MOB writes in response to my semi-defense of David Boatright:
>Please don't read me wrong. I am essentially a Gloranthan *gamer*, rooted
in
>the period 1610-25. I am by no means a Gloranthan historian, mythographer
or
>erstwhile academic, nor claim to be: MGF is my area of interest! While I
>do find a lot of what's going on here dry and sometimes tedious, I am in no
>way trying to stop you.
Hmm; funny, but I consider myself a Gloranthan/RQ *gamer* as well, and I would point out to MOB that David Boatright has also made it perfectly clear that he considers himself first and foremost a player of (Gloranthan) RuneQuest. I would also like to point out to MOB that in his original response to David's comments he wrote:
>Dacid (sic), I sometimes wonder what you are doing subscribing to this list,
>given that your contributions lately seem to be limited to calling
established
>contributors wankers and sad gits, telling keen newbies they might as
>well fuck off, and pushing the English language to the very bounds of
>coherence.
While David's butchering of the English language is pretty much indefensible, frankly I find implicit in MOB's statement the suggestion that David unsubscribe, and I think David inferred the same (though, as a reader of _Cerebus_, I am well aware of the distinction between implying and inferring something :-)). In addition, using the term "established contributers" clearly carries with it the suggestion that there are "unestablished" contributers (the MOB category into which I put myself, and to which MOB seems to consign David); perhaps MOB can enlighten us as to how he establishes the criteria for which is which around here? -- A bit more on the "newbies", etc. in a little bit.
Joerg Baumgartner described the difficulties of publishing material (of which I was generally aware), ending with:
>So, if you want the system to get going, leave your customer position and
>get typing, I'm fairly sure you have some stuff worth publishing... If you
>need someplace to publish it, I offer Tradetalk, if you can stand editing on
>your work. If you can't stand someone else criticizing your ideas, do your
>own magazine, or your own web page.
Err...this is a bit tricky. Presumably there was no way for Joerg to know this, but just so you know, for a little while now Nick Brooke has been in possession of a 40-50 page text file rough (very rough) draft write-up of a cult of The Hundred Gods of War I did for the KoW, plus a variant conception of KoW Sects. Obviously Nick is a pretty busy guy, so I find myself in the position of having to wait for his criticisms and comments before I rewrite it and begin working on further elaborations (like scenarios). I have also asked Nick if I should send the manuscript, which I fully admit is unpolished and in need of editing and criticism, to folks like Greg or David Hall for RMM consideration, but haven't heard back from him on that point. As it's a highly heretical write-up and I'm a bit wary of bringing up the KoW publicly, I had hoped to get it vetted by Nick before offering it to the digest, but while I'm at it if Joerg -- or anyone else -- is interested in critiquing a rough draft I'd be happy to send it to 'em at this point.
Joerg also provides what in effect amounted to a brief publishing history of Glorantha, though as a long-time RQ player who has been lucky enough (?) to occasionally get some hearsay 'inside skinny' on the fractious and tense legal, financial and contractual arrangements between Chaosium and AH, IMO it's missing some of the juicier parts :-). Along the way he mentions:
>I had the chance to listen into Greg's and Sandy's discussion on how to
>Bring glorantha Up To Speed late on Convulsion Sunday night. Greg does have
>new plans for Glorantha game publications, not necessarily tied only to
>"Glorantha: The Game" or RQ.
I'd be curious to find out how many of the folks who slammed David Boatright for being negative about the future of RQ bothered to explain to the "newbies" (God I hate that term) what "Glorantha: The Game" is, and what it's theoretical relationship to RQ is...
I'm not sure if the Sunday night discussion was what David Boatright was referring to in his posts, but David has made some fairly specific attributions to Greg, at least in his private reports. In fact, the whole point to my post was to find out if anyone who had been to the Con was willing to specifically refute what David claims Greg said. As it stands, having emailed David privately and read his brief report, there are essentially three options as I see it....a) David's report is an accurate representation of Greg's comments, in which case David was right all along and RQ is screwed (and please remember I am fully aware of the distinction between RQ and Glorantha), b) Greg said something _like_ what David said he said, but David has in some way misrepresented him or misinterpreted him or missed some contextual element, or c) for some reason David is playing the trickster and Greg never said anything even remotely like what David claims.
As it stands, no one has bothered either publicly or even privately to refute David's specific allegations, though admittedly this could simply be because no one has bothered to email David to find out what he's claiming. As I am keenly interested in getting some sort of answer on this point, I am more than happy to forward David's comments to anyone who for some reason doesn't want to deal with him directly (and assuming that's okay with David).
Yours,
Mark
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