Ian Absentia

Ever the Utopian moving target -- define "ideal". [Note: Did you know that the etymology of "Utopia" means "no-place" and not "perfect place"? Thank you for that little bit of cynicism to brighten our day, Sir Thomas More.] Even in a pre-post-scarcity world, current social and economic idealist thinking is looking more seriously at provision of basic necessities as part of a social compact. Guarantees of at least survival levels of the essentials of housing, sanitation, water and nutrition, health care, transportation, and education, and a discretionary UBI (universal basic income) as mentioned above. If you're an abiding member of the society, these guarantees will be provided by the governing administrative body as a baseline minimum standard of living. If one aspires to more, either in accumulated property, or luxury services, or educational and/or professional pursuits, one has to engage in more formal programs that assign reward according to effort. No one is penalsied for simply existing, though, and for "not contributing to society." This can be done even without "replicator" technology that eliminates scarcity. But still, using Star Trek as a model, bear in mind that the members of Star Fleet are the exceptions of general UFP society, people who've opted for more ambitious pursuits and proven their merit to earn positions aboard starships, at science academies, and at exploratory outposts. Their reward is the opportunity to do something more. Most citizens of the UFP presumably walk around in their pajamas, engage in AR social media, and eat nutritionally-supplemented processed snack foods, and maybe do a volunteer-funded hobby personal interest project for a while (sounds familiar, amiright?). !i!

Where I grew up, we told regular tales about the unwary who went out too far during a spring tide, slipped into an unseen mud channel, then watched in horror as the tide quickly returned. (NB: Water comes in surprisingly fast on tidal flats.) In my line of work, it's construction sites where "quicksand" (or -mud) can be a real health and safety concern. I've gone in to my knees before, and seen another in as deep as his hips. After the initial hilarity passes, it sinks in to everyone (pun possibly intended) how the viscosity of the muck makes it difficult and truly exhausting to maneuver out, even with a handhold. The blessed buoyancy I cited above is relative, too -- the more viscous a fluid is, the longer it takes an object to buoy upward through it, maybe longer than the lungful of air you gasped will last. And then there's the pressure of the heavy fluid on the sides of your rib cage that may constrict breathing. Long story short, super-saturated mud and sand pits are still serious hazards, even if they don't actively pull you downward. !i!

Actually...as long as we're discussing super-saturated sand, silt, or clay, human bodies (and other animals) are buoyant in the quagmire. It's the struggling that causes cavitation/suction and exhaustion. If one can relax, and you're not face-down, you'll eventually float like a cork and you can paddle your way across the surface. So the actual contest, after failing a DEX save, is an INT check to keep your cool, followed by fatigue/CON loss (whatever you're using in your game) for every failed roll until you're exhausted and drown. Actually, I seem to recall quicksand rules from somewhere, too, but can't recall. And they surely operated on the same misconception of how it works. !I!

Do you mean a 20-30% overlap of duplicated material? Or that only 20-30% of the Sourcebook was not also in the Guide? !i!

True, true. If one was an accomplished kit-basher and Sculpey-huffer, the price of entry could be brought down a little. On several occasions, I waited out the shop owners to buy the boxed sets when they finally went on clearance. But I digress...again! !i!

Oh, holy cats, this just reminded me...of Games Workshop's Battlecars! Not that it's going to prove especially helpful for you now, but it took the 2D TT-mini of Car Wars up to full 3D using Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars for scaled mods. Like all Games Workshop products, it cost way too much to play. But it's out there on eBay. !i! [Edit: Nope. I was remembering Dark Future, which came along later in the '80s. It's still out there on eBay, too.]

Ooh, squee! Warhammer Skirmish...ish. Pretty much every game of RQ3 turned tac-sim on us eventually, so this scratches a deep itch. But it's not automotive chase and combat! Back on topic. !i!

During our Car Wars hey-day, we were looking for a roleplaying game to simulate the occasional scenarios when drivers and crew got out of their vehicles. As I recall, we actually settled on a variant of Traveller because its skills scaled well with some published Car Wars rules, but I know that I toyed about with BRP, my usual go-to rules set, as our initial option. Point being that there's just as much rationale to go from RPG to TT-minis just as from TT-minis to RPG like we did. It's more than a little hazy to my mind, but recall that I was toying with something like standard deviations to translate BRP percentile skills to Car Wars skill bonuses, with the bulk of the percentile curve representing a +1, less of the curve granting a +2, less still giving a +3, etc., rather than a straight linear step up in skill level. Okay, it's very hazy in my memory. !i!

See? Frivolous, but inspired, is not dumb. Bleeding head good! Healed head bad! !i!

The problem with coming up with something dumb is, in no small way, like acting drunk. You really kind of need to just be drunk. The classic spelling misread is one of the easiest inroads to dumbness, mistaking one thing as stated for another. But even that can end up not-dumb, like how for decades I'd be misreading Inspiration of Moonson as Inspiration of Monsoon, which is too delightfully poetic to be dumb. The contextual misread runs deeper, where you simply misperceive the world in defiance of the writer's clear intent. I don't know that I have a solid example for Glorantha, but my experience with the World of Darkness (1st/2nd Ed) suggests that the place is predicated on contextual errors. Maybe the RW-analogue trend of the '90s was a Gloranthan example? But that's bad-dumb and not fun-dumb. YGMV isn't "dumb," or at least it shouldn't be (though I've been feeling momentum shifting back in that direction). Real dumb needs to just happen, though. !i!

Nice coup, sir! Dennis is a great guy, and has had his fingers in some amazing projects over the last quarter century. Woo! !i!

Le sigh. That was my concern. I don't have a copy of Aquellare yet, but my impression has been that it takes society and magic rather more soberly than the erstwhile White Wolf. And, right, Spain got the House with the French name because...the fiery nature of the Spanish? All right, maybe ArM wasn't a great suggestion. !i!

That was my thought, though I have to imagine that differences in tone are what will make Ars Magica usable. House Jerbiton, right? Maybe a little Flambeau? (hee-hee) !i!

Aw, really? Clear as day on my end. File size too big? They're pretty, I can assure you -- in a very early-80s interior decorating sensibility, which still strikes me as an odd (but pleasing) design choice. But Aquellare! For all my fondness for Ars Magica, this game scratches an itch of mine more closely. I'm trying to recall any of the AM material that can be adapted to the setting, and how. !i!

Or that Ralzakark Speaks Truth to Power and Rocks the House. !i!

Do you enjoy Osprey military history books? Who doesn't? The Guide to Glorantha leans heavily in that direction -- the full page art plates are especially reminiscent of the Men at Arms series, in all the best ways possible. Like the Osprey books, it'll add to your enjoyment of gaming in general, but isn't directly applicable by way of mechanics. The Glorantha Sourcebook expands on much of the setting material presented in the core rulebook (which is already surprisingly comprehensive), placing it in a much broader and worldwide context. Some material is duplicated, but I don't think I've yet seen a genuine complaint on that issue. Still not essential, but a distillation of much goodness that may add to your enjoyment of the more specific setting you're playing in. The discussion of scenarios goes beyond what you were asking -- the topic of "How Do I Get Started Gaming in Glorantha" has been covered in several other recent threads. All good suggestions, though, for cost-effective alternatives for getting started playing a game and not reading about it. !i!

That's a solid start right there. I reckon it's the pre-eminence that a god exerts over a condition or facet of life, and maybe the popular support the god receives from society. Ernalda is pretty ubiquitous throughout Genertela, and the pre-eminent popular Earth goddess, so more influence over daily life is attributed to her and thus she confers more skill to her faithful. Yinkin is a bit of a niche hunting god, local in influence and subservient in nature, and what he has to offer can be found elsewhere. Those are subjective interpretations, but I think they help set a precedent that can be applied to other cults. Gustbran is a solid god of smithcraft, but far from archetypal in nature -- there's other crafting gods about, so his skill bonuses should be about on par with others. He presides over a specialty, though, so his skill bonuses shouldn't get short shrift. If he doesn't confer more than the standard 45% in skills, make up for it in specialist magic or effects that emphasise his role in society. !i!

I was pulling your leg, and I feel bad about it now. Sort of. Okay, not really, but you were so earnest in your explanations. But here's a photo of my actual favorite d20 / paired percentile dice, c.1984 from my Superworld boxed set! Note the then-highly-fashionable muted interior design colors of Tidewater Blue and Sandy Taupe (the d8 was Rose Quartz!), and the near Zocchi-like edges and points on those faces. When you rolled these dice, you knew what you were on about. And black fine point Sharpie eventually replaced the Flair and uni-ball Micro (both of which faded with handling) for inking in the duplicate numbers for 11 through 20. Granted, reading results for 1 through 10 was a little more challenging, but our eyes were better back then. Actually, I kind of lied. My current favorite d20 / paired percentile dice are actual Lou Zocchi dice that came with my Swords & Glory Tekumel Player's Handbook boxed set in translucent neon orange and day-glo green, with plusses next to the duplicate numbers representing 11 through 20. I'll save photos of those for later, though @Wayne's Books has a picture of the complete set up on their website now. You can whittle a marshmallow stick to a point with the edges on those babies. So...no actual support for a recently-translated core game book? That's a shame. !i!

I have yellow and orange dice -- they make me feel cheery when I play. Can I use these? What color of ink should I use, and which one should be designated as the higher and which the lower? Do you just have pictures you can show us? !i!

Well, yes, but we all are in our own ways. It's all about what actually facilitates play of the game. As @jajagappa described above, RQ1 had already moved into the background by the time my friends and I discovered RQ2. When I really started taking over GM duty on our games and had amassed a backlog of boxed adventure material (Pavis, Big Rubble, Borderlands [thanks again, Cam!], and Trollpak) I was most put out to find that the new Gods of Glorantha boxed material, aside from being printed on the wrong sized paper, was for RQ3 and didn't mesh entirely well with our existing characters. However, it was what was on the market, and it's what I could get people to play. And we got really jazzed by David Dunham's "PenDragon Pass" rules that incorporated the Traits from Pendragon, which kept us going for a while. The '90s Praxian Renaissance sealed us to that system. Fast forward through Hero Wars/HeroQuest 1 & 2, in which we began to see Passions* and augments (and, again, what I could get people to play at the time), and we arrive at RQG, which is a call-back to the rules from RQ2 with my favorite bits from Pendragon (Traits) and HeroQuest (Passions) incorporated to express mythic spirituality. Oddly enough, this is more or less the "home-brew" system I'd already been cobbling together from BRP and its relatives over the years, so hooray for me. Hrm. I haven't really added to your discussion of RQ1, primarily because I never played it (though I do have a copy of it right here). I suspect that an "enchiridion" edition of RQG, minus most of the setting and flavor material, might dovetail with your 1st Edition favor. That's not going to happen, though. Ultimately, it's a matter of what game and system inspires you to GM, and inspires your players to show up at the table. To this day I'm a devoted Classic Traveller Referee, and I can bring players old and new out of the woodwork using this long-"dead" system -- it works for me, and my enthusiasm attracts players to my table. But I ain't trying to sell the thing to new buyers, and that's a skunk of a different stripe all together. !i! [*Edit: Right, Passions first appeared in KAP alongside Traits, but HQ is where I found them fully realised.]

Ever the apologist (I should change my screen name to that), I like to refer to the general sense of spiritual confusion among the Nephilim worldwide and assume that the arguments occurring between game editions and on discussion lists are manifestations of actual philosophical camps among the Nephilim themselves. Heck, they're even codified within the Major Arcana: Most Arcana = Parasite by default (mostly because they're unconcerned with the issue) Hanged Man and/or Hermit = Reincarnated human Temperance and/or World (Aeon) = Spiritual synthesis Devil (and maybe Death) = Parasite in extremis Star (and maybe Death) = Transhuman spiritualism, eternal consciousness within an artificial construct It's been there all along. On a not-too-distantly-related topic, who else is excited about David Mitchell's new novel, Utopia Avenue? !i! [Edit: Any and all of those summaries above are arguable. I left out the Symbiote model, which The Lovers might favor, or The Hanged Man. I left out that The Chariot might be onboard with The Star and Death for making either an android Simulacrum to explore outer space or a virtual Simulacrum to explore inner space. I left out that The Moon has been distracting everyone with a handful of incarnations in cats and dogs when their real agenda lies with incarnating into aquatic mega fauna (and I'm not even sure what to call that model). The important thing is, it's all in there already.]

Yeah, but, when I draw an asterisk by hand, I always draw them six-pointed.* [Edit: Though the one shown looks like old school Chartpak lettering, not hand-drawn. Can't speak to how many points are used in an asterisk in that font.] Has anyone considered that "the Fate Rune" is another inside joke that just sort of made its way into canon? !i! [*And apparently I'm bucking convention by using only six. Wikipedia informs me that a hand-written asterisk may feature up to eight points, while a sans-serif type font uses five and a serif font uses six. My keyboard here shows six, but when I type it, the BRP Central screen displays only five. Point being, therein lies the potential source of confusion and an early inside joke.]

I didn't want to clutter up an on-going thread in the Glorantha forum with an administrative and, frankly, political concern, so I'm continuing this discussion here in the inconvenient backwaters of BRP Central at the bottom of the page. I can hear my mother's voice now: "So, as long as 3,101 of your friends are jumping off a bridge...?" And as she'd go on to chide me, that's rather beside the point. Because access to the FB group requires membership, and therefore linking to it constitutes advertisement for FB. Because, as I pointed out earlier, FB's membership agreement allows them to mine one's browser histories and contact lists. Because, as I've addressed the issue directly to Chaosium, through FB's inaction to adequately moderate the content generated by its broader membership, they tacitly promote and profit thereby from bigotry, racial injustice, hatred, and disinformation. Because, by utilising FB for social media accounts and advertising, Chaosium is contributing to that promotion and profit. It's up to the individual if they want to follow the link? Really? Can we have an official statement to that effect? As I've addressed to Chaosium privately, other social media platforms are similarly problematic, and relationships with them should be similarly scrutinised. But FB currently stands out as a particularly egregious actor. By posting links to FB, BRP Central and Chaosium are directing traffic to their site, which not only condones FB's behavior, but actively promotes it. !i!

Can we not promote Facebook on this forum? For those without FB accounts, for those who don't want their browser histories and contact lists mined by FB, for those who object to FB's policies regarding social responsibility and abrogation thereof and don't wish to tacitly support them, can we have those posts mirrored here? !I!

Okay, this is an amazing rabbit hole to go down. True - who needs a contract if you have trust? On the other hand, trust is the foundation of a contract, trust in convention, trust that the other can and will be held to account, and the contract is a means of conveying that trust to others. Refuse to trust Orlanthi (because, let's be honest with each other, why would we?), and you refuse to enter into a social contract with them. You don't necessarily express any other hostility toward them, you just don't keep them in any sort of confidence. Okay, not my best argument. Loyal (Husband - that cheating bastard!) But if you're forbidden from entering into a social contract, then you couldn't marry the jackass in the first place. !i!