From: Frederic Moulin (moulinfr@pilot.msu.edu)
Date: Fri 11 Apr 1997 - 18:57:13 EEST
>During these negotiations, her unicorn is temporarily hanging out in
>the stable. A Trickster PC with Conceal decides that it would be very
>funny to paint the unicorn's horn red and white like a barber pole (never
>mind that there aren't any in Glorantha, but anyway...).
Is'nt it funny that I also experienced (as a GM) practically the same
behavior from another trickster. It looks like Michelangelo should be the
RW god of tricksters: they all like painting...
Well to make a long story short, during the course of the campaign in Sun
Country, the group of adventurer ended up in the wastes in an oasis housing
an impala riders clan. One of the PCs being himself from the clan, the all
group is invited to a feast and while everybody is drinking and eating, the
trickster decides that it would be cool to sneak out and paint pink the
impala of the other PC. So he does it, with not as much risks as with your
unicorn. But during the course of his actions, the other impalas in the
corral make noise and the nomad guards come and find the trickster running
away and the impala painted pink. They go back to the banquet and inform
the clan's chief of the event. The all feast stops and everybody comes
around the pink impala. A couple of players start laughing, but I "kindly"
inform them that they seem to be the only one to find that funny... I look
at the impala PC, and I see that he is tortured by the same dilemna as you:
My roleplaying would request for me to extract a bloody revenge for this
insulte, but I dont want to piss off the trickster's player....
>standing before Velera, in theory to explain what he's done. Velera, as
>a Yelornan, a Praxian, and a priestess considers this an affront beyond
>measuring, punishable by the typical nomad response to such affronts;
>killing the perpetrator where he stands. Although Velera's "character
>conception" calls for this course of action, I, as a player, also have to
>take into account that these kinds of "shenanigans" are par for the course
>in Robert's campaign and that gutting this PC might be unexpected and
>misinterpreted as personal hostility between myself and Robert's friends.
>RW people being more important than Gloranthan ones, I decide to "eat"
>Velera's righteous anger and let it slide as gracefully as I can.
Sensing that the nomad player is about to swallow the insult for the very
same reasons your mentioned above, and that the trickster player is
obviously expecting it, I made the clan's Eiritha Priestess stands forth
and declares that this was a mortal insult to her godess and a display of
arrogance and contempt for the way of life of the animal nomads. The chief
of the tribe then made a little speech about the laws of hospitality in the
wastes, the duties of the hosts and the guests (during which I could see
that my most experienced players were feeling more and more uneasy), and
concluded with these words "Death to the perpetrator, and death to whoever
condone this insult to the honor of our tribe and our way of life". I then
described how the tribe's warriors, the shamans and priests were tightening
their grip on their weapons, their number, the look of determination and
disgust on their faces, and reminded my players that they were not wearing
armor... then I quietly prepared myself psychologically to kill the entire
party and restart the campaign.
Fortunately, the stormbull player, remembering all a sudden that he also
was an animal nomad (and maybe with a little self-preservation in the back
of his mind), draw his axe and shouted "Death to the perpetrator". From
there, all the other players did too, the trickster (a city boy from pavis)
was hunted down like an animal, wounded and brought back in front of the
entire tribe. The chief, as a mark of friendship, gave the players the
right to bring a quick and merciful death to the trickster, instead of the
long and painfull agony they would otherwise plan for him. And the
trickster last sentence was an unbelieving "But it was just a joke" as the
pole axe of the uroxi severed his neck.
The player went on to play a new Sundome Templar character, and is still to
that day, truly faithful to the ways of Yelmalio (even if he still grumble
from time to time about his trickster).
I truly believe that it is important to try maintaining Role-Playing when
we decide to play RuneQuest, and if we decide that "RW people being more
important than Gloranthan ones", then we should go bowling (which I enjoy
too ;-)
I am always willing to accept tricksters, ducks and any other comic relief
in my campaigns, unfortunately they don't seems to live very long. Maybe
it's why there is so few tricksters in Prax, or maybe it is the way of the
Trickster to insure that only his truly funny followers survive.
Frederic
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End of Glorantha Digest V4 #332
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