Sartar Companion - Review pt 2

The Sartar Companion includes six scenarios. They are not linked together by any common theme, and can be run in between sessions of the Kingdom of Heroes scenario, or separately. The first of these is "Return to Apple Lane", which is a sequel to the original Apple Lane scenario, first published in the late '70s, and later, for RQ3 in 1987. Its hard to avoid the feeling that this is a nostalgia-fest for those whose first experience of Glorantha may well have been this introductory adventure way back when. However, no knowledge of the original is required, and the scenario will work just as well for those new to the hamlet.

Details of Apple Lane itself have been changed to fit the new rules, but most of these changes are fairly minor, and the majority of the original NPCs are present - albeit five years older. The only ones who are obviously missing are the Humakti weaponmasters; their building is shown on the map, but they appear to have left the hamlet at some point, perhaps to prevent them offering too much assistance to the PCs. The scenario itself is also reminiscent of the original, with the heroes once again finding themselves defending Gringle's Pawnshop, this time from the Lunars.

The conclusion to the scenario is fairly scripted, although it feels natural enough, rather than railroading the players. Suffice to say that "Return to Apple Lane" is also a bridge between the original RQ version and "Sheep, Clouds, Thunder" from the Gathering Thunder scenario book for HQ1. That received some criticism for the way it treated the hamlet; at least this time the heroes get to salvage something first, and the ending isn't as downbeat as might be expected.

The second scenario, "The Hero and the Grove", is a short heroquest about strengthening the magical pact between the Colymar Tribe and the local wild lands. It's a fairly average heroquest, but does have the advantage of being a good introduction to the concept of re-enacting myths in the Otherworld. If possible, it would probably be a good idea to run this (or something like it) before the more dramatic otherworldly adventure in Kingdom of Heroes, at least if your players are new to the concept. A nice touch here is the description of how the myth was enacted first by Orlanth, then Heort, then Colymar, showing a common historical theme in heroquesting.

"Treasure of Two-Face Hill" is an expansion of a plot hook provided in the background section of the book. There's a good chance the players will need to spend some hero points just to have their characters survive the first part of the scenario (although its also possible to side-step this entirely, if they're more sensible than your average PC), but from then on it turns into a question of how to defend your clan from something that's essentially unbeatable in combat. This is one of those areas where the HQ2 habit of rating opponents as "Nearly Impossible" to defeat, or whatever, really does make sense - if the enemy wasn't significantly tougher than the heroes, there wouldn't be a scenario.

For my money, the best scenario in the book is "Ghosts of the Ridge". Here, the players are presented with a problem that can be solved in numerous ways, all with their own pros and cons. The judicious use of extreme physical violence is certainly one of the options, although perhaps not the best one. While the heroes are certainly free to try that, and other possibilities besides, the scenario nudges them towards seeking a legal solution to their situation, and undertaking a rather cool heroquest to recover an item of considerable magical power. Characters following Lhankor Mhy, god of knowledge, will probably get as much chance to shine in this one as the warriors, if not more so. The heroquest can also be run as a stand-alone scenario, should the characters choose another way of dealing with the central issue in this one.

"The Gifts of Stone" starts out fairly scripted, with some obvious scenery-gawking, but later turns into a return visit to another old RQ scenario, in this case the Sazdorf tunnels from Haunted Ruins. The nature of the heroes' mission makes this feel somewhat different from the original, and there are a few reminders that you're not here to just steal treasure from the trolls!

The final offering isn't so much a scenario as a bit of scenery setting. The Crimson Bat arrives in Sartar, eats a bunch of people, and then buggers off to Whitewall. This can be used as an opportunity to do all sorts of things, and is rather more dramatic than it may sound. If you already know what the Crimson Bat is, 'nuff said... if not: "scary" about sums it up.

So, the actual narratives of the scenarios are, on the whole, pretty good. Where they fall down is for the same reason as in Kingdom of Heroes: the lack of any stats. This was, to my mind, a significant drawback in that book, and it hasn't been fixed here, either. This flaw naturally extends to the encounters, and, to some extent, the background material, as well as to the scenarios.

To be fair, the writers are quite up-front about it - literally so; they mention it in the introduction. Their argument is that stats "aren't necessary" in HQ2, which is technically true, but doesn't mean that they aren't highly desirable, at least for some GMs. Instead, anyone who thinks such things are useful is just told to go away and do all the work themselves, which isn't terribly helpful.

Now, one of the problems with HQ2 as a system - if you like the style of gaming I do - is that you couldn't give numbered stats to NPCs if you wanted to. The system doesn't work that way, and sometimes (as in "Treasure of Two-Face Hill", mentioned above) that's an advantage, and sometimes it isn't. Either way, nobody can blame the writers for leaving out the numbers, since they just wouldn't make sense.

But that isn't to say that you can't give a clearer idea of what the NPCs and other encounters are capable of. A listing of significant abilities is all that's required. In fact, this is done for one particular being (p226), so why not the others? You're presumably supposed to infer any stats you might need from the text descriptions, but this really isn't very satisfactory, especially for the more important characters, like the villain in "Return to Apple Lane". Yes, you can do all the work yourself, as you're advised to, but you shouldn't have to.

A rather sour note to end on, then, although it has to be acknowledged that many people won't find the lack of stats a problem at all, and some will doubtless rejoice in the freedom it gives them. But, really, it's my only major criticism of the book, which in every other respect (except maybe the proofreading) is of high quality, and eminently useful for any Sartar-based campaign. If you don't mind going only PDF-only, you can even get it for almost half price, which is pretty good value, all things considered. There's a lot of really good material here, and the book deserves to do well.

Sartar Companion - Review pt 1

The Sartar Companion is the follow up to Kingdom of Heroes for HeroQuest 2. The book has the same format as the earlier volume, weighing in at 296 pages, for a rather steep €40 price tag. Still, given the size of the book, and the volume of material in it, that doesn't seem an unreasonable price, and the alternative would presumably have been two books at rather more than half the price each - economies of scale being what they are. The book also includes a couple of full page, full-colour maps, one of the whole Dragon Pass area, and the other of the Colymar lands.

One negative point is that the proofreading does not appear to have been done to a very high standard, with a number of jarring typos throughout the book. Having said that, its not as bad as it was in the early Hero Wars books, or some of the Mongoose books, for that matter. I've seen much, much, worse in other published RPG products, but that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement. Perhaps the instance most in need of an erratum or clarification is the description of the walls of Runegate, which manages to contradict itself within the course of a single paragraph! Other than that one example, however, the intended meanings are usually clear.

The contents of the book are something of a random assortment, which is only to be expected in a "Companion" volume. That is, the book includes all the bits they couldn't squeeze into the already large Kingdom of Heroes. In a similar vein, as the title implies, the book is of little use if you don't own the previous one. Unlike KoH, though, virtually everything in this is GM-only information, with only the 40 or so pages dedicated to cults being of much use to players. Character generation and general background were, after all, fairly well covered in KoH.

Broadly speaking, the book can be divided into four sections: background, encounters, scenarios, and cults.

The background section describes the city of Jonstown and the towns of Runegate and Clearwine, along with several other locations, such as the Old Wind Temple and the Starfire Ridges. Much of this is directly linked to the scenarios later in the book, and a few "For more information, see p. XX" tags might have been helpful as a result.  Some locations, such as Two-Face Hill, are therefore described into two different parts of the book, with neither making reference to the other. Having said that, everything in this section is stand-alone, and much of it serves as detailed background for gaming.

Places such as Jonstown are described in some considerable detail. Town plans in the style of those in the first book are included again, but here there is more emphasis on individual characters within the city, and the material is even more directly relevant to play. There are some oddities here and there, where NPCs are described as "very hard" to defeat in combat, or whatever - apparently regardless of who the player characters are. This is the sort of thing that makes perfect sense in a scenario, but putting such things into a background description that doesn't have a specific narrative feels rather odd. Of course, its easy to ignore, and is doubtless useful information for someone, so its a little unfair to actually complain about it.

The emphasis in the locations is fairly strongly on the Colymar clan and their local geography. For some reason, the Colymar have never particularly interested me, but given the scenario in the previous book, it does make sense to expand on them here. It can also provide useful ideas for anyone wanting to strike out with their own tribe, and gives groups the opportunity to feel that a particular corner of Sartar is more "theirs", without official publications contradicting it. And material on large and important places like Jonstown should be useful to everyone, regardless of their choice of tribe.

In addition to what is really some very good location writing, the background section of the book also includes a section on dragonewts, which is useful but adds little to what long-time fans already know, and a bumper section of 100 rumours in the old True/False/Mostly True/GM Choice/Meaningless format from the RuneQuest days. Nostalgia aside, a good GM can get a lot out of this section, and its a welcome addition.

The next major section focuses on encounters. There is an actual random encounter table, rolling percentile dice against the terrain type to generate possibilities, although, of course, its use is entirely optional. (As an aside, there is no explanation of what percentile dice actually are - since they are never used in the HQ2 rules, its apparently just taken for granted that you already know. On the other hand, one might well argue that that's not an unreasonable assumption for Glorantha players!) There is also a table showing the typical weather in Sartar throughout the year which, if you'll pardon the pun, should help set the atmosphere.

The book includes 42 typical encounters, and 31 special encounters. The typical encounters include things such as merchants, Lunar patrols, dwarves, and broos. Each has a description covering at least a page - it is, however, slightly confusing to discover that, for example, the page with "Encounter: 17b" at the top in large bold letters is not a variant of Encounter 17, but simply the second page of that encounter description.

Each encounter type also includes at least one specific group or NPC in detail, and, in a nice nod to the past, these include such familiar characters as Biturian Varosh. These help put a face to a general encounter such as "Sartarite Farmers", illustrating how they can actually be used in play. Many are detailed enough that they serve as plot hooks that could lead to short GM-written scenarios.


The special encounters are somewhat different. These are unusual events, such as odd meteorological phenomena, or finding mysterious ruins, as well as meetings with unique NPCs, such as the Puppeteer Troupe. Most of these are relatively briefly described, as strange bits of scenery one might come across, with some entries being as short as a single sentence, while others go into more detail. As a result, most aren't really plot hooks, but rather ways of showing off the unusual environment.

After the scenarios, the book concludes with write-ups of six cults not included in KoH. These include Heler, Eurmal, and Odayla, all of which were previously seen in Storm Tribe for Hero Wars; Argan Argar and Babeester Gor, who haven't been properly written up since RQ3 days; and Kolat, who has never had an official cult write up at all until now. Taken together with KoH, this is all of the regular deities of the Sartarites, although the Tarsh exiles also worship Maran Gor, who we've yet to see, and Yelmalio is popular in some places, too. The latter, though, belongs more properly in the Pavis book, which will be the next one in the series, so his absence here is entirely expected.

The cult write ups follow essentially the same format as in KoH, at least for the four relatively normal deities on the list. Eurmal, being a god of the occasional outcast nutter, doesn't quite follow the usual scheme, and the writers do a fairly good job of pointing out all the huge disadvantages of worshipping him. Playing an Eurmali is, as it should be, therefore something of a challenge, and they're much better suited to being sidekicks who can get the PCs into trouble rather than heroes in their own right.

Kolat is the first proper look we've had at a shamanic, spirit-based cult. The book expands on the information in the appendix to the HQ2 rules, as well as listing numerous types of spirit on which the Kolating can call. The write-up gives the impression that Kolatings are rather more limited in their magic than followers of theistic cults, with their abilities generally being narrower, as well as giving them what could be quite a complex series of taboos that they must not break. This may well be intentional, emphasising that the Heortlings are predominantly a theistic culture, with little room for strange spirit wranglers. On the other hand, a Kolating does have magic that's different from everyone else's (at least in an all-Heortling campaign), and that difference alone can be an advantage.

It's perhaps worth noting that Serdodosa, Kolat's female counterpart, gets no more than a passing mention. Doubtless there wasn't room for two spirit cults in the book - Kolat's is the longest cult write up here - but hopefully we will see her described properly at some point, along with Maran Gor, and perhaps some of the more obscure options.

In part 2, I will look at the scenarios included in the Sartar Companion.

Lords of the West: Update 3

As many of you probably know, if you follow the Gloranthan mailing lists, my Facebook page, and so on, progress on Lords of the West has definitely been picking up recently.

Having said that, I should begin by saying that I have, as yet, no further news on LotW2: Kingdom of the Flamesword. It has a publisher, but no release date or further information. There is no reason to suppose this won't happen at some point, but for the moment, you'll just have to wait.

Progress on the Jonatela material that could potentially have formed LotW4 is slow but steady. The material currently available at my website deals with the more mundane aspects of Jonating life, the workings of the government, and what can laughingly be called the justice system. Obviously, Jonatela is not a very nice place, especially if you're a peasant, and this inevitably colours the material, but it's still enjoyable to write, so I'll keep on doing it. This background stuff will soon be finished, and I'll then move on to starting to compile a gazetteer of interesting places to visit across the kingdom, emphasising some of its magical power as well as its murky peril.

But what's really cool, of course, is the news about The Book of Glorious Joy, which incorporates bits of LotW1 with most of LotW3. As you can see, the cover has been completed - and a very fine piece of work it is, too, showing a valiant Loskalmi wizard-knight charging through a dark and chilly landscape so typical of many parts of Fronela. The interior artwork is well under way, and you can see a sample at the d101 Games product page. Proofing and editing are all completed, and the publisher is aiming at a release in January or February. As always, these dates can slip, but in this case, I doubt it will be by very much.

Continuum 2010

I have just returned from the 2010 incarnation of Continuum, the biennial games convention. I have, of course, mentioned this before, and now its back again! I have to say that this seemed, even by the high standards of Continuum, and its predecessor, Convulsion, to be a particularly good event. So far as I could tell, everything was running smoothly, and there was certainly plenty to do throughout the whole weekend.

Of course, a lot of the time was, as always, spent socialising and drinking (so much so that the bar ran out of cider on Saturday evening - fortunately they obtained more for the next day). As always, the conversations were eclectic, and covered much more than just gaming - such as the precise distinction between Prussia and Brandenburg, the funereal habits of the middle-eastern Neolithic, and methods of promotion in the Royal Navy during the 18th century. Because such things are, of course, more important than anything involving, say, footballs.

But, of course, we're there mainly for the gaming. I managed to get into four games over the course of the weekend, which, with seminars in the mornings, out-of-tune singing on Saturday night, and me shouting at people on Sunday evening, made quite a full timetable. The first game was a Glorantha HeroQuest adventure (just published in Gloranthan Adventures), which resulted in much craziness, and dropping of roofs on top of undead sparrows.

On the Saturday, I played in a scenario for the hard SF game River of Heaven. If you've not heard of that before, it's probably because it hasn't yet been published - apparently it should be out by the end of the year. Hard SF doesn't seem to get much of a look-in when it comes to RPGs (although I'm sure one could argue about just how hard is 'hard'), but this setting did look quite interesting from the brief glimpse we got. The scenario itself, concerning a crisis on an STL interstellar cargo ship, was written and GMed by the game's designer, John Ossoway, and gave us plenty to do, without it being too difficult to follow the relevant details of the setting.

On Saturday evening, that was followed by a free-form set in Kingsport, Massachusetts. I was playing a thinly disguised Herbert West, amidst a steadily growing mountain of insanity, much of which revolved heavily around snakes. By the end of the scenario I was was turned into a brain-eating zombie, which seems appropriate enough, under the circumstances. In short, this was a very fun free-form, and one where I managed to keep constantly busy (I've been in some before where this wasn't the case), which I'd recommend if it's run again.

And then, on the Sunday, I played in a game based on the 1960s TV series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. I played Destiny Angel - I'm sure you can see the resemblance. The GM was obviously very well versed on the show - certainly far more than I was - and did a good job of working in its various conventions, as well as using a brilliant set of props. All in all, very well done, and a lot of effort looked to have gone into it.

In terms of my own publications, it looks as if much of volumes 1 and 3 of Lords of the West should be out in time for Dragonmeet, although no promises on that one. It's looking highly likely that these will, in fact, be published under a single cover, which will make quite a substantial book. There is no specific news on a release date for volume 2, as yet.

And, of course, the best news: there will be another Continuum in 2012. So that will definitely be something to look forward to!

Kingdom of Heroes - scenario review

You may have noticed in my main review of Kingdom of Heroes that I said there were a few things missing that I would have liked to see more of. Given that, at the same time, I pointed out how unusually large the book is for a RP supplement, you might quite reasonably have wondered what I would get rid of to fit this extra information in. The answer, quite simply, is the scenario.

This isn't, I hasten to add, because it's a poor scenario - it isn't. It's just that I don't feel a scenario belongs in this sort of book, or certainly not a scenario of this length (70 pages). Removing this section, perhaps along with the material on the Colymar tribe that supports it, would not only have made the book shorter (and cheaper), but, perhaps more importantly, might have made it more attractive to players as well as GMs. The scenario deserved to be published, no doubt about that - but it could have had its own book without any real problem.

Nonetheless, Moon Design chose to publish it here, so the question is what is the scenario itself like? To begin with, it provides some information (most of it new, so far as I can tell) about the PCs' suggested base, the Orlmarth clan of the Colymar tribe. There is no particular reason why a GM would have to use the Orlmarth, though, and the scenario would work just as well with almost any Sartarite clan that isn't pro-Lunar - including, obviously, one that the players might have created themselves. Of course, it would require more work to do that, so the detailing of the Orlmarth as a typical clan is very welcome here.

The scenario itself concerns the PCs' attempts to acquire three things of great importance currently in the possession of hostile forces. I've heard it claimed that the scenario is rather 'rail-roading', but I really can't agree with that at all. There is one bit of rail-roading, which I'll return to later, but only one that I can see. For most of the rest of the scenario, multiple different options are frequently spelled out, often in some detail. This is partly why the scenario is so long, in fact.

The heroes have multiple different ways to resolve the problems in front of them, and the scenario won't break if they decide on the "wrong" approach, although choices made earlier on will most definitely have differing repercussions later. This, I think, is really the way to do it, and the authors have made a good job of it.

Oddly, though, I can see why it might not feel like that. In part one, for instance, the authors clearly hope that the PCs will take a specific, and fairly convoluted, path to acquiring the first item. That this path gets so much detail makes it appear quite rail-roaded even though, actually, you don't have to take that particular approach to succeed at the task.

Perhaps worse, there's a suggestion that the GM should, effectively, take over one of the PCs at critical points in the scenario, ensuring that he responds to challenges in the way that will best further the scenario. This is supposed to represent involuntary hero-forming, but the irony is that, in most cases, the players will probably do what they're supposed to do without the prompting. And if they don't... well, it might be a little more work for the GM, but the scenario won't break. In other words, you're giving them the illusion of having no choice in affairs, when actually they have free will. I'd recommend ignoring those bits, and let the players extemporise their own hero-forming, if they must.

There are also a few minor quibbles here and there. On a couple of occasions, the writers seem to forget that some of the PCs may well be heterosexual women, and there's an NPC with a background so mysterious, even the GM isn't allowed to know what it is - beyond the fact that, whatever it is, it's significant!

I had to read the description of one of the challenges three times to make head or tail of it, since it looked as if even a Complete Success would result in the hero failing abysmally. It turns out the stake wasn't what I thought it was, and the writers had made an unstated assumption that the heroes would be trying something that hadn't even occurred to me. That could have been made clearer, and alternatives provided. And the snippets of poetry get a bit tedious after a while, so that some groups might prefer to ignore or paraphrase them.

But these quibbles are, indeed, minor. Any experienced GM can sort them out with a minimum of fuss if they look likely to raise a problem in his game. Slightly more of a problem is the one bit of rail-roading, which occurs right at the beginning. Essentially, one of the PCs makes a decision that kicks off all the events in the scenario, and if he doesn't make that particular decision, you're screwed. Moreover, it has to be a PC who meets certain requirements; the scenario doesn't work if the "wrong" PC is the only one who takes the course of action in question.

Fortunately, the requirements aren't especially onerous, and I'd guess 95% of groups will have at least one PC who fits the bill... but how the other 5% are supposed to cope isn't at all clear. Given how far the rest of the scenario goes to account for varying PC actions, something more than the advice "you must ensure one of the PCs does X" would have been a very good thing here.

If the beginning of the scenario is a bit iffy, the ending is spectacular. It takes the form of a heroquest, with all of the good points of the Boat Planet scenario from Gathering Thunder, and none of the bad points. This time, the heroes really are the ones in charge, the ones that the legends will be written about - and, make no mistake, what they're doing is pretty legendary stuff, enmeshed with a key event in Gloranthan history. This really is "HeroQuest", not the HenchmanQuest of the Boat Planet. Yes, it's fairly linear, but then heroquests often are, and so long as the heroes get to come centre stage, that's fine by me.

All in all, I think it's a great scenario, one worthy of the Gloranthan canon. It's fun, exciting, and heroic, and most of the problems that might come up can be easily fixed by a competent GM.

The big let-down, unfortunately, is not the fault of the writers, but of HQ2: the scenario has essentially no stats. Not just no numbers, but no real stats at all, even in outline - opponents are described as "Very Hard to overcome", or whatever, and that's it. I'd hardly expect fully worked character sheets for the NPCs, because that would take up too much space, but I found that the absence of anything at all to get my teeth into detracted from something that should otherwise have been excellent. It feels empty and bland, only partially offset by the grandeur of the narrative scenery.

I can already hear some people moaning "but the stats never worked in HQ1". Perhaps not - although I remain unconvinced that there was no way of fixing that - but, for me at least, that's not the point. Perhaps I'm in a minority, but I very much having prefer stats that are "wrong" to having no stats at all. Bad stats I can adjust; missing stats require a lot more work than that.

But, as I say, that's not a fault of the scenario per se. It is written for the system as it is, not as I'd like it to be. With that caveat, it's one of the better HQ scenarios to be published. Even if I think it would have been better in a book of its own.

Lords of the West: Update 1

Well, things have been a lot more encouraging than I had feared. I am not going to give specific details here, since I would not want to seem to be making promises on behalf of other people. However, I can say that there has been a fair degree of interest from Gloranthan publishers in getting the material out there.

I should also stress that Moon Design have been helpful in this regard. While they no longer have any interest in publishing my work, they have been supportive in attempts to get it published by other means. For example, material that I did not originally write, but was supplied to me by Issaries has been cleared for publication along with those elements that I did write.

So, without going into specifics of proposed publication dates or issue numbers, here is what has already been agreed since the beginning of the week:

• The Junora chapter of LotW3, which is largely self-contained, has been definitively accepted for publication in one of the Glorantha magazines. It will almost certainly be the first release, and could be considered a "teaser" for the rest.
  
• The remainder of LotW3 (the Loskalm book) has also been accepted for publication, barring some specifically HQ1 rules sections. I would say that things are looking good for a time frame that I think most people will be pleased with.
  
• Most of the material in LotW2 (Kingdom of the Flamesword) has been accepted for publication in principle, and I am confident that this will also see the light of day before too long.
• LotW1 (Heroes of Malkion), ironically may be the last part to be released. An agreement has been made to publish around half of this, although another large section remains unclaimed at this time.
• I have received permission from Moon Design to publish, free of charge, at my own website, any outstanding material that is not picked up by any of the licensed magazine publishers.

Obviously, I would have preferred my writings to be published, as originally intended, in book form. And I would have liked them to become, at least in part "official" or "canonical", neither of which will now happen. However, I do think that we have a very positive outcome here, from a situation that looked quite bleak just one week ago. It is, in fact, highly likely that this material will now be published sooner than would otherwise have been the case - since MD would, naturally enough, have been working on the Pavis Book and other high priority projects.

I would like to say thank you to all of those involved in moving this forward, who hopefully know who they are! I will, of course, give more specific details once the publishers concerned have decided to release it. For everyone who has been giving me words of encouragement over the last week, I would also like to say a big thank you, and I hope you are all pleased with the final result when it appears.

---

Further Mini-Update:

I can now reveal, to those who haven't noticed, that the Junora article will be appearing in Hearts in Glorantha #4. Note the expected release date of "March/April 2010"!

Kingdom of Heroes - Review pt 3

The cults in Kingdom of Heroes are written in much the same format as in previous Gloranthan books from Storm Tribe all the way back to Cults of Prax. However, much of the information is fresh, and, of course, the new magic rules put a different slant on things. It is here that the re-focusing on the runes is perhaps at its most obvious; we always knew why Chalana Arroy, for example, had the runes of Life and Harmony, but here its quite specific what that means in concrete terms.

Thunder Rebels and Storm Tribe both focussed to a large extent on subcults; the various speciality forms of worship granting unusual magic. In a sense, one could argue that Destor, say, was the default Orlanth cult (at least for warriors), but it didn't truly feel like that - it was more as if one had to pick from a big list of options. Now, I never found that problem, and I quite liked the range of options that were provided, but restoring the subcults to optional niches (as they were back in the old RuneQuest days) is certainly a good deal simpler.

In fact, its not really accurate to say that the subcults of TR and ST have been done away with. A great many of them do survive, albeit somewhat downplayed in importance. Orlanth, for example, has eleven , including Hedkoranth, Destor, Helamakt, and so on. It would be relatively easy to add those that are "missing" (such as Yavor or Vanganth, for example), assuming you have access to the older sources.

There have, on the other hand, been some demotions. The powers of some of the old subcults are relegated to mere feats of the 'default' version of the deity, although, again, its fairly easy to build them back up if one is so inclined. Vinga the warrior-ess and Heler the rain god, both full deities in Storm Tribe, are here demoted to mere subcults of Orlanth. That isn't necessarily so bad, though, since Vinga was always supposed to be able to do anything Orlanth could do, so she might as well be merged in rules terms as well. Heler is perhaps a little more disappointing, but when you have space for only nine cults, its a perfectly reasonable one to leave out. (Incidentally, the others from ST who fail to make the grade are Odayla, who to my mind isn't as interesting as Yinkin, and Eurmal, who isn't very suitable for PCs anyway).

Having said that, cults are fairly central to play in the Dragon Pass setting, and, given the size of the book, I would have liked to have seen more. Expecting minor cults to get the full 5+ pages devoted to each those that made it in might, perhaps be a bit much... but one or two pages each would have sufficed to at least give us the basics. As it is, this is an area where having Storm Tribe available is going to be helpful - at least until a companion volume comes out with the lesser cults properly described.

The one cult in KoH that I felt unhappy with was Humakt, god of death. There seems to have been a general move since RuneQuest days to make the Humakti embody death to such an extent that they cease (at least from my perspective) to be truly interesting or really playable. Storm Tribe, while subscribing to this view, at least seemed to recognise what a big problem it could create in game. The "re-sheathing" ceremony mentioned in that book was a decent stab at keeping Humakti playable, and was, as a result, to my mind one of the most crucial points about the cult in that book.

Sadly, KoH seems to ignore that altogether. Technically, it doesn't contradict it, but that's not much of an excuse, when the reader will be clearly left with the impression that all Humakti - and not just, say, the Devotees - are somehow the "living death". It's a disappointing omission, and, perhaps, quite a surprising one.

While I'm on the subject, the section on Humakti gifts and geases feels weak and woolly by comparison with all previous versions - some more specific examples would have been very helpful here.

Still, other than Humakt, the cults are good. And they're by no means the end of the cool material in the book. There is a lot of good advice on heroquesting, expanding and improving on that in earlier books. Heortling culture is well described, bringing them as a people to life, helped by the high quality illustrations throughout. Dragon Pass itself is described, with the aid of several glossy full colour maps.

These maps in particular, are a part of the reason why I say that the book is worth the price. How often do you see full colour maps in RPG products that aren't produced by giants like Hasbro/WotC? And these are nice looking maps at that, and detailed enough to be really helpful in play. There are even black & white plans of the cities of Sartar, something that has generally been lacking in previous publications. There's also a detailed description of the Colymar tribe, complete with its own colour map.

The book has information about the Lunars, and about the various other cultures that neighbour the Heortling barbarians. Rightly, the focus is on the Heortlings themselves, rather than describing the Lunar Army in detail, or describing the cults of the Grazelanders. But even so, there is enough information here to play them as foes.

All in all, the sheer density of information in the book may seem a little overwhelming to a newcomer, but it rewards the effort with a wonderfully fleshed-out look at a culture different from that in so many other RPGs, and very much retaining the "feel" that Glorantha has had for so long. Yes, I have reservations about the book. It isn't perfect, but then what is? But that doesn't mean that it isn't one of the best Gloranthan products to have come our way in a long time.

If Moon Design can keep this up at a regular schedule - and we know there are more books in the pipeline - then its going to be a very good few years for Gloranthan fandom.

Kingdom of Heroes - Review pt 2

Every time there is a new magic system released for Glorantha, we are always told that "this time it's the way we always wanted it to be", and "this time it really reflects Greg's stories." The magic systems in both HW and HQ1 were promoted with those sorts of phrases, and HQ2 is, of course, no different. I'm past caring whether or not they're true in any meaningful way; I just want to know whether or not the system is any good.

And, on the whole, the system presented in KoH is good.

Of course, there wasn't really much wrong with the theist magic system in HQ1 - although the same couldn't really be said for animism or wizardry. But nonetheless, the writers of KoH have managed to improve on it, and that can only be a good thing.

It's worth pointing out again that KoH is, rightly, a book about the Heortling barbarians of Sartar, dominated as they are by the magic of Air and Earth. So the book has essentially nothing to say about how magic works elsewhere in the world. The primer in the HQ2 core rulebook gave a sufficient outline of that, and it will hopefully be developed more as time goes by. But this is the book for the Heortlings, and its only their magic we see here.

The core of the new Heortling magic system then, is the runes. These are the same old familiar runes of RuneQuest, with Elements, Powers, Forms, and Conditions. We have always been told that the runes were the basis of all magic, but it is only with this new system that that is really shown to be the case. Every character starts off with three runes, one Element, one Power, and one other, which can be anything except another Element or a Power directly opposed to the one you already have. (So, no having both Life and Death, for instance).

Characters with no cult use their runes to augment everyday tasks; they don't create specific "spells". So, if you are strong in, say, the Death rune, you will be able to use it to boost your combat prowess - a sort of Bladesharp, if you will. Here, I would have liked to see more description of what the runes generally let you boost, and a broader discussion of what each of them means. Instead, the descriptions are short, and often of little use, although they do have associated personality traits. Perhaps it was felt that the names were indicative enough, but I feel a broader discussion would have been very helpful.

I'm also not overly enthused by the idea that PCs should be penalised if they fail to act according to the personality traits written for their rune. True, the book suggests that the GM should not use this punitively, but only if it works well with the story. Nonetheless, it feels a little overly prescriptive to me, and I suspect I won't use that part.

Most characters, however, will probably want to initiate to a cult, worshipping a specific god from the Heortling pantheon. To do this, you need at least one rune in common with your god (it's generally specified which one it has to be), and it makes sense to match all of them if you want your character to be magically powerful. A character who belongs to a cult gets to use his rune actively, to cast what would be called "spells" in most other RPG systems. Each god has one "affinity" for each of his one to three runes, which act as keywords allowing the PC to use magic directly related to that aspect of the god. So a Humakti, for instance, can use his Truth rune to cast magic related to honour and oaths.

In HQ1, similar affinities existed, and they were always labelled with an appropriate rune. However, the choice of rune often made little sense - since it had no game mechanical effect, it was merely for decoration anyway. For instance, out of all the many sub-cults of Ernalda in Thunder Rebels, only one had an affinity directly linked to the Earth rune. Similarly, many cults in HQ1 had idiosyncratic runes, creating a plethora of symbols that obscured the underlying simplicity of the system - Under the Red Moon was particularly notable for this.

But, in KoH, the original, simple, list of basic runes takes centre stage. Ernalda has Earth magic, because she is the Earth Mother; Lhankor Mhy, god of knowledge, has Truth magic, and so on. This is both easier to grasp and more atmospheric than the old system, and its a significant step forward.

It does, on the other hand, lead to some problems when the affinities are overly broad. If Orlanth can do anything possible with the Air rune, its difficult to see what the point of any other Air cult might be. As far as I can tell from the rules, a priestess of Ernalda should be just as good at creating earthquakes as a priestess of Maran Gor, the goddess of earthquakes, which sounds a bit odd. Of course, if they were competing against each other, you would give the latter a bonus for the more specific ability, but that seems to be rather side-stepping the issue. Fortunately, the cults provided in the book don't overlap very much, so it's less of a problem than it might appear at first glance.

Another issue in HQ1 was that almost everyone chose to be a devotee, a level of ability that got you more potent magic, but that was supposed to be really rare in the game setting (although, to be honest, this was never very clearly expressed). In KoH, the new "initiates" are essentially the equivalent of the old "devotees" in terms of magical power, removing the temptation to do this.

What KoH calls "devotees" are actually closer to the HQ1/Storm Tribe "disciples" - indeed, they seem to have the same in-world titles. Devotees get specific "feats" which are more focused, and hence more powerful, magic than the broad affinities. In return, they face considerable limitations on their freedom of action, making them less attractive as PCs, unless you really want to play a powerful specialist. Which is, to my mind, as it should be. It is also no longer possible to start play as a devotee; it's a status to be achieved through play, as disciple was in HQ1. A slight niggle is that some of the feat descriptions are a long on flowery text and short on what it is they are actually supposed to do. You're probably meant to work this out in play, but some more guidance would have been nice.

In part 3, I'll take a look at the cults themselves. It's a big book - it needs a long review...

Kingdom of Heroes - Review pt 1

And so, the wait is over, and Kingdom of Heroes has been released. If you're reading this blog, there's a good chance you already know what that is, but, to summarise, it's the new HeroQuest sourcebook for the Kingdom of Sartar, a magical barbarian land dominated by the powers of Air and Earth. It is set in the world of Glorantha, where everyone can do magic, and there is a distinct bronze age vibe that makes it different from most other fantasy settings on the market.

On the other hand, if, by some chance, you are actually more interested in my occasional musings on secularism and scepticism, then I’ll take the opportunity to promote the recently released Tim Minchin single “White Wine in the Sun”. This is a beautiful Christmas song about the values that are more important to many of us at this time of year than something that may, or may not, have happened in a stable 2,000 years ago. Buy the MP3 online from a legal download site for just 79p, and maybe it’ll get into the Christmas charts. It’d be a nice thought.

Right, back onto gaming. Chances are that the first thing that will strike you about KoH is “blimey, is that the price?” And, yes, by RPing standards, it’s pretty darn expensive - although, if you’re willing to go PDF-only you can get it for much less than many D&D books by buying it online at sites like DriveThru RPG. The obvious question then, is whether the book is worth the price. I’d say that, if you’re already a fan of Glorantha, then yes, it is. (Of course, if your actual question parses as “is it worth my wife making me sleep on the couch for a month because I spent so much on an RP book?”, then you’re on your own).

The reason I say this is partly the sheer size of the book; at a whopping 378 pages, it’s the equivalent of a number of normal RP supplements stuffed into one cover. And, even for the size, there’s a lot of text. The artwork is great (although some of it isn’t new), and there are even full colour maps inside, which you don’t see very often outside of the really big publishers. Certainly, when you compare it with just about anything previously published by Issaries/Moon Design, the physical quality is in an entirely new league.

On the other hand, if you’re not already a fan, I can’t really deny that it has quite a steep entry price. Furthermore, one of the criticisms often levelled at Glorantha is that it’s too complicated, and there’s just too much to know to get into the setting. Dumping a book of this size down in front of someone is unlikely to dissuade them from that opinion! So, I’d have to say that this feels much more like a book for the fans than one for newcomers. The fact that the book has the name "Sartar" in huge letters on the cover, when nobody but a fan will have a clue what that means, supports the idea that this was what the publishers were aiming at; by comparison the more evocative "Kingdom of Heroes" title is in much smaller print.

But, hey, if you are a fan, or better yet, if you are a newcomer and want to try it anyway, then read on…

Perhaps the second question that might strike a potential purchaser is whether we really need this book. If you’re a fan of Glorantha, chances are that you already have the previous Sartar book, Thunder Rebels , not to mention later supplements covering the setting such as Land of Thunder and Storm Tribe. TR was a pretty damn good book, so do we really need a new book on more or less the same subject?

Here, the issue is a little more complex. It’s perfectly possible to run a game set in Sartar with what’s already been published, so “need” is perhaps too strong a word. On the other hand, there is plenty of new material in here, and a number of things that improve on Thunder Rebels. But, then again, there are some other respects in which, in my opinion, Thunder Rebels did a better job than KoH. In fact, for reasons I’ll get into shortly, I’d say that owning Thunder Rebels will make it easier to get more out of this book – they complement each other, rather than the new book replacing the old one.

The first part of the book concerns character generation. Here, the system is essentially the standard one from HeroQuest, although the original religious keyword has now been replaced by a choice of three runic affinities, which are described later on in the book. Aside from this, there is a cultural keyword that applies to all Sartarites, and then a choice of occupational keywords.

A positive step here was to return to the culture-specific occupational keywords of Thunder Rebels, rather than the generic occupations of HQ1. This makes sense for a book about a specific culture, and removes some of the bland generalisations made necessary in HQ1. It also allows a greater range of occupations than official HQ1 publications had, with, for example, distinctions between common mercenaries and elite weaponthanes.

Regrettably, though, this is one area where KoH falls short of the high standards set by Thunder Rebels.

If you have read my review of HeroQuest 2, you may recall that I praised the preservation of the old method of describing keywords alongside the newer alternatives. Here, HQ2 is allowing flexibility for the needs of the GM and players. Unfortunately, it’s wise advice that KoH chooses to ignore. In this book, there are only “umbrella” keywords, and no indication of how to create the “package” sort. Indeed, there isn’t even any acknowledgement that this might be a problem!

Essentially, all you get in your keyword descriptions is some text, with no clear guidance on what specific abilities they might include. For many people, that might not be an issue, but some might struggle to remember exactly what being, say, a skald, is supposed to imply in terms of abilities. Since many of the abilities that might be included under a keyword aren’t at all obvious (for example, that “entertainer” includes knife-fighting), I myself would certainly want to write down the individual abilities on a character sheet - even if I had to indent them and write ‘+0’ instead of a number.

The writers do their best to get round this limitation in the text descriptions, and largely succeed when it comes to the magic, but they do tend to fall down when it comes to the occupations. Sure, it’s possible to deduce what most of the abilities are going to be from the prose, but a list would have been much simpler to use. Fortunately, anyone who owns Thunder Rebels can use the keywords in there if, like me, they find them more helpful.

Of course, for many people, umbrella keywords will be an improvement over the way they were described in previous books – they might, for example, find it less limiting. But it’s a pity that KoH failed to acknowledge that not everyone might be the same when that variety is specifically catered for in the rulebook itself.

After character generation we come to the clan generation system. A previous version of this was published in Barbarian Adventures way back when, but this one has been retouched since then. For those unfamiliar with the concept, this is a system for generating the history of the particular barbarian clan that your PCs come from. It guides the players through a series of questions about what their ancestors did at a particular time, steadily building up details of their clan as they do so, and providing a quick and entertaining course in the history at the same time.

When I’ve done this before, with people mostly new to Glorantha, it proved popular, and it can be something of a fun game in its own right. The decisions you make all have some sort of effect on the final clan, and the starting resources available to the characters. For example, is the clan warlike, wealthy, open to new ideas, etc.? The system for working this out has been somewhat streamlined since the previous version, although there are still times when the GM will probably want to give the players some idea of what the outcomes of their decisions might be in advance. And this time, there is a nice-looking clan sheet to go with it, which you can fill in when you’ve finished.

In part 2, we'll turn to the magic system, which represents perhaps the biggest change from earlier versions.

HeroQuest 2 review - pt 1

The second edition of HeroQuest was launched yesterday, and, since the first edition is what I've done most of my game writing for, I immediately picked up the PDF. I've had the preview edition for about a year now, but I didn't want to write a review of it until I'd seen the final, published, version. On the other hand, since my opinion seems to be different from virtually everybody else's, I think that some commentary will be useful now that it is out. Because differing viewpoints are always a good thing.

But let's begin with the positive stuff, and get on to the differences of opinion in later posts.

Perhaps the most obvious difference from earlier editions is that HQ2 is a generic system, not wed to a specific setting (namely Glorantha). You don't need to do more than flip through the book to realise that the intention is that HQ2 will work with any setting you can imagine; it's about general rules for resolving dramatic situations, not about modelling a specific world. And that, to my mind, is a good thing. I have no idea how many people will pick up this edition when they avoided the earlier ones because they didn't fancy the setting - but I am sure there will be at least some. And because the system does work with a wide range of settings, that's a useful thing to do. The downside is that I get less of the specific stuff that I'm after, but I think that's a price worth paying for the ability to do all sorts of other things with the rules.

Of course, it's not really true that HQ2 will work beautifully with any genre imaginable; no system can do that. Any system, as a result of the way it is constructed, will favour certain game styles and genre conventions over others. In the case of HQ2, what it favours is dramatic, cinematic, often larger-than-life genres. It would be good for action films, superheroes, high fantasy, space opera, and many more besides. (It would probably be quite good for soap opera too, were one so inclined). Which isn't to say that it can't do grittier genres, since it's open enough to fit anything, but I suspect it's going to be somewhat unsatisfactory for those. Grim danger just isn't something it does well - just as some other generic systems won't do the cinematic stuff very effectively.

This isn't a criticism, since no game can be all things to all people. In fact, I'd say that HQ2 is about as generic a game as its humanly possible to construct, and that's a good thing. In this respect, then, HQ2 is a clear improvement over HQ1.

And the improvements don't end there, because once you do get a chance to properly read the rules, it becomes clear that they are chock full of advice. And much of it is very good advice, at that. The resolution system in HeroQuest was always a little different from that of most other RPGs, so the addition of even more examples than in the previous edition (which had quite a few) is certainly a welcome feature.

A particularly significant change, in terms of the nuts-and-bolts of the system is the new Extended Contest system. In previous editions, this worked by a bidding mechanism, which, in my experience, never really worked well. In its place we have a much simpler and easier-to-grasp system that relies on a series of simple contests to generate a final outcome. This really is a big improvement, and seems to have been successful the few times I've managed to try it. Moreover, the chapter explaining contest resolution is the biggest in the book, being chock full of varying ways the system can be used, and examples of how to do so. This is, from my perspective, pretty neat stuff. If I used nothing else from this book, I'd use that.

But, aside from a nice rule on p. 57 ("Catch-ups"), is about as far as the improvements over earlier editions go. Still, it's not a bad start, and many of the good features of the earlier editions, such as the scaling, remain more or less intact. It's still a fairly good system, but... well, we'll get to "but..." in Part Two.

Don't Rest Your Head

I think this is the first time I've actually been able to do any face-to-face gaming this entire year; if not, it's certainly been a long time. Anyway, I finally did manage to get a session in last night, and we played a one-shot of the indie game Don't Rest Your Head. Rather like indie music, the term "indie game" seems to refer more to a specific style of game than anything actually to do with some kind of independence. (I've heard indie games defined as anything published by the original designer - but, arguably, that's true of GURPS, which clearly isn't what they mean).

In practice, indie games seem designed for short term play, generally have fairly simple rule mechanics, and, using the terminology of the Three True Wayists, are strongly Narrativist. Now, you might think, from my earlier post, that that would mean I wouldn't be keen on them. But that's not so; the problem with 3TWism isn't that it doesn't work, so far as it goes, it's just that it's so obviously incomplete. I have nothing against a good Narrativist game, so long as you don't try and tell me that there's something wrong with an "incoherent" one.

So, on to the game. The biggest failing of DRYH - in fact, so far as I can see, the only failing - is the "blank page" approach to character generation. The concept sounds simple; you jot down a few things about your character that are relevant to the game. In practice, though, that can be a lot harder than it sounds. There's a real danger that you'll sit there staring at a blank character sheet with no idea of what to write on it. In fact, that happened to me, to the point that I began to feel a little uncomfortable. I eventually jotted down something, but it didn't make a lot of sense. I get the impression that this is a common flaw in indie games, and one that they've never satisfactorily fixed. (I'll note, in passing, that HeroQuest can be similar, although, in a campaign, there's more of a tendency to spend time on character generation, which obviates the problem).

The two unusual features of character generation are connected with the fundamental theme of DRYH: that it's a supernatural horror game about insomnia. So, you have to explain why you aren't sleeping, and you also get a weird supernatural power. And that, fortunately, was what solved the problem of the character generation, because our GM handed out random pre-designed powers from the DRYH supplement Don't Lose Your Mind. I got a good one, and, to be honest, largely ignored most of the stuff I'd actually written on the sheet in favour of making the power the centre of the character. If I'd had to make something up on the spot, the result would have been much less fun. (And, on the converse, spending too long prepping for a one-shot game also seems a bit daft).

From there on in, though, it worked really well. The system is slick and simple, and the concept and imagery behind the setting are really cool. It probably helps if you're into the works of people like Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison, and I'm not at all surprised to discover that Morrison's stint on Doom Patrol was one of the inspirations behind the game. I dare say it's possible to run without the surrealism, but for me, that's a large part of fun.

So there much scenery-chewing as an insane insomniac hearing voices in his head, with the other characters being a conspiracy theorist cabbie, a psychotic policeman, and a woman with a talking teddy bear, an imaginary ray gun that really worked, and an obsession with being probed by aliens. We were pursued by men made of newspaper who only printed the stories that hadn't happened yet, men with thumb-tacks instead of heads, a spiv who bought memories, and a man who oozed wax (at this point, you may already be seeing the influence of Doom Patrol, and for that matter, The Sandman). Eventually, after many explosions, my character embraced his insanity, and spent the rest of his days gibbering in a padded cell. Which was, oddly enough, just as it should have been.

So, no question in my mind, this is a good one-off game. I don't think it would work as much more than that, but I doubt it's intended to. It's the sort of thing that's ideal as a con game, and for playing short runs of sessions at most. That's a very valuable and useful niche for a game to fill, and let's not forget that the setting, from what I saw of it, is stunning. Plus, blank-page syndrome aside, it uses a very clever and effective system, specifically tailored to its own concepts.

All in all, very enjoyable. But what about longer term games? HeroQuest 2 attempts to be a strongly narrativist system suited for just that sort of game. And, it's out on Wednesday, which means I'll finally be able to review it. And that review may be less positive than this one...

Three True Way-ism

There is a term sometimes encountered when discussing roleplaying, of “One True Wayism” – or some variation on that theme. It refers to players or GMs with a very specific idea of how an RPG should work, and an insistence that this is the only right way of doing things. Often, the very idea that someone might prefer a different style is considered “Hurting Wrong Fun”, and any attempt at gaming in such a style must be quashed lest it infect others with its perversity. Few, if any, people identify themselves as One True Wayists, but the concept is often encountered under some guise or another.

Unsurprisingly, few people who really think about the theory behind gaming espouse such a narrow-minded view. But it seems to me that a rather more insidious version of the same sort of general idea has become quite popular. I refer to this as “Three True Wayism”. It arises from the theoretical discussions on The Forge website (now, I gather, somewhat curtailed) that classified RPGs into one of three categories: narrativism, simulationism, and gamism. The first focuses primarily on the needs of the story, the second on the demands of verisimilitude, and the third on the establishment of fair game mechanics and reward mechanisms (or such is my understanding). The argument seems to be that all of these three approaches to RPing are equally valid, and if you happen to prefer a different category than I do, then so be it (they prefer to use the word “agenda”, but then much of their terminology is somewhat opaque).

Which sounds fair enough, so far as it goes. The problem is, it seems to me, that it acknowledges only these three approaches, and, more to the point, claims that they are mutually exclusive. The theory says that a rule set can only effectively support one approach of the three, and it even seems that they have pretty narrow definitions of what those approaches are. Hence, “Three True Wayism” – the contention that there are only three possible ways to enjoy a roleplaying game, and if your approach isn’t one of them, you’re doing it wrong. It’s insidious, because the people who adhere to this attitude (and, believe me, I’ve met some) believe they are being open-minded and fair, and accepting of all other approaches, even if they differ from their own. But – unless you accept their thesis that there are only three possible, and mutually exclusive, “agendas” – I don’t think this is the case at all.

This seems to manifest in two different ways, either or both of which can be problematic to those who do not fit into their neat little pigeon-holes. The first is an overly narrow definition of what the three agendas mean. Simulationism, for instance, is supposed to be about verisimilitude, and the obvious conclusion therefore seems to be that any system that supports it must be detailed and relatively rules-heavy, to reflect the various different aspects of reality (or, at least, a particular genre's version thereof). One thinks of systems like GURPS and Hero in this category, and a great many others that were popular in the 1980s.

This attitude seems to have stifled the development of rules-lite “simulationist” systems, which, to my mind, is very much to be regretted. Three True Wayists, when pressed, may not deny that a rule-lite simulationist system is possible, but they certainly don’t seem to spend any effort in encouraging the creation of such a thing. And that, I suspect, is because it lies outside the comfort zone of their theory. I dare say there are other examples of this narrow thinking stifling creativity, but the absence of much in the way of rules-lite simulationist systems, from where I’m standing, seems a particularly striking example.

The second problem is arguably worse, because it's more explicit. And that’s the contention that there are three, and only three, mutually exclusive approaches. Assuming that one defines the three approaches broadly enough, the first half of that statement – that there’s no fourth agenda – might well be true. (One could, of course, argue that rules-lite simulationism is, itself, distinct from, say, the GURPS approach, but let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that we accept that it isn’t). The problem comes from the ‘mutually exclusive’ part.

It seems to me self-evident that a system can provide a good mix of at least two, and possibly all three, approaches at the same time. A narrativist game does not have to be ‘narrative above all else’, for instance; it could allow a proportion of some other “agenda” in. Realistically, any game has to strike a balance between the three approaches – a narrative won’t work if it’s completely implausible, a simulation won’t work as an RPG if it never has any dramatic challenges, and so on. Surely it’s obvious that that balance does not have to be strongly weighted in one particular direction for a rules system to work?

Yet, while the Three True Wayists do have a term for a system that tries to balance two (or more) agendas, that term is, so I’m told, “incoherent”. Now, you can’t convince me that that was intended to be a value-neutral term to refer to a gaming style just as valid as the three they espouse. It’s pretty much explicitly saying that this style of play is inferior and somehow wrong – really no different to the attitude of the One True Wayists. Was this term deliberately coined so that anyone trying to say “I prefer incoherent games” would sound like a loony, Orwellian Newspeak style, or did it generally not occur to them that anyone would prefer it? I don’t know, although I rather suspect the latter.

But, when you poke beneath the bonnet, it’s ridiculous to assert that an “incoherent” game can’t be just as good and valid and worthwhile as one that follows a single "agenda" more or less exclusively. And, even if it weren’t, it would hardly be accepting of alternative styles of play to deride it. The Three True Wayists are here, it seems to me, falling into the very trap that their theory seeks to avoid.

Obviously, such a system could be done well, or done badly – that’s true of anything. But surely it’s possible to strike a balance? How could it not be, if you really look at things with an un-blinkered attitude? And this, of course, gets me to the point: I believe that 1st edition HeroQuest was such a system. It’s not that it didn’t have faults – it had a number – but the balance between narrativism and simulationism was done superbly and, so far as I know, has never been bettered. Yet that, it seems, had to be sacrificed on the altar of orthodoxy, because surely nobody could really like a game that worked that way? After all, no matter how much common sense said it worked, the theory said it couldn’t, and that was surely that?

But, to quote Robin Laws – who, despite having written the new 2nd edition of HeroQuest, seems to be no friend of Three True Wayism – there are more than three types of art, so why can’t there be more than three types of RPG? In fact, isn’t that just obvious?

The sad thing is, not so much that this happened – games change editions and approaches all the time – but that there doesn’t seem to be anything else available today to fill that niche. Because gaming theory says that that the “incoherent” approach must automatically be a failure that nobody could really, deep down, actually prefer to the alternatives.

Because Three True Wayism says that I don’t exist…

HarnMaster Barbarians

One of my earlier books (on which I worked with a number of other writers), HarnMaster Barbarians, has recently been released as a PDF on DriveThruRPG. The original was a loose-leaf product, not a bound book, so, with some decent quality paper, the PDF really isn't that different from the original hardcopy - and it's cheaper, too.

I have updated the Writing Credits page of my website with the direct link to the purchase site, and with similar details for any other books I've contributed to that remain available.

The Death of Pyramid Magazine

I've been reading Pyramid magazine ever since issue #1, which I believe was about 15 years ago. It's a gaming magazine, published by Steve Jackson Games, and focussing on GURPS, which was the basis for the homebrew system that I played in those days. (The rest of the homebrew system came largely from Pendragon, but the stats were easy to convert, and the ideas fitted what I wanted back then).

Around 10 years ago, it switched from dead-tree format to webzine format and, with a little reluctance, I continued my subscription. I'm glad I did; there has been a lot of good material published in Pyramid over the last decade. I've even contributed three articles to it myself, two on Glorantha, and one on, of all things, astrophysics. Subscription also got me access to playtests of SJ Games products, and, in particular, I helped out with the testing of the Vehicle Design software, and of GURPS Cops. Perhaps best of all, at least in the long term, were the NNTP discussion forums that the magazine ran for subscribers, where I have had all sorts of cool discussions with a wide range of people.

As of today, the Pyramid webzine ceases publication.

Oh, the magazine will continue as a monthly PDF release, with slightly less content for five times the price. But, oddly enough, that's not much of an issue for me. Because, over the last couple of years, since I no longer play GURPS, the NNTP forums were my main reason for paying the annual subscription anyway - everything else was an added bonus. Since those forums are being closed down, I will be cancelling my subscription forthwith, to claim the refund for the rest of the year. It's understandable why they're closing, of course, at least from SJ Games point of view. For myself, I don't really understand why NNTP is no longer popular as a format - it's so much more flexible than the message boards that seem to have replaced it. Sometimes, newer isn't better, and, while message boards are great for some things (hence the MBRPG I help to run), general discussion isn't one of them. A lot of functionality has been lost in the name of progress - but isn't that often the way?

So I'll miss those discussions... but change goes on, and one can't blame a company for closing down something that just isn't profitable for them. A fond farewell to Pyramid, then, and on to something else instead...

(Addendum: If you're wondering why I'm mentioning this, but not the more Glorantha-relevant news from Germany of a similar nature - I'm waiting for the official announcement before commenting on that).