Ok, did you see my other thread, about Tekumel? This is basically the same about Glorantha.

I just don't get this setting. I didn't get the appeal it had when it was too-wierd bronze age fantasy with duck-men, but it was close to tolerable. I REALLY didn't get it when it was suddenly turned into a superhero setting for no good reason and the authors claimed that the setting was meant to be this way all along.

So again, What the FUCK?  Can anyone explain this setting in a way that it is not excessively wierd, that one can connect to it?

RPGPundit

Funny, I've always thought of it as bronze age shamanistic epic role-playing. It's always had that mythic vibe for me.

I haven't seen the "superhero" version, but I suspect you're letting your memories of comic books color your impressions. What are superheroes but gods who moonlight as mortals?

Glorantha is a world of heroes and gods. A time when deeds will echo down through time, and a walk to the store can spawn myth cycles until the end of time. It's a time when individuals matter in a way they never will again.

And it has more tropes than a straighforward ripoff of Lord of the Rings.

Glorantha was created, and is still guided, by an amateur ethnologist and mythographer. Greg Stafford is also a practicing shaman. It is his expression of his ideas on myth and legend. It's his take on ethnography. All under the assumption that reality is basically not understandable. That no matter what we learn, we will never really understand what is around us. We can't even come to a loose approximation. It's anti-scientific.

At the same time, Grey does have fun with hiding scientific tropes in the setting. The Dark Trolls, the Uzko, preferentially live in areas with high concentrations of lead. Officially the Uzko are under a curse. Thus the trollkin. But lead is associted with radioactive materials. Matter of fact, some isotopes of lead are radioactive. It's not a curse, the trollkin are the result of birth defects and mutations.

BTW, the superhero stuff is nothing new. I recall an article in Greg's old Wyrm's Footnotes in which he talked about the dragonnewt metamorphosis into dragon. It was a rare dragonnewt that actually became a dragon.

One last thing that might help you understand Glorantha. All those mountains scattered hither and yon, almost as if dragons had gone to sleep at those locations? Those are dragons who have gone to sleep at those locations, and one day they might wake up.

For me the Hero Wars and Heroquest doesnt exist. It stopped and started with the 2nd Edition (in my case RQII the Games Workshop edition).

Yes the ducks and dragon newts seem odd, but they did have the scorpion men and BROOS.

Also, Glorantha is defined by myth alone. This is, if we make enough Heoric Quests so we modify a myth (for example, the death of a heroe) we would actually change the history, the laws of the world, and the like. Reality changes to acommodate to the myths.

Now this is getting strange. The two WTF settings so far - Tekumel and now Glorantha - are some of the settings I been interested in for some time. I  really liked parts of Glorantha and the new Tekumel sounds pretty interesting. Can't wait to see what other settings make it into the WTF list

Regards,
David R

Glorantha has room for all kinds of different treatments at the hands of different groups. From what I've seen/heard, ducks are easy to write out--they're not a major factor in the setting, just one that attracts attention from casual reviewers.

I think the keys to Glorantha, regardless of the game system, are the connections to cult & clan, and the semi-relativistic metaphysics (i.e., there's no canonical perspective on gods & magic).

As much as I like RQ, I have to say that I'm with you on this one. Glorantha is excessively weird, and perhaps far too baroque for any but the most dedicated fans to fully appreciate.

Oh, are you going to have a "Jorune: What the Fuck??" thread?

Quote from: mattormegOh, are you going to have a "Jorune: What the Fuck??" thread?

Jorune, probably my favourite setting of all time. There's definitely going to be a WTF thread...

Regards,
David R

The only stuff I read about Glorantha came from the booklet in the RQ3 box and some snippets from the Hero Wars rules (which I found rather incomprehensible). It never looked that great to me. Too much folk charm magic, and I'm not a big fan of the tribal celtic stuff either.

I did like the ducks. Them got purty beaks.

I like ducks as a sapient race. It's a sign that maybe, just maybe, the designer was showing a sense of humor. Perhaps that is anathema to those who cannot countenance anything that smacks of humor in something as deadly serious as a game.

Howard the Duck - the fantastic 70s-era comic, not the piss-poor movie - showed that what is ridiculous-looking depends on the observer. Howard - "trapped in a world he never made" - found himself taken from his hum-drum life and dumped into a world of insanity, one that was run by "hairless apes," a thoroughly ridiculous notion to Howard.

Howard had all manner of adventures, from a planes-hopping first appearance, to a true swords & sorcery invasion of a sorcerer's tower, complete with Howard in a horned helm, sword in hand.

You can guess that I don't find ducks as an intelligent race any more stupid that any of the other "normal" fantasy races found in RPGs.

As for Glorantha, I have to admit it was, overall, never really my cup of tea. It was interesting, and the base assumptions of the setting were pretty original for a RPG setting. But it just never clicked with me.

Col.

re Howard: Don't forget the vampire cow.

I could never forget the vampire cow. Howard battled it in my hometown of Cleveland, where he was based for a good while.

Now, the funny thing is, after playing AD&D for two years, Glorantha was first coherent setting that I played in, and it immediately caused me to turn my back on the hodge-podge non-world of D&D.

Part of the beauty of Glorantha -- especially in its original presentation in RuneQuest -- is that it is a world where great, vast, incredible things are happening all around you, but you start out as a cowherd in some remote mountain village, vaguely aware of the invasion of your homeland by the empire to the north.  Your appetite for adventure gets whetted by the troll who attacks you while you're driving your father's cattle to market, then you get roped into some minor skirmishes with the Lunar Empire auxiliaries and find yourself branded as an outlaw.  Hightailing it east over the mountains and into the prairies of Prax, you get abducted by beast-riding nomads, sold into slavery, you escape and make your way to the Lunar-held frontier town of Pavis.  All the while, you amass skill and fortune and work your way up to becoming a hero.

Now, the "superhero" aspect that you mention has always been there as background material.  Not "superheroes" like capes and spandex, but superheroes in the sense of heroes of cultural myth and legend.  There are truly mythic movers-and-shakers out there, but RuneQuest wasn't quite geared to take the action onto the godlike level very effectively.  HeroQuest was written specifically to manage that, along with handling action on a simpler, more mundane scale.  Mechanics aside, there was never a sudden change for no good reason -- these were, in fact, elements that were always there in the setting.

In your Tékumel: WTF? thread, you were grasping for cultural references to understand the setting (which I think is wholly inappropriate to Tékumel, but that's another fish to fry).  In Glorantha, at least with it's original scope in the Dragon Pass/Prax region, there were handy parallels there for you, weird though they might seem.  The Sartarites of Dragon Pass are semi-barbaric peoples, a lot like the Gauls of Roman-Empire-era Europe.  The chaos-embracing Lunar Empire to the north is a lot like the Alexandrian Greeks with a lot of Persian and Roman elements.  The Praxian nomads are, culturally, much like the plains indians of North America, though each tribe rides a different herd beast instead of horses.  That was the original, fundamental scope of the setting, and it was eminently grok-able.

As for strange creatures, well, how is that any different from bog-standard D&D?  What the hell is an otyugh, much less a neo-otyugh?  Ducks were and are a source of much controversy -- many people simply can't take them seriously.  The intelligent baboons always seemed cool to me.  Nomads riding bison, and rhinos, and antelope -- they threw me a pleasant curve from the usual horse-riding barbarians (which you can find either in the hills west of Sartar, or in the wastes northeast of Prax).  Dragonewts made fine sense, as a society of immature dragons who had to be reincarnated into successively more powerful forms.  Trolls and their stunted trollkin were a fully-fleshed race of antagonists.

Honestly, what's not to get?

!i!

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaNow, the funny thing is, after playing AD&D for two years, Glorantha was first coherent setting that I played in, and it immediately caused me to turn my back on the hodge-podge non-world of D&D.

Now, the "superhero" aspect that you mention has always been there as background material.  Not "superheroes" like capes and spandex, but superheroes in the sense of heroes of cultural myth and legend.  There are truly mythic movers-and-shakers out there, but RuneQuest wasn't quite geared to take the action onto the godlike level very effectively.  HeroQuest was written specifically to manage that, along with handling action on a simpler, more mundane scale.  Mechanics aside, there was never a sudden change for no good reason -- these were, in fact, elements that were always there in the setting.

Yea, see, I don't get on the one hand why a lot of the shitheads who rag on Forgotten Realms for being filled with uber NPCs are the same ones who praise Glorantha, when its got dudes running around like they were Firestorm or Superman in bronze-age drag.

On the other hand, you have the people who insult D&D in general for being just "powergaming" are the ones who praise Heroquest for its innovation and brilliance.  

Its these levels of hypocrisy that make me feel like bashing people's skulls in with the Spiked Baseball Bat of Great Justice, and incidentally like not giving Glorantha a second look.

QuoteIn your Tékumel: WTF? thread, you were grasping for cultural references to understand the setting (which I think is wholly inappropriate to Tékumel, but that's another fish to fry).  In Glorantha, at least with it's original scope in the Dragon Pass/Prax region, there were handy parallels there for you, weird though they might seem.  The Sartarites of Dragon Pass are semi-barbaric peoples, a lot like the Gauls of Roman-Empire-era Europe.  The chaos-embracing Lunar Empire to the north is a lot like the Alexandrian Greeks with a lot of Persian and Roman elements.  The Praxian nomads are, culturally, much like the plains indians of North America, though each tribe rides a different herd beast instead of horses.  That was the original, fundamental scope of the setting, and it was eminently grok-able.

Ok, yes, that does all sound grok-able,  moreso than Tekumel.  I do have to ask, though, whether its ALL as simple as that, because a lot of what I saw I could not really connect to (I remember the Lunar empire and saying "yea, they're basically greco-romans", so I got those, but most of the other setting areas where totally unfamiliar to me).

QuoteAs for strange creatures, well, how is that any different from bog-standard D&D?  What the hell is an otyugh, much less a neo-otyugh?

That's utterly different. A Neo-otyugh is simply a new kind of otyugh...

Eh, I kid.  In fact, the Ducks are the least of my issues with Glorantha; there's lots of settings that have the occasional wierd races.
Its mostly the "superheros" and the "cultural disconnect" that make it problematic for me.

As for Jorune.. WAIT FOR IT. Jorune's time is coming...

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditYea, see, I don't get on the one hand why a lot of the shitheads who rag on Forgotten Realms for being filled with uber NPCs are the same ones who praise Glorantha, when its got dudes running around like they were Firestorm or Superman in bronze-age drag.

First off, I should state that I don't know Forgotten Realms any better than I know your old Aunt Sadie (who's one sweet piece of ass, from what I hear), so I can't make a direct comparison.  Secondly, I just got done trying to dissociate the myth-bending heroes of Glorantha from the likes of modern spandex-types -- that's just not what they do in Glorantha.  Are they über-NPCs?  Not really.  They're these legendary figures who're out there somewhere, invariably wreaking havoc upon the landscape, and if you're lucky you're nowhere near them.  At least until you're powerful enough to stand on your own two feet in their presence, and then you can go ahead and seek them out.  They aren't meant to be regularly appearing characters in your campaign, but are more backdrop.  If that's how they're handled in Forgotten Realms, then more power to 'em.  I think your real problem has less to do with Glorantha and more to do with shitheads who run roughshod over campaigns with über-NPCs.

QuoteOn the other hand, you have the people who insult D&D in general for being just "powergaming" are the ones who praise Heroquest for its innovation and brilliance.

HeroQuest embraces the sort of powergaming that I always enjoyed -- the strategic application of mods (in HQ called "Augments") culled from the character sheet in order to maximise a character's effort.  The very framework supports this sort of thing.  Where it shines to a true brilliance is when this same Augment-mongering allows you to detail and subsequently triumph in an argument with the village council in exactly the same way that you'd resolve a pitched battle with a trollkin raid.  But then, I'm discussing HeroQuest and not Glorantha.

QuoteIts these levels of hypocrisy that make me feel like bashing people's skulls in with the Spiked Baseball Bat of Great Justice, and incidentally like not giving Glorantha a second look.

Hate the shitheads, not the game world.  See through the veil of shit to the gem that lies beyond.

QuoteI do have to ask, though, whether its ALL as simple as that, because a lot of what I saw I could not really connect to...

Well, it's never as simple as that.  The Sartarites, for instance, are now popularly referred to as Heortlings, and rather than likening them to Gauls, they are more popularly now likened to "land-locked Celtic Vikings".  Personally, I think the comparison to the Gauls still holds up.  Also, there's the usual cultural mixing-n-matching that goes on in a fantasy world, but, if anything, I'm of the opinion that there has been too much cultural parallelism going on since the broader world of Glorantha has been devloping (some people take the parallels far too literally, so that Teshnos becomes moghul India, and Kralorela becomes Imperial China).  Also, I think the explicit, official, and oft-repeated refrain of "YGWV" (Your Glorantha Will Vary) has helped ease the border crossing into Glorantha in recent years, slipping immigrants in past the hoary fatbeards.

Honestly, Glorantha is one of my favorite fantasy worlds with which to introduce new players to RPG-ing.  I started my nephew out as a cowherd in the backwoods of Sartar, and my son as a fur trapper in Teshnos.  Like Spike and I were beginning to discuss over in the Tékumel: WTF? thread, start out slow and small, then add detail and alien wonder as you go along (and leave out the bits that you find either impenetrable or silly).

!i!