Core and Flexibility
The existence of a "Core" Glorantha would seem to be a boon to everyone,
even with the potential "contradictions" and retconning I see people
going around about. The question become how adaptable is "core" material
going to be. I think just about everyone one of us has had to change and
adapt from just about everything which has been published so far. A great
deal of the material (fan and offical) either doesn't fit with the way
I've told the story or seems out of the realm of the game I want to run,
but just about everything has had some superb ideas and central concepts.
It seems to me that's what a core rules/history will provide. I know
there are people who don't want to have to go through that process of
having to rework the material and there are objections to grand arcs, but
at least from my perspective, those are some prices to pay.
What is going to have to change is probably the way we deal with issues
and discussions about Glorantha. A lot of arguments/debates are based on
references to a central, given and published set of references. In a
future Glorantha with both a "core" history and a plethora of "fan"
published alternatives, the criteria for judging something isn't on its
"truth" or fit with the accepted model, instead it has to be on what is
interesting to game and to play. I run games all the time, juggling
several campaigns at once. I've read the "fan" (I hate this term, but I
loathe amateur because it's insulting) publications, offical publications
and digests trying to find things which will add atmosphere to my game.
The RE debate, for example, is/was full of great throwaway ideas which
can be used; having various alternative views allows me to choose and
keep the real truth ambiguous from my players.
The idea that "fan" publications could flood the market and weaken the
currency of "core" Glorantha is ludicrous. Half of the key is that people
are willing to look at alternative takes on the ideas and not just knock
them for being contradictory or not working with what they do; that won't
be a constructive criticism in a Glorantha with diverse views. The other
half of the key is that "fan" writers are willing and empowered to
publish alternatives and not have the feeling that their work is somehow
worthless because it isn't offical. We should be able to state that this
is one take on Glorantha; it means a different approach to reading ideas
on the digest and new publications.
Realistic Approach
My one fear about the new Gloranthat is how realistic we can be about the
success of a new RPG system. I've worked retail gaming for many years and
I'm always sceptical. A good system requires people who are willing to
publish and support it, which would seem to be the purpose of the GTA in
some measure. For example, lets take Origins. Granted it's not the
powerhouse that it once was, but it's a fairly big convention. There are
no Hero Wars events scheduled in the pre-reg book. I've gone to Origins
the last three years hoping for some interesting Glorantha stuff and have
been disappointed. Where are people demoing the new system? Who have they
got showing it off? How many of us are going out there to do the painful
job of converting people; granted most of us don't have the system in
hand, but eventualy to make Hero Wars work, its going to have to happen.
Conventions are places to demo and to grab people's attention, from local
ones to game room events to the big shows.
I want Hero Wars to succeed becuase I think it will inspire boom in fan
publications as well. I want more Nick Brooke stuff...I tell you if I see
his name on anything, I'll buy it. The same for MOB and Stephen Martin
and Mr. Baumgartner and half a dozen others. I don't care if they are
offical or not; they provide myself and my gaming groups with countless
hours of interesting ideas and adventures. That is really the only
standard I can see that matters. Its about playing a game and telling a
story. Anything that helps me with that is pure gold.
I just realized I wrote the kind of rant that I'd scroll through if I
were reading the digest.
Lowell A. Francis
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