John Hughes ponders an epic topic: The future of Glorantha...
>If we set say, a ten year horizon, what are the goals we should be working
towards?
>So if we want to continue to systematically explore Glorantha,
>and have the information available in some systematic way, what
>structures do we need to build?
>Who is going to organise the next generation of Gloranthacons? How can we
>recruit, and widen Glorantha's appeal? How can we sell the dream?>>
These core questions are something that I have also pondered on many
occasions. Here's my opinion:
First and foremost we need to recognize that the main Gloranthan themes
are going to be largely developed by Greg and his assigned minions via
Issaries Inc. They are continually developing the main timeline of
events and the core products that will be supporting and documenting
them. If anyone in the Gloranthan Global community wants to be a part
of that, they need to start getting integrated into those projetcs and
become a part of it's development team. The most important factor in
being a part of those teams is being able to deliver quality product
according to deadline. Many developers have the best intentions, but few
actually deliver according to those requirements. That said, there is still
plenty that can be done.
- Running demos - this is one of the best ways to bring new people into
the game. If Glorantha is going to survive, let alone grow, we have to
get new blood buying and (hopefully) playing the game.
- Running conventions - this is actually a juggernaut to tackle if you
want to run a full fledged Gloranthan convention like Convulsion or RQCon1.
You need financial resources and long term committments from a TEAM of
people.
One person operations have basically failed with maybe one exception,
and Gloranthan conventions in the US have progressively been less and
less succesful. What I think we really need to focus on is having a
good Gloranthan gaming presence at every RPG convention. Supposedly,
Issaries
is supposed to have someone to coordinate this effort on a national scale,
but I am pretty sure they have yet to find anyone to take this non-paying
job. Most major role playing conventions don't have anyone running hero
wars scenarios, etc. The publicity for those events, even when they have
been
held is largely minimal. From a different angle, I think that expecting
a large number of people to pay substantial sums of money to travel to a
Gloranthan convention is largely a thing of the past. Convulsion had over
200 Gloranthaphiles present, over 90% of them were all UK based. Half of the
foreigners in attendence received some kind of travel subsidy. We have a
hard
enough time getting people to even travel over from the European continent.
- Publications - Tales 19 goes to the printers next week. After that there
is only Issue 20 and then that's it for Tales. That basically leaves
Tradetalk.
I'm all for way cool web based stuff, but that doesn't put anything into
game shops or trade stands at conventions. I'm still formulating my opinion
on the best way to tackle Hero Wars magazines/fanzines.
- Author groups - I think the Prax Pack team is the best example of how
to handle a project of great worth with web based resources or organization.
I hope to see more things like it in the future.
That's only about half of what I wanted to say. More later.
Take care,
Rick