30 April 2010

Today’s Tabbloid
PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net

ROGUE FEED That’s how Glorantha strikes me at the moment. It may well be a
caricature of the truth or merely an artifact of the products Chaosium
Amusing was able to publish back in the day, but that’s how things seem
APR 29, 2010 02:50P.M. nonetheless.

Today, I discovered that the French idiom for “it’s raining cats and dogs” I certainly don’t object to it and, honestly, I find it a nice change of pace
is « il pleut des hallebardes, » which literally means “it’s raining from D&D, which, despite the intentions of at least Gary Gygax, became
halberds.” annoyingly less humanocentric as the years wore on. Speaking as an
admirer of pulp fantasy stories, these old Gloranthan products strike me
Somewhere, Gary Gygax is smiling. as often more in line with their sensibilities than does Dungeons &
Dragons. Whereas non-humans in Glorantha are clearly alien “others,”
elves, dwarves, and halflings in D&D are (generally) just “guys at the
office.” They may look a little different and have special abilities you
ROGUE FEED don’t, but, fundamentally, they’re no different than you or I — little
wonder, then, that so few D&D players ever batted an eye about choosing
Gloranthan Humanocentrism? to be an elf over a human, especially once the game’s already-weak
APR 29, 2010 10:23A.M. disincentives for doing so were eliminated.

I’ve been devouring the Gloranthan Classics volumes I received

yesterday with great pleasure. Reading them is a joy and, unlike my re-
immersion in old school D&D, no one can rationally claim the positive ROGUE FEED
feelings they’re generating in me are based on nostalgia, as I had only a
very limited exposure to RuneQuest in my youth. Reading them, among RQ Help
the many things that stands out is how human-focused published APR 29, 2010 09:36A.M.
Glorantha appears to be. Most of the NPCs and sample PCs are humans,
for example, and human concerns seem to drive most of the adventures. I don’t expect my entreaty to yield any results, but I’m going to ask
I find this interesting for a couple of reasons. anyway, because I’m constantly amazed by the stuff my readers have
managed to assist me with in the past.
First, one of the things I “knew” about RQ even though I didn’t play it
was that the rules allowed you “to play anything.” And of course there As you know, I got three out of the four Moon Design “Gloranthan
were the dreaded ducks, the very idea of which kept me away form Classics” volumes. I’m missing only Pavis & Big Rubble, which, I gather,
RuneQuest longer than they ought to have. But if published products are is very hard to obtain. That said, I want a copy. I’ve been searching all
any indication, non-human PCs don’t seem to have been very common. the usual online venues for such things and no luck so far.
Second, being a skill-based system, there are no level limits or
mechanical disincentives to playing a non-human. Yes, there are So, on the off-chance that someone who reads this blog finds a copy and
Charisma penalties when interacting with members of other races, but for some reason doesn’t want it for themselves, I’d be grateful for any
they apply equally to humans in a non-human environment. Yet, talking pointers anyone might have about snagging one for my collection. Given
to people who did play RQ extensively back in the day, hardly anyone that I am unlikely to run a RuneQuest campaign anytime soon, there’s no
ever chose to play non-humans. I find this especially odd, given both the hurry, but I do want to get Volume I of the series for myself at some
variety of non-humans in Glorantha and the depth with which Chaosium point and I’m prepared for the likely high price tag it’ll carry.
invested many of them, enabling them to transcend stereotypes.
Thanks as always.
In the end, Glorantha, at least as it was published back in the second
edition era, reminds me a lot of the way classical science fiction treated
alien beings. Sure, there are lots of aliens out there, many of them quite
different than human beings, and they often figure prominently in
stories. However, they’re rarely protagonists and, if they are, they’re a
lone example of their kind in a tale that’s dominated by human beings.

1
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net 30 April 2010

ROGUE FEED fidelity to its source material. How the heck is this even possible?

Lovecraftian Serendipity Anyway, enjoy the trailer to The Whisperer in Darkness and imagine a
APR 29, 2010 08:34A.M. world in which a Robert E. Howard Historical Society produced an
adaptation of, well, any Howard story that was even half as faithful to its
origins as this fan-made film looks like it’ll be.

I am regularly amused by how, just as I am about to make a post about

this or that subject, someone else does so. I am sure other bloggers
experience this as well. In many cases, this phenomenon is perfectly
understandable, because all the posts in question are in response to
some bit of news of interest to our common readers.

Had Miguel Martins’s post at The Cimmerian only been about the latest
trailer to the upcoming black and white film adaptation of HPL’s The
Whisperer in Darkness (by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society), I’d
probably not have given it much thought. After all, the new trailer was
just released, so it makes sense that aficionados of pulp authors would all
take notice and start chattering about it. That’s what we do.

What’s odd is that, just two days ago, I re-watched my copy of the
Historical Society’s earlier film, the silent movie version of The Call of
Cthulhu, inspired in part by the comments to my post on August Derleth
and optimism in the face of the Mythos. I’d watched the movie a couple
of times when I first bought it shortly after its release and was impressed
by it, but I hadn’t seen it since. In doing so, I found myself not only
deeply impressed by it as a film in its own right but also by how it is quite
likely the best (the only?) direct cinematic adaptation of a story written
by H.P. Lovecraft, which is a real feather in the cap for the Historical
Society as well as yet another black mark against Hollywood.

This in turn got me to thinking not just about the paucity of faithful
Lovecraft adaptations but about the even shabbier way that Robert E.
Howard has been treated in film. Like Martins, I can’t help but be
amazed, in a dark sort of way, at the fact that, to date, no one has
managed to produce a film based on a Howard story as faithful as what
the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society did with The Call of Cthulhu. All the
more amazing is that, in the same year when a new Conan movie is
currently being filmed in Bulgaria, the Historical Society is scheduled to
release yet another adaptation of Lovecraft, which, if the trailer is any
indication, will beat the tar out of Hollywood’s Conan when it comes to