OOP and Official/Unofficial Articles

From: Simon Phipp <simon.phipp_at_walshwestern.com>
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 19:39:41 +0000


Looking at the OOP discussion, there seems to be two schools of thought - those who feel that the OOP material is not really worth bothering with and those who want it really badly.

As someone who is fortunate enough to have almost all of the RQ2/3 material I have to say that the RQ2 material in particular is worth having if only for the background material. Of course, the scenarios are not always great and the NPCs can be sketchy (forget things like Foes or Trolls and Trollkin) but these are minor issues.

Whenever I pick up Griffin Mountain, for instance, and begin reading the background, rumours or even some of the scenarios I *always* spot something I have never seen before and can cross-reference with other Gloranthan material. This level of detail is only available to those with the original supplements or copies.

While I accept that anyone can run a scenario in Balazar without Griffin Mountain using the background in Genertela I would have to argue that such a campaign would NOT have the flavour that a Gloranthan Balazar campaign would have. Who would know of the Chaos Holy Ground, of Blueface, of the Citadels, of Gonn Orta's Castle etc. The strength of Glorantha is that its geography, culture, history and myths have been detailed and are available. If you cannot use these because you don't have access to them you may as well be playing in another fantasy world.

Having said that, the solution to this problem is not simple. Authors and publishers are often against photocopying as it may affect their income and because it is illegal, valid objections. People say that they will publish more background material "later" but we have heard this before - look at Masters of Luck and Death or HeroQuest, how long did Dorastor take to appear (although it was worth it in the end). I think that the best place for background material is fanzines and the WWW. A lot of background material has been put into Tales, Codex, TradeTalk etc. and these are often as good if not better than game supplements. There is more background material on the WWW than there ever was in RQ publications, even though most of it is
"unofficial". We do have access to more Gloranthan material now than
ever before. However, there is an awful lot which is still hidden away. What to do about it?

As far as I know, you are permitted to photocopy a certain percentage of a book for personal use. Most of the Gloranthan material of RQ2 books make up a small share of the content. Perhaps this is a way forward? Perhaps people will type up the Gloranthan sections of OOP products and put them on the WWW where the laws on Copyright have not been clarified. I don't know.

Anyway, to change the subject, people keep saying that Glorantha is
"our world" and that "whatever you have in your Glorantha is OK" but
there is still a very strong impression of "official" and
"unofficial" sources. Which is correct? What are "official" sources?
You could say that Chaosium products are "official", but what about Snow King's Bride or Scorpion Hall? Questworld is clearly non-Gloranthan but Karse is Gloranthan, or is based in Glorantha. What about fanzines? Is tales official, if so where do you see Pickled Onions wandering Glorantha, where is the Kangaroo Tribe of Prax? What about Codex or Tradetalk? I remember a while ago people were very disparaging about an article about the Kitori and Whitewall in a fanzine (I can't remember the name but it was a Gloranthan Zine) - - was the article official or was it obviously wrong?

Simon Phipp


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