Its a little odd me subscribing to the rules list, as I'm primarily a systemless gamer, but I've learned a lot over the years and usually enjoy the conversations.
>* (How long) have you been playing HeroQuest, or
> are you new to the game?
>* How long have you been playing RPGs, and what
> attracted you to HQ?
I can remember sitting on a Canberra bus going back to uni from my FLGS sometime around 1981, flipping through my recently acquired RQ II, all awash with Greg's vision and Steve Perrin's SCA-inspired romanticism. I'd primarily been playing Traveler to that point: and I was immediately taken by both the BRP system and the Gloranthan setting. I remember reading about the coming of Agrath, and Dragonrise... Nearly 30 years on, we're still waiting for Dragonrise; some of us may even still be waiting for Argrath. :)
By 1983 I was involved in the world's first freeforms. After Pip and got married in 1985 we formed the Wyrms Footprint with some friends to bring Gloranthan gaming to the Australian convention circuit. I became a convention organisOr and started to direct my game writing towards multiforming: that is theatrical, high-emotion systemless convention modules. I started a rather frenetic correspondence with Greg Stafford and was able to bring him to Australia as a guest of Necronomicon in 1989 (and again in 1996 as one of the organisers of RQCon Down Under). In 1990 two things kicked my Glorantha love into overdrive. I was in Melbourne running a rather suspect Wyrms' module about a baboon ballista crew when I met MOB for the first time: he was doing dodgy deals on nth-generation photocopies of TOTRM 1. MOB and TORM - it was all downhill from there ... :) MOB introduced me to Chris Bell's RuneQuest Daily, soon to metamorphise into the RQ (later Gloranthan) Digest, run by a mysterious Dutchman named Henk. :) From there its been fairly constant: writing, editing, publishing, gaming, and rendering Glorantha, organising cons and joint projects and doing my bit in community building, which after all is what its all about.
HQ has never been my favourite gaming system, but it was Glorantha. I'm a genre gamer and a systemless gm, so rule systems have always been secondary to me. I think I know enough to run a convention or IRC game of HQ (I hope so, cause I do), but I know I always have plenty to learn. And despite the rules list, I doubt that I ever will ... :) Glorantha has its good bits and bad bits, and has weathered more than one crisis of faith/confidence/direction/personality. I'm here for the long ride, as a practicing Orlanthi. Bring on the ducks.
>* Are you attending Tentacles this weekend?
No: Its a long walk from my place. I have vowed to return however, as a con its stunning location is beaten only by the friends old and new you will meet there.
Cheers
John
John Hughes
Publications Editor
Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research
College of Arts and Social Sciences
Hanna Neumann Building #21
The Australian National University
Canberra ACT 0200 Australia
T: +61 2 6125 0649 F: +61 2 6125 9730 W: www.anu.edu.au/caepr
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