"Potentially of use" is an interesting phrase.
Anyone can use anything in their games, that's sort of a prerequisite
of YGWV. Certainly anyone can use anything I say - I hope it is
potentially useful!
I am just not making statements with an eye towards acceptance or
usability for others. I play in our game, and I share that so that
people can see what we do and say "I like that" or "I do not like
that". If I played in the games that you play things would obviously
be different. Your Glorantha Varies, Mine just Varies a lot.
(Like a whole lot. For example: I expect our current game to result in the heroes thwarting the construction of Appius Luxius' Reaching Moon Temple. I should note that the our current games heroes are Lunars.)
There is a difference in presenting something for consumption by others and precisely describing things in absolute terms. The relative elevation of the Stormwalk mountains means little to me - largely because it probably means little to the Orlanthi that live around them. If your players want that level of detail then great. The participants in our game don't really care so much. I am not suggesting that you shouldn't care Jane, I am just establishing that some people don't. Some members of the Tribe don't. I don't.
"They are very high!" say the locals in our game "Only experienced travellers can climb them, and only with risk!".
When you say "a thousand feet" I only know what you mean because I translate it into metres. I don't the people of Dragon Pass even think on this level.
> So you know that they're not mountains. And since you're over 5 years old, and probably haven't spent your life locked in a cellar, you know what "mountains" actually look like, if only
> from the back of an Alpen packet..
The locals say they are. If I disagree with them they make disparaging comments about sheep and say "You are the foreigner here, what do you know?"
(Alpen?)
> But if they're looking at the same map, and they all know it's 10 miles from A to B?
Would this be an "accurate map of Dragon Pass"?
(I apologise for stealing a friends joke, but I promise to return it!)
> Remember I'm looking at writing for "everyone" here, that's the point of this project. We can't write a scenario for general use that depends on the heroically almost-impassable pass
> if your group strolled over it yesterday afternoon, not if we want you (as a hypothetical end user) to get any use out of it.
I still don't see how having to say "a terrible hard pass to cross" needs to rely on complex geographical or geophysical data.
> Specifically, here, we have Penny Love's "Widow's Tale" as a source, giving a detailed description of that "last pass" over the northern Stormwalks, plus the DP map (with errata) that shows the distance across those mountains. (Incidentally, after Rob's comment, I pulled out RQ2 and checked the scale. It agrees.) Both of these are sources that anyone we write for is likely to have, and use as inspiration.
I think RQ2 is as old as I am (1980?), I'm afraid I don't have a copy. I suppose I am not someone for whom you are writing? I remove my "hypothetical end user status" on this basis!
> Oh, good :)
Indeed! Entertainment is the point of all this after all!
-- John Machin "Nothing is more beautiful than to know the All." - Athanasius Kircher, 'The Great Art of Knowledge'.
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