Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Read the description carefully.... that's a COMPENDIUM that includes "Setting Up a Wargames Campaign" as part of it.


(Aquarium, Compendium, Laudanum, Totorum... 100Xp to the first person besides Chirine to identify that without Google)

Wait, what? A compendium in 220 pages? I thought it's some kind of mistake...
I guess being used to the page count of RPGs didn't help me on this one!

Either way, thank you, Gronan! I just ordered it, being in the EU it has bearable shipping. Will wait for the post's office notice.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

"Nah, we's all Itos here."

I had a look at the link you gave; it looks like this is an omnibus edition, and it does seem to have the "Setting Up A Wargames Campaign" in it. And the Phil is Phil's cousin, of course...

Hmm, Phil's cousin...might be good or bad, actually.
Would you recommend any of his works for someone who's more into RPGs, but whose campaigns tend to become political and about political and military manoeuvring after a while?

Thank you for the kind words! Most of the time, people don't like me doing this kind of commentary because I tend to follow the money and see where it leads. My problem is that I've been around for so long, and usually in the thick of things...

I'm trained as a jurist (not lawyer, I could as well apply for anything including law in Bulgaria). Despite that, I work in the media, mostly because of...personal opinions.
Let's just say that "follow the money" is something I've been taught to respect, okay?

Hmmm. I don't know how much 'analysis' will get into the book; there are points where we do stop and have a think about what it is we're doing, but it always seems to advance the plot. We'll see, I guess. Got another 2,500 words down last night, too...

Great!
And that's 2500 words closer to us getting to read it...

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Agreed. The Burma campaign was not noted for humor value.

As for Dand's adventures, well, they're all true...

AsenRG is taking notes on reading material.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Quite a distance, too.

Yep. In 1982 or 1983 Gordy Dickson said he FINALLY reached the point where royalties paid the bills without needing to live off advances..

Also, the market has gotten even worse if possible. In the mid 80s when Pat Wrede got her start, a typical advance for a first fantasy book was $2500. About 5 years ago Jim Frankel said it's now $2000. And the "Three books in three years, quit your day job" contract simply doesn't exist any more.

IN addition, Frankel and every other editor and author there said they don't even want to hear from somebody who's not already working on a third book. As JF said, "Anybody's got one decent book inside them, but nowadays we don't make any money off a new author at all until the third or fourth book." And they want those books BEFORE the first one is ever published.

There go my dreams to become a rich author. Right next to my other dreams.
It's a good thing, in retrospect, that I suspected something like that, and never actually started working on it.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Yeah, it was a pretty tense moment in the ballroom; I think the con chair managed to smooth things over, I think the game got all reassembled by Bob Asprin and the Dorsai Irregulars, but I could be mis-remembering that; things were pretty frantic for a bit, there...

Yeah, I hear you about the market. It's all about the marketing and license potential, ala "Game of Thrones"...

Huh. I'm beginning to appreciate the Bulgarian IP law more and more (like you being unable to lose the rights over what you've written even if you wanted to). Too bad that it applies over a very limited market, so all the pressures are economic ones, and even the best known authors have a day job, often as translators and/or journalists.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Read the description carefully.... that's a COMPENDIUM that includes "Setting Up a Wargames Campaign" as part of it.


(Aquarium, Compendium, Laudanum, Totorum... 100Xp to the first person besides Chirine to identify that without Google)

Four Roman forts surrounding a rebel village in Gaul.

Originally Posted by David Johansen

Four Roman forts surrounding a rebel village in Gaul.

"Ah, you are educated!"

Well done that man. 100XP.

Originally Posted by AsenRG

Wait, what? A compendium in 220 pages? I thought it's some kind of mistake...
I guess being used to the page count of RPGs didn't help me on this one!

And there, O Best Beloveds, is an important lesson!

The original "Setting Up" is 79 pages. 79 PAGES!!! And it's pretty darn complete.

The historical, 1:20 section of CHAINMAIL is something like 19 pages (cutting out the intro, the pictures, etc.; I'm talking "what you need to play a historical 1:20 game.)

The original West End Games STAR WARS RPG was 148 pages. The d20 version had something like a dozen books from 150 to 350 pages, and the West End game is a much, much better game!

Partly this is the fault of a "consumerist mentality," to buy something that is a turnkey installation rather than "make up some shit you think will be fun and here's some guidelines," and partly diarrhea of the mouth (pen).

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

"Ah, you are educated!"

Well done that man. 100XP.

Really, I don't understand how they let kids out of school without having read them. It's almost as great a failure as the mathematics debacle of the last two decades.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

And there, O Best Beloveds, is an important lesson!

Rudyard Kipling's The Elephant's Child

Heir to the Empire by Raymond E Feist and Janny Wurts.

Originally Posted by Hrugga

Since we are on the subject of books...Can you Gentlemen suggest some reading material? A kind of "Appendix N" for The Professor and Tekumel...It doesn't have to be just books, whatever you Gents feel would be helpful(no need to mention things already cited, or any of the published Tekumel stuff). Just to give us an idea about flavoring our Tekumel...

Thanks,

H :0)

Well, honestly, I think that's been covered pretty well.

Oh, wait. FIRST, decide what "flavor" of Tekumel you want to run; Arabian Nights, Sword and Planet, Armies of the Empire, Chariots of the Gods, Struggle for the Throne, or other. THEN select your reading and viewing material from what's already been listed.

And lots of pomp and gaud and trinkets. Phil loved bright colors, gold leaf, and doohickeys.

And much like George Lucas, THINK BIG.

Also, a thought for those who want to run a game on Tekumel:

Phil had been creating Tekumel for some thirty years BEFORE I introduced him to OD&D at the U of MN in 1973.

NONE of us will ever, ever have that fully developed a world. DON'T TRY.

Pick a general genre like I mentioned above, and think of the Tekumelyani aspects as seasoning on the meal. Almost like take your standard D&D world, scratch out "troll" and write in "Ahoggya" in red crayon...

Simply set it in the framework of five large, ancient, bureaucratic, and rather decadent empires with a huge network of extended families going over, under, around, and through these boundaries, and go nuts.

It'll be fine.

Hell, you could even use PENDRAGON. Just like a major theme of Le Morte d'Arthur is family loyalty vs loyalty to the Round Table, you could play a game of clan loyalty vs loyalty to your political home.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H2UIcnICRs