"Let's talk a little bit about Your Glorantha Will Vary (YGWV)" by Ian Cooper

A short time ago on Facebook @Ian Cooper wrote something that might be worth preserving & commenting here as well (also for those who are not on FB):

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Let's talk a little bit about Your Glorantha Will Vary (YGWV).

It is important to note that is not YGMV, or MAY vary, but WILL. Greg regularly signed off with this on mailing lists such as World of Glorantha in the noughties because Glorantha was a medium for telling stories. Time and again Greg advised people to put their stories first, Gloranthan canon second. Glorantha is a tool for you to use to make great stories, not a canon to be slavishly adhered to.

Glorantha should exist in games and stories.

As I get older, and perhaps wiser, I would be happy to see Glorantha supplements that ignore each other, if they need to. I understand that for some here, that is anathema.

But our greatest mythologies, including the modern ones like superheroes have often been re-told with tweaks and variations that are important to that story.

 

Imagine a world where GMs and writers asked first: what cool stories can I tell here, and only second: what does canon say, and do I need to ignore it for MY story.

 

Glorantha already has KoDP and Six Age, HQG and 13th Age as well as RQG. None of them exactly reflect Greg's stories. None is 'more true' than the other, just more recent. Canon has already become meaningless. Consistency is only important to a line.

 

If we can make a great story by making adjustments to what is known, then why not? No one's campaign is actually broken.

When we ague about things that have changed, such as, Elmal vs. Yelmalio we are not talking about what Greg cared about 'stories': we should ask first what stories do we want to tell about the Orlanthi sun?

 

Do we want to tell stories of downtrodden sun worshipers uplifted by the Sun Dome? Do we want to tell stories about steadfast Elmali refusing the temptation of Nysalor and rejecting Yelmalio? Do we want to tell stories where Tarkalor saved the Emali of the clans by diverting the Yelmalians to lands liberated from the Kitori, or do we want tell stories where Tarkalor oversaw the conversion of the Elmali to Yelmalio.

 

All these stories are possible? Why limit ourselves to one.

 

And I would offer that notions of 'one true Glorantha' put people off. Because we make them feel small if the get it 'wrong.' Is it wrong if they make great art, but somehow break a part of canon? If we just treated everything published, by anyone, as a source of inspiration to fold into YOUR Glorantha, we could put canon behind us.

 

Let's talk about stories. Not canon. And let's ask questions within the context of stories, because outside that, how can we judge the choices. Want to understand Gloranthan slavery: what story do you want to tell about slavery?

 

As the poet said:

 

'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,' - that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

I don't know how & when YGMV came up, but I always detested it. I don't remember it coming from Greg himself, by the way. For me, it was always WILL & not MAY... as in Your Glorantha Will Inevitably Vary & Cannot Do Otherwise (YGWIVACDO)! Anyway, Ian really nails it & says it very, very, very nicely.