Over the last couple of months I've been working on the Questlines book and
(with MOB and Andrew) on RQCon Down Under. In that time, though Glorantha
has been in my thoughts a lot, I haven't had much time for posting. Here
are a couple of ideas that have been churning around in my head, inspired
in part by
a trio of articles in Questlines that deal with exploring Glorantha, and
indirectly with the Principle of Maximum Game Fun or MGF.
I believe that these ideas are essentially subsets of MGF (or in my heretical version, MLTGF - Maximum LONG TERM Game Fun*). They are MLD - Maximum Local Diversity - and MCI - Maximum Creative Input.
[* MGF is an incredibly useful concept that carries a lot of good old-fashioned common sense, but I've yet to hear anyone define what they mean by 'fun'. Done with consideration for (and with the active cooperation of) the people involved, almost anything can be fun. Detail can be fun. Kinship can be fun. Talking about history and myth can be fun. Telling stories can be lots of fun. Encountering the unknown and making it your friend can be fun. Understanding how another person might see the world can be fun. Discovering something about your personal mythology through the games you play can be fun. Even chaotic exploding Ulerian were-hobbits can be fun.
In my own thinking, I've modified MGF to MLTGF - Maximum LONG TERM Game Fun, because I've seen more than one campaign collapse after sacrificing everything else on the altar of MGF. MLTGF is a reminder that, like everything else in roleplaying, there is a need for balance and a little restraint. MLTGF reminds me to think through the implications of MGF to ensure it doesn't detract from other, slightly more serious yet equally rewarding, aspects of a campaign.]
MAXIMUM LOCAL DIVERSITY - MLD MLD is intended as a Gloranthan Principle covering animal species and human and elder race cultures. It is intended to allow maximum gm input and maximum freedom in describing Gloranthan flora, fauna, and culture.
The published data on non-swordfodder Gloranthan flora and fauna has been pretty abysmal. GMs interested in detailing mundane animal life for hunting, for totems or for divinatory purposes have had to trust to their own instincts and research.
For Gloranthan animal species MLD means that a wide variety of subspecies tend to inhabit highly localised habitats, with lots and lots of local variation. Basically, it means that we don't worry too much if my Far Point Cloudpiercers (Megaloceros - the giant Irish err Tarshite elk) and horned boar don't appear down the trail in Lismelder territory - it makes the gm need to make things up as s(he) goes along a positive principle rather than a game background failure.
You might state the Principle like this: Gloranthan ecologies, and the environmental and magical forces that drive them, produce a wide variety of diverse and often unique animal and plant species that occupy specialised and highly localised habitats.
For human societies and those of other cultural animals, MLD means that tribes and local areas tend to have individual traits that differentiate them from their neighbours. Rather than 24 generic carbon copy Sartarite Orlanthi tribes, we should expect, nay demand, that, THOUGH THEY HAVE MUCH IN COMMON (maybe 80%), the Tovtaros (for example) have a series of unique characteristics (cuk fighting, sticklepick, the acknowledged superior wisdom of women, an addiction to sweat lodges and rolling naked in the snow) that differentiate them from the Princeros or Lismelder down the road. It means that Doraddi lineages celebrate and emphasise a surprisingly diverse range of customs, psychologies and material cultures, rather than being one homogenous culture group spread over hundreds of thousands of square km. It allows room for maximum gm and player input, and is a tool for maximum game fun.
Of course, this second manifestation of MLD is a reflection of real world human diversity. As an example, prior to European contact, California contained over two hundred distinct cultural and linguistic groups. Present day New Guinea, not a large place by anyone's standards, is home to over a thousand linguistically separate cultural groups. In a bronze-age world like Glorantha, with limited trade and communication, the tribe just over the hill can be really weird, with an unpronounceable language and bizzzzarrrrrre customs. Its a cultural truism: All foreigners are crazy - Romans, Lunars, Noo Yawkers, Melbournians, whatever. :-)
You can use MLD as a rough index of cultural heterogeneity and variation. For instance, consider the following (rough) ratings:
Uz MLD 5, Aldryami MLD 10, Darra Happa MLD 10, Sartar MLD 20, Prax MLD 30, Doraddi MLD 40, East Isles MLD 60.
(Uz culture is partly instinctive and therefore very similar across large
areas: East Isles culture can vary enormously from island to island.)
MAXIMUM CREATIVE INPUT - MCI There is an awfully lot that's good about Glorantha, but in some areas it is very predictable and even severely lacking in imagination. By quirks of history and design, much of Glorantha seems developed for the sole purpose of hitting things over the head. (This is a criticism directed more at published material than at the Digest, but none of us can escape it).
Discussions of Gloranthan culture all too often zoom in on weapons and tactics, and (sigh) supposed analogies with rw military history. You'd be forgiven in thinking that the Hero Wars were nothing more than a world-wide outbreak of sword and sorcery firefights, rather than a spiritual testing ground where the limits of Humanity and the Possible are reforged by extra-ordinary courage and insight and compassion and love. (Actually, its a little of both :-)). Gloranthan scenarios are often about hitting things until you get what you want. Great Mysteries tend to end up as hordes of broo jumping out of the ground. Its all more than a bit predictable.
To expand on just two examples, after nearly twenty years, the non-combat effects of spirit magic (with their tremendous and fundamental social implications in the realms of gender relations, reproduction and sexuality, economics and the arts) are still unexplored, and animals that aren't worth hitting on the head are also basically ignored, despite their tremendous value in terms of defining tribal resources, in defining tribal lifestyles, and in their divinatory and symbolic capacities as totems and omens. (Hence my own postings last year about Far Point eco-systems, and the MLD concept above).
On such a level (and I use the word advisedly) its easier to create an exploding Ulerian were-hobbit than to devote serious time and research to crafting something unusual or unique, and seemingly unnecessary to think through the social implications of those spell-loaded rune types that populate scenarios. Genre writing encourages repetition, and RQ's wargaming ancestry demands nothing more than lots of fights and experience checks.
In brief, lots of Glorantha is caught both in a genre rut and a roleplaying timewarp. Its comfort level is way way above its creativity level.
I'm exaggerating and distorting to make a point, of course, so please don't take this too seriously or personally. You can see the point I'm trying to make, even if I've made the black blacker and the white whiter than it really is. I certainly don't think myself above this particular criticism - half of my campaign last Friday night was spend dealing with a character's heroquest of the Innocent expressed through his search for an animal totem, the other half was some typical (and absolutely avoidable) rpg antics involving Orlanthi machismo and a couple of fire spitting dragonsnails. Its all in the balance.
I'm not about banishing old-fashioned rpg fun - I love a decent broo bash as much as the next person. I am about making it a bit fresh, and helping Glorantha live up to its potential.
All of this mean-hearted pseudo ranting and raving is meant to introduce the concept of MCI - Maximum Creative Input. Its simply a plea that when writing or designing something for Glorantha, try to rise above the predictability and limitations of the male fantasy genre to create something fresh.
Like MGF, its simply a pithy way of stating what should be common sense. Think of scenarios that don't repeat the old pattern of Fight/Take/Fight. Try to maximise the storytelling and creative elements. Use humour without necessarily turning everything into a caricature. Balance the light and frothy (the Trollkin Curse) with the serious (Ducks). Think through the implications of what you create. Try to come up with a unique insight about your campaign world or the characters who inhabit it. Try to describe some facet of daily life that hasn't been considered before. In mythological terms, realise that there are many other heroquests than that of the warrior/king - there are those of the Lover, the Shaman, the Caregiver, the Beast Child, the Creator, the Trickster, to name but a few. Let Glorantha live up to its potential.
Now the Digest already has plenty of material that demonstrates the best of what MCI can offer, especially when linked up with MGF and MLTGF. As stated above, my ranting and raving is merely a debating tactic, trying to make a point.
MCI is about sloganising what should be common sense, but often isn't. I think its important. And I'm sure I'm about to find out whether or not you do as well. Feedback please.
Cheers
John
And oh, what pleasant water,
You teach your bees to brew!
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