More tolkienesque settings?

[Flecha]

Stafford had been working on Glorantha in stories since the fifties. The RQ RPG was created by Steve Perrin and Ray Tunney out of their experiences in the Society for Creative Anachronism simulating man to man combat and reflecting their dissatisfaction with D&D rules. Chaosium published it and used it for RPG in the already established Gloranthan world from the White Bear and Red Moon boardgame. RQ=Glorantha from day one. Stafford and Willis weren't overly involved in the RQ design. IIRC Lynn Willis wasn't even involved in the company.

Basic Role Playing per se, didn't exist until RQ second edition was published in the boxed set, IIRC at the same time as Call of Cthulhu, Worlds of Wonder etc which also had the BRP ruleset in them and on which they were based.

Fumble! I used poorer sources, indeed. Serves me well, for being hyperactive... :wink:

I still believe the facts you've provided can be used in my argument. The game was developed by Perryn and Tunney withouth Glorantha in mind, and then used (it seems that the system was indeed purchased by the company) in Glorantha. If we cosider RQ as the system of Perryn and Tunney with the addition of the magic system logically developed with Glorantha in mind, yes RQ=Glorantha. But then, yes the (comabt and skills and...) system can be used for other settings, since it wasn't created for anyone in mind. Ok, medieval-like settings. Many people has done so for years withouth problem, using other magic systems or even the same magic system.

My point is that affirming "Runequest IS Glorantha" is too strict. Gaming systems are created to mimic (more or less) real combat and skill use, and so should be more or less generic. Then the rules are tweakd to give the flavor of these or that setting. And you can tweak then again to serve another setting.

I just urge a little patience; since the game will be OGL, we'll see what many other people will do, and then you'll be able to judge every work independently.

 

[Flecha]

Yeah, this is a revisionist history I'm afraid.

No, it is not. I was trying to argue that systems and settings can be, and effectively are, dissociiated, and used examples. It wasn't my intention at all to label anything, or being revisionist, even if it seemed so.

And d'y'know what? The less I hear about Narrativist/Simulationist/Gamist theory in the new Runequest the better. Some of us just want a simple, fun game to socialise with our friends. So what are we going to be labelled as? Socialists?

Christ, gaming theory is gaming masterbation. "Just play it" should be the motto of 21st gaming.

Here, surely your intention wasn't to patronize me, but you seemed so.

I don't know, anyway, what's wrong with revisionism, being a valid and legitimate proccess. It can be used to rpgs, too, if so you wish. And it can be used to evolve, a needed proccess for everything, including rpgs.

RPGs, as any human activity has jargons and theories, and again I don't see what is wrong with it. It requires thinking, that's true, but I find thinking funny and enyojing.

Even if it seems the contrary, I enjoy rpg gaming, a lot. My favorite hobby, ever. In fact I like it so much that I don't mind much the system used. All systems have strong and weak points, are more suited for these or that setting, but all are valid and can be properly tweaked. So I don't give a damn which one I play any given time, I just play, because I enjoy playing a lot.

There's a lot of people who don't like D20 because find it unrealistic, and want to try RQ instead, looking for just the contrary. I respect it and find it logical. I like them being critical, critical thought is good for human advancement. I won't tell them to stop complaining about D&D and "just play it".

If you think I'm revisionist or too prone to "gamist jargon", don't ever read Ken Hites column, or Greg Costikyan blog. Just to mention two.

 

[andakitty]

So you are implying that someone who doesn't subscribe to your silly jargon doesn't think.

Don't bother responding. I'm not interested.

 

[Flecha]

That way is easy to be always right.

 

[Archer]

That way is easy to be always right.

And the uz-o-meter shows; 4.5/10 :lol:

Well. Your point is valid regarding RQ as a separate system, even if your facts about RQ/Glorantha were not.

 

[t-tauri]

I still believe the facts you've provided can be used in my argument. The game was developed by Perryn and Tunney withouth Glorantha in mind, and then used (it seems that the system was indeed purchased by the company) in Glorantha.

The RQ game was always designed to be the Gloranthan Roleplaying system. It's not a chicken and egg situation. The system was designed and developed from Day One for Gloranthan roleplaying. The Big Rubble and Pavis was based on Steve Perrin's campaign.

It can be used for other areas of course. To a greater or lesser extent Call of Cthulhu, Pendragon, Ringworld and a lot of other diverse systems all use the same basic Chaosium mechanisms with a great deal of success. Just like D&D is the system for Arneson and Gygax's Blackmoor and Greyhawk settings, RQ is Glorantha.

I just urge a little patience; since the game will be OGL, we'll see what many other people will do, and then you'll be able to judge every work independently.

I don't care what other people do. All I'm interested in is the Glorantha output. I might bite for a Vikings or Dark Ages game or the return of the Ringworld licence, but the rest of it I doubt I'll touch with someone else's bargepole.

 

[Archer]

t-tauri: Never disagreed on this point, only that RQ is Glorantha, as you forcefully expressed it. RQ is strongly associated with Glorantha, yes. But as you say, it can be used for so much more. It will probably not die because of that either, it will only make more players use and buy the game.

 

[Flecha]

Well, thanks, Archer! I just wanted to defend the choice of Mongoose because I find it logical. I tried to give my reasons. That was the whole point, and I think I wasn't rude when I first exposed it.

About the Tolkien-like sttings, Archer, I'm sure that since the game goes OGL, they'll pop up like mushrooms, so we'll have were to choose! :lol:

 

[wartorn]

I don't care what other people do. All I'm interested in is the Glorantha output. I might bite for a Vikings or Dark Ages game or the return of the Ringworld licence, but the rest of it I doubt I'll touch with someone else's bargepole.

But you should care; if you want more Glorantha products the system has to succeed. It's already proven that RQ+Glorantha is not a viable model, that was tried in the 80s and again in the 90s, and it lost both times to a barbarous and complicated iteration of the D20 system. No one is saying Glorantha should disappear, it just needs a less 'quirky' alternative.

 

[t-tauri]

But you should care; if you want more Glorantha products the system has to succeed. It's already proven that RQ+Glorantha is not a viable model, that was tried in the 80s and again in the 90s, and it lost both times to a barbarous and complicated iteration of the D20 system. No one is saying Glorantha should disappear, it just needs a less 'quirky' alternative.

Nope. Don't care.

RQ + Glorantha was extremely viable until the AH licence killed it. GW don't do multivolume hardback print runs of unprofitable systems. In the UK at least RQ was a viable alternative to D&D in terms of numbers of players.

What Glorantha needs is for Greg to not be involved in the business side. His world is superb but the chopping and changing of publishers, the delay in getting product onto shelves, and the lack of a cohesive release schedule made it difficult to involve new players. The HeroQuest system verges on the unplayable.

What Mongoose can do is get the Gloranthan RQ out and then develop it from there. I've no objection to the OGL idea but the core has to be Gloranthan. I'm sure Mongoose has some idea of the potential for sales but the fanbase is there for Glorantha, even if it's nostalgic and misty eyed.

It's people like me who are going to buy it. I haven't bought any new RPG stuff except HeroQuest for years. I've not bought any Mongoose stuff before. My credit card is now armed and ready.

Look at the reaction to the news of the rerelease of RQ on frothers or TMP. Look at the prices old Chaosium RQ stuff goes for on ebay. There's a demand out there for the system and the game world. Mongoose need to fulfill this demand first.

I'm not going to buy OGL stuff unless it appeals very specifically to me. My point in posting is to stress how the "old school" feel. The RQ fanbase is there, I believe, and it wants Glorantha. The quality of Avalon Hill's non-Gloranthan RQ was dire (Vikings excepted, Land of Ninja was just Bushido with RQ stats), same for most of the Gateway material via Judge's Guild. I think that's the path OGL supplements will need to avoid.

I've no problem with OGL RQ coming out, I've played every variant of BRP ever released I don't think the system needs to be chained to Glorantha. I'll be happy if it sells well. I understand the point that OGL will finance more RQ if it sells well.

I just don't want to buy any of it. :lol:

 

[TrippyHippy]

I don't know, anyway, what's wrong with revisionism, being a valid and legitimate proccess. It can be used to rpgs, too, if so you wish. And it can be used to evolve, a needed proccess for everything, including rpgs.

I think you are misinterpreting what I mean by 'revisionist'. What I mean is 'making up history after the event, to suit your own interests'.

I think George Lucas is 'revising history', for example, when he claims that the original Star Wars movie was 'always meant' to be part four of a 'hectology'. This is rubbish! Same thing goes for notions that Glorantha was always 'meant' to played with a 'narrativist' system.

RPGs, as any human activity has jargons and theories, and again I don't see what is wrong with it. It requires thinking, that's true, but I find thinking funny and enyojing.

It's a problem when it distracts from the game. I'm afraid that, for me at least, I find it pretentious and boring and it adds nothing to the quality of entertainment I am paying for. In a rpg I want text that is easy to follow, and systems that are a doddle to learn, simple to apply and work throughout any of the situations that may arise in a game. I will be purchasing Runequest with exactly that in mind. I will not be purchasing it for verbose lectures on how I should play.

If you think I'm revisionist or too prone to "gamist jargon", don't ever read Ken Hites column, or Greg Costikyan blog. Just to mention two.

What I am saying is not designed as a personal attack, so please don't take it that way. If Ken Hite or Greg Costikyan wish to engage me with jargonistic platitudes I wouldn't want to read them either.

 

[wartorn]

Nope. Don't care. *snip*

Well, I'd say you expressed your point exceptionally well. We disagree on a few points but fundamentally we both want the system to succeed and that's a good thing. For the record I'm very interested to see what Mongoose does with Glorantha from here on and will certianly be picking up the first release.

 

[Archer]

Well, thanks, Archer! I just wanted to defend the choice of Mongoose because I find it logical. I tried to give my reasons. That was the whole point, and I think I wasn't rude when I first exposed it.

No, you were not rude.

About the Tolkien-like sttings, Archer, I'm sure that since the game goes OGL, they'll pop up like mushrooms, so we'll have were to choose! :lol:

We can always hope.

 

[Archer]

No one is saying Glorantha should disappear, it just needs a less 'quirky' alternative.

Yes, coexisting settings might be good of business. I would not be sad if MRQ managed to take spearhead position for a while, much as d20 did.

 

[Flecha]

I think you are misinterpreting what I mean by 'revisionist'. What I mean is 'making up history after the event, to suit your own interests'.

That's the same as demagogy and implies the subject, as you say, changes the facts. I tend to think of me as more honest that that! :? I can give wrong data by mistake but wouldn't ever lie or hide the truth just to be right. That'd be cheating anyone, beginning me.

I think George Lucas is 'revising history', for example, when he claims that the original Star Wars movie was 'always meant' to be part four of a 'hectology'. This is rubbish! Same thing goes for notions that Glorantha was always 'meant' to played with a 'narrativist' system.

Ditto on the Lucas claims as rabbish. About Glorantha, I mentioned that were Greg's words and reflections I've read in interviews on the internet and magazines.

It's a problem when it distracts from the game. I'm afraid that, for me at least, I find it pretentious and boring and it adds nothing to the quality of entertainment I am paying for. In a rpg I want text that is easy to follow, and systems that are a doddle to learn, simple to apply and work throughout any of the situations that may arise in a game. I will be purchasing Runequest with exactly that in mind. I will not be purchasing it for verbose lectures on how I should play.

It's an opinion; I myself don't find anything pretentious or boring in theorize. Everything in this world is theorized, and that's fine and great.

Of course, I (all of us!) want easy text and simple to work with systems. No rpg book that I know of has ever told anyone how to play, because it's always the same proccess; as I mentioned before, I don't care which system I'm using, I just play and enjoy all the same.

What I am saying is not designed as a personal attack, so please don't take it that way. If Ken Hite or Greg Costikyan wish to engage me with jargonistic platitudes I wouldn't want to read them either.

No offense taken. You don't need to enter in, so to speak, "game theory", but many of us do, and enjoy it. Anyway, at the end, everyone will end up playing! :wink:

 

[SteveMND]

Wow, such vitriol. I frankly never imagined so much passion could be generated by the issue of system and setting.

Personally, I have always dissasociated the game mechanics and the campaign setting from each other. Greyhawk, Melnibone (I know I spelled that wrong), Forgotten Realms, Glorantha, Arthurian Britain, etc. could all be played with your choice of d20, the RQ rules, d6 rules, White Wolf rules, etc., interchangeably, IMHO. The setting is one thing, the rules are another.

Now, mind you, since many were developed hand-in-hand with a specific setting, it's obviously going to be easier to do those settings with the corresponding rules system, but that doesn't prevent them from using other systems.

Hero Wars, for example, with the "narrative story system" (which I personally can't stand myself, but, oh well) is an excellent example. It was a different game mechanic, but the setting -- Glorantha -- was still the same. Just the way the things were expressed through the rules were different.

 

[TrippyHippy]

The thing that makes me flick the switch about 'gaming theory' is that it's just a gaming fad, that seems to reflect an unhealthy obsession.

I'd bracket in the same way that there was an obsession with 'dark 'n' deep' games in the early 1990s or, indeed the rules heavy 'simulationist' games of the 1980's that 'narrative' games purport to be against. To me there is no difference in attitude between creating overly-complicated mechanics or creating overly-specific mechanics (which is what many 'Narrativist' games are actually doing). It is an irony that 'Narrativism' in this context actually means the same as 'neo-simulationism'.

Moreover, I just wish that gamers would stop making copius references to 'systems' all the time rather than 'games'. I'm tired of suggesting games to other gamers only to be told 'I won't play that, it's d20' or 'I only play dice pool systems' or all the other nonsense which really doesn't matter when you get down to playing.

You'll note, I hope, that I'm not trying to stifle creativity in game design or personally attack the 'game style' of others. I'm just sick of the trend. I just want to point out to game designers that if your snazzy new system involves any of the following:

a) Roll dice under a target number.
b) Roll dice over a target number.
c) Dice pools.

......it's been done already! Get over it!

OK. Rant over.

 

[Archer]

What about D) Roll under Target Number 1, but over Target Number 2?

Sorry, could not resist pulling your leg

Well, while systems, sorry, but the term is appropriate to any artifical construct that is made up of a set of logical pre-defined parameters and rules, is of great importance to some, and some others don't care, we all have our preferences one way or the other. Which of course is evident by the number of games that exist today.

I also want to point out, as a setting writer, the system of a game actually do matter, to some extent. Simply because the rules determine in a part how the reality of the setting actually works.
I have seen several prime examples where you have a great setting, following a certain genre, only to have the rules totally contradict the genre, the setting, and make things that are in line with the genre impossible.
For example, how intressting would the Indiana Jones movies be if we had actually played the story out with for example the RQ3 rules? The hero would be dead several times over.
That is why I say that we can not completely ignore the effects the rules has on a setting.

But this thread is getting quite OT.
As for having a more baseline fantasy setting, I only hope that one will eventually come to exist for RQ. If not just for playing in, for those who want it, then for reference to those who creates their own fantasy settings.

As seen in the preview, with weapons that should not be in Glorantha, and the comment from offical sources, that they are there so that the game should be able to support more settings than Glorantha, we can assume that Mongoose actually have some sort of "generality" in mind with the game, even though some bits will be Glorantha specific.

Stats for Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, etc. will be useful even if you play in a setting where elves are not made from the Plant and Man runes, and they are more the standard pointy-eared-human.

The biggest issue will be creating a magic system, since the included one will be very Glorantha specific. But then, even so it works as good guide on how magic can be done within the rules for any other settings.

Through our discussions in this thread, I have come to the point as a setting designer, where I can see that RQ with it's Gloranta-centric material can be used as a baseline setting, even if it is more inkonvenient than a real baseline 1A Fantasy setting.

As a GM, I still feel that a more generic fantasy setting would have been a good idea, to grab that piece of the market from the start, and lure those players who now play other games in such settings to try RQ. Providing both an half-oddball setting (Glorantha) and a standard 1A Fantasy setting, then a truly different setting (I am not sure Lankhmar qualifies), would be a good thing to show the different aspects of how RQ can be used within the fantasy genre as a whole.
However, I also understand the difficulties this would entail as you are trying to pitch three different fantasy settings for one rules-set at the same time. That might be potentially lethal to the future of the game, and Mongoose's business.
Perhaps a setting in a non-fantasy genre such as post-apocalyptic or Science Fiction/Space Opera would be a good idea. But that might also be something that has to be on hold until the game has got is footing.