The Plane Above - the Glorantha-fication of D&D?

[pemerton]

I got a copy of The Plane Above last week, and so far am very impressed with its attempt to make the D&D mythos something that the players can engage with. There is lots of description of complex and overlapping motivations, historical details and so on, with multiple suggestions of how the PCs (especially at Epic tier) can get involved. And there is an explicit eschewing of metaplot (eg in the comments on the freedom of individual groups to ignore the Scales of War adventure path as being canonical for Githyanki), which fits with the player-agency orientation by removing the danger that player choices might be undone by subsequent changes in canonical setting descriptons.

But one bit that particularly struck me was the suggestion of heroquesting as a way to engage the players in the cosmology at the epic tier. (They call it "travelling into deep myth" rather than heroquesting, but what's in a name?) I'm certainly hoping to use this in my own game when the time is right - I have a player with a Drow PC who worships Corellon and hopes to reunite the sundered Elven races, and in the section on Arvandor there is a description of the very myth that he would need to journey into and change in order to achieve this result.

Between the engaging cosmology, the attempt to link PCs into it via the descriptive text for power sources and the flavour text on paragon paths and epic destinies, and now heroquesting, does anyone else feel that have we finally got to the point of D&D being Glorantha-ised? (Not in level of detail, but in the integration of myth and cosmology into gameplay.)

 

[SPECTRE666]

Glorantha? The name sounds familiar for some reason.

 

[Shemeska]

does anyone else feel that have we finally got to the point of D&D being Glorantha-ised? (Not in level of detail, but in the integration of myth and cosmology into gameplay.)

Not a clue what Glorantha is (though yeah the name is familiar), but as far as bringin myth and cosmology into the forefront of a campaign, we've had that for at least two editions now (was big in 2e, and while not as emphasized perhaps in 3e, it was still there). It's not something new to 4e at all.

 

[theskyfullofdust]

Wasn't the Runequest setting called Glorantha?

 

[pemerton]

Not a clue what Glorantha is (though yeah the name is familiar), but as far as bringin myth and cosmology into the forefront of a campaign, we've had that for at least two editions now (was big in 2e, and while not as emphasized perhaps in 3e, it was still there). It's not something new to 4e at all.

I don't think I ever saw 2nd ed AD&D or 3E rules for heroquesting - at least, not in WotC publications.

And I always got the sense that Planescape was very metaplot heavy (Dead Gods, for example, unless I'm very badly misremebering).

 

[Doug McCrae]

Glorantha is amazing. Best rpg world evar, imo. Greg Stafford really knows his stuff when it comes to mythology, comparative religion and the like. It's a deep, rich world where the inhabitants have culture and religion and care about stuff real people care about.

For some reason D&D has never had good fluff, and I think the problem might be Gary's whole approach in the first place, which was very superficial. Sure, he knew a fair bit about myth and folklore but he just used it as a source for monster stats. The protagonists in his favoured fiction are rootless, ruthless individualists seeking gold, like oil industry workers in Robert E Howard's small Texas towns, spending all their money on drink and whores. Can you imagine a more shallow, pointless existence? This is the model for D&D.

Subsequent writers have taken Gary's jejune ideas and, nerds that they were, tried to make sense of it. Explain things, tie up the loose ends. Tell us what sort of hats gnomes wear and what flinds like to eat. Useless crap.

The best approach is to start again from the beginning, imo. Right at the very beginning - myth. I like how 4e has more of a mythic resonance - elemental giants, Celtic otherworlds, devils as fallen angels. It's good stuff, a step in the right direction. It's nothing like as good as Glorantha but it couldn't be because Greg Stafford is a genius.

 

[Votan]

Glorantha is amazing. Best rpg world evar, imo. Greg Stafford really knows his stuff when it comes to mythology, comparative religion and the like. It's a deep, rich world where the inhabitants have culture and religion and care about stuff real people care about.

Is it still in print?

Or is it like the ICE Middle Earth stuff (an amazing set of materials) that is available only as used copies in questionable shape?

 

[SPECTRE666]

I did a quick search on Runequest. Looks really interesting.

The Wiki(taken with a grain of salt) said that it used some of Joseph Campbells ideas.

I know on the WotC STAR WARS site it had a series of articles on using 'Mono-Myth'. Using Joseph Campbells ideas on character archtypes in STAR WARS Saga Edition game.

Interesting Doug McCrae...

 

[yojimbouk]

Is it still in print?

Or is it like the ICE Middle Earth stuff (an amazing set of materials) that is available only as used copies in questionable shape?

Very much so. Mongoose Publishing have just published the second edition of "Glorantha: the Second Age" which is a great introduction to Greg Stafford's world of Glorantha. It should be relatively rules-free (with rules for RuneQuest II). Or you could get a copy of the first edition in a bargain bin which is totally rules-free.

Also, in the pipeline from Moon Design LLC is The Guide to Glorantha for the other Glorantha RPG, HeroQuest, which should also prove to be a good overview of the world.

 

[JeffB]

I like how 4e has more of a mythic resonance - elemental giants, Celtic otherworlds, devils as fallen angels. It's good stuff, a step in the right direction.

Agreed.


Glorantha sourcebooks are available from Mongoose. They detail the second age, which is the previous age to the Glorantha most of us old timers know. I prefer the "original" with the Lunar Empire/Red Goddess, etc etc.

That said the Mongoose stuff is good, and available readily.

Most of the best Gloranthan material was piecemeal throughout the Chasoium RQ2 supplements and boxed sets of the early 1980s (Cults of Prax, Cults of Terror, Borderlands, Pavis, Big Rubble, etc), though Avalon Hill's RQ3 Glorantha:Genertala set was pretty good as well (RQ3 stuff being written by chaosium anyway). Unfortunately all of this stuff fetches high $ these days (I got a pretty penny for my RQ2/R3 collection, far from complete, about 7 years ago)

There is also the Glorantha book (OOP) released about 8 or 9 years ago for Issaries' Hero Wars (later re-named HeroQuest). It is pretty comprehensive but a tough read (extremely dry and just wall after wall of text).


HERE is the Issaries page with *some* background on Glorantha.