All right; you'll have to ask more specific questions about Gordy's writing, though.Originally Posted by AsenRG
Well, about GDickson, wherever you want...
I'm more interested in his writing. But I can sense that the book collection in the basement is going to be an entertaining one...
Let's start with it.
On clean games - I know, I just avoid them. The Middle Ages had lots of naughtiness going under some cover, and often without it, too. That was even before we get to stuff like the 17th century...
(Acceptable naughtiness in a culture ebbs and flows, though. In the West, it really went down at the time of the Industrial Revolution...unless you were out of the West proper, where anything goes).
Thing is, even in the most prudish setting, PCs are likely to meet people that regard such rules as something that concerns other people. Hence, my joke that I don't know such settings.
And one can hope for more interested players after your book becomes available. We're going to kick the social media to make it known. And then we're going to see the effect!
So, anyway, this was back when I was living in Gordy and Poul Anderson's old apartment in the Bozo Bus Building (the fannish apartment building here in the Twin Cities - 343 East 19th Street, Apt. 4B, to be exact) I I get a call from Gordy; it's been raining hard, and his basement is flooding. He runs his publishing company, Otterburn Publications, from there, as the books are in real danger. I gathered up two friends from across the hall, and we go out to Gordy's house; the situation is indeed dire, and immediate action is called for. The two friends and Gordy start hauling the books up the stairs in a human chain, and I have a look at the door that leads to the exterior stairwell that leads to the basement.
I open it a bit, and close it right up again; there is about two to three cubic meters of water in the stairwell. The drain has gotten plugged up, and we're about to get inundated. I do the player-character thing, and strip off and dive into the water from outside at the top of the stairs. It's freezing cold, of course, but I manage to get the leaves blocking the drain removed, and you can feel the suction as the water starts to funnel out.
Gordy's elderly mother, the wonderful and tough-as-nails Mrs. Dickson, then throws me into warmed towels and pours hot cocoa into me. The books are saved, and Gordy gave me a water-damaged copy of his "Home From The Shore" and a bottle of Drambuie as a thank you. I still have both; he was kind enough to write me a very nice note in the book.
I agree with you about 'clean' games; most historical settings have a very real undercurrent of nasty stuff, and many F/SF ones do as well. For me, and I think this is what you're getting at, there's a difference between between them being part of the game and being part of the setting. One example that I can think of was the night in Tsamra when Vrisa 'propositioned' Chirine; he accepted, Phil nodded, and we got on with the game session. We did not make a big or graphic deal about it; it was two consenting adults being adults, and it was felt by the group to be more sweet and romantic then salacious. (My daughters, who are kind enough to read my book and offer comments, said the same thing some thirty years later - 'poignant', was the word used.)
As Gronan writes in his reply, we just didn't game that way; we assumed that we were all more-or-less responsible adults, and we tended to behave that way when gaming. Which never stopped us from doing little victory dances when we rolled really well in a miniatures game, or whooping and hollering when things were going well; swooning and doing period exclamations of anguish - "BOGE MOI!" when my Russian T-44s would lose their crummy transmissions, or "GOTT IN HIMMEL!" when the Grant came out of the desert dust at my poor little Pz. I, for example - were also part of the game play.
My issue with the 'age-appropriate' game was not based on content, it was based on the negative reaction from the young players; they weren't thrilled at the propaganda, and wanted to know what it all had to do with the game. I try to keep the players interested and engaged; one of them actually fell asleep during the game...
I'd like to think that my book will amuse and amaze people, and give them an introduction to the Tekumel we knew with Phil. It was a fascinating place, full of mystery and adventure...
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