Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by Big Andy

Funny thing, I think if you can get to people before the rule-for-everything-everything-has-a-rule mentality sets in, you are good to go. I recently kicked off a Tekumel game for a bunch of kids, all under 13, a 15 year old and one of their dads (who I gamed with back when we were their age) running it on a stripped down Runequest 2 with the spells from Bethorm and it has been nothing short of awesome. The 15 year old had played a lot of Pathfinder and he struggled at first with the lack of rules (you mean if I want to sneak up behind the guard and knock him out, you roll dice, it happens or it doesn't, and we get on with the damn game? YES!) but by the end of the first session, he was going "this is great! I always wanted to play like this but couldn't figure out how!" Now as Gronan said, without an older hand it may have devolved into Lord of the Flies without more rules and structure in places. But all these kids like the openness of the game.And the dad looked at them and said, that is how we always did it back in the day.

Also, they have internalized the Tekumel stuff so fast! Clan more important than individual. No lawless murderhobo stuff. And as was said up thread, the "old" sci-fi tropes from the 40's are new to them! And completely exotic! The first eye they came into contact elicited so many "COOOLs" and "WOWs" it would have made Gronan's black withered old heart grow three sizes that day and give him the strength of ten Gronans plus two!

Wonderful! Simply wonderful! Congratulations!

Originally Posted by Big Andy

Everyone has talked about some the books/media that they consumed that has helped form their gaming. I wonder how many folks are just too young to remember UHF stations. They were you saw all the old movies. Usually not the expensive high end movies but many of the ones mentioned in this thread. Cable and movie channels that came along after (and killed UHF) showed all the new movies, never old Sinbad/Jason and the Argonauts/sword and sandal stuff or things with Errol Flynn. My wife was blown away when she saw me watching Tony Curtis in the Vikings not long ago, as she couldn't picture him swinging a sword, so I showed her Taras Bulba (Yul Brynner had hair in it!). She wanted to know where I had heard about them. I told her I remembered watching them as a kid on UHF. I have heard Gronan and Chirine talk about the things that formed the DNA, not only of Tekumel, but of rpgs in general and sadly most younger people have never been exposed to it.

I've tried running 'film festivals', but people don;t seem to have time for that kind of thing anymore. Maybe YouTube lists?

Originally Posted by Greentongue

You should look closely at the "Mythic GM Emulator" as a way to play with your stuff in a way that is fun and surprising.
It works surprising well as a way to add either a GM or a Player when you don't have one or enough.
=

I did, and thank you for the link. I've been using Mr. Grant's and Mr. Featherstone's ideas for this, as well as Mr. Bath's. It's how I have been running the extension of Phil's meta-game, the same way he did - solo gaming, as it were.

My problem, and perhaps it's unsolvable, is that attracting new gamers seems to be very difficult. I've tried advertising, being open what amounts to retail hours, and other ploys. It all seems to come down to "What set of rules?", from what people have told me.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

UHF was indeed a loss because of all the cheezy old movies. Not only Taras Bulba with Yul Brinner, but don't forget John Wayne as Gengiz Khan!

And the Italian studios cranked out "Sword and Sandal" movies like Hollywood cranked out Westerns. And with a bit of redubbing they reached this country as the "Sons of Hercules!" movies.

Got fifty (!) of these on DVD, in a nice boxed set. Break out the popcorn!

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

UHF was indeed a loss because of all the cheezy old movies. Not only Taras Bulba with Yul Brinner, but don't forget John Wayne as Gengiz Khan!

And the Italian studios cranked out "Sword and Sandal" movies like Hollywood cranked out Westerns. And with a bit of redubbing they reached this country as the "Sons of Hercules!" movies.

*scribbles notes for Youtube searches*

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

Everything I was going to say about mechanics has pretty well been addressed. The only point I want to make is that, for me at least, the mechanics of the game are only there to help advance the story. I can honestly say I could care less whether something is clearly spelled out in a rules corpus or not. If a fighter needs to climb a cliff or wall in order to escape well let him try. If it's an easy slope then so be it. Maybe I'll roll once just to see if something flukey happens. Then again I may not roll. If the fighter wants to climb Thulsa Doom's Tower, well he better give me a detailed breakdown on how he plans to do it. I guess my point is that you don't need rules for every eventuality or possibility. When I was in my final year of high school, and while in the army, I got it in my head that D&D was too loosey goosey and more detailed rule sets were needed. I honestly thought that Rolemaster was the ticket. My friends and I spent an afternoon rolling up characters. Our first game session we spent the entire evening resolving a combat. We went back to D&D, and similar game systems, after a couple of attempts at Rolemaster. Ultimately I guess one should RPG in a manner that works for them. As I said in an earlier I have been fighting my guys for years in an attempt to simplify game mechanics. I guess that's the way it goes.

Shemek.

Nobody says you need rules for every possibility, Lord Shemek. Some people might feel differently, though, or simply want a rule they can employ in every situation - the latter exists at least since Traveller and Runequest, too.

BTW, "roll 1d100, see who got more, in case of doubt compare to attribute" is exactly an unified mechanic you can employ in every situation - and a rather good one, at that. That's what RuneQuest6/Mythras would look like if all rolls were opposed (and most are).

Originally Posted by David Johansen

I'd like to note that there's a broad spectrum of a rule for everything where there's a consistent and systematic method to the thing and the book doesn't turn into a million pages of special case rules. The modern tendency towards talent trees and special moves drives me nuts. I want the rules to work the way they work, not a list of stupid names for ways you can break the rules.

Calling exception-based mechanics "modern" is simply untrue, but I agree. That's my preference as well.

And now, I believe we've cleared the mechanics question, so can we get to the important stuff? I mean books, of course!

So, here's my list. Apologies, try as I might, I didn't manage to constrict it to SF/F only, and some items might be counted as non-fiction. Ah well, you can pick and choose, obviously...

H.L. Oldie Everything is great, IME. But for RPG players, I recommend "The Hero Must Be (Al)One". No idea if it's translated, yet, and under what title.
Andrzej Sapkowski, "The Witcher" series and "The Hussite trilogy" (and some short stories).
Shi Nai'an and Luo Guanzhong: The Water Margin
Loius Cha, Return of the Condor Heroes
Fritz Leiber, Lankhmar series
M.Moorcock, "The Eternal Champion" (though I like Hawkmoon best).
Lu Gong's "Sentimental Swordsman, Ruthless Sword" (and the follow-up, though it's not nearly as good).
REHoward, all books and novels and short stories
Jack London. Everything is worth reading, again, but "The Sea Wolf" is nearly mandatory.
ERB, the Amtor and Barsoom series
Frank Herbert's Dune. There's a reason I said "Frank Herbert", the others are more hit-and-miss.
JRRT's Silmarilion, and "Bilbo Baggins".
Roger Zelazni, "Amber", "Lord of the Light", "Crackerjack", "That Immortal", and "Lord Demon", plus his short stories (undeservedly left without attention, IMO).
John Brunner, "The Traveller In Black" stories.
David Gemmell, pretty much everything
K.J. Parker, The Fencer Trilogy (and his short stories).
Steven Brust, "Vlad Taltos".
P.J. Farmer, Image oft he Beast and Riverworld
Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
Mike Resnick, Santiago, The Widowmaker series, the Prophetess (?) series and the "Paradise","Purgatory" and "Inferno" books. Advice: only after reading those, read "Birthright: The Book of Man", too.
The Mabinogion, the Journey to the West, and the Icelandic Sagas, best read together.
Tetsuo Hara and Yoshiyuki Okamura, "Fist of the Blue Sky". (I find "Fist of the North Star" to be a bit too incoherent, but you might try it as well). Yes, I just recommended a manga! If the odds were better than 1:10^9 of you finding it, I'd have recommended the E.L.O. comic...which only ever appeared in Bulgarian, though (AFAIK).
Krali Marko's story (though you're unlikely to find that translated).
Sheherezada (?), "1001 Nights". Find the original translations.
Mahabharata
Ramayana
Beowulf
Gilgamesh
Ma Wing-shing: Chinese Hero stories (Yes, manhua).
Emilio Salgary, pretty much anything, but especially the "Malay Tiger"/"Sandokan" series.
Rafael Sabatini, "Scaramouche" and "Captian Blood".
Arturo-Perez Reverte, the Alatriste series and "The Fencing Teacher" (?).
"Fierabras", anonymous French "chanson de geste"
The Tale of the Heike
Abu ʾl-Qasim Ferdowsi Tusi, "Shahnameh" (and if you find it all translated, you're lucky bastards)
Homer, "the Iliad" and "the Odyssey"
"Hikayat Hang Tuah", though what goes for Shahnameh, goes for it as well.
Zahari Stoyanov, "Notes on the Bulgarian uprisings" (and if you find that one translated, then probably Shahnameh and Hikayat Hang Tuah have been translated a few years earlier).
L.N. Tolstoy, "War and Peace".
Sir Mallory, "Le Morte d'Arthur"

At least, these are the RPG-relevant ones, and again, I'm skipping the "pure non-fiction" here.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Got fifty (!) of these on DVD, in a nice boxed set. Break out the popcorn!

Oh, my!

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

My problem, and perhaps it's unsolvable, is that attracting new gamers seems to be very difficult. I've tried advertising, being open what amounts to retail hours, and other ploys. It all seems to come down to "What set of rules?", from what people have told me.

Honestly, I don't even try any more. But I do offer to run games once I get to know people a bit, and they almost always agree. I found a group playing Star Wars d20 at the Source, joined them, and after a year or two offered to run D&D, once I'd got to know them. And my NYC D&D group started when I showed up at an art gallery in Tribeca where there was an exhibition of art inspired by AD&D first edition (seriously). So that was an easy score also. GaryCon is also an easy place to find gamers.

Mostly, I just game with my friends.

Originally Posted by AsenRG

*scribbles notes for Youtube searches*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IknX3XEcPAQ

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Oh, my!

Boxed set of Sinbads, both Ben-hur's, both Thief of Baghdads, first two Mummys, the Hornblower series, and singles like Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven. And Alex, of course.

And a popcorn maker. 40" in the game room.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Honestly, I don't even try any more. But I do offer to run games once I get to know people a bit, and they almost always agree. I found a group playing Star Wars d20 at the Source, joined them, and after a year or two offered to run D&D, once I'd got to know them. And my NYC D&D group started when I showed up at an art gallery in Tribeca where there was an exhibition of art inspired by AD&D first edition (seriously). So that was an easy score also. GaryCon is also an easy place to find gamers.

Mostly, I just game with my friends.

All good advice; tried several of these gambits. Problem I've found is that nobody seems to recognize the word 'Barsoom', let alone Tekumel, but then this is a locale where the names 'Gygax' and 'Arneson' draw equally blank looks. What I really need to do, I would venture to say, is abandon what I like and go with the flow of popular games. And, yes, I'm fully aware that I could easly get players at Gary Con; we had a great time, last year. However, I'm looking for a continuing campaign situation, not a special event sort of thing; I'm not fond of one-offs.

Gaming with friends is an option, assuming I had any I could trust not to rip me off. Had a great gaming group going since 2002, until people got visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads. I've had a succession of 'friends', especially over the last five years, try to use me for their own purposes and damn me, the Missus, the game group, and the other gamers - especially the younger ones - in the process. It's all about their 'prestige', 'position', and their dreams of The Big Money; the last - and literally the last - visitors who were my 'friends' were the ones who offered me all-expense trips to Gary Con and North Texas RPG Con if only I would censor myself both in my blog and in this thread, as my comments were a 'detriment to their business interests'. Which is why I now screen guests very carefully, and am very careful about who is and is not a 'friend'. I've been burned too many times by people who talk very big, but turn out to be promising other people's money. Vaporware merchants, if you will, and greedy ones at that.

We'll see; the wheel will turn. It always has.