From: Colin Watson (watson@computing-science.aberdeen.ac.uk)
Date: Fri 10 Dec 1993 - 18:03:04 EET
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MOB replied about Eldarad:
>CW>For the record, I really liked "Eldarad". I've only played it (not read it)
>CW>so my impression could be more due to the work of the GM & the antics of
>CW>the players rather than the material as published
>
>As I consider Eldarad not only the worst RQ supplement, but one
>of the worst RPG products ever published, I can only assume this was the case.
Have you played it?
I've noticed several people have a low opinion of Eldarad which conflicts
with my experience in playing it. I wonder if others who have played it
think it's so bad.
>CW>the GM who ran it for us considers it to be his favourite RQ
>CW>publication.
>
>How many does he own? One?
Actually, he owns the half that I don't have. This includes Sun County and
Dorastor.
But he's not a Glorantha fan.
>CW>I get the impression that most of the published Gloranthan stuff is really
>CW>nice to read, but only so-so to play.
>
>Whereas Eldarad was so-so to read (putting it kindly), and for you, nice to
>play.
Which, unless I miss the point of RPGs completely, is preferable for a scenario.
>In my opinion, Eldarad marks the absolute nadir of RQ, brought out under
>Ken Rolston's predecessor, who, through no fault of his, found himself in
>charge of a product line he had never played...
>...here's a review from the time, and a letter to AH
>from a disgruntled purchaser:
[...review & letter deleted...]
Curiously, it appears that neither the reviewer nor the letter-writer had actually played in the scenario either.
>To finish off, 20% of our respondents to the TALES questionnaire said
>they burnt their copies of it!
A rather extremist reaction. What was the question I wonder? Sounds like a large proportion of the readership are fanatical Gloranthan fundamentalists. "It's Gloranthan, therefore it is inherently Good" and vice versa. There's a lot of it about.
I think maybe the reason my GM liked Eldarad is that he is prepared to make major changes to any published material before he slots it into his campaign. He does this with Gloranthan material too, so the fact that Eldarad is non-Gloranthan doesn't make any difference to him. Most Gloranthan material needs a *lot* of conversion to fit a non-Gloranthan campaign, and it loses much of its quality in the process; stripping out the superfluous campaign background in Eldarad is less costly. I reckon if he was used to running a Gloranthan campaign then he too might consider it unthinkable that GMs should have to modify published material before they use it.
I'll speak to my GM about this at the weekend...
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CW.
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