Let me: congrats, and good luck on the publications.
> I think it's a pretty fair bet that the new game will contain a
> decent amount of overview type material on Prax. I'm sure that
> whatever Hero Wars does, you'll find many reasons to dislike it, but
> in this specific instance I don't see what the problem is.
I'll have plenty to dislike, certainly...I'll also have stuff to like; I already plan to replace the whole RQ Oratory and various brain-powered skill sets with some form of the HW format for resolutions. As I'll get into later, I'm not nearly as black and white on this stuff as you might imagine...
> <extreme restraint>
> Not so. Give it up. This sort of comment would be a lot less annoying
> if the author showed signs of addressing the points _I_ raised in
> contradiction of those he feels I missed.
> </extreme restraint>
Not intentional...like you, I'm sure, I only have X amount of time to write up my diatribes, and I cull a lot of things I would certainly have spoken to if we sitting in the same room. If you'll look back through this thread though (and past threads where I sparred with various digest members), you'll find that this is fairly common practice on both sides :). I apologize for not addressing everything, and wish I could type 100 words a minute (while keeping coherent)...
> > average gamer would be more happy with a completely fleshed-out small
> > campaign area, then in a mediocre amount of information about an entire
> > world with little spread out areas of it discussed in detail.
>
> I just don't understand where this sort of comment lobs up from.
> How is starting off the line with 3/4 books about or applicable to
> the Sartar Orlanthi a 'spread out' 'mediocre amount of information'?
> Or have we changed topics again? Yes, this _was_ a problem with RQ3,
> in that for a lot of places we got a 'glimpse', portending much to
> come, which of course never did. Most conspicuously, this was so
> even for 'key' areas like Sartar and the Lunar Empire. This is
> _exactly_ what the new game is trying to rectify, if I divine the
> intent and the publication schedule correct.
Remember, this whole thing sprang up out of a very short post. This did not start up as me railing against anything, but in response to "inquiries" about why I said this or that. Your own point about the problem with RQ3 is pretty much exactly what I was referring to in my comments, I just didn't want to say the term "RQ3", since that would immediately invalidate whatever I said in some people's minds, since they've already classified me as "incorrigible RQ2 fanatic, beyond redemption"...
To see what I'm getting at, though, you need only compare Cults of Prax and its writeups to Genertela + Gods of Glorantha and their writeups. I consider the latter 2 to be a little too vague, trying to cover everything; admirable, but not wildly successful IMO. Before I get more flames; these 2 publications are still better than 90% of RPG gaming materials, I just don't think they have that same flavor that made Cults of Prax the most exciting RPG publication I've ever read.
> Date: Sun, 11 Apr 1999 07:16:29 EDT
> From: <Kmnellist_at_aol.com>
> Subject: Brian' s interesting point
>
> And I have to agree that -as it has been played - he is probably correct. I
> used to think that it was a shame; why did everyone want to be a Storm Khan
> when becoming a Bison Khan would be a much more satisfying achievement? Storm
> Bulls, it seems to me, are crazy, dangerous social outcasts whose one
> redeeming feature is that they fight chaos. I once tried to run a
> 'clan/tribal' campaign set in Prax, in a tribe that didn't worship Storm Bull
> and pretty much limited cult membership to Waha, Yelmalio, Eirtitha and Daka
> Fal (it was the Ostrich Tribe). It was an interesting experiment (ie it
> didn't really work) but I still think Waha should have been a more PC
> friendly cult. Perhaps when/if HW gets back around to Prax (2035?) it's more
> 'community integrated' system would encourage Waha players.
Sad but true..."an interesting experiment" is about all you can ever get out of these types of campaigns, with I guess the exception of Pam Carlson and the famous Seattle group :) (yes, I know there are others...that was a joke). You cannot get "munchkins", who by the very nature of the genre have to be a significant makeup of a RPG's market, to play in or enjoy such things. There's also a middle ground of mainstream players (IMO) who will take *some* of this, but not a majority of it. I'm not saying that's a good or bad thing, just that it does work that way.
End of The Glorantha Digest V6 #517
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