Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

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...

For my part, all I can say about that is that I don't care which material is "official". I'm sure some people (that you can think of, I suspect) wish it mattered; but it doesn't, and I don't care whether it's official.
In the end, we are all humans. MARB was a very talented person with rich experience and background, but not even him was the be-all end-all expert on setting building.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

From AsenRG:
Huh, somehow I'd missed a reply from Chirine? I wonder how that happened.
My irregular Internet connection and equally irregular posting schedule, most likely.

I suspect it's more like "the button for checking new posts doesn't work nearly as well on a mobile device".

Agreed. They are going to get a lesson, if I have my druthers. They may not like it, but they may learn from it.

They'd better do, or it will be just as unpleasant, but with more chances of being repeated.

Understood. I'm just astounded that little lead people are so controversial.

They're not. People are just freaking out over inconsequalities.

Twin Cities fandom is famous for being riven by feuds. This is the only fan community where there was an official "Finger-pointing and Jeering" Committee that was part of the local convention committee, dedicated to bad-mouthing and sabotaging the people who were actually running the event. That group, and their convention, are now history. And largely forgotten history, at that.

OK, you persuaded me. It should be the water!

I don;t talk to people like that, anymore, but if I do I'll wipe off the residue before I pass along the loot.

Thank you, Uncle! You're nice as always.

I did; very nice!

Glad you approve.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Yep. There's nothing you probably can't see on any beach in Europe - or in the US, for that matter. Let alone on the easy-to-access Web.

As I said, funny people.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

"Modesty Bars! Now with 40% more outrage in every bite!"

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Tactics are dying and I don't know what to do about it. People get killed and they DON'T REALIZE THEY ARE DOING IT TO THEMSELVES even if I try to explain it.

See, folks, tactics are REAL. Many moons ago I started getting more deeply into historical miniatures games. I started borrowing books from Chirine and our mutual friend David about World War 2. So I read and read, and after a year or so I realized something astonishing.

The Germans won most of their campaigns with Panzer IIs and a smattering of Panzer III.

All the big glitzy German stuff, the Panther, the Tigers, the Jagdpanther, etc, etc.... all that shiny neeto keeno stuff that the German players love to field... all that showed up AFTER THE GERMANS STARTED LOSING. Now, you could argue about the Tiger I, I suppose, but the Germans had already gotten mauled by the T-34 in Russia by then.

So... the big German victories in France and the Desert had nothing to do with hardware. It was then and there that I had the realization, to quote the late John M. Ford once again, "Tactics are real!"

Well, they are. But while not all tactics are equal...a simple, not entirely decisive tactic practiced against "live" opponents trumps all the tactics practised against the air.
So, I don't know. Maybe we should just kick people in games until they realize how important tactics are?
(Non-RPG computer games are, amusingly, sometimes/often a better example. If we're facing off in a fighting game or a strategy game, say, DoA5:LR, you might play with the reflexes and rules knowledge of the highest difficulty level of the computer has - much faster than a human player. But if your tactics are predictable, and I face you with my array of tricks, you're going to learn about the usefulness of tactics real, real fast.
Of course, I kinda doubt your tactics would be predictable, Gronan - that was just an example).

That, by the way, dear ones, is why your uncle Chirine found himself buzzing around the desert like a gang of demented flies in gobs of Pz I and II while being chased by that horrible juggernaut, the M3 Lee. Not because of sadism on my part (okay, maybe a bit) but because he was one of the best, possibly THE best, tactician I knew. I wanted to see how the hell the Germans did it, and Chirine seemed the most likely candidate for being able to pull it off.

OK, that was sneaky from your side.

Originally Posted by Hermes Serpent

Recently on G+ someone posted asking about a game and its suitability for playing with youngsters as it contained risque pictures. He got the usual 'Southern US prudes can't tell us what to do' from the Euro contingent. He responded that it wasn't him that was a prude but he couldn't have these kids (no age specified but probably early teens from context) exposed to non Christian religions as their parents would go gaga.

Pat Puling's fan club is alive and well living in the southern US.

Oh, so THAT was the great uproarious laughter I heard from everywhere? It makes sense that since the EU crowd is everywhere around me, it would seem to me to be "coming from everywhere"!

Originally Posted by DavetheLost

In the opinion of this heretic far too many fandoms are overly obsessed with canon and midrash. In gaming it is not unique to Tekumel. People will scour the most obscure publications to "prove" that they are the standard bearers of the One True Way and everyone else is guilty of BadWrongFun.

Count me in with the heretical opinion.

Originally Posted by DavetheLost

I fail to see the danger to society in little lead nipples anyway. But I am sliding into middle age.

Someone could lose an eye?

Originally Posted by Neshm hiKumala

I may be wrong on this, but it seems to me that talks of what's canon or not are not common in, say, the Glorantha community, or any other deep fantasy world community.

You could not be more wrong. Lots of canon discussion about Glorantha. The Gloranthan community uses the term “Gregged” for when some item, event, or bit of mythology is later contradicted (or seems to be contradicted*) by something revealed by Greg Stafford (the creator). Sometimes Greg seems to have Gregged himself, as the controversy over Elmal and Yelmalio demonstrated. One reason I stopped paying attention to the newer material on Glorantha was because of this. Another is that the depth of reading material necessary to understand canon became too deep for me.

* I say “seems” because Stafford is a big believer in presenting subjective information about Glorantha. I get the impression he doesn’t believe there is a single truth about Glorantha. Which would align with my suspicion that he is really a follower (or avatar) of Nysalor.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

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’m a bit intellectual or academic by temperament and a mathematician by training. So I find the question of what the creator intended interesting and I tend to treat the game world as something that exists, at least as an intellectual construct. So in one sense I think there is (or at least there could or should be) a correct answer to all questions about the customs, geography, history, and origins of a game world. Canon tells me what that answer is from the perspective of the creator (Tekumel or Glorantha) or, in some cases, the intellectual property holder (Star Wars, which has a codification of the various types and levels of canon: movies, TV shows, novels, comic books, game materials, etc.).

Since I’m not a proponent of Live World styles of play where all GMs and players in many different gaming groups and locations are intended to all be in the same shared world (and when I say, “not a proponent” I mean that I loathe the idea) I believe the effect of canon on any given world run by a specific GM for a specific group of players is and should be limited. I also believe the effect should be most noticeable during the setup of a campaign.

If I want to run a game set on Tekumel (whether I use EPT, Swords and Glory, or Sandy Petersen’s RQ rules for Tekumel, in the set up and preparation I’m going to try to find out what the canon is as part of my preparation and I’m going to use that as is. I may decide to change something, but mostly I’m going to want to run things as is and reflective of canon. If that isn’t appealing than why the hell run something in that setting. There are hundreds of other settings available or if I want, I can make up a setting of my own. I’ve done that before more than a few times.

Once play starts, then it’s my Tekumel and I will expect it to diverge from canon. It may diverge because I invent something to fill a gap in what I know and later find it contradicted by revealed canon. It may diverge because I just don’t like some bit of canon and I think something else is more interesting for me. It may diverge because my players and your players interact with the same people, places, and events and get different outcomes. At that point, intellectually, I look at the various worlds of Tekumel as being on a continuum of variance. One way to think of this is like parallel universes, like the variance levels and worlds in H. Beam Pipers Paratime stories or the Star Trek Mirror Universe.

Now in preparing for a new area or adventure, like say the PCs are part of an embassy going to Livanyu (I may have misspelled that, but hopefully you know the place I mean) I would be likely to go back to look at what the canon is for Livanyu. But once the PCs go there, the major domo for the high muckety muck that I create and play may be quite a different person (figuratively or literally) than the major domo in Barker’s, Chirine’s, or anyone else’s world.

I encounter a similar problem running an historical fiction campaign for Honor+Intrigue. Sometimes I find out facts that contradict stuff I made up or even earlier understandings I had or facts I thought I knew. It’s always a choice whether to adjust the game world to match some new fact of our earth history or to warp history to match the game world. I recently encountered exactly that issue regarding the location and layout of the H�tel d'Angoul�me in Paris in my game world vs. its layout and location in the real world.

I’m currently prepping for a possible trip to Orleans by some of the PCs. In the process came across a castle near a location the PCs are likely to investigate. I thought, it might be interesting to have them interact with the owner of the castle. Afterwards I learned that the real world Ch�teau de Ferte was built and owned by the family of the Baron Henri de La Ferte-Senneterre. The Baron is an NPC (based on a real person) in my campaign who the PCs know and who knows and respects the PCs. Since that real world fact doesn’t conflict with any fact established in play, than if they go to the castle and the baron or his father is at home, then it’s they whom the PCs shall meet. On the other hand, if I hadn’t come across the information of who the owner of the castle was in the real world, I might have made up the Seigneur de Jeansaypas as the castle holder. And from then on, that would be that.

I like canon, but if I'm the GM, then it's my world, not your world, his world, her world, the world of a bunch of IP lawyers, nor the society of anything.

Chirine,

I don't recall if this has been asked before, but could you shed any light on the Temple of the Eye of the World? I recently saw this sight on a Tekumel map and was wondering what it was. Is it related to worship of the One Other, like the Isle of Eyes?

Shemek

Here are my two cents worth on canon and official. As I mentioned in a previous post, when it comes to �canon� and �official� I think that a lot of players are just looking for some type of continuity and convergence with what has been published. For me personally when I talk about canon or official I am referring to general �facts� or �truths�. Tekumel has two moons, Tsolyanu is an empire on the Northern Continent of Tekumel, one of the Emperors of Tsolyanu was called Hirkane, etc.

However, I also realise that many of the players that dogmatically advocate, or pursue, canon and official do so as a means of personal �legitimacy� for their campaign and game. It�s as if they are striving, vicariously, to be co-creators with Phil. I think that by having a �canonical� game of Tekumel these players derive a sense of superiority, and they feel that they have become the authority, and that the game has somehow transcended into something else, and is no longer some mere RPG. It somehow gives them the �right� to be able to wag their fingers and �tut-tut� the ignorant �others� and how they are playing the game all wrong. Unfortunately, I feel that Tekumel is especially inundated with players of this mindset, and has been from the beginning, much to its detriment. The minutia that is singled out as being important in order to properly play Tekumel is quite laughable. At the end of the day is pronunciation really that big of a deal? Really, who cares if a name is pronounced this way or that way? Is it so important in the grand scheme of things? Will it result in an inferior game session if you, as a player, mispronounce Dhichune�s name? Presumably your character will know how to say it correctly and what honorific to use. When and why did it become de-rigour to have a graduate level understanding of the history, customs, and mannerisms of the nations of Tekumel? From what Chirine has told us this type of mind set was certainly not a part of the Thursday Night Game. Somehow, I don�t think Phil gave pop quizzes on the correct usage of glottal stops in Tsolyani grammar and pronunciation, unless he was trying to take the piss out of somebody. At least that�s the impression I get.

I generally just go with the flow. Should a player, for some obscure reason, insist upon an accurate pronunciation, or correct spelling, or a detailed history then I will provide it. Normally, my motto is: "Close enough is good enough" when it comes to this stuff.


Shemek

Hey All,

Out of curiosity, how do you go about searching threads for a specific topic? For example, I'd like to know what the symbol of the Goddess of the Pale Bone is. I used the search box, but it only indicated that it was in a thread, but not where in the thread (not a specific reference). Thanks in advance.

Shemek

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

Really, who cares if a name is pronounced this way or that way? Is it so important in the grand scheme of things?

I care.

But in just about every game group I've been in or run, there has been one person who can't pronounce things correctly and who often don't remember how to spell things correctly. What they can't pronounce (or spell) may be esoteric names of people, places, and things from a game world, or it may be words in some earthly foreign language, or even words in English* that aren't part of their vernacular. So I'm used to dealing with a lot of mispronunciation.

Does it ruin the game for me? No. Would I enjoy the game more with correct pronunciation? Without a doubt.

* I realize that English is a foreign language to some of you. If that bugs you...well then you probably are bugged a lot in real life. You can always pretend I said whatever language is native for you instead.

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

Really, who cares if a name is pronounced this way or that way? Is it so important in the grand scheme of things?

I care.

But in just about every game group I've been in or run, there has been one person who can't pronounce things correctly and who often don't remember how to spell things correctly. What they can't pronounce (or spell) may be esoteric names of people, places, and things from a game world, or it may be words in some earthly foreign language, or even words in English* that aren't part of their vernacular. So I'm used to dealing with a lot of mispronunciation. Does it ruin the game for me? No.

* I realize that English is a foreign language to some of you. If that bugs you...well then you probably are bugged a lot in real life. You can always pretend I said whatever language is native for you instead.

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

Out of curiosity, how do you go about searching threads for a specific topic? For example, I'd like to know what the symbol of the Goddess of the Pale Bone is. I used the search box, but it only indicated that it was in a thread, but not where in the thread (not a specific reference).

Choose Advanced Search and tell it to show “Posts” instead of "Threads."

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

"Modesty Bars! Now with 40% more outrage in every bite!"

Memo to self: must trademark that name, and go into the candy business. I'll make a fortune.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Didn't we used to call that 'self-correcting behavior'?

You know, your point about "not used to facing live opponents" is a good one. And I have to admit I think that computer games are responsible for a lot of that. In a computer game your choices are incredibly limited. Usually you have to kill your way through the game. Only rarely do you actually have a chance to parley with a hostile agent, and even then your dialog choices are very limited, usually only 3 choices or so.

So then you come into this world of the table top where you can try anything, but all you've been taught to do is stab cardboard cutouts for easy treasure and XP.

And because of the limits of computer game AI the enemies act in ways that are downright stupid in real life. Number one example is what's called "pulling" a bad guy. Say there's a group of guards; you get close to the one on the fringe and he will move to attack you and you can lure him away from the group and kill him to death for his stupidity.

Then players who have been trained to do this play on the tabletop, and the first guard who spots them falls back and sounds the alarm and a squad of guards appears and swords the players to death, stwikes them woughly, and thwows them to the fwoor.

Tactics are dying and I don't know what to do about it. People get killed and they DON'T REALIZE THEY ARE DOING IT TO THEMSELVES even if I try to explain it.

See, folks, tactics are REAL. Many moons ago I started getting more deeply into historical miniatures games. I started borrowing books from Chirine and our mutual friend David about World War 2. So I read and read, and after a year or so I realized something astonishing.

The Germans won most of their campaigns with Panzer IIs and a smattering of Panzer III.

All the big glitzy German stuff, the Panther, the Tigers, the Jagdpanther, etc, etc.... all that shiny neeto keeno stuff that the German players love to field... all that showed up AFTER THE GERMANS STARTED LOSING. Now, you could argue about the Tiger I, I suppose, but the Germans had already gotten mauled by the T-34 in Russia by then.

So... the big German victories in France and the Desert had nothing to do with hardware. It was then and there that I had the realization, to quote the late John M. Ford once again, "Tactics are real!"

That, by the way, dear ones, is why your uncle Chirine found himself buzzing around the desert like a gang of demented flies in gobs of Pz I and II while being chased by that horrible juggernaut, the M3 Lee. Not because of sadism on my part (okay, maybe a bit) but because he was one of the best, possibly THE best, tactician I knew. I wanted to see how the hell the Germans did it, and Chirine seemed the most likely candidate for being able to pull it off.

All very good points; we'll see if my opponents have learned anything from our conversations with them. The proof, as they say, will be in the pudding.

I thought that that particular game went pretty sell; the M3 has a MightyBoomBoomGun, so beloved of gamers, but it's in a casemate. The 37mm on top is in a turret, but when I had the Pz I tootling around raising dust storms, the British player got so wrapped up in shooting at the nimble little pest that he completely forgot to keep an eye on the ridge on his off side. The Pz IIs had a field day after they got behind the M3s; the armor isn't all that great there, and the 20mm autoguns mixed very nicely (from my point of view, of course) with all that gasoline...

As I recall, you ran out of cotton to use as smoke...