nuYGMV

[g33k]

We.all know "YGMV" -- Your Glorantha May Vary.

It seems that "canon" has become so vast (both broad and deep), and so oft-revised (via Greg or Guide or whatever) that our hoary old acronym needs a new meaning ...

Your Glorantha Must Vary

Between the previously-canonical stuff you don't want to change, Chaosium's new canon you don't know of, your group's Glorantha-in-play creating at-the-table-canon... variance (from published canon) seems virtually certain!

Back In The Day, playing RQ2+CoP, a "canonical" game was easy and almost insvitable:. Canon was a few big elements, which everyone knew and played.  People's table-canon didn't so much depart from canon as extend it to new places (indeed, authors' House Games became canon, fans became authors with House Games (that became canon) &c...).

But these days?

There is.  SO.  MUCH.  CANON.

Honestly, that's a.GOOD thing!  Who wishes for no Guide?  No new edition?  Etc...

But canon-worries online... Not so much, no.

As ever:  YGMV.

[Julian Lord]

It has been expressed as YGWV -- Your Glorantha Will Vary.

[BWP]

I'm still trying to work out why HQ and RQG have different Glorantha canon.  Different game systems, sure.  But different background info?  I had been planning to buy a bunch of the old HQ supplements (I already have a few of the even older HW books) but now I'm thinking that there doesn't seem any point.  (I have absolutely no intention of actually playing HQ.)

 

[Grievous]

I'd need an example to get behind that impression. Fairly sure that's not intended nor actually the fact.

Edited August 8, 2018 by Grievous

[Aprewett]

Ok, from a new person into the setting, who has been slowly buying up titles like Sartar Rising books, does this mean they are not so much canon ? How do I find out what books contradict? 

Just in case later on I stumble on a problem.

[Mankcam]

If new to Glorantha, and wanting pure content with no game mechanics:

• The Gloranthan Sourcebook
• King of Dragon Pass
• The Guide To Glorantha (two volumes)
• Argan Argar Atlas

If wanting to play Glorantha with HeroQuest:

• HeroQuest Glorantha
• Pavis Gateway To Adventure
• Sartar books (Kingdom of Heroes, Companion) 
• The Red Cow Campaign ( The Coming Storm, The Eleven Lights)

I think anything earlier may be too far off-canon now, and I would avoid collecting HQ books beyond the above list.

If wanting to play Glorantha with D20, then 13th Age Glorantha is the trick. Looks great, and it's up to date with canon.

If wanting to play Glorantha with BRP,  then obiviously RuneQuest is the way to go:

• The RuneQuest Classics and Glorantha Classics line may be reasonable for canon until new versions come out, although artistic depictions throughout the range may vary dramatically from contemporary depictions. The content should mostly work, but will be a bit grey in areas in regards to what is in and out of canon now. 
• The new version, RuneQuest Adventures In Glorantha, will be a big seller, and all of this line will be considered contemporary canon.

 

Edited August 9, 2018 by Mankcam

[Julian Lord]

3 hours ago, BWP said:

I'm still trying to work out why HQ and RQG have different Glorantha canon.  Different game systems, sure.  But different background info?  I had been planning to buy a bunch of the old HQ supplements (I already have a few of the even older HW books) but now I'm thinking that there doesn't seem any point.  (I have absolutely no intention of actually playing HQ.)

Well personally, I think the trick is to learn how not to confuse certain consequences of particular game mechanics with what Glorantha is like at an underlying level.

Many things are simplified and "crunchified" in the rules of the various games, so that even if at the world-building level, most magic might be fairly fluid and intuitive, even up to a degree of unpredictability, games rules really need to be less vague and more practical, so that in the games those concepts are expressed within rules paradigms that may be a little limiting in descriptive possibility, but keep the games running more smoothly.

So whilst I have no idea if those HW and HQ books would be "worth it" for you, some of that older material -- whether official or in the old fanzine publications -- might still potentially be helpful to your game ; though some of it might not be (personally, I always found the old MRQ stuff to be a little too hastily written).

I dunno ...

YGWV 

[Joerg]

6 hours ago, BWP said:

I'm still trying to work out why HQ and RQG have different Glorantha canon.  Different game systems, sure.  But different background info?  I had been planning to buy a bunch of the old HQ supplements (I already have a few of the even older HW books) but now I'm thinking that there doesn't seem any point.  (I have absolutely no intention of actually playing HQ.)

Hero Wars and HeroQuest 1 have different canon because the source material obeyed different meta-rules for the world.

Most glaringly there was the Three Distinct Otherworlds dogma, which had led to "discoveries" of oodles of essential, divine or spirit entities of whatever, complicating things way beyond what people knew about and were comfortable with in their Glorantha experience. That led to unfortunate complications like misapplied worship and needless debates based on that.

The Subcultitis of Hero Wars (and to a lesser extent HeroQuest 1) obscured the cults of the core deities which had contributed to the identity of the Glorantha experience. The many subcults of Orlanth made playing a worshiper of Orlanth more versatile, but the learning curve for all those weirdly named subcults was unnecessarily high.

When Moon Design acquired the rights to Glorantha, this development was addressed, and a number of things and sources that got in the way were made uncanonical.

HeroQuest Glorantha and RuneQuest Glorantha don't differ that much in background, but differ in the role of runes in character creation.

 

[David Scott]

13 hours ago, Aprewett said:

Ok, from a new person into the setting, who has been slowly buying up titles like Sartar Rising books, does this mean they are not so much canon ? How do I find out what books contradict? 

Just in case later on I stumble on a problem.

The Sartar rising books have excellent adventures but depart from canon in a few places , however most are still playable (I ran the lot under HeroQuest) -

Vol 1 -Barbarian Adventures:

Ignore all the background and use RQG, the narrator resources from page 21 are good, just not RQG, the Wanderers and Oddballs are excellent encounters. The adventures start on page 44:

A year of Chaos is easily adapted for RQG

Blood Feud is easily adapted for RQG

These Women need help, one of my favourite adventures, is easily adapted for RQG

Vol 2 - Orlanth is dead:

The campaign is good, i'd ignore the clan generation for RQG.

Vol 3 - Sartar rising. All easily adapted.

when I say easily adapted, you will need to make RQG stats or use a shortcut method

(eg https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/6757-stats-for-npcs-starbrow-fazzur-argrath-etc/?tab=comments#comment-96276

 

[JonL]

I don't think the setting info in the HQ2 era Sartar & Pavis books has been superseded by anything. The new RQ material is set a few years later, but doesn't portray a different world. 

The exception to that is where magic game mechanics intersect with how magic is portrayed in the world. Just the same "I'm casting Bladesharp." and "I'm calling upon my  Yanafal Tarnils Initiate breakout to augment my Lunar Hoplite ability." are supposed to be representing the same in-world sort of things, even if the implementation details differ.

Edited August 9, 2018 by JonL

[Steve]

18 hours ago, BWP said:

I'm still trying to work out why HQ and RQG have different Glorantha canon.  Different game systems, sure.  But different background info?  I had been planning to buy a bunch of the old HQ supplements (I already have a few of the even older HW books) but now I'm thinking that there doesn't seem any point.  (I have absolutely no intention of actually playing HQ.)

As has been said, if you're talking about HQ:G then its publications (e.g. Sartar:KoH, The Coming Storm) follow the current canon, i.e. the same as RQ:G, the Guide to Glorantha etc.

I think the confusion has come because of references to older HQ1 stuff and the even older HW. Canon has changed since then.

 

[Bohemond]

But of course, everyone knows the definitive Glorantha canon was set by Mongoose, right? 

<ducks>

[Roko Joko]

FWIW this article says what current canon is and what that means http://www.glorantha.com/docs/canon/

although it's a few years old and so does not include the most recent publications.

[Rick Meints]

With all respect to everyone here, what exactly is the specific concern being raised?

Is someone worried that a player will show up at your gaming table with a copy of Storm Tribe (or some other book from 10+ years ago) and be utterly confused when playing RQG?

If you are just talking about what is discussed online, I remember frequent debates with lots of confusion on the good old Glorantha Digest/Daily, and that was 20 years ago. I'd rather see more great books published than less. I also certainly don't worry about following canon, and pushing for specific lists of canonical material. As far as I am concerned, it's all good.

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, Bohemond said:

But of course, everyone knows the definitive Glorantha canon was set by Mongoose, right? 

<ducks>

Blaming the durulz is just chickening out, you know? The one and onlytrue canon is your (GM's) crossover Glorantha with say half-orcs, hobbits, and alignments, and/or space marines and mechas. Or stuff like my comment to this: 

 

[JonL]

3 hours ago, Bohemond said:

But of course, everyone knows the definitive Glorantha canon was set by Mongoose, right? 

<ducks>

It's called 'Runequest,' so runes should be treasures that you can go on quests to find, right?

[Bohemond]

Yeah, what the fuck was that about?

[Grievous]

25 minutes ago, Bohemond said:

Yeah, what the fuck was that about?

May I refer to you to the Holy Grail.

[BWP]

4 hours ago, Rick Meints said:

With all respect to everyone here, what exactly is the specific concern being raised?

My specific concern is that it I don't want to waste time and money on a product that won't advance my knowledge of Glorantha.  (That's why I'm not paying attention to any of the Mongoose products.)

It sounds like HW and then HQ1 jumped onto a different set of tracks from what had been previously "known".  It also sounds like the current HQ:G products are back on the right track?  I'm still not completely clear how to identify a "good" HQ product from a "bad" one.

If the "safest" answer is just to avoid HW/HQ completely, then I'm OK with that.

 

[g33k]

31 minutes ago, BWP said:

My specific concern is that it I don't want to waste time and money on a product that won't advance my knowledge of Glorantha.

I think a LOT of gamers get burnt by buying older-canon and discovering their purchases are problematic at the gaming-table.  I'm not pointing the finger specifically at Glorantha here, or RQ/HQ (or even at the accursed snake-killing tribe from the Second Age).

I experienced the same thing e.g. in 3e Ars Magica, when the WW-era books were all deprecated and the setting exorcised of demons and True Reason both.  For YEARS afterwards, I found players coming to online-play venues, and showing up at 'Cons / etc. and asking about new-PC concepts when I recruited for my at-home game... where 3e-isms were deeply embedded in their character, but the campaign / adventure / etc wasn't compatible.  Sometimes I could torque things to fit (esp. at a Con game, that'd be my go-to strategy) but I was never satisfied with this solution, in any context.  And many players reported quite a bit of dismay in those years, discovering they had blown a BIG chunk of their gaming-budget on STUFF THEY DIDN'T WANT.

Most of us cannot afford to blow our gaming-budgets that way; I think BWP's BUYING concern is entirely valid.

===

My own OP is that the online worry and debate about what-is-canonical should always be pushed to the background vs. what a given table uses in-play; that there is now so MUCH canon you virtually MUST treat it as an a-la-carte menu rather than a "take it all home" shopping-basket.  There is SO MUCH "canon" that de facto, you MUST leave most of it un-touched.

Even if you have an Aldryami PC in the party, you aren't likely to include all of the Guide content and all of the Bestiary content, and any other still-canonical bits&bobs -- much of is is irrelevant to the one PC!  And also, you may have some bit from prior / non-canonical source that the GM and/or the player(s) PREFER to the modern treatment; or your own House canon, never printed -- and doing ANY of that is the "RIGHT way" to play the game.

[creativehum]

12 hours ago, David Scott said:

Vol 2 - Orlanth is dead:

The campaign is good, i'd ignore the clan generation for RQG.

Why do you suggest ignoring the clan generation? 
(I ask because I found it really fun when I set up a game years ago. I also understand it is up to me to use or not use. But I'm curious what David thinks about this.)

[daskindt]

3 hours ago, creativehum said:

Why do you suggest ignoring the clan generation? 
(I ask because I found it really fun when I set up a game years ago. I also understand it is up to me to use or not use. But I'm curious what David thinks about this.)

I’m wondering what needs to be done to adapt the clan generator in Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes for RuneQuest.

We’ll probably use the Red Cow campaign, but it would be nice to have the generic clan generator tuned to RuneQuest.

[Steve]

5 hours ago, BWP said:

If the "safest" answer is just to avoid HW/HQ completely, then I'm OK with that.

 

If you really are only interested in currently canonical books (and as Rick pointed out, there are a ton of reasons not to worry about canon), then you'll be fine with all the HQ:G books, i e.:

Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes, The Sartar Companion, Pavis: Gateway to Adventure, The Coming Storm and The Eleven Lights. The HeroQuest: Glorantha book has a fair bit of background in it too, though a lot more rules than the aforementioned.

If you steer away from HQ completely and don't look at those, then you'll be missing out on a tremndous amount of resource (remember that HQ:G is extremely rules-lite, so the books are almost all background goodness as opposed to stat blocks and rules).

 

[JonL]

15 hours ago, BWP said:

My specific concern is that it I don't want to waste time and money on a product that won't advance my knowledge of Glorantha.  (That's why I'm not paying attention to any of the Mongoose products.)

It sounds like HW and then HQ1 jumped onto a different set of tracks from what had been previously "known".  It also sounds like the current HQ:G products are back on the right track?  I'm still not completely clear how to identify a "good" HQ product from a "bad" one.

If the "safest" answer is just to avoid HW/HQ completely, then I'm OK with that.

 

If it says says "Sartar" or "Pavis" plus "Moon Design" on the cover, you're golden.

It's that simple.

There are some gems in the earlier material worth mining for ideas, but if you want to restrict your HQ to the latest & greatest, go with the above rule.

In particular there has never been a Dragon Pass setting book for Runequest on par with the level of gamable goodness to be found in Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes and Sartar Companion. 

Edited August 10, 2018 by JonL

[7Tigers]

Anyway, given how cheap is HQ1 material, and volume of information / inspiration in it, I fail to see how can it be a waste of time & money to get them...