Re: The Glorantha Digest V6 #545

From: Al Harrison <aharriso_at_coe.neu.edu>
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 17:19:51 -0400 (EDT)


someone:
> > Seriously how do you expect new Greggites to imerge from a game system
> > where the majority of players dont imerse themselves in the genre...because
> > they dont NEED to understand how the culture works to survive? A Rune Level
> > character DEFINES how that culture works.
>

Alex:
> I think this is entirely _not_ the case. If you're a Sword of Humakt,
> you've already to a large degree defined your social role already (or
> had it defined for you, but the cult, if you prefer). You get a
> potted little description of what that keyword means, and it gives
> pretty strong roleplaying impetus to play it in a way that makes
> cultural (and cultic!) sense. 'Rune level' characters have a certain
> amount of _social_ clout, but on the 'cultural' level, they're at
> the pinprick stage. (Come back in another six levels of mastery, son...)

Well... I must disagree with Alex (whomever?). It's true that when the _players_ have a complete understanding of the background material and are willing to submit (or at least squirm within) the social bounds set for their chosen personae, then higher-level characters tend to be limited.

On the other hand, taking your typical player _new to Glorantha_ with not much clue ... as a Rune Level, what NPC would dare trying to explain to this powerful PC that some things are just not done? What NPC would even imagine that the PC did not know this? How could the GM possibly educate the player regarding the game world without the tedium of saying "read this section, it explains why your character got beaten up by his two best friends and his master" - in other words, assigning homework ....

Give the same new, clueless player(s) a character of (say) 12 years age, and roleplay in four sessions the character's path to adulthood; voila, the player or the player group are completely aware of the character's culture, or at least aware on the same level as the GM.

I have frequently been in a group of players, and twice GM'ed a group, where the game world was wicked, wicked cool (Boston Englishism there, no moral comment) ... and the GM was the only one who really knew how cool the game world was, because the GM was the only one who read through all the source material. The PC's started as adults in all cases, setting out into a world they should have known well but which the players knew not at all. There were some pretty tedious sessions of exposition in each campaign, where the GM had to explain why certain things were _not done_ because the PCs "made a World Lore" in whatever system was being used at the time. This stuff could at least have been done in character, by a village elder or whatnot, if the PCs had been playing characters more appropriate to their knowledge of the setting.

Al Harrison
geocities.com/Paris/Tower/9143
harrisona_at_asme.org


End of The Glorantha Digest V6 #547


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