Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by Hrugga

I figured that. I was thinking simply a speaking Kereshal-bird...but, I wanted a hint to add some flavor!!!!

Thanks,

H;0)

Shemek

I went through the files; I don't find a specific noun for this bird. My suggestion would be to use the Tsolyani for 'talking bird', which is the way Phil usually did things. If you like, I'll go back and get that compound word for you, if you like.

As for the "wargaming" point, remember Phil lost interest in commercially pushing Tekumel long before Warhamburger exploded. We tried it, but at the time there just wasn't much interest.

I know the timing for you guys was off but, man, it might have been a good fit. Except we would now be complaining about all the 13 year olds driving us crazy with their $400 boxed Pe Choi army for Humanspace Empires 8th edition instead of their $400 Space Elf on jet bike army for 40k.

Would you guys have been able to stomach making a rule set as, what is the proper term -non-complicated? beer and pretzel-ish? dumbed down?, as Warhammer? Even the early versions were far less complicated/realistic/whatever than most other games on the market at the time.

Originally Posted by Big Andy

Just stumbled across this https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...tiles?ref=recs and thought it might be of interest, especially to those not entirely theater of the mind folks.

Reminds me, when did the Good Professor stop wargaming? I mean he kept trying to pop out rpg rules every so often but wargaming just sort of disappears off the radar of production. I wonder what would have happened had that been the avenue he, and Tekumel, had pursued more strongly, given that Games Workshop blew up because they were the only game in town and Tekumel had a relationship with Ral Partha, who belatedly tried to hop into wargaming later. And so many people involved were wargamers, not to mention how many characters in game were military folks. GW peddled science fantasy with strange races magic, and tech wargaming which was obviously in Tekumel's wheelhouse. I can envision even Tekumel even walking a similar path, creating an out and out sci fi game like 40k ala Humanspace Empires separate from the "fantasy" Tekumel line. I know everyone still thought there was gold in them thar rpgs and no one could envision making wargames and minis being a path to success (other than GW), but it does make me wonder.

I'm breaking this into two replies, if I may...

Good find!

Phil was still wargaming in the early 1990's; Gronan played in his Megarra fantasy setting.

The 'wargaming' aspect of Tekumel died away pretty early on, with the stalemates in both the NE and NW Frontier campaigns. Once the original players in the Monday group dropped out, there was no real reason to run any Tekumel wargames - our adventures, which were based in the style of the D&D 'domain game', had the last real 'wargame' battle in late '86' or early '87, when we fought the battle of Anch'ke. (I won.) Phil's biggest issue with wargaming in Tekumel was, I think the very real possibility that the players would generate a result from a battle that didn't fit in with the timeline / plotline that Phil was following in his novels. Gronan's win at Third Mar, which took place while Phil was writing "Flamesong", caused Phil to alter his storyline slightly - Deq Dimani's brother gets killed off.

And, as Gronan points out, Phil was just not all that interested in doing wargame rules for Tekumel. Once "Missum" and "Legions" went out of print, I had to write "Qadardalikoi" simply to have something to play at conventions - like my suit of armor, it was originally thought of as a marketing device, needed to sell figures. In the event, Phil did adopt the rules, going so far as to write the copyright documents for me to sign and then paying the fee himself. After that, feeling that we now had a reasonable set of rules to use, he pretty much just lost interest - he wasn't all that big on the nitty-gritty of gaming anyway; languages and story-telling was his prime interest, and he was perfectly content for somebody else to write useable set of rules.

And, if I may be frank, the crap that Gronan and I took from the other group for anything we tired to do for Tekumel was a very big factor in both of our finally giving up and walking away from Tekumel publishing. There is an old tradition in Twin Cities fandom and gaming culture of 'The Finger-pointing and Jeering Committee', which is a group of people who don't actually want to do any work but want to be the ones in charge and having the highest prestige. We'd get to Phil's on Thursday nights and waste an hour or so trying to defend our latest efforts at publishing and promoting Phil's world to him, as he'd spent most of Monday night hearing from those people about what a crap job we were doing and about how we were, quote, "trying to steal Tekumel" from Phil. All of the stuff we published we did in the teeth of people who were much more concerned at their positions and politics around the throne then they were about what happened to Tekumel, and it has had an effect on Tekumel that persists to this day - the current Tekumel Foundation is largely made up of the old 'Finger-pointing and Jeering Committee' for Tekumel.

There were, and are, so many opportunities that have been lost due to this kind of thing, and so many really smart and talented people who have been lost to Tekumel and to gaming because of this sort of thing. "Humanspace Empires", I have been told, was a casualty of this; which was a pity, I thought, because it was so cool and a great extrapolation from what Phil was doing.

Originally Posted by Big Andy

Another question, given that it seems like a lot of the Rules Are Off in the Underworld and What Happens in the Underworld Stays in the Underworld, if you robbed/looted some Underworld location and the owners found out, would they come after you in the world above? I mean, if you guys raided the Shrine/Temple of Sarku/Ksarul/Whomever in the Underworld and they found out it was Chirine and Co that did it, would they try and burgle/mug you above ground to get their stuff back? Would they confront you at your house or wherever? Could they go through the courts? Or would they just try and jump you the next time you went below ground?

Generally, it is considered bad form to take 'Underworld business' above ground; it normally doesn't happen, as the attitude is 'fair is fair' and 'if we were dumb enough to not guard the treasure, it's our own damn fault'. I can think of several instances where I was fighting somebody's minions in the morning and then having dinner with them in the evening - quite often, with the minions in attendance. It is considered 'noble action' to be gracious about these sorts of things - see also D'Artangian offering Athos some of his mother's wonderful ointment, as well as the polite relations between Musketeers and Cardinal's Guards (Which must have been an interesting time when the two units were amalgamated, later on...) A small gratuity for the minions is customary, and considered the height of politeness.

Usually, assuming that the people I'd just looted found out about it, they'd send somebody around to negotiate; if I was being unreasonable, then I'd expect a very polite visit from the Black Y or Ndalu clans, asking me to reconsider. I was still being a jerk about the matter, then I would expect a visit in the small hours of the night to get the loot back - which is where PCs come into the picture, as you might expect, being useful for denial purposes - and i'd be my own damn fault for getting burgled. Mugging in the streets is rude, and Not Done; going through the courts gets the Imperium involved, which is A Bad Idea; simply dry-gulching me next time I was in the Underworld would be the normal thing. Ransom is always worth collecting, as they say in Jakalla...

Does this help?

Originally Posted by Big Andy

I know the timing for you guys was off but, man, it might have been a good fit. Except we would now be complaining about all the 13 year olds driving us crazy with their $400 boxed Pe Choi army for Humanspace Empires 8th edition instead of their $400 Space Elf on jet bike army for 40k.

Would you guys have been able to stomach making a rule set as, what is the proper term -non-complicated? beer and pretzel-ish? dumbed down?, as Warhammer? Even the early versions were far less complicated/realistic/whatever than most other games on the market at the time.

Agreed. I'd still be casting up Pe Choi for this, too.

We did stomach making a beer-and-pretzels wargame; it's called "Qadardalikoi", and Gronan spent considerable amounts of his time making sure that it is just as easy and fast to play as the original "Chainmail", which played very fast and fun when you got right down to it. It's less complicated then Warhammer; when i started in on writing the second edition of my rules, I did a lot of research into modern rules sets.

"Qadardalikoi" has been roundly denounced by wargamers as being "too simplistic", and RPGers as "too wargamy". I'm told that it was the best seller that Phil's last publisher had in his line. Go figure...