Hi Chris,
I must admit I felt a degree of disquiet reading this post. OK, I had a hand in writing and developing HQ, but this concern not, I don't think, because of any proprietorial amour propre so much as its underlying notion that there is a set and specific way to play HQ or indeed Glorantha 'right'.
> I have to agree with the idea that the examples presented in the
book
> are poor examples
> for capturing HQ play. At best- they portray HQ as a quirky D&D,
and
> skip over a lot of
> the potential for serious themes.
I wrote one of the examples at the last minute, the rest were, AFAIK, written by Greg. As such, I think he was trying to convey the sense of how most gaming groups do play or interact rather than necessarily how they should. You might regard this as a missed opportunity, but on the other hand it does avoid a degree of preachiness that can otherwise sometimes creep in.
<snip>
> And finally, at the end of the book, you have a scenario section
that
> slams the door on
> those questions by encouring groups to return to classic
railroading
> for the solution of
> how to play.
It is very, very difficult to provide scenarios accessible to narrators and players who may never have played or run any RPG (I've raised the question as to how likely that is elsewhere, but let's accept the design rationale that this is the case) which does not entail a degree of 'railroading'. Not impossible, certainly. But also, my experience is that a lot of players and narrators like that kind of approach.
> If it were not for my reading of Ron Edwards' example of play, I
> would have totally passed
> this game up. I would have simply written it off as "Quirky D&D"
and
> left it alone. Reading
> his examples of "what play was about", I read the book and realized
> that actually capturing
> the Gloranthan feel of play requires selective reading of the
book.
This is in no way to make any criticism of Ron and his wonderful style of play, but IF anyone knows what the 'Gloranthan style of play' is, I'd presume it would be Greg. However, I'd rather say that Glorantha can be played how you want it. Our gaming session two nights ago was a knockabout session which verged onto farce in several cases but was definitely plot-driven (or 'railroaded'). Other times, we could be playing something dark, character-driven and virtually freeform. Indeed, while I don't think I'd want to join in, I'm happy if people want to play Glorantha with RQ (which does have a very different feel again to HQ).
It's also worth noting that Robin Laws tends to write 'railroading' scenarios...
(And damn good ones, too!)
So overall, I'd be in favour of letting a thousand flowers bloom. HQ is a great system for full-blown narrativist play of the sort proudly upheld by so many of the posters on the Forge. But it is not specifically intended or required to be such. It can be used for more simulationist play, although as much of recent debate has shown, simulating not so much 'real reality' so much as 'cinematic reality'.
But HQ and Glorantha, while closely linked, are not one and the same: each is bigger than the other. People are using HQ to play games in all kinds of other settings, just as people can play in Glorantha using all sorts of different rules. And everyone gets to define just how they want to play, what is important for them to get out of gaming (simple fun vs in-depth exploration of an alien world vs richly textured social and cultural interaction vs hot duck-on- duck action vs...) and what their Glorantha will become.
All the best
Mark
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