To what extent was Glorantha a factor in your interest in RQ

[Vile]

I personally started playing and running RuneQuest (2nd edition) because Glorantha sounded cool. However, only about 10% (no, probably less) of other players I've gamed with had any interest in the "deeper" bits of Glorantha. And this was before the internet age, when most people's opinion was influenced by someone they knew rather than a random, ill-conceived misunderstanding blown out of all proportion through the wonder of the web.

I quite like Glorantha, but I don't game in it much. There's no way that it can be described as an easily-accessible setting. I don't know how, if at all, Glorantha figures as a factor in MRQ2 sales, but I don't see the harm in following the Traveller model - decouple the system and the setting, support both but don't make Glorantha a requirement for playing RQ. The best thing about RQ for me has always been that it's so easy to adapt the system to any setting.

 

[HalfOrc HalfBiscuit]

I've been tracking the poll results throughout the day, and the consistency of the proportions of the results has been surprising. It's currently at 41 votes as I write this.

For example the first two options have consistently accounted for about half of the votes, while option 1 has never been far from 1/3 of the votes. This consistency leads me to believe that the results of the poll are probably pretty representative. If there had been more dramatic swings in the results breakdown I'd have less confidence in the poll.

Currently option 1 is at 12 votes and option 2 is at 10 votes. Other has been at 2 votes for quite a while.

Only option 1 and Other give no weight to familiarity with the Gloranthan setting as a factor in being interested in RQ2. This implies that about 2/3 of the people buying into RQ are doing so at least in part because of Glorantha. Glorantha seems to be a principal factor for a little less that half of respondents so far.

It'll be interesting to see if the results change much over the remaining lifetime of the poll, which is a few days.

Simon Hibbs

I think you have to be careful in interpreting the results. I opted for option 2 - because I do find Glorantha "interesting" and it is "part of the appeal" because I know I will find things in there I can lift or be inspired by, but I am highly unlikely to run a Gloranthan campaign, and the support for Glorantha formed no part of my buying decision - I have bought into MRQ2 because it is a fantastic ruleset (and I may run an Elric/Eternal Champion campaign at some point).

You can equally well look at the poll results (so far) and say that for well over half the respondents Glorantha seems to have played no or only a minor part in their decision to purchase MRQ2.

 

[simonh]

Writing polls is tricky, especially when you're trying to make it short and encapsulate a complex subject.

To true. The best you can hope for is for the poll results to be indicative rather than proof of anything. The best we can probably say is that there are more people for whom Glorantha is a low factor than those for which it is a high factor, but the Glorantha fans are quite a sizeable minority. If you look at the Glorantha/Non-Glorantha setting book and supplement split Mongoose appear to have it about right.

There are all kinds of other issues the poll doesn't address as well. For example it might be possible to argue that The Gloranthan take on religions and magic influences the RQ mechanics and that without Glorantha, or with a more generic fantasy background attached to it, the RQ magic systems might evolve in very different ways. Would RQ2 have a spirit magic system at all if it weren't for Glorantha for example?

I'm not arguing that this effect is a big or small factor, it's probably unknowable, but if it's a significant factor then depending on whether you think that influence is a good or bad thing it may affect how well you like RQ even if you have no direct interest in Glorantha at all.

Simon Hibbs

 

[Halbard]

Would not accept RQ as RuneQuest without Glorantha, been looking a lot at HeroQuest system but its not for me or my group. Do use their material though, as I so far only run 3:rd age Sartar rising campaigns.
In that aspect I am not that deep in to Mongoose Glorantha, but any Glorantha is interesting to me.

But its great and speaks to the game's new found strenghts that there are more settings, and would be interesting to see even more settings. Could easily be used for Chtulu, and other similar settings (WW WoD perhaps without the tedious full hand of dice rolling).

Just bought Pavis rising, cant wait for some holiday to actually read it.

 

[The King]

Glorantha and Runequest are tied because of their origin like Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms are tied with Dungeons & Dragons. You may play also both game/setting separately.

I even wonder whether Dungeons & Dragons (3rd or 4th edition rules) would be a good system for Glorantha (especially for going on Quest).

 

[Khamulcalle]

I started to play RQ and Glorantha back in -81

Loved it!

 

[Simulacrum]

Likewise circa 1981 - best roleplaying days I ever had were spent in Pavis, the Rubble, Prax and Balazar. But the whole explosion of "Gloranthan Lore" in the late 80s (which was entirely divorced from playing games, see the old Gloranthan Digest ad infinitum and then some) was something of a turn off to say the least. I really don't think Glorantha benefited much from all those years of discussing angels dancing on the heads of pins as various "experts" disappeared up their own fundaments, although the hardcore would say they kept it alive.

When people say they find Glorantha impenetrable, I often think its a product of all that (I was once on a pub quiz team at Convulsion with Greg Stafford, and he was pretty bemused about what people on the other teams seemed to "know" about Glorantha), as it has leached into the way it is now presented as agaming world. The light touch of the early Chaosium publications had a charm all of its own, where the brilliant creative ideas, and sheer sense of fun, leapt off the page and onto the gaming table. Finally, the addition over the years after RQ3 was published of western wizardry was of a different character - essentially adding the sort of pseudo-medieval cultures (even just the use of language such as "church", "saint" etc) I played Glorantha to avoid.

But what our gaming group actually took from it all was RQ itself. We discovered RQ and stopped playing D&D there and then, explored Glorantha for many years through RQ, and pretty quickly started using RQ for other fantasy settings too. We even invented a skill percentile-based sorcery system to use in non-gloranthan settings, which served OK until RQ3 came out and trumped it in very big style, so we welcomed it with open arms. Loz and Pete's MRQ2 has gone a very long way to fixing RQ as the elegant and fun system it started out as, yet with added sophistication. And don't get me wrong - I still buy the new Gloranthan stuff to read, and very good some of it is too. It inspires and challenges in equal measure. But I for one still miss exploring the Puzzle Canal blissfully unaware of the mythic importance of my actions...

 

[Mark Mohrfield]

When people say they find Glorantha impenetrable, I often think its a product of all that (I was once on a pub quiz team at Convulsion with Greg Stafford, and he was pretty bemused about what people on the other teams seemed to "know" about Glorantha), as it has leached into the way it is now presented as agaming world. The light touch of the early Chaosium publications had a charm all of its own, where the brilliant creative ideas, and sheer sense of fun, leapt off the page and onto the gaming table. Finally, the addition over the years after RQ3 was published of western wizardry was of a different character - essentially adding the sort of pseudo-medieval cultures (even just the use of language such as "church", "saint" etc) I played Glorantha to avoid.

As a brief aside, recent information on the West seems to indicated that it isn't really all that much like medieval europe (or the pseudo-medieval europe of many rpgs), to the point where those working on it agree that the terms are misleading. There's also been a real move in recent Glorantha publications to recapture the feel of the old RQ2 boxe supplements, while still retaining the new stuff we've learned since then.

 

[Radioactive Ape Colin]

I voted "Other" because I have an interest in Glorantha, just not with MRQ2 Glorantha.

I'm a Glorantha fan, but I don't want to play in it using MRQ2 (I use HQ2 for Glorantha). I wasn't (and still am not) interested in MRQ2 for its take on Glorantha at all; I was interested in MRQ2 purely as a fantasy ruleset with some historical supplement support. What really sold me on it, however, was Clockwork & Chivalry.

Colin

 

[sdavies2720]

...To true. The best you can hope for is for the poll results to be indicative rather than proof of anything. The best we can probably say is that there are more people for whom Glorantha is a low factor than those for which it is a high factor, but the Glorantha fans are quite a sizeable minority. If you look at the Glorantha/Non-Glorantha setting book and supplement split Mongoose appear to have it about right.
...

I wonder if asking the converse set of questions would provide any information: If people are buying Mongoose Glorantha stuff, how much is their decision affected by the fact that it's written for RQII?

I know for me, the only reason I'm buying Glorantha stuff is to get RQII ideas and tidbits that I can use in my RQ campaign. Same for Elric.

Steve

 

[nicomos]

Not at all. We first started playing back in the early 80s, and aside from the rule book and the war game (red moon/white moon was it?), we didn't have a whole lot of background info t
And, really it wasn't the setting that appealed to us, it was the rules. Rq made much more sense to us then d&d which was to abstract. So we.just did our own thing world wise.



Over the years i have bough every edition of rq, but i never bothered with the Glorantha books.

Recently I started an mrq game, with the intentions of using Glorantha, until i looked at the amount of material out there that has popped up over the years There is just to much fod me to want to even begin to want to invest tbe time or effort