Anachronisms (was Arabian Lunars)

From: Ian Cooper <ian_hammond_cooper_at_yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Fri, 6 May 2005 14:32:16 +0100 (BST)


>>The West has always seemed like a terrible
anachronism. Late medieval society (platemail clad knights and all) living next to the Celt-like barbarians and Ancient Greek level Solars.<<

I have always tried to avoid over-rationalizing Glorantha. IMHO the diversity of Glorantha cultures reflect and are included to explore the different ways mankind has interacted with the gods and each other over time. After all Glorantha was first a place of stories and then a game, so it provides plces to tell different stories without necessarily having a gamers obsession with world-building. I do not think that Glorantha wants to simulate of the economic and technological effects of such cultures meeting. It might want to explore the stories that result from such a clash though.

Putting it crudely, Glorantha is best viewed narratively rather than materially. As an example I imagine that the West is there because Greg wanted somewhere to set stories in the style of authors like Mallory, and that using it to do similar is its best use in a game.

Now that is not to say that you can't examine the material facets of Gloranthan cultures in games, but looking at them in anything other than isolation, trying to rationalize them together, may soon become a heartbreaking road of shoehorning.

Ian Cooper
0208-672-0717(H)07970-411892 (M)

"Give the kids tools, so they can go build their own houses; not the blueprint of what the houses should be." Tori Amos                                   



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