I never liked glorantha/bronze age but really liked RQ2e. When Harn came out I vastly preferred the setting and conversation was easy.

Glorantha has become a shitshow.

Thus, the solution is (a) build your own Glorantha, or (b) go back to an earlier version.

I'd go with the original Runequest for lore and whatever edition that you like for mechanics. I don't think Glorantha improved with age, especially when it went from a cool game setting into a weirdo nerd cult.

However, you might find there's no way to run the Glorantha you want because the people who want to play Glorantha may be looking for exactly what you don't want in your Glorantha.

My view is:

(1) If you want non-woke Glorantha get an earlier edition, I think 2e Runequest and the supplements are best. But it was always a hippie new age type setting in Greg Stafford's vision.

(2) If you want an anti-woke bronze age type setting then Tales of Gor fits your desires. It's basically the mirror image of modern feminist fantasy, it's an anti-feminist fantasy.

Neither of these - or the woke current Runequest - are at all realistic depictions of bronze age cultures, though I think old Runequest has a sort of 'truthiness' feel to it that allows for suspension of disbelief. Eg there were no real world matriarchies, but there were real world fantasies of matriarchies, myths of matriarchal cultures, beliefs in powerful goddesses etc, stuff that in Runequest is 'real' in world.

Quote from: PulpHerb on September 14, 2022, 12:03:11 AM

Quote from: Angry Goblin on September 13, 2022, 02:35:23 AM
Red Goddess is above the emperor of Lunar Empire. Notchet is the largest/richest city governed by a Queen and feminine Earth cult. And these are only couple of examples.

The Goddess of the Red Moon is superior to the Emperor of the Empire she created and who is her eternally reincarnating son.

At the same time the Goddess of the Red Moon is considered a force of chaos that threatens the world and threatens to restore Gbaji, through the worship of Nysalor, to the world.

That doesn't sound like modern feminism. If anything, it sounds like a Jordan Peterson lecture. That might not be to your tastes, but I wouldn't label it the spawn of Andrea Dworkin.

I think Stafford & Peterson both read a lot of Carl Jung. Joseph Campbell too.

Glorantha is really not set up for a traditional Judeo-Christian patriarchal worldview. It deliberately sets its face against 'D&D RPG fantasy' - or Tolkien & CS Lewis style literary fantasy. Likewise it's also not particularly compatible with the feminist anti-patriarchal 'woman are wonderful' fantasies, either, though clearly modern Woke Glorantha has been twisted in that direction.   

Not sure about Glorantha, but I find that people often misunderstand what powerful goddesses mean in terms of culture. Imagine if we did not understand the language of ancient Athens, but we found numerous statues of of Athena, maybe even some signs that the Parthenon had once held a huge Athena Parthenon. Of course tons of people would immediately think that the city was a matriarchy, or matrilineal, with powerful priestesses, and a female ruler.

Quote from: Ruprecht on November 18, 2022, 10:35:01 PM
I never liked glorantha/bronze age but really liked RQ2e. When Harn came out I vastly preferred the setting and conversation was easy.

Thanks for the reply, can´t argue with that 

Quote from: Spinachcat on November 19, 2022, 02:16:53 AM
Glorantha has become a shitshow.

Thus, the solution is (a) build your own Glorantha, or (b) go back to an earlier version.

I'd go with the original Runequest for lore and whatever edition that you like for mechanics. I don't think Glorantha improved with age, especially when it went from a cool game setting into a weirdo nerd cult.

However, you might find there's no way to run the Glorantha you want because the people who want to play Glorantha may be looking for exactly what you don't want in your Glorantha.

Thanks for the reply.

As you said, a shitshow, truly. It seems to me that the whole lore has been retconned so many times that it is a project of itself to dig up what is original anymore. Glorantha indeed is not like wine, unless we mean that it has turned into undrinkable vinegar by now.

Quote from: Trond on November 19, 2022, 01:11:58 PM
Not sure about Glorantha, but I find that people often misunderstand what powerful goddesses mean in terms of culture. Imagine if we did not understand the language of ancient Athens, but we found numerous statues of of Athena, maybe even some signs that the Parthenon had once held a huge Athena Parthenon. Of course tons of people would immediately think that the city was a matriarchy, or matrilineal, with powerful priestesses, and a female ruler.

I agree with that. Or the Virgin Mary in Catholicism. In the Wilderlands of High Fantasy Athena is the main goddess of the uber-sexist city state of Antil; it took me a while to get my head around that.

Quote from: S'mon on November 19, 2022, 05:38:32 AM
My view is:

(1) If you want non-woke Glorantha get an earlier edition, I think 2e Runequest and the supplements are best. But it was always a hippie new age type setting in Greg Stafford's vision.

(2) If you want an anti-woke bronze age type setting then Tales of Gor fits your desires. It's basically the mirror image of modern feminist fantasy, it's an anti-feminist fantasy.

Neither of these - or the woke current Runequest - are at all realistic depictions of bronze age cultures, though I think old Runequest has a sort of 'truthiness' feel to it that allows for suspension of disbelief. Eg there were no real world matriarchies, but there were real world fantasies of matriarchies, myths of matriarchal cultures, beliefs in powerful goddesses etc, stuff that in Runequest is 'real' in world.

Thanks for the reply.

The hippie/new age stuff truly shows through, "going back to divine feminine" type of stuff *puke* As we didn´t have enough of that poison around as it is. Second recommendation for Gor already, not bad  I am not necessarily after authentic bronze age.

Quote from: Spinachcat on November 19, 2022, 02:16:53 AMHowever, you might find there's no way to run the Glorantha you want because the people who want to play Glorantha may be looking for exactly what you don't want in your Glorantha.

This is IMO the most important point. Anyone who wants to play a game set in Glorantha wants it to be Glorantha from the books. Anyone who doesn't care about Glorantha won't care either way. So there really isn't an audience for a modified version of Glorantha.

I started playing Runequest in 1984 and used Glorantha as my main setting until about 1993. I own a nearly complete set of books from first, second, and third edition including unpunched copies of the White Bear Red Moon and Nomad Gods boardgames. So I'm not a neophyte when it comes to Gloranthan lore.

I will ALWAYS recommend creating your own unique setting over buying and using someone elses.

That being said, I don't use Glorantha anymore and I'm much happier because of it. I have my own psuedo-Roman ancients setting but it's more based on the occupation of Britain than the invasion of Gaul. It has everything I want and nothing I don't and I no longer feel the need to read 300 page books just to keep up to date.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on November 23, 2022, 01:46:00 PM

Quote from: Spinachcat on November 19, 2022, 02:16:53 AMHowever, you might find there's no way to run the Glorantha you want because the people who want to play Glorantha may be looking for exactly what you don't want in your Glorantha.

This is IMO the most important point. Anyone who wants to play a game set in Glorantha wants it to be Glorantha from the books. Anyone who doesn't care about Glorantha won't care either way. So there really isn't an audience for a modified version of Glorantha.

I started playing Runequest in 1984 and used Glorantha as my main setting until about 1993. I own a nearly complete set of books from first, second, and third edition including unpunched copies of the White Bear Red Moon and Nomad Gods boardgames. So I'm not a neophyte when it comes to Gloranthan lore.

I will ALWAYS recommend creating your own unique setting over buying and using someone elses.

That being said, I don't use Glorantha anymore and I'm much happier because of it. I have my own psuedo-Roman ancients setting but it's more based on the occupation of Britain than the invasion of Gaul. It has everything I want and nothing I don't and I no longer feel the need to read 300 page books just to keep up to date.

Just curious. Did you see my Bronze Age setting? I came up with it because I started to doubt if I will ever get into Glorantha. Feedback is very welcome

Quote from: hedgehobbit on November 23, 2022, 01:46:00 PM

Quote from: Spinachcat on November 19, 2022, 02:16:53 AMHowever, you might find there's no way to run the Glorantha you want because the people who want to play Glorantha may be looking for exactly what you don't want in your Glorantha.

This is IMO the most important point. Anyone who wants to play a game set in Glorantha wants it to be Glorantha from the books. Anyone who doesn't care about Glorantha won't care either way. So there really isn't an audience for a modified version of Glorantha.

I started playing Runequest in 1984 and used Glorantha as my main setting until about 1993. I own a nearly complete set of books from first, second, and third edition including unpunched copies of the White Bear Red Moon and Nomad Gods boardgames. So I'm not a neophyte when it comes to Gloranthan lore.

I will ALWAYS recommend creating your own unique setting over buying and using someone elses.

That being said, I don't use Glorantha anymore and I'm much happier because of it. I have my own psuedo-Roman ancients setting but it's more based on the occupation of Britain than the invasion of Gaul. It has everything I want and nothing I don't and I no longer feel the need to read 300 page books just to keep up to date.

Thanks for the reply!

In my group, the modified "anti-progressive" Glorantha was well received so I lack the experience you mentioned. They even bought a bunch of Glorantha/Runequest t-shirts from RedBubble to play in  but anyhow, you are right of course, when you make a game by yourself you get to choose exactly the elements you prefer to have.

Quote from: S'mon on November 19, 2022, 05:48:32 AM
I think Stafford & Peterson both read a lot of Carl Jung. Joseph Campbell too.

Glorantha is really not set up for a traditional Judeo-Christian patriarchal worldview. It deliberately sets its face against 'D&D RPG fantasy' - or Tolkien & CS Lewis style literary fantasy. Likewise it's also not particularly compatible with the feminist anti-patriarchal 'woman are wonderful' fantasies, either, though clearly modern Woke Glorantha has been twisted in that direction.

I know Stafford read a lot of Campbell. I can't speak for Peterson nor about Jung for either, but it would track.

I'd say anything before Greg's death isn't going to be too woke infected and, yes, it is not setup for either a Christian influenced world or any modern ideology. I'm not sure how accurate it is to the pre-Christian west or other parts of Classical and older civilization and even saying "Glorantha is" for the period Greg was in charge is hard to do, but I will say done right it is as alien to modern Americans as Tekumel is.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on November 23, 2022, 01:46:00 PM
I started playing Runequest in 1984 and used Glorantha as my main setting until about 1993. I own a nearly complete set of books from first, second, and third edition including unpunched copies of the White Bear Red Moon and Nomad Gods boardgames. So I'm not a neophyte when it comes to Gloranthan lore.

Very jealous of the Nomad Gods copy. I can't understand why it has never been reprinted.

I played exactly once at a meeting of the Gold Triangle Conflict Gamers when I was in the sixth grade, so circa 1979.

Quote from: PulpHerb on December 06, 2022, 10:05:10 PM

Quote from: hedgehobbit on November 23, 2022, 01:46:00 PM
I started playing Runequest in 1984 and used Glorantha as my main setting until about 1993. I own a nearly complete set of books from first, second, and third edition including unpunched copies of the White Bear Red Moon and Nomad Gods boardgames. So I'm not a neophyte when it comes to Gloranthan lore.

Very jealous of the Nomad Gods copy. I can't understand why it has never been reprinted.

I played exactly once at a meeting of the Gold Triangle Conflict Gamers when I was in the sixth grade, so circa 1979.

This might interest you:

https://therewillbe.games/forum/boardgames/208540-dragon-pass-nomad-gods-getting-a-reprint

https://www.dicebreaker.com/companies/chaosium/news/white-bear-red-moon-nomad-gods-new-editions?