Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

Until this post I really did not make the above connections, and I've been gaming on Tekumel for decades! Wow, you learn something new everyday. Amazing

Shemek

Really? I was first told this by one of the gamers at the Fifth Precinct along about 1977. Shows you how slowly information can travel - I need a signal pyre on the roof, or something...

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Remember all the heckling Gary has taken over his "IT IS VITAL TO KEEP STRICT TRACK OF TIME"? This is why he made that assertion.

And if you really DID both get there at the same time, I'd get both groups together and make THEM work it out. I'm just the referee.

This; ditto.

By the way, talked to some D&D players this afternoon at the FLGs near the house (I'm on vacation - two weeks off, hurrah!) and none of them knew who this Gygax fellow was. I've now been invited to the regular mid-week D&D meet-up to tell them who these old guys were...

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

As I've commented elsewhere, RPG groups are now "ONE BAND OF HEROES TRIED AND TRUE WELDED TOGETHER AT THE HIPS" rather than "A motley assortment of sellswords, treasure hunters, opportunists, minor nobility, and mad wizards who occasionally band together in an infinite variety of combinations to combine their strengths for a nut too tough to crack alone."

Well, yes. Even at the height of our time a a game group out at Phil's, we all were 'rugged individualists' with our own goals and agendas. What made us functional as a 'party' was that we all recognized this, and made sure that everybody got a little something all the time - I can think of more then a few occasions where we'd band together to make sure that one person carried out their particular mission and cooperated to make sure that they could make their goals. If we had differing objectives, we'd make sure that we would all 'succeed' and be able to show our bosses in the temples, legions, clans, or government what stout lads and lasses we all were and deserving of promotions and favors. We'd make sure to bring home the goods, and keep everybody happy.

Except Phil, of course, whose devious plots and dire perils were thwarted on a pretty regular basis by our thinking first and then bopping people over the head if they needed a thumping. It made him think a lot harder, and it made a better Tekumel as a result.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

As I've commented elsewhere, RPG groups are now "ONE BAND OF HEROES TRIED AND TRUE WELDED TOGETHER AT THE HIPS" rather than "A motley assortment of sellswords, treasure hunters, opportunists, minor nobility, and mad wizards who occasionally band together in an infinite variety of combinations to combine their strengths for a nut too tough to crack alone."

Funny thing is that every group I have ever DM'd and played in has been of the latter persuasion. I only encountered the first kind of group once. Must be a generational thing.

Shemek

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Really? I was first told this by one of the gamers at the Fifth Precinct along about 1977. Shows you how slowly information can travel - I need a signal pyre on the roof, or something...

Must be a "forest for the trees" thing. Maybe some signal pyres along the Sakbe Road, or local interstate. What's the main one down there I35?

Shemek.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Remember all the heckling Gary has taken over his "IT IS VITAL TO KEEP STRICT TRACK OF TIME"? This is why he made that assertion.

I limit my heckling to his fetish for pole-arms.

Kidding aside though, the problem is that unless you restrict time in the game world to real time i.e. if you play on Tuesday (game world and real world) you can't find out what happened on Wednesday in the game world until Wednesday in the real world which would make playing out wilderness travel, research, or training both excruciatingly tedious and a logistical nightmare. Even in my most fanatical gaming periods, I did not game every single day for hours at a time. Not quite.

And if you really DID both get there at the same time, I'd get both groups together and make THEM work it out. I'm just the referee.

That's great if you know ahead of time that two (or more) groups are likely to be in the same place at the same time. The problem is what to do when the referee doesn't know that until after one of the groups has acted. While written movement and orders and simultaneous turns works in war games, it would be hideously tedious to do that all the time in an RPG.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Well, yes. Even at the height of our time a a game group out at Phil's, we all were 'rugged individualists' with our own goals and agendas. What made us functional as a 'party' was that we all recognized this, and made sure that everybody got a little something all the time - I can think of more then a few occasions where we'd band together to make sure that one person carried out their particular mission and cooperated to make sure that they could make their goals. If we had differing objectives, we'd make sure that we would all 'succeed' and be able to show our bosses in the temples, legions, clans, or government what stout lads and lasses we all were and deserving of promotions and favors. We'd make sure to bring home the goods, and keep everybody happy.

This really sums up the type of play I am used to as well. As a DM this made for great sport as I was often able to play one off against the other. But at the end of the day the group would always band together to achieve a "universal goal" that would ultimately benefit all. In the circumstances when a character potentially threatened the survival of the whole group they would be "eliminated" as one player was fond of saying. Kind of like what happened in the example I provided the other day.

Shemek.

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

Must be a "forest for the trees" thing. Maybe some signal pyres along the Sakbe Road, or local interstate. What's the main one down there I35?

Shemek.

I think you're right. I keep having to remember that I know a whole lot more about the thing, and the history of the thing, then most other people. Which is why asking me questions is, in my mind, A Good Thing.

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

This really sums up the type of play I am used to as well. As a DM this made for great sport as I was often able to play one off against the other. But at the end of the day the group would always band together to achieve a "universal goal" that would ultimately benefit all. In the circumstances when a character potentially threatened the survival of the whole group they would be "eliminated" as one player was fond of saying. Kind of like what happened in the example I provided the other day.

Shemek.

I'd agree with this. I've had a few people, over the years, who had 'issues', and we couldn't work them out out of game, we'd part ways. Better all round.