Hi
Being someone who, by nature can not resist putting their opinion in (just ask John if you don't belive me by now) I have to jump into the debate.
Couldn't be bothered quoting anyone else - this is my rant.
Or maybe not a rant. See, I can see both (all?) sides of this.
Jane wants a world that is mroe or less consistent. She has good reasons for doing so. Her own sanity as GM for a start. It makes no GM's life easy if a new supplement comes out and invalidates huge swathes of what has passed in the campaign. YGWV you say. Well, what if I don't want it to vary? What if I just want ot pick up the latest supplement and have it slot easily into my campaign? And don't say "you must be creative". It's YGMV (MAY) not YGWV (WILL). There is a basic commercial imperative here. Why the hell should people keep buying the supplements if they are more work to make usable then the buyer wants to put in?
Now, of course, there's a hidden variable in the last sentence. How much
work is more work? No two roleplaying campaigns in the same world are
ever totally compatible. I remember some idiot in my university
roleplaying club days wanting to make all the club's D+D campaigns
compatible - he was howled down (Of course, those of us who were
Runequest/Dragonquest players just laughed anyway, but that's another
story). But within the published material there should be enough
(whatever that means) consistency to enable GMs to use the material and
encourage them to buy it in the first place. It's called editorial
responsibility, both to yourself and to your customers. Glorantha may be
flat, but money makes it go round too.
But more buts. Managing a roleplaying world is a lot harder than managing a fantasy trilogy. More data, more time, more authors. In something as sprawling as Glorantha you are never going to get it 100% compatible. We know that. I accept that, and I think a lot of others do too.
And I actually think Issaries has done a pretty good job so far. If you look where most of the arguments occur it's over Issaries vs old stuff or Mainstream vs the unfinished works or Issaries vs fan stuff. If you look at the "finished" Issaries works so far, it's actually about as consistent as you could expect. It's not easy to maintain. Yes the HQ/HW would is different in many ways to that of RQ2/3, but at least the individual games and their supplements display some internal consistency, even if they contradict each other. We know about the problems vis KoS and OiD, but new material will always present a problem. It's not like a fantasy trilogy. The places not visited in the first book, but detailed in the second, may not be what the readers expect, but they haven't gone and invented it for themselves in the meantime, which is what you often do in a roleplaying game. I could get into narrative theory here, but won't. Even in good old commercial D+D you could want use a town that isn't well deatiled. You do all the work detailing, then the next supplement covers that town in all its glory and it's completely differnt to your version. What do you do? Junk your version or ignore the supplement (which probably at least has a better quality map)? No right answer. Most of my RQ days were spent in Prax - we didn't dare go to Sartar, because we kept hoping the details wold come out and we didn't want what we'd done invalidated. Where we right? Wrong? I don't think there is a right or wrong in that. Yer pays yer money and yers takes yer chance.
Changes will happen - roleplaying worlds evolve much more than most literary worlds do (although some of those do too - look at the changes in middle eath documented in the Hostory of Middle Earth series). But that's no excuse for arbitrary changes. So far Iassaries has done a good job, but I worry about some of the latest hints and attitudes to previously published material. At the very least, if changes are made, please include some instructions to GMs about how to reconcile the incompatibilities. Of course, this doesn't apply to fan published stuff, and even the Ormalthingsaga comes under that heading. GMs use such material at their peril. But for most of the GMs of this world - who don't read these lists - a sensible publisher doesn't make their lives harder than they have to be. Such people aren't as wedded to Glorantha as we are, and if it gets too hard for them they will drop it. There's more of them then of us, and so it's their money that keeps this going. I repeat, I think Issaries has done well so far. Yes, HQ Glorantha is different to RQ Glorantha. But I think HQ Glorantha is pretty consistent. You could even make a textual argument that KoS is RQ not HQ and needs an updated version, but that's another argument.
Glorantha is different. It's built on a study of mythology, something ignored by most fantasy RPGs (rather stupidly if you think about it, but their loss). It's also, really, owned by one person - Greg. Like it or not. If you buy Glorantha you get Greg thrown in for free (even if you'd rather a set of steak knives, tough). And however much he may upset us at times, we wouldn't have Glorantha without him. At all - period.
Does that mean he can do what he likes? Yes, and no. No law in the
universe stops him writing what he wants - and then publishing it if the
funds are available. But no law in the universe makes us like it or buy
it. There is a creative tension here that most RPGs lack. Almost all
(to my knowledge) RPGs come from some initial creative source (of greater
or lesser quality). But almost all fall into two categories. One,
typified by D+D and World of Darkness are lost by their initial creator
and end up being run by people who value the sales over the story. They
don't like admiting it, but it's true. Most of the rest are obscure
little things which are essentially one man shows, and so keep their
consitency, but very few care.
Glorantha is almost (possibly is) unique. It's been succesful enough to last 30 years in publication, but still has its creator involved. Plus said creator has at least as much focus on the story and myth as the playing. These are pluses and minuses. The tension between the myth and the roleplay exists. It's unavoidable. As is the separation. I know people who love Glorantha that think the Entekosiad is laughable. Ther loss I think, but I wonder who is in the majority? I think Greg and Issaries have shown sense in publishing those things in a different line.
The myth is the foundations of Gloranth, but a lot of Glorantha *players* aren't interested in that foundation ("Humakt did what? Oh, right. Err, how many pluses do I get for that and can I still dress in black? I can? Cool"). How much do you know about the foundations of your house? And how much do you care, as long as the house stays up on them?
Greg's (and others) explorations of the myths will continue - we can't, and I don't want, to stop them. But (and there's always a but) the translation of that myth into roleplaying materials has to be done in a way that won't alienate the silent majority of Gloranthan consumers (and I choose that word with care) *IF* the money is still to come in. The desire to explore is constrained by the needs of playability, which is both stretched and maintained by the need to explore.
I think the blance has been maintained pretty well in the past (not perfectly, but nothing's perfect). I just hope that continues into the future.
Michael
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