Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by Moracai

We played Warhammer back when we were kids somewhat in the long run, but had to switch characters because they always became too powerful.

I played a whole family. It started out with one female elf noble, who then later had kids with another male elf PC, and I played those brother and younger sister too for quite a while.

Nowadays we play usually one story at a time, and then switch GMs to another setting and system. Hell, on a private RPG guild forum, a friend from another town commented that if they manage to go six sessions with same characters that is a minor miracle!

But enough about my experiences.

Chirine, have you read any of the new Tekumel products and if so, what do you think about them?

Thanks for your experiences - I thought it sounded fun!

I have all the new Tekumel products in my archives; I routinely pick up everything and anything, as I serve as a sort of 'archive of last resort', especially when people's servers fail and stuff gets lost.

Jeff Dee's "Bethorm" is a very good approximation of the rules that Phil used in the mid 1980s - Phil used EPT's combat system and S&G's magic system, when be bothered to use any formal rules at all. If you want to get a feel for the way Phil was playing at that point in time, I'd suggest "Bethorm'. However, I'd also make the caveat that the rules are best suited for an experienced RPG player / GM; they are not an 'entry level' set of rules. For that, I still suggest EPT.

Jeff is also starting to come out with some scenarios and additional materials, too. The 'cardboard heroes' are also wonderful - I use them myself!

James Maliszewski's 'zine, "The Excellent Travelling Volume", is also very good; I like it, as it's very solid and well-researched.

Please feel to ask more questions, too!

Originally Posted by econobus

How rarely we get these opportunities!

1. Back when you were quitting the site you mentioned the "mythology" that's sprung up around Blackmoor. How would you characterize the way people now imagine Arneson games worked? I'm not looking for any evaluation of that imaginary approach, just your sense of what they're thinking.

2. The mundane historical accounts for the early history of the Kingdoms of the West and East are a little more complete than what we have on the Middle. Any reminiscences you might have on how things in what is now Northshield developed would be welcome.

1. There's a lot of nonsense about the way Dave played and organized Blackmoor floating about; a lot of people are assuming that he was working to A Great Master Plan when he wasn't. He loved to simply play, and he whipped up the game mechanics and 'history' / 'timeline' to suit the game in progress. I guess that the best way to 'play like Dave' is to not over-think the thing - don't worry about how it all has to make sense somehow. Think Fred Funk, as King of the Orcs, with the escalator that plays "Rule Britannia"...

Add in The Great Feud, with the very nasty and very rude people on both sides of the debate, and you get kind of a toxic situation. From my point of view, this feud has really come to obscure what Dave and Gary did in their games. There's a perception that Dave played the rules all the time; he didn't, in my experience, and was a master of 'faking it' on the game table. Yes, Dave was good at game mechanics - we all were, at that time - but he never let them get in the way of a good game.

With Dave, and any of the Twin Cities crowd at that time, you had to think really fast and really know your stuff in any game you played - they were just as fast and just as good in ACW games as they were in RPGs, and very, very smart. This kind of player really thrives in the 'Free Kriegspiel' sort of game that led to Braunstein, and thence to Blackmoor. Speaking as a guy who had to GM / referee these guys, all you could do was gird your loins and hang on for dear life as they took off with the game and ran with it.

Have you looked at the video clips I mentioned in both my blog and the other thread in the 'help' forum? That might help explain what I'm trying to say.

2. So you like opening cans of worms, then?

I'd like to suggest that the sordid history of Northshield's beginnings be done in PMs; I know where all the skeletons are buried - I keep everything, in my files - and I doubt any of the current people in the local SCA would be amused at having all those old bones come dancing out...

Oh, dear God, no...

Let the dead bury the dead.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Thank you! And I want to say that I'm not meaning to denigrate anyone's play style, either. About all I;m saying is that the past is a different place; we did things differently there...

Which is one of the reasons I love Gary Con.

Really... playing "Don't Give Up The Ship" with Mike Carr, Bill Hoyt, and Dave Wesley? In the words of Master Yoda, "Better than that, it does not get."

And I hope next year the schedule will work out so that you can participate in the "Fourth Annual Battle on the Ice from Alexander Nevsky."

I would like to add my voice to those asking Chirine to stick around.

Yes, the game industry has changed, and our style of play is no longer in vogue. However, think of it like the model railroad hobby; there is not the emphasis on scratchbuilding that there was 60 or 70 years ago, but on the other hand there are still people doing it, and doing it quite well. But the profit margin is better on a $250 locomotive then on five bucks worth of brass sheet, a motor, and some drivers.

(Alf Modine builds beautiful O scale CNW steamers from scratch. Breathtaking, but I'm glad I can buy ready to run models.)

Just like there are still places where scratchbuilders still gather and talk, there is a place for those interested in older style gaming. Interestingly I made a convert to OD&D out of a young friend who cut his teeth on edition 3.5; he said "I like the way I can say I want to sneak up behind him and bash him over the head and knock him out and you roll dice and it either happens or it doesn't and we get on with the damn game."

Why is it, you suppose, that the "Free Kriegspiel" philosophy has gone out of favor? I personally think the demographic shift in the early 80s to a much younger target audience was a big part of it. Take a bunch of 13 year old boys, give one of them some vestigial authority, remove adult supervision, and voila, Lord of the Flies. Hence the drive for "more concrete rules to protect players from the arbitrary whims of referees."

Plus, a lot of people seem to love to hang on to old resentments. I've seen forum posts complaining about things that happened in games back in the 90s. So the Lord of the Flies aspect is never forgiven or forgotten.

Originally Posted by Old Geezer

Oh, dear God, no...

Let the dead bury the dead.

Agreed. Very strongly agreed!

Ya know, it's like when I was talking to Luke at Gary Con about his dad and Dave; he said "They're both gone. Let's let it go."

Couldn't agree more...

Originally Posted by Old Geezer

Which is one of the reasons I love Gary Con.

Really... playing "Don't Give Up The Ship" with Mike Carr, Bill Hoyt, and Dave Wesley? In the words of Master Yoda, "Better than that, it does not get."

And I hope next year the schedule will work out so that you can participate in the "Fourth Annual Battle on the Ice from Alexander Nevsky."

Thank you; I'd love to. At the moment, everything is on hold while Luke, Paul, and Victor discuss the matter. Luke suggested that Tekumel get a room for us to hold forth in, and we'll see if that comes to pass.

Originally Posted by Old Geezer

I would like to add my voice to those asking Chirine to stick around.

Yes, the game industry has changed, and our style of play is no longer in vogue. However, think of it like the model railroad hobby; there is not the emphasis on scratchbuilding that there was 60 or 70 years ago, but on the other hand there are still people doing it, and doing it quite well. But the profit margin is better on a $250 locomotive then on five bucks worth of brass sheet, a motor, and some drivers.

(Alf Modine builds beautiful O scale CNW steamers from scratch. Breathtaking, but I'm glad I can buy ready to run models.)

Just like there are still places where scratchbuilders still gather and talk, there is a place for those interested in older style gaming. Interestingly I made a convert to OD&D out of a young friend who cut his teeth on edition 3.5; he said "I like the way I can say I want to sneak up behind him and bash him over the head and knock him out and you roll dice and it either happens or it doesn't and we get on with the damn game."

Why is it, you suppose, that the "Free Kriegspiel" philosophy has gone out of favor? I personally think the demographic shift in the early 80s to a much younger target audience was a big part of it. Take a bunch of 13 year old boys, give one of them some vestigial authority, remove adult supervision, and voila, Lord of the Flies. Hence the drive for "more concrete rules to protect players from the arbitrary whims of referees."

Plus, a lot of people seem to love to hang on to old resentments. I've seen forum posts complaining about things that happened in games back in the 90s. So the Lord of the Flies aspect is never forgiven or forgotten.

I'd agree with all this. I also think the revolution in video gaming has something to do with it, as now the rewards structure is much more immediate and direct then what we had in yours and my adventures in Phil's games.

I dunno. I just dunno. I keep building stuff and having it in the game room, but the will to play seems to be dropping off pretty dramatically amongst potential players. My work schedule and the logistics involved in doing games at conventions and the local shops is a huge barrier to getting players, too.

I'll keep modeling, and maintaining the archives, and hope that the wheel turns yet again some time in the future...

Originally Posted by K Peterson

Not to bust your balls here... but, you've got 2400+ posts on this site in nearly a year, which seems like quite a lot of active online posting to me. So, that doesn't seem like that strong a measuring stick to determine who likes short/long campaigns.

I haven't had a CoC or RQ campaign last for more than a year for the past 30 years (too much insanity; murdering by crazed cultists; or general dismemberment), and I can barely get off my ass - or have the time - to post on a forum once a day.

Yes I post a lot. That's unrelated to my point since I was referring to the number of posters, not the number of posts made by the posters.

As you pointed out I post a lot and in consequence I read a lot of posts. And in my experience from reading lots of posts by lots of posters on multiple forums it seems like most posters run or play in shorter campaigns and run or play in more systems than I do and, possibly more to the point, than do any of the people I game with, none of whom post on or read forums. Often people who post on forums do so because they are unsatisfied with one or two systems, unsatisfied with a single setting, and unsatisfied with one or two characters - all reasons why they may choose to switch systems and campaigns more frequently than someone like me or Chirine ba Kal.

On the other hand, maybe my impression is wrong and there is either no correlation or even a positive correlation between likelihood to post and likelihood to play long games. Got any evidence for that?