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Monday Lab: In a Word








Link to Archipelago III.




Ron Edwards's picture



Gordon C's picture











Ron Edwards's picture

Hi! Great feedback & commentary.









Ron Edwards's picture



The Martin hate makes me weep.

















Ron Edwards's picture

... maybe?



(Oh no! It's divisive! So terrible)



alanb's picture



It's not an uncommon problem when adapting source material.

Ron Edwards's picture










Ron Edwards's picture






alanb's picture





Not an elf in sight.

Ron Edwards's picture

That's how those fantasy RPG authors from the 70s were thinking!


Vigil sounds like it's developing nicely...



Ron Edwards's picture


alanb's picture

Camus? Ha!

But Satre, at least, tells us about the afterlife.



Beruthiel kitty's picture

As many times as I've read the trilogy, I never made the connection between To Know Is To Name from the first book and giving Arha hers back in the second.  It makes an already beautiful passage even more moving: Ged names Arha immediately after she stops pretending she doesn't care what happens to him; when she trusts another person enough to show her vulnerableness for the first time since being with her parents.  Then Ged looks at her and says, "Take care, Tenar."

I can't think about how to get the emotional authenticity, as Ron called it, of that moment in play unless it's emergent.  Or Ged's "Trust...that is one of its names.  It is a very great thing.  Though each of us alone is weak, having that we are strong, stronger than the Powers of the Dark."

The one mage who was not mentioned in the Lab epitomizes many of the problems addressed in it: what does one do in gaming terms with the Master Patterner?  Because if anyone tries to reduce him to a collection of Detect spells, I will throw myself screaming into the Lips of Paor.  He doesn't do, so what are the mechanics for just being?

And how does one address what I think of as the Hitchcock Problem?  Part of what makes the Patterner dramatically compelling is so much of what he is being left to our imagination.  To pin him down with mechanics removes that mystery or, to paraphrase another talky-wizard, once you write on it, it's no longer white.

So I'd be interested in hearing more details about what made those Hero Wars sessions of fifteen years ago work in this respect.  And, by the way, I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who doesn't think "epic protagonist" when I see Argrath.


Ron Edwards's picture

It's not safe to reply without reviewing more carefully, but ... (and with the provision that I've read only the original trilogy, and the Lab was limited to it) ...

My reading of the trilogy includes the point that in each story, the authoritative mages are, well, wrong. Or useless. Or at the limits of their knowledge, which is fine as far as it goes, but not only has limits, but hits them. They come off as over-educated, not in a bad or evil way, but as having talked themselves into a sensible but safe understanding of things.

  • No one can explain to Ged or help him regarding his shadow. He has to figure out the entire concept from scratch. The Master Namer says it has no name; he's wrong. Even Ogion, who rightly prefers not to "talk" himself into corners, can keep Ged from dying or going mad, but nothing more regarding what to do.
  • Ged's on his own in the Tombs. I don't recall any direct references, but since he's a pretty bad-ass respected guy at home (no longer a trouble-making student), my inference is that no one at Rolke dares challenge the ancient cult and the earthly/unearthly power they draw upon. It's beyond them.
  • The whole premise of The Farthest Shore is not only that the other mages are hands-off about the problem (as in the second), but already shattered and ruined by it. In the previous story he had to do end-runs around concepts; now he has to end-run the whole friggin' cosmos.

As I say, it's one reader's view. If it has any merit, relative to the text, then in turning to role-playing, you and I are struck by the fact that the superficial hobby notion that when you do X, here is the rule for X; when you get big and strong, you will be able to do Y, and so, waiting for you for later, here is the rule for Y, is absolutely impossible to use toward this view.

Instead, you must have a game author who is willing to take this view toward his or her own work, especially the notion that someone else will do something with it (without knowing what that will be); and now, you need players/users of the game who share that view, will seize the opportunity as they perceive it, and do with it as they will.

I will say that I know this applies to Glorantha (i) because I wanted to do it myself as soon as I read Cults of Terror, in the early 1980s, and (ii), acknowledging the risk of gregging, because twenty years later Greg confirmed it to me personally and enthused about it - if we haven't over-used this term - authentically. The long-awaited heroquesting rules are intended for their users to re-shape the concepts, not just rules or powers, by which we understand the reality of the heroes. It's about society, ethics, gods or God, identity, and purpose. But what about those things? The game says, you tell me.

We should probably have a conversation about the Hero Wars material. A bit of reflection about it can be found in my essay Goddess of Rape.

Beruthiel kitty's picture


I just read the essay.  In one of my earlier emails I said that the more I found out about Glorantha, the less I liked it.  I see now that the very things about it that provoked me may be those that if literally brought to the table could result in a deeper level of play.  And there is certainly enough in the Earthsea series approach to magic that could do the same.

As a gamer returning from years of early Glorantha through RuneQuest, would enjoy talking about Hero Wars more.  I just read the core rules and then HeroQuest Glorantha this summer.  Would that involve moving that part of the conversation to a different page?

I could say more but had better put this out first:  the novels are so evocative that there are aspects of them worth talking about on their own merits.  Would you prefer that we restrict the observations here to features of the novels that inform play?


Ron Edwards's picture

The Glorantha discussion would fit very well as an Actual Play post that reflects on your early experiences with RuneQuest and the setting. That alone would be grounds for comparison with plenty of other people here, and it could grade into a Hero Wars/Quest comparison too. I don't know if you've seen Gray Sage or Panel: RuneQuest and Glorantha at Gothcon, but they include a range of comparative experiences. There's a lot of actual play posting here about my fun with the 1979 rules (2nd edition, although the text doesn't call itself that) too.

Let's not dive into a pure novels-reading chat about Earthsea here. I offered my thoughts on one variable above because it was relevant to the role-playing discussion: the idea that in-setting magical-skill leveling up, by whatever name, was not the same thing as achieving the degree of action and proactive insight that Ged displays.

I'm totally OK with discussing the books in line with post's topic. However, that topic is definitely not "how do we play or write an Earthsea RPG." And getting into whatever you or I may have seen or thought we saw in the novels as a topic of its own sounds like a recipe for madness, and certainly there are other websites devoted to that kind of discussion.

Beruthiel kitty's picture


Sounds good.  I've just read your "Narrativism: Story Now" essay, which addresses the majority of my issues.  I'll also check out the Gothcon panel and Gray Sage.  If I still have questions about HeroQuest and Glorantha after that, I'll gather my thoughts for an Actual Play post.  If you're interested in my thoughts on Glorantha, I'll post regardless of whether I still have questions, but don't expect anything particularly profound.


PS---Dont forget about the Monday Lab about The Pool.  Subtle nudge nudge.

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