Chatter #2 - July 31, 2000

12/14/2001 — I started the Chatter section on July 27, 2000 when I noticed that the rest of my site was sometimes getting cluttered with lots of text. I'm a talkative guy, after all! So now I talk about my life here, instead of all over the place. Originally this was one huge section, but in December of 2001 it simply became too large to remain as one page, and I broke it into dated sections, as you can see. —>PM

Sick of Glorantha

With the release of the new Gloranthan RPG Hero Wars (which, in my opinion, sucks—I published a cranky review of it on the RQ-Rules Digest, as well as on Usenet, and received my share of flames), I find myself no longer part of the Gloranthan roleplaying community. Greg Stafford's near-constant changing of major and minor elements of the world (it's no longer a fun game world; in fact, it's starting to seem like a schizo's delusional reality construct), along with the arrogant and incredibly irritating attitude of the new Gloranthan scholarship "elite", makes Glorantha seem more like a bizarre cult than a fun roleplaying setting.

That's sad, since originally Glorantha was a great game world, and a great way to show players that roleplaying could involve more than hack n' slash. For years I've basically tried to ignore the ever-increasing annoyance factor of Glorantha, but the way things have been lately my inclination is to finally give up altogether on a world that has had every last ounce of fun and humor and enjoyment sucked out of it.

A New Idea

Given my feelings about Glorantha at the moment, it's all the more ironic that I was recently hit with a scenario idea that's a natural for that world—and would be very difficult to fit anywhere else. It's one of those ideas that suddenly springs into my head, and keeps revealing new layers of plot and characterization the more I think about it. Since I'm hoping to run it for the Saturday group sometime, I'll have to hold off describing it here—but I can say that it is somewhat reminiscent of film noir, and (not surprisingly) rather dark. It involves a secret mission deep in Lunar territory, treachery, politics, and a philosophical question that shakes the roots of Gloranthan morality.

If anyone who's not part of the Saturday group (and doesn't plan to join) wants more details, drop me a line...