From: Alex Ferguson (alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk)
Date: Tue 23 Aug 1994 - 06:42:01 EEST
Barron Chugg objects to his increasing eponyminity:
> Despite my best efforts more and more things seem to be taking on my
> name. I thought I made myself quite clear: New elements and Elementary
> particles are OK, everything else is suspect (although a mountain would be
> cool, or maybe a baseball team...) :-).
Trollball? Chugg's Chunderers?
> >Yes, I agree. (I wasn't suggesting they played _because_ of the sexist
> >background, for heaven's sakes! ;-) "Oooh, oppress me again, Mr. Evil
> >Chauvanist Pig GM, sir." ;-) ;-)
> You mean my "RQ:AiG" (that's Runequest: Adventures in Gor) campaign is
> not Ok? Drat! :-)
Absolutely not, though here the problem might be the appallingly bad background "literature", and the boringness of the world, rather than its ideology.
[I wheel in Spurious Comparisons with Pendragon]
> > But I do think this is enhanced by
> >respecting the sources, and not just munging it wholesale for the sake
> >of player-friendliness.)
> Definately enhanced by the sources (and, maybe, by Greg's interests in
> pagan mythology. I've only browsed the game, so I can't say for certain.).
> But then, there is not so much a need for "munging" (sounds painful) since
> the sources are more balanced.
In what sense more balanced? Arthurian literature isn't over-endowed with female knights, priests, or even much in the way of rulers. The odd enchantress, who are generally bad gals...
> >Err, perhaps "throw from long leg"?
> Sounds as painful as "munging". :-)
Not usually, no. BTW, the term "munging" (mungeing?) is of Yankee origin, so don't blame me for it. Don't blame me for cricket, either, come to that.
> My
> comments on "games where all the characters must be male" were meant to
> point out that a campaign without adventuresome roles for women is too
> limiting for my tastes.
It's one thing to suggest that it should be feasible to have female PCs, quite another to suggest that the sort of roles such PCs might occupy are societal norms. To return to the example of Pendragon, you can play a female warrior, and perhaps even a female knight, but you'll get funny looks. At the same time, some effort is also made to give women in "traditional roles" something to do in the context of the game. This seems a fairly reasonable general approach to me (in comparable circumstances), though anyone wanting an Equal Oppurtunity Employee Adventurers Guild will doubtless be disgusted at the very idea.
> >> I'll go even further here <dons asbestos suit>:
> >> I think that the idea "that women have "important" roles in all
> >> Gloranthan societies" has never really been realized.
> >Never been ever attempted to be realised, as far as I can see. But
> >should it? Is this (alleged) goal beneficial to anyone's gaming
> >interests?
> My answer is a solid "yep". Unless I misread you badly, your's is "not
> clearly enough to warrant the retooling". You and I are just putting
> different weights on different things.
I don't see why it would be even marginally beneficial to do this. If were running a Dara Happan game in 1150 with several players who wanted to play female characters, I'd certainly have some serious ad libbing to do, but to rewrite the society entirely to suit would be lamentable, in my view.
> >Would Trowjang, Esrolia, or Troll society be "improved" by allowing
> >_males_ (more) important roles?
> Isn't this sort of off topic?
Only if what's sauce for the goose isn't sauce for the gander, as it were.
> Trowjang is a parallel to Amazon myth of
> Earth lore, and is a pretty miserable place for men (or, probably, any
> non-amazon).
No more (or less) than the Gloranthan West parallels the middle ages. Aren't you wheeling out an earth-parallel argument in one area, and rejecting an equally valid one elsewhere?
> In troll society there is no
> limitation on males or females going off to adventure. Remember, I really
> could care less who is on the throne, if both sexes can adventure (my game
> bias). Although, who is in earthly power is often related to who is out
> having fun.
In troll society, males can't have rulership roles, and are greatly restricted in their ability to join the priestesshood. Various people have suggested that to have the reverse situation in the West would be Completely Intolerable, as I recall.
Come to that, there's not much scope for female trolls to Adventure, at least in the Expendable Dungeon Fodder sense.
> >And of course, it still begs the question, "What do you mean by "important"?
> Ask Chaosium on that point. I was calling them to task for not
> fulfilling their "promise".
But depending on their definition, they may not be in breach of it. Wasn't Sandy taken to task by Greg for wanting to have a Slave Girls of Pamaltela type of society somewhere? Perhaps the dictum was just a somewhat overstated prohibition against that sort of thing.
> In the West I'd like to see a more interesting culture than warmed-over
> judeo-christian-islamic Earth culture.
This isn't an argument in favour of a warmed-over judeo-christian-islamic Earth culture with fudged and blandified gender distinctions, or at least not one that convinces me at all.
> >A constant with respect to? Not the culture or region, since it has
> >different "clauses" for the (major) pantheons.
> I guess our definitions are different. The 0th order is the simplest
> approximation possible. Can we come up with a simpler version of
> Gloranthan mythology than the MM?
As I said before, a blank page. A much safer approximation than the Jrusteli monomyth...
> Anyway, can we agree that the MM is useful in a broad, but painfully
> shallow way, and that to get anything done for real requires much more
> information (e.g. cult write ups and KoS)?
It's useful in so far as it tells us something about the beliefs of individual cultures, and what the God Learners themselves believed. I don't think this means that the act of collecting all the myths into a monomyth was useful in itself, for a gaming point of view.
> Well, with our British collegues away at Convulsion, now is our chance to
> retake the daily! No more "RQ sells much better over here." No more
> "Well, I got my TotRM just today." Jealous? Me? Well, maybe a little.
How about "I got Tales #12 _at_ Convulsion"? Medic, this man's turning green!
> Quick idea on advancement: First off I have adopted the HHD spell renewal
> for initiates. Now, imagine that as an initiate advances their renewal
> becomes easier (eg. from HHD to SHD). This is because they are getting
> into closer contact with their deity. After the SHD, the next step would
> be to become an Acolyte or a RLvl. I just like the idea of smearing out
> cult levels, so that the steps are smoother.
Me too. Reading Nick's article in Tales #12 -- what, hasn't everyone got this yet? ;-) -- I was similarly inclined to use a similar device to help distinguish between priests and acolytes. Perhaps the latter need to wait until the weekly holy day, say. I'd also favour linking chance (or rate) of renewal to cultic virtues.
> How about the _need_ for Bless Crops in Genertela?
I don't buy this theory, though it makes okay Ernaldan propaganda...
Alex.
X-RQ-ID: Extro
[The rules of the game]
Send submissions and followup to "RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM", they will automatically be included in a next issue.
Please include a Subject: line. Articles without it will be ignored, returned, or delayed.
Selected articles may also appear in a regular Digest. If you want to submit articles to the Digest only, contact the editor at RuneQuest-Digest-Editor@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM.
Send enquiries and Subscription Requests to the editor:
RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Henk Langeveld)
sub list address@your.domain Your Full Name
unsub list address@your.domain
From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer)
To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest)
Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily)
Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Wed, 24 Aug 1994, part 1
Sender: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM
Content-Return: Prohibited
Precedence: junk
X-RQ-ID: Intro
This is the RuneQuest Daily Bulletin, a mailing list on the subjects of Avalon Hill's RPG and Greg Stafford's world of Glorantha. It is sent out once per day in digest format.
More details on the RuneQuest Daily and Digest can be found after the last message in this digest.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.7 : Fri 10 Oct 2003 - 01:36:31 EEST