From: devinc@aol.com
Date: Wed 04 May 1994 - 13:51:48 EEST
Devin Cutler here:
Peter writes:
"This is Glorantha and _not_ Earth we are talking about here.
No amount of academic knowledge is a substitute for a poor imagination
This is a Role-playing game and it's supposed to be FUN!
Well, that's what I think. But there again I'm not an anthropologist or a biologist or an historian or whatever ;-). "
I would tend to agree, and I suppose this relates to Mr Hughes' theory of different levels of Gloranthan Reality. I suppose I generally reside on the second level (i.e. the rules reflect Glorantha). Why? Because I PLAY the GAME of Runequest. I play it to roleplay and have fun, as do my friends. I am afraid that I do not really go into the third level (Glorantha as literary) because inherenlty, when you enter this level, your prospects for gaming start to become grim. Why? Because no game can accurately reflect real life or even an imagined real life.
There are too many variables (it is like trying to create a perpetual motion machine, you can get close, but it will never happen).
I do try to keep the level of gaming above that of hack and slash and D&D type happenings, although combat certainly is a big part of most adventures (though it happens for a good reason, not indiscriminantly).
But I know that my players, and most players, would probably become rather bored if I started roaming too much into the Literary level of Glorantha during agaming session. After all, not only is my preparation time as a GM limited, but the actual gaming session is of a limited time.
This is where I often get into conflict with the way Greg is taking RQ. He seems to be delving into the Literary level, at the expense (by necessity) of the gaming level. This is, IMHO, a Bad Thing, since it is gamers who support Glorantha, and therefore priority should be given to describe Glorantha in gaming terms before literary terms.
Otherwise, why not simply chuck RQ altogether, just put out Gloranthan Literary products, and get Gms borrow a system (like GURPS) and modify it to suit Glorantha, or allow people to make up their own systems?
Regards,
Devin Cutler
devinc@aol.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.7 : Fri 10 Oct 2003 - 01:34:08 EEST