Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

All of the above, I think. The 1990s were when the 'Official', 'Authorized', 'Approved' viewpoint was just starting to take hold, and a lot of stuff like this was happening in the 'outside' world - and being resolutely ignored in the 'inner circle'. I remember the RG Cons; something similar was tried for Tekumel, at the time, but got a lot of very negative push-back from the 'inner circle' so it never happened. Pity, really.

I'd strongly agree with you about S&G. 935 pages of rules for everything, and pretty much unplayable. Phil used the character generation and the spell lists in his games, and that was about it. I don't think we ever played S&G 'all up'.

I own the original books 1 & 2 and its nothing I'd ever play. I'd either go with a version of the original EPT if I wanted to deal with levels or I'd go with something based on a system I'm already familiar with, which would likely be Sandy's rules, since I am lazy about writing entirely new rule sets when I can use something someone else already wrote up.

Well, the manuscript on the cover is Baron Ald's declaration of war on Tsolyanu, but as for the book, I don't know.

Originally Posted by Bren

I own the original books 1 & 2 and its nothing I'd ever play. I'd either go with a version of the original EPT if I wanted to deal with levels or I'd go with something based on a system I'm already familiar with, which would likely be Sandy's rules, since I am lazy about writing entirely new rule sets when I can use something someone else already wrote up.

Agreed. We sent S&G II and what we had for III out for 'blind test', and it didn't fly. If you just used the combat summary (16 pages, I think) and the sorcery summary (18 pages, I think; I'd have to check my copies) with the PC sheet, you can have a fun game. I loved the first volume, The Sourcebook, as it had all sorts of lovely stuff about the world, but about the only good thing with the rules was the spell lists - which are descended from "War of Wizards". The GM book, vol. III, was never completed; about the closest you'll get is using a copy of "Gardasiyal" to fill in the missing parts.

On the other had, Jeff Dee's "Bethorm" is about as close as you'll get to what Phil probably intended with S&G. I played in a game of it with him, and I though that it was a very good analog to what Phil was doing in his games - when he bothered with rules at all, which was always happening with him...

Personally, I'll always prefer EPT, with S&G's spells; again, this is what "bethorm" does a good job with.

Originally Posted by Hrugga

Chirine,

S&G...Since we are on the subject, what can you tell me about this...Attachment 1106

As far as content goes(GM info)? It is from the Dave Sutherland collection that was auctioned some time back. Is this the elusive third book that was lost to mankind? I think it was DS's personal proof copy...Thanks. Hope to hear from you soon.

H :0)

PS I'm most interested on the image on the cover. Thanks

What you have is the Tita's House of Games publication of the third part of S&G I, The Sourcebook. Different Worlds published the first two-thirds of the book after they got the license, but ran out of money and never published the remaining third of the book. It is not the S&G III 'GM Guide". That was never finished; my copy of the manuscript runs to about 345 pages.

It has most of Dave Sutherland's artwork from "The Dragon" and "Legions of the Petal Throne" as interior artwork. Which is where the Sutherland connection probably comes in; I got a digital copy of all the artwork in Dave's collection form the person who bought it in the auction, which was kind of them.

The cover is Phil's old EPT poster, the declaration of war by Yan Kor on Tsolyanu, after Dave Houtla (Qutmu, later impaled for using undead in open warfare) started the war. TSR issued this in two versions, one a very nice one with metallic inks (about 250 printed) that didn't stand up to handling, and a less-expensive version that had about 1500 printed. (I also have a digital version of the original, too.) It's about 17" by 24", and looks pretty cool.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Well, the manuscript on the cover is Baron Ald's declaration of war on Tsolyanu, but as for the book, I don't know.

What you said. See my reply to the gent...

I don;t know if there's any interest, or even if this is the right place to mention it, but I'll be running a 'micro-Braunstein' for the game group on October 10th. It's our usual game day, and I was asked to run a little something special for the Usual Suspects...

Originally Posted by Greentongue

Will you be posting a video of it?
I bet the videos would be even more popular if a version that was edited to just include the action was available.

While I may find the banter interesting, not everyone does.
=

Probably not. I'm expecting a lot of first-time players, and I doubt they'd like to be up on the web first time out. I can ask, though. I'll post a report, like I did in my series of blog posts on how I run my Braunsteins.

If somebody wants to do the editing work to remove the banter, more power to them. (I've been doing video production since 1988, and I find doing post-production to be both tedious and boring.) If there's somebody who wants to do it, then they should feel free to do so.

The idea behind my videos is to show folks what it is that I do in the basement; a window into the past, if you will, as what you see is what we did back in Ye Olden Dayes. For us, the banter was a big part of our gaming style; we did this in our miniatures games and in our RPGs - for us, it was all about the social interaction of having fun with friends. I post the raw feeds, so people can pick and choose what they want from the data. If there's anything that they can use, more power to them.

If people want short and to the point 'how to' videos, I'd be delighted to help them produce the things. I'm looking at doing one of my own for my new edition of my rules; one of my proof-readers noted that I need to write the rules in such a way as to teach them to people, because I can't be there to teach the game them myself. I thought that that was a really good point, and I thought about it and then suggested that each copy of the rules include a DVD with a video of me running a game so that people can see how the thing works. (We're set up to make that kind of thing; I have the gear to do a really good four-camera shoot.) The Internet would also allow me to post the video on-line, as well; one could download the PDF and the video...

So, I guess the bottom line is we'll have to see what the players want to do, and go from there.