Jon Hunter

First if I caused offence, I'm sorry I do sometime use hyperbole in my arguments and I may have been guilty of that in this instance.

I do, my games vary a lot from Jeffs vision in numerous little ways, and i'm fine with that. YGMV is a glorious concept and one I fully uphold. It come more problematic when i do bits of fan publishing, and i'm researching and i have to look at multiple books and documents to make sure I haven't veered too far from canon. But I still do thinks having products with 1621 dates and 1625 at the same time ads to richness and complexity of Glorantha. (i'm now happy to run and write stuff from 1616 to 1625), but its creates a need for a level of knowledge needed which goes significantly beyond the beginning player.

My issues isn't with the guide being set in 1621, its with RQG being set in 1625. If you have just produced the definitive guide to glorantha and charge 120 quid for it, republished significant RQ2 campaign materials which you have charged for all set in 1621. Is it a good decision to look after you customers to then release the next product set in 1625 which then starts to significantly limits the usefulness of those products? Its not the end of the world and I definitely don't think there was anything more to it than people getting excited about a new idea and taking things through to the next level but i think in hindsight it creates confusion. Having the same company producing different systems, in the same setting with histories that differ by 4 years but do transpire to provide significantly different game worlds is odd, confusing and it will make Glorantha more fulfilling for us enthusiasts, but more complex and impenetrable for New players.

Latest post RQG http://www.backtobalazar.com/balazaring-character-creation-runequest-glorantha/

It is now inaccurate or at least very badly formatted ( look up the land and then look up the hero wars chapter to see whats changed ) if you wish to use it to support your playing of Runequest. One would hope that the Guide to Glorantha would be compatible with main game played in Glorantha. Dating RQG in 1625 when the guide is set in 1621 makes the guide significantly less useful, only a couple of years after it was published. For the world defining £120.00 supplement you would not expect its publishing company to start the process of making in obsolete within a couple of years, by changing the year of the setting into the future. It is mitigated by the hero wars section and fact its only 4 years, but its still a pretty bizarre thing to do. I'm not criticising the guide, i'm criticising the decision to set RQG in 1625. Much was made about waning to use RQ2 rules a base for RQG so it was more compatible with the RQ2 reprints just done, but no thought was put into how the dating at 1625 affects the viability and compatibility of the guide and those same supplements recently released by Chaosium. For someone not steeped in Glornatha lore and able to sift between the two different settings its, bloody confusing and none nonsensical.

I'd agree it is a snafu though, it puts most of the already published material in the past and creates a £120.00 guide product which is now inaccurate for the main game it was designed to play with. I think it makes perfect sense and a lot of upsides for those people playing in the chaosium house campaign who may have played through the events of 1621 - 1625 at least once already, but from other perspectives it may be a more hit and miss decision.

You mean he didn't say "draw some Greeks and slap some runes on them" ?

OK the primary weapons of the Sundome are the Pike/Sarissa and shields large/medium (dependent on your preference on continuity/historical accuracy ). But what is the backup or holdout weapon for up close and dirty work? I've always assumed shortsword, but in the current setting would be Kopis be better suited? I would be interested in other peoples opinions. The options I have are; 1) Always Kopis 2) Always Shortsword 3) Depends on the location of the temple, Kopis within the Empire, Shortsword within Orlanthi lands, but dependent upon unit choice. 4) Soldiers individual preference I like option 3, other peoples opinions?

Yes I play Glorantha by WOD rules, and bring personal horror themes into the game. However its an aspect or take on Glorantha and playing that way you will get a subset of the whole gloranatha feel.

Page 410 - layout and indentation just doesn't seem to work on product lists, is consistent but doesn't seem appropriate to information being shown.

Spotting dodgy/illegal trade goods coming to market from Lunars, Sun Dome Worshippers or unscrupulous locals. Does she bring it to light, blackmail, or watch and investigate? You want something big enough to be of interest but not to distract from the main story. If you want something bigger it could be lead into the story/scenario after this one. Which could be disease tainted produce, pushed by some valley based Malia priestess trying to disrupt or taint the rituals.

something tells me folks were hoping for a sneak peak

By ancient and European standard california is big, many empires neither covered the same area of would have had the population of California. All that throws you is that Kralorea and Teshnos are nowhere near as large as there closest real world analogies, if that space was comprised of unique or civlization analogous with the egyptians or summarians you wouldn't bat an eyelid. There is no reason for kralorea to be as large as china , or Teshnos as large as indian, for them to make sense in Glorantha.

You may not believe it i'm not really arsed about stirrups either. I care little for barrels either I am bothered about the balance between game play and compliance with earths bronze age in defining glorantha , not with yourself but in some of the debates on here. The one that got my goat was that skirmish level units were unheard of in the bronze age so shouldn't appear in Glorantha. That one actually affects game play as skirmish level groups ( 6 -8 man ) are very good for a roleplay sessions, so need to exist really. I don't care what the romans/greeks/persians/hittites or anyone else did, or what archaeologists say. Game play needs them so they should be part of canon. The insights martin gives are well informed, fascinating and i learn alot in the discussions, but to my mind they should flavour and inform what glorantha is not define it.

I'd agree with the general point and direction of the arguement, but there are levels of relevance and sensible places to limit the compliance to history. When you argue that praxians and pentains have stirrups and no else do. You are creating very odd and inconsistent argument to make Glorantha comply with earth bronze age technology, rather than saying if that is the case Glorantha differs from earth. I think internal consistency matters a lot more than compliance to earth. If two relatively primitive cultures have stirrups, it makes little sense that other don't. You can create a conservative Glorantha argument to support the position, but your only doing that to make Glorantha complaint with you well informed understanding of the bronze age, not the benefit of the world.

I don't know if your agreeing or disagreeing with me?

My issue isn't that I disagree with you, I don't feel well informed enough to do so. You obviously know your stuff martin. But the fact its a tedious argument i don't want at a gaming table. If stirrups offend you massively don't have them in your Glorantha, if like most gamers its not a significant issue do whatever makes the game run smoothly. In trying to define what i'm reacting to, its a larger point. I'd like Glorantha flavoured by and informed by quality information about the ancient world. but i don't want Glorantha defined and constrained by it. The bronze age monicer that Glorantha has is very loose and there a large numbers of things from out world that would that would never fit into the bronze age description; For examples dinosaurs, cannon cults, Guilds, Pole Axes, Simildons, Balazaring Hunter Gatherers, need i go on? Flavour and information is one thing. Trying to retrofit canon onto every archaeological find, piece of research or new theory about the bronze age to my mind starts to loose sight of what Glorantha is and whats its here for.

Well Continental USA isn't small, and historically Europe had significant cultural diversity at many points in history. Look at the 9th century AD you have Byzantines, holy roman empire, the moors in Spain, Anglo Saxon cultures, some remnant celtic cultures,viking culture, the slavic peoples and whatever the steps culture to the east was at that point. Also looking at the early roman period around the Mediterranean you had Rome, Carthage and the Greek states. The successor kingdoms of Egypt , and the Secluids. Numerous Celtic Variants eg the iberians, thracians, dacians, Gauls and Britons. large amounts of variation in societies a continent the size of Glorantha isn't odd.

There has been a bit on this, the conclusions i heard were, this pentians have them, praxians are only allowed one for mounting , no one else is allowed any. I may be being a little factitious.... but at my table they exists and are used because its easier and the game wont break down into a 45 minute debate on whether lances should pass mounts damage modifiers through if the riders not using stirrups.

I've only been painting again for about 6 weeks, but my stuff doesn't compare, much more for the gaming table. However i've been having fun.

You have a very good eye sir, I cant even see that level of detail on my model let alone paint it. Would you consider yourself painting to gaming table or display standard ?

I never realised there was such a notable size difference between the hoplite and phalangite shields, is this consistent are these just to examples?

I just think zz's would like to animate any create associated with the life rune as it enjoys the wrongnness of it. I also found a 'woody' zombie did freak my players out, as it was just another zombie ....

Ok whats peoples thought on would a Zorak Zoran, create zombie spell work on the corpse of an elf? An what would it create and would it have any special properties. My view is yes it would work, but im not sure what type of zombie id get.

Some frighteningly sensible posts recently. I think Ian's posts above gets to the point. Its about feel and its about create a vibe in your game that is something different from generic fantasy. But what that different thing is will change from group to group. What may get the goat of some is that those with a particular skilled or informed views on archaeology and history wish define Glorantha by what offends them, where for most gamers most of the time it doesn't matter, or may even make the game a little less playable. Or we turn away from very useful well documented sources that could enrich the game world because they do not fit the defined period, for example I spent a lot of time working on nick names for the Orlanthi recently, i used the Coming Storm as a reference point I also looked through lists of viking nicknames. the correlation was remarkable. We would probably reject viking sources as being 'too dark age', but seeing as it is a real example, ads flavor, is three dimension and we don't have the same level of documentation for the early northern European communities. The viking records are a great source, and creates the inspiration for a believable pattern, and in my opinion the game world is richer for using it as a source. I'm all for a rich, three dimensional, believable setting routed in antiquity, but i struggle with players and enthusiasts being told no barrels, stirrups, skirmish size units, only a 30 inch blade not a 36 inch blade, etc, etc. Let players and gm's define antiquity in manner that works for their gaming table.