Glorantha Initiation: Diana, Amber, Constructive Cosmology, and Tea Bribes

The God Learners

Art by Diana Probst

This episode was recorded in November 2021.

For this Initiation Series interview we welcome back Diana Probst, the totally biologically human member of Beer With Teeth, which we already had on the show with some of her collaborators in Episode 6: Gamemastering RuneQuest.

Diana talks about her obsessive approach to RPGs and RPG settings, and her early years playing Amber Diceless Roleplaying and its offpsring Lords of Gossamer & Shadow, from Jason Durall (now line editor for RuneQuest). She mentions the “fractal gaming” of Glorantha, and the “constructive cosmology” that she engages in with her RuneQuest groups, including inventing many things related to the cult of Humakt and general YGMV approach. We also brush upon her move from a rules-light narrative system to a crunchy simulationist system.

In the last stretch of the episode we talk about physical play aids, stolen webcams, and tea bribes. To wrap things up we usually go into short and simple “wildcard questions” but the first one sends us on a giant digression about Gloranthan sports and “dwarf spotting”, so we figured we wouldn’t ask a second one.

Other things mentioned in this episode:

• Road to Amber MUSH
• Ice Shinty
• Custom drowning rules
• Diana’s group’s campaign log (note that wikidot is currently down after a massive hack.) Episode 8 has the first ice shinty game. Episode 18 has a damaged dwarf.
• Diana’s art patreon
• Beer With Teeth website
• Beer With Teeth titles on DriveThruRPG