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---------------------
From: argrath@aol.com
Subject: Broo sex & other things
Message-ID: <9404101351.tn603626@aol.com>
Date: 10 Apr 94 17:51:51 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 3584
Sandy says:
> What is a "true broo"? In any case, remember that broos can
>inseminate even MALE victims, so a female broo is not needed for this
>special use -- male/male broo sex would presumably also produce pure
>broo offspring.
> However, it is my opinion that broos rarely, if ever, engage
>in sex among one another, whether hetero- or homo-. In fact, I doubt
>very much whether broos appeal sexually to each other.
Well, while we're down in the gutter, let me add my effluvia to the open
sewer (anyone under 18 please seek parental permission before reading the
following);)
I'd like to know why Sandy thinks broos don't have sex with each other.
One of the ways in which sex is used in the human species, as well as among
other primates, is to express dominance. Dominance seems to be a fairly
important thing in broo society [understatement of the week]. Thus, it seems
to me that a broo society doesn't have so much a pecking order as ... you get
the drift. Broo society is inhumanly brutal and broos worship a goddess of
coercive sex, so I think that intraspecies rape would be fairly common.
(Some guy at the RQ Con made some stupid comment like "We like rape,"
during the Orlanthi storytelling. I came up with a comeback several weeks
late: "Somebody rape him already.")
I think intrabroo sex counts against one of the arguments for the
nonexistence of female broo, namely that giving birth would kill them. I
think any broo impregnated by another broo would have a good chance of
surviving giving birth, given the high CONs that broos have. And it seems to
me that a female or hermaphrodite would have an excellent chance of success,
since their wombs would be well adapted for and/or designed for such hard
use. But, if you were a female broo, would you nurse one? I mean, the
little rug rat has pointed teeth!
On the other hand, to argue against myself for a minute, I've never run
into a pregnant male broo. Maybe their chaotic fertility doesn't work
against each other? Or they don't show? That'd be a tough thesis project
for an aspiring Grey Lord...
Re: Pamaltelan stuff from John Hughes
A slightly belated thanks for the impressive commentary and especially
the guided imagery exercise, which gave me goosebumps. Here's a thought, and
a way around the dilemma of there being few group heroquests: have one player
take the part of the central character (not necessarily the most powerful)
and the others take parts as companions/helpers/foes encountered in the
dream/heroquest. I've had players object to this in the abstract as not
giving the players of the supporting characters equal dignity with the player
of the central character, but I hope that players now are more sophisticated
and realize that the supporting characters have more freedom of action and,
often, more interesting roles. Satan is the most interesting character in
Paradise Lost, I'm told.
In your GEI, John, what did the other players do? Did they get to be,
frex, the hawk possible-totem? Or the sea? I can think of lots of cool
possibilities, and with a facilitator, it shouldn't get mushy. (I can see
how it could turn into something from one of those acting classes where the
teacher has the students do all kinds of weird things, but let's hope not.)
David Dunham points out:
>In the Genertela Book, p. 65, the Otkorion are listed both as part of
>Safelster and the Orlanthi. Are they that numerous? Is the Orlanthi entry
>really the missing Surkorion?
There are several inaccuracies in the Genertela Book tables, and I
wouldn't read anything into them. Frex, the Redlands, Elder Wilds, Garsting,
and Jarst humans are omitted from the Lunar Empire table, although allies and
the Elder Wilds trolls are in the tables. Of course, the Redlands could be
in the Pent section instead, but they're not there either. Tarsh is counted
both
in Dragon Pass and the Lunar Empire, and Pralorela is counted both in Maniria
and in Ralios. (Mike Dawson thinks the latter means 50,000 on the Manirian
side and 50,000 on the Ralian. I find the identical numbers suspicious.) In
Ralios, some of the table entries are for cities, others for countries (this
may actually be intentional and express the distinction between citystates
and nationstates, I guess). In the Wastelands, the populations for "Pavis
and Environs" and "Independents" don't fit with other published data.
Re: MOB's "Teacher Tiggy"
The most popular game in the U.S. schools these days seems to be
bringing weapons to school. Friday, in the Washington suburbs, the son of a
police officer shot a teacher in the chest for interrupting him while he
tried to sell his father's service revolver. Why do most kids bring weapons
to school? To protect themselves from all those kids with weapons.
Re: the multiple worlds hypothesis
I guess this is a way to preserve one's belief in the existence of an
Ultimate Truth. Rather like the medieval astronomers who believed that
planets travelled in circles, and, when shown that they travelled in
ellipses, invented epicycles to hang onto their belief that they travelled in
circles.
Eventually Occam's Razor triumphs, though.
Yours constructively,
Martin
---------------------
From: robmh@aol.com
Subject: Trollball (Tangents) Trollball
Message-ID: <9404102226.tn618023@aol.com>
Date: 11 Apr 94 02:26:17 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 3585
I'm not up to date reading the Daily but I'll comment on a few of the things
I've noticed while picking it up. Apologies if I'm Redundant of anyone.
Comments on others' ideas when I've caught up.
I always thought that part of the fun of Trollball was that it was such a
successful translation of something that would be ordinarily anachronistic,
American football. I wouldn't enjoy placing other earth games into Glorantha
unless they were analagously translated.
The Trollball rules themselves are lame. Football simulations aren't easy to
engineer. Trollball's blend of skirmish wargaming and would-be sports gaming
is fun to read, but it doesn't play very well. Anyone who has greatly
enjoyed the game should contradict me, but I think most of the rules for
moving the ball (Trollkin) are lame in the extreme, particulary the punting
and passing rules.
I doubt anyone really cares about Trollball RQ rules, but if I were going to
rewrite them I'd move to a card-based system drawing from Avalon Hill games
such as Up Front, Pro Wrestling and Enemy in Sight. Instead of trying to
account for every second of the game, skirmish wargame style, I'd use some
abstraction and think of the game as capturing the scenes that would fit on
the highlight film. That's more playable anyway.
Tangent: I'm much more interested in modelling the Godwar with a system
similar to Up Front's mix of counters, unit cards, and the combination
action/results deck (with no game map....). In the Gloranthan version, I'd
use the actual cards, layed out as tiles, to create an ever-changing game
map.
Back to Troll Ball: I've always wondered why female trolls don't seem to
play Troll Ball. My favorite answer is that the all-time champion Trollball
team is a completely female team, a team of Mistress Race heroines who
defeated the male heroes in an all-out match back in the Darktime. Since
then, female Trolls don't have to prove themselves by playing Troll Ball,
it's the males who have to show they have what it takes to give the Ur-Uz
Champions a proper match. My concept is that one particular type of Troll
Heroquesting is the Troll Ball path, in which male trolls try to get back
into the Darktime and compete against the Champions alongside the male
heroes. Often as not these Heroquesters wind up portraying the Ball. If
Heroquesting males ever manage to tip the scales in the Heroes favor, maybe
females will have to start playing Troll Ball again, but among Mistress Race
Trolls the expression "When the males win the Match Game...." to mean a time
that will never come. Better jargon for this idea, and a good name for the
female champions will be cheerfully accepted.
---------------------
From: robmh@aol.com
Subject: War (games) for children
Message-ID: <9404102228.tn618122@aol.com>
Date: 11 Apr 94 02:28:07 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 3586
Tag games and ball games are open to almost endless variations, and should be
popular among children as well as some adults.
As a kid growing up on U.S. Army bases, I was a game designer, the kid who
created most of the games that the rest of the neighborhood ended up playing.
My two favorites were combat-related games that could serve as warrior
training for young Gloranthans.
The first I called 'Air Battles,' a game we started playing when I was in
second grade. I was a big fan of WWI and WWII fighter planes. Air Battles
was played in an open field. Every player had a small rubber ball, or a
tennis ball, something that could be thrown a long way but wasn't very heavy.
Each player chose to be a particular type of airplane. I was always a
Fokker Triplane, or a Sopwith Triplane, or a P-40 Flying Tiger. Other kids
wanted to be the Starship Enterprise, not that the identification helped them
with anything besides their imaginative input. The game was a dodgeball
variant. Every player tried to hit every other player. As soon as someone
was hit they had to sit down until the round was over. The round ended when
only one person was still alive. Surviving rounds wasn't necessarily the key
to winning the game, since the main goal was to rack up 'Victories' by
hitting other players. You scored one Victory every time you hit someone
else, and we called the score before the start of every round, so hanging
back and just trying to survive didn't earn you any points unless you also
killed people. Unlike forms of dodgeball that seem more widespread in the
States, catching or touching other people's balls didn't save your life, if
you touched someone else's ball you were dead and they got the Victory, so a
lot of the game was spent chasing after your own throws.
I like the game's name in combination with Sandy's suggestion that Orlanthi
play Dodgeball. Might children identify themselves as various Air godlings
and heroes? The game is good for building 360 degree awareness, peripheral
vision, and the aggressiveness that helps throws hit their mark, since people
who flinched while throwing or who flinched at every feint seldom succeeded
in hitting their targets.
Oddly, I'm living on a sort of environmental education school's campus where
I'll probably be able to talk the other instructors into playing a few rounds
of Air Battles some day.... for adults these people are an active group.
Hell, I'll probably even be able to get the entire non-Gloranthan initiated
lot of them to try Troll Ball some day. While playing Air Battles we'll have
to be careful about throwing balls into Lake Crescent at the field's north
edge.
I don't think we'll be able to play the other game I loved as a kid,
something my brother and I called 'Twister'. We'd never played the Milton
Bradley colored-dot version of the game. Our Twister was played with a broom
handle or other long smooth stick. Two to four players took hold of the
stick with both hands. At the signal, the players tried to make all the
other players let go. The winner was the last person holding the stick.
Strikes with the stick or with the limbs were not allowed, though shoulder
and hip slams were standard tactics and tripping was perfectly OK. Twists
and body leverage and coordinating hand movements with body momentum were the
key. Most Twister games ended up on the ground in seconds, just like real
fights, though we stopped the game if someone got pinned by the stick.
Sometimes we played the game on hills, but after a few four person hillside
games we realized that playing with too many people on the hillside was
likely to end our game permanently when someone broke a bone, so we went back
to three person games on the flat.
Any number of groups might play variations on this game in Glorantha. I
don't think of magic Healing as being so common that people could afford to
give it to children who break themselves frequently playing violent games,
but it would still be accessible to pre-pubes and young or hardened warriors.
--Rob Heinsoo
---------------------
From: robmh@aol.com
Subject: Rockball!!!
Message-ID: <9404102228.tn618145@aol.com>
Date: 11 Apr 94 02:28:51 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 3587
It's mildly funny to think of baseball as the Trollkin's sport while the Uz
are playing their version of football, but I don't think I'd use the idea.
Baseball, even crude baseball, seems too organized and genteel to be played
by Trollkin.
Here's a Trollkin game that makes a bit more sense to me, I like it a lot for
a first draft. For now I'm calling it Rockball.
Each of two teams draws a circle (that's a Darkness Rune you're drawin'
there, sport) about ten feet in diameter. The circles should be about 45 to
60 feet apart (distances open to change if people think I've got them
wrong...).
Each team chooses two of its members to enter the Rockball circles. One of
the team members carries a stick and will henceforth be referred to as the
batter, the other is barehanded and will be called the pitcher.
Each of the two teams has an agreed upon number of stones in their circle,
stones they've selected themselves. The usual method of deciding how many
stones the current round will involve is for the team that lost the previous
round to pick a number of stones between three and fifteen and drop that
number into the dirt in between the circles. The team that won the previous
round drops a number of stones in the dirt between three and fifteen as well,
and then the sides split the number of stones in two, and the odd stones go
to the team that lost the round before. I realize Trollkin aren't
mathematical geniuses, so this part of the round is frequently the site of
misdirection, extreme stupidity, and con games.
When the round begins, the two pitchers are free to throw the stones from
their circle at the opposing players. There's no time limit for this. The
batters are not allowed to throw stones, though they can catch them and drop
them into their circle for the pitcher to hurl later. Good batters either
parry the stones down into their circle for the pitcher to throw or even
strike the rocks back at the opposing team to catch them off guard.
Pitchers can also catch stones, or 'trap' them with their bodies (soccer
style) if they're really tough.
Any stone that lands outside the circles is out of play. The round is over
when all the stones are out of play or when the side which still has stones
is unable to return fire.
Some batters work to protect their pitcher, others are just trying to stay in
one piece themselves. Any Trollkin who falls out of the circle, steps
outside the circle, or reaches outside the circle for a rock is supposed to
be eliminated from the game completely. Since one team wins when the
opposing team is unable or unwilling to provide a pitcher and a batter for
the next round, it's a serious mistake to go outside the circle before the
round is over, though many times a Trollkin who is hit hard has no choice
about where they're falling. There are famous stories about batters who
caught their pitchers as they were falling out of the circle, parried all
further throws to gather stones, and waited for their pitcher to revive and
wipe out the competition.
Some games end in draws if neither team is willing to admit defeat and
neither team can put the other out.
Like Troll Ball, Rockball is a cheater's paradise, a full team participation
game. In fact, Trollkin usually play that spectators aren't allowed,
everyone present has to play on one team or the other. Trollkin who have
been eliminated aren't supposed to participate in any fashion, but that's the
main rule that gets violated and turns the game into a brawl.
If teams want to, they can send the same pitcher/batter pair into the circle
again and again, though most teams have to rotate their batters and pitchers
to keep them in the game. Armor and other extras are negotiated each game.
For basic tactics there's the old snowball fight trick of throwing one rock
high to get the opponents' attention and following it up with one or two low
fast rocks to knock them out while they're distracted with the high throw.
Since trollkin aren't a good deal smarter than most human children, this
basic trick is guaranteed to work at least half the time. That's part of the
reason the minimum number of rocks in a round is three. Some of the most
deadly Rockball players only play with three rocks at a time, even if they
have more at their feet. Less confident players just scramble and throw
wildly and get knocked out by accurate or lucky tosses.
Of course the least competent pitcher/batter pairs knock each other out of
the circle accidentally, so games can go a lot quicker than you might expect,
especially since most Trollkin are not very brave.
On the other hand, successful batter/pitcher pairings are quite likely to
persist from game to game, and carry over into life beyond the Rockball
circles with Trollkin pairs who excel at looking out for each other in combat
and life.
--Rob Heinsoo
---------------------
From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Finally persuaded mailtool to put his name in the header Ferguson)
Subject: Initiation etc, Reply to Sandy.
Message-ID: <9404101752.AA24337@trinidad.dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: 10 Apr 94 17:52:59 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 3588
the Sandy in question wrote:
> Alex F. comments:
> >But note that if you're a 15 year old, trying to join a religion
> >other than that of your parents', your chances aren't great.
> I don't think many 15 year olds try to join religions other
> than their parents'. This would be as abnormal as seeking a career
> other than your parents'.
I agree, and I earlier made just this comparison myself, while moaning
at the Low Initiation lot. I don't, however, believe that the consequences
of attempting to do so should be as dire as having a 90% chance of
not being accepted as an Adult member of the clan. Unless, that is,
the whole clan insists on the worship of a _particular_ diety, in which
case, tuff.
> I say this knowing full well that my own church is largely
> composed of converts -- but not many of them were converted at the
> age of 15!
I don't think joining an Orlanthi (say) cult other than one`s parents'
is really any kind of `conversion' in our modern sense. After all, the
cults are non-exclusive, unlike most earthly and all monotheistic religions.
It is indeed much more like choosing another `job', or path in life.
Another possible fudge would be to say that if one has a parent in a
"closely enough" (see previous hand-waving on this subject) associated
cult, then this is good enough for a `free' initiation. For example,
Initiation into Orlanth on the strength of an Ernaldan parent, or vice
versa. Just a thought.
> [female broos `not natural']
I don't think the statement in _KoS_ that all broos are male is very
definitive. Firstly, this is mythology, after all, and secondly, everyone
knows that an Orlanthi `all' means 85%, neatly tallying with the _Tales_
suggested numbers. Me, I'm in the "Only another Broo would care" camp.
> One more point in defense of the ol' Invisible God -- all his
> wizards are SUPPOSED to be good, and this holds true for all his
> sects except the Brithini (the Vadeli, of course, are not Malkioni).
> Of course, there's plenty of bad wizards anyway. But a theistic
> priest of a bad god, such as Zorak Zoran, gives you no such
> assurance.
Colour me morally relativistic, but I think speaking glibly of "bad gods"
in any absolute sense makes no more sense on Glorantha than on Earth.
With the (partial but substantial) exception of Chaotic deities, no
god's worshipper thinks of himself, or his god as being "bad" or "evil".
If a Zorak Zorani thinks his priest is morally suspect, it'd be because
he wasn't sufficiently zealous in his persecution of Chaos, or is soft on
these Inherently Evil light-worshipping types, not because he engages in
activities most humans would find utterly despicable.
> Guy Robinson sez:
> >Prehaps the salvation of the Orlanthi will be the mobilization of
> >the lands of the Invisible God once the insubstanciality and as well
> >as the invisibility of the Invisible God is exposed.
> Apparently you're unaware that the Malkioni are hostile to the Lunar
> Empire, and see it as a rebirth of the evil Gbaji Empire (which
> flourished in the same area and also supported chaos).
I think we should be more precise here: the Kingdom of Loskalm is
certainly likely to be hostile to the Lunars, or at least will be once
they come into intimate physical contact. (Charg is still 'in the way'.)
On the other hand, the Brithini and Seshnegi may well be pretty apathetic
to/underinformed about the Lunar empire, and the Boristi and Galvosti
might just lurve them to pieces.
> I submit that
> apostate Malkioni who no longer believed in their god would be LESS
> hostile towards the Lunars and also less effective.
Oh, I dunno. Did we ever come to a collective guess on how pro-/anti-Lunar
the cult of Invisable Orlanth is? (Not that IO worshippers are necessarily
converts from Malkionism.)
Alex.
---------------------
From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Language is a Virus Ferguson)
Subject: Language(s) in GRAY.
Message-ID: <9404101802.AA24343@trinidad.dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: 10 Apr 94 18:02:31 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 3589
One of the many Interesting Things in GRAY is the information on language.
Shame this isn't a bit more specific in places, though: for instance,
does 'ente-' means good, and '-kos' mean air, or vice versa?
But my main point is: what language is being translated here? The obvious
answer is 'Dara Happan', but there seem to be (at least?) two distinct
languages here. Firstly the 'Indian-sounding' names, which are in the
majority, such as Yelm, Khordavu, etc; and secondly the 'Latin-sounding'
ones such as Antirius, Pelontonius, etc (some of them are more Greek,
though). My guess is that the first is indeed Dara Happan, and the second
group are from some Pelorian (Farmer?) language. (I presume New Pelorian
is a much later development.)
If this is the case, it suggests untold speculation as to the (distinct?)
origins of these various personages and deities. But it might just be
Greg being (linguistically eclectic|highly confusing|on drugs). ;-)
Shall we have a vote on it?
Another minor point: who/what are the denizens of the Yelmic Fifth Hell?
Is it specifically trolls, undead, or both; or is it catch all for all
the Really Bad things in hell, to wit anything not fitting the orderly
Four Hells ruled by Lodril?
Alex.