Wither Glorantha?

From: danny bourne <d.bourne_at_dial.pipex.com>
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 10:34:30 +0100


Just a few comments on Rick's words.

>3. Events need to focus on getting new players interested. Just
> appealing to the old timers isn't enough any more.

I was talking to the guys at the local uni role playing group a while back - - I was going to run a wadge of Grazer's stuff for RQ. What was the general comment, what's Runequest, what's Glorantha? (Cos they're all best part of a decade younger than me). Okay, I said, have a look at this (and showed them things like Lords of Terror, the Gloranthan boxed set and a few of the fanzines). General consensus, they felt there's far too much to learn before you can even start to play (I haven't been privy to Hero Wars, so I don't know whether that situation will be overcome or not), and it's not something that's go an instantly accessible tag (like L5R or the world of darkness stuff)

>4. More games, freeforms, and interactive events, and less seminars.
>
>5. Many hands make light the work. You need a team of organisers,
> not just one or two dedicated (and overworked) heroes.
>

Think of all the other game systems
>that were big in the 70's/80's/or 90's that are totally dead!

Such as? Even Traveller's still alive (just). Thing is that lots of people see Glorantha as RQ/Glorantha, take out RQ and it's just not the same. The only RQ I've seen played recently is ALL back to RQ 2 'the good old days' stuff. I just really can't help thinking that when hero wars comes out, apart from the sad geeky fan boys, people (myself included) will by the products to use the info in their RQ2 systems - unless we can convince people like that, that hero wars is very good (as Feng Shui is). If it's a simple system to get into, then it'll be far more successful than one that accurately portrays the heroplane/quests because newbies aren't going to give a toss about mythic resonance and all that guff when they pick up the system.
>
>We can change the state of things. Get involved. Get friends involved.

Well that's down to the con organisers also. You have to make things like Convulsion more accessible to non-geeky fan boys. I'm sorry if that'll taint the racially pure Gloranthan strain, but it's something that's just got to be accepted. That means getting people involved via other systems, the RPGs, the (shock, horror) Mythos CCG, Call of Cthulhu etc. Have things like day passes so that people come along for the thing they're really interested in and then have them stick around for the rest of the day to see if there's other stuff they like. Pamper the newbies & non-Gloranthans, make them feel welcome, rather than give people a snotty nosed elitist attitude that most of the Megacorp responded with when I put forward these ideas (Rick being the noteable exception).

If you don't, Glorantha will end up as some kind of Lich, kept alive only by the "I must by the next release because it's Gloranthan", fan boys. I won't be one of them.

PS Rick, next time I'm down in London, want to do a whole paddle at Belgos?


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