Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by Bren

OK. It's on my radar. I'm not certain where I'll be next March, but I'll try to get there. Hopefully you will talk it up again when signups for the event is closer.

Which just proves that there certainly is no accounting for taste.

Allow me to share an idea you might enjoy. For my 50th birthday my wife hosted Mark-Con: a weekend roleplaying game event where we invited a bunch of friends including my surviving gaming buddies from the 1970s to come stay at our house and play. We even arranged airport pickups and drop-offs for the out of state folks. My wife went around to some local game stores and they donated stuff for some goody prize bags and rather than expecting gifts for my birthday (other than people coming) we gave out black polo-shirts with the Mark-Con dragon logo in a shiny red. It was great fun, I got to see some friends I hadn't seen in years, we played some great games, and it probably didn't cost me more than going to a con.

Chirine-Con 2017!

Oh, yes! We did something like this back a few years ago, where we had a house full of guests in a sort of micro-convention. There are a number of these, here in the Twin Cities, and it's kind of an established tradition.

Being a good staff officer, I have contingency plans for this kind of event on file. Case One assumes up to twenty-five people attending, Case Two twenty-five to seventy-five, and Case Three seventy-five to over a hundred. One assumes being held here at the house, and is based on our successful micro-con; Two and Three are based on my decades of event production, and use (in the 'a' variants) the FFG Event Center or (in the 'b' variants) a local hotel - depends on what kind of deal could be negotiated with the hotel and the number of people needing hotel space. I update the files annually, to reflect changes on what I have available in terms of pre-built games and show production assets.

Yes. Geek Partnership got the large room next door back, so we had eight tables going with plenty of room.

Understood - and I do agree with you! Gary Con is a great convention, with lots of great games. In my case, though, there are the numbers:

Hotel @ $160 / night = $800
Fuel for van = $200
Food for one = $200
Badge = $100
Health care aide for one week for disabled wife @ $75 / day = $375
Rental car for disabled wife for one week = $150
Total cost: $2,300

That, unfortunately, is my disposable income for an entire year. Vacation time I get, so no issue there. Bottom line is that for this kind of money, I need to have a lot of reason to go.

Originally Posted by AsenRG

I just wanted to ask, since I noticed that Phil has mentioned not only Tekumel is inhabitable, and planets are associated with gods...
What are the odds of the "paradises" of the gods being physical places that can be located via, say, space travel? What are the odds of (some of ) them being in the same dimension?

I don;t know about getting there by ship, but you can get there by Nexus point. So, yes, they are locations, but just not in Tekumel's dimension.

I think we lost a post by Big Andy in the update; he asked about LCD projectors and how I used one at Gary Con, and if Phil ever did that.

Phil never used anything like that; it hadn't been invented, yet. I used it, as I have other large display devices, to keep game play moving. I've watched all too many games at conventions where the very unhappy GM was trying to help the party's mapper do the mapping, and everybody else was left sitting around for hours. I used first a huge CRT in the game room, then a projection display, and now a 40 LCD display to simply show the players where they are - it's then up to them to work up any maps or anything. It's a lot faster and easier on everyone, and keeps the game moving at the Arnesonian break-neck pace that people seem to like.

I actually had four LCD projectors at Gary Con; one primary, one back-up, and two utter desperation units. Having worked in the show production business for decades, I have a lot of this kind of thing lying around, and I figure that I might as well get some use out of it. Projectors are a little hard to use, being dependent on the amount of ambient room light, and I really had wanted an active display like an LCD screen. I am very lucky; the Missus found me a 40" LCD and a 32" LCD that I had planned to take to Gary Con this year, as well as the stands we needed at the convention. And for dirt cheap, too! She really is the Queen of the Internet!!! Industrial surplus is your friend!!!

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Two words: Victor Raymond

Now, on to the good stuff...

Chirine,

I have to say this, and I'm not stirring the pot, but I think this guy is your personal Pariah God. It seems that he just keeps getting in your hair, and wants nothing more than to destroy Chirine's personal Bethorm. Or, maybe, just make it uninhabitable.

Shemek.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Yes. Geek Partnership got the large room next door back, so we had eight tables going with plenty of room.

Understood - and I do agree with you! Gary Con is a great convention, with lots of great games. In my case, though, there are the numbers:

Hotel @ $160 / night = $800
Fuel for van = $200
Food for one = $200
Badge = $100
Health care aide for one week for disabled wife @ $75 / day = $375
Rental car for disabled wife for one week = $150
Total cost: $2,300

That, unfortunately, is my disposable income for an entire year. Vacation time I get, so no issue there. Bottom line is that for this kind of money, I need to have a lot of reason to go.

Well, I can certainly understand your reasoning. For that matter, ALL events are getting expensive. I just mailed a check for slightly over $400 for a railroad historical society convention, and that's just the registration fees! (insurance for touring rail sites has gone astronomical.) The NMRA convention is now a full week, and the hotels ain't cheap.

I have to wonder, could somebody even RUN something like Minnesota Campaign or even U-Con any more? For those who weren't there, they were pretty much 'Here are some rooms where folks are running games, and some other rooms where we have open gaming." Hotels, food, travel, etc, were all up to the individuals and we felt no real obligation to do more than provide the venue and games. It seems like people expect a lot more dogs and ponies these days.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

I don;t know about getting there by ship, but you can get there by Nexus point. So, yes, they are locations, but just not in Tekumel's dimension.

You can get there by spaceship -- sorry, "rocket ship" -- only if it's funny.

(Gary Gygax later said that Robilar's giant trebuchet built by his sage, Herb, would have worked to get him to Barsoom.)

Chirine,

I was recently reading an interview with Phil in one of the old Eye of all Seeing Wonders, and he mentioned an era on Tekumel called the Age of the Magicians. I don't recall coming across this period before. Any info that you could share with us?

Shemek.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

I don;t know about getting there by ship, but you can get there by Nexus point. So, yes, they are locations, but just not in Tekumel's dimension.

I'd always thought the Nexus points are for "spiritual travel". Guess the "Notes from the TNG" tales have mislead me there
Ah well, but then would they be accessible from the ancient Humanspace? Or would you need to travel to yet another dimension?

Follow-up question, can you make an educated guess what would be the treatment of foreign people with pale skin and blond hair in Tsolyanu? What would happen to a small group of such, apart from probably meeting people from a certain profession that's not invited to the good parties?
I'm wondering what would happen to NPCs that stumble into a portal...

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

You can get there by spaceship -- sorry, "rocket ship" -- only if it's funny.

(Gary Gygax later said that Robilar's giant trebuchet built by his sage, Herb, would have worked to get him to Barsoom.)

I understand that logic, but I'm not sure whether I share it entirely.
Besides, it's not about the PCs getting there. Not yet, at least, though I kinda know how my players think.
However, it's about what they would find there if and when they reach it. And for NPC travel, I believe "whether it's funny" shouldn't be a factor in the decision!