Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Back in 1976 some numbnuts in a fanzine said "D&D is TOO IMPORTANT to entrust to Gary Gygax!" No, I'm not kidding.

Gary's response was "it's not entrusted to anybody, everyone can do what they want with it." Personally, I think he should have said "You want to be in charge of OFFICIAL D&D? Okay, for $20 Million it's all yours, Sparky!"

Gods. What part of "commercial product for sale" do they not understand?

None of it. Their belief - and this is from one of the meetings I sat through - is that purchasing a Tekumel product is simply a lease or something, and that they retain "creative jurisdiction" over the IP at all times; individual games and campaigns are subject to their oversight and review. This is the same crowd who thought that a monthly fee for people to play would be a good thing; pay your $10 - $25 a month fee, and you would be given "Official, Authorized, and Approved" status from them. This may be why they were so hot to make sure that Gary Con had to post Official Notices at the convention that any games we were running in the aborted Tekumel room were "Unoffical, Unauthorized, and Unapproved" by them.

Now, my General, last time I looked you had a few brain cells that rubbed together in your noggin. Use your innate business sense and tell me, what effect these poster-sized notices at the convention would have had on the gaming public? And on the reputation of Tekumel? And, for that matter, on them?

If I was truly the horrible ogre I've been made out to be (along with the wife and daughters), I would have gone and done the convention and made damn sure that these posters were very obviously displayed, in total compliance with their orders. What do you think the result would have been, my General?

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

As a percentage, the number of Americans with college degrees has gone up 300% since 1970. Combine this with a comment made by my Old Testament prof and advisor that "over the last twenty years incoming students no longer know how to read different types of literature differently" and you have a recipe for subjecting everything to ridiculous levels of pseudointellectual scrutiny.

Just look at some of the OSR/Original D&D forums; they are overanalyzing the game and its mechanics to a ridiculous degree and coming up with an incredibly complex system of mythology to explain it. For instance, in OD&D the magic user's XP per level is not a smooth progression. THOUSANDS of words have been spent on this. The fact is, Gary drew up a chart and then diddled around with the numbers for a year or so until the game played the way he wanted. Rules weren't created in this atmosphere of intense analysis.

Sort of like how a cheapie little space opera movie filmed in 1975-1976 has been subjected to forty years of frame-by-frame analysis by weenie-heads who seem to be unable to just shut the hell up and watch the movie.

Very true, just like that late 1960's TV show about those people in funny shirts wandering around in a spaceship.

True story: When I asked a friend and fellow Tekumel player to come up with a one sheet, two-sided introduction to Tekumel that I could hand out at conventions to new gamers, he came back to me with a sixty-three page Readers' Digest edition of the Tekumel Sourcebook. His idea was that people would read this at the table, before the game session, as that way they would get all the information they needed to truly understand Tekumel.

I said no thank you, and kept my remarks down to fifteen minutes.

From AsenRG:
Hope your "Net1" resolves them soon!


The problem seems to be on the service provider's end; our connection is not delivering the full rate we're paying for. I'm limited to posts and e-mails in off-peak periods, as the 'pipe' doesn;t seem big enough for the traffic volume on offer. There's an apartment building next door that may share the node, so that may be the issue...

You have the patience of a saint (a saint that's not Boris I Mihail).
Which is to say, I'd have probably booted him earlier.

You're not the only one who's said that; Eldest Daughter said the same - right about the time she showed off her version of 'club wear' for the first time. I suggested that she take a jacket; she refused on fashion grounds, and I got a call very late that night asking if I could being a wrap or something to her at the club, as it was indeed a cold night. I brought her the mighty and powerfully warm boat cloak that the Missus had made me, so Eldest looked quite dramatic and was quite warm...

No surprise. I learned quite a bit about "how games should go" from Gronan, back when he was Old Geezer, Bren, you yourself, Raggi (yes, the Lamentations of the Flame Princess's guy) and old-school Runequest/Traveller fans that aren't present on this forum. I'm still learning, too, but in a way, I'm following the same school.

And that, in my book, is what makes a good gamer - the ability to learn...
Indeed.

Well, the trick is to make them want to try...

Oh, agreed! Very much so!!!

Can you make a youtube video of your overview? Pretty please? It might be helpful...

Oh! Never thought of that! I'll see what we can do...

Well, I like "academic" approach...but that's because to me, that equates to well-researched. And I can use that to make a fun game; poorly-researched stuff needs me to lay it a finishing paint.

Your definition of 'academic' is the same as mine; the approach I'm talking about is to take up play time with lectures, such as at a recent convention where the Tekumel Expert GM lectured the players for one hour of a four hour time slot. Does this all the time, I'm told.

There's no One True Way to run any setting. Those people fail at Refereeing 101 and at Game Development 101.
Refereeing: Since none of them is MAR Barker, obviously they're running it wrong.
Game development: Don't tell me how I should play. You might make polite suggestions. Then give me the setting and system material, and "unleash the Referees of War"!

I think this is very true, as well. It's what works for a GM and the players.

Me too! And one of my players just told me "Tekumel sounds like fun, from what you've described to me".
I guess I also commit the crime of using well-researched settings in a fun way...

Heresy!!! Heresy!!!

But what are supposed to do the people that don't fit said description?

No idea. No idea at all.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

None of it. Their belief - and this is from one of the meetings I sat through - is that purchasing a Tekumel product is simply a lease or something, and that they retain "creative jurisdiction" over the IP at all times; individual games and campaigns are subject to their oversight and review. This is the same crowd who thought that a monthly fee for people to play would be a good thing; pay your $10 - $25 a month fee, and you would be given "Official, Authorized, and Approved" status from them. This may be why they were so hot to make sure that Gary Con had to post Official Notices at the convention that any games we were running in the aborted Tekumel room were "Unoffical, Unauthorized, and Unapproved" by them.

Now, my General, last time I looked you had a few brain cells that rubbed together in your noggin. Use your innate business sense and tell me, what effect these poster-sized notices at the convention would have had on the gaming public? And on the reputation of Tekumel? And, for that matter, on them?

If I was truly the horrible ogre I've been made out to be (along with the wife and daughters), I would have gone and done the convention and made damn sure that these posters were very obviously displayed, in total compliance with their orders. What do you think the result would have been, my General?

I'm almost sorry you didn't do exactly that.
Business sense has nothing to do with that.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

From AsenRG:
Hope your "Net1" resolves them soon!


The problem seems to be on the service provider's end; our connection is not delivering the full rate we're paying for. I'm limited to posts and e-mails in off-peak periods, as the 'pipe' doesn;t seem big enough for the traffic volume on offer. There's an apartment building next door that may share the node, so that may be the issue...

Yeah, I just used the name of my service provider.

You have the patience of a saint (a saint that's not Boris I Mihail).
Which is to say, I'd have probably booted him earlier.

You're not the only one who's said that; Eldest Daughter said the same - right about the time she showed off her version of 'club wear' for the first time. I suggested that she take a jacket; she refused on fashion grounds, and I got a call very late that night asking if I could being a wrap or something to her at the club, as it was indeed a cold night. I brought her the mighty and powerfully warm boat cloak that the Missus had made me, so Eldest looked quite dramatic and was quite warm...

OK, that is a great story!

No surprise. I learned quite a bit about "how games should go" from Gronan, back when he was Old Geezer, Bren, you yourself, Raggi (yes, the Lamentations of the Flame Princess's guy) and old-school Runequest/Traveller fans that aren't present on this forum. I'm still learning, too, but in a way, I'm following the same school.

And that, in my book, is what makes a good gamer - the ability to learn...
Indeed.

I'd say "a decent human being", instead of "gamer", but yeah.
Alas, the ability is conspicuously absent from some people.

Can you make a youtube video of your overview? Pretty please? It might be helpful...

Oh! Never thought of that! I'll see what we can do...

We'll be waiting.

Well, I like "academic" approach...but that's because to me, that equates to well-researched. And I can use that to make a fun game; poorly-researched stuff needs me to lay it a finishing paint.

Your definition of 'academic' is the same as mine; the approach I'm talking about is to take up play time with lectures, such as at a recent convention where the Tekumel Expert GM lectured the players for one hour of a four hour time slot. Does this all the time, I'm told.

Academic explanation isn't supposed to be worse than no explanation at all...and wasting 25% of the session is exactly that.

Me too! And one of my players just told me "Tekumel sounds like fun, from what you've described to me".
I guess I also commit the crime of using well-researched settings in a fun way...

Heresy!!! Heresy!!!

I've always been less than conventional.

But what are supposed to do the people that don't fit said description?

No idea. No idea at all.

Well, after some deliberation - they could form a clique, study the matter, and then try to explain it to others, in order to get some payoff for the time spent studying.

Originally Posted by Greentongue

How wrong would it be to play EPT in a Sword & Blaster style?
In other words, how common could you make high tech toys be for the characters without breaking the setting?

THERE IS NO WRONG! * whap whap whap whap whap whap whap *

"Eyes" are high tech toys. Change the casing and the "Eye of Raging Power" becomes a Klingon disruptor. Simple, n'est ce pas?

Originally Posted by Spinachcat

Gonna borrow Shemek's colorful term here. I met a few of these "utter dickweevils" at West Coast cons way back when and they completely turned me off Tekumel which had seemed really interesting.

Actually I "borrowed" it from Gronan. It really does describe these miscreants quite well.

Shemek.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Anybody got a question about Tekumel? This is getting me blood pressure up, again... Sorry...

Tell the story of how Qutmu got impaled. That always cheers you up!