From: Peter J. Whitelaw (100102.3001@CompuServe.COM)
Date: Tue 24 May 1994 - 01:45:54 EEST
Me in X-RQ-ID 4095:
>I am a RuneQuester rather than a Gloranthophile. Although I am currently
>running a campaign there I do accept everything in print as gospel
Ooops,
Make that 'I do _not_ accept everything in print as gospel'
No way. Phew.
Scholars and Gamers <oh nooooooooo.......>
Alex has much to say, all of it well-reasoned, fair and communicated in a most
scholarly fashion ;-)...
>This is very much putting Descartes before the horse, in my view. If
>Glorantha is just a vehicle for Runequest to trundle along in, and must
>adapt itself to suit every idio[syn]c[hras]y of the RQ rules, how "real",
>how convincing, how likely to inspire creative endeavour, is it going to
>end up?
A competent GM will patently not squeeze Glorantha ruthlessly through the RQ mangle but will use a fine (IMHO) game system to facilitate the exploration and discovery of a wondrous creation. As to 'how likely to inspire creative endeavour, is it going to end up?' I fail to see that this is a function of anything much other than one's imagination. I do concede, however, that if one feels constrained by a system then that may diminish one's inspirational impulses (although if you _are_ constrained by your system then you're using it wrongly).
Alex continues:
>Why, if we "dry scholars" are so irrelevant to good gaming, not just
>ignore these Dangerous Revisions, and play in _your_ (RuneQuest-friendly)
>Glorantha?
Thank you. I do. <bg>
Sandy agrees with me (well, OK, I agree with Sandy <g>)...
>Without a game structure to enable us to visit Glorantha and
>play there, what's the point? If the only purpose of Glorantha is to
>serve as a common imaginary world-base to conjecture about, I'd much
>rather conjecture about Earth.
Exactly. Even the so-called 'scholars' amongst our happy number confess to playing the game. It just seems to me that, whilst disassociating the lozenge from the mechanics invented to explore it is undeniably in vogue (and arguably more true to its roots as an intellectual exercise) to do so merely returns it back to those roots. In which case you have a situation whereby the cognoscenti are debating the minutiae of an entire world's cultures based on the trickle of conflicting and evolving conceptualisations from its creator. I can accept that this debate is useful to some in enhancing their 'feel' for the environment but it seems like a darned 'dry' way of going about it. Whatever happened to good, old-fashioned, imagination? You know, if it works for your group and then to hell with everbody else. I mean, I always thought that RQ/Glorantha was supposed to fun as well as intellectually stimulating.
Sandy's wise words continue:
>My own interest in Glorantha is two-fold: I _do_ enjoy the
>participation in the group fantasy. But more important is that
>Glorantha makes a realistic and three-dimensional game world to run
>campaigns in. Why not make up my own world? I've been asked this many
>a time. [...]
>Now, I've created plenty of my own game worlds. Probably most
>of us have. I use Glorantha for the simple reason that I have a
>finite amount of time to expend on my roleplaying activities. The use
>of Glorantha enables me to spend that finite time on working up
>scenarios and adventures, rather than background. In addition,
>Glorantha at its best stimulates me to think of new and exciting
>adventures in which to place my characters.
Bravo sir. I quite agree.
Peter :-%
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.7 : Fri 10 Oct 2003 - 01:34:32 EEST