Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal - part II

Originally Posted by Hrugga

Haha!!! I have witnessed a few such in incidents when I was in the Dominican Republic. Some stupid fellow had the nerve to try to burglar a home. With cries of "LADR�N!!! LADR�N!!!" Everybody and their mother came outside and gave him a proper trouncing till he could not move. He was left there in the gutter. Another time, another fool tried to steal someone's motorbike and recieved a beating from the victim, his family. And then a bit later by the police...Seems brutal, but when you have to work so hard for what you have. You are not going to let some thief take it from you. There are consequences!!! Oh my...So not so different on Tekumel!!!

Very much so. The 'authorities' get involved when the Big Four seem to be in play, other then that they're more or less there to keep things in order.

H:0)

This is a good example of Phil's having to get us to stop thinking in 'first world' terms, and thinking in 'third or fourth world ones'; the terms hadn't been invented back then, but they fit.

From Greentongue:
In the EPT rules, 2300. SUPPORT, SALARIES, JOBS, FIEFS, AND TAXES it talks about a fief being granted.

How often has this occurred that you know of and how good would this be as a start for players?
For example, an NPC has been given this fief and the players are in the family/lineage that has to make things work.

I can think of six players who got fiefs in Phil's campaign. The first two were in the original group before we split, and ended badly - one was the slave revolt in Ferenara.

No, I don't. This was Phil's version of Gary and Dave's 'domain' game', an I think that beginning players would flounder in trying to mater both the setting and run the fief at the same time. By the same token, your having them as 'trouble-shooters' for the actual fief-holder is very good, and very workable as a way to get new players into the setting.

Is there enough information published to support this? (Like for Pendragon)
Or, would it have to be all hand-wave by the GM?

Probably not; there is some information out there in the texts and on the web, but a GM would have to do some work to get it all together.

Never played or looked at Pendragon, so I have no data.

"Hand-wave". I think what we're looking at here is the basic failure of Dave, Gary, and Phil in both original D&D and EPT to anticipate the way that the 'career path' or 'story arc' of the player-character would develop. All three assumed that the PCs would go up in 'level' to the point where they would become 'settled citizens' and establish their own domains; from these, new PCs would be sent forth by the old ones on quests and missions in a 'patron / client' model (such as Phil uses in EPT with Lady Mnella in Jakalla) and which would result in a 'churn' / 'turnover' of PCs over the length of a campaign. Being 'first generation' RPG writers, all three badly misjudged the way players wanted to play.

None of them really gave any specific and detailed rules for how to create or run a fief, because they all assumed - based on their players' store of knowledge - that everyone would have some idea of how a fief worked. From their personal experiences, they assumed that players and GMs would be able to run things - or do the research to find out - and didn't think that they had to tell people in any great detail what to do.

So, yes, I think a GM would have to 'hand-wave' a lot of the details, which may not be possible for some. (Which gets back to a lot of what Gronan has said, over the years about imagination, in my opinion.) Do I wish Phil had said more? Yes, but then he also assumed that I knew something about the subject and could 'fake it', either as a player - which I did - or as a GM - which I've done.

Are there special consideration that are specific to Tsolyanu that would make playing this more than just an exercise in bookkeeping?

I think so; being a fief-holder is a personally risky business, as you have to get out there and keep tabs on the locals. Who all have their own agendas, and have their own weapons. And there's the flora and fauna, too. I had to deal with a tribal rebellion, which kept us occupied for months of gaming. You have to keep order, keep paying taxes, and all within the social and physical constraints of the setting. No cavalry, which has a huge effect on mobility and your way of thinking.

Originally Posted by Greentongue

That is one aspect of Pendragon that seems to be unique.
It is a generational game where each adventure session is considered to be a Season and years go by quickly.
You are expected to start a family and have a heir as your character will age and eventually die.
Some of your character's gains will carry over to the heir.

I was wondering if the concept could be applied to EPT.
Might help people to be grounded in the idea of clans and lineages but, might also be one more Weird Thing to ward people off.
=

Understood. I like it; it's the way Phil started to play in his campaign in the middling 1980s, where we were expected to settle down, have families, and then hire 'new' PCs to go out and adventure. I still play my campaign that way, which my leaden alter-ego being a patron and supporting adventurers in return for a portion of the spoils.

I think it could - Lord Chirine is getting to the point where he's old enough that the kids are asking him for the keys to the palanquin for tonight - and I think it would be a lot of fun. As for the Weird Thing, I dunno; I find enough Weird Things in gaming that don't send me into orbit, but different styles for different people. I find the usual bog-standard medieval fantasy uninteresting, as I'm too familiar with the basic premise, but more 'exotic' stuff fascinates me.

Originally Posted by Greentongue

Are small guard stations and a network of signal towers used?
Would that be too "progressive" and suppressed by the clans that specialized in messenger services?

How much delegation is normal?
Is each family group a unit that is expected to meet its obligations or are things more Top Down driven?
Is there consistency "because it has always been done that way" or is each fief basically run differently?
=

In larger fiefs, yes, if the fief-holder is willing to pay for it. The Engsvanyali left all kinds of 'infrastructure' like this behind, and if you're willing to pay for it you can restore it. (Phil had all sorts of things like this to get the players' money from them.) The guards would be personal troops, paid for by the fief-holser, and the signal towers - much like the Roman limes towers (see also http://bastelbogen-online.de/categor...hte/rom/limes/ or Luttwak's book on Roman border defenses.) - will actually be run by the messenger clans as a for-profit operation. The smaller the village, the smaller the guard post, and the more you'll rely on the specialized messenger clans for information transfer.

Lots and lots. The family in the village reports to the clan in the small town who reports to the clan in the large town who reports to the fief-holder who reports to the provincial governor who reports to Bey Su who reports to Avanthar. All of the fiefs are run pretty much the same, as everybody uses the Engsvanyali manuals on how to do it. People do come up with ideas, but as they have to pay for it themselves there's a powerful incentive against innovation - too expensive.

I have a question for Chirine and Gronan about the importance of clans in "game" Tekumel.

If you look a the published games, there is a lot of evolution, clans get only passing reference in 1975, then by 1983 they are an important part of the setting, then by the 1990s clan has become paramount, almost the name of the game, to where Tekumel is basically an RPG about living in clans.

But I am curious about the 70s, and the early role of clans at the Professor's table. Were they always the big deal that would emerge later in, say, The Sourcebook? Or did that evolve over time?

Out of curiosity, what's a good starting place to read about Tekumel/EPT (is that interchangeable)? This thread is so full of obscure references, it makes it difficult to gauge or engage with the setting being discussed.

Originally Posted by Hrugga

Try here... http://www.tekumel.com


H:0)

Thanks.