Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Yeah, not bad. There's more on www.tekumel.com, too, I think.

Only a drawing of a Ssu's head. Unfortunately that site has become moribund. Nothing new on it for years. Too bad really. I remember when it was a fantastic interactive website, with lots of Phil's old articles and what not. Now the only substantive thing you can find are two fanzines, whose names escape me, and some old adventures/adventure ideas. It's at best a thumbnail sketch of Tekumel.

Shemek.

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

Only a drawing of a Ssu's head. Unfortunately that site has become moribund. Nothing new on it for years. Too bad really. I remember when it was a fantastic interactive website, with lots of Phil's old articles and what not. Now the only substantive thing you can find are two fanzines, whose names escape me, and some old adventures/adventure ideas. It's at best a thumbnail sketch of Tekumel.

Shemek.

I think the site went quiet when the fan running it stopped being involved in the day to day running of the thing; in effect, it lost it's full-time curator. There was a transition off his server, I was told, and a lot of stuff that was on the old version of the site didn't seem to make it to the new one.

Back home after a very long day. The actual funeral today was a lot tougher on everybody then the visitation yesterday was, for what are probably obvious reasons.

Pete was this amazing bundle of energy, and his passing has left a pretty big hole in a lot of lives.

Had lunch with everybody, and it kinda turned into 'Storytime With Uncle Chirine', about how we did things back in the day and how our antics shaped an industry. Talked to a lot of his gamers, and explained how we didn't worry all that much about 'The Rules' and made it up as we went along - and then took our notes and turned them into 'the rules'.

All in all, a good day, but a tough one. I'm exhausted, so it'll be tomorrow before I'm back with our regularly scheduled programming...

From AsenRG:
Someone recently asked me how many settings and systems I would consider "allowing" in my home games. What does that even mean, I'm not sure. I don't allow systems and settings, I pick them according to the campaign I want to have...
Persuade me that a system that I hate would improve the game, and I'd consider running it; persuade me that a setting I hate would make the best locale for a campaign I want to run, and I'd learn it. Neither of these things is a religion, or a political stance.
Alas, some people seem to swear by their d20, or something. I know people like that in real life, and they still seem weird.
Ah well, sorry you clashed with this kind of people.

Interesting. I tend to be focused on the setting, doing what I like, and then seeing if a set of rules will work with that setting.
Yeah; some of the OSR people I've dealt with are like this.

...you're still talking about gamers, right?
I've found it easier to teach non-gamers to play, or non-RPG gamers to try RPGs, than to get some RPG gamers to try something new. Why is that, is beyond me.
But I know I've changed my recruiting strategy to appeal to non-gamers as much as possible.

Yes. My problem is my work schedule, which pretty much isolates me from the rest of the world. Seeing non-gamers is actually pretty rare for me.

As an example of how that works, the campaign we started recently has paused due to the GM needing to leave the city this week-end.
So of course, I'm running a one-shot. And we'll have two new players who have never played RPGs, courtesy of my younger sister. One of them comes with her boyfriend, who has played RPGs, and claims to know me, though I honestly don't remember him by name. Anyway, he's requested help in trying to "convert" her over to RPGs, I guess he'd like to play with her more often...
Of course, I'm always glad to help.

Makes sense to me; what I need is a circle of people I can see socially.

Thing is, something like that is a situation that would be beneficial to you, as well. The problem is at the beginning.
Once you create a network of people that know "an afternoon at Chirine's house" will be fun, you have a big pool of potential players. And you're the spider in the center of the network.
The work is until you manage to weave the big net... I can only wish you luck in passing the initial hurdle.
Maybe Facebook could help? Much as I dislike the asocial media, sometimes a page for gaming meet-ups in your home city would have a person or two who don't like the games that are being most commonly played, and might look into your games.
Then you report about the games you're having. And see whether other people would be interested...

Good advice, here. I'll see what we can do.

...or, if all else fails, run a Pathfinder game at your home, and see how that goes. Kingmaker has the reputation that it's almost like a hexcrawl (never tried it, so can't confirm).

Ouch. I'm not sure I'd want to game under those conditions.

I've played something like that before Internet. We used to send them by post, and the thing was being run by local gamebook authors.

Same here' used to go through a lot of postcards for turn orders...

Sign me up, please!

Right; gotcha.

Sure thing, real life always comes first!

Thanks! It's been pretty intense, and pretty tough.

Back in the saddle, as it were.

Finally got my platoon of Silver Suits onto bases and given their primer and silver, as a way to recover. Still have to do the ink wash to bring out the details, but that's easy. Got a big batch of lights and militia fixed up with base texture, too, and they look very nice - if I do say so myself. Also got the hatch inked onto the tubeway car, and now debating if I should do plating lines on the thing. Phil said that they were basically featureless spheres, as pr his fondness for Streamline Art Deco Moderne, but that looks more then a little off to our modern eyes; I've noticed that in the post-Star Wars generations people seem to expect seeing the plate joints and weathering/distressing that they saw in Episode IV. Back in the serials, the ships didn't have that kind of detailing, and Phil never really got into it himself with his scientifictional creations.

I dunno; it's an esthetic decision, and I don't make those either very often or with any degree of comfort. What do all of you think?

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Back in the saddle, as it were.

Finally got my platoon of Silver Suits onto bases and given their primer and silver, as a way to recover. Still have to do the ink wash to bring out the details, but that's easy. Got a big batch of lights and militia fixed up with base texture, too, and they look very nice - if I do say so myself. Also got the hatch inked onto the tubeway car, and now debating if I should do plating lines on the thing. Phil said that they were basically featureless spheres, as pr his fondness for Streamline Art Deco Moderne, but that looks more then a little off to our modern eyes; I've noticed that in the post-Star Wars generations people seem to expect seeing the plate joints and weathering/distressing that they saw in Episode IV. Back in the serials, the ships didn't have that kind of detailing, and Phil never really got into it himself with his scientifictional creations.

I dunno; it's an esthetic decision, and I don't make those either very often or with any degree of comfort. What do all of you think?

Good to see you back.
Personally, I would leave it smooth, like the "real" ones. If you want plating on it why don't you do what the air plane modellers do? On NFM planes, like the Cold War delta wings. They use different shades of silver and mask the panel lines with post it notes. Gives a very nice effect when done. Really subtle but noticeable, if that makes sense? You could also use Bare Metal Foil, like car guys use to chrome bumpers and do trim. They make a lot of different sheens, and by laying them parallel or tangentially you can get some nice results. You can pick this stuff up at any model store. Or as an alternative use kitchen aluminum foil and an adhesive, and a burnishing tool.
What type of paint did you use to finish the tubeway car? If it was enamel based you could try buffing and polishing it.

Shemek.

Originally Posted by Big Andy

My son read all the samples you have given of your book and in the grand tradition of 12 year olds everywhere, made his character as close to you as possible, even to the name. He claims his mace carrying flame worshipping priest named Chirine is named after his clan uncle, a famous hero of the Empire. You have a fan club!

Awwww....

Quick shot from the bench - more tonight!

I'm having trouble loading the photo - I'll try something else, later on...

DSC00115.jpg

Oooo! It worked!

Sorry about the mess on the workbench - I'm trying to sort out all of the figures that I'm never going to use (and thus will not get painted) as well as trying to get a few things done.

These troopers are plastic toy soldiers that an old friend gave me years ago, and which have been sitting in a work tray for far too long. Now, I have something for my Ssu with blasters to shoot at...