Jon Hunter

OK you stand a chance of letting loose a hobby horse here First whats good about the bronze age/ancient world setting is it makes the world immediately different from the Generic Fantasy medievil / Tolkienesh mishmash that D&D popularised. That difference gives it an immediate sense of 'other' and distinction. It also draws the eye to world and not the system, and i've always thought RQ's strength was Glorantha. On the hobby horse front, I struggle with respecting the current party line of 'RQ2 was completely bronze age' and RQ3/Hero Wars undermined that by bringing Celtic/Saxon/Viking influences in to define the Orlanthi, and that recent changes are purely a revision to RQ2 standards, if i'm being polite id call it spin, being direct i'd call it horse shit. RQ2 had a good few elements within the rules that were clearly hadn't made the break fully away from a generic fantasy/medi evil setting - Weapons & Armour Lists - Great Swords, Pole Axes, Crossbows as described, Rapiers as described, Chainmail, all mainly medievil weapons Guilds - a Medievil Social structure. Class of Townsmen - could be argued either way but had a very medievil feel in its presentation. Artwork for people within the Pavis/Big Rubble books often had a medievil even Renaissance feel. Did it matter? Not really, RQ2 was far better than anything else I saw or gamed with at the time in terms of culture, world and definition. Its only matters if you start to claim that RQ2 was the halcyon days on undlituted Bronze age Glorantha, and anything we've changed recently is a return to RQ2 . In the RQ3 Renaissance( particularly strangers in Prax, Dorastor and King of Satar), Kind of Dragon Pass and HW, the definition of the Orlanthi with strong Celtic/Saxon/Viking influences added massively to both definition of Glorantha, its sense of otherness, and defined the Orlanthi in a way that brought strong distinction between them and the surrounding cultures. even though they were more iron/dark age than bronze age influences. The recent aversion to this description and a move to a more Mediterranean pure bronze age theme for the Orlanthi,to my mind removes much of richness from Glorantha, reduces usable Orlanthi materials, makes the Gloranthan cultures significanlty less distinct from each other. It also makes the games much less accessible, if you say the Orlanthi are similar to the Hallstatt people and the Lunars as Similar to Assyrian empire, most people will not have a clue what you mean. To my mind is self indulgent of the design team. I would consider myself as a moderately well educated man, with a passing interest in British and European history, I had never heard of the Halstatt people before debates on here. The Assyrians I knew more about because id studied the Old testament, but I think am in a minority position here. Real world parallels need to be rooted in real world cultures which a target market know something about and can identify with or else they are meaningless.

Pondering ..... i do like to ponder led me to another thought. Though there is canon and structure to Glorantha there is also room in Glorantha for a lot of your own weirdness without upsetting the mix.

I think runes will touch different people in different ways, and its a role playing opportunity where players can express these differently. These are the broad principles I think should apply Most runes distort a persons character away from there humanity The man rune is the obvious exception The greater the runic power the greater the distortion of a characters humanity This effect will be obvious with some and subtle with others but it will be there Different runes will have more obvious effect as they obviously clash with the human nature - chaos, death, disorder, undeath, Other runes which are more in keeping with the human nature will have more subtle effects, but as characters becomes more powerful in a rune they become less human and more an avatar of an rune. examples - life, harmony, movement, truth As a character becomes more powerful in a rune, the rune tries to asserts as much control of the individual as the individual does over the rune Balancing these runes with a strong association with the man rune limits these effects When I put together WOD:Glorantha I allowed the buying of rune related flaws, and merits which including derangement every time a rune was increased in power, so as characters advance in there Runes, they gain a unique collection flaws, quirks and derangements and advantages that reflect their runic associations.

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Persians, so many good Persian miniatures out there, distinct look and feel and there shields have such a hint of moon about there shape? Do they pass as Carmanian?

I think most people prefer the 25 - 28mm size.... so may i politley suggest http://28mmreview.blogspot.co.uk/p/dir.html If martin doesn't think its gazumping his idea I may dig into this a little more.

I like the 'otherness' of it, both from our world and other fantasy settings. I like the depth of background. I like the high availability of magic, but the everyday nature of it. I like the work that's gone into the different humans cultures, pantheons and mythologies, and that they matter to characters. I like a game world defined by cults, and belief not class and ability.

I'd consider it an interesting RP challenge, but the needs groups that make sense. The 'human, dwarf, elf centaur and dragonewt go into pub groups' i cant see ever working.

Confuse them with kindness... Have them treated with some level of respect by well meaning souls who do not question there disguise. Give them the opportunity to serve or save these individuals but in doing so will aid the agenda of empire. a nice humanity vrs philosophy & prejudice moral dilemma

too long too dense

Lost of things from RQ2 were not strictly bronze age..

OK as practitioner of spirituality, I can see you have stumbled upon the dichotomy between dead religion and live spirituality. The letter of the law kills the spirit of the law brings life. - Paraphrase of the Book of Romans I see Glorantha as a world which enacts with spirituality reality each day and thus the balance is much more towards the live spirituality than blind religious Literalism, than much of the religion we find within our world. A clever man called Hans Kung wrote a long book called the church, in it he separated the christian faith into its essence and its form, its form is appropriate to a culture and time, it is transient, can change and is an application of an unchanging central essence into a particular culture and time. The essence is what is unchanging, the core , what would destroy or completely alter the faith it changed If people obsess about the form of faith ( similar to your questions ) they stand a chance of loosing the essence, as an interpretation in one situation maybe not be relevant for another, or even for different believers at different points in there faith. So Christianity (broadly) views Levitical Law as a explanation of a faith in a time and place, and a blind obedience to it brings death and now is misplaced, but Jesus was able to sum up in the essence of all of Levitical Law and its interpretations (yokes) in "Love the Lord your God with ..... and love you neighbor as you love yourself." I see these same dichotomy's happening in Gloranthan cultures but generally a lot more emphasis on living faith than stale religion.

Are these serious questions or an exercise in pedantry?

Or some of us think of it as a 'Gregging' of the Orlanthi, because someone spotted a look and feel they preffered. They was virtually nothing in is saw in RQ2 which pitches the Orlanthi and Satarites as Mycenaean Age culture. Actually RQ2 was much more pseudo generic fantasy/medievil in terms of culture described and technology used. It was RQ3 that really go the bronze age feel right but that was in Prax, the first published in depth works to do with Satar and the Orlanthi. Was King of Satar and some of the later RQ3 stuff based round Dorastor, and to my mind the celtic/saxon/viking thing was very apparent then. The celtic/saxon/viking things is consistent from that point onwards through the heroquest, and King of Dragon Pass eras. Then hard to turn towards Orlanthi/Satar being Mycenaean era, Urban focused and pushing the celt/saxon/viking thing away is very recent.

cheers compliments always aprpeciated

The ruins such as the plateau of statues suggest the garden was quite well developed and civilized in places, i think writing, runes and forms from that period would be more developed the aboriginal cave drawings. As I said its an area where YGMV but there is plenty of scope for lost written forms of earthtounge to have survived here. This would add to the regression and lost paradise theme which lies behind Prax. I think there is a difference between saying "writing is not normal, common or normally native to Prax", and absolutely "there is no writing in prax and the paps at all, ever, double underline." I always prefer to have a flexible position to allow for quirks, interesting exceptions and creative positions. A 'normative position' establishes a setting well and allows for the deviation and variation that makes that setting varied, interesting & believable. An absolutist position creates an inflexibility and uniformity which can limit richness in the setting.

Dave it think this one of those areas where YGMV comes into focus. The broad picture is that writing is not a significant or normal part of praxian life. However has a potential to be an exception to the rule. The paps is a stable priesthood which keeps and lives out information and mythos, and has encountered writing many many times over the years. To say that the paps has no writing is a very rigid interpretation of praxian culture, there are some fun options; the paps decrys wriitng as a weakness and corruption of outsiders and thus bans all written material the paps has/ has had some priestess who can write foreign tongues and limited tombs, notes and books, both imported and home made. the apps has collected and stored written forms from invaders of the plains over the years and has sources relating back to the EWF and God Learners the paps is the one and only place where the writing of Generts garden is still remembered, and carvings, wall paintings and other ancient and unique forms can be found preserved here as secrets of the priestesses. Any mix of the above I like option 4 ... but would probably have a mixed position and maybe make it an item of debate of priestess of the paps.

However Glorantha has living interatcive and accessible religion which pins itself on these stories and experiences. That makes real world analogies of cultural memories reasonably useless. When the God time can be experienced, and the destruction of Generts garden ssen and interacted within, in your own lifetimes, the memories remian. Also the wastelands as whole have not healed, 1600 years later the new new normal is blaster wasteland which hasn't recovered over the years , it is the current experience.

The storyteller system is great if you want a narrative game with more definition and structure than HQ gives. If you want a combat orientated game its too clunky. They way we use runes to boost battle magic and power rune magic works, and feel incredibly Gloranthan to me, I don't think I will be going back to RQ soon, (just pilfering it for good ideas) Thanks for the nice comments

Like most simple systems it breaks at the extremes

Defense would be permanent modifier to hit. Slower, large, unaware people are easier to hit, smaller fast aware people are not. To actively doge is where skills experience, and intentional action come into play.

A blatant plug but if you wade past the WOD:Glorantha stuff there is loads of Griffin Mountain/Balazar stuff in here www.backtobalazar.com

Defense works when its an adjustment, when it goes past 30% and is then boosted by shimmer it becomes broke. Also the separate experience system makes it a faff, but i liked it as an adjustment. Now id remove the experience elements and keep it as adjustment, id also use a dodge skill for active dodging.

OK the changes are simple, but where is the tension now? Whats the story that the players can be involved in ? Who is the bogeyman/enemy? 30 years of Glorantha law mean you can answer those questions, but for a new player not as familiar with Glorantha as you, there isn't a simple meta story with tension to hang you hat on.

I liked the time to build you characters up to players by the time events kick off