Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

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.

It's funny you put it that way; he's often referred to me as "the Fourth Pariah God". He's my personal boil on my buttocks; I've had to swallow his lies, slanders, and innuendos for decades, all "for the good of Tekumel". I once asked him why he keeps badmouthing me to people, and he replied, quite honestly, that "It's what we'd do if you were in our position." When I reminded him that I don;t play those sorts of political intrigues, he told me that his reason for hating me so much was that "Everything you choose to do, you do really well; you make me look bad, when you do this." He's got some really difficult issues of personal insecurity, sense of self-worth, and self esteem; he tries to compensate for them by running down and ruining anyone who he feels is a threat to him. I'm not the only one he's done this to; I'm just more up-front about it.

And I used to be pretty tolerant and laid-back about his antics, too; it was after he started in on my wife and daughters - non-combatants, in all of this - that the gloves came off and it became bare-knuckle. His problem is basically that he can't keep his mouth shut, and will say anything to anyone that he thinks they will want to hear. It's gotten him into an awful lot of trouble over the years.

I do feel sorry for the guy. It's been pretty sad to watch, over the decades.

Originally Posted by Big Andy

I kept waiting for my post to show back up. Guess it was swallowed by an Akho.

Part of my question about the projection: Do you share underworld/dungeon maps normally (ie non-convention games) or is that only something you do for cons? Or just for the biggies like Jakalla? Did the Professor do this? I have always seen it done where the gm had the map and the party made their own but have wondered if this would be a better system.

Did the Professor map any other Underworlds? Maybe not as extensively but some. How many did you guys hit? Was there one that was mentioned with fear/awe that you didn't get around to visiting?

I know the Foundation is supposed to be releasing the Jakkallan Underworld this year, so I guess this is semi pertinent.

And kudos to the Missus. Too many people don't look hard enough but there are plenty of places to find good stuff for gaming, and home for that matter.

Right, then! I normally share maps at convention games, as it saves a lot of time and energy. In-house campaign games, not so much, although I do it if the party has gotten hopelessly lost. Again, this is supposed to be a fun pastime. Phil, in common with most of the GMs of his time, did not share the map - assuming he had one. If we wanted a map, we had to make it, ad do it in real time; he would not stop to let the mapper catch up, so the party had to buy time when needed. It's a play style, more then anything else.

Not really, no. He did a map for one location that we visited out past Sirsum, but other then that he didn't seem to need them. I wondered about this for several years, and then finally divined his method in a glorious game session. The party had gotten lost again, and were just starting the usual PC 'discussion' about which way to go, when I spoke up and said "Passageway ends in a 'T', left one goes out to the first floor of a tower, right out to a courtyard." Phil gave me this really, really filthy look, and we got going again; things were exactly as I had described them. Much mystification in the party, until Phil finally told me to "Pass it up here, please." The rest of the party was even more mystified as the sheet of paper went up the table to him and there was much weeping and wailing - until Phil opened the folded sheet, and showed them the map of the Red Fort in Delhi I'd copied from one in the collection of the Ames South Asian Library.

The Secret was that I'd guessed that since Phil never seemed to need maps, and always knew so much about the places he was describing, he was using his memories of places he'd been in South Asia. I recognized the description of where we were, and knew which way to go...

Nope. We saw them all, at various times, and they were usually pretty nasty. Hekellu was maybe the worst, as the water table is pretty high what with the city being right on the lake. Soggy. Soggy, and infested with really odd inhabitants...

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

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.

Oh, I can sympathize with that! You would faint at the cost of the insurance cover my model railway club has to pay for our annual exhibition!

Um, I don't know. The big limiting factor is the cost of exhibition space; there is precious little of that left here in the Twin Cities. Most spaces are attached to hotels, which will be more then happy to give you the space for free - if you agree to book 'X' number of hotel room nights. That's where they make their money - as well as on food functions - so that's what they want to see out of anybody booking floor space. It's why FFG's Event Center is so attractive; a 100' x 100' room, with attached cafe (with micro-brewery beer on tap, four kinds) and clean restrooms at a moderate cost. The costs of running an event, of any kind, have gone through the roof - the overheads are what drive entry costs, to be honest.

Originally Posted by Big Andy

And kudos to the Missus. Too many people don't look hard enough but there are plenty of places to find good stuff for gaming, and home for that matter.

Thank you! She really is the best - giver her a mission, and she keeps worrying away at the problem until she can solve it.

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

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.

It's the historical period overlapping the end of the Latter Times and the beginning of the Empire of Llyan of Tsamra. It's the time when most of the Undying Wizards got their start, and when magic-users - 'magic' having been invented - could do pretty much anything that they wanted to. Think the Wild West with energy bolts and fireballs.

Originally Posted by AsenRG

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...

Well, in our time they were a handy - if very, very unreliable!!! - way to get from Point A to point B without walking. It was Phil's way of telescoping travel time, and of getting us into new adventures, Which is why, usually, I preferred to walk or take a ship.

Well, it's like the two hobbits in Bey Su. (They got really cushy jobs, the little twerps.) Depending on where you drop in, the locals will have wildly different reactions. In a temple complex, the guards will surround the party and they'll be invited to stay for quit a while while the temple gets all the information that they can out of the party. Imperial area, off to the park to go on exhibition - it's what the two hobbits do. Usual city or rural area, probably be taken for demons, and shown the door as fast as possible, provided that nobody gets stupid and violence breaks out. In some enlightened parts of the world, they'll be recognized as adventures and be offered jobs as mercenaries. It's what I did when Captain Harchar showed up with a bunch of Amazons on his ship. (No rude jokes, please; they had their own weapons and armor, so we hired them on the spot.) They were unemployed warriors from this Blackmoor place he kept visiting, and needed the work. Same thing with this guy from someplace called Flanders. he works for the Temple of Avanthe as hired muscle. Nice armor, though; never seen anything like it, myself...

There! I think we're all caught up - have I missed anyone?

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

I do feel sorry for the guy. It's been pretty sad to watch, over the decades.

If it makes you feel any better, chirine ba kal, I have no idea who that guy is and his name has already been forgotten.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Oh, I can sympathize with that! You would faint at the cost of the insurance cover my model railway club has to pay for our annual exhibition!

Um, I don't know. The big limiting factor is the cost of exhibition space; there is precious little of that left here in the Twin Cities. Most spaces are attached to hotels, which will be more then happy to give you the space for free - if you agree to book 'X' number of hotel room nights. That's where they make their money - as well as on food functions - so that's what they want to see out of anybody booking floor space. It's why FFG's Event Center is so attractive; a 100' x 100' room, with attached cafe (with micro-brewery beer on tap, four kinds) and clean restrooms at a moderate cost. The costs of running an event, of any kind, have gone through the roof - the overheads are what drive entry costs, to be honest.

Yeah, all this is true. It's why tickets to ride behind CMST&P 261 start at $100 on a 15 car train; their insurance carrier demands they carry something like $100M in liability. Many many millions, at least.

I don't even know if the University of Minnesota HAS a gaming group any more, but the ability to reserve the entire third floor of Coffman Union for free was sure a boon to running U-Con there. All those rooms for free, and the first floor Great Hall for $100.

But even if anybody did do that, would the gamers come to such a "minimalist" convention?

The world wags on.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Well, in our time they were a handy - if very, very unreliable!!! - way to get from Point A to point B without walking. It was Phil's way of telescoping travel time, and of getting us into new adventures, Which is why, usually, I preferred to walk or take a ship.

Well, it's like the two hobbits in Bey Su. (They got really cushy jobs, the little twerps.) Depending on where you drop in, the locals will have wildly different reactions. In a temple complex, the guards will surround the party and they'll be invited to stay for quit a while while the temple gets all the information that they can out of the party. Imperial area, off to the park to go on exhibition - it's what the two hobbits do. Usual city or rural area, probably be taken for demons, and shown the door as fast as possible, provided that nobody gets stupid and violence breaks out. In some enlightened parts of the world, they'll be recognized as adventures and be offered jobs as mercenaries. It's what I did when Captain Harchar showed up with a bunch of Amazons on his ship. (No rude jokes, please; they had their own weapons and armor, so we hired them on the spot.) They were unemployed warriors from this Blackmoor place he kept visiting, and needed the work. Same thing with this guy from someplace called Flanders. he works for the Temple of Avanthe as hired muscle. Nice armor, though; never seen anything like it, myself...

You chose smart.
And that's duly noted, but I'm thinking a relatively minor number of people appearing separated - as servants, slaves or guards. But for some reason, they get left behind, often with a rudimentary understanding of the language, if that. Their employers communicated with them in their native tongues, mostly.

If they're taken for demons, can a smart one leverage that? A PC did exactly that trick, but it wasn't exactly easy, and it was in Lyvianu (and let's add to this, she proved she can deal with pretty much any task they could set). Would that stand a chance to work in, say, Jakalla?

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Yeah, all this is true. It's why tickets to ride behind CMST&P 261 start at $100 on a 15 car train; their insurance carrier demands they carry something like $100M in liability. Many many millions, at least.

I don't even know if the University of Minnesota HAS a gaming group any more, but the ability to reserve the entire third floor of Coffman Union for free was sure a boon to running U-Con there. All those rooms for free, and the first floor Great Hall for $100.

But even if anybody did do that, would the gamers come to such a "minimalist" convention?

The world wags on.

Weird. Most people here are completely happy to pay their ticket, which admittedly has only a nominal price - we gather in a boardgame cafe, so this is actually their entry fee - and in exchange, they get a place where there are just some tables to play, and people willing to run a game.
Maybe it's just that we have never had a "maximalist" convention, so they don't know they could expect more.