Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

"It is the young scholar who is pedantic." -- C. S. Lewis

I have mixed feelings about the "narration of combat." I'd rather they learned tactics, myself. I'm kind of in the "and then the EARS, I get the POINT, get ON with it" school.

YMMV.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

From AsenRG:
Well, if I wanted to play myself all the time, I wouldn't need dice...
Understood. I do it in real life; you'd be amazed at just how many people don't realize that I'm applying classic game theory to situations.

So am I, though mixed with some strategy...
People are amazed, indeed.

I know the feeling.
Me: "Tell us a story of your PCs being epic".
Someone: "There was one time I rolled a critical and dealt over 100 damage..."
Me: "That's not what 'epic' means".
Gods, yes! If I wanted to hear about number crunching and dice-rolling, I'd let one know; I want to hear about 'adventures'...

Obviously a shared feeling.

Agreed. There are days - like Sunday - when I really and truly despair for the hobby. I've been told over and over again - usually by OSR people - that I have no idea what 'the modern gamer' wants. Okay, I'll grant that - but it's not what I want, so parting company is probably the best option.

As a modern gamer, probably younger than some of the people that said this, I take exception to their claims.

This could very well be true; I get the feeling that there's so little known by 'modern gamers' about the past history of the hobby that they simply don't know that a lot of these things have been looked at in the past and possible solutions devised. There are a lot of 'forgotten sages', I think...

That is indeed true in my observation.
You learn more with age. But by then you stop counting as a "modern gamer" - I feel I'm on the verge of that, and am actively exploiting it.

True. I just need to write faster...

Indeed.

Personally, I'm honoured to be compared to the Saturday Night Group!
You're welcome! It was a very intelligent and clever bunch of people, much like the folks around here, and it was a joy to be there.

That's why I'm honoured...

Originally Posted by Hermes Serpent

Chirine,

I can sympathise with your inability to comprehend the outlook of so many 'modern' gamers. Those of us who were adults when role-playing first started and are now in our golden years often come across people who just cannot fathom that some of us have been there and done things and they don't have a lock on working out things or making great leaps and bounds in understanding how to game. Many of us have already been there and done that and often discarded it as not working very well or possibly causing more trouble than it's worth.

I wasn't born when roleplaying first started, and I can't comprehend that outlook!
On the other hand, I've observed the same attitude in people of presumably your age. I think being too set in your ways and having a sense of superiority are both age-independent.

There's a consistent failure to want to examine anything out of the ordinary with an uphill struggle to get players out of the 'I hit it with my axe' mindset and into a more evocative style of narrating the result of a combat. I'm not asking for full on acting just asking for a small amount of flavour to add to the game and help the story along. Their inability to even consider anything outside the regular week-in, week-out plod of the regular game even extending to a wish to play the same-old, same-old at conventions where there is a plethora of different, new and exciting games on offer amazes me. I suppose it's why we laud explorer and adventurers in real life as so many are just content to put one foot in front of another day in, day out and do the same in their leisure time as well.

I tend to do it the simple way - by offering them bonuses if they learn description. Sometimes coupled with a system that hurts them if they're being stupid.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

"It is the young scholar who is pedantic." -- C. S. Lewis

I have mixed feelings about the "narration of combat." I'd rather they learned tactics, myself. I'm kind of in the "and then the EARS, I get the POINT, get ON with it" school.

YMMV.

And they should learn tactics as well no doubt about that.
One of my online games right now almost had a PC killed because the enemy had the remote to the lamps in the cabin where they were fighting.

I was on the Blue Room site again, I know I am repeating myself but what an absolute gold mine, and I found this post by Phil and thought it would be worth sharing here.
Is there anything further that you can add to this Chirine?

"There are two categories that must be distinguished: "temple guard units"
and "military sorcerer priests" who serve in the magic-using units
assigned by certain temples to Imperial legions

The former are mostly just soldiers: individuals who have a little
priestly training and a lot of soldierly expertise. These are
assigned to guard temples, escort priestly caravans and entourages,
protect temple property (both in the temples and elsewhere), and
generally serve as "palace guards" for the religious institutions
to which they belong. These people have ranks very similar to regular
soldiers and are structured as "legions." Most Imperial army troops
do not consider "temple legions" as good as regular units, although
this is not true in all cases, certainly.

Temple guards need not rise in priestly rank in order to become
officers of their units. A temple guard unit does tend to be *led*
by "regular" priests, however: the Kerdu (general), the two
Dritlanyal, and the two Molkaryal ("colonels" and "majors," if
you like) are most often administrative or ritual priests in the
temple. A lower officer (e.g. Kasi -- "captain") may never rise
higher than that rank unless he is talented, rich, or otherwise
favoured by the administrators of his temple. Some temple guard
officers do continue to study priestly skills in their spare time
-- of which they do not have much -- and eventually go on to "rise
from the ranks" to higher officer posts, or else go on to become
"regular" priests (ritual, administrative, etc.) in the hierarchy.

The second group of "military priests" consists of the sorcerers
who belong to the magic-using contingent fielded by a temple or
legion. These people are usually full-fledged sorcerer-priests.
They may have begun as ritual or administrative priests, or as
regular scholars, but for various reasons, they gravitated away
from these roles and went into the very specialised magical
contingent. Some of these may feel that they lack the talent or
interest to go on to higher levels as academicians; others enjoy
soldiering and the outdoor life but do not want to give up their
priestly pre-requisites and become "regular troops"; still others
actually thrive on developing their group military spells and
working with comrades in combat situations. Being a "sorcerer-
military-priest" is not easy. It involves long hours of group
practice and hard work, plus all the perils of battle -- and being
a target for incoming enemy sorcery! Such priests cannot go off
adventuring because of time and training constraints; they have to
obey orders (like them or not), and they are often the first ones
to be sacrificed if captured. I thus have discouraged players from
taking on these roles, although some indeed might find them
interesting for short periods. These people have regular priestly
ranks and pre-requisites and are *not* considered to be soldiers in
any sense. They may retire from this sub-profession and go back to
being ritual or administrative priests. Sometimes they can return
to one or another scholarly profession, too, although this is less
common. The temples prefer to employ retired military sorcerer
priests in ritual or administrative roles, feeling, perhaps, that
they are temperamentally no longer suited to the "ivory-tower"
scholasticism of the temple schools and academies."


Shemek.

Originally Posted by Hermes Serpent

Chirine,

I can sympathise with your inability to comprehend the outlook of so many 'modern' gamers. Those of us who were adults when role-playing first started and are now in our golden years often come across people who just cannot fathom that some of us have been there and done things and they don't have a lock on working out things or making great leaps and bounds in understanding how to game. Many of us have already been there and done that and often discarded it as not working very well or possibly causing more trouble than it's worth.

There's a consistent failure to want to examine anything out of the ordinary with an uphill struggle to get players out of the 'I hit it with my axe' mindset and into a more evocative style of narrating the result of a combat. I'm not asking for full on acting just asking for a small amount of flavour to add to the game and help the story along. Their inability to even consider anything outside the regular week-in, week-out plod of the regular game even extending to a wish to play the same-old, same-old at conventions where there is a plethora of different, new and exciting games on offer amazes me. I suppose it's why we laud explorer and adventurers in real life as so many are just content to put one foot in front of another day in, day out and do the same in their leisure time as well.

I'll go and mow the lawn if the kids will get off it.

Great observations! Yep, this has been my experience as well; lots of really good 'indie' games out there, but not getting any exposure outside forums like this one because they are not 'name brand'. Miniatures gamin is in the same boat; if you don't play and 'collect' - a word which, along with 'premium' (as in 'premium game experience') I have come to loathe - the current name brand you don't get any gaming in.

<shrug>. So it goes. I've hung out my shingle, and if there's no business there's no business. Means a lot of time to write and paint, and a lot less damage, breakage, and 'misplacement' in the shelves.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

"It is the young scholar who is pedantic." -- C. S. Lewis

I have mixed feelings about the "narration of combat." I'd rather they learned tactics, myself. I'm kind of in the "and then the EARS, I get the POINT, get ON with it" school.

YMMV.

I'm a-thinkn' he's a-talkin 'bout what we were a-talkin' 'bout while sittin' 'round the campfire last Saturday, where you pointed out the amazement and fascination of your players with the notion that all that had to do was say "I'm holding my shield to cover the magic-user and I try to hit the goblin." and you'd say "roll". The usual thing seems to be to look on the flowchart and see what 'feats' and such can be brought into action so that my algorithm can engage your algorithm in some number-crunching. (I have computers that can do all that for me, and in a fraction of the time.)

There's some humor in there, too; "I Hit It With My Axe" podcasts caused quite the stir in the OSR, I gather. On several different levels.

What I love about GURPS is that it's possible to model described combat in game terms. "I splash acid in his eye!" Okay, you're close enough, roll to hit at -10 if you miss by 2 you hit his face instead. "I fast draw my short sword, and swing at his neck." Roll fast draw, roll to hit at -5, +4 for all out attack, target rolls IQ to avoid mental stun, trys to defend, -4 if stunned. Okay the last one was me and I took the guy's head off in a single blow. The GM just sat there stunned for 1d6 rounds. System mastery means understanding the implications of the rules, not just how to recite them by rote.

From AsenRG:
So am I, though mixed with some strategy... People are amazed, indeed.
Which I find rather odd, because for a while "Art of War' and the "Book of Five Rings" were the 'required reading' of American businessmen. These days? Nobody's heard of them.

Obviously a shared feeling.
Well, yes. I'm with Gronan, here' what ever happened to 'adventure'? Grey Mouser and his tall friend would never get any traction in gaming these days, I fear.

As a modern gamer, probably younger than some of the people that said this, I take exception to their claims.
Understood. From conversations I've had on-line, this is a pretty common sentiment amongst 'non-connected' gamers who are not of the One True Faith. These are the people I enjoy talking to, not the latter.

That is indeed true in my observation.
You learn more with age. But by then you stop counting as a "modern gamer" - I feel I'm on the verge of that, and am actively exploiting it.
Um, true, I think. But them the more experience one has, the more one realizes that one needs to keep learning. I think.

That's why I'm honoured...
You're welcome!

I wasn't born when roleplaying first started, and I can't comprehend that outlook!
On the other hand, I've observed the same attitude in people of presumably your age. I think being too set in your ways and having a sense of superiority are both age-independent.
Yes, very much so. I don't think it's particularly 'age-related' but much more by the 'generation' of gaming when they got into the hobby. I'm continually bemused by the High Priests Of The Great God Gygax, who will quote chapter and verse from the Sacred Scrolls at the drop of a hat. The Arnesonians are less like like that, mostly because there are fewer of them and more of them actually played with Dave. (Also, Dave left behind a lot fewer of The Sacred Scrolls, too.)

I tend to do it the simple way - by offering them bonuses if they learn description. Sometimes coupled with a system that hurts them if they're being stupid.
Phil did the same thing; we learned to pay attention, because when Phil bothered to unlimber the details they were usually pretty relevant to what we were doing or were about to do.

And they should learn tactics as well no doubt about that.
One of my online games right now almost had a PC killed because the enemy had the remote to the lamps in the cabin where they were fighting.
What? Really? Nobody in the party took a look at the place to get a feel for the way the cabin worked? In our day - we were just talking about this in relation to the 'Adventure of the Mummified Pot-roast', looking for stuff like this was the 'usual drill'.

We need to get out the IKEA lanterns, my General.

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

I was on the Blue Room site again, I know I am repeating myself but what an absolute gold mine, and I found this post by Phil and thought it would be worth sharing here.
Is there anything further that you can add to this Chirine?

"There are two categories that must be distinguished: "temple guard units"
and "military sorcerer priests" who serve in the magic-using units
assigned by certain temples to Imperial legions

The former are mostly just soldiers: individuals who have a little
priestly training and a lot of soldierly expertise. These are
assigned to guard temples, escort priestly caravans and entourages,
protect temple property (both in the temples and elsewhere), and
generally serve as "palace guards" for the religious institutions
to which they belong. These people have ranks very similar to regular
soldiers and are structured as "legions." Most Imperial army troops
do not consider "temple legions" as good as regular units, although
this is not true in all cases, certainly.

Temple guards need not rise in priestly rank in order to become
officers of their units. A temple guard unit does tend to be *led*
by "regular" priests, however: the Kerdu (general), the two
Dritlanyal, and the two Molkaryal ("colonels" and "majors," if
you like) are most often administrative or ritual priests in the
temple. A lower officer (e.g. Kasi -- "captain") may never rise
higher than that rank unless he is talented, rich, or otherwise
favoured by the administrators of his temple. Some temple guard
officers do continue to study priestly skills in their spare time
-- of which they do not have much -- and eventually go on to "rise
from the ranks" to higher officer posts, or else go on to become
"regular" priests (ritual, administrative, etc.) in the hierarchy.

Shemek.

Right; let me break this into two replies, if I may. Temple Guards are basically more like police forces then regular military; there's a lot more training for what we'd call 'crowd control' then the regulars get - different spheres of employment. They don;t get a lot of military action, unless it's a pretty dire emergency - which is why the regulars don't hold them in the highest esteem. Their 'units' are based on the size of their templas and the towns and cities that they are located in. Only the biggest cities, like Bey Su and Jakalla, with have the full sets of officers - and even then, the total guard force in those cities is cohort-sized and not a 'full' (the regulars would say 'real') legion. What you see is a lot of twenty-trooper sections, lead by a Hereksa; these are the normal-sized units in the smaller towns and cities; the larger cities have several of these, under a Kasi or two; depends on the military bent of the temple and how rich they are. The Molkars and Dritlans handle the administrative work in coordinating the activities and paperwork of the multiple small detachments - effectively, they run a province's worth of small detachments. The Kerdu is usually more of an administrative and ceremonial position, much like a Colonel-in-Chief is.

The non-military temples tend not to have actual priests in officer slots, except at the very highest levels. Normally, a lot of these people are ex-military or from clans with a strong military background. One thing to note is that the temple guards are all of the same faith as their temple; there is no 'cross-hiring' that we ever saw. They all have the very basic training that a priest gets, but not much more then that. It is, one has to admit, where a lot of the people who don't do well in their temple classes wind up.

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

I was on the Blue Room site again, I know I am repeating myself but what an absolute gold mine, and I found this post by Phil and thought it would be worth sharing here.
Is there anything further that you can add to this Chirine?

The second group of "military priests" consists of the sorcerers
who belong to the magic-using contingent fielded by a temple or
legion. These people are usually full-fledged sorcerer-priests.
They may have begun as ritual or administrative priests, or as
regular scholars, but for various reasons, they gravitated away
from these roles and went into the very specialised magical
contingent. Some of these may feel that they lack the talent or
interest to go on to higher levels as academicians; others enjoy
soldiering and the outdoor life but do not want to give up their
priestly pre-requisites and become "regular troops"; still others
actually thrive on developing their group military spells and
working with comrades in combat situations. Being a "sorcerer-
military-priest" is not easy. It involves long hours of group
practice and hard work, plus all the perils of battle -- and being
a target for incoming enemy sorcery! Such priests cannot go off
adventuring because of time and training constraints; they have to
obey orders (like them or not), and they are often the first ones
to be sacrificed if captured. I thus have discouraged players from
taking on these roles, although some indeed might find them
interesting for short periods. These people have regular priestly
ranks and pre-requisites and are *not* considered to be soldiers in
any sense. They may retire from this sub-profession and go back to
being ritual or administrative priests. Sometimes they can return
to one or another scholarly profession, too, although this is less
common. The temples prefer to employ retired military sorcerer
priests in ritual or administrative roles, feeling, perhaps, that
they are temperamentally no longer suited to the "ivory-tower"
scholasticism of the temple schools and academies."

Shemek.

My alter-ego started off as a student intending to be a scholar-priest - a historian, actually - when the temple looked at his test scores and shunted him over into the military sorcerer track. What pushed him over into a military career was his being sent as a newbie off to help put down the slave revolt in Ferenara; they were pretty short-handed, he had the needed skills for blasting things into oblivion, and he was expendable; no particularly good clan connections, no money to speak of, just one really good sorcerer with a talent for logistics. (More of a case of the right guy being in the wrong place at the wrong time, then anything else.) He got a reputation for getting the job done, on time and under budget, as well as a reputation for absolute loyalty to the Petal Throne and a well-deserved reputation for not minding breaking a few eggs to make an omelette. In short he killed a lot of people whom the Imperium felt needed killing, and didn't make a lot of mistakes in the process.

The back-story is that Phil took one look at my stats (STR 86, INT 98, CON 97, PSY 00, DEX 89, COM 12) and 'suggested' that I should be a magic-user. I replied that we already had plenty of those, and I had a preference for hitting people over the head with blunt objects; Phil turned to the page in EPT with the 'Priest' class/category/career track. So, I became a warrior-priest of the Temple of Vimuhla, and then spent most of my time cleaning up after the rest of the party. They tended to be a little casual about the details on their adventures, so I got to handle the metaphorical dust-pan and broom for the group.

All of this brought my alter-ego to the attention of Lord Huso, the not-so-secret head of the not-so-secret Incandescent Blaze Society, and that led to a career of 'Errand Boy to the Petal Throne' and 'Chief Exterminator Of Those Whom The Imperium Needs to Have Exterminated'. He's nominally a Kasi with the Legion of the Searing Flame, and collects pay for that, as well as being carried on the rolls of the Legion of Mnashu of Thri'il as Kasi; this, despite it being a Karakan legion, and he's a Vimuhla priest. The Imperium commands, and we obey. I also get a temple stipend, as I'm nominally listed as being assigned to the temple at Bey Su, as well as a personal stipend from the Petal Throne for - shall we say, 'services rendered' - in Khirgar when some git tried to assassinate the newly-revealed Prince Mirusiya hi Tlakotani.

Phil is quite right when he says that the military priests don't go on adventures - they are, as he points out, too busy. I'm not in the usual career track; if anything, I am way outside it and in a very different line of work altogether.

Does any of this help?