If we take the endless scholarly discussion about dogs/goats/alynxes as an example, would that qualify as useless to gamers? I don't think so. Knowing that a clan shuns the use of dogs while their neighbors happily use dogs to herd their sheep is an excellent plot hook.
The discussion about where spirits of law come from isn't useless either. If you decide that spirits of law are actually spirits of the Copper Sands, well there's an excellent excuse for sending the PCs into the wastelands to collect some Copper Sand.
The scholarly discussions are useless for gamers only if said gamers lack the imagination to see how they can turn an obscure factoid into something useful.
I even found some useful material in the Sun County Pike discussion: namely the idea that the templars have special groves of trees, the cultivation of which is steeped in tradition and religious taboos. So, having an Oakfed shaman hostile to the templars turning a salamander loose could be the basis of a good plot. Or it could justify a regular expedition from the Sun Dome to the aldryami of the Garden or the Redwood Forest to get the special seeds.
>Many of us know old-time RQers who've given up on Glorantha, but how many
>new RQ/Glorantha gamers do you know?
In my campaign, two of six players are Glorantha-virgins. So, assuming my other players don't lose interest in Glorantha, i have increased the number of Glorantha gamers i know by at least 5%. If every Glorantha GM does the same, i don't think Glorantha as a game setting will die any time soon.
> What has happened [to the digest]? We used to see NPCs, magic
>items, plot hooks,
>scenarios, strange creatures, and other fun game-useful stuff on the
>Digest. Over the years there's been less and less of that.
To my recollection, stuff like that were never very frequent anyway. OTOH, the fanzines and Con-books are getting fatter and more useful.
>True, no one is
>stopping newcomers from asking questions -- but if they do what's right
>and lurk a bit before posting, they're virtually certain to run like hell.
>Who'd dare post an elementary or junior-high school question to a seminar
>for advanced graduate students?
Why not send the FAQ and an admonition to ask whatever questions they want and ignore the useless discussions, to all who subscribe to the digest. The digest is after all what we make it.
And to my knowledge, advanced graduate students are usually happy to answer the elementary questions. At least here on the digest.
>How many new people have posted here in
>the last year? Answer: damn few.
My impression is in fact that the reverse is true. I've never seen so many names i don't recognize.
> It has been suggested before that there could be two lists. One
>could be the "scholarly" list, devoted to Glorantha as a literary creation
>and philosophical exercise. The other would be for those who simply want
>to have fun and share specifically game-related ideas. As things stand
>now, the scholarly faction of Gloranthaphiles has virtually drowned out
>the roleplayers. Since Glorantha's public exposure is entirely due to
>roleplayers, this is not a healthy state of affairs -- not even from a
>scholarly perspective, since without new blood the world will *die*.
>Who'll care about Elmal/Yalmalio/etc. then?
To me it seems that you, in effect, request one non-discursive list where to post articles and one discursive list where we can continue to dissect the minute trivia of Glorantha. Not that that is a bad idea at all. I think it would be a swell idea if people in fact would write those articles.
> Putting my money where my mouth is: I'm willing to create and post
>new material (NPCs, plot hooks, whatever) here at least two or three times
>a year. If we could reach a consensus here or on a new Gloranthan
>roleplaying digest, we might even agree to all post one new NPC in one
>month, and a new scenario in the next. How about it?
I don't think the problem is that people aren't willing to write useful stuff or that they don't agree with your complaints. *My* problem is quite simply that i don't have the time to write thought-out articles just for fun and post them to the digest where they get drowned out by the noise of the scholarly debates.
Instead i've written three longish pieces for Questlines II, based on stuff i've discussed on the digest. Which is a system which works fine (especially if Chaosium could publish its own fan-driven Glorantha [e-] magazine): discuss stuff on the digest, and if it's good enough, write an article to one of the fanzines. Or even better, Chaosium could publish the articles on the World of Glorantha website where they would be easily accessible and never go out of print.
Michael Raaterova
<.sig omitted on legal advice>
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