From: Hughes, John (NAT) (JohnP.Hughes@dva.gov.au)
Date: Tue 12 Sep 2000 - 04:18:54 EEST
CAFFEINE-CRAZED RAMBLINGS ON GLORANTHA'S FUTURE
Heys Folks
I was up very late on Sunday finishing some writing. I'm not usually a
coffee drinker, but my wife introduced me to some *marvellous* chocolate
coffee, and as the night progressed, I sipped. And sipped. And sipped.
Relative caffeine virgin that I am, I went through *two pots* of the damn
thing before I wondered a) why I wasn't sleeping and b) why the room seemed
to be buzzing.
Yesterday at work was *very* interesting. The following ramble may also be
purely caffeine-induced. :)
I will respond to some of the marriage and kinship posts in a few days when
Glorantha is a shared world. It is supported by an imaginative and creative
I can come up for the proverbial air, but in the meantime, here's one of
those short series of questions I throw to the crowd occasionally and then
step back in wonder to watch the fireworks.
international community. It seems to undergo periodic quantum jumps in terms
of the level of detail we can absorb and build on. Take Sartar for an
example. In the early eighties, Sartar was where good barbarians came from.
WF provided a few tantalising details, but little systematic information.
RQ3 gave us more detail, focussing on game-related details of cults and
spells and attitudes. KOS blew away our preconceptions and offered
systematic perspectives on Sartarite culture and society that, as recent
debates illustrate, we are still absorbing. Thunder Rebels is about to offer
more information that is both cultural and game focussed.
The Glorantha community has grown as the internet and web has grown. The
So if we want to continue to systematically explore Glorantha, and have the
If we set say, a ten year horizon, what are the goals we should be working
Runequest daily united the tribe internationally, and was as instrumental as
TOTRM in keeping Glorantha alive. Today, we have hundreds of creators
working on various projects of interest, and can easily share large amounts
of information including, increasingly, art and maps and tunes and sounds.
information available in some systematic way, what structures do we need to
build?
towards?
Where will Glorantha be as a gaming world in ten years time? What are the
areas that need further development and exploration in that period?
Where will Glorantha be as a literary/storytelling world in ten years time?
Where will Glorantha be as a shared myth / joint world project in ten years
Obviously Ossuaries and its plans are a big part of Glorantha's future.
Who is going to organise the next generation of Gloranthacons? How can we
How we advance the quantity and quality of Gloranthan stories and myths? Is
Glorantha always going to always be a western, male, urban mythology? Should
we try and encourage more literary and sophisticated types of stories, or
should we comfortable that the template is, essentially, campaign writeups?
time? Is there scope for exploring Gloratha for its own sake, *apart from
its gaming setting*? Can we set systematic paths of development for culture
areas, so that we begin with broad essays on myth and history and culture
and end up in ten years time with a knowledge of say, detailed maps of every
city and descriptions of every clan and a basic vocab of the language and an
understanding of how say religious beliefs and cults build unique social
perspectives? Can we take templates further? Or is anarchy and creative
chaos perhaps the best way to progress?
Greg's vision remains central. But if *you* were responsible for building
Glorantha over the next years, what priorities would you set? What would you
encourage? What might you do differently? How would you use technology?
recruit, and widen Glorantha's appeal? How can we sell the dream?
Big questions like this have no right or wrong answers. Even the wildest or
What do you think?
In my own thinking, I'm toying with producing a purely internet/PDF
most improbable ideas can take root and lead in surprising new directions.
Kiss the trickster.
Glorantha project or magazine. I'm a real convert to Acrobat/PDF, and the
fact that I can combine photos, photoshop art and text together in a
colourful way that can be easily distributed and printed but not changed.
Recent theoretical discussions have made me eager to describe some
Sartarite/Far Place clans (and bloodlines, and marriages :)) in a systematic
way, in enough detail that we can understand the effects of various customs
and practices.
"Hallo? Mary Ford Clinic? How long does a coffee detox take? That long!? Oh
well, its been kinda fun..."
Cheers
John
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