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

[Lordabdul]

4 hours ago, Bud's RPG review said:

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

As a newcomer to the forums and to Glorantha, I have to say there's a fine line between "intimidating well actually'ing" and "fascinating glimpses into how much more detailed Glorantha is", and the difference between the two will most likely vary between people, if only because the written word is so bad at conveying tone. But I still would say "keep it coming!" to the grognards 😋

What I generally find more intimidating and/or confusing is really figuring out where the information is coming from, how authoritative that source is, etc... so I know what to think about it for my Glorantha. I often see big rants about some aspect of some Praxian tribe culture or whatever, all written in a very factual way, and I have no idea where that's from. Maybe it's from the author's own campaigns, maybe it's from some long OOP sourcebook, or some obscure Stafford Library book, I don't know. And the convoluted history of Glorantha-related publications (I recently learned about the term "Gregging" 😅), doesn't help obviously. What does help is that there's definitive word that the Guide To Glorantha is the "baseline" and that this will not change ever -- but of course it's going to take me a looooong time to read and digest it all (but I loooove it, those 2 books are totally awesome).

Edited May 2, 2019 by lordabdul

[Shiningbrow]

11 hours ago, lordabdul said:

As a newcomer to the forums and to Glorantha, I have to say there's a fine line between "intimidating well actually'ing" and "fascinating glimpses into how much more detailed Glorantha is", and the difference between the two will most likely vary between people, if only because the written word is so bad at conveying tone. But I still would say "keep it coming!" to the grognards 😋

What I generally find more intimidating and/or confusing is really figuring out where the information is coming from, how authoritative that source is, etc... so I know what to think about it for my Glorantha. I often see big rants about some aspect of some Praxian tribe culture or whatever, all written in a very factual way, and I have no idea where that's from. Maybe it's from the author's own campaigns, maybe it's from some long OOP sourcebook, or some obscure Stafford Library book, I don't know. And the convoluted history of Glorantha-related publications (I recently learned about the term "Gregging" 😅), doesn't help obviously. What does help is that there's definitive word that the Guide To Glorantha is the "baseline" and that this will not change ever -- but of course it's going to take me a looooong time to read and digest it all (but I loooove it, those 2 books are totally awesome).

I started with RQ back in the 80's - mostly RQ2, but also mixing and matching with 1 & 3 (3 had just come out). And, even now, I'm still lost by a lot of this Lore (and I'm using the L because they're all probably things that would fit into Lore skills!). I'm just going through RGQ-Adventure Book with the backgrounds now... (I'm hoping there's going to be some rules adjustments based on some of this info - eg, Narri and Enhyli get more Ride and Herd than others, losing the Farm etc...).

I'm glad when others do some of those 'rants'*, but also give the source!

 

(*rant meaning - long-winded breakdown/history/correction)

[Shiningbrow]

15 hours 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?
 

No, those threads will be in his clothes.... 🤣🤣🤣

[Rob Darvall]

On 4/18/2019 at 3:14 PM, boradicus said:

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

Thank you!

This "Can we argue about how many pins we can stick n the head of an angel?" (Zozotroll Apr 21). To be clearer, the deep geekhood (read erudition) of the fan base. With the possible exception of Tekumel, you won't learn more real world knowledge from an RPG community than you will from this one. And you'll enjoy it.

[Rob Darvall]

On 5/3/2019 at 2:21 AM, lordabdul said:

😋

What I generally find more intimidating and/or confusing is really figuring out where the information is coming from, 

MIG*, even if it's a scanned PDF of the original. I cannot emphasize enough just how useful this reference is.

*The Meints Index to Glorantha. I only have the 1996 version but it answers all these questions within its time frame. It's usually enough as the more recent work is on the Chaosium site.

[Rob Darvall]

On 5/3/2019 at 1:54 PM, Shiningbrow said:

No, those threads will be in his clothes.... 🤣🤣🤣

Snorked my cheap port

[soltakss]

On 5/2/2019 at 5:21 PM, lordabdul said:

What I generally find more intimidating and/or confusing is really figuring out where the information is coming from, how authoritative that source is, etc... so I know what to think about it for my Glorantha.

Probably a third comes from sources, a third is misremembered stuff and a third is made up stuff. The problem is when people claim their made up stuff is actual stuff, or when two people are doing the same.

 

On 5/2/2019 at 5:21 PM, lordabdul said:

I often see big rants about some aspect of some Praxian tribe culture or whatever, all written in a very factual way, and I have no idea where that's from. Maybe it's from the author's own campaigns, maybe it's from some long OOP sourcebook, or some obscure Stafford Library book, I don't know.

That's the problem.

Some people argue about their own ideas and treat them like canon, only to dismiss other people's ideas as made up. It can get quite ping-pongy, with I said You Said I said You Said. Sometimes they contain useful information, often they don't. The Page Down Button is you friend.

[jajagappa]

On 5/2/2019 at 12:21 PM, lordabdul said:

What I generally find more intimidating and/or confusing is really figuring out where the information is coming from, how authoritative that source is, etc... so I know what to think about it for my Glorantha.

Across 40 years time, there's a lot of stuff.  A challenge in responding can be trying to ascertain whether the question is: 1) simply a desire for ideas; 2) looking to get as close to canon as possible so that the next published stuff won't contradict what you're doing in your game; 3) understand different or diverging threads about a concept, culture, place, etc.

All benefit from including a reference (source and page), though it has the downside of looking a bit "footnoted", particularly those sources that we know Jeff et al are actively using (generally starting with the Guide).

I think Ellie put it well: Keep deep lore out of newbie threads.

And a corollary to that is: Assume it's not looking for deep lore unless the poster indicates so. 

[Bill the barbarian]

4 hours ago, jajagappa said:

And a corollary to that is: Assume it's not looking for deep lore unless the poster indicates so. 

May I suggest a patent pending Grognard Friendly ™  tag be attached to forums that are <ahem> "Grognard Friendly"?
These may be purchased from the ACME supply company (tell em Wiley  sent ya)...

may cause baldness in vey gullible customers, drowsiness in vey tired ... ah heck just see a doctor for Chalana's sake!

Edited May 6, 2019 by Bill the barbarian

[Shiningbrow]

9 hours ago, soltakss said:

Probably a third comes from sources, a third is misremembered stuff and a third is made up stuff. The problem is when people claim their made up stuff is actual stuff, or when two people are doing the same.

 

That's the problem.

Some people argue about their own ideas and treat them like canon, only to dismiss other people's ideas as made up. It can get quite ping-pongy, with I said You Said I said You Said. Sometimes they contain useful information, often they don't. The Page Down Button is you friend.

A great quote I loved is "When I wrote "from my research", what I really meant was "made shit up"."

[Shiningbrow]

6 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

may cause baldness in vey gullible customers, drowsiness in vey tired ... ah heck just see a doctor for Chalana's sake!

Shouldn't that say "just see a priest/ess"?

[PhilHibbs]

3 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

A great quote I loved is "When I wrote "from my research", what I really meant was "made shit up"."

Isn't that what Greg wanted, that anybody should feel empowered to discover Glorantha just like he did?

[Lordabdul]

8 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Isn't that what Greg wanted, that anybody should feel empowered to discover Glorantha just like he did?

Sure, and I'd love to hear what other people are doing with their Glorantha, but in order to decide whether to integrate it into my own Glorantha or not, I need to know where the information came from. This is because the source will determine how I perceive how compatible it is with "canon" stuff, what direction/feel it's going for, etc. Ultimately, it's about keeping my Glorantha consistent when I take things into account.

Edited May 6, 2019 by lordabdul

[7Tigers]

Well, I would say respecting canon is only useful if you want to publish official material.
Otherwise, if it is useful/fun/inspirational for your campaign, go for it: there will be not glorantha canon police coming for you at your table!

[g33k]

2 hours ago, 7Tigers said:

Well, I would say respecting canon is only useful if you want to publish official material.
Otherwise, if it is useful/fun/inspirational for your campaign, go for it: there will be not glorantha canon police coming for you at your table!

My issue -- and the reason I like to keep pretty close to "canon" -- is that I like to use as much of Chaosium's new content as I reasonably can; and I like to use it with as little work as I reasonably can.  I don't want the new stuff to conflict too harshly with where my campaign and my players have gone.

Now, my "reasonable" may be someone else's "impractically onerous" and their "hard NOPE."  Equally, my limits of "reasonable" may be foolishly restrictive & restricted to someone else.

But sticking close to "canon" has its own advantages for many non-published folk... even if not for you.

 

[Rick Meints]

There are several potential problems at work here, and there are no easy ways to prevent them from happening without subjecting these forums to radical change. Here are some of my thoughts on the matter:

• How much a creator of material cares about Gloranthan Canon covers the whole spectrum. Some don't like how things were written and want to totally reimagine that material. Others are mindful of past precedent and profoundly want their material to not deviate from Canon.
• How much a consumer of material cares about Gloranthan Canon covers the whole spectrum. If you want to have your campaign line up Canon I strongly suggest you stick to just using the latest publications.
• Canon is not easy to define precisely. The reasons are many, including slow transformation of information over time as well as radical changes made swiftly. Also, some time shortly after 1983 when Avalon Hill got involved there came a point when no one person or team of people was in charge of enforcing Canon, even for "official" material. Greg Stafford sometimes was incredibly mindful of past works, and other times he simply didn't care. The same could be said about most other writers as well. A LOT of writers have been involved since 1978. Checking your "new" material against 40 years of extant material now borders on the impossible. I would have probably said the same thing 10 years ago, and maybe even 20 years ago.
• When I say a LOT of material, I mean that more than 10,000 pages of Gloranthan material has been written in "official books" since 1978.

[svensson]

Welcoming.

OF COURSE we should be welcoming. RPG gaming will always be under-cut by video games, and the more we make the table welcoming the healthier our hobby is overall.

I'm gonna make a couple comments about this that may just get a few noses out of joint. I make these comments for the sole purpose of making our hobby a welcoming place for everyone and not as an attack or even a criticism of anyone's issues or personality. Keep that in mind.

-Leave your issues at the door. Not every struggle in society needs to be reflected at the game table. Your causes, concerns or issues are not the same as my causes, concerns, or issues and mutual respect and courtesy demands that we not engage each other in those debates if they are not game related. We are all Us, 'us' being defined as gamers.

-Lore is supposed to add to the game, not detract from it.

All us old grogs need to remember to keep our comments about lore to a minimum. We can easily overwhelm a new player with our grognardic lectures and that's not a good thing. If you're not the referee, remember that your presence at the game is your agreement to play in that referee's vision of Glorantha, not yours.

-Don't be a complainer.

We all have stuff we don't like. I'm a football fan, for one example. Ask me how I feel about the Dallas Cowboys and you'll get an earful. But we don't need to constantly bitch about this trend in gaming or how you don't like that 'thing', whatever it is. As an example, I am not a big fan of Fantasy Flight's habit of buying franchises and converting them to their SAGA special dice system. They recently did that with an IP that I used to love, Legend of the Five Rings. But there's no need to flog that pony every time I talk about gaming, right?

-Keep the 'fan service' to a minimum.

Nobody likes a Mary Sue. You know what I'm talking about, so we'll just leave it there.

Now, as I've mentioned, I'm guilty [as Hell] of some of this stuff myself. I'm an old geek but I still have make room for new geeks. Why? I don't want to be the last generation of geek, that's why.

[Lordabdul]

7 hours ago, Rick Meints said:

There are several potential problems at work here

Okay I shouldn't have used the word "canon", that was a poor choice 😀   What I meant was "cite a source if possible". This way, I know where to look to find out more details... but frankly at this point I already started building cross-PDF indices so I can search for something across several dozens of PDFs to solve this problem (most often to follow half of the references from a @Joerg post 😅)

Edited May 7, 2019 by lordabdul

[Bill the barbarian]

9 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

Okay I shouldn't have used the word "canon", that was a poor choice 😀   What I meant was "cite a source if possible". This way, I know where to look to find out more details... but frankly at this point I already started building cross-PDF indices so I can search for something across several dozens of PDFs to solve this problem (most often to follow half of the references from a @Joerg post 😅)

Agreed, citation allows one to do his or her own research and ones own sorting on the canonical scale. Trust this one, maybe not that one... dig around a bit more on the third. and start a bit of a debate on the fourth.. research and citations in hand. 

 Yeah, I love Joerg too... that's what ya meant right!

[Joerg]

One of the joys or rewards of Glorantha is to look at some source or two and suddenly a couple of connections or possibiliies click into place, giving you the excitement of discovery and new ideas to follow, and then to be able to share and discuss these with the Glorantha Tribe.

Building a cross-document index sounds strangely familiar.

[Shiningbrow]

What I'm about to write probably should be a thread on its own, but...

Given what @Rick Meints said above, and what's been hinted at elsewhere, where exactly are the differences? In myths, I see no great problems with different, even contradictory material. But what about history? (when I was RQing years ago, and even now, I focus on rule systems a lot more than a detailed analysis of the history)

[Bill the barbarian]

7 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Given what @Rick Meints said above, and what's been hinted at elsewhere, where exactly are the differences? In myths, I see no great problems with different, even contradictory material. But what about history? (when I was RQing years ago, and even now, I focus on rule systems a lot more than a detailed analysis of the history)

Rick if you need to kick us to a new thread let us know

 I agree Shiningbrow. I have actually incorporated the contradictors into what I tell the adventurers and look forward to the looks on their faces when they come face to face with the reality of it all. Anticipating quick thinking and hoping for amazing role playing

Cheers.

Edited May 7, 2019 by Bill the barbarian

[svensson]

Most of the canon contradictions are because the information is presented in a cultural context. The history of Dragon Pass is WAY different when a Lunar tells the story than when an Orlanthi does or when a dragonewt does. This explains many discrepancies right there. Even the Middle Sea Empire of Jrustela failed to construct a Monomyth for the Gods Age, and they spent centuries HeroQuesting for those answers.

And at the end of the day.... canon is whatever the referee says it is. So long as it's consistent, there's no problem.

[Jeff]

I've said this before and I will say it again - as a practical matter, canon only restricts people who are writing for Chaosium or for licensed products. "Canon" is that lists of texts I want my writers to follow. For players, gamemasters, and pedants, YGWV. I am happy to tell folk which books are on that list, but its function is not to resolve forum debates. 

[g33k]

8 hours ago, Jeff said:

... I am happy to tell folk which books are on that list, but its function is not to resolve forum debates. 

Hey Jeff, and I guess @Trifletraxor ...  What about marking-up the list of publications here:

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/2274-glorantha-publications/

with maybe something like:

(A) Solid Canon

(B) Largely Canonical, may be non-canonical in specific minor ways

(C) Has some specific Canon contents, but is overall less-canonical 

I was thinking that -- if Jeff keeps repeating this list to us screaming fans (and to a presumably-increasing list of authors, especially if the RQ-repository goes up on DTRPG) -- it might be worthwhile to sticky it atop the forum;  and lo! here is a ready-made list, already stickied!