Let's make sure BRP Central is a welcoming place for everyone.

[inactive]

Hey all, it's your friendly neighborhood Chaosium convention coordinator. At conventions a lot of my job is talking to new people about Glorantha and introducing them into the world. Helping new people fall in love with Glorantha is a passion of mine but it wasn't that long ago that I knew next to nothing about the setting either.
 

Glorantha has a massive learning curve. The amount of material available is daunting and that means being a newbie to Glorantha is a tough gig. I know first hand! Not only do you have to navigate all the massive amount of both current and out of date setting information you also have to learn how the Glorantha community aka the Tribe works. We are all here because we love Glorantha but sometimes we love it a little too hard. Sometimes the way the setting gets talked about is pretty unwelcoming to new members. We at Chaosium want to make sure Glorantha is accessible to everyone and hope you want to see it grow and thrive as well.

 

What helps new people?

Keep it RQG focused. Ask yourself if a new player actually needs to know this to play before hitting post. If it’s not in the main RQG book the answer is almost always no. (Or HeroQuest book given the circumstances.) The old stuff might have been great, but new players don’t have it, so it’s not helpful to tell them about it.

Don’t argue semantics. If it is not a direct answer to something they asked, it probably is not helpful to post.

Keep deep lore out of newbie threads. If you can’t say it in one paragraph it’s not appropriate for a new user post. Deep lore threads are awesome places to learn, but only when you are ready for them. Help new members by linking to existing deep lore posts with “Here is some more information if you are interested.” Have more in depth info to add? Make a new thread and link to it. Remind your fellow experienced members to continue the conversation there.

Keep it upbeat. This is a game and should be fun. General negativity brings the whole Tribe down.

Say hi! Being the new kid can be lonely and everyone wants to feel welcome.

 

____

 

The biggest take away here is to keep your answers simple. If you have more to say put it in its own dedicated deep lore thread. The big essay responses really drive new members away. I personally found them overwhelming and they made me not want to participate in the forum. It’s the responsibility of all Tribe members to make sure this is an inviting place. Let’s work together to keep Glorantha around for another 40+ years by helping new people fall in love with it just like we did.

 

 

 

[Jeff]

Thanks Ellie! People please, a lot of new members have been coming to BRP recently. Let's be welcoming, and avoid coming across like scholastic pendants arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

And to any new Glorantha-phile reading this - WELCOME!!!!!

[inactive]

And to be clear, everyone here has always been so very friendly. This is a community to be really proud of. We do not want to tell anyone they can't post passionate tomes about the setting they love. We just want to keep those wonderful academic posts where they can best be appreciated, and make it easier to get started in Glorantha.

[klecser]

As a person brand new to Glorantha but very experienced with the internet and role-playing, I can't express how much I appreciate this post. In my time, I've seen games rise and fall and an immutable truth that keeps cropping up is that players of any game have a hand in how the game is perceived and thrives. We all have a responsibility to a little bit of PR for games we love, whether we want to or not.

I will admit that I have stopped reading some of my posts as the discussions shifted.  I have a very positive feel about this board and a super majority of fans have espoused a "YGWV" open approach to gaming! But I can also imagine that gamers with less patience could reach a tipping point.

[Bill the barbarian]

9 hours ago, Ellie said:

And to be clear, everyone here has always been so very friendly. This is a community to be really proud of. We do not want to tell anyone they can't post passionate tomes about the setting they love. We just want to keep those wonderful academic posts where they can best be appreciated, and make it easier to get started in Glorantha.

Thank you for your clarification Ellie.
In honesty your first post scared to the old/new gorgnard here (that's me:) that there was to be a regime change away from what I loved to something very new and scary. Good to see that you will be as welcoming to us old long winded long in the tooth and very unlikely to change old farts as well as the newcomers that you will want to carry the games forward.

Cheers

 

[klecser]

21 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Thank you for your clarification Ellie.
In honesty your first post scared to the old/new gorgnard here (that's me:) that there was to be a regime change away from what I loved to something very new and scary. Good to see that you will be as welcoming to us old long winded long in the tooth and very unlikely to change old farts as well as the newcomers that you will want to carry the games forward.

Cheers

 

I think the key is that there is space for everyone in gaming so long as everyone is welcoming to everyone.

[Bill the barbarian]

3 minutes ago, klecser said:

I think the key is that there is space for everyone in gaming so long as everyone is welcoming to everyone.

Yeah, that would make sense. A Webpage lacking in grognardly material would hold my interest for all of a couple of strike ranks. And then I would be seeking to disengage but lacking the in-depth  thread on how to disengage I would not know how? Ah well, as long as a bad sense of humour does not equal banishment, I should be around for a while.

Cheers

[hkokko]

<CONCERN> I appreciate the idea but as page 10 and 11 of the RQG says YGWV (everyone's Glorantha will vary and should vary to match every individual group's play style) - so things might not be in the RQG. 

<POSITIVE NOTE> Perhaps we should have a separate new to Glorantha subforum or something similar or keep it here and mark the thread names with "newbie" or something...  

<CONCERN> I feel a bit odd and even censored if I need to start thinking every word I write whether it is clear for a newcomer which I think I have not been for awhile or whether it holds true to some particular book which I might not have studied or followed in depth or have already extrapolated to some direction. Should I refrain from helping or saying something because I am not sure whether it is strictly according to a certain book - this sounds weird.

<POSITIVE NOTE> I strongly appreciate the wisdom and varying points of view of the sages in the tribe and would love to see that variety in the future as well.  I am here for their viewpoints, cameraderie and wisdom. 

<POSITIVE NOTE> I will continue to be friendly and welcoming (if it does not seem like that, I blame my writing in a non native language and being a Finn) to all the various forms of fellow members of the tribe. 

Cheers, 

Hannu,

<POSITIVE NOTE> a grognard but perhaps not a curmudgeon yet

[Bill the barbarian]

50 minutes ago, hkokko said:

<CONCERN> I feel a bit odd and even censored if I need to start thinking every word I write whether it is clear for a newcomer which I think I have not been for awhile or whether it holds true to some particular book which I might not have studied or followed in depth or have already extrapolated to some direction. Should I refrain from helping or saying something because I am not sure whether it is strictly according to a certain book - this sounds weird.

 

Another gentleman who is capable of articulating very will what I mean, and I do appreciate your abilities to be even handed hook  hook. *  hkokko. Everything you said and in the way you said it oh child of Finland with english as your 2nd language, I support, stand behind and wish I had said. Oh and as for the curmudgeon, I will loan you my talents for curmudgeonliness anytime.

That having been said, hi Ellie and a very barbarian welcome to you. I hope you bring joy, thought and good cheer here.

*arghh mutant demon spawn of a spellchekr begone! 

Cheers

[Richard S.]

1 hour ago, hkokko said:

<CONCERN> I feel a bit odd and even censored if I need to start thinking every word I write whether it is clear for a newcomer which I think I have not been for awhile or whether it holds true to some particular book which I might not have studied or followed in depth or have already extrapolated to some direction. Should I refrain from helping or saying something because I am not sure whether it is strictly according to a certain book - this sounds weird.

The way I read what Ellie said was to keep it RQG focused if you're answering a question by a new person. I doubt they want to totally restrict is from using old material, though I can say from experience that when I was a new player it was rather distressing to have people answering my questions by referencing/referring to books I didn't have and probably didn't have a chance of getting.

Edited April 16, 2019 by Richard S.

[foolcat]

Best case scenario, in my humble opinion:

Newbie: Hi, I just got RQG and I‘m new to Glorantha.

Everyone:

😁

 

[Oracle]

9 hours ago, Richard S. said:

The way I read what Ellie said was to keep it RQG focused if you're answering a question by a new person. I doubt they want to totally restrict is from using old material, though I can say from experience that when I was a new player it was rather distressing to have people answering my questions by referencing/referring to books I didn't have and probably didn't have a chance of getting.

That's my view too. Threads in this forum have a strong tendency to get sidetracked by a special point with regard to the original question. And these sidetracks dive down into a level of details, which is absolutely confusing for a RQG/Glorantha newcomer - and sometimes use up more room in the thread that the original topic. I have often the impression, that moving this kind of discussions into a new thread would more helpful. That would make it more visible, you could easier find it later, and it would not disturb the discussion in the original thread.

So from my point of view, Ellie's request is not about avoiding certain topics or a certain level of detail but about staying focussed to the original question and becoming more structured in the way related topics or detailed sub-discussions are handled.

Edited April 17, 2019 by Oracle

[Joerg]

Part of the pro-blame is that plenty of the Glorantha threads where geekery is allowed have migrated over to the RuneQuest part of the forum. You don't always recognize whether you are in a full frontal geekery department or in a newby question.

(And if somebody asks for a scholarly entry, I think a scholarly answer with the tldr on top is in order.)

[g33k]

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

...   (And if somebody asks for a scholarly entry, I think a scholarly answer with the tldr on top is in order.)

Just like the "abstract" atop an academic piece, or the "executive summary" on a big ol' report...

Definitely a "best practices" idea!

[Job]

Another thing that might driving newbies away is bashing other systems, such as D&D. Most newcomers play D&D. Bashing their favorite games will not endear this community to them. It just make you looks elitist to the newcomers.

[boradicus]

I have never tried playing Glorantha.  What makes it so engrossing for the people who play in this setting?  

Thank you!

[g33k]

1 hour ago, boradicus said:

I have never tried playing Glorantha.  What makes it so engrossing for the people who play in this setting?  

Thank you!

It is, quite simply, a work of both deep passion & deep genius.

The originator was Greg Stafford.  He was profoundly interested in mythology, in people and the stories they tell, origins, teaching tales, cultural foundations.  He want on to pursue shamanism as his own personal spiritual path (and passed away, recently, in his own sweat-lodge).

The world can take some adjusting-to, it's very much not your standard fantasy setting, but once your preconceptions are set aside it is resonant with the psyche in ways few other settings ever achieve.

Tolkien, for example, borrowed notably from myth in creating Middle Earth.  But he was a linguist.  His Elven and Dwarven languages, and Numenorean, etc, have a cohesive authenticity few other RPGs (or novels) could ever even hope to achieve.  But his myths are only "average," taking all their best bits from the heavily Finn, Teuton, & Celtic elements he used.

Greg Stafford cast a much broader net; Vedic Indian and Australian Aboriginal and Native American elements sit alongside those more common Northern European bits, and all of it is blended and re-mixed and altered and added-to with the same genius for Myth that Tolkien brought to Language.

[Job]

1 hour ago, boradicus said:

I have never tried playing Glorantha.  What makes it so engrossing for the people who play in this setting?  

Thank you!

I think you better starting a separate thread to ask about this. It’s quite off-topic here IMHO. 

[Zozotroll]

On 4/16/2019 at 12:41 AM, Jeff said:

Thanks Ellie! People please, a lot of new members have been coming to BRP recently. Let's be welcoming, and avoid coming across like scholastic pendants arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

And to any new Glorantha-phile reading this - WELCOME!!!!!

Can we argue about how many pins we can stick n the head of an angel?

[Bill the barbarian]

43 minutes ago, Zozotroll said:

Can we argue about how many pins we can stick n the head of an angel?

One

(its a big pin)

[Code Ronin]

As a newcomer to RQ, I appreciate this thread. I posted in another thread my concerns about RQ, and the answers there were very helpful. My daughter is ten and getting into playing RPGs, and my biggest concerns were related to her, how easy it was going to be to teach her to play* and how 'safe' it was to just let her pull the book off the shelf and start reading.**

*A challenge, but not one that we can't overcome. She's played 5e and Pathfinder, with a little help.

**Which she does. My gaming books are right next to my desk, and one morning I noticed her sitting on the floor reading. I asked her to read aloud to me, and it turned out she was reading the 5e Monster Manual.

[borbetomagnus]

On 4/17/2019 at 2:43 PM, Job said:

Another thing that might driving newbies away is bashing other systems, such as D&D. Most newcomers play D&D. Bashing their favorite games will not endear this community to them. It just make you looks elitist to the newcomers.

Totally true! One thing is guaranteed in any U.S.-based friendly, local game store: You can always find a group of D&D players. Getting them into Glorantha via RQG, HQ or any of the other incarnations of Gloranthan RPGs is not an evangelical exercise to convert them from "inferior" RPGs.

[Bud's RPG review]

Wait.  So I can't get into the fine details about the colour of Arkat's boots in these threads?

Dayyum!

I fully support this though.  Some of the threads just devolve into "well actualy..." and for new people it must be REALLY intimidating.

[Richard S.]

35 minutes ago, Bud's RPG review said:

Wait.  So I can't get into the fine details about the colour of Arkat's boots in these threads?

Dayyum!

Bold of you to assume he wore boots.

[Bud's RPG review]

1 minute ago, Richard S. said:

Bold of you to assume he wore boots.

Well of course he didn't.  He wore Gbaji's hollowed out feet.