Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by Spinachcat

Absolutely!

I find this helps immersion and gameplay. Instead of endless Perception, Knowledge or INT rolls, its better to say "your mage has seen costumes like those before in his studies, they are only worn for rituals invoking the moon gods."

Yep; same here!

Originally Posted by Bren

Yes. Yes. Back when I played level based games NPCs had levels too. And I'm familiar with sumptuary laws.

You don't seem to be grasping what I am saying or you are ignoring it. Knowing he is a knight and thus not first level is way different than knowing the exact level and class of both the knight and his squire. It's the difference between this

"You can see that the warrior wears a fine surcoat with a coat of arms over a full mail coat that you can see has been repaired at least once by an expert smith, the pommel of his sword has a gem set in it, but you can tell from the sweat stains on the hilt that he doesn't just wear that sword for show."

And this

"The knight is a Swashbuckler in AC-4, standing next to him he has a Swordsman as his squire."

Which is the equivalent of the knight wearing a big number 5 emblazoned on the knight's surcoat, a 3 painted on the squire's helmet, and to continue the example, and a bunch of 8's woven in among the moons and stars on the court wizard's robe and hat.

I was agreeing with you.

Originally Posted by Old Geezer

I was agreeing with you.

Oh....my bad. Sometimes you are so curmudgeonly I can't tell.

Originally Posted by Bren

Oh....my bad. Sometimes you are so curmudgeonly I can't tell.

It's the result of decades of practice.

Well, I have to say, in the entire history of my being aware of Tekumel's existence, no one has managed to make it seem as appealing as Chirine.

Originally Posted by RPGPundit

Well, I have to say, in the entire history of my being aware of Tekumel's existence, no one has managed to make it seem as appealing as Chirine.

It's because he was never self-conscious about his hobbies and thus felt no need to promote the idea that "This is not a game, this is A NARTFORM" by emphasizing the sociological and linguistic elements to the exclusion of running around being chased by monsters.

Phil used the sociological and linguistic elements as spice, not the main ingredients.

Originally Posted by RPGPundit

Well, I have to say, in the entire history of my being aware of Tekumel's existence, no one has managed to make it seem as appealing as Chirine.

Well, Tekumel was fun, and very appealing for us - we stayed for a lot of years, listening to Phil spin yarns and occasionally rolling dice. 'Our' Tekumel was full of action, adventure, and even romance - the night Phil married me off to lady Si N'te was one of the very best nights we ever had with him - ever! We were out and about during a local ritual, and Phil was at the top of his form describing it all for us; you tell he was getting it from real life, and describing something he'd seen in his time in India.

I have been both astonished and horrified to see what people think is Tekumel, in various on-line places and discussions; all serious and sociological and ethnographic, with the supposed requirement that you had to know the languages in order to play. Tekumel is not 'impenetrable' or 'unapproachable', at least in the way Phil played it with us. I gather that in the middle 1990's things got Very Serious, and you acted like you were after a degree or something.

No, that wasn't 'our' Tekumel in the original Thursday Night Group; we were the people who thrilled to the battle-cry of:

"Kaor, my Princess! Helium, now and forever!!!"

Originally Posted by Old Geezer

It's because he was never self-conscious about his hobbies and thus felt no need to promote the idea that "This is not a game, this is A NARTFORM" by emphasizing the sociological and linguistic elements to the exclusion of running around being chased by monsters.

Phil used the sociological and linguistic elements as spice, not the main ingredients.

Agreed; Phil never force-fed any of that to us; we just did it, absorbing it along the way.

Maybe I'm just getting old, but whatever happened to the sheer joy of playing with healthy doses of laughter along the way? Like the time you personally routed Baron Ald's super-elite guards by running into his camp whilst shrieking mad cries and leaping into, over, and through the camp fire in front of his tent - and not once, but twice? (This was after the Storming of Castle Tilketl, for anyone who's taking notes.) The Baron was mightily impressed, his guards all panicked, and Lord Fu Shi (the most powerful of powerful sorcerers!) got really annoyed.

Wonderful game, great adventure, and you thoughtfully didn't mention to any of them that the reason you were running into their camp was that you had gotten nasty biting ants in your kilt...

Folks, we couldn't make this stuff up - we had fun, we laughed our heads off, and we explored Phil's astonishing creation. No pretense, no worrying about 'prestige', no worries about 'serious art'; we just went out there and were John Carter, Dejah Thoris, Conan, Fafhrd, the Grey Mouser, and all the other people who lived in our imaginations.

It was Tekumel, it was Greyhawk, it was Blackmoor, it was Barsoom, it was Newhon, it was Aquilonia, it was The Mountains of Madness, it was The Moon Pool; it was a bunch of people having fun in friend's basements and at Coffman Union - third floor, Tuesday nights and occasional Saturdays when we wanted to run really big games.

It was a laugh, it was...

Hey all, I just caught up on reading this thread after a long day of archive work. My PhD is not giving me the time to read and comment as these things come up, let alone to game at the moment, and I just wanted to say thanks to Chirine ba Kal, with able support from the questioners, and grace-notes added by Old Geezer, for this fascinating thread. I haven't played in Tekumel, and likely won't, but all these stories and reminiscences from the early hobby are fascinating. I'm glad Chirine didn't make good on his idea of leaving the site; hope this has amply proven that there are people here who are into hearing what he has to say.
And just in general, this thread makes me think "who says we can't have nice things?!"
Kudos, all.