Cloud64

"Hang on, let me right this down."

<slapsforehead> Ok, you got me. I must be slow today.

Are we talking at cross-purposes?

It's a Doctor Who reference. Only one of the most popular sci-fi shows in TV history. I'd expect plenty of people to get it. There's alway Google, but I supplied a link, so what's the problem?

In response to the Campaign Book comments, there’s clearly room for both approaches – historic events can happen as writ or their outcomes can be changed by campaign events. Speaking as a returning GM who enjoys Glorantha but has discovered there’s a huge body of lore that wasn’t around when he was playing back in the 80s, the thought of changing the timeline is daunting. I don’t know enough about the politics, the armies, the military campaigns, the personalities, etc., to work out what the domino effect is if outcome X changes. I am more than happy to work within a pre-determined timeline, knowing that the world my players are in will maintain consistency. My respect to those who have the knowledge, time and inclination to forge their own path. You go for it. But I’m putting my hand up for a nice supporting framework that gives me and my players an interesting background to work within. Roll on the Campaign Book.

That’s fine, and I think inevitable with a subject like this. The big trouble we have is that we never can really know for sure. All we have is anecdote and intelligent conjecture, and we can only make our best guesses based on the evidence to hand. I’m assuming auto-correct has done its corrupting work and that you meant to say, “…it’s easier to understand by trying to sub-vocalize.” I would agree, but not that difficult for a practiced reader, though still annoying and ultimately tiring.

I believe I made the same points, though not with the depth you have. A good point re the quality of the material they may have had available. Having just had four fails on a captcha I can sympathise with them, though my out loud was rather more of the ‘What the *%&* is that supposed to %^&*ing be,’ rather than saying the letter out loud

I don’t doubt you, and have experienced this myself when dabbling with other languages, but that’s not the readers I was talking about. I was talking about those who knew how to read, reading their first language and the suggestion that they couldn’t internalise it. Now less regular readers, as there were probably many in antiquity due to there being less written material physically available, may well have found it helped to sound out the words, but regular readers and scribes needing to do so rather than doing so merely out of habit doesn’t add up to me. This boils down to how the brain handles reading, and the brain hasn’t changed, so we wouldn’t expect how it handles reading to have changed.

Think I’ll stick with ‘wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey’, thanks, and take Jeremy Bearimy as an homage rather than a rip-off <not blinking, not blinking at all>

Thank you. I also found this https://web.stanford.edu/class/history34q/readings/Manguel/Silent_Readers.html The problem with this is it’s based on anecdotes, and the Stanford article contains much conjecture. If anything the article points to reading out loud being a habit rather than a necessity to understand what’s been written. Given the number of non-readers, it makes sense that people would be used to hearing text being read out loud, as it had to be to reach a bigger audience. It also mentions cases of people reading silently in antiquity, notably a Greek play where this was acted out, implying that the audience would have been familiar with the concept. While accepting that the scholars know far more about it than me, I’m afraid I don’t buy that the skill of reading silently was ‘amazing’, but am happy to accept that it appeared unusual as it wasn’t done regularly, out of habit rather than out of inability. I have no problem with this, nor with the non-standard spelling version. Of course, the amount of reading we do these days is likely vastly more than anyone did in ancient times, damn near all day reading/writing for some of us, so we are far more practiced. That said, a lot like that would be tiring, but I don’t see how it’s any easier speaking it as opposed to reading it silently. There’s another rabbit hole to disappear down here, and that’s how the brain processes reading and if there’s any different pathways between turning it into speech and internalising it silently, but that’s for another day

Do you have a citation for this? I find it very hard to believe. If people can think in their language they can surely internalise it through reading. It takes kids very little time to internalise reading, that ancient readers couldn’t do the same doesn’t add up, even though the skill was rarer.

Modern Italian is pretty phonetic. The spelling was standardised after unification and once you learn the pronunciation rules it’s consistent. Helps with learning. Of course, it’s not perfectly phonetic, but you’re more likely to be right than wrong if you follow the rules. I don’t see how any language can be 100% phonetic; there’ll always be regional variation, and language changes over time in pronunciation as well as usage. Being an “amateur” I shan’t “harass” you with a list of English words that have a different “pronunciation” (take your pick with that one) than they had when I were lad. As a Brit I’m very comfortable with non-phonetic writing. I’ve no doubt Messrs. Cholmondly, Featherstonehaugh and Marjoribanks would agree. [For those not au fait, they are pronounced Chumley, Fanshaw and Marchbanks.] And don’t get me started on the utterly pointless arguments over scone.

Well, having played Dragon Pass last summer, we played it this way 1) ALL defenders can take damage, from the top down. 2) The three topmost major units after casualties are taken get to counter attack. Beware the defensive doubling – it is devastating.

I'm afraid I must give you a fail on your reading comprehension test, Bill

Its suitability for newbies was what struck me and made me change my choice of starting scenario. Not too many passions or spells to overwhelm, clear opportunities to use passions as they directly relate to the characters themselves, situations that allow for a variety of skills to be exercised and some combat. All elements that will help them learn the system, and with no potentially off-putting cultural milieu to worry about – that can come later. And, well, it's ducks – how could I not? For my part as GM, the fact that I won't have to do a lot of explaining of Gloranthan lore also appeals. I want to be able to focus on getting the rules working smoothly for us all, rather than explaining the finer points of inter-tribal diplomacy.

That's good to hear, I m expecting it to be entertaining. It won't be my first time GMing RQ, but it will be the first in <cough> decades, so it might as well be The tricky part has been getting the players to bite, but they were at mine when the slipcase set arrived and were suitably wowed by it's prettiness and promise. One technique that I have used to get them to play, which others may find useful, is to point out that we can treat scenarios as more or less self-contained episodes, rather than having to commit to a continuous campaign. This is how we've run Call of Cthulhu, same characters running through stand-alone scenarios, with suitable modifications for ongoing shenanigans. I feel that the one-adventure-per-season idea presented in RQG suits this style of campaign well. It allows us to drop in and out, trying other things as suits.

Lots of good advice above, which is useful for me too as I’ll be running my first RQG soon. Here is what I am intending to do to introduce my players, which maybe of interest to you. I was going to use Cattle Raid from the screen pack adventure book to start my players, who are unfamiliar with Glorantha, but I have decided instead to run Yozarian’s Bandit Ducks (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/296285/Yozarians-Bandit-Ducks?src=hottest_filtered). My reasoning is that its a light hearted story in which they can get on with learning the mechanics of the game without worrying about the history and politics of Glorantha. It’s also a bit more like a DnD adventure in how it is structured. I’ll give them a very brief intro to the world at the start and, as has been mentioned above, explain differences such as they all have magic, combat can be deadly, etc., but I want to get into the game quickly. My group are familiar with the percentile system having played Call of Cthulhu, which will help. They also like the idea of playing ducks for a bit of fun – other groups may not. My intro, roughly, will be a picture of the whole world, map of continents, map of Dragon Pass and point out where they are. I shall mention the ongoing troubles with the Lunars and the beginning of the Hero Wars, but tell them that as a bunch of outcast bandits that’s of little interest to them. Anything else that comes up in play that needs explaining will be dealt with when it arises. The goal is to introduce them to RQG in a way that is fun rather than earnest; a way that will incline them more towards playing again. If they like it, then I’ll have a session zero where I let them roll characters and give them a more in depth understanding of the culture and politics of world. After that, it’s using the published scenarios as episodes in a campaign.

That’s a tidy explanation, Klecser, as I would expect from one who teaches and has explained something many times Sadly, this is the basis for much of the anti-science sentiment we see today. Layfolk thinking they’ve found a flaw in a scientific principle and, for some reason (which Dunning and Kruger ably explain), not realising that their usually obvious question will have been considered, thought about, knocked back and forth and proven wrong by those with solid knowledge of the subject and the experimental data relating to it. Note: I cast no aspersions about the OP, preferring a generous take that the question was mooted as, “Surely I’m wrong,’ rather than, ‘How could they all have missed this obvious flaw?’

I politely disagree. Just look at real world monarchies and the limited number of names they use. Us Brits now have a George VII coming down the line, our next will be Charles III and his son will be William V. Imagine the insanity in the papers if they risked a King Kevin, King Wayne or Queen Kylie. Not that there’s anything wrong with those names – don’t blame me for the snobbery inherent in the British class system. Even dynasties of the rich have a habit of passing down names.

It might help if you tell us what the corrected rule says, with a comparison to the original. Anyway, seems to me the SAN losses are from the same cause, so effectively simultaneous. It’s reading the tome that causes SAN loss, not the change to MAX SAN. I’d apply the SAN loss from reading the tome first, and then change the MAX, and if that reduces SAN further, so be it.

“Hey Siri, did you hear something?” “I’m sorry Dave, I can’t play that. I wouldn’t want to scare you, Dave.”

I apologise for taking this a bit off topic, but that boat image has sparked something that has intrigued me for many years. I see Greg has used metric, as did the original rules. This is very unusual for an American. As a Brit I work happily in both, though I have my preferences depending on what’s being measured, what I’m doing or the context. For example, metric always seems slightly incongruous in a fantasy setting to me. Anyway, does anyone know why Greg used metric for Glorantha? Was it his general preference? Did it come from spending time in Europe?

Last night whilst browsing Amazon Prime Video I stumbled across ‘Knights’, a German documentary. It describes knightly life, starting at the beginning, so, for example, we see knights in mail, as we would expect in early Pendragon. There’s three episodes, with English commentary and subtitles. At times the commentary feels a bit wooden, but that’s easily forgiven as it does a good job of explaining the historical milieu and the social structure. Part 1 tells the story of a a warrior becoming a knight and the responsibilities that brought him. Being German, it is of course about their historical knights rather than the Arthurian Romano-British ones, but I find it pleasantly refreshing to see them from a different perspective and flying different colours. And Arthur does get a mention in one of the part 2 cameos I did a YouTube search, and you’ll find a playlist here Not sure I’ll get around to playing Pendragon, but if I do I’ll certainly send my players to watch this first.

Aha! That explains why some people find it a bit pants. <badum tish> OK, I know, I’ll get my coat. This exactly. A little bit of lubrication in the creative juices is always appreciated when you’ve already got enough to think about when running a game. If the art doesn’t match your personal vision of the entity then you don’t have to use it, any more than you would have to use a text description of the monster exactly as written. It gets a thumbs up from me too. Very evocative, which is what we want if it’s to be useful.

How about Doug Jones. Plays Cmdr Saru in Star Trek: Discovery (which doesn’t help much, admittedly). He has the build and the slim face, but not sure his face is quite right.