Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

And after an absence due to actually having a holiday (which turned out worse for my nerves than work), I'm back.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Consult some complex table to roll on what the infantry can do to pass the time, I'd suppose. More rules and tables, the better?

Roll a d6, please.
1. Sleeping.
2. Drinking.
3. Sleeping.
4. Drinking.
5. Whoring.
6. Sleeping.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

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.

Knowing how "required reading" stays on the shelves...
(And I'm not talking with American businessmen, as a rule).

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.

They would.
Dungeon Crawl Classics is making a Lankhmar series. And I think they might be statted as NPCs in Savage Worlds Lankhmar.
Besides, both of them are the types that just create their own traction...

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.

Regardless - you not knowing what the modern gamer wants is a funny claim to make.

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.

I wish it was true...
Some people treat having experience as a carte blanche for not learning anything new ever again, alas.

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 feel safe in having decided to be Wes(e)lian - Major Wesley seems to have even less Sacred Scrolls, so I can't be judged by adhering to scriptures...

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 today's "narrative games" have re-discovered this principle, it seems. It's all about more efficient communication between Referee and players.
Of course, I am also ready to provide meaningless details if the players ask for them. And if they can make those work for them...

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'.

To be fair to the guy - he never had the time, nor the equipment. It's a cruise ship near the shores of the USA in the near future, returning on a cruise from Mexico, and he had only several hours to prepare, and only managed to arrange a gun to be smuggled on board, not any other equipment.
Besides, he entered a cabin where a dangerous criminal was transporting a kidnapping victim and worse (he didn't know about the "worse" part). He expected a gun to be popped at him. Instead, she went for the remote (and her switchblade was in a pocket). He didn't shoot when she jumped to grab the thing, and she switched off the lamps. Much crawling around in the cabin ensued, while the kidnap victim was sobbing, imagining how she'd get shot by a stray bullet if the armed man starts shooting...thus providing sound cover for their actions.
She botched a perception roll, though, and jumped over to attack the place where he has just been. He thought the sound of metal might be a grenade - not entirely unreasonable given he knew he's going against the cartels - and jumped as far away as he could. Thus she found his direction, decided to charge him, and almost stabbed him in the chest. Had he rolled one lower, he'd have a switchblade in his lung.
Instead, he avoided the first stab, and she got double-tapped.
Then, while she was bleeding on the floor, she activated the remote again, blinding him (but she knew to close her eyes), and switched it off again...
It ended with him double-tapping her again, but she might have been lucky. A less-trained enemy would have been meat for the slaughter, I suspect.

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

As I have been telling my group of players for years: "This is the beauty of Tekumel. You can use any rule system, or no rules at all and still adventure in it."

It applies to all settings worth exploring...

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

...I think the conversational thread has gotten scrambled, I thought I was replying to someone else, old bean. I was referring to highly detailed moment-by-moment rules sets like GURPS.

Once upon a time, I must admit, I was striving for such a thing, but nowadays OD&D with its one minute combat round and "after a full minute of swording* away furiously have you done anything useful to the other bugger" die roll model appeals to me.


*in the word "swording", the "w" is not silent

I think both models have their place. Though I'd think that one minute is rather excessive.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Oh, okay, thanks for the clarification.

Actually, I must admit that a very detailed combat system is a lot of fun for one-on-one gaming; I played Fantasy Trip that way for several years.

Curiously, Gronan, the more detailed the system gets, the less I want to run it for a bigger group. With a bigger group, I've distilled heavier systems down to their basics, and went from there.
Of course, my preferred group size is something like 1-3 players. Sometimes I get more players than that, but it just happens.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

It is, and it got really old when nobody could figure out what I was supposed to have as a mission. One bit of fun with the new job - all of the student workers are gamers, and think that having me about the place is really cool.

I can bet they would, Uncle...
Are any of them interested in trying one of your games?

Originally Posted by AsenRG

Roll a d6, please.
1. Sleeping.
2. Drinking.
3. Sleeping.
4. Drinking.
5. Whoring.
6. Sleeping.

You forgot gambling.

Originally Posted by Bren

You forgot gambling.

Damn right, I did - I was wondering why I have a "spare" result after I started typing my initial idea...
Replace 6 with "gambling", then. Or alternatively, roll a d8, and add the following results:
7. Gambling.
8. Sleeping.
Any of these should do.

Originally Posted by AsenRG

And after an absence due to actually having a holiday (which turned out worse for my nerves than work), I'm back.

Welcome back. I hope you managed at least some rest.

Shemek.

Originally Posted by Greentongue

It continues to amaze me how players can turn neutral non-humans or non-Players into enemies.
You would think the effort they spend doing it would be better spent gaining them as allies.
=

I know. Some of the better players have realized that, although it's not a sure-fire method.

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

Welcome back. I hope you managed at least some rest.

Shemek.

I did, thank you.

Originally Posted by Neshm hiKumala

Thank you all for the welcome.
It is a great thread!

RE: the Unstraightened City
Thanks for the details. What you describe is sort what I imagined after reading about it on the Tekumel website. Using a Nexus point might indeed be the best way of getting in. Trying it on foot ... well, unless the PCs are accompanied by a powerful sorcerer or using some clever techno-magical apparatus, I don't see how that could be possible. Madness would take its toll well before the city proper.

RE: the Plain of Towers
Love it. What else can I say. It's perfect. Cargo cult type stuff ... but stuck on the flats of the desert. One can imagine the despair of the people who came up with the idea of constructing those mud-brick replicas long ago.

Agreed, with both your points. Which is why Eyloa got roundly chastised when we'd survived these two places.

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

That's interesting. Gaschine sounds like one of those towns from a Sergio Leonne (sp?) Spaghetti Western: hot, dusty, decrepit, with lots of flies buzzing around, a bunch of people with nothing to do, and a gang of local toughs ready to kill you at a moment's notice.. I seem to remember Phil talking about this region over on the Blue Room. I'll look for it after work. One thing I recall is that it's dangerous as heck, like you said.
This is the type of setting my guys have always hated because they know that underneath the "malaise" there is something that wishes to do them harm. I've never been to the Plain of Towers, I might have to send the party in that direction and see if they make it there.


Shemek.

Yes, exactly! Sergio Leone meets Beau Geste - IX Legion of the Fourth Palace (?), the Dune Leapers. "March or Die!", literally.

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

Chirine,

Here is the post I was thinking about earlier. It's not from Phil, but from someone called David Bailey, who I think played in Phil's game at some point. I think that it's a good description of what one can expect there.

"Ah, the Plain of Towers, I remember it as a place of shifting sands and
howling winds. 'Look on my works ye mighty and despair', and all is
shadows and sudden, looming shapes.

There are strange shaman wandering in the rocky hollows and the call of sad
beasts chills the night. many of our party simply ran in fear, and a few
were spirited away in the darkness.

My warrior companion was killed when he tried to prize open the metal door
at the foot of a baked clay tower. Alas for him the baked clay was the
dust of millennia dried onto the skin of a metal spire, and the rock of
many ages fell on him.

Inside the towers there were whispering ghosts and strange visions of no
substance. In two places we found the remains of strange inhumans, one a
desiccated hokun. In other places we found a gateway to the red moon, and
in yet another we found a strange rod that devoured the souls and minds of
sorcerers.

We left, having failed to find what we sought, and in fear of our lives,
for, on the last night we heard a rushing of air from a pit in the ground,
and a party of black Ssu had come out on us by surprise.

Go not to the plain of towers my noble friends, for all is decay and
despair."

Shemek

He was a guest; this was one of Phil's 'show the guy the sights' adventures, and very well done it was, too.

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

Some more questions. I came across this post from Phil, and was wondering if you could shed some more light on the subject? Both of these locations sound like they would be "fun" to explore.

"Stick to the coasts for cargo and passenger travel, and hire a good pilot
for open-water voyages. Very few navigators would ever try to sail out
to the Isle of Eyes or the lost little city of Mardza on the Isles of
Ill Wind!"

Shemek

Been to both, courtesy of dear old Harchar. What do you want to know?