True enough, there were few young faces, but then it was a "Gloranthacon" and that is _not_ going to attract anything less than the hardcore and frankly given the vagaries of work, finances etc, it is only going to attract those hardcore people who can make the con, which is pretty much what we saw.
>Unfortunately, there is a point where too much detail becomes a
>hinderance and one can't figure out what the heck to do with all of
>the details.
Ignore them. When I was 19 in an RQ campaign we had the Genertela boxed set and never once used a single pick of 80% of the book in play as it was in areas where we were not gaming or had no interest. It was still fun to read but not relevant. Most of the players we played with at that age were D&D dungeon bashers anyway and that was when I was playing Onslaught with the other powergamers. There is nothing to stop that level of play now, except perhaps the rules being opaque. HQ should solve that.
>Personally, I would find a compeate list of all the
>variations of the Imperial regiments a bit daunting and certainly not
>very useful for someone trying to play a game.
Firstly, why would a complete list be daunting? It's a list, you either look at it or don't and certainly don't need to memorise it. Secondly, in terms of gameplay a GM can look up any regiments he wants from it and easily decide which Lunar enemies his clansmen are facing. It is merely available info and if you don't want that kind of game, ignore the section or suppliment it is in. However, if you want to run a lunar military campaign don't you think a narrator would find that info useful?
>Playing a game - its something that seems to get lost from time to
>time. And its hard to share when one has to hand over an
>encyclopedia.
But Jeff, I've been playing for years with a bunch of none Gloranthaphiles. To this date the player who plays Argrath in my campaigns has _yet_ to read a single Gloranthan product and refuses to because it is 'boring" and he said he had enough "history" at school. But it doesn't matter! If you GM to excite players with cool enemy NPCs, goals that bring people in and trickle enough info as the narrator to get them going, you can play with complete Gloranthan neophytes with ease.
>Your comment about Transhuman space is apt but most of that game is
>based on current SF ideas and extrapolations. It is, frankly, far more
>approachable.
Most people haven't got a clue about science or science fiction unless they read it as a hobby and that is no different to fantasy readers who play. Most people who play also read. Glorantha is only unnapproachable if we dump our collected stuff 5 feet high on the table and tell the players to get reading. I tried that in my naive youth and remember the blanks stares with shudders of dread...
Me:
> I have to disagree here. Firstly, GMs and players take what they
need or
> want. So though the detail is there, they don't always use it but
if they
> need it, its better to have it and not need it than need it and not
have it.
Jeff
>I have been teaching the game at many (about20) conventions for the
>past few years and the level of detail and the 'expected' knowlege has
>been a continual comment. Even if they are not SUPPOSED to use it,
>GMs amd players feel compelled to use it.
Well, there is a learning curve for sure, but unfortunately that is Glorantha. We can't turn round and say "you are a fighter" and then have no cultural reference as in D&D. It is the cultural reference that makes Glorantha what it is, you just can't let the culture dominate from word go. Ground the players then pound the players, but I'm sure you've fought and won this fight before.
>There is far too much "tell" and not enough "show" in the current
>books.
Does that include ILH?
>I don't want a list of gods I'll never use.
Or indeed that the players use. Trouble is that by missing those gods out we leave a cultural vaccuum that leaves the players and most narrators assuming that "hey, Glorantha is full of fighters, killers and berserks" as we used to think that all Lunar soldiers were Yanafal Tarnils because we had _no_ other options. And in HQ the gods are so easy to write and so small a space taker relative to the RQ massive cults, that we can have lots of gods, cultural depth etc in a few pages. I think this is a wonderful part of HQ and really gives us a versatile tool.
>Most folks are not running earth-shattering campaigns of mythic import,
Martin.
Me either, I'm running a campaign where the players just want to survive. They've just been at it a long time.
>Neither are they running psychodramatic initiation quests.
Something you only need run once and then quickly, or not at all.
>Most seem to want to have fun in a game world which has a wonderful mythic
>resonance.
Exactly! 100% agreed.
>What I want is something that will show me how to use the information
>I have. Even a plot hook or scenario seed would be good. Show me,
>don't tell me and for god's sake, don't -bore- me.
That is the plan for the assocations in the Empire, and Greg has asked me to do a Redlands, Oraya and Pent scenarios and campaign book to help people play in that region. My plans for that are to be very heavily hook orientated with key NPCs and adventure threads to allow the narrator to play their own thing but at the same time giving them something solid to get their teeth into if they are unsure of a direction to take. More suppliments like this should be forthcoming and Greg is very keen to see playability as being the key, as Mark said.
Martin Laurie
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