Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Chirine,

When you "officially" stopped being a member of the TNG what was the game date, and where were you in the Tekumel story arc in relation to the novels. I know you mentioned in an earlier post that Phil petulantly allowed Chirine to be impaled, but I think that was much later on. If you already covered this question please direct me to posting, if you wouldn't mind? I was recently reading a Chronology of Tekumel history, specifically during the Civil War, Dhichune's reign, and the immediate aftermath of him being "deposed", and I got to wondering where Chirine was when this was going on.

Shemek.

I just heard a rumor that our own Chirine will be playing a bandit chief NPC in a game this afternoon... the ref is another old friend who likes to "subcontract his evil."

As I told the ref, 'tell him "Chirine, my compliments to the Molkars please, and no prisoners." ' I wish I could be there!

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

I just heard a rumor that our own Chirine will be playing a bandit chief NPC in a game this afternoon... the ref is another old friend who likes to "subcontract his evil."

Now that's evil, and I approve!

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Many congratulations on the shift to real hours! Swing shift is awful, I agree; you have no life.

Yep. Tom T. was green and sometimes over eager, but he learned as the years went on.

I honestly think the Tin Soldier Shop was one of the worst gathering places for the "too stupid to shit unassisted" players. I remember Kadarsha teaching a young lad named Justin about "refusing the center". This 13 year old then went on to become one of the most victorious gamers there because his idea of tactics was something more advanced then, to quote Chirine, "lining up your troops and vibrating the table top like an electric football game." (Metaphor, but accurate in its way. They lined 'em up and slid 'em forward.)

Oh, how true! The saga of the 'invention of the refused center (The Tactic), followed by the 'invention' of the refused left flank (The Other Tactic), followed by the 'invention' of the refused right flank (The Other Other Tactic) was both funny and sad; Kadarsha was loudly accused of CHEATING! because he was using tactics in a wargame. The rotter.

And you can still find some of these guys playing in pickup games at the FLGS. Which may be one of the reasons I'm kind of leery of gaming at the FLGS...

From AsenRG:
And that's how Chirine figured in my game. Though I did place it nearer the beginning of his career.

Well, I like it. There's a lot to choose from in my career, isn't there, and it should provide lots of ideas for adventures.

Thank you, though this part was inspired more by Wu Tzu! He was of the opinion that one should be humane to people you're trying to conquer, while Old Sun was more of a proponent of "scorched earth policy". Old Wu's stance was better suited to my disposition - I was paying those people for the things they delivered, after all...
(That, and I'd recently read how British traders were selling arms to a country they were in a war with. It inspired me to find people that would be even less patriotic).

Good point! I can also think of the time Krupp was selling artillery to the Imperial Chinese, only to have the guns used on the German gunboats. Or Vickers paying Krupp royalties throughout the First World War for the use of the Krupp 'Patent Shell Fuse' on the rounds being fired at the Germans...

I think it has something to do with the letters XP...



Makes sense. The more a group is integrated in the setting, the less a Referee needs to give them direction.

I think that this is very true. We were very, very integrated into the setting, while the other groups were quite up-front about not being all that integrated / involved in the setting.

Congratulations on the new job! It should help, we hope...

I think it will. I'll have a lot more time for writing, as well as actually getting out of the house and seeing people. I have great hopes for stress reduction, as well!

Gaming discussions sure have some weird ideas. Like niche protection - someone posted today on another forum that Gronan's idea that thieves can Hide in Shadows, but everybody can sneak in utter darkness, amounts to "lack of niche protection".
Or the idea that "if you're not using the monsters from the Monster Manual, when running a system with heavier mechanics, you're lying to your players", from another discussion.

'Niche protection'? 'Lack of'? I'm frankly astonished by the notion. We assumed that we all had specialties, so the specialist did what they were good at; if the specialist wasn't available, then somebody else would try. The idea what the party would, in effect, stand around waiting for the specialist to show up and do their thing just didn't occur to us. Everybody played, and everybody got to do things.

'Lying to your players'? Not here, thank you. Didn't play like that, don't play like that, won't play like that.

The trick is to laugh, call BS when appropriate, and not get angry.

Very true. My eyes bulge out a bit, then I simply leave the area.

Well, yes on the "facing a moron" part. You can make your moves interesting, but there's no way to do it for his moves...

And in game, I've shot other PCs for incompetence. Well, technically, I was going to, but the player chose to listen to reason...
The ones that didn't, in another game, I ordered to be hanged!

All very appropriate, I think. Like the medieval English army commander who simply pole-axed one of his subordinates for not doing anything during a battle.

Did he get impaled?

Nope; the OAL hunted hiom down, out in the Tsolei Islands where he'd fled to, and wrapped him in wet Vraoz fibers and let him dry out. The stuff is as strong as steel wire, and shrinks as it dries...

Of course they wouldn't, there are dice and NPCs for that...

Yes, but usually it didn't come to that; after a few games, nobody would play with or run games with them, and they'd eventually get the message and drift off.

Yes, I remember that you were astounded when I quoted the statement "there's no tactics in D&D, because everybody charges for glory". That was the opinion of an old-school player.
But it sure seems there is always a demographic for which this statement is true.
Tactics work especially well when you meet those kind of opponents, of course...

I'm still boggled by this; we always thought and fought tactically, as it just seemed like a useful survival mechanism. Arneson was what was called a 'killer referee', and Phil's Tekumel was just plain deadly.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Oh, how true! The saga of the 'invention of the refused center (The Tactic), followed by the 'invention' of the refused left flank (The Other Tactic), followed by the 'invention' of the refused right flank (The Other Other Tactic) was both funny and sad; Kadarsha was loudly accused of CHEATING! because he was using tactics in a wargame. The rotter.

And you can still find some of these guys playing in pickup games at the FLGS. Which may be one of the reasons I'm kind of leery of gaming at the FLGS...

I have been accused of the same for using a chokepoint in an RPG fight. Obviously I was supposed instead to charge and duke it out with the more numerous monsters, and tactics are supposed to amount to rolling higher than the other guy.

Which is the long-winded way of saying, good on him for learning, and I hope he handed them their defeats on a silver platter many, many times.

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

Hey All,

Found some pictures on line I thought I would share. I don't know who the artist is, but they are great. Enjoy.

First one: some Hlyss (Getting stomped by Chirine?)

Attachment 202

Second one: Ahoggya and Shen.

Attachment 203

Shemek

Both are from the AGI edition of "Deeds of the Ever-Glorious". The top one is the Givers of Sorrow in a sea battle, of all things; somebody had the bright idea of sending them out to fight the Hlyss. There are three more such drawings in the book.

Artist is Tom Artis.

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

I really like them. I'm going to use them as visual aids in my campaign. You know what they say about the value of a picture versus words I think they might be some of Kathy Marshall's work.

Shemek

Kathy's style is very, very different. More precise, if I can use that word.

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

Chirine,

When you "officially" stopped being a member of the TNG what was the game date, and where were you in the Tekumel story arc in relation to the novels. I know you mentioned in an earlier post that Phil petulantly allowed Chirine to be impaled, but I think that was much later on. If you already covered this question please direct me to posting, if you wouldn't mind? I was recently reading a Chronology of Tekumel history, specifically during the Civil War, Dhichune's reign, and the immediate aftermath of him being "deposed", and I got to wondering where Chirine was when this was going on.

Shemek.

Oh, let's see; I'd have to look it up in the timeline I've done to see what the actual date was, but I think it was in the summer of 2364 or so. Like I say, I'd have to look it up as to the actual date. The incident falls between the end of "Lords" and the beginning of "Prince"; there's a huge gap of time between these two books. "Prince" and "Death" are a pair; they really should have been one book. This was right at the start of the coup de etat.

We were all out of the TNG by the time the civil war got going, and Phil kept his then-players away from the main flow of the time stream as much as he could so that they wouldn't have the chance to mess the time flow up. They also didn't keep very detailed notes, so that the chronology and dating get pretty loose after out time.

We sat out the civil war out in the Nyemesel Isles, as mercenaries working for the Temple of Mretten against the Haida Pakallan raiders that plagued them. We'd hear all sorts of lurid rumors, but we didn't have much interest in what was happening in Phil's campaign. We just did our thing, had our adventures, and fought our battles. The game went on, as I've said.

This affair highlighted one of the basic problems Phil had with his campaign: what to do with all of the other Tekumel campaigns that were happening. In the early days, he'd include events from other groups - like Lord Gamalu, in upstate New York - as part of the meta-game and the over-all timeline. We, in our time at AGI, encouraged this, as a way to promote and support the world-setting. By the middle to end of the 1980s. phil had gotten away from doing this - he said he didn't want to take the time to coordinate things. We started doing this for him, and it worked very well; we had GMs and players from all over the world writing in, and we managed to keep track of everything with maps and index cards. It was, maybe, the proto-'living' campaign kind of thing that Henry Lopez did with Blackmoor and Greyhawk, decades later.

Phil's issue was his perceived 'lack of control' over his world; Dave Arneson told him bluntly, one night, that if he had issues with people playing in Tekumel then he should never have published EPT.

So, my campaign continues. Phil may be gone, but the world lives on.