Anti-glorantha rant to moongose.

[PhilHibbs]

I tried to give the MRQ Glorantha a quick read, The opening was something about Glorantha is an island floating in a river or some-such. No, I want a spherical world orbiting a sun. These kind of foo-foo worlds can be cool, but not core.

So you wouldn't want to play in Middle Earth, then? Or Nehwon (Lankhmar)?

 

[kintire]

I'm sorry this is slightly off topic but I have to reply to this!

The Mongol stirrup was the single-most important technological advance in world history up to that point. If you doubt this then try thrusting a sharp stick from the back of a horse without stirrups. The Mongols were successful because they were people in possession of the most advanced piece of technological hardware in existence not because they got lucky and everyone else had an off-day.

Firstly: No it wasn't the most important technological advance in world history. I think Fire has that covered, with Irrigation pushing hard for second place. It wasn't even the most important in warfare: it is definitively less important than the domestication of the horse, for example!

Second: Thrusting a sharp stick from the back of a horse without stirrups worked fine. The Persians did it in both their Achaemenid and Sassanian incarnations, the Parthians did it, the Chinese did it, and of course Alexander the Great did it. Saddle design is much more important for heavy cavalry than stirrups.

Thirdly: Stirrups are very useful for endurance and combat, though not as useful in the second as often maintained, but I am not aware that the Mongol stirrup was any better than anybody else's stirrup. The stirrup was invented somewhere on the Eurasian Steppe sometime in the early centuries AD, but by the 9th century it had spread to all major horse using cultures, and the Mongol's adversaries, in Europe and elsewhere, had all been using it for 500 years or so.

 

[kintire]

I used to regularly get told on the OGL Conan forum that the RQ system can't do Conan! How stupid is that? But, that's just the d20 Conan fans trying to protect their system/setting.

Which is, of course, why one of the people who told you that (me) is a RQ Glorantha player who was playing RQ in Glorantha ten years before 3rd Edition even came out, never mind Mongoose Conan.

 

[languagegeek]

Guilds, Factions & Cults filled this role very nicely for MRQ1, and is so good that I'm still using it with MRQ2. You can get if from OOP Games (Mongoose's "remaindered" vendor) on Ebay for a song normally.

I picked G,F&C from the OOP-Mongoose store as well. It seems to work with RQII without much fuss and well worth the $5!

 

[MongooseMatt]

Just a quickie for the OP - we will have something in the next S&P that should be to your liking...

 

[cerebro]

Just a quickie for the OP - we will have something in the next S&P that should be to your liking...

Hehehe Nice and thanks for the attention.

 

[Exubae]

I used to regularly get told on the OGL Conan forum that the RQ system can't do Conan! How stupid is that? But, that's just the d20 Conan fans trying to protect their system/setting.

The feel of Conan, especially magic can be emulated pretty well using the Newhon/Lankmar setting. They have a very similar take on magic.

I would have thought the setting would be one of the easiest to convert.

 

[master of reality]

I tried to give the MRQ Glorantha a quick read, The opening was something about Glorantha is an island floating in a river or some-such. No, I want a spherical world orbiting a sun.

I'm sure you could make your version of Glorantha a spherical world without radically changing the setting. In my version of Glorantha, I tend to ignore the idea that Glorantha is flat, and use those ideas about the setting that suit my tastes. I have no problem, for example, using the Ralios campaign setting, with its Orlanthi clans and enclaves of Trolls, without the need to assume that Glorantha is a flat world. There's plenty about Glorantha that I like to keep using it as a setting. The few things that I don't like about Glorantha, I can easily ignore. Don't let the idea that Glorantha is flat deter you from using the Glorantha setting, although by all means choose the setting (Elric, Lankmar, Vikings, etc.) that suits your tastes.
There are other settings that interest me. I'm looking forward to the return of the Lankhmar setting, and one of my gaming buddies has assumed GM duties for the Elric setting.

 

[Exubae]

AKAmra wrote:

I tried to give the MRQ Glorantha a quick read, The opening was something about Glorantha is an island floating in a river or some-such. No, I want a spherical world orbiting a sun.

So I supposed historical settings aren't going to fit, as the Earth has only been accepted as not being flat within relatively resent time frame.
No flat discs supported by a small pack of pachyderm...
Flat lozenges surrounded by an egg shapped heaven...
Or flat world carved from the corpse of an elder giant or draconic entity.

The world may be round by modern perspectives, but its more fun to role-play from the perspective of the cultural of your character.

Tell a pack of Dark Age vikings the world is a ball of mud spinning around the sun, they'd think you're the local village idiot

 

[master of reality]

AKAmra wrote:

I tried to give the MRQ Glorantha a quick read, The opening was something about Glorantha is an island floating in a river or some-such. No, I want a spherical world orbiting a sun.

So I supposed historical settings aren't going to fit, as the Earth has only been accepted as not being flat within relatively resent time frame.
No flat discs supported by a small pack of pachyderm...
Flat lozenges surrounded by an egg shapped heaven...
Or flat world carved from the corpse of an elder giant or draconic entity.

The world may be round by modern perspectives, but its more fun to role-play from the perspective of the cultural of your character.

Tell a pack of Dark Age vikings the world is a ball of mud spinning around the sun, they'd think you're the local village idiot

Exactly, and by the same token many of the "facts" about Glorantha could easily be role-played to be nothing more than the beliefs of its inhabitants. My version of Glorantha might not be flat "lozenge of earth floating along the river of time," but that's what most of the inhabitants believe.

 

[Exubae]

lozenge of earth floating along the river of time

This is one of my bugbears with Glorantha, the fact that all cultures view the world in the same way/have the same full-view of the world...
In my own games set in the Third Age, I pushed the idea that those pesky god-learners to had spread this view to all the cultures they came in contact with.
But at the end of the day its just a game, but it would have been nice to have the World expanded past its known boundaries, or to be different than expected.

Ideally each culture should have be presented with its view of the world, and its mythic expectations of what is present on the map, rather than the 'hard facts' of the worlds reality.
Here be the place of the one legged giants.

 

[AKAmra]

I tried to give the MRQ Glorantha a quick read, The opening was something about Glorantha is an island floating in a river or some-such. No, I want a spherical world orbiting a sun.

I'm sure you could make your version of Glorantha a spherical world without radically changing the setting. In my version of Glorantha, I tend to ignore the idea that Glorantha is flat, and use those ideas about the setting that suit my tastes. I have no problem, for example, using the Ralios campaign setting, with its Orlanthi clans and enclaves of Trolls, without the need to assume that Glorantha is a flat world. There's plenty about Glorantha that I like to keep using it as a setting. The few things that I don't like about Glorantha, I can easily ignore. Don't let the idea that Glorantha is flat deter you from using the Glorantha setting, although by all means choose the setting (Elric, Lankmar, Vikings, etc.) that suits your tastes.
There are other settings that interest me. I'm looking forward to the return of the Lankhmar setting, and one of my gaming buddies has assumed GM duties for the Elric setting.

Your right of course, it would be easy enough to ignore (or explain away as myth, etc.) those things about Glorantha that don't appeal to me if I mostly liked the world.

 

[AKAmra]

I used to regularly get told on the OGL Conan forum that the RQ system can't do Conan! How stupid is that? But, that's just the d20 Conan fans trying to protect their system/setting.

The feel of Conan, especially magic can be emulated pretty well using the Newhon/Lankmar setting. They have a very similar take on magic.

I would have thought the setting would be one of the easiest to convert.

I agree and still hold out some small hope that MRQ Conan gets published - and supported. I think Conan has a bigger draw than Elric or Lankmar, it could help the RQ sales figures. On the other hand, it may not sell so well so soon after the long OGL Conan run - I don't know.

 

[ThatGuy]

I'd buy Conan in a minute.

You could, of course, just play it now- almost as is. Just insert the names, and maybe make a few small tweaks. The magic would be the most interesting adjustment, I think, especially considering the bang up job Mongoose has done with the extra goodies in S&P and what not.

 

[AKAmra]

I'd buy Conan in a minute.

You could, of course, just play it now- almost as is. Just insert the names, and maybe make a few small tweaks. The magic would be the most interesting adjustment, I think, especially considering the bang up job Mongoose has done with the extra goodies in S&P and what not.

Very true. I'd like MRQ2 Conan for completely selfish reasons. I'd like to have a collection of Conan RPG material using a system that I like.

 

[ThatGuy]

From a guy who has all the dark horse stuff (Busiek AND Truman, Cary Nord, etc.), as well as all the old savage sword stuff...I can empathize

 

[duncan_disorderly]

Exactly, and by the same token many of the "facts" about Glorantha could easily be role-played to be nothing more than the beliefs of its inhabitants. My version of Glorantha might not be flat "lozenge of earth floating along the river of time," but that's what most of the inhabitants believe.

I was going to comment on this earlier. Any "Fact" about Glorantha should always be assumed to begin with "(Some) Gloranthans believe that..."

Whether the game world is a lozenge floating on a river, an oblate spheroid orbiting a ball of burning Hydrogen, the inside of a hollow earth or a giant ring built by advanced aliens will only become important if you make that a focus of your game.

 

[duncan_disorderly]

lozenge of earth floating along the river of time

This is one of my bugbears with Glorantha, the fact that all cultures view the world in the same way/have the same full-view of the world...
In my own games set in the Third Age, I pushed the idea that those pesky god-learners to had spread this view to all the cultures they came in contact with.

I think that is pretty much what happened - In the first age the World Council of Friends spread their view of the world amongst the various peoples they came in to contact with, and then in the second age the God-learners actively worked to create and promote the monomyth.

The Orlanthi say that Orlanth killed the oppressive Evil Emperor
The Darra Happans say that the Benevolant Yelm was murdered by an evil rebel.
The God-learners say "Orlanth killed Yelm"...

 

[cthulhudarren]

Chewie, take the professor(s) in the back and plug 'em into the hyperdrive.

 

[Loz]

The God-learners say "Orlanth killed Yelm"...

That's the truncated version for non-Malkioni simpletons. The full version is:

The sun erasanchula was neutralised by the storm erasanchula and this heralded the ice age. Malkion reactivated the sun erasanchula by negating the darkness erasanchula and made some exploratory attempts to fully negate the cold erasnchula (code name: Valind) which helped stabilize the planar interconnections and restore the sun erasanchula to its rightful sky dome trajectory.

The primitives of Dara Happa and Hendrikiland have made up some fanciful stories to explain away Malkion's greatness and these have somehow gained significant ground in the Myth Plane.

Hey... I wonder what would happen if we reversed that myth. You know, have the sun erasanchula negate the storm erasanchula... then the Great Darkness and Ice Age would never have happened.

Could be fun. Let's summon the Otherworld Explorers.