I have more or less come to the conclusion that
1) many notable contributors to Gloranthan game design and HeroQuest,
particularly including Greg (but not Robin Laws) simply don't really
understand narrative game systems much at all, and certainly haven't
read the Forge ideas much.
2) Glorantha is probably pretty poorly suited to narrative play. A
core idea of narrativist play (in the Forge version) is that the
players provide the narrative. Glorantha overflows with its own
narratives of its own, of all varieties and all types. Narrativist
play within a Gloranthan setting is not just possible, but can be
awesome -- but works only once you already have enough ideas of the
existing Gloranthan narratives to use them as building blocks and
background for your own. It is a terrible setting to introduce people
to narrativist play, IMO -- because it is one of THE great
simulationist settings, full of fantastic detail and fascinating
things, and many many ongoing or set narratives, that will do a
terrific job of distracting and confusing new players attempts to
create their own narrative.
The Seattle crew are an excellent example of how to do narrativist Gloranthan play right, and an excellent example of why it is hard to do well with most gaming groups. Get a gaming group who are all Glorantha experts, and narrativist campaigns can be awesome -- but its pretty unlikely that you will get such a group unless most of them are people who have learnt about Glorantha via playing more simulationist games, or read Glorantha stuff for pleasure outside gaming (or maybe, are assimilated into a group that is mostly filled with such people).
And certainly there is a lot of confusion about the issue. A lot of Glorantha community discussion of narrativist gameplay seem to think that a narrativist game is one that is centered on narrative not mechanics or something, and that playing through something like the existing HeroQuest modules, many of which have a very strong narrative completely, and fairly rigidly, supplied by the module author, constitutes narrativist play. This is pretty much completely at odds with the Forge version, which is where the narrative is supplied by the players themselves, not the external world.
(FWIW, HeroQuest is far from the only game to make this mistake - White Wolf calling their game system the Storyteller system, and then constructing game systems in which is was literally more or less impossible for your players to become anyone important, was perhaps the most egregious example).
So, roll on Mongoose. They, at least, are making an honest simulationist RPG for fans of the greatest of old-school simulationist game worlds.
FWIW, I think that, heretical as it would have seemed to RuneQuest grognards, Glorantha D20 would have had the potential to absolutely rock, and provide a pretty solid gamist alternative. Odd as it may seem, while many of the same conventions of D20 that make it poorly suited as a system for generic fantasy, some of its less realistic aspects (such as some individuals being of absurd power levels, and able to take on enormous numbers of enemies) actually match really well to Gloranthan reality. And I remember when Runequest fans used to ridicule the idea of classes that rigidly defined characters abilities - but I suspect very little Gloranthan play actually takes place
Cheers
D
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