Cerebralism

From: Martin Laurie <102541.3423_at_CompuServe.COM>
Date: 03 Feb 97 14:02:05 EST


Stephen Martin comment on my players boredom with KoS:
>This may be a common reaction, but it is not universal. When I gave King
>of Sartar to my sister to review for a fantasy magazine she was editing,
>she loved it, even though she knew nothing about Glorantha. She was
>amazed at the amount of detail, and was somewhat amused by how boring
>parts of it were -- whether this is what Greg wanted or not, she thought
>it was intentional. She understood that the book was a mystery to be
>unravelled.

Even here Stephen you've given the game away a bit - your sister _edits_ fantasy magazines and you gave her a fantasy book? She's certainly going to respond a lot more favourably to it that my friend who works in real estate or my friend who is a computer technician because she already thinks and works in a freer mindset than any of them. KoS is readable and many people like it but those many people are mostly Gloranthaphiles - very few aren't in my experience.

>Um, unless I misunderstood his post, David Hall was not dropped, he
>dropped out -- there is a big difference. I am sure that he left with
>good reason -- I have been working with Greg for years now, and I know
>how he and Chaosium can be.

Could you enlighten us as to how Chaosium and Greg can be as I am unaware of how production decisions are made and as to why - I can only conclude fro what we've seen so far that they simply aren't made or aren't made at any kind of pace that I would call "quick".

Me:>>The _only_ people who seem to care are those who post to this digest, so
>>lets not let that die too, lets be as cerebral as possible and as MGF as
>>possible but at least we achieve something!

>I really doubt that the people on this Digest are the only ones who care.
>I was not on the Digest for years, by choice, and I certainly cared,
>enough to volunteer a lot of my time helping with both RuneQuest and
>Chaosium Gloranthan releases, just about everything from River of Cradles
>on. There are a _lot_ of people who play RQ and who love Glorantha who
>are not on this Digest. With due respect, Martin, your comment in the
>above paragraph is one reason people on the Digest have been looked on as
>_elitists_ for a very long time. Don't forget that for every person who
>sees your post, there are at the very least another 100 people who play
>RQ who won't. They are the ones who are missing out on things, not us.

I don't buy this at all. As a GM for years and years now, with over 50 different players in that time who I would say represented a wide range of both British and North American roleplayers - the vast majority love to play but have no real interest in the game or game world for its own sake. If I stopped running my games tommorrow my players would miss my GMing but not RQ or Glorantha - they'd just get someone to run something less complex.

Those people who love the game and the game world are mostly on the digest though there are those who aren't I agree, they are no more than the 500+ that are - so perhaps a 1000 in the whole world have our degree of interest or commitment in English speaking RQ/Glorantha.

Because of this I think its very depressing and annoying that in the two years I've been on the digest I've never seen a post by Greg which simply defies belief that he doesn't pay any attention to the ideas that well forth here. Sandy has dropped off totally (and is sorely missed) and I have never seen a single survey done by Chaosium of what WE the CONSUMER want from Glorantha. Its like the people on this list don't exist and if thats the case, thats the worst marketing I've ever seen.

To me the annoying thing is that Chaosium wouldn't even have to do much work as there a zillions of people in this list who could contribute tons of stuff and plenty of ideas to Glorantha but how often is this list heeded, how often do we see the names of a digester on a publication from Chaosium unless they do it themselves? Lets face it, the people on this list have been significantly prolific,producing at least as much material as Avalon Hill and Chaosium combined over the last four years in fanzines and the plethora of web sites which are truly labours of love.

>Instead of complaining about what we haven't got, I think we ought to
>concentrate, as Martin says, on what we do have -- an excellent
>discussion forum, five or more well-produced if irregular fanzines (in
>English alone), plus the occasional extra, such as the Tradetalk
>translation and Questlines. If more of the people on the Digest invested
>the time in producing their own material in printed form, everyone would
>benefit. Even if you can't afford to this, either due to time or money
>constraints, take your discussions and turn them into an article that one
>of the fanzines can use. I can't wait for the Seattle crowds' LARP to be
>made available to everyone, and I hope that Mssr. Gadbois gets Tarsh War
>soon. I wonder for months when the next Tales is going to be ready, as do
>a lot of you, I am sure.

Which is nice and wonderful but where is central direction, where is official stuff, where is product?

RQ:AiG dissappeared because some people didn't like it - my attitude is so what if it isn't perfect, so what if its not even 90% right? - its product and thats better than nothing and can always be "upgraded" later. Even the other Avalon Hill stuff, some of which was new and excellent, was PRODUCT but thats all gone now so what do we have? Fanzines and no product. Does this sound right to you? Does this sound even remotely fair to the fans of Glorantha?

Who makes these decisions and who is accountable is what I want to know because considering the loyalty of people who love Glorantha, I think its only reasonable that answers are given and our views considered. We are the stupid bastards who buy the stuff, we are the people who play it and therefore we are the most important people to consider when actually selling it!

Martin Laurie


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