State of the List/ Fan Material

From: Joerg Baumgartner <joe_at_toppoint.de>
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 98 14:10 MET DST


Nikolas Lloyd

>This is my first posting to this list. I have been lurking since April.

Welcome (belatedly).

>I joined, hoping to get access to scenarios - YES: SCENARIOS, or at least
>scenario ideas which would help me springboard my mind and my players
>into realms of ADVENTURE!

Scenarios? Most magazines dealing with Glorantha are looking out for scenarios. If you ever tried to write down a scenario for publication, you may have noticed that it is a quite different task from preparing a gaming session, and includes a fair amount of tedium.

Apart from that, there have been numerous contributions which may have provided such scenario ideas in the past. You can't expect them in ongoing discussions, really...

>Instead, I skip through most of these digests,
>and marvel that people have the time to argue some of the points they do.
>It's a game. Or is it? Is the study of Glorantha more fun than the
>playing in it? The same few names appear on this list time and time
>again. Do these people play RQ as well as talk about it? What proportion
>of the time do they spend playing, and what preparing for play?

There's always the problem of opportunity. I'd love to play a character in Glorantha, but apart from a PBEM and a few convention games I haven't, yet. The regular gaming group I have isn't quite prepared for myth-rich gaming, so my refereeing Glorantha is more sporadic than it could be too.

I do write down an occasional scenario, or at least cameo. I just don't publish anything before I'm satisfied with it...

It is a sad truth that I am more of a functionary or scholar than a gamer, but then some of that time goes into making magazines. Hopefully not a bad thing? But you might say that a lot of the scholarly pursuit might be regarded as preparation for play.

>New folks like me, while interested in some of what is said (eg. the stuff
>I accidentally deleted on how dwarves sense things underground), are I'm
>sure put off by the debates which make up most of this list.

I guess that's a problem - but then, if you have been with this forum for years, and still maintain some interest in Glorantha, it isn't easy to redo the basics again and again.

>I daren't
>enter most of them, because I cannot compete with the staggering obscure
>knowledge these people have of a world which doesn't even exist. I have
>read a bookshelf three feet wide of Gloranthan publications, and still
>couldn't hope to keep up with what these people "know".

When I started participating on this list's predecessor, I had more opinion than knowledge, too. It is fairly easy to get a well-founded opinion on a special part of Glorantha knowledge if you specialize. There are lots of topics left to explore, really. I have seen next to nothing about Orlanthi in the (established) Lunar Provinces, and how they combine worship of Orlanth with worship of the Seven Mothers. (Evidently they do - King Rascius of Aggar or King Bolthor Hairybreeks of Talastar don't seem to have any principal problem with that.)

>If you want new blood, make joining fun.

Joining the list? Or joining the Glorantha gamer and scholar community?

IMO it is at least as important to make remaining on the list fun.

I know my idea of fun is not writing up a scenario, but how about posting scenario stuff upon joining? Practically every referee has had his high moments worthy of putting down in writing. Offer, and you'll be given.

>I feel that I have been dropped
>into the fourth year of an advanced history and geography course, and am
>supposed to keep pace with the people who joined in the first year.

Sometimes what you can read - or skip - on this list is raw thinking for some peoples' conception of Glorantha. I have been told this can be discussed in private, but if you do all of the development in private, a) you get a fairly silent list, and b) you don't get half as many interesting objections and input. Instead you get cliques who can comunicate with obscure mentions of bygone discussions which are no fun at all for the uninvolved, unless printable material is generated. And even then lots of potentially useful stuff gets omitted by editorial needs...

>Where are the scenarios, the cameos?

On the web pages, and in the magazines. You might notice that even there the number of names isn't that large...

Scenarios, with full NPC stats and rulesy details, are highly unlikely to be published here anyway. NPC stats are among the most boring lecture I can think of, beating even sobjectivism debates. NPC descriptions are useful, though.

Brian Tickler paints it black:

>On a more serious note, it's pretty hard to mistake all the signs:

>- Recent Glorantha-cons ill-attended and poorly reviewed

This might be a phenomenon of over-saturation, in part. This spring/summer has already featured two conventions a week apart in LA and Germany, and is followed by Convulsion next weekend. With both travel time and expenses a limited quantity, you can't expect everyone to attend every convention within 1000 miles.

>- Prominent digest personalities posting less and less (MOB, for
>example) or disappearing entirely (Sandy)

This change in activity has happened all the time. If I look into the backlog of the first RuneQuest Dailies, I do miss a number of then active posters, only to see them replaced by later additions. Some people just take a leave for a while - take Alex, for instance.

>- Issaries Inc. efforts floundering

The only effort which has managed to flounder so far is the distribution of fan shares. The rest is proceeding at the expected pace, isn't it? After all, there are Hero Wars playtests, there is the computer game, there are new sources in the making (just look at the "Greg Sez" myths, probably at least half of them are intended for upcoming, scheduled publications).

>- LARPS proliferating, RPG campaigns dying off

Larps are convention magnets, fun to play, and hard work only for a few authors and referees. Campaigns dying off -

>- Commericial publications halted, fan-published materials fading fast

Who is fading? Magazines with limited editorial staff are bound to fold after a few issues, or appear highly irregularly. Apart from that, this year has seen a wealth of fan-published material which was almost more than could be comprehended at once, and next weekend at Convulsions is likely to add to the amount.

>All these factors point towards a dwindling fan base, a seemingly
>impossible result given the loyalty of RQ/Glorantha fans through the
>lean years, but nevertheless, although many digesters will no doubt
>deny it, the promise of Hero Wars is not enough to sustain this
>community...

True, the promise alone is not enough. We do need some tangible professional publications within this millennium, starting ASAP and providing at least three major publications per year.

>people want RuneQuest *and* Glorantha, together...

They won't get this from any official source. Quite a lot of people seem to be ready to accept changes to RuneQuest, both 2nd or 3rd edition left questions unanswered. With Pendragon Pass (in Enclosure #1) an alternative game system has been published in print, not too different from RQ and somewhat available (also from David Dunham's webpage). The problem of RQ sorcery in Glorantha has been addressed by Sandy (see various webpages and Ye Booke of Tentacles). Magazines are going to continue to support RQ/Glorantha with scenarios and probably cults.

>and although
>remaining Glorantha-only fans may be fanatical, in the gaming business
>quality of customers means nothing beyond a certain point; it's quantity
>of customers that counts.

As far as gaming Business is concerned, Glorantha is fairly non-existent right now. This state can only be altered by Issaries Inc.

As far as fan-publication sales are concerned, fan publications with print runs in or near the 1000 mark aren't that frequent in the gaming section, are they? There is a fair customer base, and will be more so if material essential to the players gets published in a form the players (and not just the referees) are going to buy. Like the player rules for a new game... That Other Game TM did sell lots of their "Complete <Character Class>" booklets because these were relevant to players as well as referees.

Sadly group playability is counter-productive to sales - computer games which are more trouble to bootleg than to buy sell better than rpgs because practically every player wants his own copies. And sometimes excellent background material is published on a no-win-no-loss basis, has has happened with a few of the historical GURPS settings, just to keep a system supported.

And thanks to Hal Bowman to addressing the needs expressed above nicely!


Powered by hypermail