> <mailto:44B1F19B.8070508%40airmail.net>> Guy Hoyle writes:
>
> >This level of detail is vastly intimidating to ones such as me,
> >who have merely been RQing on the fringes of Glorantha for 25+
> >years. I long for the RQ2-RQ3 days, when the Godlearner POV made
> >gaming not only understandable, but, dare I say it, FUN...
>
> Then ignore it. One of the important things to learn about Glorantha
> is that there's far too much to bother with all of it for most people.
> Follow the bits that interest you and matter to your game. If your
> Glorantha follows the Godlearner monomyth then it varies from
> canon but YGWV anyway so it doesn't matter. Personally I like the
> idea that there are a multitude of variations which clash with each
> other but I don't fuss about the full background to each one.
It seems like a lot of the scenario material, however, depends upon it a lot, and that if you ignore it, you miss a great deal about what the scenario's about. I find myself wondering why I buy them if there's not a lot of material I can use. (Or not a lot I can enjoy reading; I'm a player in Glorantha, mostly.) Now there are some really fine exceptions; I thought that "Barbarian Adventures" pretty much captured some of that spirit. I liked the epic scope of "Orlanth is Dead", and for some reason I liked most of "Skullpoint" when a lot of people here seem not to. I was initially attracted to Glorantha because it was such a unique world; however, I feel now that it's TOO unique, and overwhelming in its uniqueness.
Here comes my grognard whine now. One of the differences with the old RQ material and the new HQ material is that I was always able to pick it up and read it and know exactly what I could do with it (back in the days when I was running a campaign). I see all the debates about interpretation of minutiae and whether the ancestors of a group of people I barely remember anything about embraced the Orlanthi religion reluctantly or not back when they didn't even know how to use tools, and it makes me wonder why I still like Glorantha any more. I haven't given up on it, but I hardly pick up any of the HQ books to read anymore.
Glorantha has always been a world that appeals to a more highly educated crowd than many other game worlds that I have read about, and it should always be so. I still think very fondly of it. But I feel that a lot of what appealed to me many years ago has been retired. I don't know whether it's outgrown me or whether I've outgrown it. But I'm glad I'm playing in a campaign now that is fun and evocative of the days I used to wait with baited breath for the next RuneQuest sourcebook to come out, even if it's not much like the Glorantha being published today.
-- --Guy Hoyle "Live every day as if you're dying Of a contagious disease that turns people you bite into zombies." The Onion, January 25, 2006 | Issue 42�04
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