Help me sell RQG to my players

[Cloud64]

On 5/12/2019 at 8:37 PM, Marty Jopson said:

Is there any fiction to throw at them? What is in King of Sartar? The old Griselda tales are all set in Prax, is there any point in digging them out - and how do they read 30 years after the fact? Is there any good fiction set in Dragon Pass?

I have a couple of books by Penelope Love which I've picked up again recently. I like her take on things. I thoroughly enjoyed Down the River, one of the stories in Eurhol's Vale and Other Tales. It's a comical farce of a duck, a thief and a Lunar guard running about trying to recover the Governer of Pavis’s laundry. The other stories are more serious, perhaps with a tad of earnestness, but are still entertaining. I think for teenagers the capers in Pavis and the Big Rubble might be more persuasive. It's apparently based on an actual play, so could be sold to them as an example of the fun they could have playing RuneQuest.

Alas, I'm not sure where you would pick up a copy these days.

Edited May 17, 2019 by Cloud64

[Lordabdul]

Nice... I'd love it if you could share some of those A5 cards you made, the political map, etc. (in a format that would let me and others improve on them if needed, too!)

1 hour ago, Cloud64 said:

I get that there's no direct mapping, the idea is to give them a vague hook to hang their character from. For me, this is what each homeland brings to mind

Yes! I've been trying to come up with something like that, not only for my players but also for myself!

[g33k]

First off, remember that Everyone's Glorantha Varies.

If you and your group are having fun, you are Officially Doing It Right.   😎

1 hour ago, Cloud64 said:

 

• Sartar – celts, maybe vikings, though they seem to have a distinctly Minoan cast these days.
• Lunar Tarsh – think Roman Empire, Persians who fought the greek
• Grazelanders – horse archers, hun, mongols
• Esrolians – arty and elegant, corinthian, carthaginian
• Tarsh – hill and forest tribes who hunt, goths, maybe saxons
• Prax – plains native Americans

Here is my own take, FWIW...

I think it's the Esrolians who have that "Minoan" aspect, rather than Sartar.

Sartar has some Celt, yes (but alas, it's the less-familiar "Halstatt" culture from central Europe).  At least as big, IMHO/AFAIK, are Thracian & Scythian influences (Google Image Search is your friend!).  But the all the "cattle stuff" in Sartar... pure Irish Celt!

Both of them share some elements of early-Vedic India, as well!

For the Lunars, I think the Roman comparison is minor -- you're on the right track with Persians & other "Imperial Middle-Eastern" forces, taking lesser bits of Greco/Roman elements.

I always describe Prax as roughly equal proportions of Plains & Southwest native-American tribes (after horses arrive, but of course not-Horses in Prax!) + pre-Islamic Bedouin + Hun/Mongol tribes + All_those_weird_Praxian_Beasts + Post-apocalyptic survivalism.

Don't forget the Sun Dome'rs, very Sparta (also mostly VERY patriarchal!).

 

[Cloud64]

47 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

Nice... I'd love it if you could share some of those A5 cards you made, the political map, etc. (in a format that would let me and others improve on them if needed, too!

As the cards stand at the moment, I don’t think I can share them. They have images and text ripped from the pdf. Personal use only for now I’m afraid.

[Cloud64]

Thanks @g33k.  Variance is nice, but I like to keep fairly canonical as it makes it easier to stay in synch with published material. I’m not that worried about it, mind  

The Lunars’ organisation and assimilation of invaded territories is what makes me think of the Romans, but their style and culture Persian. I think we’re on a similar page there. I shall check out the Halstatt culture, thanks for the tip. I’ve heard of them, but that’s about it.

Yep, Sun Domers always struck me as classic hoplites, with a strong Spartan bent. The Vedic take of the gods, especially with the new art work, is interesting and fits nicely for me. 

[Shiningbrow]

8 hours ago, g33k said:

Don't forget the Sun Dome'rs, very Sparta (also mostly VERY patriarchal!).

 

I always took the Dara Happans as Assyrian/Babylonian... although, that may just have been because of a picture of the beards etc, plus the pyramidal buildings, and clothes, etc etc.

Perhaps the Sun Domers from down south took in somewhat of the local culture, and changed a bit?  Or, after the Lunar Empire??

[Joerg]

There are Dara Happans in Dara Happa, and there are Dara Happans elsewhere in Peloria/the Lunar Empire.

The Cult of Yelm provides Overseers - senior officials who administrate and adjudicate in the name of the rightful authority. Ideally (for them) that's the Emperor in Raibanth, but they also were active in Peloria outside of Dara Happa when there were no strong emperors. Pelandans and Lodrili actually imported them. (Similar to the Greeks importing some German nobility for their king after their independence from Turkey?)

The cult of Buserian provides the scribes for them.

This means that you are quite likely to encounter Dara Happan bureaucrats outside of Dara Happa. Other than these, only the traditional army units and merchants are likely to leave their well regulated land of rice paddies, water management, and rigidly organized cities.

The Dara Happans bear grudges. Storm rebels are possibly on the top of their list - they slew the first emperor, they conquered the country in the course of the Gbaji Wars, then they usurped the emperor with the Sun Dragon, and each time they carried lots of plunder and tribute away. Then, when the Dara Happans joined the great raid on the EWF after the draconic leaders had passed onward, they had hidden all the treasures taken from Dara Happa and then lured them into the dragon trap of the dragonkill.

This grudge was brought to full malicious revanchist misconduct with the conquest of Sartar. The opportunity to do so in Tarsh had been spoiled by the Doblianese Eel-Ariash who had engineered a Lunar takeover with rather little bloodshed (although the subsequent uprisings paid their blood toll to Maran, but that no longer benefitted the enemy alone). Compared to the Provinces, Dara Happan conduct in Sartar was petty and cruel.

As far as I know, Euglyptus the Fat was a Yelmic overseer with little Lunar acculturation beyond his gastronomic escapades. HIs record as a field commander was quite atrocious when he took personal interest. The Building Wall battle and the Starbrow Rebellion were his failures, whereas the successes (Fazzur in Heortland 1605, Jomes Wulf in the Maboder/Telmori incident 1607, Sor-eel in Prax and Pavis 1610) were mainly due to the initiative of his more independent commanders, and at least at times despite his leadership.

His demise (due to his ineptitude) was of course another thing to blame on those rebels.

Dara Happans know as a fact that theirs is the only civilized culture that can provide stability. Never mind outside or minority influences taking a temporary upper hand. This deeply ingrained knowledge makes everyone else people of lesser status, often confirmed by their crude ways of clothing (or lack thereof).

Individual fighting prowess isn't a Dara Happan virtue. Fighting in close order formations or as massed missile troops is the Dara Happan way of warfare, with "subject people" filling all other functions. While there are a couple of Dara Happan cavalry troops associated with the metropolises, horses don't thrive directly in the river valley and are probably kept on the drier lands above the rice growing area.

Dara Happans are respectful of due authority, when presented with due formality and ceremony. Even fourth and fifth tier Dara Happan citizens will have some pride in their position and see themselves ranked above any barbarians who don't fit themselves into the strata overseen by the cult of Yelm. (Most other Pelorians use Yelmic overseers, even if they may have some local "nobility" based on dubious other standards.)

For the Dara Happan Yelmites, Lunar nobility in the satrapies may have been hard to swallow in the first two wanes - e.g. Jannisor's rebellion managed to draw disgruntled Dara Happans into its fold. By the Third Wane, all of those Lunar noble families had sufficient descent from the Red Emperor to by potentially Yelmic, and the empire had satisfied their grudge against those Carmanians who had had the gall to come to their lands as conquerors before the rise of the moon.

 

Is there a real world parallel for the Dara Happans?

Not quite. The Indus Valley possibly is closest in terms of geography, except for the direction of the river. The climate is wrong, though. The Ukraine has the climate and the fertile soil, but no rice cultivation and no metropolises (but then, cities of that size were rare in the Bronze Age, with many urban cultures having smaller main settlements than Boldhome).

The ziggurat style temples appear closer to Mesopotamia than Mesoamerica in style, but city size is closer to Mesoamerica than Mesopotamia. In Glornantha, step pyramids aren't a specifically Dara Happan phenomenon, but a Golden Age trait - you'll find such structures in Prax, Esrolia, Dragon Pass, and apparently in Maslo as well (Guide p.603). Fonrit probably too. I have no idea whether Golden Age Prax was urbanized, and Dragon Pass certainly wasn't during the Gods War, but Esrolia was, and the temple style may have been exported from there.

Yelmic nobility wears togas (the most impractical way to wear a blanket, suited only for nobility who don't perform physical activities other than walking sedately - compare the great kilt for a way more practical and way less composed way to wear a blanket). I don't know of any ancient culture other than the Roman Senate to don a blanket that way. The rest of the Dara Happans wear no pants, but shirts and possibly kilts or skirts of middling length, with flowing robes with longer hemlines reserved for higher status.

 

It is hard to give a date for cultural continuity in Dara Happa. Murharzarm and his successors did have an opulent urban culture in the Golden Age, but that ended with the dismemberment of Yelm and then the Oslir flood. Anaxial re-started a similar culture after the flood, but that was crushed under the Glacier, and then devastated in the Greater Darkness. Jenarong started a revival of imperial power, but from his horse nomad roots rather than from the sedentary culture which he re-awakened. One century into History, Avivath started an emancipation movement of the urban culture vs. the Horse Warlords, but that only managed to come into bloom because of the conflict of the Horse Warlords with the Second Council. The Khordavu dynasty was the first urban culture to rule over the tiered social system installed by Jenarong, and that institution lasts to the modern day.

The Dara Happans claim continuity from even before Murharzarm, but their actual society was shaped by Jenarong adopting various Pelorian groups into his empire. He did build on traditions and ancient texts on the temple ruins he found and had explained to him by the surviving urban priesthood, but basically he re-invented Solar culture, much like Anaxial had before him. What Plentonius writes (The Glorious ReAscent of Yelm) is a reconstruction of the Golden Age from the traditions and physical documents available in the Dawn Age. The document does form the codified official history of the Yelmic nobility, and it has been re-inforced by centuries of ritual activity and some heroquesting.

The Lunar Way has left this inheritance alone, reconstructing a rather different and more mystical background for Sedenya, with deeper roots, but - at least pro forma - anchored in the Yelmic revised history and myth. Her truths are transcending these, rather than niggling with historical details like some of the TLDR discussions here.

 

The Lunars are in some way a Messianic movement that took over the worldly rule, too. Their goddess started out as a mortal, was then molded into an avatar and then a living goddess, fighting a war of liberation against the then dominant empire of the Carmanian Bull Shahs and traditionalist detractors (Tripolis - especially Alkoth, but also horse nomads like the Char-un, and the nearby barbarians). After less than two centuries, she had won over all of her foes from that time, or pushed them out of the empire.

Then came Sheng Seleris, conquering much of the empire, striking terror into those who would stand agains him, co-opting the Dara Happans under his new Horse Warlord reign like he had the Kralori and Teshnans before, but he never managed to quell all resistance against his rule, and where there was resistance, Lunars and Dara Happans were pretty much united in their efforts.

The Lunar Way is a parallel society in the Empire, which is built on Dara Happan administration over non-Dara Happan Pelorians. This may not actually be helpful to the original question about the Dara Happans, as it adds a couple more cultures to the Lunar Empire, but those can be ignored as local color until you start interacting with them (as a visitor, or interacting with a specific military unit serving under the Empire in the region of your game, like for instance the Doblian Dog-Eaters who are part of the occupation forces in the Cinsina region, providing a further cultural perspective to the already existing mix of Lunarized Tarshite  Orlanthi, Yelmic administrators, and Lunar priesthood representing the mystical aspects of the Lunar way).

 

For the Lunar occupation, I had these categories:

Lunar Tarsh: Followers of the Lunar Way, provincial, out for conquest, meaning to be the hegemonial power in the region.
(Tarsh fell apart into two political factions, the Fazzurites and the Phargantites, with similar goals but different personnel.)

Dara Happan Revanchists: May or may not be Lunarized, among the rebels to take revenge, for good (or rather bad).

Lunar missionaries: genuinely wishing to convert the new provincials to their "We All Are Us", luring the natives away from the ways of Orlanth (who still is a foe that won't be tolerated  in power).

 

Post-Dragonkill, there are few Dara Happans to be found south of Saird. The missionaries that weren't eaten by the dragon or slain in the aftermath are gone or enslaved. Same for the folk who were settled in the former provinces. The Tarshites are at each other's throats, still the main tool for the empire to intercede in Dragon Pass, but with Fazzur and his circle of friends among the officers out of the Lunar campaigning, and sorely missed by the troops.

The provinces north of Tarsh are contested between the Tarshites and the ruling dynasty of Sylila (adopted as a Heartland satrapy, but Orlanthi in origin) who are Lunars but not Yelmic Dara Happans. (They try, but fail to convince the real Yelmies. "Not a real Scotsman", really.)

If you want post-Dragonkill contact with the Dara Happans, you'll have to travel into their lands, as Argrath never advances on Alkoth, let alone further north. They will send troops, and for a short time also administrators, but they don't last long enough to make a new impression.

[soltakss]

On 5/12/2019 at 10:03 PM, Sumath said:

If they're coming from a Middle Earth campaign they will probably need convincing upon the Bronze Age setting too, so send them links to a couple of videos:

Really don't play the bronze Age setting card.

Glorantha isn't really a Bronze Age setting. At least, we have never played it that way.

The strength of Glorantha is in its variety and depth. The strength of RuneQuest is in its simplicity, at its heart. Put them together and you get something like RQG, which , by and large, works.

I've been playing in Glorantha since 1982. RQ was my first RPG and Glorantha was my first RPG Setting. They were my first loves and I'll always come back to them.

[Sumath]

2 hours ago, soltakss said:

Really don't play the bronze Age setting card.

Glorantha isn't really a Bronze Age setting. At least, we have never played it that way.

YGMV. I think it's a major strength of the new version of RuneQuest and marks it out from almost every other fantasy RPG. 

Reading the RQG book has inspired me to start reading up on Bronze Age societies (and also RW myths that I haven't read for years or had never read).

[styopa]

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

Really don't play the bronze Age setting card.

Glorantha isn't really a Bronze Age setting. At least, we have never played it that way.

If it's a branding thing about grabbing a unique market niche and calling it your own, I understand the RQG Bronze Age push in that respect.  I don't understand why it's so critical that Orlanthi not be viking-like, or that Lunars not be Roman-like, etc. as those shorthands let me convey in well-known and recognized idioms a living world for my players.  This lets me spend more time describing the adventure, and less time describing the shape of a house and how much it's NOT like Dark Age European barbarians (that pretty much everyone's assuming anyway).  If that's what your players want, though, you be you!  

Nor will Glorantha for me ever be quite the academic excursus into synthetic primitive achaeocultures that it is for some people, and that's just fine.  MGDV.

And I hope new GMs understand how malleable this world can be, even withing a more rigidly-defined canon than the chaos of the last 40 years.  Make it your own.  This is a PnP RPG; there is NO need to hew to what are ultimately fictional standards anyway, if you don't want to.  So what if when the published cattle raid adventure from Chaosium comes out, you need to edit a bit, change the name of a tribe from the Colymar to the Jotuns, or whatever?  It's still the mechanics of the game and the bones of the world you can work with.  Put your OWN personality into it, and you'll find it's far more rewarding than striving to conform to every jot and tittle of canon.  Truly.

[Jeff]

15 minutes ago, Sumath said:

YGMV. I think it's a major strength of the new version of RuneQuest and marks it out from almost every other fantasy RPG. 

Reading the RQG book has inspired me to start reading up on Bronze Age societies (and also RW myths that I haven't read for years or had never read).

Not surprisingly, I agree.

[g33k]

10 hours ago, Sumath said:

YGMV. I think it's a major strength of the new version of RuneQuest and marks it out from almost every other fantasy RPG. 

Reading the RQG book has inspired me to start reading up on Bronze Age societies (and also RW myths that I haven't read for years or had never read).

My working description is:

• not really QUITE pseudo-bronze-age (not the way D&D is usually pseudo-medieval! (at least by default))
• but mostly closer to Bronze Age than to anything else
• but with LOTS of that "else"
• heavily mythical (and magical too). 

Edited May 18, 2019 by g33k

[Joerg]

I am not sure "you will want to do your ancient history homework" really is a selling point (although it may come to that).

Gaming in Glorantha is a journey of discovery of a fairly different mind-set. You're best of forgetting your contemporary mores and dive into a mode that may be unlike yourself. Somebody is trying to impress you with their wealth and status, when you are just a lousy Orlanthi shepherd boy bearing a dire message? It's not that you have nothing, so ham it up. Take your most recent blunder (which led you to that situation) and brag about it.

So, what is cool about Gloranthan cults? That you can play someone who worships a deity somewhat exclusively in a pantheistic setting? Somewhat meh, really - a question that only pops up in the D&D universe if you play a cleric or similar class (paladin, druid). Or that you become like your deity when wielding the deity's magic, an avatar of divine power?

And that you can choose not exactly to match that deity, and still be within accepted parameters (unless you are a sucker for death powers or gilt bronze armor over kilts, at least before you pay for your gifts).

You can play adventurers that have a cause - the people who support them. (And you can play adventurers that have people who support them... which might be a novel idea to some players, too.)

"Everybody can work magic." That's an old sales argument for RuneQuest, and still one of the best selling points. Yes, there are specialists in magic. But they are allowed to use all kinds of weapons, too, unless they choose one of the more restrictive cults.

"It is a world with a rich and well-documented background." True, but not necessarily a sales point, another "do I have to do homework?" situation. Or a point where some rail-roading is expected so that your character doesn't break the expectations of the GM and possibly the fellow players. Perhaps better: "It is a world where you can start digging in details, and your GM will be able to provide those if you give him some time for research" with research being a question asked here. You're bound to get an answer or three to choose from before the discussion drifts off into unforeseen side issues. Basically, it is a world which offers a support structure for the GM in the form of an active community, and that can be reflected in his GMing. A sounding board for ideas you may heed or ignore, and which may come up with cool game aids, visual, technical, or just ideas.

[The God Learner]

15 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Somebody is trying to impress you with their wealth and status, when you are just a lousy Orlanthi shepherd boy bearing a dire message?

Shoot him with your bow and arrow. It's what Orlanth would do. 

 

[Joerg]

3 minutes ago, The God Learner said:

Shoot him with your bow and arrow. It's what Orlanth would do.

Not quite, Orlanth would have shot him down with his (the opponent's) bow and arrow...

The situation required a bit more diplomacy, as one of the characters was in a vise. Summoning the Earth Woman on Freezeday in Death Week hadn't that well thought out.

Edited May 18, 2019 by Joerg

[The God Learner]

1 minute ago, Joerg said:

Not quite, Orlanth would have shot him down with his (the opponent's) bow and arrow...

Then while he's moaning on the ground, drag him into your basement to let him recuperate. Some time later, go down there with some friends and a lantern and drag him up to your kitchen. Tell him you're sorry and, by the power of Orlanth, he will now be your friend.

 

[Joerg]

1 minute ago, The God Learner said:

Then while he's moaning on the ground, drag him into your basement to let him recuperate. Some time later, go down there with some friends and a lantern and drag him up to your kitchen. Tell him you're sorry and, by the power of Orlanth, he will now be your friend.

If your house has a basement, you are a bloody uptight urbanite and not a Real Orlanthi TM. Real Orlanthi TM have stomped clay for floors.

I seem to remember someone shooting a bow in the contest of weapons, and that he was dragged back from the basement, too, but the details in between appear to be a little different from your story.

And you'd still have to pay his weregeld (a chieftain's son's), which you couldn't afford, and your clan couldn't, either.

Besides, look where that friendship is now.

[Cloud64]

On 5/16/2019 at 8:30 PM, lordabdul said:

Nice... I'd love it if you could share some of those A5 cards you made, the political map, etc. (in a format that would let me and others improve on them if needed, too!)

I have uploaded my adventurer creation worksheets to the file section

As I said, I'm pretty sure I can't share the cards, but I don't think I can share the political map either. I read in the usage guidelines (which I can't immediately find now) that altered maps aren't allowed. 

Anyway, someone's bound to spot a typo I missed, or find something I left off of the worksheets, so do let me know in the file's thread. Not here, as it'd be off topic.

[Shiningbrow]

Re: Bronze Age setting.

Being Late Bronze into Early Iron Age means you have more powerful weapons and armour just be dint of being made of a different, yet still reasonably common, metal... but something that doesn't dramatically alter gameplay.

Personally, I'm not a fan of fully plate-armoured "knights" crawling around dungeons... way too difficult and improbable. Coming from LotR, the only ones wearing full plate were the Gondorians, and that's only when needing to. Faramir, Boromir etc  certainly weren't  all armoured up!

[styopa]

5 minutes ago, Cloud64 said:

. I read in the usage guidelines (which I can't immediately find now) that altered maps aren't allowed. 

What?  Really?

If so, that would sort of a remarkable corner-turn from a Staffordian "rollicking community of fearlessly creative explorers in a shared mythical world" toward something a little more darkly 'dogmatic central committe' thing.

[styopa]

7 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Re: Bronze Age setting.

Being Late Bronze into Early Iron Age means you have more powerful weapons and armour just be dint of being made of a different, yet still reasonably common, metal... but something that doesn't dramatically alter gameplay.

Personally, I'm not a fan of fully plate-armoured "knights" crawling around dungeons... way too difficult and improbable. Coming from LotR, the only ones wearing full plate were the Gondorians, and that's only when needing to. Faramir, Boromir etc  certainly weren't  all armoured up!

I'm pretty sure there's a vast terrain of entertaining play-concepts between "grubby barely-iron-age farmers smelling of cow dung and wielding wicker shields arguing over stead oeconomics" and "Boormanesque permanently-plate-clad paladins murderhobo'ing their way through an improbable maze of rooms each with a random inhabitant and a box of loot".

 

[Cloud64]

6 minutes ago, styopa said:

What?  Really?

If so, that would sort of a remarkable corner-turn from a Staffordian "rollicking community of fearlessly creative explorers in a shared mythical world" toward something a little more darkly 'dogmatic central committe' thing.

Found it!

Chaosium Fan Material Policy 6b: Maps can be resized or cropped, but must not be color adjusted, edited, distorted, or otherwise modified.

https://www.chaosium.com/fan-material-policy/

[Madrona]

19 hours ago, styopa said:

If it's a branding thing about grabbing a unique market niche and calling it your own, I understand the RQG Bronze Age push in that respect.  I don't understand why it's so critical that Orlanthi not be viking-like, or that Lunars not be Roman-like, etc. as those shorthands let me convey in well-known and recognized idioms a living world for my players.

This, entirely. I love the Bronze Age ascetic, but honestly the kind of aggressive 'THIS IS NOT LIKE BRONZE AGE VIKINGS' or 'THIS IS NOT LIKE BRONZE AGE ROMANS' in RQG majorly turned off my players who, at least one of, didn't feel much like using the book at all because of it.

However, my group was honestly a really difficult sell. I don't think I succeeded. One player was turned off by the art they loved from KoDP not continuing, and ended up a trying-to-be-civilized broo, one player just wanted to play a feline Hschuchen 'wandering assassin with no family.' and wanted the concept very, very badly and nothing else really made them want to play. One player was uncertain what they wanted, but was extremely into Monster Hunter at the time and wanted to just hunt mythical beasts, was disappointed at the lack of 'diversity' in the artwork, kinda wondered where the black people were, ended up as a Sable Rider far from home (in southern Peloria) and the last was a very Roman-Goth Tarshite who had no real complaints or problems beyond annoyance at the anti-Dog propaganda in Glorantha, we lacked any real community aspect, though we were theoretically supposed to be doing Lunar missionary work.

The game fell apart due to unfortunately out of game issues. But honestly I feel we were having difficulty from the get go, been wanting to give it another go but other games took up our time. I'm still not sure how to sell the setting, as it was only really sold to the players who already knew KoDP.

Edited May 18, 2019 by Madrona
Posted early.

[The God Learner]

5 hours ago, Joerg said:

Besides, look where that friendship is now.

A woman came between them.

 

[Lordabdul]

I had been aware of Glorantha for a decade or so but never did more than glance at it quickly. Ever since late-stage Moon Design and the new Chaosium revival, however, there's something about it -- better artwork, fancy maps, general production values, I don't know -- that made it actually stick. And the "bronze age" aspect is one of the first things that draws me to it.

I don't know if there was ever a push to differentiate Orlanthi from Vikings and Lunars from Romans and all that, but I think it's useful to draw parallels to establish baselines. For me, "bronze age" evokes tribal and shamanistic societies as opposed to feudal ones, it evokes distinct aesthetics in art and architecture, wooden palisades and cruder stone walls in some places, primal forces of nature and weird local cults as opposed to territorial and well organized monotheist religions, etc. It's a whole different flavour of "fantasy" and at the point where you're still pitching the game to people, I think it's important to communicate how the world will be like in as few words as possible.

The second thing that draws me to Glorantha is the other important thing: "what do you in that world?". I think Glorantha also offers something different here. Most settings give you the usual options like trading, exploring, doing mercenary work, or the good ol' murder-hobo. You can do that in any setting -- the only thing that varies is what illegal goods you carry (on your horse or your ship's cargo), who you have to kill or save, what's the name of the big evil empire/nice oppressed main faction/weird faction with the weird abilities/etc. Glorantha however offers something fairly uncommon, and that's a community to belong to. RQG doesn't do that much yet out of the box (compared to HQ and its sourcebooks) but even with only the main book (compared to other games' main book) you do get this importance of having your family and your clan and your tribe and your cult. You're fighting for something meaningful.

Sure that's maybe not necessarily something players might want (I frankly don't know if my players will be interested in that aspect), and min-maxers and such won't care... so it's always possible to fallback to reassuring them that, yes, like with other settings, you can be a wandering for-hire mercenary, but with the bonus that everyone can do magic! That's nice.

I think the main downside for me is that Glorantha has so much detail that some things might feel hard to change. I know that I'll get hammered with endless "YGWV", and I have to applaud the way the original authors seem to embrace variation in the fan community, but I'm very hesitant to run a game where Kally Starbrow doesn't get killed and is the one that effectively pushes the Lunars back, or one where Lunars regain their foothold over Dragon Pass by killing Argrath early in his career, or some other big change like that. Glorantha's strength is that PCs can be part of very heroic, high stakes events, but you gotta think twice about giving the players agency over the course of those events... if only because it's unclear how many future sourcebooks will actually rely on a specific timeline or not. So "you can affect the history of entire nations" may or may not be a 3rd selling point -- I'm not sure yet.