Some issues with Cults of Glorantha Volume 1

[Blackyinkin]

Mongoose Doghouse

>Re: The troll appearance issue. This is not going to change - for >Mongoose RuneQuest, trolls appear in the manner they are presented in >our books. We understand that some people don't like them - hell, we'd >love to please everyone all the time! - but we're not changing our >position.

So the fact that the UZ of RQ and Glorantha are one of the most detailed and developed monster races in gaming history, whose anatomy, physiology, psychology, culture and mythology have been explored in nearly a dozen books and deatiled for the the last 25 years means nothing to the publishing house in question. Basically shut up and put up is the message that you are putting across to your public. An attitude that I am glad to say is not held by other publishers of Gloranthan materials. Having produced licenced texts on this very subject, which I have not only illustrated, but art directed as well I can only shake my head in sorrow that this is the approach taken by Mongoose, I had expected more from you.

I think Mongoose needs to get its editting in order, it is damaging its own product with these persistent inaccuracies and errors. The game rules are being messed up, along with the background and setting. This is a crying shame. I wanted to support and promote your product, but such attitudes make it difficult to side with your cause. What does Mr Sprange have to say over these issues?

Simon Bray

 

[Rurik]

Re: The troll appearance issue. This is not going to change - for Mongoose RuneQuest, trolls appear in the manner they are presented in our books. We understand that some people don't like them - hell, we'd love to please everyone all the time! - but we're not changing our position.

This statement makes no sense in a couple of ways.

First, the way they are presented in the books is not uniform. Many of the troll illustrations conform to the 'classic' Gloranthan appearance. It does not appear that there was ever a decision to change troll snouts - only that artists were allowed to interpret trolls how they wanted. Some went with pig snouts and some went with classic snouts. I suspect the later were (or became) familiar with Gloranthan trolls and the former were not. Either way there appears to be no single manner how they appear in the books.

Second, who exactly would Mongoose be not pleasing by sticking with the classic troll appearance? Would they be pissing off legions of potential future fans to be by sticking with the classic troll image? I doubt it - players new to Glorantha are not going to be pissed off by how trolls appear.

 

[Trifletraxor]

Mongoose Doghouse

>Re: The troll appearance issue. This is not going to change - for >Mongoose RuneQuest, trolls appear in the manner they are presented in >our books. We understand that some people don't like them - hell, we'd >love to please everyone all the time! - but we're not changing our >position.

What the hell? Who the f**k said that? Not anyone in charge I hope!? The rule system need so much work to be playable, the horrible editing is lessening the quality Glorantha books before they get to the printa, and now they want to play hardball with the trolls looking like pigs!!? If the Guide to Trolls turns out to be filled with a bunch of pig drawings you can buy all my MRQ books on eBay!

SGL.

 

[Trifletraxor]

Hey all,

I don't often get involved in the forums but I thought I'd make a brief appearance on this thread.

Re: The perceived 'heavy-handed' editing of Cults of Glorantha: Volume 1. A lot of this is due to the fact that both of the Cults books were written to an early draft version of the RQ rules. There were significant differences between the older versions of the RQ rules and the final version. It fell to the editor to do a great deal of revision once the Cults text came in, hence it may appear as ‘heavy-handed’ – however, heavy editing is not the same as heavy-handed editing.

Re: The troll appearance issue. This is not going to change - for Mongoose RuneQuest, trolls appear in the manner they are presented in our books. We understand that some people don't like them - hell, we'd love to please everyone all the time! - but we're not changing our position.

Anyway, thanks for reading,

Ian

Oh... There it goes. Goddamn disappoiting to really see what kind of people who've got their hands on the RuneQuest name. If this is official, I'm out.

...

 

[JonGeere]

Most of the issue for me is the bad editing in CoG1. The product does not add up, particularly figuring out what Divine Spells from the Companion book worshipers do have access to. Also the weakness of many Divine Spells does not make sense, unless the connection with the Gods was actually weak in the 2nd Age.

Much smacks of bad editing. For example Humakt does not have True (Sword) listed yet it can be taught in their shrines, Xiola Umbar 'she is referred to as the brother of...', Zorak Zoran having no Associate Cults etc. etc.

Or is this something that we put up and shut up about? Why don't you send the edited ms to someone to check?

 

[Blackyinkin]

Hi All,

I have directly contacted Matthew Sprange over these issues and eagerly await his reply. I hope he will direct it towards the group and give him a chance to air his views with us all.

Simon

 

[gamesmeister]

Re: The perceived 'heavy-handed' editing of Cults of Glorantha: Volume 1. A lot of this is due to the fact that both of the Cults books were written to an early draft version of the RQ rules. There were significant differences between the older versions of the RQ rules and the final version. It fell to the editor to do a great deal of revision once the Cults text came in, hence it may appear as ‘heavy-handed’ – however, heavy editing is not the same as heavy-handed editing.

That's fair enough, but the editing appears to have been rushed through without allowing the time required to correct all the issues arising. I spent several years editing for a well known games company, and I know the time pressures involved, but you have to get the basic stuff right. IMO, there are too many errors in the book (particularly the spell lists) to be acceptable. And it's a shame too, because much of the book is really good.

Re: The troll appearance issue. This is not going to change - for Mongoose RuneQuest, trolls appear in the manner they are presented in our books. We understand that some people don't like them - hell, we'd love to please everyone all the time! - but we're not changing our position.

While the first point is acceptable, this one isn't.

"You may be our paying customers, and you may think you know what you want, but in fact you don't, we do, and that's what we're going to give you".

Not withstanding the huge amount of background material already published on troll physiology, there is clearly a great deal of dislike for the new look trolls. So why you declare that you will continue with them come what may is simply bewildering, and smacks of arrogance.

Heck, it's your license, you can do what you want with it, but when you have a legion of existing fans who want nothing more than to spend money on new Runequest books, why go out of your way to upset them? Just doesn't make any sense... :?

 

[homerjsinnott]

Oh God please give it a rest over the troll/Pig thing, there are more important issues, and to be blunt they don't have to look like that in your world and will never do so in mine. To be honest the huge cock up with the magic system seems much more important than a 2nd rate picture that I would never show my players any way. It just seems a distraction.

Trifletraxor, someone in charge did say that and it really doesn't help if you are rude and use threats.

I agree with Rurik about who it is going to please or no, but it will add that the Troll thing makes the game more familiar to players of another game who shall remain nameless, thus making it more palatable to a wider (but not better) audience. Note that I'm NOT saying I agree with this.

 

[gamesmeister]

Hi All,

I have directly contacted Matthew Sprange over these issues and eagerly await his reply. I hope he will direct it towards the group and give him a chance to air his views with us all.

Simon

Thanks Simon, and good to see you on these boards.

 

[Exubae]

Oh God please give it a rest over the troll/Pig thing

So are Mongoose are ditching all the meaty goodness from the likes Troll Pack and Herowars Uz, it just seems a step back from the heavily defined Gloranthan Troll to miss piggy on steroids.

I'm not bothered about The Troll illustrations in non-glorantha stuff, different setting different appearance fair enough - but Trolls are the most highly defined race in Glorantha, it seem blasted stupid to mess with their appearance in that setting.

When can we expect to see erata for CoG1 to fix the EDITING job thats been done to it?

 

[Iyan]

I definately agree with the people who are talking about heavy handed editing here. I have yet to see CoG, but what I've seen as examples in this thread scares me.

First off, there has definately been some heavy handed editing here if all healing spells are gone from Chalana Arroy. What's the point of a healing cult with restrictions against taking up arms if the cult is no good at healing? And making Crush into Bludgeon 1.. Just repeating what alot of other people are saying here, but it seems rather ludicrous that we are expected to buy these books to play, however we'll need to spend hours upon hours editing the books ourselves to make the game playable.

Another issue I have right now, is how one of the main people behind MRQ manages to tell us players that we just need to suck it up about the troll snouts. Like someone said in another post, who would be upset if the trolls kept the snouts illustrated in most of the REALLY exellent writeups on trolls? It would upset noone, old players love the old trolls, new players wouldn't know the difference. And as said earlier, the troll drawings aren't all of pig snouts.

You guys have a nice and big base of loyal fans who are waiting to buy your books, and you have a wonderful product to work with. I just wish the editing wasn't so heavy it actually ruins things.

 

[Blackyinkin]

Oh God please give it a rest over the troll/Pig thing, there are more important issues, and to be blunt they don't have to look like that in your world and will never do so in mine. To be honest the huge cock up with the magic system seems much more important than a 2nd rate picture that I would never show my players any way. It just seems a distraction.

Surely it is about a publishing companies attitude to its fan base and the work that has gone before that is at issue here. Not the shape of a trolls muzzle that is at stake. The message from Ian Belcher is clearly one of we are doing it this way, like it or not. If this is their corporate and marketting tactic then it dismays me.

I agree that the magic system is becoming flawed, and there is becoming a pressing need for Runequest Errata, a 256 page supplement.

With Love Simon

 

[Iyan]

I agree with you Simon. It's not about the Troll Snouts. From what emerged in this thread, it just represents an attitude towards the players (customers) which I can't say I find particularly appealing. I also find it somewhat a disrespect to the old players to not get the facts about Glorantha straight before publishing information about it. Some of the errors can be misunderstandings (there's alot of writeups out there), but some are just errors made with haste it seems to me.

 

[telsor]

I'll join the chorus.

MP seems to care nothing about Glorantha, RQ, a workable system, or it's customers.

Just get those (tiny) books out on a regular basis so the $'s come in. The rest be damned. I'm not sure if they have a cash flow problem or are just greedy and shortsighted.

Trouble with that attitude is that in my group, we tend to buy almost everything that comes out about the games we play ( as we have so far ), often 2 copies. This equates to lots of sales for a good game. Collectively, we're sick of the poor quality of what we've bought, so the game has been scrapped and nothing more will be bought about MRQ and we'll be very leery about anything else MP puts out.

We're back to playing RQ3.

 

[Trifletraxor]

MP seems to care nothing about Glorantha, RQ, a workable system, or it's customers.

Just get those (tiny) books out on a regular basis so the $'s come in. The rest be damned. I'm not sure if they have a cash flow problem or are just greedy and shortsighted.

We're back to playing RQ3.

From what I've seen I'd probably go with the greedy and shortsighted. Release some almost useless "generic" rule books, some nice but edited away glorantha books, and do it with an attitude.

SGL.

 

[Trifletraxor]

Oh God please give it a rest over the troll/Pig thing, there are more important issues, and to be blunt they don't have to look like that in your world and will never do so in mine. To be honest the huge cock up with the magic system seems much more important than a 2nd rate picture that I would never show my players any way. It just seems a distraction.

Trifletraxor, someone in charge did say that and it really doesn't help if you are rude and use threats.

Well, scuse me for being pissed off by the attitude. To me, the whole rule system need heavy houseruling, something I've accepted. I had hoped MRQ would be a nice fresh new wind with quality scenarios, and that I could play 2nd Age parallell to my RQ3 3rd Age gaming. If the "feel" of Glorantha will be gone too, I don't see much point in playing MRQ. And it was hardly a threat, I was just stating a fact. I'm not buying any more books before I see how Guide to Trolls turns out. I have no illusions that MP views the exit of another RQ3-player as much of a threat, as they seem to be appealing for to the D20 crowd anyway, not old RQ players.

SGL.

 

[homerjsinnott]

Well, scuse me for being pissed off by their attitude.

I am just as annoyed with this as you, but shouting in someones face that they have got to change their mind is not going to get them to agree with you. I feel that they may have some art for other systems that they haven't got around to using and have decided to use it for RQ. Perhaps you could start up a petition or ask people to pm the person who makes this kind of decision (these are serious suggestions). And I agree this annoucement was done in a very artless way.

To me, the whole rule system need heavy houseruling, something I've accepted.

I totally agree, esp the combat and magic.

I had hoped MRQ would be a nice fresh new wind But they seem to be appealing for to the D20 crowd anyway, not old RQ players.

I think they see the D&D type market as being larger and more lucrative (as shown by the page count debate) and are trying to compete with the big two (WW and hasbro).

At the minute I am still out on wether I buy anymore RQ stuff or if I just get it cheap on ebay when everybody dumps it.

 

[Dead Blue Clown]

I think they see the D&D type market as being larger and more lucrative (as shown by the page count debate) and are trying to compete with the big two (WW and hasbro).
.

Nope. It's an industry thing. Poor sales throughout the industry necessitated this change to slimmer hardbacks for all the big companies.

It's really that simple. If you still want to see hidden sneakiness in there, that's fine. But I've told you the truth and it's a well-known industry trend now.

 

[Banned Beetle]

That's it for me. Just gotten banned from the forum.

It's been fun discussing and debating with you all!

So long!

Trifletraxor.

 

[Exubae]

I agree that the magic system is becoming flawed, and there is becoming a pressing need for Runequest Errata, a 256 page supplement

They probably have to edit it down, to 90 pages to get it all to fit in a 90 page hard back book with large print and no index.

Sorry that was childish