Re: [HeroQuest-RPG] Godlearner Book

From: David Cake <dave_at_UCxk-RFO8R25hBOnrgKWuSkar1O1QWFkqssCK37ZKXBQsZY_ORa1jyKtudALqWfJNQAVqJD>
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 01:54:38 +0800


At 6:28 AM +0000 15/6/06, capn_willard wrote:
>Whoa, dude!
>
>Did Greg shag your wife or something? You surely can't be this ANGRY
>about a game...
	You haven't had a lot of experience with Mr Metcalfe, have you?
	Passionate, he is, passionate.

	 I do sympathise with Peters position, though I can see the 
other side. If the contents of the book makes it into a relatively available and affordable form in a reasonable time frame, and its only this pretty artisan book not its informational content that is strictly limited, fine, whatever, cons need money. But we've all seen far too many Gloranthan projects, especially ones from Greg, that stayed in development limbo 'mostly' or even almost entirely completed for years, decades in some cases, so some cynicism about any given project is just being realistic. And Greg has, for better or worse, made exclusive access to information for money one of the basic principles of the GTA - fair enough when it refers to early drafts of upcoming products, and similar, but a bad idea when it refers to important works that seem intended to remain restricted to a tiny hard core indefinitely (maybe I'll just have to be content with those bits of Greyas Saga and Harmasts Saga I read at Dave Dunhams place in 1997). A bad idea for Glorantha, a bad idea for Greg, a bad idea for us. Its certainly killed my enthusiasm for projects in the past, when its almost impossible to get to see certain works without paying for the privilege even when you are trying to write about it, and then you can't publish your work anyway.

        Enough projects have got lost in the weeds over the years that Gregs no longer got a lot of credibility, and some scepticism is natural. Some of them not even Gloranthan (I am still cranky about Credo 2). But Greg isn't the only person involved in this project, and I have no reason to doubt Jeff and others who say it is coming out in a different form some time fairly soon.

        And to put this work in a bit of a historical place, one of my earliest memories of dealing with Peter Metcalfe was over 10 years ago mailing him photocopies of the Entekosiad, which had been made available only to attendees at the first Melbourne con. That work was similarly done as a convention attendee special, I think to raise money. That was an example where the work was finished up and made available as an unfinished work not too long after. Sometimes the system is broken, but sometimes it works exactly as described, and lets hope that is the case here.

	Cheers
		David

           

Powered by hypermail