> although I've been GMing for a long time, GMing in Glorantha is
something that makes me fairly uncomfortable.
These comments are not aimed at you but just based on my experience of overcoming the problem, in case it helps anyone else.
I do understand the feeling, but you can overcome it. Two important lessons that were useful to me are
I always remember Greg's notes in Trollpak stating that he didn't know how Trolls worked but with a rallying cry of 'Trolls have kin too' wrote the Sazdorf scenarios to find out. I think that is a good model. Not sure how a Gloranthan culture works, write some scenarios and find out.
To start an Orlanthi campaign you can run a cattle raid, feuds, tribal moots. Draw on real-world sources to fill in the blanks; read a couple of sagas and Beowulf; get a kids book on the Vikings for pictures (I always recommend 'How would you survive as a Viking'). As you get more comfortable expand the scope. Use resources like KoDP to give you and your players a feel for Orlanthi and to see the pattern of their lives etc. Hell, play out a KoDP yar and then turn into a series of episodes for a year in your clan if your really stuck.
Don't be afraid to 'get it wrong' you'll overlook or forget aspects. Don't panic, sometimes these realisations become the seeds for later episodes to explain them. When I noticed that the Greeting was not just a formula but a magic ritual on a re-reading I began to question how it could be defeated and that led to a scenario. In the discussion of hiding evil in plain site that followed that there are a number of great scenario ideas - there is evil in the hills. Try to turn questions into stories.
Even with a monthly publishing schedule Issaries will only ever be able to pain broad strokes. Good. The last thing I want is to see every clan of Sartar detailed. Sure give me the tribes, but every clan - where is the space for my creativity, my stories, my heroes and villains. Decent maps -great, but every stead NO, far too constraining. Rigidly defined areas of uncertainty and doubt. Inspire me don't fence me in.
Remember that the people Issaries get to write material are just like you they are carving the world out of the same canvas, you don't have to accept their ideas as better than yours and you often have just as much to go on when creating. Who is to say your version is not better?
Go and read Martin Laurie's Gwandor campiagn at Wesley's site. Martin's material is one example of how you can interpret the sources. It fits with my vision in some ways but not in others. In some places it contradicts the 'official' story. Try finding the 'death of Orlanth' there. I don't think it's there; support for the idea came later from Issaries. Does it matter? I doubt it, and Martin and his players are playing the Hero Wars and are further with the great events thatn anyone else I've heard of. More power to them.
I don't know, but I suspect people who play D&D in the Forgotten Realms do so with far less of a microscope view of the cultures. They are just less afraid to make up the details. Don't be.
Ian Cooper
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