From: Loren Miller (loren@wharton.upenn.edu)
Date: Tue 05 Dec 1995 - 02:48:12 EET
I'm not surprised that John Hughes understands MGF completely
differently than I do, after all I first proposed it as a pragmatic
reaction to his (IMO) incomprehensible and unusable four-level
description of Gloranthan reality. To be honest, dealing with etic
and emic bullshit ... erm ... I mean etic and emic reality, or a
level of reality that is even more basic than the Gods in glorantha
understand, isn't the kind of thing I want to do either in
preparation for a game session or during it.
The whole idea behind MGF was that Glorantha is only useful as we
(that's ALL OF YOU and ME) actually use it. It is not a real world.
It has no existence apart from what we write about it and the stories
and games we make up with it. People who write scholarly articles
based on minutae they find in fanzine articles that have been out of
print for 25 years are missing the point. <sam-kinnison-mode> IT'S A
GAME! </sam-kinnison-mode> It's nice to make pieces of it unique, and
to have kooky animals and plants that demonstrate real-world
principles of biology, but it's better to concentrate on making it
fun for everybody. And by everybody I mean men and women, adults and
children, not just power-tripping adolescent males. I think Glorantha
can be fun for all these people, and that MGF expresses this better
than MCI and MLTGF and MLD. Sometimes a short concept expresses
something better than a legalistic list of concepts for every
eventuality. It's certainly easier to remember.
And I don't think that exploding ulerian were-hobbits or little-
rooms-all-in-a-row-hack-n-slay-the-monsters games are an example of
maximum game fun, any more than a no-combat campaign with all the
PCs as desperate KOW peasants tapped to idiocy would be fun.
PCs as your basic unintelligent gorp, a la Creeks and Crawdads, might
be fun though. That is a MGF idea that doesn't require much roleplay,
uses a lot of rolling, and is very silly. Say PCs are gorp with one
extraordinary ability each, and they are very dumb. Whenever they
experience something different they need to roll dice to see if they
attack, flee, or get to do something else. "You see a broo." "I eat!"
Q: On what level of Gloranthan reality is the gorp campaign fun?
4L A: Not on the transcendental or emic level, perhaps on the etic
level, on the story level, and definitely on the game level.
MLD A: Gorp aren't fun. Not enough diversity.
MCI A: Gorp aren't fun. They're just bashing monsters.
MLTGF A: Gorp aren't fun. They get soooooo boring after 6 months of
play.
MGF A: Who cares?! Feed me! Give me to eat!
* * *
Now I have to admit, having satirized John's words, that I agree with
Is there a story structure that is recognizably Gloranthan, that
his essential point, that it is valuable to go beyond your basic high
adventure and action plots. But how? I see that Chaosium occasionally
writes plots that go beyond the cliches, but for CoC and Elric!, not
for RuneQuest or Glorantha. This is what I want John to turn his
formidable intellect to, the question of how to get more out of the
game than just action. How do you get beyond a steady diet of action
cliches while keeping it fun? How do you develop your group of
players to get past the cliches, without losing their interest and
having them leave your game for "Magic: The Gathering" or DOOM?
conveys the mystery of the place, its loony California sense of
humor, its cruelty and viciousness, and the love that infuses the
place? How can we use that story structure in a roleplaying campaign?
How do you tell that story? What story structure can carry this load?
I have a feeling that if you can answer this question you will have
lead us to the Tanelorn of RuneQuest players everywhere: Universally
usable HeroQuest rules.
whoah!
+++++++++++++++++++++++23
Loren Miller <loren@wharton.upenn.edu>
Computer Guy <http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren>
------------------------------
End of Glorantha Digest V2 #251
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