Re: Grazers; Humakti

From: David Dunham <dunham_at_pensee.com>
Date: Sat, 7 Jun 1997 13:16:59 -0700


Peter Metcalfe wrote

> I don't think that Godunya *knew* he was the
> Emperor in hiding until he passed the tests. During his
> pre-imperial lifetime, he would have been an ordinary
> belt-buckle salesman

Assuming 100+ year old salesman are normal...

Trotsky wrote

> the nomadic Grazers eating the food grown by the Vendref

I'm not convinced the Grazers are nomadic. At best, they're transhumant (summer/winter pastures). They like to pretend they're nomadic (and still keep around many of the trappings of nomadic society, so outsiders are often fooled -- Harstal [TotRM 15] noted the weeds grown up around the tents, but didn't realize how sedentary the Grazers are).

Paul Chapman wrote

> I'm not convinced that to
> be like Humakt you have to be _completely_ silent _all the time_ (thus not
> necessarily preventing spellcasting)

Probably not, but I imagine the goal is to be like the laconic Spartans.

Owen Jones wondered

> If two cultures meet, and culture A decides their storm/sun god _is_
> the same as the storm/sun god of culture B, but culture B decides that
> their god _is_not_ the same, what happens?

What happened in the real world? The Greeks and Romans were constantly meeting other cultures and saying that the barbarians worshipped the civilized gods. Didn't seem to have much effect.

The merging of mythology by the Theyalan Council was effective because both cultures were participants. The merging of mythology by the God Learners was effective because it was coerced.

David Ford wrote

> In Glorantha especially, there does seem a tendency by modern gamers to
>reduce
> the effectiveness of resurrection and healing magic. I don't say this is
>a bad
> thing as each campaign should suit its gamers, but it would be nice if
>players
> and designers of Fantasy Role-Playing Games/Worlds had the guts for their
>worlds
> to be fantastic.

There's a tension in most games (SF as well as fantasy) between fun and realism. Clearly easy healing magic is more fun for most players -- you can take more risks, and the consequences of partial failure aren't as serious. And Resurrection is sure convenient to keep a favorite character around. However, it's also pretty clear that a society where healing magic is as prevalent as in parties of adventurers is quite different from the one usually portrayed. AD&D makes the half-hearted attempt to fix this by saying that only PCs can advance in level. Gloranthan information suggests that RuneQuest (or probably any other RPG) isn't an accurate portrayal of the way magic is used. While Sandy Petersen has given us some excellent ideas on how RQ battle magic can be used in daily life, we still have no spells for domestic magic (keeping clothes from unravelling, making long hair easy to comb, preventing milk from souring, keeping bugs out of the flour, making the baby cradle rock by itself, cleaning stubborn stains). I believe these all exist in Glorantha. But even the family-oriented games the Seattle Farmers Collective runs don't worry about these details. It's not fun.

To summarize: RPGs present a deliberately distorted picture of reality, just as movies present a deliberately distorted picture of, say, the digestive process (characters eat in most movies, but only in a few do they excrete). This is a good thing.

David Dunham <mailto:dunham_at_pensee.com> Glorantha/RQ page: <http://www.pensee.com/dunham/glorantha.html> Imagination is more important than knowledge. -- Albert Einstein


End of Glorantha Digest V4 #479


WWW at http://rider.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html

Powered by hypermail