Forum > Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games (RPGs) Discussion
Your Glorantha Will Vary (Patriarchal Glorantha)
Angry Goblin:
Hey guys, I have been hanging out on the forum for a while and finally got myself to register a profile.
This post is mostly intended for Glorantha veterans who have a bigger picture of the game world than I.
Recently, I have been motivated about the Runequest Glorantha. I used to play Runequest a few times
in the 90´s and early 2000´s. Even participating in a few LARP events set in Glorantha and playing
one shots in RPG events. I never got too deep in the lore of it, until now. I have owned Glorantha
game material for a long time, though it has mostly just been gathering dust, if anything else.
Anyhow, now that I have started reading the game material with an intent (and have also ran a few
sessions, both in Sartar and Sun County) Glorantha has started to rub me the wrong way, so to say.
Don´t get me wrong, I absolutely love some of the ideas in the game world and absolutely abhor the
others. The prevalence of feminism and matriarchal power is just unbearable to me for I see TTRPG´s
as just about the only good escapes from this misandry in society and culture. I see it as kind of SJW
before SJW was a thing in RPG´s. Though, like mentioned earlier, I do see a huge potential in Glorantha,
if tweaked heavily. My problem rises from that since the mythology of it is so vast, small changes in the
early mythology might cause a snowball effect in later years.
I thought about posting this on the official Chaosium forum, though I decided against it for I would have
likely been banned from it due to their SJW/feminist/LTBTQ agenda, so I posted it here instead.
To counter what I see as a problem, I have pondered on several things:
1) Playing in Dara Happan culture, where Yelm is still the boss and/or Orlanth never overcame him and
Yelm´s men did sell Ernalda to troll slavers, what would that entail? Has anyone done this? There doesen´t
seem to be a lot of game material to cover this and I don´t know where to start. Any ideas?
2) What if Genert did not have daughters, but sons, whom form the Genertela and thus maybe minimizes the
the need for feminine Earth cults and their priestesses.
3) Does the game really need Feathered Horse Queen to grant the kingship to a ruler of Dragon Pass?
And if not, then what do you see as happening to the game world if FHQ´s never existed?
3) Vingans, Maran Gorians, Kallyr Starbrow, Leika Black Spear and other female warrior groups and
individuals, are they really essential in your oppinion?
4) Do the Uz/Troll culture need to be matriarchal, and if not, how to go about it? I mean, Only Old One/Ezkankekko,
Arkat the Troll and so forth, which basically were big bosses in not only Uz society but beyond, were
not female, which in my reasoning, kind of lessens the need for matriarchal power structure. What
if Kyger Litor was male instead, what would that entail?
5) It´s easy to do away with all the non-binary sexes and ways of marriage but would this cause any
problems?
6) It seems to me that almost all gender roles are twisted in the starting cultures of the core book. I mean in just
about all of them, women are the rational ones and males the emotional ones. I mean, it would basically mean
that "women" are the ones with testosterone dominancy ja "males" the ones with estrogene dominancy. Wouldn´t
that basically mean that in time, the genetic makeup of the gender are on a collision course with the chromosomes.
Yes, I know, it´s a fantasy game, though I still see this as silly, I mean that would basically mean that males give
birth and nurture the children and women are the warriors and earners, right?
Anyway, I know I had some other things in mind but I can´t come up with anything more. I´d love to hear your
thoughs on these, thanks!
Crawford Tillinghast:
--- Quote from: Angry Goblin on September 11, 2022, 07:59:02 AM ---Hey guys, I have been hanging out on the forum for a while and finally got myself to register a profile.
5) It´s easy to do away with all the non-binary sexes and ways of marriage but would this cause any problems?
--- End quote ---
Well...what about Androgeus? If there is somebody non binary him/her/it would be at the top of the list.
Personally, I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill. The place is Bronze Age. There are going to be Paternal and Maternal cults and cultures. It's your Glorantha: Change whatever you don't like, tell people that what they heard might not be quite true, and if they are total grognards about changing the story, invite them to leave or run there own Glorantha (or both).
Angry Goblin:
--- Quote from: Crawford Tillinghast on September 11, 2022, 08:40:26 AM ---
--- Quote from: Angry Goblin on September 11, 2022, 07:59:02 AM ---Hey guys, I have been hanging out on the forum for a while and finally got myself to register a profile.
5) It´s easy to do away with all the non-binary sexes and ways of marriage but would this cause any problems?
--- End quote ---
Well...what about Androgeus? If there is somebody non binary him/her/it would be at the top of the list.
Personally, I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill. The place is Bronze Age. There are going to be Paternal and Maternal cults and cultures. It's your Glorantha: Change whatever you don't like, tell people that what they heard might not be quite true, and if they are total grognards about changing the story, invite them to leave or run there own Glorantha (or both).
--- End quote ---
Thanks for the reply.
In all honesty, Androgeus and IRL Bronze Age are not my main concern here, for I don´t
intend to make my Glorantha in the image of our world in a sense of maternal cults, but mostly as an escape from
our world as mentioned in the original post. I also have a regular group of players with same values as I, so the concern
regarding the binarism and what not is mostly on how it would affect the game world instead of how it would
be seen by HC Glorantha fanboys.
ForgottenF:
I'm far from an expert on Glorantha, but I suspect you would probably be better off just not using the current version of the setting, rather than trying to edit the wokeness out of it. I did a brief read-through of the "Runequest & Glorantha" corebook not that long ago, and it might be the single most woke RPG book I've ever read. So you'd probably have to change a lot. In my experience, selectively editing an existing setting tends to confuse players, as they have to remember when reading the book which things are canon and which aren't. If I were you, I would do one of three things:
1. Get a hold of an older (hopefully less woke) Glorantha sourcebook, and then tell your players "We're using the rules from the new book, but the lore from the old one"
2. Find another setting to run. If you want an extremely un-woke setting which is at least heavily inspired by the bronze age, you could look at converting material from the Tales of Gor RPG, but there's also been plenty of Runequest settings published over the years.
3. Just homebrew your own bronze-age fantasy setting.
Angry Goblin:
--- Quote from: ForgottenF on September 11, 2022, 09:48:45 AM ---I'm far from an expert on Glorantha, but I suspect you would probably be better off just not using the current version of the setting, rather than trying to edit the wokeness out of it. I did a brief read-through of the "Runequest & Glorantha" corebook not that long ago, and it might be the single most woke RPG book I've ever read. So you'd probably have to change a lot. In my experience, selectively editing an existing setting tends to confuse players, as they have to remember when reading the book which things are canon and which aren't. If I were you, I would do one of three things:
1. Get a hold of an older (less woke) Glorantha sourcebook, and then tell your players "We're using the rules from the new book, but the lore from the old one"
2. Find another setting to run. If you want an extremely un-woke setting which is at least heavily inspired by the bronze age, you could look at converting material from the Tales of Gor RPG, but there's also just been plenty of Runequest settings published over the years.
3. Just homebrew your own bronze-age fantasy setting.
--- End quote ---
Thanks for the reply.
You are right, I do have to change a lot, though I am ready for it, for like mentioned in the original post, I do love parts of the lore very much. My
group of players are in favor of changing the lore (even if one of them is a Glorantha GM himself and runs it mostly in vanilla) though they did
mention that they would rather roleplay the changes in lore than just be dictated by the GM, fx. they would rather defend Yelm and kick
the ass of Orlanth, than just be told that "this is how it went". It would involve quite high-powered campaign though.
1) I do have a quite a pile of older Glorantha sourcebooks, though the situation lore-wise is pretty much the same, even if not as "in your face".
2) I already run Hârn, which is not woke to say the least. Tales of Gor is new to me, seems to be pulpy in nature, I will check it out.
3) Yeah, that is an option, though I would assume it would take even larger effort and time than converting an existing one :(
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