Re: The Glorantha Digest V6 #515

From: Brian Tickler <tickler_at_netcom.com>
Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 15:59:16 -0700 (PDT)


> Date: Sun, 11 Apr 1999 19:43:59 -0700
> From: David Dunham <dunham_at_pensee.com>
> Subject: Re: Praxian clans
>
> In Brian Tickler's opinion
>
> > a Praxian's tribe and cult both are orders of
> > magnitude more important than any hard notion of a "clan".
>
> I'm not sure this is really true, but it is certainly what the published
> material portrays. Yes, clans have probably been mentioned from the start,
> but we have almost no detail about them.

Thank you for at least admitting that there might be a grain of truth to what I've been saying...(do *not* read sarcasm into this sentence, please).

> Here, from my notes, are all the clans of Prax that I know of. Those with
> no attribution in brackets are my own invention. I've left in notable
> individuals, usually from my game. (We were certainly referring to Praxian
> clans five year ago, according to my campaign writeup.)
>
> I apologize that I don't have much detail about the clans either; my excuse
> is I was running a campaign which went to Prax, not a campaign of Praxians.

Double thank you for putting out in one list of names more consolidated info on Praxian "clans" ("sub-tribes"?) then I've ever seen. Just having this list of names is enough to make me want to incorporate them into my campaign (you need to add the Skullmound Bison to your list though ;)...).

> Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 07:20:17 +0100
> From: "Nick Brooke" <Nick_Brooke_at_csi.com>
> Subject: Waha & Storm Bull
>
> Turning to the description of Storm Bull's social role (the one in Cults of
> Prax, naturally), we find:
>
> "Due to the small number of warriors in it, the actual political power of
> this cult is small, at least as far as determining tribal policies. Socially
> they are unacceptable. They characteristically act with total disregard for
> any tribal taboos or manners..."
>
> So: we could ignore this description of the "Nature of the Cult" and pretend
> (because it's what we see in Brian's games) that Storm Bulls are really
> responsible, archetypal leaders of their tribes, that their anti-social ways
> define Praxian society, that all Praxians disregard their own tribal
> taboos...

Before we get into this...

As you are probably remembering, I've already come out previously and said that I don't believe in the one-dimensional Stormbull berserker/powergamer dream cult (this goes for Humakt, too, as you may recall from the Onslaught thread...).

Ok, Nick. Let's disect this quote you've latched onto:

  1. Let's rephrase the sentence "Socially they are unacceptable". How about: "Stormbulls are not accepted by mainstream Praxian society"? I read this sentence (the first one) not as a description of how all Stormbulls are, but how Stormbulls generally are perceived by non-Stormbulls.
  2. Let's rephrase the following sentence even more radically (probably beyond "reality" just to get the point across). How about: "Their actions are often misinterpreted by outsiders, as Stormbulls cross any boundary in pursuit of their goals; knowing things that others do not often makes their actions seen arbitrary and/or excessively violent"?

Let's also talk about the unwritten stereotype of the drunken, carousing berkserker cult that you're no doubt attaching in your mind to the paragraph you quoted. Why is that certain cults are labelled as powergamer-type cults and treated as one-dimensional, while other more polically correct cults like Waha, Ernalda, etc. are allowed to have real depth?

> Or we can ignore Brian. Who does sound like a Call of Cthulhu player
> deciding that the USA must be run by retired professors, gangsters and
> private investigators -- because those are the only people he meets in game
> play.

Bottom line here...since Glorantha is a game world, and not real, the characters you meet in game play are the characters that define it. Waha worshippers are just like the extras in Star Trek; they beam down and they die to aid the plot along...other than that they're just background noise to provide the right atmosphere. Some people get carried away with "the atmosphere" and lose "the game". Now I know that lots of people spend considerable amounts of time thinking about how everything in Glorantha is supposed to be, but IMO, if a factoid isn't useful to gaming and it never comes up in play, then it's just irrelevant, plain and simple.

Ok, now maybe you're thinking, "if people just played Waha characters, then he wouldn't be irrelevant". Ain't gonna happen. You pointed that out yourself when you talked about the "genre" and why people play Stormbulls in the first place. You could claim that lots of people play Waha characters, but your examples would be people who are way more into Glorantha than your average gamer will ever be.

> In the context of the great Crusade Against Chaos, I agree. Waha defines
> what Praxians do in *Praxian* situations -- fights against ungodly demonic
> incursions from the otherworld are what Storm Bullies do for him. So, if
> your games concentrate on the latter (i.e. RQ chaos rumbles), then Storm
> Bull is more important. If, OTOH, you were running (dare I say it) a
> clan-centred, family-based or political game in Prax, the Waha and Eiritha
> cults come to the fore.

Sure, but as I said, you won't find these types of campaigns outside the cloistered halls of the august digest and its enlightened gamers who see the pure evil of enjoying "rumbles"...(note to everyone else: I'm stereotyping in kind to make sure a straw man of Nick can burn right alongside mine; I'm fully aware that many of you do not fit this profile :)...).

> I dare say both of these defining Praxian cults are washed-out nonentities
> in Brian's gameverse. (I hadn't previously realised there were RQ2 grognards
> who ditched material from Cults of Prax, even -- now *there's* an
> attitude...)

Actually, they are not washed out at all, they have the same depth as Stormbull for anyone who chooses to play them. As for attitude, I'd hazard a guess that our attitudes are not that dissimilar; the difference is that where your ideas have found their way into pseudo-officialness over the years due to the circles you run in, mine have not. This paints your arrogance brighter colors than my arrogance, you see...(you'll have to read this one as having a wry grin, and not petty anger as you seem to ascribe to everything I utter...).

> Storm Bullies fight Chaos, true. This is a fun and exciting thing to do in
> role-playing games. That doesn't mean that Storm Bullies define their
> society, especially when we are told that it just ain't so in our
> introduction to the cult. You meet lots of Storm Bullies, Humakti and Chaos
> High Priests in a RuneQuest game (or a published RuneQuest scenario) for the
> same reasons you meet lots of computer hackers, secret agents and corporate
> assassins in a Cyberpunk game -- frequency of encounters does not equate to
> demographic or socio-political importance.

Demographic or socio-political importance are only "important" in a game insofar as they support whats going on in that game. Gloranthan socio-politics have no real value outside of that context.

> It's a genre thing.

Exactly. I agree.

> PS: When Brian writes:
> > Let's all agree that the word "nobody" refers to people, not written
> works...
>
> let's all remember that he's refining this statement:
> > Nobody I know has ever used the term "clan" to reference Praxians...maybe
> > it's in some of the "later" books, like Genertela, I don't recall.
>
> This association with published material suggested to me that "nobody" must
> include books, not just people. Can anyone else feel the ground shifting?

Ok, this sentence was easily mis-interpretable, no doubt due to my over-fondness for using "..." when I'm trying to get across that I'm just pouring offhand thoughts out of my head. Here's an expanded version that makes it more clear:

"No players I know have ever used the term 'clan' to reference Praxians. Hmmm, it might be published in some of the later books, though, like Genertela, I don't recall, and I don't have my RQ books at work."

> Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 10:55:14 +0100
> From: "Hibbs, Philip" <philip.hibbs_at_tnt.co.uk>
> Subject: RE: The Glorantha Digest V6 #513
>
> >>Nobody I know has ever used the term "clan" to reference Praxians...
>
> I was also quite surprised to see this term used in ref. to Praxians.

Wonder of wonders. I hope admitting that hasn't forever tainted you :)...  

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