support. It's only thanks to (because of?) the GD that HW/HQ exists in the first place.
I have given up trying to get people to shift over-esoteric Gloranthan discussions (like THIS one !!) from this list to the GD, because it is obvious that list members care less and less about this list being user-friendly and more and more about using it as the new Glorantha Daily.
Without the ghetto-isation, Glorantha would be dead.
Howzabout everyone stop grouching about what's wrong, and maybe start doing all they can to help improve the game system, world presentation, and saleability of Glorantha ?
Or at least contribute to a fanzine or two !!
> Glorantha is increasingly becoming a male ghetto.
What, you mean like roleplaying ?
Surely not !!
> Part of it is that our exploration of Glorantha cultures has become
> increasingly conservative, part of the general conservative trend of
> the nineties.
Yep.
OTOH if you're right, that means we have to get involved in RW politics if Glorantha is to be successfully promoted ?
Hmmmmmmmm ........ :-/
> When I first started
> Glorantha, the Lunars were shot through with a progressive, feminist
> spirit.
Hmmmm : feminists are in fact natural conservatives, not progressives. The word you're looking for is "balance", and it has nothing to do with either chauvinism or feminism.
> And part of the reason is that we don't address the gender issue, and
> don't address women as part of our prospective audience.
Bollocks. The RPG market has shifted around our ears, and we haven't listened closely enough.
I am very disturbed by your suggestion that we, the Gloranthan community, should point an accusing finger at ourselves.
The poor state of Gloranthan sales has nothing whatever to do with a lack of understanding of wimmin's issues (au contraire), but with the fact that fewer men (let me remind you, the core RPG clientele) buy RPGs than in the 80s.
> It requires entry level
> products aimed at beginners - short sharp booklets with super clear
> layouts, brief overview and background articles and entry level, pick
> up and play scenarios.
Volunteering to write some ?
> Separating the Digest into the HW lists has been a good thing AFAIC,
> even though I yearn the loss of 'essay length' explorations. (Another
> factoid of the millennium: most of us seem to read the lists sitting
> at work drinking our wake up coffee).
Most people seem to be treating
this as the GD bis ... :-(
> What are other possible solutions? RPGing inherently resists too much
> detail - its a spontaneous, creative, genre and stereotype/archetype
> driven activity.
Nope : most RPGing is a kind of habit, and pretty repetitive.
> And given the incredible detail and colour we can evoke in Glorantha,
> the wonderful and sustained stories we can tell, why are we so shy
> about fiction? I don't mean campaign writeups and myths, much as I
> love them, but sustained stories that stand on their own strengths and
> can introduce and explore our common world.
Sorry, but here I must be pretty harsh.
The kind of detailed fiction you're talking about is extremely stifling to individual creativity, exactly the kind of creativity that defines this hobby and makes it interesting. I don't, I REALLY don't want to see examples about how other people RPG, but suggestions, tools, modules, cameos, etc that will help me RPG the way *I* like to, and preferably give as much freedom to everyone else to do things however they themselves enjoy it.
> Given that actual, regular
> *playing* becomes more difficult to organise as we age, isn't this one
> obvious, new generation vehicle for Glorantha?
No. What you are suggesting would kill Glorantha.
> Over the past year or so I've been working on a thick description of
> the Far Place and one particular stead and its year. As I look at the
> assorted bits and pieces, the descriptions of people and places and
> events and story seeds, I realise that it would not take a very great
> change of emphasis to make it into a novella. But is there a place in
> our community for such? Would it sell?
Yes, no.
The RMM Greydog campaign is about ten times more useful.
Sorry, but if this is Life or Death, then I know where I stand.
> Is it time for a Gloranthan short-story magazine? A writers circle?
> Another 'Heroes of the King/Gloranthan Visions' project?
Sure, if you can sell it. Or finance it.
Julian Lord
Powered by hypermail