t-tauri said:
Archer said:
You have a very hard time imagining something else than a hack fest do you, for a standard fantasy setting?
(seen you mention that several times on this forum already as a response to the words "standard fantasy").
Well I'm glad you can put my 32 years of gaming down as nothing but a hackfest. I've been there, seen it, played it and GMed it. Talislanta, Jorune, Empire of the Petal Throne, Ringworld, Cthulhu. Done it all. Even D&D, though I've not played new D&D or D20.
I think you missunderstood me. I thought it seemed like the only thing you associated with "standard fantasy" was the hack-n-slash style of play. What I meant is that there is so much more than that.
t-tauri said:
I've been playing RQ since the late seventies and I'd like to think I've played it and run it for the Role playing and not the hacking. Hack and slash RQ tends to be a very short game. That's why it suits the "nasty, brutish and short" aspects of the more realistic gritty fantasy. I like the realistic element of RQ combat, that even the best fighter can fall to the wrong opponent. That combat isn't just about rolling dice or hurling fireballs, that there's a tactical element to it.
I agree. It is about the role-playing, no matter the setting used.
And I also agree on the deadliness of RQ combat.
t-tauri said:
Glorantha with the right culture is easy to introduce to a new player. The Orlanthi and Praxian cultures are very similar to earth cultures and easy to introduce. Prax can be run as a Clint Eastwood western without the guns.
Some aspects of it, yes. Others are bit more difficult. And some are just to far fetched to even consider with new gamers. Show them some of the images in the Gloranthan Bestiary and they will just laugh, and not take the game very seriously. Today's generation of players have different standards when it comes to visual style, and what constitutes serious fantasy both in visual style, names, look, and feel of a setting.
Trying to introduce a newbie group to Talislanta (which pretty much is on the same wavelength in some ways) recently, turned out really bad. Luckily I managed to get some intrest from these players by showing them WFRP, and that went much smoother to ease them into.
t-tauri said:
The people of Glorantha are flesh and bone, I think you have a grave misunderstanding of the setting if you think RQ is about weird plant men. It's not Jorune or Tekumel with bizarre inhuman things (Dragonewts excepted, of course). Most of the playable races have very understandable motivations.
Granted, I do not remember much about the setting, since it is over 18 years since I last played in Glorantha. But some of the things just strike me as very weird as I sit here and look through the old books I have.
As for the plant creatures, that is something I yet again got the impression of again, when reading about the very tafty description in the Glorantha Bestiary.
t-tauri said:
You seem to have a desire to produce a setting which clones D&D or apes LotR. Why not just use the mechanics in those settings? Your new players will know the background after all?
Na, not really clones. Just in the similar style. Which is a sort of easy going standard fantasy that do not require a lot of depth or explanation in order to sit down and play with someone who has at least a vague grasp of what elves, orcs, dwarves are.
I have given up even touching D&D again. the d20 system in use in current edition is probably the most stuck-up, downstrapped, and suffocating system I have GMed (not counting Rulemaster).
I want to be able to GM without having to do a lot of preparation work just for NPCs statistics. I want a system so simple that I can determine stats and values on the run, if they should be needed. Try and do that with D&D or any d20, and you will have to take a recess before resuming play. To much interdependency in the system.
My desire for a baseline standard fantasy setting comes most from wanting to have RQ as a replacement for d20, and as a setting writer that wants to have something baseline to compare with when creating my own settings.