Enough of your shifting my ground for me, ok? My position has not changed one iota. Read what you quoted me saying above: "from a game perspective". Let's break it into "theorems" that hopefully are less easy to twist around:
Here's a question:
If 500 Waha worshippers die of thirst in the Long Dry and no PCs are there or ever find out about it, do they make a thump when they hit the sand?
No, they do not. Unless it is important to someone's game, somewhere, then it didn't happen. This is a game world. A game world. Game...say it with me now :)...
> > Why is that certain cults are labelled as powergamer-type cults and
> > treated as one-dimensional, while other more politically correct cults
> > like Waha, Ernalda, etc. are allowed to have real depth?
>
> Dunno -- some Frog once tried to write off the wonderful Lunar Empire as a
> "powergamer-type cult" ("French RQers only play Lunars so they can get
> Illumination and Chaos Powers"), so it must be largely a matter of playing
> style and personal opinion.
>
> My own guess would be that when you're looking at a culture's dominant
> cult(s), the depth is valuable (even mandatory?), because you can envisage a
> society where "almost everyone does everything this way". So Orlanth,
> Ernalda, Waha, Eiritha, etc. become "deeper" when you're thinking about
> campaign play -- births, marriages and deaths, coming-of-age, law, war,
> settlements, outlawries and the like. (In a more freebooting campaign, like
> the traditional Prax or Pavis or Griffin Mountain setting -- adventuring
> with no home, no family, no ties -- Orlanth Adventurous characters have many
> of the same features as Bullies: no leaders, followers or dependants to
> worry about).
You're starting a new thread here :)...where exactly does it say in bold print and in a clear manner that Stormbulls have no leaders, followers, or dependents?
> It's hard to run a game set in occupied Sartar if (as player or GM) you
> believe that all Orlanthi have a moral duty to kill Lunars wherever they may
> meet.
I never said that Stormbulls in Prax were exactly like Stormbulls everywhere...that would again imply that they had no depth :).
> That depends -- OF COURSE -- on the games you play. In the Greydog Campaign,
> there are no Storm Bull player characters. You could say that Storm Bullies
> "are just like the extras in Star Trek: they beam down and they die to aid
> the plot... other than that they're just background noise to provide the
> right atmosphere."
You're right on this, of course. Now let's admit that Stormbull's role in past, present, and future campaigns will always overshadow Waha's...
> Now, if we were playing the Greybull Campaign, that would be "true" of the
> Orlanthi. But it still wouldn't make Storm Bull the "defining Sartarite
> cult". It would mean that we were playing a Storm Bull campaign in an
> Orlanthi country. We should try to stay aware of the Big Picture within
> which our games are set, IMO -- otherwise Glorantha becomes "what we
> extrapolated from our house campaign" and not "what everyone else who read
> the same products knows".
But this thread just points out that the latter statement doesn't hold true. Lots of people have read the same products, yet somehow play things differently anyway. The digest is full of posts discussing the possible interpretations of the available material and whole new areas of implied/exapolated stuff. I dub thee a Godlearner for even thinking that there's only one way to interpret Glorantha from the outside :).
Ok, I take that back, because I don't really believe it, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to actually dab someone "in the inner circle" with the Monomyth/Godlearner brush...(I wear my paint smear with pride, BTW).
Actually, I've regretted for a long time that Greg did not make a larger effort to absorb Glorantha's evolution from a much broader swath of the player base. The way that people play it in their house campaigns *is* the true Glorantha: it has to be. However it's being played (in the average/typical campaign), that's the way it is...
For example, I'd guess that Elmal is still not *actively* played/used in a large number of campaigns. Luckily for Elmal, enough people have apparently accepted him (many grudgingly) that he's real now. If enough people hadn't, though, Elmal would be a non-entity, no matter what the published material says.
> (NB: there's a big Storm Bull-centred Orlanthi heroquest/adventure in Tales
> #18 -- the first Greydog Special -- which is at the printers even as I type.
> We may not *play* any Bullies, but we can't just ignore them!).
Interesting. This continues the sort of "do as I say, not as I publish" phenom that's been going on with Glorantha for a while...if everyone is so sure that people want to play farmers and craftsmen instead of warriors and magicians, then when are the scenarios going to reflect that (*not* trying to pick on you here, just popped up and fits with the thread)?
> The "factoid" in question is that Praxian culture is defined by the Way of
> Waha. If that never comes up in your Praxian games... then something has
> probably gone wrong with your Glorantha.
My statement was a completely general one, and had nothing to do with any single "factoid". The point was that, in general, if facts are not useful to campaigns, then they serve no purpose.
> > Actually, [Waha and Eiritha] are not washed out at all, they have the
> > same depth as Stormbull for anyone who chooses to play them.
>
> In V6 #512, one B.Tickler wrote: "Waha is a washed-out bit-player by
> comparison [with Storm Bull]". So you've changed your mind again. Good.
Here we go again: "for anyone who chooses to play them"...something I added to that comment just to avoid you jumping on it; yet you did anyway. You see, I have this incredible ability to adjust the depth of my campaign and all its facets to reflect what the players choose to play ;). So, in one sense, Waha is not washed out, because if there were need, I would use Waha's depth to provide as much material as required. This has not occurred, though, so in another sense Waha *is* in fact washed out, because nobody chose to care about him enough to make him more than window dressing...
BTW, in statement one I am talking about Waha in a majority of campaigns, where in statement two I am talking about my campaign. Context.
> "But there have been hundreds of Storm Bull player characters and *NO*
> herders or hunters or foragers or leaders or shamans or women in our Praxian
> games... so Storm Bull must define Praxian society" appear to be missing the
> point. (Exaggeration, I agree).
I never said it was good or just, but Stormbull does *effectively* have a larger "sphere of influence" than Waha.
> Yes, Storm Bull characters have been played in a lot of games where playing
> Storm Bull characters is FUN. This does not mean that Praxian society should
> be changed from its existing description (clan-based, ruled by Waha khans
> and Eiritha queens, adhering to tribal taboos) to become a wholly Storm Bull
> focussed entity.
I never advocated "changing the backdrop" either; why would I? If I believe that Stormbull already has such a huge effect, why would I want to push this bias further until things are totally out of balance? Maybe you've somehow gotten the impression that I think all Glorantha campaigns should be dominated by Stormbulls? Or that I think that Stormbull is just downright "better" than Waha? People play more Stormbulls. I've observed this many times. I relate my observations to illustrate a point now forgotten :). That's about it. No hidden agenda to conquer Prax with hordes of Stormbulls...
> Sure, Brian: you present yourself on the list in an archetypal manner, and
> are gleefully demolished in the same happy spirit of universal brotherhood.
> No grudges involved.
Likewise. Though demolishment is in the eyes of the beholder. If considering me demolished makes your day though, go for it :)...
> Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1999 10:55:53 +0100
> From: "Nick Brooke" <Nick_Brooke_at_csi.com>
> Subject: Re: Glorantha through Time
>
> Steve writes in:
>> > (one suspects that this was "discovered" by Greg in his Chaosium house
> > Nobody I gamed with knew that Orlanthi had Celtic/Viking clan structures
Also a pity that the officially released material didn't reflect what was going in the community at the time a little more closely...(note that I said "a little" here and that it was not meant sarcastically).
End of The Glorantha Digest V6 #522
Powered by hypermail