Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal - part II

Chirine,

A quick question about Tsolyani military ranks.
As I recall, the smallest sized unit is a Semetl, consisting of 20 men, which is commanded by a Tirrikamu. The next one up is a Kareng, consisting of a 100 men, which is commanded by a Hereksa.
Is it be fair to say that these two ranks would roughly correspond to Sergeant and Lieutenant, respectively?
What is the Tsolyani equivalent to a Corporal, Staff Sergeant, and Warrant Officer, if these ranks exist?
Are there formations that are used which are, say, half the size of the two noted above?
How common is it to create ad hoc units in the field, and what would their names be if such units exist?

Shemek

Originally Posted by estar

Gotcha, while I started with OD&D in the form of Sword & Wizardry as a foundation, what I use for my campaign is heavily house rules into it own thing.

There are the basic rules which are the full rules just not with all the stuff. Then there is more in the 5e SRD But that is a reference while the Basic rules are a regular set of RPG rules.

Sound more like a referee problem which amounts to the same thing. As for spectacle it is there but it depends on the referee. I happened to fall on the miniatures side of the equation myself.

All three 5th edition campaigns were on-line but I use the virtual tabletop equivalent of miniatures by using the whiteboard feature. The one thing that has over face to face is something called dynamic lighting. I can set up a map and assign light sources to PCs and they see only what they would actually see in the dungeon.

For my OD&D/Majestic Wilderlands campaigns i use miniatures and Dwarven Forge.
Now I don't make dioramas like in Blackmoor and Tekumel. I favor interchangeable pieces that I can throw together on the fly. That more my one friend, Dwayne, thing.

The old ways aren't dead.

Great photos!!!

I'll have a look at the rules; I don;t play again until September, so there's plenty of time.

The GM is very popular with the local gamers, and runs several campaigns - he's book almost every night and weekend. People who play in his games all love what they're doing, so I suspect it's me that's the issue.

I'd like to think so...

Originally Posted by Hrugga

Greetings Uncle,

Would you be able to post a few images of your conversion of "Chris (Bear) Huddle's 32nd Imperial Medium Infantry - The Legion of the Translucent Emerald - for doing the Sirsum micro-campaign and specifically the Battle of Anch'ke." here? I was reading about it over at the Workbench. I would love to see them.

Thanks,

H:0)

I'll try and find the photos I took of them when we did the re-fight of Anch'ke at the FLGS. In the meantime, here's what they look like:

Bear_Transluscemt Emerald Color Guide copy.jpg

Phil did the line drawing, Chris did the colors per his directions. Blue armor, silver mail, green kilt. I didn't do the front scarves; I did the legion on campaign. Photos to come of the troops.

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

Chirine,

A quick question about Tsolyani military ranks.
As I recall, the smallest sized unit is a Semetl, consisting of 20 men, which is commanded by a Tirrikamu. The next one up is a Kareng, consisting of a 100 men, which is commanded by a Hereksa.
Is it be fair to say that these two ranks would roughly correspond to Sergeant and Lieutenant, respectively?
What is the Tsolyani equivalent to a Corporal, Staff Sergeant, and Warrant Officer, if these ranks exist?
Are there formations that are used which are, say, half the size of the two noted above?
How common is it to create ad hoc units in the field, and what would their names be if such units exist?

Shemek

Sort of; you'd be better off with Decanus and Optio. (The modern ranks do work, though.) There is no rank 'lower' then these; again, you'd have to look at the various 'exempts' in a Roman legion to get names for the various specialists in the 20-trooper section.

Not really, no. You get either full 'sections' or full 'centuries'; splitting up units is considered bad for morale and fighting power. If you did have two or three sections working together, say in a skirmish situation, the senior officer would command. 'Ad hoc' units are not used very often, if at all; you do get 'battlegroups' of cohorts drawn from legions as needed for less-then full-scale operations, and usually a senior officer from the most senior legion is in command.

Is this helping, at all?

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Sort of; you'd be better off with Decanus and Optio. (The modern ranks do work, though.) There is no rank 'lower' then these; again, you'd have to look at the various 'exempts' in a Roman legion to get names for the various specialists in the 20-trooper section.

Not really, no. You get either full 'sections' or full 'centuries'; splitting up units is considered bad for morale and fighting power. If you did have two or three sections working together, say in a skirmish situation, the senior officer would command. 'Ad hoc' units are not used very often, if at all; you do get 'battlegroups' of cohorts drawn from legions as needed for less-then full-scale operations, and usually a senior officer from the most senior legion is in command.

Is this helping, at all?

Perfect! Thank you very much.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

The GM is very popular with the local gamers, and runs several campaigns - he's book almost every night and weekend. People who play in his games all love what they're doing, so I suspect it's me that's the issue.

I'd like to think so...

Within the core books of the Player's Handbox, Monster Manual, and DM's Guide, most of it is list of stuff, items, classes, monsters, and spells. One of the reason that D&D 5e has become people's second favorite RPGs is that the designer worked at so that that if people were not interested in "building" characters, they could use the freely available basic rules and just start off at level 1 and go on from there. There maybe a handful of choices but by and large the character creation and advancement is straightforward. At level X you get blah and blah. And it just as optimal anything else in the game. You will see players do all kinds of things with tweaked characters but if you were to crunch the numbers you are contributing as much as they are.

The rest depends on the referee. In my 5e campaign proper strategy and tactics were of vital importance. But the reason players figured it out was because the way I run things is to try present as much of a first person view as I can. I find that doing that get the players thinking the same way as if they were really there. I played under referee who didn't do that, and it came off across a lot more like a wargame with weird rules. But then again I experienced that with AD&D back in the day as well so it isn't a particular fault of 5e.

Maybe the best course is to pop over at the game store when a game is breaking up to see if you can talk to the referee about the issues you were having. Explain about the stuff you are used too and see how he handles them. To take Gronan's example of flanking, if the players you were with never try to flank, then the referee will never get to make a ruling on its effect. He may actually welcome somebody with your approach.

For example I don't need people act as actor or do funny voices. My only requirement is that you talk in first person when it comes to doing something as your character. But I enjoy the campaign more if people do that sort of thing. And there been times when the most of the group were mostly roleplaying versions of themselves in my setting and a newer player who like doing that felt inhibited. Then we get to talking some point and I am all like "Hell yeah do the funny voice or acting bit." And now they feel a lot more comfortable in playing the way they want to play.


Again hope this helps.

Here a question I have that relates to the use of dioramas, props, and miniatures. How generic or specific were they? How often were they used? Like was there a village set? Or a set that was only used for the Village of (some Tekumel name).

For myself I always go for stuff I can combine in multiple way to depict "roughly" the locale the players are in at the moment. My friend, Dwayne, goes for highly detailed models that pretty much only used in a single adventure. But reading stuff about Blackmoor and Tekumel I get a sense somethings were used over and over again. And from the photos it obviously that they were a labor of love with a lot of details in them.

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

Perfect! Thank you very much.

You're welcome! I could go into this in exhausting detail, but only if you need me to...