I personally have been having loads of fun playing lately. But I'm pretty sure that the way my interpretation differs from the official one makes it more fun, too. The problem with relying on ones own play experiences is that the factors that differ (players, GM, how they mesh as a group, plotline, etc) all overwhelm the bits that differ. Different styles of play suit different groups etc, what works for one may not work for another etc.
More specific to Humakt elsewhere - but I think a good question to ask is do you disagree that there is a shift in emphasis, or do you simply think the shift has been one that makes the cult more playable?
> > Which isn't to say you actually can't play them - I just just
>> really it hard to do so in an enjoyable way while playing them
>> strictly as written. But of course YMMV, and some people will enjoy
>> it. There are entire role playing games more or less dedicated to
>> playing killing machines with zero emotional depth, which is more
>> less what the BG write up constrains them to be. Some people will
>> enjoy that, I am not one of them.
>
>And funny, that is exactly the complaint others had about the BG
>cult as presented in GoG (which our old gaming group considered to
>be boring "consequence free killing machines of zero emotional
>depth").
It is a common complaint about the GoG writeup, which had very little about the cults social role etc, and incidentally gave it the most powerful collection of combat magic in the game. It was somewhat of a generic problem with GoG cult writeups, made notably worse for BG by the combination of a lot of combat magic and no existing RQ2 long form writeup to fall back on. But just being combat powerful wasn't necessarily a problem, plenty of other cults (ZZ, for example) would have looked very game unbalancing if all you had to go on was the GoG writeup and had only a paragraph about social context etc.
The cult desperately needed a long form writeup to give it more depth in the RQ era, I agree. In Storm Tribe, I felt I got one that gave it *less* depth. I share your perception of the problem, I just felt I got the opposite of a solution.
And for players who want to play a killing machine, they are still consequence free. Only now lack of emotional depth is compulsory.
>The point is *you* might not enjoy playing the BG (or Humakt) of
>Greg's stories, but don't assume that others view it the same way.
The point is that I DID enjoy playing the BG of Gregs stories. I thought the cult was interesting, and read all the material available on it (including some unofficial stuff like Steve Maurers write up, etc). I was pretty happy with that version of BG. Then it changed somewhat - well, that happens. Glorantha changes.
But the (quite limited amount) of Gregs new stories actually appear to contradict the cult write up (in that they show BG clearly accepting physically expressed familial love) - so if Gregs stories you are referring to here are the myths published in the Sartar Companion, I'm going to say that I DO enjoy playing the BG of Gregs stories, but I find them obviously quite poorly reflected in the cult description that immediately follows them.
. As I said, I've got nothing against some changes, and I'll happily accept BG as being celibate if that is the current thinking, it was always ambiguous anyway (though it contradicts the Wyrms Footprints description, she is described as being 'barren' as long ago as the RuneQuest Companion, and I don't think has ever been given a child). But in making her utterly loveless, we've got something that seems more extreme than justified by any of Gregs mythic writing I can find, AND much less playable AND contradicts prior material, AND seems less psychologically plausible. Why exactly is this a good idea again?
And there is a whole other issue about the male gaze on dark female powers etc that I am avoiding, because it is kind of a hot-button issue here. But suffice to say there is a sense in which I am deeply discomfited by the idea that female vengeance must equal loveless monster.
MGWV (especially when official Glorantha is deeply flawed)
Cheers
David
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