Glorantha Initiation: Konrad & Antoni, Polish RPGs, Nysalor as ChatGPT, and Solar Fanboyism

For this new Glorantha Initiation interview, we have two guests, which explains the unusual length of this episode… we welcome Antoni and Konrad!

Konrad studies Bronze Age history, does LARPs, and runs games for teens and children. He has been running RPGs for about 11 years, and RQG for 4 years. You can catch him on Discord as @SpellcastingKisiel

Antoni studies geography. You can find him on Facebook as Antek Bartoszko.

Konrad and Antoni also give a shout-out to the Polish world-building community Krytyka Światotwórcza.

Show Notes

Antoni introduces himself:

Started RPGs with D&D 3e in high school. Then Warhammer 2e, which is “the most patriotic Polish RPG”. Gothic is the most patriotic Polish computer game.

Antoni has opinions about the “drama kids” school of RPG and modern games.

He’s a novice GM, and has more fun as a player.

Recent games Antoni likes are Fabula Ultima (a TTRPG inspired by JRPG video games) and Vaesen (a Scandinavian 19th-century folk-horror TTRPG).

Apparently Antoni broke Vaesen with min-maxing!

Konrad introduces himself:

He discovered RPGs in a summer camp, watching kids playing Warhammer 2e… but they never let him play! Booo!

The following year he started playing and GMing, notably a post-apocalyptic Polish game called “Afterbomb Madness”.

Konrad feels more comfortable as a GM, and likes faction play.

Warhammer is very very popular in Poland!

Poland didn’t have any particular printing of any RPG at first, so people smuggled hastily translated rulebooks. Warhammer was a good fit. It was one of the very first officially released RPGs in Poland.

Then, the only Polish RPG magazine at the time broke everyone’s mind about Warhammer because everyone was pretty much taking Warhammer at face value, instead of the comedic game it’s supposed to be. The pun names weren’t translated!

Antoni got Konrad into Glorantha.

He discovered Glorantha with King of Dragon Pass through a video game streamer playing it.

He loved the cultures and vibrant world.

He later discovered that there was an RPG, but was turned off by the “realistic combat” that RuneQuest boasted about having.

After playing Six Ages, Antoni started ranting to Konrad about Glorantha.

We talk a bit about heroquesting as Antoni misunderstands a question about HeroQuest/QuestWorlds as an alternative system with no “realistic combat” in it. Since these books weren’t really available in Poland, it wasn’t on his radar.

Konrad realized that he tried playing Six Ages, as he was interested in bronze age gaming, but didn’t get very far. So when Antoni mentioned Glorantha, he was vaguely familiar with it. He had heard about RuneQuest as a “classic RPG”.

Konrad started researching the setting and realized he loves it.

Glorantha has “hard worldbuilding”.

Konrad likes granular mechanics, so RuneQuest’s system looked good. He also appreciates that he can make his own subsystems easily.

Konrad still hopes to run a “proper long campaign” soon.

Glorantha is “doing good work” about representing the clan, tribal, city state, and god king mindset that might look alien to a modern reader. It’s not a “historic documentary” game, but it’s a “good approximation”.

Glorantha might help later understanding real history.

Konrad specializes in Levantine late bronze age (15th to 12th century BCE). He’s also interested in European bronze age. He studies social dynamics, people living outside of temple/city-state systems, etc.

Joerg on the other hand started looking into European bronze age first, and didn’t look into the fertile crescent until later.

Ludo got into Glorantha first, and then looked into Earth history later.

Konrad loved the lore and the societies that “feel alive”. There’s a lot to play with when you’re a GM who loves faction play. He notes how Jonstown is described in the Starter Set, and how it contains multiple groups with multiple motivations and agendas, interwoven with their religious beliefs.

In RuneQuest, even the monsters are people