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Jonstown Review: A Rough Guide to Glamour
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<blockquote data-quote="EpicureanDM" data-source="post: 8598772" data-attributes="member: 6996003"><p>For better and worse, Glorantha's reputation stems from its ersatz academic style. When set loose, the setting's fans love to talk about grand myths and history rolled inside an immensely complex theology. It's all gods and demigods and Ancient Heroes doing stuff on the Gods Plane, told in very dry and often contradictory terms. Glorantha fans love that their setting contains contradictions and they resist anyone trying to untangle it.</p><p></p><p>In almost any other TTRPG setting, we'd assume that the setting's authors were "ripping off" modern, familiar touchstones when building the setting. Glorantha's an exception in that I don't think Greg Stafford worked that way for the most part. He genuinely strove to create new and unique cultures and mythologies from mostly-scratch, and largely succeeded as far as I'm concerned. The cost of that approach is a difficult learning curve, the ascent of which is made more difficult than it needs to be by fans who try to follow in Stafford's spirit.</p><p></p><p>Very rarely do Glorantha fans ever talk about their actual play using the rules of a particular game, whether that game is <em>RuneQuest</em> or <em>Heroquest</em>. When they do, they're usually the Glorantha fans who have the firmest grip on the setting. They've fought through Glorantha's intentionally confusing presentation to form strong and, more importantly, <strong><em>gameable</em></strong> intuitions for how to present the setting to their players. That level of familiarity and comfort with the setting allows them to analogize, to see patterns in Glorantha that can map onto modern cultural touchstones that are more familiar to most people. The most prominent and successful of these fans is, for my money, Nick Brooke, whose name is on <em>A Rough Guide to Glamour</em> and <em>Black Spear </em>(both books that I own).</p><p></p><p>Why is the Red Emperor shown as Elvis? Because that’s an excellent shorthand for how he’s presented in the quasi-academic <em>Guide to Glorantha</em> and other Antarctica-dry sources. If you’re an aspiring, beleaguered GM who just wants to run a game of <em>RuneQuest</em> for your friends on a Friday night, is it worth your time to cross-reference the mentions of the Red Emperor across different sourcebooks published across different decades <em>just</em> to say that you’re being <em>somewhat</em> accurate to the setting? Absolutely not. But if Nick Brook tells you to just play the Red Emperor NPC like late-’70’s Elvis and you report what you did on a Glorantha forum, Glorantha fans will say, “Yeah, that’s the right vibe for the Red Emperor,” even if they didn’t know about the Elvis comparison.</p><p></p><p>That’s what’s so great about how the <em>Rough Guide</em> presents NPCs. You can either read a page of character backstory and motivation to prep for your portrayal, or you can look at a picture of Elvis.</p><p></p><p>Nick does this brilliantly in his <em>Black Spear </em>campaign report. In <em>Black Spear</em>, the PCs search for Argrath, a powerful NPC who’s gone missing and needs to be found. Argrath is one of the most popular NPCs in Glorantha, someone who’s been written about time and again (and again and again and again) for decades. For the old World of Darkness fans, I’ve seen Argrath described as Samuel Haight, a dead-on analogy. Does Nick try to synthesize yet another description of Argrath’s character/personality/soul/nature to throw on the pile? Sort of, but he preempts a lot of it with a simple trick. Brooke tells the GM to play Argrath either like Ziggy Stardust, Colonel Kurtz, or a combination fo the two. That’s a <em>perfect</em> description of Argrath! It’s all the GM needs and that’s much easier to remember <em>during play</em> than a character summary told across two pages of text.</p><p></p><p>Comparing the Red Emperor to Elvis or Argrath to Ziggy Stardust serves a vital role for Glorantha by creating a new window onto the setting that’s different than the standard one presented by the academics. It brings the setting down to Earth and makes it much easier for newcomers to actually <em>use </em>it. No need to read <em>Red Moon White Bear</em> or <em>King of Sartar</em> (assuming you even know they exist!) in order to build a sense of who Argrath is. Ziggy Stardust mixed with Colonel Kurtz is close enough to pass muster with most of the deep Glorantha fans. Now get out there and use Argrath in your TTRPG. That’s why we’re all here, right?</p><p></p><p>As an admirer of <em>Rough Guide</em> and its approach to de-mystifying Glorantha, I do think that putting this stuff on the cover was a mistake. As someone who really wanted to get their arms around Glorantha, this is the last book I bought, passed over many times as I filled my cart at DriveThru RPG. Describing the Red Emperor as Elvis or Argrath as Ziggy Stardust is a great tool for <em>the Game Master. </em>It provides a solid foundation for using these lore-heavy NPCs in a game. But it’s a magic trick. If the <em>players</em> know that you’re just riffing on Elvis, it can burst the bubble for certain groups.</p><p></p><p>It also doesn’t help that I didn’t see Glorantha then as I do know, with the knowledge that informs this post. Now I look at the cover and understand why using Elvis can be so helpful for newcomers to Glorantha. As a former Glorantha newcomer, it looked goofy and that’s someone who’s familiar with the old, British, late-’80’s approach to TTRPGs that came to us through <em>White Dwarf</em> magazine and <em>2000 AD.</em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EpicureanDM, post: 8598772, member: 6996003"] For better and worse, Glorantha's reputation stems from its ersatz academic style. When set loose, the setting's fans love to talk about grand myths and history rolled inside an immensely complex theology. It's all gods and demigods and Ancient Heroes doing stuff on the Gods Plane, told in very dry and often contradictory terms. Glorantha fans love that their setting contains contradictions and they resist anyone trying to untangle it. In almost any other TTRPG setting, we'd assume that the setting's authors were "ripping off" modern, familiar touchstones when building the setting. Glorantha's an exception in that I don't think Greg Stafford worked that way for the most part. He genuinely strove to create new and unique cultures and mythologies from mostly-scratch, and largely succeeded as far as I'm concerned. The cost of that approach is a difficult learning curve, the ascent of which is made more difficult than it needs to be by fans who try to follow in Stafford's spirit. Very rarely do Glorantha fans ever talk about their actual play using the rules of a particular game, whether that game is [I]RuneQuest[/I] or [I]Heroquest[/I]. When they do, they're usually the Glorantha fans who have the firmest grip on the setting. They've fought through Glorantha's intentionally confusing presentation to form strong and, more importantly, [B][I]gameable[/I][/B] intuitions for how to present the setting to their players. That level of familiarity and comfort with the setting allows them to analogize, to see patterns in Glorantha that can map onto modern cultural touchstones that are more familiar to most people. The most prominent and successful of these fans is, for my money, Nick Brooke, whose name is on [I]A Rough Guide to Glamour[/I] and [I]Black Spear [/I](both books that I own). Why is the Red Emperor shown as Elvis? Because that’s an excellent shorthand for how he’s presented in the quasi-academic [I]Guide to Glorantha[/I] and other Antarctica-dry sources. If you’re an aspiring, beleaguered GM who just wants to run a game of [I]RuneQuest[/I] for your friends on a Friday night, is it worth your time to cross-reference the mentions of the Red Emperor across different sourcebooks published across different decades [I]just[/I] to say that you’re being [I]somewhat[/I] accurate to the setting? Absolutely not. But if Nick Brook tells you to just play the Red Emperor NPC like late-’70’s Elvis and you report what you did on a Glorantha forum, Glorantha fans will say, “Yeah, that’s the right vibe for the Red Emperor,” even if they didn’t know about the Elvis comparison. That’s what’s so great about how the [I]Rough Guide[/I] presents NPCs. You can either read a page of character backstory and motivation to prep for your portrayal, or you can look at a picture of Elvis. Nick does this brilliantly in his [I]Black Spear [/I]campaign report. In [I]Black Spear[/I], the PCs search for Argrath, a powerful NPC who’s gone missing and needs to be found. Argrath is one of the most popular NPCs in Glorantha, someone who’s been written about time and again (and again and again and again) for decades. For the old World of Darkness fans, I’ve seen Argrath described as Samuel Haight, a dead-on analogy. Does Nick try to synthesize yet another description of Argrath’s character/personality/soul/nature to throw on the pile? Sort of, but he preempts a lot of it with a simple trick. Brooke tells the GM to play Argrath either like Ziggy Stardust, Colonel Kurtz, or a combination fo the two. That’s a [I]perfect[/I] description of Argrath! It’s all the GM needs and that’s much easier to remember [I]during play[/I] than a character summary told across two pages of text. Comparing the Red Emperor to Elvis or Argrath to Ziggy Stardust serves a vital role for Glorantha by creating a new window onto the setting that’s different than the standard one presented by the academics. It brings the setting down to Earth and makes it much easier for newcomers to actually [I]use [/I]it. No need to read [I]Red Moon White Bear[/I] or [I]King of Sartar[/I] (assuming you even know they exist!) in order to build a sense of who Argrath is. Ziggy Stardust mixed with Colonel Kurtz is close enough to pass muster with most of the deep Glorantha fans. Now get out there and use Argrath in your TTRPG. That’s why we’re all here, right? As an admirer of [I]Rough Guide[/I] and its approach to de-mystifying Glorantha, I do think that putting this stuff on the cover was a mistake. As someone who really wanted to get their arms around Glorantha, this is the last book I bought, passed over many times as I filled my cart at DriveThru RPG. Describing the Red Emperor as Elvis or Argrath as Ziggy Stardust is a great tool for [I]the Game Master. [/I]It provides a solid foundation for using these lore-heavy NPCs in a game. But it’s a magic trick. If the [I]players[/I] know that you’re just riffing on Elvis, it can burst the bubble for certain groups. It also doesn’t help that I didn’t see Glorantha then as I do know, with the knowledge that informs this post. Now I look at the cover and understand why using Elvis can be so helpful for newcomers to Glorantha. As a former Glorantha newcomer, it looked goofy and that’s someone who’s familiar with the old, British, late-’80’s approach to TTRPGs that came to us through [I]White Dwarf[/I] magazine and [I]2000 AD.[/I] [/QUOTE]
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