Hmmm …
Well, there’s a thing.
I managed to dig up a bit of an ol’ favourite that had been sitting on my shelves for some time.
I’ll admit, I was something of a rôle-playing-game buff, in my younger days.
Which, at the time, was rather special.
Dungeons and Dragons had paved the way for the hobby, but even it’s most die hard fans would admit that the game could be a bit clunky; rules sprouted at the drop of a die, and backgrounds proliferated like mushrooms in swamps.
RuneQuest went in a different direction.
For starters, the actual rules mechanics were a lot simpler; and came down to three different types of percentage-based roll.
And the background?
Whooh!
Dungeons and Dragons built up quite a few, relatively samey backgrounds; most being some sort of variation of Middle Earth: or Chivalric romance.
Originally invented by Greg Stafford in 1966, Glorantha was tied into “RuneQuest” on its original release, in 1978.
And was relatively influenced more by bronze age Greece, than by Middle-Earth.
Which, for me, made a very pleasant change to many of the games doing the rounds, at the time.
But the simple fact that there was a game with such a fresh background made it incredibly popular, and influential in its turn.
As far as I can remember, from my days in the business, almost every rpg, since, had to have its own background word.
That’s one hell of an achievement.
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