Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

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

They are very good - have you seen the other three? See previous post re artist credit...

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."

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

You heard right. I am indeed playing The Bandit Chief, and you and your fellow would-be do-gooder player-characters in in for A Good Time if I have anything to say about the matter. I had a very nice chat on the phone with our GM this afternoon, and I'm on-call for action during the game session. At the moment, I am 'off-stage', being An Unseen Menace and A Dire Peril.

For some reason, which I can't fathom, your fellow players are all Very Worried and Very Concerned about my involvement in the game; it seems that I have a reputation, of some sort.

For my part, I am not at all pleased with the situation; we don't even have a Marketing Department, which means that we have trouble establishing and maintaining our brand identity in the catchment area. And while we do have a good retail presence on all of the trade routes locally, I feel that we need to expand and diversify our product line to include those premium services that our customer base has indicated that it wants to see in the market. (I suspect that none of you pesky player-characters knows who Modesty Blaise is, which gives me a built-in advantage.) I'll be issuing press releases on our plans shortly.

Of course, I can always make you a deal which you can not refuse...

Originally Posted by AsenRG

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.

Well done. And where do we find these people, so I don't go there...

Originally Posted by d(sqrt(-1))

Ooo, I have a question! Almost finished running "High & Dry" and the PCs have found the "treasure map". I think it will send them off to the north of Katalal into the forest, and a temple or two will ask them to investigate an old construction while there (tube way station). Note sure what will happen there yet.

Anyway, do you happen to know any of the relevant Tolsyani words for tube ways e.g. the stations, the cars, etc? I'd like to give them a bit of a puzzle with odd words before they set off.

I looked in the Tsolyani language books - you got me curious, too! - and there isn't a specific word. I'd guess that it's a compound noun, like 'viunlu', the device for the creation of the state of openess: a bottle or can opener. I think it'd be like 'tunnel carrier', or something like that. Phil always just called 'em tubeway cars.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

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.

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

1. And so it does! This is, ultimately, Phil’s true legacy. He created a world that has, and continues to entertain people even though he longer is here. Not a bad thing to leave behind.

Thank you for the detailed response.


Shemek

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

They are very good - have you seen the other three? See previous post re artist credit...

No I haven't. I'll have to see if I can find them. If I do I'll be sure to post them here.

Shemek

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

You heard right. I am indeed playing The Bandit Chief, and you and your fellow would-be do-gooder player-characters in in for A Good Time if I have anything to say about the matter. I had a very nice chat on the phone with our GM this afternoon, and I'm on-call for action during the game session. At the moment, I am 'off-stage', being An Unseen Menace and A Dire Peril.

For some reason, which I can't fathom, your fellow players are all Very Worried and Very Concerned about my involvement in the game; it seems that I have a reputation, of some sort.

For my part, I am not at all pleased with the situation; we don't even have a Marketing Department, which means that we have trouble establishing and maintaining our brand identity in the catchment area. And while we do have a good retail presence on all of the trade routes locally, I feel that we need to expand and diversify our product line to include those premium services that our customer base has indicated that it wants to see in the market. (I suspect that none of you pesky player-characters knows who Modesty Blaise is, which gives me a built-in advantage.) I'll be issuing press releases on our plans shortly.

Of course, I can always make you a deal which you can not refuse...

Imagine me hopping about clapping my little paws together with glee. My character is half a continent away.

Many of them are quite nice folks, but REALLY not used to old school gaming, and almost none of them are wargamers. That's why they're scared; they think of RPG combat as a series of individual duels, and the idea of an organized body of troops scares the hell out of them.

I'm curious, of course, about what KIND of bandits we are. Are we a gang of desperate wolf's heads, lawless men who band together for mutual protection against the world? Are we a struggling kingdom trying to establish ourselves... one man's "bandits" are another man's "Bold King" (see Beowulf.) Or are we a mercenary company of foot that was on the losing side and got left high and dry, because the line between "out of work mercenary" and "bandit" depends on when the lads last had a good meal...

Hey Guys,

Has anyone heard of, or have a copy of the Tekumel fanzine called The Excellent Travelling Volume? If so, what's the magazine's format like. Does it consist of articles from various authors? Is it a "gaming" magazine, i.e., rule sets are discussed, modules included, etc., like the old Dragon Magazine was, or is it a series of articles that are more "scholarly" in nature and deal with Tekumel's history, politics, and religions? Apparently it's written/published by James Maliszewski, a long time fan of Tekumel. Any information would be appreciated as I was thinking of ordering a copy, but I'd like to know what's in it before I buy it.

Shemek.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Imagine me hopping about clapping my little paws together with glee. My character is half a continent away.

Many of them are quite nice folks, but REALLY not used to old school gaming, and almost none of them are wargamers. That's why they're scared; they think of RPG combat as a series of individual duels, and the idea of an organized body of troops scares the hell out of them.

I love it when I come across guys who play RPG's but have never wargamed. I remember years ago having a game of Battletech against a couple of guys who fancied themselves "B-Tech Experts", but did not play any other wargames. Their tactics were linear, and completely predictable. The first game we played was a straight out slug fest, and I remember them mocking my buddy and I because we used terrain, and didn't stupidly march out into the open. We won the first game, and the second game was a more traditional attack a fortified position scenario. We rolled to see who attacked and defended and we came out as the attackers. Like I said earlier these two guys had not really wargamed before, and my buddy and I had cut our teeth on ASL, Panzer Blitz/Leader, and a host of other AH games. As the attacker the scenario allowed us off board artillery: you had to target specific hexes and the strike would come in the next round. My buddy wanted to call it in on the objective hexes, feeling that the defenders would try and hold this area and concentrate their forces there. I wanted to target the hexes in front of the objective (6 away from where they had set up). He started laughing at my choice and said "No way! No one would be that stupid". Well I prevailed, and sure enough they were that stupid. Instead of holding their ground they charged out, used their running speed and ended up smack dab in the middle of the barrage. They lost half their force in the first salvo of OBA, and vehicle mounted Long Range Missiles which we had deployed on hills directly in front of the enemy forces, and in forests to either side of their advance, creating excellent defiladed and enfiladed firing zones, respectively. The second round we split our barrage: half of the guns targeting the objective hexes, and the other half six hexes directly in front of the last barrage. They ran back to the objective and got creamed again. In two rounds they lost 85% of their force, and our mechs did not fire a shot. I believe the term you used in an earlier post was "moron"? In this case that fits just right. They weren't mocking us anymore when we handed them their asses after two turns. Hopefully Chirine's opponents will have more sense.

Shemek

Originally Posted by d(sqrt(-1))

Ooo, I have a question! Almost finished running "High & Dry" and the PCs have found the "treasure map". I think it will send them off to the north of Katalal into the forest, and a temple or two will ask them to investigate an old construction while there (tube way station). Note sure what will happen there yet.

Anyway, do you happen to know any of the relevant Tolsyani words for tube ways e.g. the stations, the cars, etc? I'd like to give them a bit of a puzzle with odd words before they set off.

Is that a Bethorm module? I recently purchased a copy of the rules, but have not tried them out. How does the game play? What are the rules like? Are they "user friendly"? Any concerns, or obvious breaks?

Shemek