The rebirth of more "officially published" source books for Glorantha for Hero Wars is naturally going to make more people more hesitant to write material for several reasons. I, too, would be hesitant to spend a lot of time writing my own material on topics that I feel are shortly going to be covered in an Issaries Hero Wars book that would cover the same range of information.
The most important parts of that statement are "shortly" and "covered in an Issaries Hero Wars book". It is a fairly safe assumption to often disregard the fact that much material will be published "shortly". Issaries has enough of a track record for their publishing schedule for us to predict that they will probably publish about 4 new "gloranthan source material" books per year. If you subtract the fiction and rules related books, next year will probably see the publishing of two or three Sartar books, a Lunar book or two, and possibly one book on the West. Thus, only 4 to 6 books, covering only a small part of Glorantha, are on the horizon. That leaves an awfully large amount of material that won't see print any time soon.
Also, let's better define what those Lunar and Sartar books will probably contain. Much of the information will revolve around the same type of information that was found in Storm Tribe and Thunder Rebels, i.e. high level religious information and player related keywords. In general, that means that they will mainly have an impact similar to what Cults of Prax and Cults of Terror had for RQ2, or Gods of Glorantha and Elder Secrets had for RQ3. That leaves a huge amount of material to explore and build upon. Supplements in the vein of Big Rubble, Pavis, Griffin Mountain, and Borderlands aren't really on the horizon. Each of those supplements focused on adventures and location information. They had a historical and religious component, but that was only a small fraction of their total page count.
To me, writing about gods and the major history of glorantha will probably eventually lead you to getting contradicted by official sources sooner or later. That doesn't mean that you can't write about those things, but you do have to accept that it can happen and accept the differences. Many writers do so and keep writing, bless'em. Even if you choose to avoid the topics that may get you contradicted, there is still far more in Glorantha to write about. Here's a list of "safer" topics that will probably never get touched officially:
City descriptions
Scenarios of any size
Hero bands
Spirit cult types of info
NPC's of all varieties
Encounters
Small regions
Clan level information
Creatures
Maps
Minor Heroquests
Arts like poetry, songs, etc.
And those are just the ones that easily leap to mind. Take a look at what's published in the Unspoken Word, Tradetalk, or Tales of the Reaching Moon. Most of that stuff will probably never remotely have a chance of getting "Gregged". The only exception would be writing up a cult on the scale of Cults of Prax or Terror. If you had your heart set on writing your version of a major Orlanthi or Lunar cult, prepare to have to deal with a different "officially published" version. Still do it, just don't expect to be the "owner and sole recognised expert" of the topic whose word is "law". (Nice job if you could get it, though).
There is one other reason people have not been posting as much that needs to be mentioned. It has nothing to do with people's hesitancy to write and/or post on certain "risky" topics. The number of people who are interested in reading or gaming in Glorantha is still shrinking. There was a brief upsurge in interest when Hero Wars was first publsihed as people took an interested glance in the new system, but that initial interest has faded for most. Hero Wars hasn't pulled in new gamers at the levels hoped. Runequest gamers keep shrinking in number and Hero Wars isn't replacing them. Fewer interested participants equals fewer posts.
It has been said many times by a number of people, but it never hurts to say it again. We need to get more people reading and gaming in Glorantha. We need to be running demos and supporting the system at conventions. If new gamers aren't recruited, the future is bleak. Issaries Inc. is barely holding its head above water. Sales of the books have levelled off. With no humor intended, the whole "scared to write for fear of getting contradicted by soon to be published material" problem may soon be gone if Issaries goes bust through poor sales.
Get writing, get recruiting, run demo games at cons and shops.
Rick Meints
www.glorantha.co.uk
Powered by hypermail