The increasingly bad tempered red emperor slanging match

From: Graham J Robinson <gjr_at_dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2000 13:18:23 +0100 (BST)


Wow - I work at home for one day, and come back to a dozen digests, some of it aimed directly at me.

Since I'm replying to lots of e-mails, and am too lazy to cut and paste, the following contains lots of paraphrasing and practically no accreditations. Sorry to anyone I inadvertantly misrepresent...

Martin's about turn :

Good thing - Of course there is only one RE, but how exactly he reforms should be a bit of vague. I personally would be happy with your version appearing as "normally...", but allowing for the LoM/my own version to occur if needed.

Sorry Graham but specific is good :

Depends what level you are at. Of course, you need some sort of firm details of, for instance, how an Orlanthi stead works, who the local clans are, what major events occured. This is needed, and something I hope will occur, regularly, in the future.

On the other hand, cast in stone, it happens this way and can't happen any other way comments on how the red emperor reincarnates are (a) irrelevant to most games (b) get in the way when you have a different idea you want to try.

Seriously, settings carved in stone are why I refuse to play vampire any more. I got feed up with players coming out with lines like "but it says in some obscure book you've never even read that..."

In summary :
solid facts about everyday life and hugely visible events : GOOD. solid facts about stuff most people don't know : BAD. hints, suggestions, rumours, and possibilities about same : GOOD.

All I want is for Martin to scatter a few "possiblies" "it is believed" and "rumours says" around the appropriate places.

Monomythic certainty versus Glorantha as it is perceived :

I vote squarely for the latter - this doesn't mean the books have to be written as "gloranthan documents" but they should keep in mind that they are only "true" for the people they are about. In other words, they should all be explicitly "local spin" on the underlying truth.

As an example, the question "Who is king of the gods?" should have very different answers from book to book.

Nick/MOB : Why did we bother?

Because there are a lot of us who are bloody glad you did, and will be bloody upset if you don't in the future...

DLTBGYD : Don't let the bastards grind you down

Tact, noun:
 The unsaid part of what you are thinking.         


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