Conformity versus free-form Glorantha

From: Graham Wren <wren_at_fortwhyte.mb.ca>
Date: Fri, 20 Dec 1996 12:38:41 -0600


One of the truly wonderful things about Glorantha for me was the flexibility it provided for gaming. As you work with the system, it can grow and change.
We began with only RQ2. After a few months, we got Cults of Prax, and decided to fix our campaign just west of Sartar in lands which were not yet part of mainstream Glorantha. After a while (adding Cults of Terror, Snakepipe Hollow, Griffin Mountain to my list of purchases), I coaxed the player characters into Sartar and even north into Balthazar.  Later, we got the Big Rubble, Pavis and the Borderlands, and the campaign moved into Prax. As the campaign flowed, I added more races (just the official ones, though). At one time, I considered ducks to be the stupidest concept ever. Now, I feel they are wonderful. Our concept of ducks was not so much Howard the Duck, but looking more like real ducks, with arms. Some hand-built figures reinforced that view. Some races were pretty much ignored, but most added colour to the campaign.
My point is this:
I've always felt that Glorantha was built upon flexibility, but this is being lost. I feel that the Gloranthan "novels" are being treated as doctrine, rather than ways of fleshing out the mythologies of Glorantha.  It seems to me that if the Lunars have one set of gods and the Sartarites have a different set of gods, yet they overlap in many ways, then you cannot accept both pantheons as dogma. Unless we all pretend to be sages of the Lhankhor Mhy style. I am not a Gloranthan sage, so I don't feel that detailed analysis of mythology benefits Runequest or Gloranthan RPG's, other than giving an average PC a new reason to burn a library.
The Glorantha myhtology books are all supposedly written by people of the time. A Gloranthan campaign is written by people like me. If you want elves that are plants, fine -- it works for you. If you want Mostali that are mortal, immortal, can eat rocks, can shoot meteors out their butts, fine -- just don't post it. I feel that the stories that trolls can digest rocks to be useful in setting the mood, creating mystery for the PC's, etc. Trolls in my campaign might suck on a rock, or crunch one to show off, but there is no vitamins or calories in rocks!
So I would like to see less "No that's wrong" and more "We do this..."

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