InsightQuest #001

From: Mike Dawson (eco0kkn@cabell.vcu.edu)
Date: Sat 19 Jan 1991 - 09:56:33 EET

• Next message: Andrew Bell: "Still No Cute Title, Volume 5, Number 8"
• Previous message: Daniel Gieskens: "Willpower"

InsightQuest #001 10/31/90
Encouraging a dialog on the more philosophic questions arising from RuneQuest, Glorantha and role playing in general. By Mike Dawson

AGING AND EXPERIENCE --THE "DEADLY OLD FOLKS" EFFECT         When the experience tables in RQ are combined with the aging tables, some very interesting effects can be extrapolated. What is the result of skill increases per year plus an average lifespan of over 60 years? Deadly Senior Citizens. There is no limit to skills learned by normal previous experience. For example, a completely ordinary 55 year old civilized peasant farmer/initiate is fully qualified to be a Priest of the Earth Goddess and/or Ernalda. He has 10 points of rune magic, a Heroic level of Plant Lore, and meets all other requirements as well. He is also very dangerous with his chosen weapon. Granted his ritual skills are low, but they meet the minimum necessary for acceptance. This class of person is the most numerous in the world!

        Here's a person who is frail, but very skilled and magically capable. He's not even very frail--odds are good he will live another 20 years. Peasant farmer/Earth Goddess initiates are not the most dangerous in combat terms, but they can get mean if they choose the right spells. In any case the observation holds true for other, more dangerous professions as well. Old folks may be frail, but the system defines them as very dangerous, though they are completely ordinary old people!

        So my question is: How much does the ref allow the game system to define the nature of the world? If you follow the system closely as a guide, then the world ends up being peculiar in ways the designers may not have anticipated or wished. If you do not use the system as a true definition of the world, what sense does it make to create anyone by those rules? Would you use the system at all, and if so, when?

        This question hold broader meaning for other parts of the world. If you choose to follow the profession guides literally, think what it means for places like Arolanit, where ordinary farmers can be over 400 years old. With Plant Lores over 500%, why can't those ordinary farmers manage to feed the whole world from their small farms?

CAREFUL READING, DOING YOUR OWN EDITING, and ULTIMATE TRUTH

        RQ is an immense body of work when combined with Wyrm's Footnotes, old Different Worlds articles, scenarios, cult books, etc. A reasonably complete collection takes up several feet of a bookshelf. Is it surprising then, that the various overworked writers and editors have let mistakes and contradictions slip by? In some cases the contradictions seem to be on purpose. The unresolved differences in Gloranthan creations myths are the most vivid example here.

        Other mistakes are obviously the result of careless or ignorant editing. The best example I know of this is the cult %ages for the yellow elves in the Elder Secrets book. According to them, 2% of the Embyli are members of Babeester Gor. However, the Babeester Gor cult is an all female cult, and Yellow elves are all male, except for Dryads. Unless the writer/editor intended to suggest that ALL Yellow Dryads are Avenging Daughters, something is off. Unfortunately, not all problems are so obviously wrong.

        So, my question is: How willing are you to say, "I don't care what the sourcebook says, X just doesn't make sense when I take Y and Z into account?" Unless you pick and choose your truth, Glorantha is a place of wild contradictions.

        Is that necessarily a bad thing, you ask? The real world if full of contradictions. Now we head off into deep levels of game philosophy. I agree that the real world is full of APPARENT contradictions, but if I were going to try to referee the real world, I would want to know what is really true and what is just a difference of opinion. Perhaps I would decide that no one really knows the truth, and that everyone is wrong.

        Nevertheless, as a ref, I feel it is necessary to actually know what is REALLY true in any world I run. If I don't know, then there is no way for me to understand the world I am running. Here are just a few things I would need to decide to run "the Real World:"

        Who killed the Kennedys
        Who really runs the government (any government)
        Whether any religion is true
        If magic is real
        If souls exist

        The ref of a world contains the entire universe in his head

        Here are just a few things I need to decide to run Glorantha:

        Who really dismembered the Blue Moon
        Who really runs the government (any government)
        Whether any religion is true
        How magic is done
        If souls exist (dwarfs & brithini deny this)

        "Such things are unknowable by mortals" you say. Perhaps, if

        Perhaps this all seems a bit esoteric to you. Well, here are a few True or False examples of things that might work as Ultimate, or just important, Truths in Glorantha. Try answering all of them True, then think how it would affect the way your world works. Then reverse it, and try them all False.

AN ULTIMATE TRUTHS TRUE-FALSE QUIZ-----------------------------

Dragons are the sole true creators of the Universe.

Glorantha is the most important world in the Universe.

Chaos is the font from which all existence springs.

The four differing theories on world creation (Spiritual, Theistic, Mystical, Humanistic) are all reconcilable parts of a whole.

The nature of things is in the habit of concealing itself.

Conflict is inherent in any system.

Perfection is not sustainable.

Mortals are not capable of perfection.

The humanistic view of gods as false sorcerous creations is exactly correct.

Correct maintenance of ritual roles is more important than free will.

Some of these are more important than others, but any of them can have far-reaching effect in a campaign, just by having the ref keep them in mind as he runs the game.

RUNNING A LIVING WORLD WITHOUT GETTING BURIED IN DETAILS         OK, the pcs have just killed the mayor in a brothel, and the Humakti High Sword for the town has witnessed that they did it in self defense. They hold solid evidence of the entire city council's involvement with the local Krarsht smuggling ring, and are too tough for the average local bad boys to silence easily. They go public. What happens now?

        Most refs, I am afraid, have a great deal of trouble trying to figure things out in a rational way. In fact, I think many refs are uninterested in figuring it out rationally--they just wing it, basing their decisions on what they think will be the most interesting twist.

        So what? What's wrong with making the plot twist in interesting ways? Nothing at all, if your PCs are more interested in story than free will. However, to my mind, just
"winging it" for dramatic impact has some problems. When it
comes to the larger effects PCs can have in the game it is EXACTLY the same as "winging it" while running hand to hand combat. If the ref is going to intervene capriciously in the fate of the PCs on the large scale, then how is that different from fudging die rolls during combat? In both cases, don't opponents succeed or fail on the whim of the ref? How can the players feel any true sense of accomplishment when the ref is juggling their fates from hand to hand in order to create "a good story?"

        "There is a difference," you say. "Combat has rules, but the political and social interactions involving a scandal-ridden town council are not codified. They are not part of a game system and MUST be estimated and guessed at by the ref. If he has to guess, why not guess in the direction of the best story?"

        In response, I say that the problem is that there is no system for the interaction of people above the small military unit in RQ (White Bear & Red Moon notwithstanding). What a ref needs, for any game, is a system that allows him to track the health, power, ability, influence and members of groups more complex than a small unit. It needs to be possible to find out what happens when the PCs discredit the town council, spread nasty rumors about the baronial guard captain, provoke a citywide fight for dominance between rival gangs, or get a clan declared anathema by the Ecclesiarch of Leplain.

        Any suggestions? Anyone care to outline the problem of making a system?

WHAT YOU WOULD DO IF YOU WERE IN CHARGE OF THE WORLD         No, not the real world. Glorantha. The first really good, mainstream fantasy world, a progressive leader in the early 80's, has been in sad straits for the past several years. I am not interested in finger-pointing. I just want to know what you would do if you had full authority over everything that is RQ and Glorantha. What would you publish, how would you publish, who would you get to write, to draw, and how would you market it? Other companies, originally slow to support the world campaign concept, have jumped on the bandwagon that has Chaosium's logo on the front seat. These late-comers made big bucks with a product less interesting than Glorantha, while the high quality of the RQ stuff failed to catch the attention of the mass market. How would you change this?

        The only stipulations I put on your suggestions is that they be at least vaguely practical, have some hope of making money, and that they in no way compromise the high standards set by Chaosium for Gloranthan products. Here are a few topics that might affect your train of thought:

        Your emphasis for publication--large sourcebooks (whole countries and regions), large scenario packs (Into Uzdom), Compendiums (RQ Companion), or smaller adventures (Apple Lane & Snakepipe Hollow), or something new?

        Style of product release--Boxed with lots of stuff & gimmicks (Masks of Nyarlothotep), Boxed & big (Genertela, Gods of Glorantha), shrink wrapped (Apple Lane, etc.), or something else.

        Importance of graphics--will strong interior art sell you or your market? Will weak art keep you from buying it? How important is color on the inside? How important are color maps. How many colors? Should they be like, say, Harn with gorgeous, very expensive maps and graphics in full color?

        Price range--can it be more expensive than competing products, the same, or should it undercut things like Forgotten Realms?

        How would you change things to make RQ more competitive to a larger market? (Please, no cyberpunks in Pavis.)

MARTIN CRIM ADDS: in talking to Mike about this, we discussed a number of topics large and small, but I'd just like to add two:

        First, add to the list of true/false questions the proposition "Nysalor illumination is a gift of ultimate truth, not a chaotic illusion designed to ensnare and destroy." What does deciding THAT do to you, the GM, in your perception of the world?

        Second, when Mike talks about the living world, he's really talking about a framework for dealing with problems like this: there's a mood on the street (or in Pavis, a mood in each neighborhood) and people can manipulate that mood magically. Some GM's would ignore this, leaving the players without a clue as to something their characters would know and consider important. Others would fudge it, hoping to attract player interest through an interesting story line. Mike is a
"clockmaker God" GM, and wants a game system for tracking and
resolving such things.

• Next message: Andrew Bell: "Still No Cute Title, Volume 5, Number 8"
• Previous message: Daniel Gieskens: "Willpower"

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.7 : Fri 10 Oct 2003 - 01:54:06 EEST