Friday catch up

From: ian_hammond_cooper_at_...
Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2001 14:46:49 -0000

I've been busy, TR is out, and it has been a bit stormy here on the digest - so this is a bit of a catch up. I am not going to enter the 'buy this book' debate, but I do just want to say some good things about Thunder Rebels.

Jeff Kyer:
>All in all, the best to date from Issaries. If this is the new
standard for their work, then I'm pretty pleased with it. Especially the index.

Agreed .This is the one I've been waiting for. For my part RQ spent had told us a lot about the backwaters of Prax and Balazar and even how to play Trolls, but I always wanted to see Dragon Pass. King of Sartar and the Genertela box set told us a something about playing Orlanthi, but until now the material was never collected and refined to this depth, the speculations on the GD never dealt with, the richness of the culture never revealed. Now it is here and in one place, and IMHO its an excellent product. Thanks to everyone involved in it, I got what I wanted.

IMHO it is not only a product to use as an example of how good the Gloranthan setting can be, but also, as a Player's Book, I think this is an important book for newbies to Glorantha. It gives them the rich detail of Glorantha from the manageable prespective on one culture, and I think is a good book to recommend as a starting point.

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As part of the debate raging here a few people have been commenting about contributing. As a newbie to writing for Glorantha I would just like to say that so far my personal experience has been very positive. The team at Issaries and other writers I have been involved with have been helpful and encouraging.If you ever felt like giving it a go, my advice would be to do so.

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The most interesting thread to come out of this debate was whether settings outside the Dragon Pass area would ever be popular enough. Firstly now that we seem to be getting that information and I think it is important to complete a set of Dragon Pass books together so that everyone has one HW area they can play in, before we tackle other pastures.

Simon:
>> I have learned from my Fonrit experiences that everyone really
>> wants to play in Dragon Pass, and only a few explore any further.

Well DP does feel like the centre of the HW, but maybe that is just the view we have had so far. The Orlanthi and the West are also I suspect the simplest cultures for Western players to relate to.

David:
>I disagree -- the majority may want to play in Dragon Pass, but that
>still leaves 45% who play elsewhere. The problem is they all want to
>play in a *different* elsewhere.

The Lunar Empire and the West tie up a lot of GD time so... Proximity to Dragon Pass, or the ability to move games there will probably make locations more popular. The Prax and Pavis materials being developed by 3rd parties have an obvious advantage there as does the Lunar material, for they can fit into a DP based campaign as outsiders or short excursions.

Will people stray further away? Will Pamaltela ever capture our affections? I think it is dependant on their being compelling stories for narrators to tell and vibrant cultures players want their heroes to come from. As an example, I like the idea of the circumnavigation campaign book. For me that is a compelling story.

And for those who want there own slice of Glorantha there may be some advantages of having parts of Glorantha that are less well represented in the canon.  

Ian