Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

Tune in next week kids and remember to drink your Ovaltine. 10 xp if anyone gets the reference.

Shemek

"Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when a bunch of guys wandered about the countryside dispensing truth, justice, and the Tsolyani way of life!"

I could do a podcast radio show about our life in the biz, but nobody would believe us and we'd be denounced for making it all up. Truth, at least in our case, is indeed much stranger then fiction...

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

Too bad we can't get this cleaned up and published, even as is. Would be nice. Correct if I'm wrong but didn't Tita publish a version of the Sourcebook that not only included the contents of the Different Worlds Vol 1., and Vol 2., but also these 150 pages? I seem to remember that Tita's Sourcebook had a bunch of extra stuff that wasn't in the Different World Volumes. I'll have to check my gaming book shelf later...

Shemek

Agreed. I'm of the opinion that anything Phil did is worth publishing, as is, so that people can see what he did and make their own informed choices.

No. Tita's edition was a follow-up to the two DW volumes, which were incomplete; Tadashi-san got the first two-thirds of the Gamescience book republished, but then ran out of money. Carl Brodt finally got the rest of the book done with his volume - he was, as the authorized agent for Different Worlds, also republishing the DW volumes.

No portion of S&G III has ever been published, to the best of my information.

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

Glad that both you and the Glorious General found your way back to Tekumel. It's nice to be able to converse with people who were "on the ground", so to speak.
A long interval or break between gaming appears to be quite common for long term gamers on Tekumel. I know that I didn't do any real gaming for many years.

Shemek

Yep. It may be part of the nature of the beast, I don't know. I've enjoyed being back 'home' again, though.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Damn, I had forgotten about that. He's not exaggerating, folks; he was sicker than a son of a bitch for a month or more.

AMEN!

Oh son of a BITCH! DAMMIT. Okay, technically it was the timing belt, and it was Wamsutter, Wyoming. Which is right at the Continental Divide. And is in the middle of the "Red Desert" of Wyoming, which fucking looks like Mars. And there's nothing there but a cheap motel, a horrific greasy spoon diner (I actually like the classic greasy spoon like Mickey's; this was more of a "ptomaine ptrap.") and the BIGGEST service and repair station I've ever seen. They had a fleet of tow trucks, including at least two that were big enough to use as ARVs.

And we sat and cooled our heels for something like eight or ten hours as they sent for parts to be delivered by courier. Which cost, of course, they passed on to us. Yikes and owie.

We were in good company, though; if your car is gonna shit the bed driving cross country, the Continental Divide is the place it's gonna happen. The tow trucks never sat still. The big ones were big enough to haul an entire semi rig, trailer and all, in; the "small" ones still had more than enough beef to drag the cab unit up the hill after cutting the trailer off.

Like when my van inhaled all that fine snow and had to be dried out, also in Wyoming?

Ah, the life of a gaming company man; living the dream, folks, living the dream!!!

Originally Posted by David Johansen

I actually sent in something like 40 box tops for a 12" GI Joe type thing when I was 5 or 6 years old. Man was that ever a cheap piece of crap.

What always gets me, with running the store, is the sense of entitlement some people have.

It's like you owe them for that $40 book you gave a 20% discount on and have to put up with their crap for eternity.

Very, very true!!! We used to see this kind of thing all the time over the table at conventions. And I've seen it at the FLGS, too; I always buy something when I drop by any of them, even if it's just a soda or a couple bags of candy. Just seems right, which may make me really old-fashioned. Which I don't mind being, actually...

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

You'll put your eye out kid.

I am very happy and very proud to be able to report that I still have my Daisy Shure-Shot Lever Action air gun, given to me by my father when I was at the tender age of ten, and it's still in full working order. It used to see service at the theater I worked at, sniping at balloons up in the heights of the lobby so they didn't get sucked into the air handlers and clog up the system. I am, if I may say in all modesty, death on drifting balloons. I am waiting with bated breath to hand the thing over to grandson #!, little Ian; his doting parents are less enthused, however.

I think, at this point, that I am all caught up with the thread. The annoying connectivity issues mean that the web is very slow-loading, when we do have a connection at all, and unreliable at best. I am having to post at 'off-peak' times, when the condominium behind the house is not on Netflix. I've seen the last of the weekend visitors to their car, and it's quiet again hereabouts.

It has been a very good weekend. I had to be in multiple paces at once, as is sort of usual for me, and I was very dubious about the Blackmoor game (as I had mentioned) as I don't know a lot of the first generation Blackmoor guys personally and I don't like 'going where I haven't been invited'. And I had to leave the meeting / 'reunion' of most of the leading lights of the old Conflict Simulation Association people, which I was really enjoying.

In the event, the Blackmoor game was something really and truly special; I did not play, and if you understand my reasons you may get some insight into me and the way I think. Everybody was there, except for Pete (in the ICU) and John (in hospice), and it was a roll call of the early days of the hobby; the Great Svenny had come in from out of town, Dave Megarry was there, and Dave Wesely was actually playing - which is pretty awesome, as he's not an RPG player. When I got there, the game was in full swing, and I did not want to interrupt the flow of play so I took lots of photos and soaked up the sheer fun that the room was full of.

Why didn't I play?

Because, O My Children, they'd gotten Malia to come, along with her husband and daughter, and they put her in charge of this huge party of some twenty guys. They weren't playing the game for themselves; they were playing for her. You got it - the Twin Cities founders of this hobby, all around Dave Megarry's huge map of Blackmoor, and all doing their best for her - Dave Arneson's daughter. I was not, for anything, going to interrupt this. So, I shot my photos for the archives, and had the little plastic guy of Dave's slipped to her. She didn't know what it was, so I had to tell her. And that, O My Children, was when your old Uncle Chirine had one of those utterly stunning moments in his long and all too-exciting life - to see her light up like that made it all quite worth it.

And then, the icing on the cake. I got to be the 'expert' / 'explainer' to her daughter and the daughter's friend (who was interested in D&D, but had no idea what was going on) about who all us old guys were and are, and showed them all of the 1970s figures I had with me. Telling her and her friend all about that rascal, Captain Harchar of the Clan of the Blazoned Sail. Another moment - not of my personal glory or prestige, but of the awakening of wonder and the imaginations of the two young ladies. Dave Arneson's granddaughter. Contemplate that, O My Children...

It was what I live for, and continue to live for.

Got back to the CSA reunion, and talked until 3:30 in the morning, telling the kids of all my old friends just what sort of gaming antics their parents had gotten up to, back in the day. More wonder. More laughter. More blossoming of imagination. And I even got to shout "KAOR, MY PRINCESS! HELIUM, NOW AND FOREVER!" and had the utter joy of seeing all their heads nod in understanding; I seem to have sold a lot of copies of "A Princess of Mars" to a lot of young people, this weekend.

It's what I do. And why I'm writing this massive tome, the size of the telephone directory. To tell everyone and anyone that once upon a time, dragons spread their wings, brave deeds were done, and little girls grew up to be pirate princesses.

**********

Kiya: "A princess, my Lord? Of what land?"
Chirine: "Of the Land of Legend, Captain; The Land of Legend"

- from "To Serve the Petal Throne", Book Five

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Agreed. I'm of the opinion that anything Phil did is worth publishing, as is, so that people can see what he did and make their own informed choices.

No. Tita's edition was a follow-up to the two DW volumes, which were incomplete; Tadashi-san got the first two-thirds of the Gamescience book republished, but then ran out of money. Carl Brodt finally got the rest of the book done with his volume - he was, as the authorized agent for Different Worlds, also republishing the DW volumes.

No portion of S&G III has ever been published, to the best of my information.

I do have the Tita's Vol 1 Part 3 printing, as well as the DW Parts 1 & 2. However a while ago I also picked up a copy of the S&G printed by Gamescience (1983) that does indeed have all three parts of Volume 1 in it - blue and white cover, stapled pages. I'd not come across it before as I'd only seen the DW copies.

The Tita's Vol 2 is a mighty tome, later stripped down a bit for Gardasiyal I think (?)

Vol 3 would be really interesting to see.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

From AsenRG:
Glad to hear your back injury is getting better, Uncle. That description of healing made me laugh... (to clarify-that's for how Tekumeli healing works).

Thank you! I lifted something the wrong way last Friday, and couldn't walk much at all last Saturday. Spent a lot of time flat on my back, and I'm pretty much back to normal a week later.

Well, that was our 'rule of thumb'. It worked well in practice, over the years.

Well, I guess the Professor, like all humans, had his flaws...too bad publishing was one of them, but then, if it was exchanged, he might have published and promoted brilliantly one of the many settings I call simply "not worth the attention"...
I'd rather have the current situation, if it was a choice between those two.

Agreed; Phil's wonderful creation was worth it, though.

Bwahahaha!
Who was playing the General, BTW? That's totally a plan some PC had concocted!

Dave Houtla, in the Monday Night Group.

True for most settings, BTW. It's just even truer for Tekumel.
I must point out that a lot of settings that came lately are about as much "swords and planet" as Tekumel. One of them, namely Exalted, was in the top 5 of the most popular games at some point, and maybe still rates in the top 10...

Agreed; I've never seen the game, aside from copies on the shelf at the FLGS.

Again, and contrary to popular opinions apart from having the list of canonical spells, running Tekumel really doesn't necessitate a very specialized system. Lots and lots of systems (all the effect-based ones, for starters) can do the spells on the fly, too. Even some retroclones would be able to do that.
If anything, getting the social aspects of the setting right - like Flashing Blades does with 17th century France - would be the much greater challenge. Again, almost all systems would be equally successful at that.
So yeah, I'm sure Arrows of Indra could be used almost "out of the box". Then again, Honor+Intrigue would be, in all likelyhood, even easier. And Bethorm is already what I'd use if I hadn't started by adapting a different system.

This. I think so too, as it's a world-setting and not tied to any particular set of rules. Bit of work, and you're there...

I +1ed/thumbupped your post, but don't have much to add.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Well, yeah. Tekumel simply did not work in a 'professional' setting; it thrived in a 'fan' setting, where we did it for the love of the thing and for the fun of it.

My problem with my little fan operation was getting pneumonia on one of the AGI Gen Con trips, where to save money AGI had everybody stay in tents in a cheap campground. I nearly died, and since everything was in my name at that point there would have been all sorts of issues. When Tekumel Games was formed, I frankly jumped at the chance to off-load the hassle and issues (and the 'politics around the throne'!) and get back to what I love to do - build, paint, write, run games - and I ran, not walked, to the nearest exit. I got handed the hot potato back again after Gronan resigned; Phil then gave it to Tom after I got it rolling again as a fan operation, Tom tried to do it again as a professional operation, it failed again, Phil handed it back to me again, I got it running again as a fan operation, and then handed it right back. It failed yet again, and I refused to take it over yet another time. Which is when I finally quit.

If I may observe it...doesn't that mean that we're back at the point where Tekumel works? That is, it is a fan operation now (I don't mean the Tekumel Foundation). We can just use the materials that are available, but learning or teaching the setting is...well, it mostly depends on contact with fans.

And that pneumonia story sounds just awful.

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

Glad that both you and the Glorious General found your way back to Tekumel. It's nice to be able to converse with people who were "on the ground", so to speak.
A long interval or break between gaming appears to be quite common for long term gamers on Tekumel. I know that I didn't do any real gaming for many years.

Shemek

I wonder why. Were the stars just that wrong?
Anyway, better not to dwell on this. What was, was. On to the future, now...

I mean, yes, I'm probably going to take a break from Tekumel at some point...but that's going to be a pause while running some fairly similar settings with slightly different basic assumptions.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Thanks for making this old man feel young again! And I'm glad your back is starting to feel better.

You know, I honestly think D&D is at its best when you let go of pretension and let the universe be a pastiche of whatever tickles you. And Tekumel too; Phil was just building his pastiche out of what he happened to know from his travels! So for the rest of us, go ahead and wallow in Cecil B DeMille epics, old Mummy movies, Arabian Nights stories, the various Sinbad movies and TV shows, and anything else "exotic" you can think of!

It's a GAME, dammit! Games are supposed to be FUN!

And tip your servers. Those kids work hard.

Yes...and no.

Yes, D&D certainly works better that way. But D&D is its own beast (some would say it's an 800-pounds gorilla) even among RPGs. It just has people with different expectations...

No, I don't think the same logic should be exported to Tekumel, or to a host of other settings for that matter. Part of what makes Tekumel unique is that it's both made for adventuring, and well-researched. The fact that you can get a scene out of some earlier movies is at least in part due to the fact that the people writing those often had read books written by people like MAR Barker!
Try replicating the stuff one finds in new movies and make it seem plausible. I haven't managed to, and I was using a system and setting made in homage of those (Feng Shui 2). My players laughed, let me know they're not buying it, but played along for the sake of the game...after making sure that I'm not going to think they buy into those assumptions, other than for genre emulation.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

"Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when a bunch of guys wandered about the countryside dispensing truth, justice, and the Tsolyani way of life!"

I could do a podcast radio show about our life in the biz, but nobody would believe us and we'd be denounced for making it all up. Truth, at least in our case, is indeed much stranger then fiction...

It would probably be worth it for the 20 or so people that believe it; but int he same vein, there are much better uses of your time and energy.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

I think, at this point, that I am all caught up with the thread. The annoying connectivity issues mean that the web is very slow-loading, when we do have a connection at all, and unreliable at best. I am having to post at 'off-peak' times, when the condominium behind the house is not on Netflix. I've seen the last of the weekend visitors to their car, and it's quiet again hereabouts.

It has been a very good weekend. I had to be in multiple paces at once, as is sort of usual for me, and I was very dubious about the Blackmoor game (as I had mentioned) as I don't know a lot of the first generation Blackmoor guys personally and I don't like 'going where I haven't been invited'. And I had to leave the meeting / 'reunion' of most of the leading lights of the old Conflict Simulation Association people, which I was really enjoying.

In the event, the Blackmoor game was something really and truly special; I did not play, and if you understand my reasons you may get some insight into me and the way I think. Everybody was there, except for Pete (in the ICU) and John (in hospice), and it was a roll call of the early days of the hobby; the Great Svenny had come in from out of town, Dave Megarry was there, and Dave Wesely was actually playing - which is pretty awesome, as he's not an RPG player. When I got there, the game was in full swing, and I did not want to interrupt the flow of play so I took lots of photos and soaked up the sheer fun that the room was full of.

Why didn't I play?

Because, O My Children, they'd gotten Malia to come, along with her husband and daughter, and they put her in charge of this huge party of some twenty guys. They weren't playing the game for themselves; they were playing for her. You got it - the Twin Cities founders of this hobby, all around Dave Megarry's huge map of Blackmoor, and all doing their best for her - Dave Arneson's daughter. I was not, for anything, going to interrupt this. So, I shot my photos for the archives, and had the little plastic guy of Dave's slipped to her. She didn't know what it was, so I had to tell her. And that, O My Children, was when your old Uncle Chirine had one of those utterly stunning moments in his long and all too-exciting life - to see her light up like that made it all quite worth it.

And then, the icing on the cake. I got to be the 'expert' / 'explainer' to her daughter and the daughter's friend (who was interested in D&D, but had no idea what was going on) about who all us old guys were and are, and showed them all of the 1970s figures I had with me. Telling her and her friend all about that rascal, Captain Harchar of the Clan of the Blazoned Sail. Another moment - not of my personal glory or prestige, but of the awakening of wonder and the imaginations of the two young ladies. Dave Arneson's granddaughter. Contemplate that, O My Children...

It was what I live for, and continue to live for.

Got back to the CSA reunion, and talked until 3:30 in the morning, telling the kids of all my old friends just what sort of gaming antics their parents had gotten up to, back in the day. More wonder. More laughter. More blossoming of imagination. And I even got to shout "KAOR, MY PRINCESS! HELIUM, NOW AND FOREVER!" and had the utter joy of seeing all their heads nod in understanding; I seem to have sold a lot of copies of "A Princess of Mars" to a lot of young people, this weekend.

It's what I do. And why I'm writing this massive tome, the size of the telephone directory. To tell everyone and anyone that once upon a time, dragons spread their wings, brave deeds were done, and little girls grew up to be pirate princesses.

**********

Kiya: "A princess, my Lord? Of what land?"
Chirine: "Of the Land of Legend, Captain; The Land of Legend"

- from "To Serve the Petal Throne", Book Five

Great story, Uncle! Glad you witnessed it, and had a good time watching the game!
After all, you're The Archivist, are you not?