"Let's talk a little bit about Your Glorantha Will Vary (YGWV)" by Ian Cooper

[Lordabdul]

1 hour ago, g33k said:

"How do I even get started!?!?" is a recurrent wail of despair I hear read online from new GM's.  The permission (to not know it all) is HUGE.

The reason the "YGWV" thing falls flat for me is that I don't need the permission to remix book material at my table, I can do it by myself. I don't need help shutting up canon lawyers. I basically don't need permission to fuck things up. I know I can fuck things up if I want to. But I don't want to. The problem, really, is getting permission from myself.

<looking in the mirror> "Yeah, you're ready! YOU'RE READY! You know who the Lunars are, oh yeah you know. You know who the trolls are. Yeah. Come on. Don't be a little fucker. You can do this. You can run an adventure. Come on!". And then on the first adventure, somebody asks what's up with these trollkins and you make stuff up on the spot because you got no idea, and then later that night you read up on trollkins and you go "well... shit" and now you need to either take back what you said, or work out all the ramifications of what you invented because you didn't know about the trollkin curse.

There's a surprisingly high number of these kinds of things, and I think it took me around 6 months of seriously dabbling in Gloranthan lore before I stopped having those "oh shit" moments and I figured that, yeah, I think I'm good now, I have a vague grasp on all the highlights, and whatever I don't know, and whatever I'll come up with, should actually be minimal to rework and keep changed (My Glorantha Does Vary) or correct back to canon somehow.

Edited December 5, 2019 by lordabdul

[Ian Absentia]

1 hour ago, g33k said:

but honestly:  how many people run Gloranthan games for players who know the world better than the GMs do, or even as well?

I have been Greg-splained by players at the game table before.  Recently, even.  It's a tedious and demoralising affair.  But it's also part of the appeal of playing in Glorantha for some.  They just need to be reminded that what they read in Lost Guides: Sartar+Prax may not be an actual reflection of playable reality.

!i!

[g33k]

26 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

... And then on the first adventure, somebody asks what's up with these trollkins and you make stuff up on the spot because you got no idea, and then later that night you read up on trollkins and you go "well... shit" and now you need to either take back what you said, or work out all the ramifications of what you invented because you didn't know about the trollkin curse ...

Other likely options, FWIW:

1.  "OK... metagame, I think this is the right answer, but I'm honestly not 100% certain; is everyone OK if I retcon this later?"  

Problem solved.

 

2.  <introduce alternate Trollkin stuff later (without the precaution above)> Players protest, "that's not what you said before!"  GM:  "I know.  That answer was the mistaken information your culture-of-origin believes.  THIS is the information the culture you're NOW living in believes, which is obviously correct... and just WAIT 'til you get to that other culture across the spine of the mountains... " 

Problem... well... changed, at least.

 

There's always another way!

 

Edited December 5, 2019 by g33k

[Bill the barbarian]

1 minute ago, g33k said:

"OK... metagame, I think this is the right answer, but I'm honestly not 100% certain; is everyone OK if I retcon this later?"

 

If you do, I am coining a new term.... being G33ked!

[Lordabdul]

49 minutes ago, g33k said:

There's always another way!

Indeed there is  (and your option 2 falls under the "take it back" bucket IMHO), but that's just additional headaches for the GM. I guess the general point I was trying to make was: Glorantha is probably one of the least "pick-up-and-play" RPG world out there. Some books do a good job of managing it, though. The Broken Tower for example is quite good at giving you a minimal amount of information about the world, and more-or-less sticking to it (the only problem is potentially how the players might not know spirits have such a big role in Glorantha, and what you can do with them, but that's mostly OK, the shaman NPC was designed to help).

 

[Rob Darvall]

15 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

If you do, I am coining a new term.... being G33ked!

What? Having your head bitten off as a fairground attraction?

Sounds somewhat trollish to me. (OK Enloish)

[Jape_Vicho]

Comparing the data provided by Jeff in this post with the info on Fonrit in the Guide*, we get this.

 

The number of slaves in Fonrit, specially given its enormous population, is beyond measure, but I think the graphic may not be the perfect reflection of its society. I think that, in the Orlanthi nations, the Unfree and Semi-free are always the poorest of their communities. Most unfree are slaves of war, often foreigners, or bought from neighboring nations, forced to work the hides of their Carl owners. The semi-free in my mind are sort of a bunch of "lesser castes", descendants of conquered or migrant peoples, not despised and humiliated by the rest like the untouchables of RW history (or at least not as much), but also forced by lineage to work the hides of free families and the clan, unable to leave and with lesser rights and usually very exploitative contracts (in the GameMaster Adventure Pack we see that the cottar tenants of Apple Lane must give HALF of their production to the Thane, an outrageous deal that surely must keep all cottars in deep poverty, almost even depending on their patrons for basic subsistence). Meanwhile, while in The Lunar Heartlands the % of non-free is 70% and 85% in Fonrit, in those nations there is a minority of specialist slaves and serfs (maybe around 10% overall?) which are more powerful and richer than most freemen, and some (maybe a 2%) who surpass even the lesser nobles.

* I've had to add some things to get the info to fit the nomenclature of the new data. The Semi-free are the "are half-free, half-slave artisans and merchants" of the Guide. I've divided the "10% petty landholders" between an 8% free common and a 2% free wealthy, and the "5% upper class" (the Masarin) between a 2% low nobility, a 1% middle nobility and a 1% high nobility.

Edit: I always misspell Sylila.

Edited October 28, 2023 by Jape_Vicho