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Women in Glorantha


HeartQuintessence

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41 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

In other words: to make men seem less default, the solution isn't just to flesh out *women*, but also to flesh out (the peculiarities of) *men*.

IMHO I found this to be very refreshing when I first came across the artwork of topless Esrolian women in the Minoan style. It felt very desexualized and normalized. These women were topless because that's their preferred clothing, nothing more, nothing less. 

Compared to the "plastic-fantastic Barbie"-style fantasy artwork I've seen in A LOT of fantasy games, books, etc., Glorantha (at least since me exploring it from around 2016 or so) feels a lot more relaxed. 

Jar-Eel is also nude, or semi-nude a lot, but I tend to also view that as an analogue to Greek "heroic nudity", which is how Achilles and other mythical heroes are often portrayed. 

My perspective might be hopelessly naive, or a product of male gaze, I obviously cannot say, and if it makes people uncmfortable, and acts as a barrier to entry, then that's obviously a problem.

I agree that some of the nudity is very 'appropriate' in terms of its style. Some of it definitely has a nice Minoan style to it. But for some inexplicable reason, the few times that a more Graeco-Roman style has been used, it's included female nudes, but not male nudes, which are far more prevalent historically. 

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6 minutes ago, Bohemond said:

I agree that some of the nudity is very 'appropriate' in terms of its style. Some of it definitely has a nice Minoan style to it. But for some inexplicable reason, the few times that a more Graeco-Roman style has been used, it's included female nudes, but not male nudes, which are far more prevalent historically. 

Yeah, there's a few places you'll find it, such as in Siglat Defeats the Barbarians (GtG 202) which has Siglat on full display, although little detail. Hopefully more Malkioni things will be seen in the future.

Er, no pun intended.

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1 hour ago, Bohemond said:

I agree that some of the nudity is very 'appropriate' in terms of its style. Some of it definitely has a nice Minoan style to it. But for some inexplicable reason, the few times that a more Graeco-Roman style has been used, it's included female nudes, but not male nudes, which are far more prevalent historically. 

Absolutely, bring on the nude Malkioni and Kolatings. 

There is a frieze of the king of Seshnela and depicting the caste system that featured a lot of male semi-nudity, but it never got into the guide, unfortunately. It did a good job of giving a good (idealized) visual of Seshnelan society, including their relative "sensuality" when compared to the more ascetic nudity of the Loskalmi (or so we are told).

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2 hours ago, Bohemond said:

Another thing that's always bugged me a bit as a gay man is the rather sexist nature of art for Glorantha. There are lots of naked women, especially woman showing their breasts, and yet very little with naked men. Sure, I get it that most gamers are straight guys so they like the occasional titty-show with their gaming, but it's just another thing that says that this is primarily material for straight men, not women or gay men. But this is just me grousing a bit. 

As a Helering I am available for modelling, but the SAN test would be formidable for any viewers 

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3 hours ago, Bohemond said:

Another thing that's always bugged me a bit as a gay man is the rather sexist nature of art for Glorantha. There are lots of naked women, especially woman showing their breasts, and yet very little with naked men. Sure, I get it that most gamers are straight guys so they like the occasional titty-show with their gaming, but it's just another thing that says that this is primarily material for straight men, not women or gay men. But this is just me grousing a bit. 

It always annoys me when an image of an Orlanthi man wearing woad shows him wearing a loincloth. Come on! The bad-assery of going into battle naked is going into battle NAKED!

Of course, as a wannabe artist, I have to say that the men's wedding tackle is a pain to draw sometimes. ;)

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2 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

IMHO I found this to be very refreshing when I first came across the artwork of topless Esrolian women in the Minoan style. It felt very desexualized and normalized. These women were topless because that's their preferred clothing, nothing more, nothing less. 

I may be naïve, too, because I thought the same. 

Judging by my life history, though, naivete is an unlikely trait for me to claim. ;)

Desexualizing male nudity in the setting seems like a good idea, too. I guess I'm going to have to start practicing drawing the dangly bits!

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5 hours ago, Bohemond said:

None of this is to say that we need to tear Glorantha down to the studs and make it gender-blind. One of the things I love about it is how deeply gendered the universe, because it's such a breath of fresh air from the Generic Fantasy Europe that most other fantasy RPGs are descended from. I love that instead of saying 'women can act like men', it's trying to create a game world in which men and women generally act differently.

I completely agree. I don't believe Glorantha needs to be stripped to the waterline to eliminate any cultural gender issues. I'm glad to see recent posts on other topics in which Jeff has firmly stated that cults like Orlanth allow full participation by women without the necessity of joining the "women's auxiliary." It's great to see the world becoming more available to all types of players. That's the direction of success for Glorantha, both artistically and commercially, IMO.

 

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Oh  this has turned into an amazing thread once again. I am glad I reached out to the tribe. Makes me feel even better. Onto the quotes.

7 hours ago, Bohemond said:

I'm very late to this party--been offline for a couple of days--and I really love this whole thread. It seems to me that there are a couple of inter-related issues going on with Glorantha in terms of gender. 

1) A majority of those who have played in Glorantha are male because the gaming community skews male (although I think that imbalance is slowly evening out). Male gamers have tended to focus on violent conflict as the interesting story to tell. So the published scenarios have often focused on violent conflict as the obvious solution. Ernalda's 'Other Way' to resolve problems has often been an after-thought in scenarios, where it was considered at all. The number of published quests that are essentially non-violent is much lower than the number of quests that culminate in some sort of violence. For example, the three major non-violent cults of the Storm Tribe (Lhankor Mhy, Chalana Arroy, and Issaries) have one published quest each, whereas the violent cults have at least 7 that I can think of off the top of my head--Orlanth has at least 4 (more than all the earth cults combined). 

2) Fantasy literature (particularly male-centric stories) have compounded this tendency (although again, this has improved as fantasy has matured as a genre). When the average gamer thinks of fantasy stories, they probably picture orc-killing and the like. Women are usually positioned as healers and earth priestesses who need rescuing more than they rescue everyone else. Women are situated as 'home', which men leave and return to, defend, and procreate with, and the assumption that what women do at home when men aren't around is the boring stuff like cooking. So we have a lot of models for how to make male-centric activity (violence, mostly) interesting and few models for how to make women-centric activity interesting. RQ's elaborate rules focus on combat and hand-waving focus on things like cooking (the former is a long, drawn-out process with many steps, whereas the latter is a single roll) nudges us in this direction much more than HQ's system, which resolves all forms of challenging activity the same way (a Cooking challenge could as easily be an Extended Contest as a fight with a band of Broo might be).

3) The majority of people who created Glorantha (in terms of published material) have been men, and consequently their notion of what a truly gender-egalitarian society/religion looks like has been filtered through male assumptions about such things. That's not meant as a slight to Greg or MOB or Jeff Richards or anyone else--just as an observation. For example, Sartar becomes King of Dragon Pass by pleasing the FHQ and 'marrying the earth'. This nominally situates the feminine principle as superior--the Earth Queen chooses her king. But it's still the male Sartar who's doing all the cool stuff and the FHQ is just choosing from a slate of potential candidates, not going out and making herself the ruler of the Kingdom of Sartar. The whole ruling line of Sartar is men. Kallyr is an impressive female candidate for Prince of Sartar (apparently the first one), but her story is ultimately one of valiant failure, followed by the male Argrath succeeding. A truly gender-egalitarian society would have produced at least one Princess of Sartar in 150+ years. The 'active' earth goddesses--the ones who go out and get things done instead of finding men to do it for them--are both depicted as semi-monstrous figures. The Babeester Gor write-up in Sartar Companion positions her worshippers as nearly psychotic anger-ridden ball-busters (the classic trope of the Angry Woman in fantasy literature) and both she and Maran Gor engage in cannibalism (IIRC, MGs cannibalize their own children, another classic misogynist trope). It was left to Jane Wiliams to find a way to present a female warrior goddess who was actually a fully-playable and non-stereotypical idea of what a warrior woman might be. (Again, this isn't meant as a slam to any of the men who mapped out Glorantha. It's more a testament to the difficulties men have in viewing the world the way women view it.)

4) The decision to frame Sartarite women's religion as 'secrets' is problematic--it's discouraged the publication of myths/quest from the women's PoV. For example, the Making of the Storm Tribe myth is written so that it's clear that Ernalda was doing things behind the scenes, but we've never gotten a myth about how Ernalda Forms the Storm Tribe (although it seems that we've gotten a few peaks at it in Six Ages). If women are 50% of the population, their myths and quests aren't 'secrets'--they're just gender-specific knowledge, like how to weave. 

None of this is to say that we need to tear Glorantha down to the studs and make it gender-blind. One of the things I love about it is how deeply gendered the universe, because it's such a breath of fresh air from the Generic Fantasy Europe that most other fantasy RPGs are descended from. I love that instead of saying 'women can act like men', it's trying to create a game world in which men and women generally act differently. 

You can see a lot of this in the scenario that gave us the Humakt, Raven, and Wolf myth (off the top of my head, I'm forgetting the name of the scenario and don't want to bother to look it up). The magic spindle that the women need to perform a key clan ritual has been stolen. The solution is to do a violence-focused quest to get the ability to locate and kill the baddies that took it. If all goes well, the spindle is returned to the women, who then walk off-stage to perform the clan ritual that is supposedly the most important thing in the scenario. So the Spindle and the Mahomravrand ritual are actually MacGuffins--the thing the characters care about that the audience doesn't care about--and the quest and violence, which are nominally just the agents through which the ritual is saved, are actually the interesting bit of the scenario. There is no option for the women questing to get a new spindle. There is no option for Babeester Gor to go and get it violently (using her ability to track those who have offended the earth). There's no sequence in which the women actually perform the ritual, perhaps struggling to bring the clan back into full harmony. My point here isn't to beat up the author of that scenario for not writing a different one--it's a good scenario and I've run it three times.

My point is that the way we conceptualize a lot of what happens in scenarios (therefore shaping our sense of what happens in Glorantha) generally defaults to male-centric patterns. If we want a more gender-balanced Sartar (and a Sartar that is therefore a bit more friendly to female players in general), we have to swim upstream against strong currents. 

 

You my friend of my spirit, you nailed it, like I think you took what I had been running around trying to say and found words for it, perfectly. If this were reddit, there would be reddit gold involved.

But I do think this  what I have been trying to say so much of what women : 'Do is cloistered'. I am going to have to write a scenario where a young physically male child(but pre-puberty) sneaks into the ritual of his mother and aunts ect, and some how helps  and there for becomes effectively  initiated via helping, and so the ritual the becomes open to  pre-puberty people who wish to participate because their thoughts and ideas make leaps that adults sometimes do not make.

@Bohemond Peraps we'd best write up this Spindle mythos- ok at this right it sounds like I am gonna have to get a group together so we can produce this.

 

I do think  that perhaps there are some rites that Orlanthi men retreat into other spaces, for rites maybe that's part of things as well.

5 hours ago, Bohemond said:

Another thing that's always bugged me a bit as a gay man is the rather sexist nature of art for Glorantha. There are lots of naked women, especially woman showing their breasts, and yet very little with naked men. Sure, I get it that most gamers are straight guys so they like the occasional titty-show with their gaming, but it's just another thing that says that this is primarily material for straight men, not women or gay men. But this is just me grousing a bit. 

As a woman, I agree. I mean I know they covered up many of the Ernaldan priestesses the RQG book, (because the rules said so) but I found the  uncovered art to be tasteful and beautiful and yes we should have more men images, I mean, some Lunar lady with a cadre of cool male slaves (because that's a great image, but of course none of them are changed in an way, and they have weapons and they all look really neat).

Looks like this Supplement will after it written need some cool art.

5 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

There are other dimensions to this: as we've seen, very few male-"iconic" (ie. being dedicated to a male god with masculine iconography, etc.) is gender-limited, whereas it seems that we have a whole slew of female cults that are much more closed off. The way I interpret this is that there's been a focus on making the universe more "navigable" and open for female characters (and assumedly players), but with the thought in mind that it's men's areas (cults, etc.) that are desireable and prestigious, and thus need to be opened up. If so, this probably comes from the gender liberation in the RW, where women increasingly entered previously male-exclusive areas in professional and other capacities.

Problem is, it creates this weird, somewhat lop-sided image of Glorantha (or at least the Orlanthi) where men don't seem to have "secrets", men don't seem to squirrel off deep and profound mythical experiences - but women do. IMHO, it's a case of "thou doth protest too much". Ie. the relative openness of women into male cults and spaces seems more like an insistence that "it's totes not sexist, honest!". 

IMHO, it wouldn't hurt to have a few more ways for males (wether cis or trans or nonbinary) to engage with female secrets - and indeed, it wouldn't hurt to present some more myths or spaces or "secrets" of men (again, whether cis or trans or nonbinary).


Just to be clear: I'm not advocating some kind of return to a total bifurcation of society, but more one that acknowledges that the masculine identity and spirituality can be as sensitive, vulnerable, secretive, powerful and profound as that of women (which seems almost insisted upon to the tiring in some cases).

In other words: to make men seem less default, the solution isn't just to flesh out *women*, but also to flesh out (the peculiarities of) *men*.

IMHO I found this to be very refreshing when I first came across the artwork of topless Esrolian women in the Minoan style. It felt very desexualized and normalized. These women were topless because that's their preferred clothing, nothing more, nothing less. 

Compared to the "plastic-fantastic Barbie"-style fantasy artwork I've seen in A LOT of fantasy games, books, etc., Glorantha (at least since me exploring it from around 2016 or so) feels a lot more relaxed. 

Jar-Eel is also nude, or semi-nude a lot, but I tend to also view that as an analogue to Greek "heroic nudity", which is how Achilles and other mythical heroes are often portrayed. 

My perspective might be hopelessly naive, or a product of male gaze, I obviously cannot say, and if it makes people uncmfortable, and acts as a barrier to entry, then that's obviously a problem.

Excellent points all around. as I stated above- I think having an adventure  or two where people actively participated in  and engage in secrets in general of both sexes. A man being needed for ritual- but he  has to actually be in a particular mindset for the ritual that's not his normal - say a very 'gentle' guy being  turned into a roaring beserker-- random ideas are weird.

5 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

@Bohemond Very good points, I agree with most.  But modern fantasy lit or TV features many strong wonen, not sure what you have been reading...

One of our campaigns featured an extended "Rune Chef" competition, with the grand prize being the Claw of Gbaji.  The PCs didn't actually cook, but were involved in obtaining rare ingredients, protecting your chefs, harassing the opponents (some violence was allowed - you couldn't shoot an opposing chef, but you could shoot his bag of flour) and watching out for magical or other chicanery.  Judges were frequently charmed, bribed, or blackmailed.

So you played  "Battle Brigrade" in Glorantha, go it. I like that.
It depends on what Bohemond has been reading, there  are also weird subsets of books that make you go: Wait the entire point of this genre is for this women to have a polyandrous love life, but they all focus on her and not any of the other complexities that would come with this life, and all of this kinda grinds to a hault after she gets knocked up- I am not joking there are books on Amazon with components like that.

 

Also if Polyandry is a thing in Glorantha how does that work? I mean can woman hold the keys to multiple year marriages at once? Mind you the men are not brothers or related in any other formmat, they may even been opposing sides, like an Orlanthi lover, a Lunar lover and a  Grazeland  lover... (there is a story there that I am gonna have to write).

 

Thanks guys, this is getting to be really awesome.

Edited by HeartQuintessence
Polandry not Polyangry.
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21 minutes ago, HeartQuintessence said:

But I do think this  what I have been trying to say so much of what women : 'Do is cloistered'. I am going to have to write a scenario where a young physically male child(but pre-puberty) sneaks into the ritual of his mother and aunts ect, and some how helps  and there for becomes effectively  initiated via helping, and so the ritual the becomes open to  pre-puberty people who wish to participate because their thoughts and ideas make leaps that adults sometimes do not make.

 

Sounds like a good idea...

... remember, with a TARDIS, one is never late for breakfast!

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17 hours ago, HeartQuintessence said:

Oh  this has turned into an amazing thread once again. I am glad I reached out to the tribe. Makes me feel even better. Onto the quotes.

You my friend of my spirit, you nailed it, like I think you took what I had been running around trying to say and found words for it, perfectly. If this were reddit, there would be reddit gold involved.

But I do think this  what I have been trying to say so much of what women : 'Do is cloistered'. I am going to have to write a scenario where a young physically male child(but pre-puberty) sneaks into the ritual of his mother and aunts ect, and some how helps  and there for becomes effectively  initiated via helping, and so the ritual the becomes open to  pre-puberty people who wish to participate because their thoughts and ideas make leaps that adults sometimes do not make.

@Bohemond Peraps we'd best write up this Spindle mythos- ok at this right it sounds like I am gonna have to get a group together so we can produce this.

I'm glad you liked what I said. These are things I've cared about for decades--I was raised pretty solidly to be a feminist, so I'm probably a bit more attuned to these issues in games than many male players. 

Female table-top players seem to generally take one of two broad approaches to fantasy gaming. 1) I want to do all the cool male stuff, but my character is female. 2) My character is female, and I want her to do cool women's things. The first type is essentially seeking equality with men by saying that women get to do the cool things male heroes do. They get to be the violent heroine of a story that is similar to traditional male-centric adventure. The second type is seeking equality with men by saying that women may do different things than men do, but those things are just as cool. They get to be the heroine of a new kind of story (perhaps one about child-bearing and motherhood, or about overcoming evil by addressing the villain's needs and bring him back into the community.) In other words, some women want to be Vinga and some women want to be Ernalda. 

Both approaches are valid for women players, and I've had female players who took both approaches. The problem is that the first type (the Vingans) are fairly easy to address--just write scenarios that allow the female players to do the violent ass-kicking. The second type, however, is harder to write for because we have fewer story-telling models to draw off of, and a long scenario about weaving a tapestry that is also a metaphor for bringing a community together is, on the surface, less 'cool' than ass-kicking, because we don't have a lot of stories that tell us how cool it is to weave a community together. Moana offers us one model for a scenario that isn't about victory through violent ass-kicking. But we need more. 

One interesting twist on your young boy wanders into female rites might be that he acquires an Earth-rune soul, which might cause Nandan (the god of men who worship Ernalda) to claim him. 

 

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36 minutes ago, Bohemond said:

One interesting twist on your young boy wanders into female rites might be that he acquires an Earth-rune soul, which might cause Nandani (the god of men who worship Ernalda) claim him. 

I'd like to say that I want to be clear that Nandan to me is a bearded person with a pregnant belly. If you need to change your body in Glorantha I reckon you can get that sorted easily as a teenager, while Nandan is an entire mask of Ernalda that provides healthy births for the devout who want to be High Priestesses of Ernalda but aren't physically equipped to. Vingans aren't trans men as we think of things and Nandans aren't trans women as we think of them. That's a separate situation.

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23 hours ago, Bohemond said:

... The second type, however, is harder to write for because we have fewer story-telling models to draw off of, and a long scenario about weaving a tapestry that is also a metaphor for bringing a community together is, on the surface, less 'cool' than ass-kicking, because we don't have a lot of stories that tell us how cool it is to weave a community together.  Moana offers us one model for a scenario that isn't about victory through violent ass-kicking. But we need more.

The Derthofan family and the Guthwing family have been at each other's throats for a generation, and it's really holding the clan back!  Recently, the Guthwings have been garnering sympathy for their cause from a couple of other families, and the Derthofans' influential out-Clan relations have been grumbling about the Clan being unfair to the Derthofans', with corresponding consequences for trade and other relations and etc etc etc.

Things are headed for the crapper.

An old Grandma-Questgiver says she's had a dream, the clan must weave a Peace Tapestry.  We have special sheep to be quested-for, special Flax to be sewn and harvested, special dyes to be acquired, magic shears to be won from the Mostali, a loom blessed to Arachne Solara (and where they gonna get them an A.S. blessing?  Off to Beast Valley!)  etc etc etc.  And Q says that every task will ONLY succeed if it has both a Guthwing and a Derthofan involved.  Questing, farming, spinning, dyeing, weaving, everything.

There is room for Ass-Kickery, but also a bunch of other skills will need to come into play (in fact, much more than the AK skills), culminating in some weaving rolls wherein some Chaos-Spirit (who has been behind it all along) is finally unmasked trying to sabotage the effort...

And at the end of it all, the Clan has their Peace Tapestry... but also grows the magical sheep & flax, with magic tools, and everyone has a stake in the Clan having the best weaving in Sartar!

Edited by g33k
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1 hour ago, g33k said:

The Derthofan family and the Guthwing family have been at each other's throats for a generation, and it's really holding the clan back!  Recently, the Guthwings have been garnering sympathy for their cause from a couple of other families, and the Derthofans' influential out-Clan relations have been grumbling about the Clan being unfair to the Derthofans', with corresponding consequences for trade and other relations and etc etc etc.

Things are headed for the crapper.

An old Grandma-Questgiver says she's had a dream, the clan must weave a Peace Tapestry.  We have special sheep to be quested-for, special Flax to be sewn and harvested, special dyes to be acquired, magic shears to be won from the Mostali, a loom blrssed to Arachne Solara (and where they gonna get them an A.S. blessing?  Off to Beast Valley!)  etc etc etc.  And Q says that every task will ONLY succeed if it has both a Guthwing and a Derthofan involved.  Questing, farming, spinning, dyeing, weaving, everything.

There is room for Ass-Kickery, but also a bunch of other skills will need to come into play (in fact, much more than the AK skills), culminating in some weaving rolls wherein some Chaos-Spirit (who has been behind it all along) is finally unmasked trying to sabotage the effort...

And at the end of it all, the Clan has their Peace Tapestry... but also grows the magical sheep & flax, with magic tools, and everyone has a stake in the Clan having the best weaving in Sartar!

That's a great idea for a scenario (I can totally see using that in one of my campaigns). We need published scenarios like this that can offer models for how to make women-centric stories as interesting, complex, and cool as the traditional male-violence stories we like playing. 

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18 minutes ago, Bohemond said:

That's a great idea for a scenario (I can totally see using that in one of my campaigns). We need published scenarios like this that can offer models for how to make women-centric stories as interesting, complex, and cool as the traditional male-violence stories we like playing. 

has anyone played a Glorantha game using any resolution system that is not combat-oriented, like Ryuutama, aka "Hayao Miyazaki's Oregon Trail"? The basic trappings are kinda medieval but they are easily hackable, and you play "minstrels, merchants, healers, hunters, artisans, farmers, and nobles" - basically, average people, except average people can do exceptional things.

I know this is a Chaosium page and we talk a lot about RQ and HQ but honestly there are literally games where the cook already has rules equal to the fighter, sooooo has anyone tried any of them?

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3 hours ago, g33k said:

The Derthofan family and the Guthwing family have been at each other's throats for a generation, and it's really holding the clan back! 

 

1 hour ago, Bohemond said:

That's a great idea for a scenario (I can totally see using that in one of my campaigns). We need published scenarios like this that can offer models for how to make women-centric stories as interesting, complex, and cool as the traditional male-violence stories we like playing. 

Let’s hope that those who have sway here about in the module writing realms are reading then, cause I will lay down much money for scenarios like this....(Y’all got that at the Chaosium and the Compendium, huh?)... To paraphrase  AOL, 'Ka-ching, you got money!'

Edited by Bill the barbarian

... remember, with a TARDIS, one is never late for breakfast!

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1 hour ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

has anyone played a Glorantha game using any resolution system that is not combat-oriented, like Ryuutama, aka "Hayao Miyazaki's Oregon Trail"? The basic trappings are kinda medieval but they are easily hackable, and you play "minstrels, merchants, healers, hunters, artisans, farmers, and nobles" - basically, average people, except average people can do exceptional things.

 

Oh, I don’t know Qizilbashwoman, seems to me that g33k just showed that RQ can handle that quite well. And considering the deadlines of RQ 3 (which I have to turn to cause with 20 or so years experience vs a handful of RQ G games...). I ran a lot of games with much dice rolling of skills and much fun and with no  whiff of combat,
 

Good times

Edited by Bill the barbarian

... remember, with a TARDIS, one is never late for breakfast!

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1 hour ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

has anyone played a Glorantha game using any resolution system that is not combat-oriented, like Ryuutama, aka "Hayao Miyazaki's Oregon Trail"? The basic trappings are kinda medieval but they are easily hackable, and you play "minstrels, merchants, healers, hunters, artisans, farmers, and nobles" - basically, average people, except average people can do exceptional things.

Isn't that sort of the premise behind quite a lot of the Gloranthan stories? Harmast Barefoot, Valare Addi, the son of the Stickpicker, the street waif from Torang?

 

Part of the problem here is that you start out playing (or reading about) doing ordinary things in a mostly ordinary environment. There is an intro (or flashback) you have to work through.

And then there is the question how you avoid the exceptional things being railroaded and scripted.

1 hour ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

I know this is a Chaosium page and we talk a lot about RQ and HQ but honestly there are literally games where the cook already has rules equal to the fighter, sooooo has anyone tried any of them?

Doesn't HQ fit that role already? Any old ability can be used for conflict resolution. And that's conflict in the sense of Robin Laws's Drama System (which fulfills that role even more). Have you seen the Dramatic Interaction Masterclass video from this year's Kraken?

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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9 hours ago, g33k said:

The Derthofan family and the Guthwing family have been at each other's throats for a generation, and it's really holding the clan back!  Recently, the Guthwings have been garnering sympathy for their cause from a couple of other families, and the Derthofans' influential out-Clan relations have been grumbling about the Clan being unfair to the Derthofans', with corresponding consequences for trade and other relations and etc etc etc.

Things are headed for the crapper.

An old Grandma-Questgiver says she's had a dream, the clan must weave a Peace Tapestry.  We have special sheep to be quested-for, special Flax to be sewn and harvested, special dyes to be acquired, magic shears to be won from the Mostali, a loom blrssed to Arachne Solara (and where they gonna get them an A.S. blessing?  Off to Beast Valley!)  etc etc etc.  And Q says that every task will ONLY succeed if it has both a Guthwing and a Derthofan involved.  Questing, farming, spinning, dyeing, weaving, everything.

There is room for Ass-Kickery, but also a bunch of other skills will need to come into play (in fact, much more than the AK skills), culminating in some weaving rolls wherein some Chaos-Spirit (who has been behind it all along) is finally unmasked trying to sabotage the effort...

And at the end of it all, the Clan has their Peace Tapestry... but also grows the magical sheep & flax, with magic tools, and everyone has a stake in the Clan having the best weaving in Sartar!

THis is a amazing, I think this needs to be spun (pun intended) off into its own little scenario for the  the 'book'. Hmm maybe it really should be called  "Asrelia's Hut' - Gloranthan Femaleness- (ok maybe drop the sub title).

But I like the premise it turns all the things into really neat Heroquesting. I think we should also talk about how much  the women of the clans are its back bone - I mean I started reading thunder rebels last night, and on page 30 it talks about the types of marriage the Orlanthi recognize and this in terms made start thinking about how young women, might flirt and entince men- if  all marriages are exogamous ( in theory you're marrying no one of your own clan) - then by the  Thunder Rebels page .30  listing- which also states that it is exclusive and monogamous ( which we've positived  may not be always true).- we have both men and women moving about, which presents a complex issue for clans.

 

If your best cow-breeder woman is marry, how do you replace her? You can't really. Her secrets and her powers go with her lessening your clan.

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