Re: Whatever Happened to One True Glorantha

From: simonh_at_...
Date: Thu, 03 May 2001 16:58:58 -0000

> The contradictory stories annoy me too.
>
> I think it comes to personal choice on how you want/wish Glorantha
to be.
>
> Some people like the complications/mystery/multiple truths/myriad
gods,
> others wish for a simpler/sharper/one-truth world. I personally
like the
> latter, but many Glorantha lovers like the former.

I've recently been playing in a D&D3 campaign (the last session is tonight, so I'd better finish this post quickly). The one dimensionality of the game realy detracts from what is a much better home-grown world. Nevertheless things like the paladin's ability to directly detect objectively definable, unequivocal evil detracts seriously from the game's chances of any kind of moral ambiguity, and hence for me reduces the interest value significantly. It's a question of the believability of the setting. Are the motivations of the characters, be they good or bad, right or wrong, strike me as being believable? Is this a credible culture my character comes from, or a two-dimensional pastiche? In gaming we're never goign to get perfect realism, but at least we can try, or make things realistic and credible where it counts.

> I don't disagree with the basic facts of that webpage, but do feel
its
> message is misleading for many people clearly do remember an one
> Glorantha, before the Elmal, Gregging and so forth.

I think that's not very fair. A lot of people are used to fantasy worlds in which the details are pinned down very tightly and simply assumed that Glorantha was the same. That's hardly Greg Stafford's fault.

> In Glorantha terms, I am a traditionalist, who refutes the recent
> heroquests, and the views of my illuminated colleagues.

Ah, You're an Aldryami sympathiser - none of this Golden Age rubbish, or God's War nonsense, let's get back to the Green Age!

Simon Hibbs

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