Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by Greentongue

I would have to guess that with more than 80 thousand views, a few other people have found it useful or at least interesting.
=

And not all of them had secret Tekumel forum names.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Thank you for the very kind words!!! I started the thing to tell friends and family about our adventures, and the thing seems to be useful to people.

And you're very welcome; running Tekumel never seemed to be a problem, back in the day, as we like to emphasize the 'action-adventure' style of play; we never worried about getting all the details right, out at Phil's and so I've never been a stickler for following 'the canon'. The game's the thing, and you follow it where the play takes you.

Phil never worried about the details; he expected that if he missed something or made a mistake, I'd keep my trap shut and send him a note down the table if I thought that he thought it might be important. Sometimes he's 'fix' it; more often then not, he'd just keep right on going and worry about it later. If Phil wasn't a 'canonista', then how could I be was my guiding thought.

All I can do is tell you what we did, way back when, and if that has any resonance for you in your games then you are welcome to what we learned. Go out, play games, and have adventures; that's what this is all about, I think...

I had a new player join the group last game session. Although familiar with D&D he had never heard of Tekumel before, or gamed with my group before. Took to it like a duck to water. So much for Tekumel being too difficult, or "artsy-fartsy." A few days before the game I sent him the link to Tekumel.com and told him to check out the site, see what the world was like, and "NOT TO WORRY ABOUT ABOUT PRONUNCIATION". He had a few questions about clans and how they worked. Wanted to know if he could choose which clan he belonged to, based on his character description, instead of rolling randomly. BTW, chose a low "dodgy" clan which was perfectly suited to the type of character he was playing. He gave the old hands in the group a run for their money. After about 40 minutes he was interacting with the game environment like an old hand at Tekumel. Offering and withholding inducements whenever necessary, bullying and sucking up, and generally being an excellent example of someone from a poor part of town that was determined to enhance his clan's and his status at any reasonable cost. It really was like watching the Tekumel version of Goodfellas. I kind of wish I had set the game in Jakalla.
I really have to call BS on "strict-canonical" Tekumel. My game session went exactly as your description above. Any game setting details were answered by the other players or myself, the game was not stopped for the sake of minutiae, and it was non-stop "mayhem"
As you say we followed the game and had some of the best 6 hours of gaming that we've enjoyed in 30+ plus years of rolling dice together. The world has always been the backdrop for me, not the main focus. Of course I want to get the details right, but not to the point where they get in the way of the action. This is why this thread is important to me as a DM. You help to explain what all the parts are, and we can choose what we like in order to build our own Tekumel. Does this make sense?
Thanks again Chirine, and those that don't care for this thread can ignore it, instead of sniping from the side lines!

Shemek

Originally Posted by Greentongue

I would have to guess that with more than 80 thousand views, a few other people have found it useful or at least interesting.
=

I would like to think so; I worry about being boring and tedious.

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

And not all of them had secret Tekumel forum names.

It's no secret who I am in real life: Jeff Berry, author of a few little things. I just go by 'chirine' as that's what Phil did and it's stuck over the years. Even old friends use it; I think that's because at the time, we had a few 'Jeffs' in local gaming.

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

I had a new player join the group last game session. Although familiar with D&D he had never heard of Tekumel before, or gamed with my group before. Took to it like a duck to water. So much for Tekumel being too difficult, or "artsy-fartsy." A few days before the game I sent him the link to Tekumel.com and told him to check out the site, see what the world was like, and "NOT TO WORRY ABOUT ABOUT PRONUNCIATION". He had a few questions about clans and how they worked. Wanted to know if he could choose which clan he belonged to, based on his character description, instead of rolling randomly. BTW, chose a low "dodgy" clan which was perfectly suited to the type of character he was playing. He gave the old hands in the group a run for their money. After about 40 minutes he was interacting with the game environment like an old hand at Tekumel. Offering and withholding inducements whenever necessary, bullying and sucking up, and generally being an excellent example of someone from a poor part of town that was determined to enhance his clan's and his status at any reasonable cost. It really was like watching the Tekumel version of Goodfellas. I kind of wish I had set the game in Jakalla.
I really have to call BS on "strict-canonical" Tekumel. My game session went exactly as your description above. Any game setting details were answered by the other players or myself, the game was not stopped for the sake of minutiae, and it was non-stop "mayhem"
As you say we followed the game and had some of the best 6 hours of gaming that we've enjoyed in 30+ plus years of rolling dice together. The world has always been the backdrop for me, not the main focus. Of course I want to get the details right, but not to the point where they get in the way of the action. This is why this thread is important to me as a DM. You help to explain what all the parts are, and we can choose what we like in order to build our own Tekumel. Does this make sense?
Thanks again Chirine, and those that don't care for this thread can ignore it, instead of sniping from the side lines!

Shemek

You're very welcome! Stories like this do a lot to keep me going - and keep the Tekumel that I knew and loved for so many memorable game sessions with Phil alive.

Tekumel has always been, for me and the other members of the original group, a never-ending source of adventure and excitement. Phil was a superb story-teller, and knew his action-adventure / 'pulps' to a 'T'.

You're making perfect sense! As I've said before, all I can do is describe what we did - and if you can take anything away from it, for any kind of gaming that you do, then I'm very pleased that you find it useful. I'm baffled by the strict canonistas, but then I've lost count of the times I''ve been contacted by people who tell me that they wished that they'd met me before they'd looked at 'mainstream' Tekumel fandom: "You make Tekumel fun!". I still find that kind of heartbreaking, in a way.

By the same token, I find Greentongue's thread about EPT to be a very healthy sign! Active and open discussions like that are the lifeblood of gaming, I think, and a very good thing. If somebody has an issue with me personally, then they can talk to me personally; this is all about gaming, and not about me - or so I think, anyway. Speaking as an archivist and historian, all I can do is provide the data; how you use it is up to you...

Originally Posted by Neshm hiKumala

100%

Agreed!

(Did my message get through to you? I never know, given my wonky Internet connections...)

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

Thanks again Chirine, and those that don't care for this thread can ignore it, instead of sniping from the side lines!

Shemek

Don't worry about the trolls jealous about the positive attention someone else is receiving.

I don't game in Tekumel, but this thread has been a treasure trove in many respects, including game history. Back to lurking...