Changes. New things. Revisions. Reimaginings.

[duncan_disorderly]

I think the key here is (as far as possible) not to negate anything that has gone before - People will get more upset if your "New cool stuff" invalidates the "old cool stuff" that they have been basing their games on for the last n years

For instance, it is an "established Gloranthan fact" that Trolls use Darksense, which is a type of Sonar to see in the dark. If you think that having them able to see using infravision then people are likely to be upset because they have met, used and possibly even played Trolls who have Sonar but not Infravision.

Now, of course some "Facts" are more fixed than others, and most Gloranthan facts are seen through the filter of the teller, so this needn't be as limiting as it might seem. There was a discussion on Newtlings a while back on one of the Gloranthan lists, in which one of the established facts was that they all go back to a single breeding pool (I forget both where the pool is, and which book is the source of the information). But if you want to have a "local" breeding colony in your Seshnella/Ralios/Teshnos/Kralorea source book then you can claim "Sure, all the Newtlings in Dragon Pass/Prax go to <i>that</i> pool. This is a separate colony, and they never mix. Or if you want a breeding colony in the Creek Stream River, or Zola Fell then you can say "Yes, in the <i>third age</i> the only breeding colony was in (wherever it was) - That's because the GOd Learners/EWF/Zistorites/True GOlden Horde/Whoever completely wiped out this colony by the end of the second age...

So, as Robin Laws might urge, the answer is "Yes, but..."

Any change you make is likely to upset people, and this has always been true - it's just when the earliest changes were made, there were no Internet Forums and mailing lists for people to complain in! The best a Gloranthan author can do is be true to their vision of Glorantha and hope it fits in with other peoples visions. Asking opinions of Gloranthan fans might lead you to a solution that avoids upsetting too many people - or it might just start the flame-war earlier than if you just "publish and be damned!" (You might also run the risk of the RQ Play test problem where rather than answer your one question ("do Mostali play Poker or Blackjack") people start giving you there own take on Mostali which might be completley at odds with your desires and intentions.

 

[kpmcdona]

I generally agree with most of the comments so far in this thread. This post is mostly intended to condense things to a few simple points.

Every author who writes for Glorantha adds things that may or may not meet with the approval of other fans. As long as what you are writing fits the general flavor of what came before and adds depth and breath to the subject, then you are on solid ground. Don't expect to please everyone, just try to write something that you can feel proud of.

If you accidentally contradict "canon" then you just have to live with the fact that you made a mistake. Everyone is human, after all. Nobody can reasonably expect you to do more than your best. Not everyone is reasonable, though.

If you deliberately contradict "canon" then you had better have a solid reason for doing so and be ready to take some heat. If customers ultimately like and accept your change then you did good. RQ2 Troll Pack changed trolls, but most everyone now agrees that it was for the better. If readers don't like and accept your change, then you just have to live with it. As stated earlier in this thread, even Greg Stafford has been roasted for changing things. You just have to have confidence in your own muse - and have a thick skin.

All that said, if authors are too worried about public reaction to write anything then the whole project will suffer. Nobody wants that. My advice, in a nutshell, is this: Do the best you can to write something that enhances and complements what already exists, and let the chips fall where they may.

 

[mthomason]

All that said, if authors are too worried about public reaction to write anything then the whole project will suffer. Nobody wants that. My advice, in a nutshell, is this: Do the best you can to write something that enhances and complements what already exists, and let the chips fall where they may.

Gotta concur with this one. I'd also like to add that writers aren't the only person in the chain - with various editors, developers, managers, and in most cases playtesters reviewing material before it goes to print, I think the writer should feel free of any constraints not specifically put on them when they are asked to work on the project, and leave it to someone else to point out if their creativeness has caused them to stray too far from the path. Things do get sent back for rewrites, and it's not really a bad thing when they do. So my usual stance is "be creative, but also be prepared to be told it's not appropriate."

 

[Trifletraxor]

So I ask you this:

At what point are the writers and artists behind this actually allowed to use their own creativity, and at what point does it rub you, personally, the wrong way?

Use it to add and improve. There are lots of areas to work with. When an old proud race played by so many before is changed into a bunch of pigs just because of a whim of creativity, then I'm rubbed the wrong way. Changes from the old worn-in truths should be more thought through than that.

SGL.

 

[StephenT]

I agree that adding extra detail = always good; changing existing detail = you have to convince me why your version is better. If your new version is interesting, quirky and well-thought out, then convincing me shouldn't be too hard...

If I could make a suggestion, though, it'd be to rely on two staples of Gloranthan sourcebooks over the years: regional variation and unreliable narrators. Just like our world, Glorantha is huge, and filled with many thousands of different groups, cultures, species and regions. And an awful lot of Gloranthan source material is written in-character, which means that if you don't like a particular fact, you can just say it's a mistake or even a deliberate distortion by the 'author'.

So if you want to describe Orlanthi painting themselves green and sticking chicken feathers up their nose every Windsday, then you can say so... but players who dislike the idea can always say, "well, the Orlanthi of Ralios in the 9th century might do that, but all other Orlanthi just laugh at them." Same if you want trolls to have pig-noses: it doesn't have to mean that all trolls do, just the ones who posed to have their pictures painted for the book. ("Stoopid hoomanz fall for funny Uz joke - we send Ugblod Pig-Nose to sit for picture and now they think all Uz look like that! Hur hur!")

 

[Dead Blue Clown]

Changes to existing Glorantha should be made with a purpose. They should be made out of a love for the world and a desire to improve it. I think most people can live with that.

I think we can agree on that. At the end of the day, it's my job to make new stuff for Glorantha, or more specifically, to present it in my own words to sell in a new edition. Now, as it happens, I love my job and I love the chance I've got here. I also happen to want my words to resemble what came before and add to it, rather than butcher it.

But I've heard it said that a lot of Glorantha players have too many sacred cows. You can't change anything without culling someone's herd. I'm relatively thick-skinned, so I'm aware and prepared for some changes to be viewed as heresy rather than an improvement or a spit n' polish. But still, it's a concern because so much of Glorantha is precious to so many people. Uncomfortably so, especially since people's views don't seem to align perfectly.

The troll thing is a perfect example. Despite seeing warthog monsters in the past, raggedy old men, trolls with muzzles, trolls with muzzles, beards and crazy hair, and now monsters with pig noses, and it's heresy across the board. The cynic in me asks "Well, did you rail like this at every other change in the past? Because those were some massive appearance changes." I'd much rather focus on the the writer in me, who asks "What should I do to make this a world people will play in?" and "What do I think would be a cool addition or improvement to Glorantha?"

Changes out of sloppiness or material that contradicts existing lore without adding to the world should never happen. Changing a timeline because you didn't do any research is bad. Not just because it is sloppy but it adds to and reinforces that negative association Glorantha has of being inconsistent.

Glorantha is a mess of inconsistency. Problems are freshly churned out every single edition, and this one will be no different. It can't be any other way. If even the experts got it right 24/7 then Glorantha message lists would be less...intense...than they are. And they sure aren't less of anything, except maybe less peaceful than World War 6.

But you're absolutely right. Bad research is bad work. Some problems will arise from, well, which version of past canon a writer prefers, knows best, and is working from. But still, I couldn't agree more.

I think any change that makes the world seem more like a mainstream generic fantasy setting will be met with much flaming.

This is where I've accused you of being Ivory Towerish in the past. Though not with anything like serious accusatory intent. But there is an atmosphere around a lot of comments about Glorantha where they take - not just pride - but withering and utterly exaggerated hubris over Glorantha's depth and genius.

I make zero bones about my respect for Greg Stafford. I sounded like a fucking idiot on the phone to the guy, because I couldn't quite get over the fact I was on the phone to Greg Stafford and he was talking to me like an equal. Now, while my initial dumbassness has since faded, I still have no desire to write anything that shakes loose from his overall vision. I've made that clear to him, and it's important to me. Keeping Glorantha special is important to me. The distance from D&D is important to me.

But at the same time, almost any change can be viewed as "trying to appeal to a mass-market" or "More D&Dish" if a critic has those glasses on. The troll thing is a recent example, where some people said they were trying to be more monstrous as enemies, not PCs. I doubt that. I suspect the intent was actually "I want them to look awesome, scary and cool."

And there was a comment I made about how I bet more people would prefer the art of a MRQ troll than a RQ3 one, because the quality was better and it looked cool. Yet I was answered with "Appealing to a mass market of people is not what Glorantha is about" and so on. Which, let's be honest, was a million miles away from my point. I was saying a piece of art looked cooler and more like an awesome inhuman monster. Not "Doesn't it rule how MRQ has made things look sweet to D&D fans."

It can be immensely frustrating to try to combat this tide of opinion, when practically everything you do runs the risk of diehard fans - wallowing in their elitism -seeing your every sentence as The Moment They Made Glorantha Sell Out.

Now, you're a smart guy, Rurik, not really an elitist Ivory Towerite, and if I actually thought any of this about you, I'd just say so. I don't. I enjoy the crap out of you being here. But hopefully I explained my point a little better. I'll furnish it with an example from work I've been doing this week. It is, as we all know, about trolls.

I was talking (writing...) about trolls and how humans and other races find it uncomfortable to be around them. I wanted to tie this more into the supernatural curses in their blood and their monstrous natures, rather than the fact they fart and burp a lot, and have bad manners, which I've seen mentioned elsewhere. So I was mulling over why they're uncomfortable to be around. One of the things I wanted to work on was the fact they smell bad.

Smelling bad is pretty funny, unless you're actually there next to something that smells really bad. So I wanted to convey this reek without being obvious: mentioning breaking wind or being unwashed.

I thought it would be pretty neat then, if their stench - which is nothing more than a personal scent to other uz - was because their skin is covered in a thin sheen of moisture most of the time. Their semi-magical digestion requires a lot of bodily energies, and they eat a lot to stay healthy and strong, so with their innards going overtime, I thought it would be cool to have an outside reaction to this. So I thought about them sweating. Now, plain old sweating would be funny again. "Har har! Fat man sweats a lot!" is the kinda thing I wanted to avoid.

So rather than wet armpits and body odour, the trolls perspire a very light sweat that essentially just makes their skin damp or moist, like some animals, rather than having actual sweatdrops. And they don't stink like someone who just ran a marathon - they reek, to humans and others, of the sickening, blood-soaked stench of unhealthy animals. It's this light perspiration that creates that foul, animal (or, at least, inhuman) reek.

Now I also wanted a downside to this other than putting pepole off standing near trolls. Firstly, it's only grotesquely bad if you're within, say, arm's reach of your uz companion. Otherwise it's a light scent, easily dispersed on the wind. So I wanted this moist flesh to have some other effect, seeing as it's coated in a fine layer of greasy sweat.

With all the benefits Trollhide gives a character (that I'd written a moment before) I thought it'd be cool to give their flesh a weakness. Could it be tied into the sweat, somehow? Yes! I had it! I'd make their greasy flesh more susceptible to flame! It made perfect sense, suddenly. Weapons might bounce form uz flesh, but the Dragonspeakers focus on their fire magic to ignite the flammable moist skin of the trolls they fight.

I loved it.

Three days later, I read (on here) that D&D trolls take extra damage from fire. I'd completely forgotten that. I now have a coupleof paragraphs in my draft, dealing with a weakness that I think is characterful, well-reasoned and perfectly explained, yet the calls to see it axed would be legion because it happened in D&D. I mean, a lot happened in D&D. Aldryami live in forests, just like the wood elves. It's not like the uz I'm writing about have anything else even remotely in common with the D&D trolls - which also look nothing like MRQ trolls, either - but no, because of that one idea, I knew full well the voices on this forum would raise to the very sky about how MRQ was trying to be more like D&D. Despite the fact that new trolls look even less like D&D trolls. Despire the fact that there is not one single other thing in common between the two types, and the uz have the same rich, deep culture as before.

I hope that serves as an illuminating example.

The one I'm dreading - and I'm a fool for even saying this - is when people read Magic of Glorantha and say bullshit about it being like Exalted. They'll likely drag my White Wolf history into the equation, as well.

If that's the case, it'll be ironic really, seeing as how I loathe most everything I know about Exalted, I know practically nothing aboutit anyway, and have never worked a single sentence into the game line.

But little changes or enhancements or additions are what I'm keen on. I'm wondering, for an extreme example, how the description of the Inhuman King will go down. I almost put in a sidebar saying "Aha! It's all because..." but I decided to trust my instincts and assume people will clock it all fine when reading it first time.

And don't mess with noses, people hate that.

Clearly.

I feel for you.

You're doing your best to give what you genuinely feel is good stuff to the fans, and running a big risk of getting hauled over burning coals for it.

That's the job, and I love it too much to get shred up over this. But I still want to please people; Glorantha diehards more than anyone. I want them to use my stuff, talk about it, and like it.

There's a lot of gold in this thread, but by virtue of me not having time to make my reply into something as long as The Bible, I'll have to chop bits out. Apologies to all concerned.

As long as the 'essense' of Glorantha is maintained, such as its a world of magic not technology shaped by its myths and everything has its unique twist on standard fantasy troupes I couldn't give a rats ass what you do with the holy cow that is 'cannon'

If you look carefully enough the whole published cannon is pretty broad in its strokes anyway.

...that's among the best reactions imaginable, I think. I recognise many, many RQ diehards don't share that view, mind you. But I still appreciate you voicing it.

The Greeks have a word for it.
YGWV.

Teehee. I resisted the temptation to use that in the opening post.

Now, the second age setting is a great idea. It gives massive room for creativity because at the end of the second age, the world is reset - again.

Accordingly, I've always got time for why people prefer one Age over another. Because those answers, I'm expecting, will not be particularly petty.

All your points were valid and good, but these bear definite mention:

Of course if you don't have a vision beyond dashing out maximum wordage in minimum time that would be disappointing. And, quite frankly, if I were writing extensive Gloranthan material for MRQ I would not read these boards. I would ask someone to summarise for me occasionally.

I trust my work to speak for my vision, where perhaps me being a fuckwad on a forum might not. I can live with that. But I'm interested as to why you wouldn't come here.

Now, I know why people have warned me against it (though that was a more general warning about Glorantha mailing lists/forums/etc.) and I know why I sometimes dread coming here, because I think about a lesser minority of the complaints are petty and I don't agree with them, yet I recognise those with these opinions aren't interested in changing them or talking about them: they're interested in yelling them and having people agree, no matter the counterarguments.

But I still think there's value in actively participating here. For everyone who automatically dislikes my work because they dislike me or Mongoose (and there are some, I know it all too well), there's an opportunity to find out what someone else's vision of Glorantha looks like, and how I can write things that gel with my image of the setting, yet will still please them.

For one, I don't like the Lankhmar cover: DBC you suck as a writer! :lol:

Shit. My secret's out and Magic of Glorantha didn't even hit the shelves...

Second, DBC made a point about the different appearance of Trolls in (early) RQ2 and RQ3. There are a lot of similar things: RQ2 Dwarves and Dragonewts using spirit magic and divine magic instead of sorcery and dragon magic is one. That said I like the snout better

Me too. But I could fucking kiss you for at least admitting the point. I was beginning to think my posts were invisible.

I look forward to see new quality stuff. Minor contradictions, additions, changes in perspective are not a problem. If you change the Balazar timeline in order to create a cool Second Age Griffin Mountain adventure that's cool. A random change in date could be a very minor annoyance.

What I would find depressing is the watering down of stuff that was cool and detailed and the addition of random generic fantasy tropes. If trolls become simply brutes and acquire regeneration and take double damage from fire... that would annoy me.

This is a golden way of phrasing the whole deal, and leads me to another point.

"Watering down."

I've seen a lot of this already, and I expect to see it in the future. In some cases, it's people with decades of knowledge, gathered from several editions of books and multiple database websites, complaining that the info is sparse.

Well...well, yeah. Compared to what you know. Of course it is - there's been a couple of Gloranthan books out so far.

Magic of Glorantha will get this in spades. I read through Cults of Glorantha (the combined volume before it was split) and while it oozed class, knowledge, research and slick writing, very little of it felt like new ground or, in fact, very Second Age. This was admittedly because 99% of it was filled with stuff that remains constant through the ages, but I digress.

Magic of Glorantha will receive criticism - I'm sure of this - about...I don't know...something, anything...not being as comprehensively explained as Chutney Making and Gangsta Rapping or whatever else were back in RQ1, 2 or 3. But that's a word count deal. There's a lot to be saying, being said for the first time. And only a certainnumber of words per book. That breeds an air of 'looser' books at first, becoming more and more specific as time goes on. I could've made Magic of Glorantha 5 times as long and still have had stuff to write about, yet I'd be lying if I said I wasn't incredibly proud of it. (I saw the final .pdf of it the other day. I had such a Moment, I swear.)

Yeah, the complaints about the 'lots of little books get expensive' are valid. But they're also naive. That's the way the industry is now. Look at WotC and White Wolf - the Big 2. It's practically the only way RPG publishers can turn a profit, and lots of people like it. The books are higher quality, there's more stuff coming out, and you get to make a collection if you're a completionist. Some people hate it, which is fine, too.

My point is that in X or Y years, when all the Second Age lore we're churning out now is common knowledge, a future edition of RQ will also suffer for not living up the level of information we provided, purely because our stuff, like RQ1, 2 and 3, had been absorbed over time.

Again, I think one of the main things about Glorantha is that it brings together two very different sides of the spectrum in terms of fantasy and wonderfully blends them together: on one hand, you have this high magic feel in which everyone uses it, it permeates reality at every turn and defines it in more than many significant, meaningful ways, and on the other hand, you can relate to the Gloranthan people on a very human, primal level that makes you feel believable fictional experiences, hopes, passions, pains, and all the mythology that comes from this experience of life.

That's the key to me.

This is just pure wisdom, shaped into a fine form. I have nothing to add other than I agree totally, and that I think just about everyone will do, too.

I only quoted it because it was too awesome to leave out.

Have you hung around the Gloranthan forums? If not, introduce yourself, get chatting. Before you know it you'll have more proofreaders, fact-checkers, consistency-gurus, etc, than you can shake a stick at.

I want to use here as my realm for that, I think. I've been warned off that place specifically by more than one person I trust implicitly, and I'm hard-pressed when it comes to forum time as it is. (Not because my life is endless rock n' roll and I'm so busy jetsetting, but because I love my girlfriend and my Xbox. The former needs me to open jars, and the latter needs me to play Star Wars games on it. Oh, and I have a lot of work, too.)

Hi there Aaron
I imagine it is a similair situation with you and Glorantha. With all the Gloranthan work you are doing I imagine that you have generated a love for all the beautiful stories. So I doubt whether you would dream of actually changing anything much. I imagine that most of your creativity has concentrated on additions to the literature. So I wouldn't worry.

More fine words.

Incidentally, Burdock, you were supposed to be helping me to get women, remember? You swore you'd teach me to be cool instead of a lonely loser.

I work in a FLGS, you should have heard some of the Dragonlance "purists" whinge about the latest editions when they came out.

Oh, boy, do you ever have my sincerest sympathies. DL is 'one of those' for sure.

As long as you put passion into your work, I'm happy to see things done differently. As I mentioned above, your writers are the story tellers, the Historians of Glorantha, I don't mind a bit of bias in my history books, I should be able to discern that when it happens. Any changes should be 'mostly' culturally, intelectually, ideologically OR magically understandable and, most importantly, broaden the scope for 'richness' of play within the world.

That really resonated with me. I mean, I'm just one writer - a tiny cog in a big machine that's working on a massive world. But still. It's neat to read an opinion like that, especially expressed so eloquently. I tend to use the word 'fuck' a lot more on forums than I do in books...

And I can see why people dislike it cause it seems a bit generic and that I don't want.

The Glorantha stuff? Cults of Glorantha 1 and Glorantha: the Second Age? You thought they were generic?

If you're talking about the RuneQuest stuff, yeah, it's designed to be generic. I know more groups using it for non-Glorantha games than I do using it for Glorantha.

I love contradictions in The Big G, as long as they are well thought out, written, and inplimented. And, and a great way of doing this is make it someones opinion, view point, myth or mind set, I understand this won't alwas be possible, it is something to bare in mind.

Yeah, I'm pretty big on that idea myself. You'll see that in my stuff, I think. It's a safer (and more interesting) way to fly, and avoids treading on the toes of what came before.

P.S I'm a bit worried about your comment about being warned off, not the warning off bit, but the who it was bit, I'm not sure that it was very helpful, but I understand the concerns.

Why does it worry you? I wasn't planning on mentioning it again after this post, actually, but I am interested as to why it troubles you.

If magic is less common amongst everyone in the two big empires (like 3rd Age non-theistic cultures) then fine again.

I do believe Magic of Glorantha rectifies this somewhat. It's pretty common, all told.

One suggestion I have that might be helpful here is to run the idea past some oldtimers first and collect some input. There's always things you might miss or might get some interesting insites.

You're reading the first step in that. But I had to clear the air before I could really use this forum, so we'll see how it turns out.

I'll end with another plea for campaign packs. Right now, everything for Glorantha appears to be big/overview. IMO, what originally sold the world were the campaign packs that dug into a locale with some depth and gave some quality Gloranthan adventures to start off with. Give us something to do with our God Learners or EWF characters!

The very next book in my list is actually Zistorwal: the Clanking City. I think regional books are big in the future of the line, though I can't say for sure having seen only my timetable.

I think I'll put in more comprehensive mechamagic rules for that, now that I mull it over. Though they're pretty intense in Magic of Glorantha as it is.

Mongoose bought RuneQuest, and the rights to publish Gloranthan material because it has a passionate audience. That's agreat commercial opportunity, sure, but it also carries a responsibility to that audience too.

Anyone who gets near a keyboard with the opportunity to work for Mongoose on Glorantha's Second Age knows this. Only a jackass would ignore it.

EDIT: Added a "me".

 

[Dead Blue Clown]

Apologies to anyone who wasn't quoted. I was trying to save (some) time.

Apologies for any typos, but I was in a rush.

And apparently, you can't swear on our forum. Now I know.

 

[CharlieMonster]

I have to pretty much agree with most of what has been said in this thread so far, it is the nature of the Beast that slip ups like the whole Balazar instead of Votankiland (if memory serves me correctly) issue are gonna catch Flak from the Glorantha anoraks among us (I guess that probably means me too). I can only speak for myself, but any barracking from my quarter isn't intended with any venom.

I am happy to see cool new stuff introduced as long as it fits and am looking forward to seeing what's still to come. If I do participate in forums about stuff I don't agree with or can't get my head around on these forums, it's to work them out. A number of issues I have initially been hostile too I've raised or discussed in forum and gone away thinking "so that's how it's supposed to work" and more often than not been won over by the argument. (Okay drifted off topic a bit there)

As far as arguments over Troll artwork, I'll admit it's a question of taste, like a lot of die-hards, I have great affection for Trollpak Trolls and feel that as a customer I have the right to express a preference accordingly, on reflection my light-hearted comments about the Trollkin were possibly a little harsh so "Mea Culpa" on that one.

What I haven't said, which I'll go on record now as saying, that with the exception of the last few AH covers, the artwork on MRQ is some of the best produced for RQ over the last 28 odd years and my only criticisms have been from inconsistencies. I actually like the new Ducks! On the other hand I do feel it wold have been nice if the illustrations of the spirits matched their descriptions (or vice versa), so sue me.

I suspect one of the biggest problems is the release schedule, because we have only had a couple of, fairly slender, volumes on Glorantha so far we have more questions than answers on the direction it is going in. We can't quite see the big picture yet so I guess there's a lot of speculation and anxiety about what's ahead. It would be a real shame if you let it affect your creativity as artists, but on the other hand it is worth at least taking any concerns which are raisen onboard within reason. Comments about duck plumage are obviously not the end of the world, but questions of continuity are. And if we whing about something that doesn't appear to make sense, but that is in your game plan for something cool, just put a cryptic line or two on a thread say "wait and see" sit back and enjoy the fireworks!


The best piece of advice I can offer is to avoid only seeing the "Negative Evidence" anything you don't screw up on probably won't make the forums. Customers are always quick to complain, but don't usually say 'owt if there happy. Though to be fair if you look hard enough, you will see some positive feedback Just remember that for every critical thread you see there are many more peeps who are enjoying what you are doing.

I know it's inevitable as you are producing creative work and by all appearances putting a lot into it, but if you allow yourself to get on the defensive, the job will be a pain in the arse. By all means treat nitpicking and resistance for the sake of it with the contempt it deserves. Having said that, I do feel, and it is just the perception I'm getting so if I'm wrong feel free to ignore me, there is a sense in some of your posts that where there is criticism/discussion one gets a sense of "Well you're just wishing everything was like RQ3 you don't know nothing" coming through. If I'm wrong about that, I apologise, but not every issue raised here comes back to that. Obviously I accept by it's nature that doesn't apply to your current post.

At the end of the day do what you're doing, I for one am quite happy to see what you got, if I don't like something I'm quite happy to work around it, if I do I'll try to remember to post a "thank you". And if I really, really don't like it I won't buy it.

P.S. As far as inconsistencies go in the background of the first Glorantha Game: White Bear, Red Moon; the Lunars won and Argrath was utterly defeated, so you've got a long way to go before you beat Greg at inconsistencies :lol:

 

[JonGeere]

It is worth noting that for things like the Troll snouts some people like specific versions just because they feel that version XX is the coolest so why make a step back.

If you want to write about troll skin and fire it needs to mesh with past work (including MRQ!) to say why there has been no comment about fire causing extra damage up to this point in time. However, a reaction (and game effect) of their skin to light would make _great_ sense linking in with past work, logical consistency and game fun.

Change is good if it builds or improves on what has gone before.

 

[GbajiTheDeceiver]

We already have a race who's skin reacts badly to fire anyway.





























Elfs. :twisted:

 

[kpmcdona]

Now, I know why people have warned me against it (though that was a more general warning about Glorantha mailing lists/forums/etc.) and I know why I sometimes dread coming here, because I think about a lesser minority of the complaints are petty and I don't agree with them, yet I recognize those with these opinions aren't interested in changing them or talking about them: they're interested in yelling them and having people agree, no matter the counterarguments.

The warnings about the mailing lists always bother me. I have been on all of the mailing lists for many years now, and they rarely reach the level of testiness that I see on this forum. They are certainly not any worse! That is where most of the experts hang out, too, so it is a great place to float ideas.

Anyway, if it matters, I thought your ideas on troll stench were cool. I wouldn't worry about the fire angle. Trolls are tied to the Darkness rune and so have an aversion to fire already.

And as for troll regeneration... well, cave trolls regenerate. So, fire-averse regenerating trolls already exist in Glorantha!

 

[Trifletraxor]

With all the benefits Trollhide gives a character (that I'd written a moment before) I thought it'd be cool to give their flesh a weakness. Could it be tied into the sweat, somehow? Yes! I had it! I'd make their greasy flesh more susceptible to flame! It made perfect sense, suddenly. Weapons might bounce form uz flesh, but the Dragonspeakers focus on their fire magic to ignite the flammable moist skin of the trolls they fight.

Poor Zorak Zorani...

SGL.

 

[WildHealer]

It can be immensely frustrating to try to combat this tide of opinion, when practically everything you do runs the risk of diehard fans - wallowing in their elitism -seeing your every sentence as The Moment They Made Glorantha Sell Out.

:shock: DBC, please. As other contributors to this thread have already mentioned, your tone is getting a bit strident and insulting - to people who are supposed to be your customers, which seems a bit strange. The above sentence just makes you look a bit foolish - it is the diehard Glorantha fans who are also trying to help and provide pointers to try and make this MRQ thing work. Accusing us of "wallowing in elitism" and comments like the following

But there is an atmosphere around a lot of comments about Glorantha where they take - not just pride - but withering and utterly exaggerated hubris over Glorantha's depth and genius.

... just look daft. Some of us are actually reasonably well educated and have been willing to let Glorantha take up a significant part of our intellectual and leisure time. Credit us with a modicum of intelligence to know when something is "deep" or not, eh?

You asked for our help and our input - it's a bit rich to come back with a right mouthful like that. You just end up justifying the opinions of those who think that Mongoose treats the Gloranthan canon and all its fans poorly. Please remember we are your customers too.

Whilst your tone really has put me off trying to help out with constructive comments, I will just make one - hopefully you won't launch into a tirade about this comment being arrogant, elitism, withering, whatever, just because it quotes what's gone before....

Trolls susceptible to fire: you should read the Zorak Zoran cult + particularly the Amanstan subcult before you go any further down that road (if indeed you're still intending to). It's the source of the Troll fire powers, including fire blades, walking through flames, etc, etc.

Right, I'm off to wallow in elitism and exaggerated hubris in my Ivory Tower... :wink:

PS - Mongoose, if something I've said in my email contravenes the laws of the Mongoose Board Police, please just say so rather than deleting this entire thread, eh?

 

[Dead Blue Clown]

We already have a race who's skin reacts badly to fire anyway.

Better nip this in the bud. It was one of several ideas. I axed it as soon as I remembered the D&D thing.

If you want to write about troll skin and fire it needs to mesh with past work (including MRQ!) to say why there has been no comment about fire causing extra damage up to this point in time. However, a reaction (and game effect) of their skin to light would make _great_ sense linking in with past work, logical consistency and game fun.

I've seen mentioned in too many places that light doesn't really hurt a troll's skin to counteract that now, I think.

Also, I'm not bound by anything any MRQ book says, excepting G:tSA and CoG 1. The trolls in the corebook and RQ:Monsters are generic fantasy creatures. It's Guide to the Uz that's explaining Gloranthan trolls in full detail.

So while the information in Trollpak is a vital consideration, no one doing a new edition of RQ was ever slaved to what came before, and nothing MRQ has said about trolls yet is specific enough to keep me awake at night.

 

[Dead Blue Clown]

It can be immensely frustrating to try to combat this tide of opinion, when practically everything you do runs the risk of diehard fans - wallowing in their elitism -seeing your every sentence as The Moment They Made Glorantha Sell Out.

:shock: DBC, please. As other contributors to this thread have already mentioned, your tone is getting a bit strident and insulting -

Focusing on those couple of sentences in that whole deal will have that effect, yeah. Especially if you miss out all the parts where I say it was a small minority, most fans aren't like that, and so on. And, in fact, if you ignore the intent of the thread, and all the times I say I want to please diehard fans with what I write. I mean, hence this thread.

I've not noticed anyone bar you mentioning my tone being strident or insulting, though I'm admittedly reading parts when I can and alternating between two windows.

... just look daft. Some of us are actually reasonably well educated and have been willing to let Glorantha take up a significant part of our intellectual and leisure time. Credit us with a modicum of intelligence to know when something is "deep" or not, eh?

No offence, but...could you maybe read what I wrote? Because I have no idea what you're talking about, and I don't see how it applies to what I've actually said. It applies to the tiny sections you took wildly out of context perfectly, but then, I suspect that was a misunderstanding rather than intent to create a division.

 

[Dead Blue Clown]

Trolls susceptible to fire: you should read the Zorak Zoran cult + particularly the Amanstan subcult before you go any further down that road (if indeed you're still intending to). It's the source of the Troll fire powers, including fire blades, walking through flames, etc, etc.

I was going to work some new rituals into the Zorak Zorani repertoire to spice things up in relation to the change, but between the D&D recollection and deciding I didn't want to do it (in favour of something neater), yeah, it would've been too much to alter, I think. Certainly more than I'd have been comfortable changing. But I liked the idea, even if I'd never have submitted it, ultimately. It didn't fit well enough.

 

[burdock]

wild healer wrote

just look daft

While I thought there were a couple of points where DBCs tone became a little judgemental I just took that as him being passionate and feeling the immense weight of all our expectations.

One thing is for sure someone with that much passion is going to electrify Glorantha with new life. We may well dislike some of his creations, but there will be others that will blow our minds. It will probably be worth it.




(assuming the nose thing is resolved of course :twisted: )

 

[Kagan Altar]

I thought the idea of the troll skin and the weakness to fire was really neat, personally. Far from thinking "that stinks D&D", I thought it was rather cool to have "trolls" have some common points throughout the games for very different reasons. The relationship between the Uz and the Darkness rune is enough of an explanation to me... but if you found something you genuinely think is cooler, all the better, then!

 

[WildHealer]

DBC - thanks for editing your post. That first one was a zinger, had me reaching for my Sever Spirit... :wink:

I'm not taking you wildly out of context, trust me. As other writers on this thread have pointed out, your tone sometimes comes across as dismissive, impatient, and intolerant of people who have a solid knowledge of Glorantha and are passionate about it and comment adversely on what Mongoose are doing in some way. I don't want to make a whole subthread about this, but I personally find it rather patronising and it rubs me up the wrong way.

Let me state my colours for the record, as I think you have the wrong idea of me: I'm a Glorantha die-hard, I play RQ3 and HeroQuest, have about 25 years experience, and am not someone who automatically hates Mongoose, MRQ, or yourself. In fact, I had extremely high hopes of the new edition, and have stuck with these boards pretty much from the start. I'm certainly not a stick-in-the-mud who wants no change at all (I played RQ3 at the Rune Lord-Priest 175%+ level for several years... combat there can draaag...).

I don't play MRQ, cos I don't like the rules, and don't believe they're anywhere complete enough or represent Glorantha properly. I'll have another look in another year or so and see if they've filled out in a way I can use.

I do like Second Age and the Ralios pdf, and am looking forwards to lots more.

I value the Glorantha canon; I'm happy to see additions and improvements, it just needs to be rational & not whimsical.

I'd love to contribute meaningfully to these forums. I'm fed up however with myself and others of similar opinion being shouted down as a "negative" or a "hater" or a "withering elitist", especially when those shouts come from Mongoose employees. There are other "diehards" from the greater Glorantha community out there on these boards, but a heckuva lot seem to be staying away in droves, which must say something. It's very, very easy to have your tone misunderstood in electronic comm, as I'm sure you'll agree...

Hopefully that clears the air. Shall we get back to the program?

 

[WildHealer]

Certainly more than I'd have been comfortable changing. But I liked the idea, even if I'd never have submitted it, ultimately. It didn't fit well enough.

I actually like the idea too. Maybe not the exact way you put it the first time (I'm sure we'd have noticed flammable trolls... ), but I think the whole Troll - Darkness - Fire thing has been under-explored. It would be cool to have more info showing just how special those Zorak Zoran guys are.

But, as Kagan says, if you have something cooler up your sleeve, cool!