From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer) To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest) Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily) Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Tue, 24 May 1994, part 3 Sender: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM Content-Return: Prohibited Precedence: junk --------------------- From: 100102.3001@CompuServe.COM (Peter J. Whitelaw) Subject: Curse of the Fat fingers Message-ID: <940523224553_100102.3001_BHJ65-1@CompuServe.COM> Date: 23 May 94 22:45:54 GMT X-RQ-ID: 4118 Me in X-RQ-ID 4095: >I am a RuneQuester rather than a Gloranthophile. Although I am currently >running a campaign there I do accept everything in print as gospel Ooops, Make that 'I do _not_ accept everything in print as gospel' No way. Phew. ***** Scholars and GamersAlex has much to say, all of it well-reasoned, fair and communicated in a most scholarly fashion ;-)... >This is very much putting Descartes before the horse, in my view. If >Glorantha is just a vehicle for Runequest to trundle along in, and must >adapt itself to suit every idio[syn]c[hras]y of the RQ rules, how "real", >how convincing, how likely to inspire creative endeavour, is it going to >end up? A competent GM will patently not squeeze Glorantha ruthlessly through the RQ mangle but will use a fine (IMHO) game system to facilitate the exploration and discovery of a wondrous creation. As to 'how likely to inspire creative endeavour, is it going to end up?' I fail to see that this is a function of anything much other than one's imagination. I do concede, however, that if one feels constrained by a system then that may diminish one's inspirational impulses (although if you _are_ constrained by your system then you're using it wrongly). Alex continues: >Why, if we "dry scholars" are so irrelevant to good gaming, not just >ignore these Dangerous Revisions, and play in _your_ (RuneQuest-friendly) >Glorantha? Thank you. I do. Sandy agrees with me (well, OK, I agree with Sandy )... >Without a game structure to enable us to visit Glorantha and >play there, what's the point? If the only purpose of Glorantha is to >serve as a common imaginary world-base to conjecture about, I'd much >rather conjecture about Earth. Exactly. Even the so-called 'scholars' amongst our happy number confess to playing the game. It just seems to me that, whilst disassociating the lozenge from the mechanics invented to explore it is undeniably in vogue (and arguably more true to its roots as an intellectual exercise) to do so merely returns it back to those roots. In which case you have a situation whereby the cognoscenti are debating the minutiae of an entire world's cultures based on the trickle of conflicting and evolving conceptualisations from its creator. I can accept that this debate is useful to some in enhancing their 'feel' for the environment but it seems like a darned 'dry' way of going about it. Whatever happened to good, old-fashioned, imagination? You know, if it works for your group and then to hell with everbody else. I mean, I always thought that RQ/Glorantha was supposed to fun as well as intellectually stimulating. Sandy's wise words continue: >My own interest in Glorantha is two-fold: I _do_ enjoy the >participation in the group fantasy. But more important is that >Glorantha makes a realistic and three-dimensional game world to run >campaigns in. Why not make up my own world? I've been asked this many >a time. [...] >Now, I've created plenty of my own game worlds. Probably most >of us have. I use Glorantha for the simple reason that I have a >finite amount of time to expend on my roleplaying activities. The use >of Glorantha enables me to spend that finite time on working up >scenarios and adventures, rather than background. In addition, >Glorantha at its best stimulates me to think of new and exciting >adventures in which to place my characters. Bravo sir. I quite agree. Peter :-% --------------------- From: GBailey@aol.com Subject: thieves, non-RQ Glorantha Message-ID: <9405231913.tn407380@aol.com> Date: 23 May 94 23:13:55 GMT X-RQ-ID: 4119 I'm on Devin's side concerning the scholar/gamer bit, but there's room for both. Once in awhile I find a little tidbit that I might use from the scholars (like the Origin of a rune). Not to say that Sandy is solely a scholar, but probably he is the Second Scholar of all. On a side note, I finally gave up on learning everything I can about Glorantha so I know everything when the players ask questions. When something comes up I'm going to wing it, maybe some knowledge might come from some bit of trivial I read on the net or from a "rule"book but the players won't know (none know much of anything of Glorantha). I read the RQ/Glorantha stuff mostly for gaming idea. Now that doesn't matter so much as I will be using the Hero system in Glorantha since I cannot get anyone interested in RQ (and we play Champions a lot). Thieves (okay, Eurmal worshippers). I'm a little confused on their actual "worshipping". I suppose there are multitudes of sects (or flavors), but I wonder if in Boldhome that a worshipper of Eurmal and a worshipper of (Lunar thief diety's name here) would get along just fine if both are working together. They may trade barbs while on the "mission" (like you see in the movies) but a trickster is a trickster. So scholars, when will you get all these neat ideas on paper and publish them so I can have that Encylopedia Britannica sized information on Glorantha? I suppose that will happen when you all agree on things :). Glen --------------------- From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner) Subject: German RuneQuest-Con 94, and how I survived the Nick experi Message-ID: Date: 24 May 94 00:02:37 GMT X-RQ-ID: 4120 It is Pentecost Monday, 23:00. I've just finished unpacking my bundles from German RQ-Con. I didn't sleep more than ten hours of the last 70 hours, and less than 5 the last 48 hours, so please bear with me - I'm trying to get my impressions fresh into my terminal. As usual, a crowd of fifty-odd RuneQuest fanatics gathered in enclosed space made life interesting (i.e. hard). The offical opening of the convention would have been Saturday, 3 o'clock, but as usual people flocked in from 11 o'clock untl 7 o'clock. Sleeping places and eating times had to be sorted out, and except for bold private initiative (I got beaten by David Hall in scenario 3 of Dragon Pass due to a hellish strategy of Sor-Eel's successor Nicolas Brocenius, which was aided by an ill-omened moon which caused two crucial strikes of bad luck in spite of a genius rallying move of the Sartarites) gaming waited until six or so, when "The Great Troll" (inspired by a TV quiz show) saw a splendid competition between five teams of Glorantha scholars. The Reaching Moon team (which suffered from time delay for translation of the questions) performed magnificently, but stumbled over a small number of emperors and fell back to third place in a hairs' breadth finale. After eight o'clock a Cthulhu free form took off, accompanied by some regular gaming rounds. Instead I sat down in a cosy corner to discuss Gloranthan climate and weather, gods and facts in a small round which was swelled later by our English guests who somehow couldn't establish their creditability in the Cthulhu free form (good instincts of the others, but more later) and who ended up as casualties. A comparative analysis of both Glorantha and German beer kept us occupied until late, myself right until breakfast. My Path Watch still active, I survived both breakfast and the following trial of legal ceremony the club had to undergo, to hear an excellent lecture on initiation the transcript of which I hope to post (in Tradetalk) soon. While mostly my opinion, not my authoring . Alex, be alert... Also sometimes then (must have been in Godtime, my temporal memory is somewhat fuzzy) we had a successful auction of stuff RuneQuest and (un)related. The more spectacular items were a sealed Pavis Box (which went away for 195 DM), a duck's head umbrella which flew to England tonight, blue-prints of German RQ-products, out-of-print issues of Free INT, Tales of the Reaching Moon and other fanzines. A Glorantha panel hosted by our Reaching Moon Megacorp guests David Hall and Nick Brooke spread insights among us continentals. I regret not to have recorded the whole thing, but my befuddled memory might be forced to reproduce some facts dissected there. A lot of questions were similar to those of the Baltimore panel transscript, though. The afternoon and evening continued with several game rounds. I joined the English language Dark Age England scenario, got killed once and mugged with the fall-back character, but inspired my comrades to successfully hamper an evil pagan Cymric ritual, some sort of necromancy to summon dead kings, by the names of Maxen, Constans and Art-something. Wessex was saved, and the sole survivor of the battle of Mons Badonicus some 60 years ago was presented to our king. The night was spend in mild stupor and high Gloranthan spheres of revelation. Poor Fazzur's fate might have been altered that night... I suffered the Nick Brooke experience (well, he got an overdose of Joerg, too). Both of us made our heroic effort rolls, though. I collected a few compromising snippets I promised to publish. Quoting Nick: "The problem is that after I finished university I was only qualified to be a Dark Age warlord. There's little more one can do with my degree [in classical history]." This does tell us a thing or two about accounting, doesn't it? Another incident during our efforts to save Wessex from the necromancy: Nick's character, killing a Welsh prisoner of war during interrogation, to the question "Why did you kill him?": "I don't speak his language." (I won't compromise Nick further, there's some evidence against me as well, hidden in silence. Suffice to say I had a visitation of the internet Spirit of Reprisal, concerning my contributions to the initiation debate.) Today (I managed to steal a few hours of sleep in between) saw more gaming sessions and a panel constituting the new editors of Free INT. While I still am the internet contact, I'm no longer in charge. The new editorial team are the very same persons who presented the first German language RuneQuest supplement produced by them and published by Deutsche RuneQuest-Gesellschaft. They did a great job, really. BTW, Free INT 7, my attempt to produce a supplment for the Vikings Box, didn't make it into print before the convention, it'll be out next week. All you people out there speaking no or only a little German, we could do with more of you at our next convention, Pentecost 1995 in Brieselang, a village right outside of Berlin. Info available via me. Don't be afraid of our language, we manage to speak some English and to stage English or mixed language events, such as a Glorantha free form with lots of Lhankor Mhy scholars. We'll start working on this soon. Enough for now, sleep finally conquers. -- -- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de --------------------- From: Argrath@aol.com Subject: Dieu et mon droit Message-ID: <9405232112.tn411582@aol.com> Date: 24 May 94 01:12:51 GMT X-RQ-ID: 4121 Ed Wallman-- OK, so why don't you make the Daily more useful? I promise not to sneer. How about plot ideas, or histories of a kingdom, or some detailed NPC's. Gary Newton-- Isn't there a contradiction between saying peasants can up sticks and leave, on the one hand, and saying that each society is controlled by an oppressive military-religious cabal? Maybe those nobles are holed up in their forts because they're afraid of the lower classes. Or maybe the peasants have too much to lose, now that they've grown prosperous. Or both. Alex-- Are we agreeing or disagreeing about Xiola Umbar's possession of Enchant Lead? Yes, there is low need-for; however, there is a correspondingly low threshold for lead usage. And the need-for is not vanishingly low, since XU is a semi-martial cult. "Why would an exarch do his own enchanting, even if he really _did_ want iron armour?" I agree that exarchs are too busy to do that, but there are priests of Godunya, who exist to support the social order of which the exarchs are the leaders. So your argument mystifies me. Re: all this pagan-Malkioni business Where Christianity met polytheistic cultures, syncretism usually developed. Christianity is, for the most part, a syncretism with Greek philosophy. Christianity in Ireland appropriated, as some have observed, the most popular local gods as saints. Voodoo and Santeria are a good bit more on the polytheistic side of syncretism than Irish Christianity, but they make dandy models for Stygianism such as Joerg's Aeolian church. Just list all the gods, decide which saints they best match, equate them, and go from there. BTW, Alex, ask your neighborhood Voodoo cultist which god he or she is an initiate of. You'll get a blank stare (or maybe a dead chicken on your doorstep). Re: those Malkioni in Nochet with "pure" beliefs If earthly religions are any guide, it is impossible for a religion to avoid change. Some of it is gradual, as when people brought little statues of Jesus and Mary into my grandmother's Brethren church (which I thought would have been greeted much like a hymn to Cthulhu). Other times, the change is more dramatic. So, those guys in Nochet may believe they've preserved their beliefs despite everybody, but you and I know they're wrong. Re: La Toile d'Arachne Solara Si vous etes un francophone, il y a un nouveau fanzine pour vous. Abonner aujourd'hui! 18 rue de Tourelle, 78730 Rochefort- en-Yvelines, tel. 30.41.35.57, fax 30.41.94.38. Well, actually, don't rush to the foreign exchange office just yet. I don't know how much foreign subscriptions go for, or whether l'Academie Francaise knows about "le fanzine" and "le fax." Anybody know if they have an email address? Or how to do accent marks with ASCII? Thanks to Nick Brooke for putting me on to these guys. Cullen O'Neill: LBQ: Leg Before Quicket? Lyndon Baines Quonset? Litterarum Baccalaureus something-beginning-with-Q? --Martin --------------------- From: jdegon@vega.iii.com (Jim DeGon) Subject: Devin's Comments Message-ID: <9405240141.AA05935@enrico> Date: 23 May 94 11:41:59 GMT X-RQ-ID: 4122 Re: Devin's comments I dislike the amount of conflict that has been engendered by Devin's comments about the content of the daily. I agree with much of what he had to say about the scholarly bent being intimidating to players and gm's of the game, but I think that he may have invested enough emotion to cause a scholarly backlash of sorts -- none of which is really interesting to argue about. The scholarly intimidation problem arises when the posters make an already intimidatingly detailed world much moreso by "citing" and counter-"citing" the sources; especially those long out of print or unpublished. Lately this has been compounded by an nearly impenetrable argument in which the posts are basically directed between two individuals. This would probably have been better with more summarization and less quoting, or better yet, fought out in email and then the two still-differing opinions posted in detail. Technically, only Greg Stafford's opinion carries real weight, while each individual's carries real game value. I'm sure that Devin and Alex do not allow any players to quote Greg's material to them when they have already decided to handle something otherwise. I haven't actually noticed a lot of posting about rules questions, although I remember one post to the RQAIG list with RQ3 questions (several months ago) followed by the accusation "didn't anyone bother to playtest this game?" which was answered with "didn't you bother to read the rulebook?". This may or may not have been deserved, but it would be nice for all to concentrate on constructive posting, and since this roleplaying game stuff is really only a matter of taste, it might be nice to see a whole lot more of these --> IMHO ^ Jim DeGon --------------------- From: Aden_Steinke@ms-gw.uow.edu.au (Aden Steinke) Subject: Gamers / Scholars Message-ID: <199405240158.LAA10200@wyrm.cc.uow.edu.au> Date: 24 May 94 22:55:13 GMT X-RQ-ID: 4123 Hi All; Devin Cutler said > Jesper Wahrner makes some good points about RQ and Glorantha, > but I think he fails to realize that their will always be a > schism between Glorantha as a literary creation and Glorantha > (RQ) as a game. IMHO it is not so much between Glorantha as a literary creation and as a game as between Glorantha as a place to game in where players and GMs alike require some 'absolutes' in order to maintain player involvement by those players that do not have the time and or the inclination to keep up with the permutations discussed in the RQ Daily, and Glorantha as a place for people to explore theoretical possibilities. > While a good literary creation does have to possess internal > consistency, it does not have to provide, in full view of the > public, a formulised mechanism for its inner workings. True, to be a practicable gaming environment into which new players can be brought the mechanisms should be both consistent and transparent - without Emal / Yelmalio changes suddenly appearing. > Similarly, I am becoming less enamoured of how cults are being > handled. Why this need for so many different cultic variations > over Glorantha (i.e. "...what we really need is a cult of > Yelmalio for Peloria, one for Prax, one of Pavis, one for > Grazelanders, one for Sartar...")? Yes, cults varied wildly > here on earth, but Glorantha is not earth. Yes - while regional variation is necessary to provide spice to the gaming environment, and such things as hero questing and regional practices can give this variation - overall the Dieties in Glorantha are real and present in a direct manner not experienced here on Earth. As such the basics of creed/practice/behavior should be the almost the same eveywhere a God is worshipped - Humakti would not be assasins, Orlanthi would not have local relationships with Chaos - or the God would step in and either by cuting off renewable divine magic and intervention or by reprisal. Otherwise you are saying that the Gloranthan Gods are not 'real' self willed entities with likes and dislikes. If behavior or structure is pleasing to Humakt in one place it should be pleasing in another. Aden Steinke a.steinke@uow.edu.au --------------------- From: drcheng@sales.stern.nyu.edu (David Cheng) Subject: RQ Adventure Clearinghouse Message-ID: Date: 24 May 94 04:13:21 GMT X-RQ-ID: 4124 Mark Minster, one of the RuneQuest-Con committee, would like to offer a service to the RQ-playing population at large. Mark is volunteering to act as an "Adventure Clearinghouse." Anyone who has RQ adventures written up is asked to submit them to Mark. Anyone looking for an adventure should contact Mark, and he'll send one (or more?) out. Granted, the details still have to be ironed out. Who pays postage? Who pays photocopying costs? I don't see these as anything which should slow the process, however. I've even offered to kick in some money to fund the initial effort. Mark has clearly stated that his goal is not just to get paper cuts on his fingers. Mark asks that anyone who asks for an adventure be willing to go out and _evangelize_; to find people who haven't yet been converted to the RQ path and work to draw them in. Run the adventures at your local conventions. Find groups of misguided D&Ders and Shadowrunners and convince them to give RQ a try. To emphasize the point: the intent is _not_ to provide you material for your current campaigns. Mark, for one, feels that he'd like to work to introduce new players to RQ, but he's just not sure he can write good material. You sending him adventures will allow him to run newbies, and he's willing to distribute the stuff so others can do so as well. I think this is a great idea, and not just because I hinted at the need for such a setup in my RQ-Con Book essay "Gaming Evangelism." ;-) I always thought that the RPGA was a really good idea, spoiled by those silly experience points for Players & DMs (and the quality of some of the submissions). Submissions! Obviously, this whole idea won't work unless you folks send Mark adventures to distribute! I could go on for endless paragraphs of oratory, but I don't think I have to. Obviously, it's real easy to ask, and much harder to acutally do the ~work~ involved in sending your adventure in for distribution. Your main reward will be knowing your name is prominently on the front of every copy that goes out. Any questions can come to me, and I'll pass them along to Mark (who doesn't have Internet access). Submissions & requests can go to: Mark Minster 37 Renaissance Drive Second Floor Clifton, NJ 07013 USA (201) 533-3379 Remember, there won't be RuneQuest players for you to game with tomorrow unless you work to grow some today. Thanks for your help. * David Cheng drcheng@sales.stern.nyu.edu cheng@io.com (212) 472-7752 [before midnight] GEnie: D.CHENG