Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Huh, somehow I'd missed a reply from Chirine? I wonder how that happened.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

From AsenRG:
I'm fine with that type of PCs, as you know. The advice was for "let's kill children because NPCs are there for that" types...
Understood. I've killed a lot of they type of player, over the years, and I'm about to do the same to the players in the group where I'm playing the bandit chief. The goody-two-shoes-Lawful-Good meatballs killed a bunch of our people after they'd surrendered - and offered ransoms - so I am going to have to take some action to remind them that this is a business operation and not some sort of stupid Holy Crusade. I'll make them an offer that they can't refuse, and if they don't they'll be sleeping with the fishes.

Yes, and Gronan's advice is pretty good as well. Violent Disneyland ain't an attitude that's worth pandering to, give them a lesson to remember!

Understood; I've just gotten tired of being bitched at, and my work denounced as being 'politically incorrect'. Modesty bars on one-inch tall figures? Really? I mean, I understand why a manufacturer would do it, just not the need for it.

Then again, of course, after having been married for over twenty-five years, the mystery is off.

My answer has lately shifted to "if it bothers you, get lost". For full-page pictures.
If it's about inch-tall figures, that would be my advice only when I'm in a good mood.

All right, it's funny. And I still get hassled for my views on gaming, which is why I don't let just any thudpucker in the door any more. I suspect it's something in the water here locally, and the usual Internet need-to-be-right on line.

I don't know, but the water explanation doesn't sound unlikely, lately...
And the "need to be right" doesn't help it, either.

Could not agree more; Braunsteins are inherently improvisational in the very nature. I just do them, and not worry about 'rules'. ("Too hand-wavy", "Too loosy-goosy", Well-Known Internet Gamer-commentators say...)

Uncle, I recently started a freeform game. The system is "describe it, it happens and the referee tell you what happens next, oh and don't be immature or a dick".
Remind the Well-Known Internet Gamer-commentators that such games exist. Also remind them that this style of play is more popular by orders of magnitude than D&D.
Watch them choke on their own bile.
Profit.
(I call dibs on their shoes and phones, you can keep the rest! And you gain cleaner air in the bargain.)

Great resource, there!!! Very handy for when you run into local groups, as this is what Phil would have used. For all I know, he had a copy - I'll look in the inventory. I am pretty sure he'd read it - some of the chapter headings sound like things he'd said in game sessions...

Check the end of my post, too...

Originally Posted by Greentongue

It has come to my attention that Group Z is exclusive.
I had thought that everyone could see Group 0 and Z.
Opps.
Nobody had mentioned it before.
=

I didn't know a Group Z exists.
I guess I've got more reading now?

Originally Posted by d(sqrt(-1))

I shall certainly check those out, the Catherwood book just arrived about 10 minutes ago BTW, along with Jonathan Sumption's Vol 4 of the history of the Hundred Years' War, so I have some serious reading to get on with.

EDIT: Found the Piranesi Taschen on Amazon UK for 1p + P&P. The Album of Maya Architecture is a bit more expensive but looks pretty good...

Amazon is nice, but here's some fully legal links to get you started, guys...

http://www.smith.edu/libraries/libs/...wood/index.htm
http://www.casa-catherwood.com/catherwoodinenglish.html
http://www.reed.edu/uxmal/contents.html

Enjoy!

Originally Posted by DavetheLost

I have cured a few murder hoboes of the notion that all NPCs are there for the killing as walking experience point banks. Putting the players on trial for murder can be wicked fun...

As for the modesty bars, there is at least one site selling nice Egyptian type figures that has modesty bars on one picture, none on the one next to it, on the same page! I fail to see the danger to society in little lead nipples anyway. But I am sliding into middle age.

Indeed, are little lead nipples a danger for people who have access to Internet?
According to Forbes, depending on how internet traffic is measured, claims for the share of porn-related traffic vary from 4% to 30% from all traffic on Internet.
I leave it to you to guess why I'm laughing really hard at modesty bars!

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

For me personally this thread sometimes feels like I'm at the above mentioned ping-pong table. It's a pleasure to be a part of. Thank you for taking the time to answer all the questions. I wholeheartedly agree that it's forums like this that keep Tekumel alive, and I'd like to think that were Phil alive he might even be an active member.

Shemek.

You're welcome; what I'm trying to do is give you a sense of what it was like, on all those Thursday nights, when we rolled some dice and had a lot of fun. If I'm doing that for people, then I'm doing what I've loved to do for the past forty years.

(Migawd! Has it really been that long?)

And I'd like to think he'd be here, too...

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Part of the whole "gonzo wizards making weird magic shit" comes, of course, from Dying Earth, where the "wizards" considered themselves savants who were forever experimenting and trying to regain the lost knowledge of the ancients (sound familiar?)

"Cursed" weapons and nasty magic items were the result of oopsies in the lab. Get a syllable wrong, your sword is -1 instead of +1.

Very true, and very good points!!!

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

It depends on if anybody else is interested. But yeah, cash is hard to come by.

From what I gather, nobody's interested as these are 40mm Scrubys from the early 1970s; there is, I am told by a Leading Local Retailer, no market whatsoever for used miniatures; he's had a box of very nice vintage Ral Partha figures in a Chessex case sitting on one of his shelves for about a year, and also several very nicely painted Warhammer armies in a display case that have been sitting for even longer. The 'collector market' might be interested, if only because of the Dave Arneson 'first fantasy game' connection, but that's about it.

My thought had been that it might be a lot of fun to replay that early 1970s Arneson game, letting people be Ken Fletcher, Dave Megarry (yes, that Dave Megarry), Cliff Olllia, and Pete; I'd need to get another elephant, but I have a Crocodile Games pachyderm that I can dress up for the occasion; I also have a phaser to slip to the Druid. But then, I got to thinking - where would I run such a game, and get any players? The local miniatures people would all recoil in horror - "Fantasy! Ick! Ick! Ptui! Ptui!" and the local RPG people would all ignore it because it wasn't pathfinder or D&D. So, the FLGS and the local game convention seem to be out, leaving Gary Con as the only likely venue to get players for which I could run such an ancient and forgotten game. (Assuming, of course, that I don't get a cease and desist from somebody in Lake Geneva for daring to speak the words "Dave Arneson" within the city limits.)

So, I dunno. I am not at all sure that having a set of unique figures for a unique game would be a good investment. And I'd be worried about sticky fingers, too...

Originally Posted by Neshm hiKumala

I did look it up and the only interesting note I found is from Bob Alberti. He describes what happened in one of the games he experienced. Who was GMing is unclear.

It's here: http://www.echnology.net/blueroom/bl...er&searchtype=

It's actually mostly about the First Founder's home, in this case a self-healing/fixing house.
Anyway, although inspiring and exciting, nothing quite official it seems.

RE: magical weapons. I too thought it not very Tekumelani, until I remembered that the entities and people who fought on Dormoron plain (to take one example) surely had amazing, terrifying, powerful weapons and devices at hand. Human and nonhuman sorcerers would then probably be interested in emulating such terrible tools of destruction, at their own level of course, out of curiosity and, yes, sheer egotism (as in "I made this, and you didn't. boo.")

Well, Bob was usually reporting what was going on in Phil's campaign, so I'd bet that Phil was the GM.

Agreed with you about the 'magic' weapons - good reasoning!

Originally Posted by Neshm hiKumala

Anyway, although inspiring and exciting, nothing quite official it seems.

I've extracted this sentence, if that's all right, as I think it's something that I'd like to speak to.

What is - and I'm not trying to be difficult here, I'm genuinely curious as to what people think - 'official' or 'canon' in relation to Tekumel and Phil?

I've been hearing these words used in discussions for literally decades; the reason why Ken and I did the 'Seal of Approval' on our products was simply because people seemed to really need to be reassured that whatever they were looking at had been approved by Phil. Most of the time, he'd look at something, say "That's fine by me," and promptly move on. To be frank, he just wasn't all that interested in our products as they had very little relevance to 'Story Time With Uncle Phil' on Thursday nights.

I take a different approach, myself; there's what Phil wrote about, talked about, and did in his games - that's 'primary' Tekumel. Then there's us players who gamed with him, and wrote or illustrated what we saw and heard - that's 'first order' Tekumel. They you have the people who listened to us (and I include talking to Phil in this, too), and did their own publications/artwork/maps/campaigns - that's 'second order' Tekumel. I use all the Tekumel materials that I can get my hands on; I do compare things from 'third parties' to what Phil did, and govern myself accordingly.

I am, I have been told by the Tekumel Foundation, quote "The Greatest Living Authority On Tekumel"; I don't know if that's accurate or not - me, I think I just happen to have a good memory and lots of files and stuff - and I've been asked repeatedly if my book "To Serve the Petal Throne" is an Official, Canon object. I don't know if I can answer that, as the thing is (from my perspective, anyway) simply a 'tidied up' of our adventures - 'tidied up' in the sense that I try to give the backstories behind our antics - and more 'fan fiction' then anything else because it's being told from my personal perspective as a player-character. It's not a transcript of our game sessions - somebody else can to that, thank you - but a storyteller in the market place.


Thoughts? Comments? I'm genuinely curious as to what people think about this...

Originally Posted by Neshm hiKumala

Anyway, although inspiring and exciting, nothing quite official it seems.

I've extracted this sentence, if that's all right, as I think it's something that I'd like to speak to.

What is - and I'm not trying to be difficult here, I'm genuinely curious as to what people think - 'official' or 'canon' in relation to Tekumel and Phil?

I've been hearing these words used in discussions for literally decades; the reason why Ken and I did the 'Seal of Approval' on our products was simply because people seemed to really need to be reassured that whatever they were looking at had been approved by Phil. Most of the time, he'd look at something, say "That's fine by me," and promptly move on. To be frank, he just wasn't all that interested in our products as they had very little relevance to 'Story Time With Uncle Phil' on Thursday nights.

I take a different approach, myself; there's what Phil wrote about, talked about, and did in his games - that's 'primary' Tekumel. Then there's us players who gamed with him, and wrote or illustrated what we saw and heard - that's 'first order' Tekumel. They you have the people who listened to us (and I include talking to Phil in this, too), and did their own publications/artwork/maps/campaigns - that's 'second order' Tekumel. I use all the Tekumel materials that I can get my hands on; I do compare things from 'third parties' to what Phil did, and govern myself accordingly.

I am, I have been told by the Tekumel Foundation, quote "The Greatest Living Authority On Tekumel"; I don't know if that's accurate or not - me, I think I just happen to have a good memory and lots of files and stuff - and I've been asked repeatedly if my book "To Serve the Petal Throne" is an Official, Canon object. I don't know if I can answer that, as the thing is (from my perspective, anyway) simply a 'tidied up' of our adventures - 'tidied up' in the sense that I try to give the backstories behind our antics - and more 'fan fiction' then anything else because it's being told from my personal perspective as a player-character. It's not a transcript of our game sessions - somebody else can to that, thank you - but a storyteller in the market place.


Thoughts? Comments? I'm genuinely curious as to what people think about this...