[RQ-Rules] RQII and II supplements

[alan richards]

I wrote

>> I would not touch:
>>
>> Gods of Glorantha
>> Genertela: Crucible of the anal retentives er, sorry I mean Hero Wars
>>
>

Nick wrote:


> I'm curious: whilst I can see that, especially to a Gloranthaphile, 
> Gods of
> Glorantha's thumbnail description of loads of cults is a poor 
> substitute
> for the relatively few detailed RQII write ups from Cults of Prax and 
> Cults
> of Terror (or now the Cults Compendium), what is your objection to
> Genertela that makes it untouchable? I'm not disputing that both are 
> flawed
> (Gods more than Genertela IMO) but I'm puzzled by the (inferred) 
> suggestion
> that they are of no use at all.

1. Award yourself a brownie point for the correct use of infer rather 
than imply (these things become important when you marry a speech 
therapist).

>
> I'm actually agnostic about Glorantha: it's one of those worlds I enjoy
> reading about, and I ran some very early RQI & II in a version of 
> Dragon
> Pass (as derived from the description in those rule books), but the 
> vast
> majority of my RQ playing has been done in other settings. But with
> Genertela, I do feel I can run pretty much anywhere in northern 
> Glorantha,
> whereas with the RQ material I felt you could run in Dragon Pass and 
> Prax
> (and if you worked quite hard at Dorastor). And even then you didn't 
> have
> the same overall impression of how the continent was structured which 
> is
> often important for me: it may never be relevant directly to players, 
> but
> as a GM I need some idea of the wider context (and daydreams about a 
> game
> set in Loskalm).
>>

I'm replying with a degree of reservation. The books are long out of 
print so I'm not taking bread out of the author's mouths but I am aware 
that one or more author might be on the list, and no one particularly 
enjoys having their nose rubbed in the dirt. So let me say this isn't 
meant as a hatchet job, if it comes across that way then its because 
I've phrased this badly.

I suppose its a matter of style.

The illustrations are poor. In my opinion if the artists can't do a 
decent job on one book, then pay em a retainer, leave the book without 
piccies and ask them to submit for the next one. The ones in GoG in 
particular are a waste of space.

As an aside this was a complaint that I had about 'Unknown East' for 
Elric! It pissed me off so much that I wrote to Chaosium to have a 
whine about that and the Dog's breakfast that is the Bronze Grimoire. 
To my amazement I got back a very polite letter, which also offered a 
free copy of the next Elric! supplement to reaffirm my faith in the 
company!

Of course I moved house (and indeed continent) not long after and so 
never got the book. But as an exercise in customer loyalty it knocks 
the shit out of swipe cards and loyalty points.


Secondly I want a supplement to either leap out of its binding at me 
and scream 'PLAY ME' or 'WRITE A SCENARIO bSED ON ME', or give me ideas 
for how to write up my own background. Neither of these books do 
either. They are not well-written and interesting enough to be anything 
more than shopping lists, and there is so much wasted space that they 
aren't complete enough to be good shopping lists.

Genertela contains pages and pages of charts for randomly determining 
which specific area of the continent  your character comes from! No, 
no, no, no, no, no

The 'what my Father Told' me bits are good (ish) though



I wrote:

>> I Like:
>> Steve Perrin's rules (hosted on Tal Meta's site)
>> Bits of Nikk <mumble. mumble can't remember the surname> 's Storms of
>> Ralios rules

Nick wrote:

>
> Effingham?

Yep, that's the bunny


> A good starting point for Matt and others looking at variant rules 
> would be
> http://www.crashbox.com/nikk/rules.htm .

Yes. But, about half of the links are dead. Some of the others ARE good 
though.



Alan