Glorantha Second Age

[g33k]

5 minutes ago, Darius West said:

Pretty much everyone I knew ... and the opinion is far from mine alone.

Please drop this argument.

HQ isn't my own cuppa, either.  But (though I too know others who don't care for it) I observe that the game is well-loved by many, and its fans include people I know to be both intellectually-brilliant, and to have a keen and nuanced artistic/esthetic sense.  So (despite it not being to my taste) I accept it as an observed fact that the rules are NOT crap... they just don't serve ME (or you, I guess).

Maintaining this argument here serves no useful purpose.

Please drop this argument.

 

[Darius West]

23 hours ago, Steve said:

The rules also don't say "there is already a body of acceptable weaponry, refer to it please", so does that mean the HQG rules are encouraging people to run around with lasers and rocket launchers?

Well, except that for all the difference the weapons actually make you might as well call it "laser" or "rocket launcher", the tiny addendum that weapons actually make in the system as compared to skill makes any notion of the technical superiority of such weapons an irrelevance next to the importance of skill, plus they are missile weapons, and don't get me started on how bad the missile combat rules for HQ are.  It really doesn't matter if it is called a sharpened pancake hurler, because the rules bear no similarity to reality anyhow, and once your skill hits 3W16 who even remembers to add weapon damage on anymore?

Edited April 12, 2017 by Darius West

[Y Mab Darogan]

I'm with G33K on this, you should drop it or open a bashing thread.

It's not your cup of tea (or mine really) but no fun is badwrongfun and you've passed the point of 'I don't like it' to sermonising on the evils of a narrative game.

Edited April 12, 2017 by HorusArisen
Clarity

[Darius West]

5 minutes ago, HorusArisen said:

I'm with G33K on this, you should drop it or open a bashing thread.

It's not your cup of tea (or mine really) but no fun is badwrongfun and you've passed the point of 'I don't like it' to sermonising on the evils of a narrative game.

I just find it funny that people are prepared to criticise Mongoose when HQ is so awful, and the hypocrisy of saying "there is a canon that we should respect" when the HQ rules encourage you to spit in the face of such an idea makes the whole situation hilarious.    I am certainly not going to retract what I have said.  HQ remains a bitter pill to me and many others.  But sure, I'll drop it, unless someone else starts it up again.

Edited April 12, 2017 by Darius West

[Jon Hunter]

6 minutes ago, Darius West said:

I just find it funny that people are prepared to criticise Mongoose when HQ is so awful, and the hypocrisy of saying "there is a canon that we should respect" when the HQ rules encourage you to spit in the face of such an idea makes the whole situation hilarious. I am certainly not going to retract what I have said.  HQ remains a bitter pill to me and many others.  But sure, I'll drop it, unless someone else starts it up again.

I'm not a HQ fan either, it doesn't work for me.

Its not awful its just a style of gaming I personally don't like for Glorantha.

But HQ is responsible for great Gloranthan background and material being produced and made available, which I can easily convert to my systems.

It is also a style of more freeform gaming I do enjoy and has it place.

To say that it is crap, and broke. Is rude to the people who love it, who designed it and put many hours into creating a Glorantha which would be much poorer without it.

Your point on the rules giving freedom, breaking the system shows more about the lack of inflexibility of your thinking and your lack of understanding of alternative styles of gaming than anything else.

[Darius West]

33 minutes ago, Jon Hunter said:

I'm not a HQ fan either, it doesn't work for me.  Its not awful its just a style of gaming I personally don't like for Glorantha.

Its a form of Glorantha I feel trapped with, while the better system was left to die.  Huge mistake.

33 minutes ago, Jon Hunter said:

But HQ is responsible for great Gloranthan background and material being produced and made available, which I can easily convert to my systems.

The HQ source material as it relates to Glorantha is fine, and yes, I also retcon the stuff over.

33 minutes ago, Jon Hunter said:

To say that it is crap, and broke. Is rude to the people who love it, who designed it and put many hours into creating a Glorantha which would be much poorer without it.

Those same people have been plenty rude to me already.  If they spent so may hours on it, why didn't they do a better job?  

33 minutes ago, Jon Hunter said:

Your point on the rules giving freedom, breaking the system shows more about the lack of inflexibility of your thinking and your lack of understanding of alternative styles of gaming than anything else.

A rules system is supposed to provide not only freedom and flexibility but a sense of gravity and reality.  It would also be wrong to say that I haven't tried running HQ or running a couple of characters in it.  You yourself don't like it, and neither do I.  I do hear that HQ is a wonderful system for playing a Harry Potter RPG though.  Kudos to whoever thought of that conversion.  Perhaps it can be made to work for The Twilight Saga as well? LOL sparkling Vivamorti.  YGMV but it might also suck (insert relevant suckable material here.............................) 

P.S. Jon, you started it up again.

Edited April 12, 2017 by Darius West

[davecake]

Some MRQ products have much more information than any more canonical resource on a subject, and so can be very handy if you are looking for ideas, definitely better than nothing. Sometimes they have more information than any canonical resources, and its bad enough you should avoid it anyway, and it really isn't that much better than nothing.  

I would say their elf book, written by a long term Glorantha fan, is pretty good, for example. But all the steampunk stuff in the Clanking City should probably be ignored entirely if you want to remain anywhere near canon.  Cults of Glorantha often has useful ideas that are better than nothing either when dealing with cults not given a long form writeup eisewhere or looking for heroquest ideas. They are certainly a better starting point than nothing if you want to run a Gloranthan Mythras game. 

Dara Happa Stirs is great, I'd probably change a few things but its epic and loads of fun and close enough to canon. Pavis is a bit less fun, but stil full of ideas. Anything Loz had a hand in, really, is worth getting even if a few bits might be flawed (Loz had terrible deadlines too). 

RQ Empires is a cool rule system that may or may not be any use for most RQ games in any era, but is fairly interesting and looks fun for what it does. Worth picking up for the ideas therein. 

That said, that is the edited highlights. the MRQ1 system isn't so good, and many of the books are pretty obviously quickly thrown together and of very poor quality. 

 

[David Scott]

On 11/04/2017 at 1:29 PM, Darius West said:

Consequently you can invent a myth like "Humakt is forced to do Barntar's Chores: a Weaponthane versus Cottars myth", wherein Humakt uses his death powers to raise a barn by slaying all the nails and boards with mighty blows in just the right way, and constructing a tomb for the slain harvest, so Horvark Deathbrow can add his Death 2W18 affinity to his miserable 5 in carpentry.

As a HeroQuest narrator, this example fails the credibility test. One of the core parts is the credibility test. A death god doing the farming gods chores, my players would laugh. That aside as others say - drop it, now back to MRQ products...

Edited April 12, 2017 by David Scott

[Y Mab Darogan]

2 minutes ago, David Scott said:

As a HeroQuest narrator, this example fails the credibility test. One of the core parts is the credibility test. A death god doing the farming gods chores, my players would laugh. That aside as Ian says - drop it. 

In fairness he did and people poked so have at it I say.

[David Scott]

I have recently reread Pavis Rises, overall it's an interesting campaign. There's a couple of ideas that I've lifted as they were good. But for me other campaigns give better value. I cut my GM teeth on the original griffin mountain, so I'm very biased. 

[JonL]

Please do not equate improvisationally Varying Your Glorantha in a way you wouldn't enjoy with rape.

Part of what Chaosium is doing right at the moment with Glorantha is encapsulating it in three different game systems that appeal to different gamers' desires & tastes.  RQ, HQ, and 13A all do different things well, others less so, and reward different player competencies and play styles. Some players' eyes glaze over at the thought of calculating percentages for a big list of skills or groan at the prospect of tracking hit-points per limb. That doesn't make RQ a crappy game. It just makes it the wrong game for those players.

I actually dig the old crunchy style games too, hell, I own multiple editions of Rolemaster & Car Wars. The people I usually play with OTOH are either fellow old hands who are nonetheless much more into lighter fare like Warbirds or Dungeon World these days, are young adults who have only played computer RPGs or maybe D&D/Pathfinder before, or are children who haven't even learned what "percentile" means yet. I have had successful fun games with these players, often getting through character creation in under 15 minutes with people who have never played a tabletop RPG before. 

I can see where HQ delivering something other than what you were hoping for and that was a poor fit for the way you & yours like to play left a bad taste in your mouth. By all means, keep playing & enjoying RQ as it is clearly the game for you. Please try to remember though, that this is a big tent and we should endeavor to treat one anothers' tastes with respect. 
 

Edited April 12, 2017 by JonL

[Darius West]

Just now, David Scott said:

As a HeroQuest narrator, this example fails the credibility test. One of the core parts is the credibility test. A death god doing the farming gods chores, my players would laugh. That aside as Ian says - drop it. 

On the contrary.  The myth in question has to do with the resolution of tensions between the Cottars and the Weaponthanes, as expressed by the deities Barntar and Humakt. Humakt disrespects Barntar's contributions and Barntar withdraws his service by way of a challenge, leaving Humakt to fend for himself as a farmer, for the Death God will never refuse a challenge. As a result, Humakt struggles with the chores, and is forced to find ways to improvise, harvesting with a sword, banging in nails with his pommel, hacking a tree trunk into planks, however milking and birthing are just not something he can do well.  Barntar wins because his arts are ultimately for the preservation of life, and balanced against death.  Humakt in turn demands Barntar demonstrate his skill in battle, to which Barntar plans his battle as if it were a harvest, having observed Humakt reaping with a sword as his inspiration, then he sends his cottar Einherjar to do their work.  Barntar's troops win, but with more casualties than is desirable. They both reaffirm the value of the other and respect is restored, and with it clan harmony.  This myth doesn't exist within the canon but it plausibly could, and HQ will let me augment my carpentry with my Death affinity as a result.  

If you want me to drop it, how about you go first, or at least say please?

[Trifletraxor]

We'll give this topic an hour to cool down before it reopens...

[Joerg]

4 hours ago, Darius West said:

I just find it funny that people are prepared to criticise Mongoose when HQ is so awful, and the hypocrisy of saying "there is a canon that we should respect" when the HQ rules encourage you to spit in the face of such an idea makes the whole situation hilarious.    I am certainly not going to retract what I have said.  HQ remains a bitter pill to me and many others.  But sure, I'll drop it, unless someone else starts it up again.

There was a lot to criticize about the Mongoose approach to RuneQuest (prior to Loz and Pete re-writing the rules).

The HQ rules do not encourage you to make up myths that break the canon. That statement is about as true as Trump's claim that his inauguration was the best visited ever.

Making up a myth where Orlanth strives to become a sun god and succeeds is wrong. Making a myth how a drunken Orlanth boast makes him make half a fool out of himself acting like a sun god is within parameters.

Invoking Humakt for joining stuff goes pretty much contrary to his Death/Separation power. If you can make the Humakti shape something by applying separation, that's fine. Chop at the unfriendly tree/giant/whatever until what is left will fit exactly to the task at hand is a cartoon feat of sword mastery, but remains in the realm of the blade. Using the blade to drive nails into wood - no cookies. Using the blade to provide nails from bigger pieces of wood - barely acceptable, especially in face of the sample myth of the Sword Story which explicitely has Humakt complain about being treated like a cottar (crafter).

 

I think that your conception of Gloranthan canon isn't what that canon was about, either. I accepted to play the role of a guardian of canon and consistency during the delivery of Hero Wars and Heroquest 1 as one of the so-called regional experts, and again as caretaker of the Buserian incarnation of my index. At roughly the same time, I was a fairly active contributor to the (sadly disappeared) Lokarnos project which provided an overview of fan activity in the Glorantha and RuneQuest area, which did keep track of explicitely variant ideas and stories, too.

Greg Stafford is the creator of Glorantha, its myths and its history, and while Greg cannot know or remember every detail of things he barely brushed in his creative process and which might be detailed in later creative visits to the subject, there is a rather consistent body of Gloranthan material that defines canon, or if you want to be sarcastic, the party line. There is significant room for other authors to fill in blanks or to extrapolate from that body of material, but there are contradictions that ought to be avoided rather than introduced and then retroactively diminished.

That was part of the mission statement for the regional experts. To be available for authors to check facts, to get quick references. This resource wasn't used by the authors for the MRQ Gloranthan material at all. Mongoose got lucky with the editors of the Gods books, and very lucky with contracting Loz and Pete Nash, but by that time they had produced their own very variant canon, due to some blatant oversights and blunders which could have been avoided with minimal effort.

 

I was genuinely shocked by the EWF description in the Second Age book. While it did not contradict anything in the few (and often misleading) paragraphs written on this subject in the Glorantha Book of the Genertela box and very little of the history outlined in Troll Pak, it omitted almost everything in King of Sartar, and pretty much everything Greg had prepared about the EWF since - not a single mention of Obduran the Flyer. Having a doddering Vistikos Left-eye as chief administrator of the Great Dragon Outline project as the core of the EWF was a major fumble and soured the entire EWF side of the two rivaling empires.

The EWF martial artists were a fun idea, and worked with the canonical concept of the EWF. Later supplements tried to retrofit the available EWF info into the Mongoose canon, but it remained a retrofit. Dara Happa Stirs shines by ignoring the Mongoose EWF canon, and going to the source. More of that approach, and earlier, and my verdict about the Mongoose Glorantha content would be different.

 

A number of authors went off with their own interpretations of Glorantha, both for the Hero Wars/HeroQuest series and for the Mongoose publications. On the HeroQuest side, some let's say variant interpretations of Glorantha made it into print, while others like Jamie Revell's take on the Malkioni of Seshnela or Loskalm or Shannon Applecline's take on the Aldryami were not published by Issaries. On the Mongoose side, it appears as if everything was published that didn't have too many spelling mistakes.

I know very well how it feels to have worked on a tangent or aspect of Glorantha for quite a long time only to learn that certain basic assumptions from earlier works weren't meant to state what I read from them. Quite a bit of my own material on the Holy Country was built on such tangents, and I had to keep it out of the publications, regardless of it having seeped into "fanon". It took several approaches to the presence of the Malkionized Orlanth worship of the Aeolians to produce something that was consistent with Greg's vision, and a few of those approaches were published by Issaries, anyway. Admittedly the History of the Heortling Peoples appeared significantly later than those publications and brought new insights, but there have always been pipelines to the source for the authors, and the Issaries publications didn't ever contradict the then existing canon, although they may have spun their presentation in ways that could mislead.

I keep getting surprised when re-visiting Glorantha material, much of which I have re-typed and somewhat re-phrased over the course of the years in order to create my index and its descriptions. I get greater suprises when looking through new material, or taking a closer look at text blocks that appear to repeat an earlier source, except for a few small changes. Some of those small changes that are so easy to overlook when reading a very familiar text have big consequences. I don't touch the long cult write-up of Kyger Litor even with a very long stick - by now there must be a dozen versions in fairly high-rated canonical credibilty sources, and more if you include fan versions that may have made it into fanzines, convention books, freeform games' background material or Mongoose products.

 

So: I care about canon.

And I wince when myths are proposed that bend canon badly. I like to add twists to those so that the net outcome will be salvagable. Adding a bit of ridicule, for instance.

Comic relief is an astonishingly significant part of myths. It is fine to have gods act against their core nature - if you have them face failure in a tangible way. The story may focus on how the day was saved despite the blunder of your favourite deity.

I don't feel too secure as a gamemaster using HeroQuest rules, mostly because I have trouble framing the contest difficulty with those opposed rolls (I can calculate the probablities with a BRP approach very easily even if the mechanics are more involved, and lots of die rolling ensues), but I feel very secure as a narrator of Gloranthan stories and adventures.

I have been adding myths or at least deep history to my campaign settings already during my RQ3 days whenever I created a somewhat magical location or situation. It is what you do if you prepare your own games rather than playing some prepared scenarios. It is not a special feature of HeroQuest as a game system, or of narrative game systems as a whole. Any story-oriented game with the crunchiest of systems will have speculative myths and histories not covered by official background. A well informed narrator/game master who respects the setting will be able to twist player-suggested variations in a way that hurt his knowledge of canon the least.

 

[Mark Mohrfield]

5 hours ago, Darius West said:

Its a form of Glorantha I feel trapped with, while the better system was left to die.  Huge mistake.

Far from letting it die, Chaosium is preparing to publish a new edition of it.

[Noita]

17 hours ago, Darius West said:

 Huge mistake.

 

You sound like Trump lol. As for people being rude to you. It's consistently been you who has started it, in several threads now. We all get you don't like HQ. No need to slag it off anymore.

[Darius West]

17 hours ago, Mark Mohrfield said:

Far from letting it die, Chaosium is preparing to publish a new edition of it.

A move I applaud save for it being over a decade late.

[Darius West]

6 hours ago, Iskallor said:

You sound like Trump lol. As for people being rude to you. It's consistently been you who has started it, in several threads now. We all get you don't like HQ. No need to slag it off anymore.

Actually this started because I was making a joke about how HQ rules are so bad they literally encourage people to abuse the canon by making up myths in order to get a point boost on their skills, but people have the temerity to complain about Mongoose products.  I still think my joke is both funny and accurate.

[Darius West]

18 hours ago, Joerg said:

There was a lot to criticize about the Mongoose approach to RuneQuest (prior to Loz and Pete re-writing the rules).

I am not uncritical of Mongoose products.  On the other hand I think the unconstructive unilateral criticism they received was unfair.  One of the good things about the material is that it is RQ not HQ.

18 hours ago, Joerg said:

Invoking Humakt for joining stuff goes pretty much contrary to his Death/Separation power. If you can make the Humakti shape something by applying separation, that's fine. Chop at the unfriendly tree/giant/whatever until what is left will fit exactly to the task at hand is a cartoon feat of sword mastery, but remains in the realm of the blade. Using the blade to drive nails into wood - no cookies. Using the blade to provide nails from bigger pieces of wood - barely acceptable, especially in face of the sample myth of the Sword Story which explicitely has Humakt complain about being treated like a cottar (crafter).

Death/Separation can be applied to many many things.  Driving a nail into wood?  It's an attack, and I suggested using the pommel, but potentially the tines of the guard of the sword, after all, you can look at the Death Rune and see a hammer, or conversely you see the blade in the nail. How is separating a plank from a fallen tree trunk not Death/Separation ?  You use the blade as an adze.  Finally you treat the completed barn as the tomb of the harvest.  As for the sample myth of the Sword Story, I think this myth fits in nicely.  Clearly Barntar feels offended by the contemptuous attitude of Humakt and so he challenges Humakt, and Humakt being Humakt can't resist a challenge.

18 hours ago, Joerg said:

I was genuinely shocked by the EWF description in the Second Age book. While it did not contradict anything in the few (and often misleading) paragraphs written on this subject in the Glorantha Book of the Genertela box and very little of the history outlined in Troll Pak, it omitted almost everything in King of Sartar, and pretty much everything Greg had prepared about the EWF since - not a single mention of Obduran the Flyer. Having a doddering Vistikos Left-eye as chief administrator of the Great Dragon Outline project as the core of the EWF was a major fumble and soured the entire EWF side of the two rivaling empires.

Actually history is replete with incompetent doddering fogeys getting credit for marvelous things they barely had anything to do with.  Personally when I discovered the Obduran the Flyer omission and how Vistikos gets all the credit for things I laughed at how like history IRL this was. I mean do we really regard any single version of history as being true and sacrosanct IRL?  Perhaps Comrade Ceausescu (whoops) I mean Vistikos was the mastermind, and Obduran merely his instrument?  Or perhaps Obduran's ambitions were beginning to scare other EWF hierarchs so they set about omitting him from the history?  Or perhaps the historian who wrote about Obduran was a great fan of the fellow and overstated his contributions?  Remember that the EWF was at its core a pyramid scheme AND an empire, and that means someone is ALWAYS being cheated.  You can afford to be a bit sanguine about it.  When something screws up the canon, adopt and adapt it, or fix it.

18 hours ago, Joerg said:

I don't feel too secure as a gamemaster using HeroQuest rules, mostly because I have trouble framing the contest difficulty with those opposed rolls (I can calculate the probablities with a BRP approach very easily even if the mechanics are more involved, and lots of die rolling ensues), but I feel very secure as a narrator of Gloranthan stories and adventures.

Personally that wasn't my problem with HQ, but lets add it to the list of complaints. 

[Joerg]

42 minutes ago, Darius West said:

I am not uncritical of Mongoose products.  On the other hand I think the unconstructive unilateral criticism they received was unfair.  One of the good things about the material is that it is RQ not HQ.

I haven't had too close a look at their setting-less RQ material. I found the minimalist HeroQuest rules quite a good tool for simulating empires, big organisations or rivaling organisations in the background of a campaign, regardless which rules I inflict on the player characters, and I wouldn't go back to RQ crunch for detailing an empire. A few resources, a few challenges, a few conflicts, a few rolls, so I can keep my back story alive without having to dice out everything.

I haven't really GMed any published RQ scenarios except my own, and very few published RPG scenarios outside of RuneQuest. I use some of them for quick reference when I don't want to roll up an opponent, but usually my RQ scenarios for my own use are written like HQ scenarios. Maybe a little more crunch for core opponents, but then I like to drive my stories by the actions taken by major and minor opponents in preparation for or reaction to player activities or by framing obstacles of a different, non-combat type rather than by providing room by room dungeons for tactical team combat.

Or, in other words - I didn't miss out in anything when the Gloranthan background was produced for a different game system. I didn't go for über-crunchy western sorcerers, and I didn't go for excel spreadsheet long duration sorcery.

42 minutes ago, Darius West said:

Death/Separation can be applied to many many things.  Driving a nail into wood?  It's an attack, and I suggested using the pommel, but potentially the tines of the guard of the sword, after all, you can look at the Death Rune and see a hammer, or conversely you see the blade in the nail. How is separating a plank from a fallen tree trunk not Death/Separation ?  You use the blade as an adze.  Finally you treat the completed barn as the tomb of the harvest.  As for the sample myth of the Sword Story, I think this myth fits in nicely.  

I would certainly allow you to entomb the harvest, or to kill it on the field. Trying to live on this stuff would have consequences, though. It would be a once in a life-time activity - you wouldn't die of it, but it might make you wish you had.

42 minutes ago, Darius West said:

Clearly Barntar feels offended by the contemptuous attitude of Humakt and so he challenges Humakt, and Humakt being Humakt can't resist a challenge.

Don't you confuse Humakt with Orlanth, here? Humakt is the cool warrior, almost like an Orlanthi woman in how he may kill unnecessary emotions. He knows his duty, and won't be baited.

42 minutes ago, Darius West said:

Actually history is replete with incompetent doddering fogeys getting credit for marvelous things they barely had anything to do with.

That might be the case. Still - Vistikos is a preliminary guy who creates a missionary tool for the fledgeling draconic consciousness among humans, the Hunting and Waltzing Bands. He takes off with them, goes dancing with the dragonewts, and disappears from polite society, long before the EWF was even conceived. If he still lives by the time the ruling ring of Orlanthland accepts a draconic member, he'll be a hippy meditating on draconic koans, far removed from any political entanglement.

It isn't even clear whether Vistikos ever was an Orlanthi.

This is a bit like making John the Baptist the supreme patriarch of the state church of Constantinople.

42 minutes ago, Darius West said:

Personally when I discovered the Obduran the Flyer omission and how Vistikos gets all the credit for things I laughed at how like history IRL this was. I mean do we really regard any single version of history as being true and sacrosanct IRL? 

 About as much as we regard a theory in biology as sacrosanct - if it was arrived at by careful observation of as much evidence as possible, we will accept it. If we have reliable dating for an event, we will use it for that event.

If we have a reliable report how Obduran was the first to display that it was possible to be a draconic mystic and an Orlanthi, he became eligible as the first dragonspeaker to sit on the ring of Orlanthland. When other dragonspeaker followed his example, they maneuvered the traditionalists out of control. Somebody would have noticed if Vistikos or some other non-Orlanthi dragonspeaker had already been part of the government formed by the coven of Orlanth priests.

42 minutes ago, Darius West said:

Perhaps Comrade Ceausescu (whoops) I mean Vistikos was the mastermind, and Obduran merely his instrument?  

Then Vistikos wouldn't have been on the ring when it became draconic.

42 minutes ago, Darius West said:

Or perhaps Obduran's ambitions were beginning to scare other EWF hierarchs so they set about omitting him from the history?

The history of the EWF was written by its enemies. The Third Council didn't leave any documents behind confirming their greatness, they were much too absorbed in manifesting their greatness.

42 minutes ago, Darius West said:

Or perhaps the historian who wrote about Obduran was a great fan of the fellow and overstated his contributions?  Remember that the EWF was at its core a pyramid scheme AND an empire, and that means someone is ALWAYS being cheated.  You can afford to be a bit sanguine about it.  When something screws up the canon, adopt and adapt it, or fix it.

I did fix it - I disregarded everything that didn't fit. Which was, alas, the EWF side of the Mongoose Glorantha line. The Jrusteli side was less flawed, but still there were too many things to offer good hooks for canon.

Sorry, but the Mongoose Glorantha did have a bit of the feel of RQ Glorantha, but it was an alternate setting. And when it comes to alternate settings, I can do these on my daily bus ride:

Quote

I just had one of the weirdest setting ideas for an alternative Glorantha campaign.

Nine years into the Machine Wars, the EWF project of creating a dragon with the Oslir as its spine, the Rockwoods as its wings and the Mirrorsea Bay as its jaws succeeds. The united EWF and Orlanthi army just off the machine island watches their lands behind them rise up and lift off, punching a huge hole into the Sky Dome, taking the Celestial City with it.

The Block falls over, splashing into the Devil‘s Marsh. A seeping sore wells up from its former basement, steam evaporating where the remaining waters of the Good Canal sear away the putrid flesh. The Sky River stops short in the broken dome, then pours down on the Block.

The seas rush past them to fill the enormous gap left by the rising dragon. The Storm Mountains are torn in half, and part of what is left tumbles into the sea below, creating a new, rocky shore just east of Prax.

Genert‘s Wastes, Ralios and northwestern Peloria border on the new Dragon Sea. The remaining troops before the Clanking Ruin join forces with the Pure Horse folk and the Praxians and dig a new canal, connecting the former basement of the Block with the new Dragon Sea.

A few years later, the Closing strikes out. Conventional shipping is ruined for a century or two, but sorcerous dreadnoughts from the Machine City set out to keep Jrustela, Umathela and Seshnela connected.

The Dragon Sea is not affected by the Closing, and the sorcerous dreadnoughts do not enter very far, because the Waertagi have returned, and taken possession of this new sea. They join forces with the Carmanians and look for ways to get even with Zzabur, who robbed them of the rest of their former home.

Alakoring and a few of his followers managed to fly off the rising dragon and lead the remaining Orlanthi of Ralios and Fronela out of the draconic aftermath.

The New Dragon Ring of Kralorela sets out to conquer the duchy of Eest, and succeeds before succumbing to rebellion. In its struggle with the Dragon Sea and the sorcery of the remnants of the Middle Sea empire, the Closing is much weakened, and other heroic sailors emerge east of Jrustela – outrigger people re-discovering the secret of stone catamarans, the Nidan dwarfs emerge in their floating castles out into the fjord left by the disappearance of the Rockwoods, only to encounter fleets of Blue Moon trolls and Elf Gallegas from a successor empire of Errinoru.

The city of Pavis sits on the northern coast of Prax and becomes one of the most important port cities when the Waertagi establish a pier just below its cliffs.

And you know, I'd rather play in this weird setting than in a EWF that has Vistikos as its head. It is as Gloranthan as the Mongoose offering. It may have something less to do with the Third Age as we know it.

[JonL]

I'll say this for Mongoose, they had the balls to put out an entire Ducks book. It's a mixed bag like most of their stuff, but still, that's some serious commitment.

[Pentallion]

On 4/12/2017 at 8:56 AM, David Scott said:

I have recently reread Pavis Rises, overall it's an interesting campaign. There's a couple of ideas that I've lifted as they were good. But for me other campaigns give better value. I cut my GM teeth on the original griffin mountain, so I'm very biased. 

That was one of my favorite campaigns.  In our ongoing Argrath Saga, our Lhankor Mhy was doing Reconstructions, getting glimpses of the time of Pavis Rises all those centuries ago.  He was looking for clues to the whereabouts of the Dragon Banner.  What did he see?  Well, they all rolled up God Learners in training just assigned their first field mission to Pavis and played the campaign.  Gaps between each scenario were very hand wavy because what mattered was each scenario being what the LM sage saw in his next Reconstruction attempts.

[hkokko]

21 minutes ago, JonL said:

I'll say this for Mongoose, they had the balls to put out an entire Ducks book. It's a mixed bag like most of their stuff, but still, that's some serious commitment.

The horror, the horror

[Ian Cooper]

Personally I don't think that the Glorantha forum is the place to attack any system for playing Glorantha. It should be for discussing Glorantha itself. If you want to express your opinion in the Runequest forum on the merits of Runequest over the Heroquest engine, then it might be an appropriate place. I would use less emotive language that 'rape the canon' if you don't want the debate to decay into a fight. Personally, I don't find its very fruitful to attack another game system to extol the virtues of my preference, but if you like to stir up trouble, that's your choice.

The topic here was about the value of the background that Mongoose produced during its ownership of MRQ, concerining the 2nd Age. I'd politley ask you to stick to that so this thread does not get derailed by the snide remarks.

I think most people have offered that Mongoose's interpretation is no longer considered canon because it is hard to separate the wheat from the chaff cleanly. There were some talented writers involved, with terrible constraints, who produced some good material that can be used for inspiration (as I say Dara Happa Stirs is a favorite), but even the best of the books have dubious elements to them.

One major problem was that any 'Gloranthan' feel seemed to be sacrificed in favor of generic fantasy, perhaps because it was assumed that would mean it appealed to a wider audience. For example, IMO the Clanking City has always seemed a metaphorical story that contrasts Romaniticism (the Glorantha of myths, gods, and heroes) with Modernism (our own world of soulless consumerism). For my part it has far more to do with Tolkein's' Scouring of the Shire' than a poor take on Moorcock's struggle of Chaos (magic) vs Law (science). But because the former is a more difficult idea to represent and perhaps sell, the struggle against the Zistorites was cheapened into a sub-Elric 'science as magical powers'. 

But that said I always remember this. When you use Glorantha for gaming, then what happens at your table should be about whatever is fun for you and your group. Certainly, I doubt that even Greg strictly adheres to 'canon' when gaming, over having fun with his friends. Just because it happens in your game, doesn't mean you it has to conform to canon. Your Glorantha Will vary. So if you find stuff there that entertains you, and the way you want to use Glorantha to have fun, more power to you.

[Newt]

Hmmn when ever I think about MRQ and MRQ Glorantha (which I consider its own pocket universe) the phrase "polishing a turd" comes to mind for most of the first edition and "flogging a dead horse" comes to my mind when it drifts onto 2nd edition. MRQ was a mess from the playtest on a yahoo group of thousands of uninvited members, where Matt Sprange at one point suggested the main rules mechanic should become D20 roll over Target Number, to its ungainly death were Matt blamed the lack of sales of MRQ due to the complexity of writing Gloranthan material. I've happily never bought a Mongoose product since and my FLG which is normally willing to buy any game book I throw at them for their second hand section laughs in my face when I ever mention selling my MRQ1 pile to them.