Jon Hunter

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?

On 31/07/2017 at 0:35 PM, KeithN said:

Does anyone else use Plastic soldier review http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=918, as a resource for this sort of thing? 

 

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

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

As a practitioner of spirituality, you should understand why an argumentum ad verecundiam holds little currency, especially to an atheist with a theology doctorate, but rather than merely take offense (for I refuse to be so limited and closed minded) I will carefully dissect what I disagree with about your comment in a careful and logically consistent fashion in keeping with my training.  I am well aware of Hans Kung and his work, and I am not alone in finding all notions of a "philosophy of essences" to be a fallacy; certainly not Kung at his best.  I personally found Kung to be at the height of his powers when he was refuting "Papal Infallibility" (Though it might be argued that if the Pope is always wrong, he is indeed infallibly wrong). There is perhaps a measure of irony in that you are defending the notion of a living spirituality against a dead legalism with reference to a theologian, given that most people who make such a point take a very dim view of theology and theologists as the epitome of the dead legalistic intellectualism that they so object to.  Returning to the point of conjecture, philosophically speaking, any argument put forwards expressing a notion of an "essence" is very flawed indeed, for how can you ever be certain that you have indeed captured the precious but elusive "essence" and not merely engaged in a form of reductionist summary? Human thought is not like plant matter that can be distilled to create a fragrant concentrate called an "essence", that is an analogy, and analogies inevitably collapse and become exercises in absurdism if tested a little.  If indeed the letter of the law kills the spirit of the law, then why indeed is there any written law at all?  Well, obviously a law must be transcribed for posterity to guide the living, and once that is the case, according to the post modernists, one cannot properly every grasp the true intention of the words, and nor in fact is the author the sole proprietor of its meaning.  This postmodern criticism finds itself at odds with much of religion which makes all arguments and rulings within a framework of a claim to some absolute and transcendental truth handed down from a superior being that lays claim to a superior reality principle. The paraphrasing of the Book of Romans you put forwards is just such a claim, and must be treated, ultimately as merely a rhetorical device to be used to silence dissent.  For how indeed can one person's interpretation of what is the letter of the law and what is the spirit of the law ipso facto be superior save by an argumentum ad verecundiam which is merely an exercise in hollow authoritarianism?  If a person finds themselves at odds with an interpretation of religious law, they should be allowed to dispute it, not merely be silenced. After all, who can truly say that some people know God more deeply than other people when it is considered a matter of fact within Christian theological discourse that God is completely beyond human comprehension?  And as God is beyond human comprehension, is not the worship of such a god merely the worship of one's own ignorance via the idolatrous philsophical proxy of an unknowable deity?    As for the quagmire that is the Christian interpretation of what Jesus really said and what Jesus really meant when referring to Levitical Law, please don't assume the matter can be summarized in a single two line sentence, given the number of doctoral dissertations on the subject, and the degree to which these dissertations find themselves at odds.  The fact is and remains that Christianity is the most schismatic religion in the world, with over 30,000 sects in the USA alone, so to make the claim that someone has a more authentic spirituality than someone else is the sort of fraught statement that cannot be proven with reference to evidence. Even if one can prove the pedigree of one's gnosis with miracles, lets face facts, Penn and Teller did most of Christ's miracles by way of humor, and they are atheists who make no claims beyond their ability as stage magicians.

Okay Jon, now that it out the way, let's talk Glorantha.  

By saying there is a separation between living and dead religion you are, I think unintentionally, engaging in a form of prejudice.  You seem to be assuming that religious legalism is somehow not a valid form of spirituality, which is odd given that Law is so important to so many religions in Glorantha and one of the central mythic narratives is the conflict between the deities of Law and those of Chaos.  This is more evident among the Malkioni and Dwarves perhaps, but every religion and cult have dogma; a core set of beliefs and expected behaviors and responses that must be adhered to if you wish to belong, and these must be of a somewhat restrictive nature.  The notion being that the deity becomes an archetype to which the worshipper seeks to align themselves to or mimic in order to form a closer association and thus incarnate their deity into themselves as a form of adorcism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adorcism, and thus gain power.  

So where is the prejudice?  I think you are missing the humor of the situation.  The gods themselves are now ossified relics who cannot change, save incrementally through the multiple hero quests of their most devout followers.  It is like a metaphor for institutional reform.  The whole situation is reminiscent of that wonderfully dark and humorous Terry Gilliam movie "Brazil", where the hero is a bureaucrat doing battle with the inertia of the system.  Now to suppose that religious institutions are only going to be good, and the people within them perfect exemplars of their faith, fair-minded and decent, full of the living gnosis of their deity is to miss a central truth about the situation. If humans can be small minded bastards, so too can gods.  Deities and hero quests don't inevitably only change deities for the better.  If you are a deity who is consistently worshiped by obnoxious people who are sticklers for the rules, you, the deity, will gradually become more like the people who follow you, for good or ill.  In many ways this will be exaggerated, as heroes tend to be exaggerations of certain human tendencies.  I got that straight from Greg Stafford in person btw. So just as the worshipers are trying to become closer to their deity, they are actually reducing their deity's personality to the cult dogma through the feedback effect that worship produces.  The whole thing will degenerate into a form of claustrophobic and incestuous "village politics", or worse, academic politics a la Sayre's Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre's_law.

Back to Chalana Arroy.  It says that her worshipers can't kill anything, they can't use weapons, and are not allowed to destroy anything.  That is an horrifically dogmatic prohibition even for someone living a privileged life where most things are done for them.  Worse still, in Glorantha life is often cheap and nasty, and many people make a living by being effective killers, so life as a worshiper of Chalana Arroy can be very hard indeed.  In order to maintain their connection to the goddess, the worshiper needs to keep their vows, so the issue of what happens if they squash a bug accidentally is really actually pretty important, as is the issue of what the penalty for such a "heinous transgression" is. This isn't dead spirituality, this is the issue of a defining oath that forms the core dogma of a living belief system, with rewards and punishments for observance and failure respectively.  Now at one level you can argue that this is a form of Spiritual Materialism, but in Glorantha with its immanent powers that is normal, and the notion of a transcendental reward from a transcendental deity is as absurd as it would be to the highland tribesfolk of Papua New Guinea, who routinely jettison underperforming gods in favour of more responsive ones.

Simply put, there has never been a religion that doesn't impose legalistic strictures on its worshipers.  If this is somehow "dead spirituality" why is it utterly prevalent ?  Even Aleister Crowley's Thelema made pretty unusual demands of its worshipers while simultaneously claiming "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law", and then subsequently added a second clause (because arguably "do what thou wilt" didn't really mean "do what I want" enough) and so "Love is the Law, love under will" was added, and all the while pretty much forced members to transgress taboos they may not have felt comfortable about.  So even in the real world equivalent of a chaos cult you run into strictures of inclusion, if not omission. Surely we must develop a sense of humor about this amusing human propensity to demand the imposition of strictures on them as part of their worship?

The point here is role playing.  Having unreasonable strictures imposed on your character is a good deal of the fun of the situation.  They provide a sense of gravity and direction. You learn to orient your character according to the strictures, and they become an essential part of the character and therefore the story.  If you can just do anything you want, there are no limits, and so no sense of achievement when you overcome challenges with effectively one hand tied behind your back.  You need conflict and adversity to make a story, and cult strictures should be as much an adversary as the Lunar Empire, something you need to accommodate even if it is often very uncomfortable.  And yes, if a Chalana Arroy is incautious and squashes a bug, there should be a penalty, it is, after all, a better story for it.  The point here is, how much of a penalty should apply for any given transgression, and what indeed constitutes a transgression and what doesn't.  So Jon, I urge you to develop a sense of humor about religious dogma and incorporate more religious dogma into your Glorantha.  I have never known a game to be poorer for it, and it might surprise you how much richer the world feels for including it.

too long too dense

On 6/24/2017 at 1:05 AM, TRose said:

 Might mention the earliest known  Wind Mill we have proof of are in 6 century AD in Iran, while the water wheel is known from the 1st century AD. both well into the Iron age. ,

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

5 hours ago, Darius West said:

Isn't religion and its many restrictions always both serious and an exercise in pedantry?  Consider Leviticus, Manu, the monastic laws of the Buddha, Canon law, systems of taboo, Islamic Koran based jurisprudence etc.  The fact is that most religions seek to regulate human behavior, often quite minutely, and that generates situations where the teachings of the religion come into conflict with each other.  In such situations most religions have a rationalized system of answers as to how a good worshipper should proceed, and which of their proscriptions should take precedence.  Chalana Arroy is interesting in that its cult restrictions of pacifism have strong precedence IRL, specifically with Jainism, and Jains have a great deal of difficulty adhering to their beliefs, such that the beliefs if taken to their logical conclusion become an onerous encumbrance that eventually kills the worshipper.  Don't you think that when considering a cult that shares so many beliefs with Jainism as Chalana Arroy does, we need to elaborate on why Chalana Arroy doesn't become a long term suicide pact like Jainism?  

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.

On 2017-6-20 at 1:26 PM, Darius West said:

According to Cults of Prax when you join Chalana Arroy as a lay member you swear an oath to "never harm a living creature and to aid all within the limits of your ability".  At the same time you swear never to learn any combat abilities.  For the latter it is fine if you knew how to fight before you joined Chalana Arroy, but you must put such things behind you.

So the question is, how do Chalana Arroy cultists cope with their radical pacifist agenda when it entirely collapses into paradox?  For example:

1) The Broo Baby conundrum.  A victim of broo rape is going to die unless the broo baby inside them is removed, and it can only be removed by killing the broo baby.  Thus do you allow chaos to live and the victim to die?

2) Diseases are technically alive, and curing them is effectively killing the disease, which is harming a living creature and therefore against Chalana Arroy's requirements.  And if diseases aren't alive, why not?  Are they more or less alive than a whirlvish or an elemental?  Where exactly is the line drawn?

3) You can grow healing herbs but you cannot pick them because that will harm a living creature.  Or don't plants count?  If plants don't count as living creatures, how do Aldryami feel about that?

4) You cannot perform surgery because that involves cutting people with a knife, and that is technically harming a living creature and using a weapon to do so.

5)  Do the undead count as living creatures for the purposes of harming them, or can Chalana Arroy cultists cut loose on the undead with their childhood weapon skills provided they don't increase their skills subsequently?

6) If a living shaman attacks a Chalana Arroy cultist in spirit combat, are Chalana Arroy cultists unable to fight back in spirit combat because it will potentially harm the shaman?

7) Can a Chalana Arroy use a shield to defend the fallen?  Or is a shield a weapon?  You can certainly use a shield as a weapon, and there is the chance that the attacker will fumble as a result of being parried and cut their own leg off (for example).  Will that constitute a breaking of the oath?  What about dodging?  It is certainly a combat skill, but does that mean that a Chalana Arroy is not allowed to step out of the way of a charging Rhino?

8) Is a Chalana Arroy thrown out of the cult if they stub their toe or burn themselves cooking?  Technically their little accident has caused them to harm a living creature, i.e. themselves.  What about accidental malpractice?

9) To what extent does the "harm no living creature" issue impact on a Chalana Arroy's diet?  Are they all "fallists" (fruit only), "breatheairians" (sylph eaters), egg eaters (provided the eggs aren't fertilized), or can they eat meat and veg if someone else did the killing?  At what point are they required to take moral responsibility for a death so they can eat?  This is a minor issue compared to some of the others.

10) Are you permanently banned from Chalana Arroy for absent-mindedly sitting on a bug and squashing it?

11) Given that riding a horse can cause saddle chafing even with a blanket, are Chalana Arroy cultists unable to ride a mount?  Does riding constitute a combat skill?

Hint) Be very careful that your answers don't create fresh paradoxes.

So, as you can hopefully see, there need to be some points of clarification on these issues.  To what degree are Chalana Arroys subject to regional variance in the interpretation of their cult oaths too?  For example, is an Aldrayami Chalana Arroy more or less squeamish about killing plants for food and medicine? Also, how rigorously is the oath enforced?  Is breaching the oath an instant and permanent dismissal from the cult, which may constitute harming the individual worshipper by destroying their livelihood, or is the oath breaker merely required to atone?

The closest real life alternative to the Chalana Arroy oath would be the Jains, and their philosophy is so rigorously anti-harm that some Jain holy folk walk naked so the insects may feed on them freely, and wear only a huge broom-skirt that sweeps the path ahead of them of bugs (of course they completely ignore the billions of micro-organisms their body destroys every day just by breathing in and out).  Increasing the the poor Jains become masochistic prisoners of their own compassion, and in many ways Chalana Arroys have the distinct potential to go the same way.  In short, it is very difficult to be a Chalana Arroy unless you are also an illuminate.

Are these serious questions or an exercise in pedantry?
 

15 hours ago, Mankcam said:

In the Sartar books, just bear in mind that many of the illustrations of Sartarites may not be consistent with contemporary depictations (which is a return to earlier inferences from the RQ2 era).

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

35 minutes ago, David Scott said:

As for pictograms and paintings, I see much of it in a similar form to Australian art. The picture tell the story and everyone understands the symbols in the picture, lthough outsiders may not. It's not dot painting. 

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. 

Quote

I'm using writing in the modern western sense - script on paper, etc. I'm not excluding pictograms, carvings, cave art, etc. One of my problems with fantasy settings that writing is linked with spell books, literacy and other stuff that's really not part of the setting. That's why I'm saying there is no writing at the Paps

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.

15 hours ago, David Scott said:

@TRose said

the Priestess at the Paps are not and would recognize  the value of written record

The priestess come from the tribes. Although the Paps are static, it's priestesses aren't hereditary. As one dies, Eiritha calls another forward. A priestess called to serve the goddesses there, may only do so for a while and then return to her tribe. Some however are called to stay longer and serve until their death. A few  become Respected Elders, and one becomes the most respected elder. Everything is in its place and continues as it has done for centuries at the Paps. If anything needs to be known, they can return to the goddesses dream in the great darkness and dream with Eiritha and her family to find the answer. The most respected Elder is as Eirtha herself and can tell you what you need to know. Many stories are held by the ancestors in the Great Herd and the shaman can ask them to come into them so they can speak. Finally the long rhythmic songs that are sung deep in the echoing caves tell everyone what has gone before. They have no need for a written language. Occasionally a  Grey Sage will come and ask questions about something and record what they think and see has happened, but they are mostly wrong.

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;

1. the paps decrys wriitng as a weakness and corruption of outsiders and thus bans all written material
2. the paps has/ has had some priestess who can write foreign tongues and limited tombs, notes and books, both imported and home made.
3. 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
4. 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.
5. 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.

2 hours ago, David Scott said:

It's certainly true. But no one has memories from that time. Only what is happening now. Sure you can visit the bad stuff on Holy days, and the Eternal Battle is around, but it's way beyond that now and people experiences are of herding, the cycle of seasons, some hunting, and following the migration paths of their ancestors. The apocalypse happened 1500 years ago, look at human history that long ago (without archeology and modern history) and what have we got. A vague understanding of what went on. These people aren't literate either, so what is known is in the oral histories, art and rituals. 

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.

On 5/14/2017 at 1:42 AM, Mankcam said:

Although I prefer the RuneQuest mechanics, the Storyteller system is also a great fit, a bit more handwavey but it feels more like the Glorantha portrayed by HeroQuest.

I don't find HeroQuest great for a fantasy setting (although it's perfect for a modern day pulpy action/adventure setting), but I'ld happily play Glorantha with the WoD Storyteller system

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)

Quote

BTW yes there is some great content on the website posted above regarding Balazar & The Elder Wilds; this will keep me reading for some time, thanks for posting!

Thanks for the nice comments

33 minutes ago, styopa said:

(shrug) I guess in that context i've always just used the (roughly) RQ3 mods for SIZ and for unaware targets.  I don't think they're large enough based on SIZ, frankly.  It should be really impossible to miss a SIZ 40 thing, and nearly impossible to even hit a SIZ 0 thing.

Like most simple systems it breaks at the extremes

19 hours ago, styopa said:

When would you use it (defense), though?  Just generally for everyone, or just in special circumstances where things are more or less arbitrarily harder to hit?

 

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.

On 5/10/2017 at 6:39 AM, Bud said:

Hoping for an update and expansion of Griffin Mountain / Island, I've used some version of that in several campaigns and several game systems over the years. 

 

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

18 hours ago, Jusmak said:

I bought RQ2 classic and first tried defence, which worked very well for my liking.

Until it become heavily overpowered with high dex character and chaotic feature "obscure presence", shimmer to give defence value 80.

After that came back to RQ3 model. And I do like dodge as a skill, giving a bit more tactical thought.

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.

1 hour ago, David Scott said:

As per Pavis GtA there aren't many factions at all:

Major

The Imperials - This was the Pro -Lunar Faction and it's now gone and replaced by the formally minor group:

Orlanth Allies - These are now a major group replacing the Imperials.

The City Peacers - are the conservatives who want as little change as possible.

The Free Pavisites - wanted the Lunars out of Paris. This has of course dissolved but is likely replaced with a group of the same name wanting the Nomads and or Orlanthi out of Pavis.

Minor

Friends of the Empire - Well the Empire's gone and so has this faction.

Friends of the City - These remain. With who ever is robbing them of their power and prestige now the current target.

The Ingilli Riverside Association - switch allegiance from the Lunars to the Orlanthi.

The City Council

This sits under the King of Pavis and so continues to run the city as before. I don't think Argrath will sit on the Council as he's the King. The King of Pavis isn't an Orlanthi title, it was instituted in 860 and approved by Pavis himself:

The mechanism for this clear. Argrath says he's King of Pavis and the City Council approve him. Of course it's a set up, but the council will certainly take action on what he says. Argrath isn't a fool, he doesn't want to hang around and actually rule the place. So he won't stir the waters up too much, he wants the city as a central resource for the region. There's likely some council changes, he's not going to put outsiders in. They will be Pavisites, local Orlanthi and Praxians loyal to him (perhaps only to his face in the case of the Free Pavisites):

Hallarax the Singer is likely ousted as he was pro-lunar (likely dead)

Hetaera Thessen - lunar priestess gone. Replaced by one of Argrath's trusted Orlanthi Priests to be based in Pavis, for fun I'd make him/her a Pol-Joni Nomad.

Haloric Glowbrow is likely a pawn in the machinations of the Yelmalio problems as per @MOB's writings. So may be replaced.

A couple of the others have likely died in the assault on the city (just for colour). 

 

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.

32 minutes ago, David Scott said:

So if you're not following the set background (from King of Sartar), where does your game deviate? Do you have the dragonrise, Argrath or the Hero Wars (as per the Dragon Pass board game)?

Personally as a GM I really enjoy games with a grand background you can play against. I enjoyed the traveller 5th frontier board game that generated background for the rpg. I also liked their shattered imperium background to play against. Likewise with Exalted, the return of the scarlet empress background story worked well with the main rpg. 

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

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

From our perspective there are far more upsides to resetting the default setting date than staying another 30 years in 1618-1621:

1. It gets rid of the "Lunar Occupation" straightjacket for adventures set in Sartar, New Pavis, or the Holy Country. 

2. It introduces moral ambiguity while allowing mixed parties (Sartarites and Lunars in the same party - yeah!).

3. It opens up events to alternate paths. The events of 1621 to 1625 are well documented. Between King of Sartar, the Guide to Glorantha, the 11 Lights, and the Glorantha Sourcebook, that period is as described as 1613 to 1621, if not more so. 

4. it makes the setting more accessible to newbies who don't have to deal with 30+ years of speculation of the same 3 year period.

Finally, and perhaps most important, you are more likely to get far more scenarios and campaigns as a result. 

All fair answers.

but I kind of liked the lunar occupation straight jacket.

19 minutes ago, Joerg said:

First upside - you get to use those epic battles from the White Bear Red Moon / Dragon Pass boardgame as backdrop for your games (and heroquesting). You don't have to participate in these directly, but could do special missions. Basically, become like the Assassin units in the game.

True, the old classics aren't up to date any more. Re-arranging Pavis to the same level of detail would be a major overhaul.

But there would be interesting consequences, too. How would Argrath "tax" adventuring in the Rubble? As an Orlanthi king, he might well declare the rubble as his tribal area, and require an oath of fealty for everyone entering. Any proceeds would have to be laid out before him (or his representative), and while a generous king will give most of the findings to the finder, he will certainly keep some of them for himself, maybe offering other rewards for this. Including unwanted rewards like promotion to an official role in his court.

The Rubble doesn't need that much attention, really. The Zebra pens work like they are supposed to do, the Real City gets rebuilt a little more, the trolls still occupy most of the far end of the Rubble. Nomads are allowed in.

Troll Pak isn't affected much, either. The Wooden Sword folk aren't around any more, so maybe the Sazdorf episode is about as dated as is Apple Lane. The rest still is pretty much up to date.

 

In Sartar, clan history will have a few new entries - what we tell about how we survived the Fimbulwinter, and what we don't tell about how we survived the Fimbulwinter, how and when we joined Kallyr's uprising.

 

More upsides - as the war pushes Argrath around, so may your campaign hit some or all of the hot spots. All manner of exotic magic becoming "legal" to admit to having. Tricksters galore. EWFish stuff, sorcerers and western mercenaries. New, imaginative uses of magic (yet unreported - you find and explore them, build them). Do stuff in the Otherworlds and gawp at the consequences.

 

 

Seems more suited to heroquest to me

2 hours ago, Jeff said:

We are "resetting" the default starting date for RuneQuest to be post-Dragonrise. I think after 40 years of it playing under the Lunar Occupation, it is ok to skip ahead. 

It does change the nature of setting significantly though.

Rather than starting characters in a stable world with 'trouble brewing', with an organised order than can be supported, rebelled against or ignored.

Its a setting which has no stable order, forces characters to take sides, making it a more political game, which has a a greater tendency to jump onto rails, and players are more likely to be minor players in bigger stories.

Its also creates issues with some of the classic supplements which rules wise maybe in step with RQG, but setting wise are significantly effected.  Borderlands is redundant without a complete overhaul of the premise, Pavis and the Rubble need major reworking,  out of the big campaign packs only Griffin Mountains stays relatively untouched. 

Apart from 'freshness' and 'change' what do you see as the upsides of the  change of setting date?

A few thoughts on the OP

• The same Runes will manifest differently in different people
• It is often tied to the nature of there God
• A rune is an effect on a person that often struggles and contradicts with those of human nature, culture, goods sense, law and experience
• Then gretater the affinity with the run the greater the affect on the perosnality
• If you want a tragic/personal horror angle on glorantha it is how hero's humanity is destroyed magical power