What are the next books for Glorantha?

Oh my God! That' smy local FLGS! They get my orders in when I give them a heads up about releases and last I looked have the main book. The GW Monsters book and Strangers in Prax are mine which I part exchanged when clearing out old games. As are some of the 2nd hand MRQ1 books, probably!

Where do you live Phil? PM me if you're local to Bristol as I plan to run at the University on a very ad-hoc basis due to chaotic shift patterns.
 
Hmm, not sure what is on the cards since I have only just rejoined the company. I imagine future releases will be revealed in Matt's State of the Mongoose post in the next few weeks.
 
The King said:
Matt rarely says exactly the name of the books in his State of the Mongoose.
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The writers have been given their list of projects for the next six or twelve months. However...

We don't like to talk about forthcoming books for two reasons. Firstly it is Matt's prerogative to reveal the line-up in his State of the Mongoose address. Secondly, it often happens that books will get yanked from the schedule or changed due to how well a line sells, availability of new licenses or simply that Matt is struck by inspiration whilst stepping into the bath.

The upshot is, that its best not to reveal future books until we are actually physically writing it - which is the only guarantee that it won't be removed from the schedule at zero hour. You never know what unexpected quirk of fate will throw a spanner in the works.
 
Mongoose Pete said:
The upshot is, that its best not to reveal future books until we are actually physically writing it - which is the only guarantee that it won't be removed from the schedule at zero hour. You never know what unexpected quirk of fate will throw a spanner in the works.
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This I can understand, but still I like to know in advance the titles of the forthcoming books even if some will never be released.
 
The King said:
My question is about long term vision for Glorantha, not necessarily the planning for next month.
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To be honest, I would guess MRQIII.

As time goes on, it gets harder and harder to make splatbooks that have wide appeal. Also, the more books you have, the more intimidating a game appears to new gamers (or even old gamers looking for a new game). Most people aren't willing, or just can't afford, to spend hundreds of [local currency] to jump into a new game; let alone having the time to read through it all even if they did.

I prefer fantasy over science-fiction but I have many friends who are the opposite. They won't even look at Traveller. Too much information spread out over too many books with too high of an entry cost.

I remember back in the '80's when people would buy rpg materials (without the aid of the Internet mind you) and if it wasn't good they'd shrug their shoulders and move on. You have more access to information now (though not always accurate) but finances for most people are a lot tighter; you can't just buy books on whimsy anymore.

jolt
 
It does seem a little troubling (to me anyway) that the new releases for MRQ2 seem to be few and far between for the next few months. As discussed for a while on the GURPS forums, sales of RPG stuff has been steadily in decline for a while now.

Is the current lack of MRQ2 stuff a shift in emphasis by the 'Goose to other more profitable areas?
 
Must admit that I also have very little interest in 'splat' books and am not even sure that they make any kind of sense in RQ. Then again I've never been a d20 person so I've never really understood them anyway.

My personal interest tends to be in settings. What I like best is the savage Worlds model where you have one simple core book then everything else just does its own thing. As a GM I like then to raid these for my own ideas.

RQII sort of does this but I tend to find there are too many dependencies. For example to run Pavis Rises I really need the Core book, Monster Coliseum, Glorantha & Cults of Glorantha. I can see Loz tried to keep the books you need to buy down but that's still an expensive investment not to mention a back-pack breaking load to carry around. It also reinforces the perception that Glorantha has too much detail to get into if you don't already know it. Much though I love the Glorantha line I do reckon it intimidates many.
 
I suspect that what Glorantha needs now is not more Splat Books, apart from the EWF book that is, but adventures/settings. The "Runequest Revival" books like Sun County provide a great example: useful scene-setting "splat" material but the core is a good, tight, well-tested campaign or set of adventures.

I think nothing better shows how Glorantha works than adventures, which is why Hero Wars/Heroquest 1 fizzled, I think - too much splat and not enough adventure. So far the Mongoose Glorantha adventures - Blood of Orlanth, Dara Happa Stirs and, from what I gather, Pavis Rises (still hoping to play that one!), do that.

Now I think about it, fan publications used to do this for RQIII, but the licensing rules now look nightmarish (although they may not actually be so, but they do scare non-lawyers like me). I for one would love to see a MRQ Glorantha fan publication. Tales of the Cosmic Dragon? Runequest Adventures Redux (or Reducks)?

As for MRQ settings, I have Vikings, Wraith Recon and Clockwork & Chivalry and love them all. Age of Treason looks to be a great addition to the range. Again, they could do with fan support. Perhaps a generic MRQ fan publication could do that - something like what Fight On does for the Old School games.

Anyone interested in helping to form an editorial team?

Edit: This is not to say that S&P isn't great - it is. But a dedicated fan mag could have 10 or more MRQ articles each issue, rather than the 1-3 in S&P.
 
Ultor said:
As for MRQ settings, I have Vikings, Wraith Recon and Clockwork & Chivalry and love them all. Age of Treason looks to be a great addition to the range.
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I agree, I love them all too. More publications in new settings (historical and/or fictional) is the path to my wallet as I’ll buy these just for reading – without worrying about whether I’ll ever play it or not. I won’t consider buying a splatbook unless I’m actually going to play that setting, or unless it’s obviously useful for something else I’m doing (like Cults of Glorantha has proven).

I look forward to more settings from Mongoose and I think the third-party MRQII - Clockwork & Chivalry relationship is great for the game.
 
Ultor said:
I suspect that what Glorantha needs now is not more Splat Books, apart from the EWF book that is, but adventures/settings. The "Runequest Revival" books like Sun County provide a great example: useful scene-setting "splat" material but the core is a good, tight, well-tested campaign or set of adventures.

I think nothing better shows how Glorantha works than adventures, which is why Hero Wars/Heroquest 1 fizzled, I think - too much splat and not enough adventure. So far the Mongoose Glorantha adventures - Blood of Orlanth, Dara Happa Stirs and, from what I gather, Pavis Rises (still hoping to play that one!), do that.
Click to expand...

+1 to all you've said! :D

I don't think I have enough time to join the editorial team, but count me in, anyway!
 
I had a friend who used to work for a large gaming company (I won't say which one) and he had said that the reason many companies had scaled back on adventures, especially the smaller scale one-shot module type adventures, is that they just don't make money.

I don't know why that would be and it wasn't his decision so he couldn't explain it but unless you can make a niche for yourself, like Dungeon Crawl Classics did, it apparently isn't worth the time or money to invest in developing adventures. Whether that's still true or not I don't know but it would explain why you don't see the "adventure module" format much anymore.

jolt
 
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