Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Son of a BITCH! I need a new hobby like I need a hole drilled crosswise through my pecker, but damn, that is SO tempting!

Have a look at the TRE Games website: //www.tregames.com/

Tim makes stuff for a lot of your gaming interests, and the kits are both very reasonably priced and easy to assemble. You may faint when you look at his blog - on the website - and see the Viking longship. I am particularly enthused with the furniture, myself, and the working/practical spiral staircases.

The trireme looks a killer. She's about half as long as "Olympias", but a really nasty man would take two of these kits and kit-bash a really decent model of the Greeks' newest oldest ship. looks even better with the sixty (!) oars in the water...

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

And three months later in the middle of Milumaniya we're reduced to boiling and eating the leather cloaks of the desert tribesmen we killed when they tried to ambush us...

Could have been worse. We could have been eating the tribesmen. Supply was, shall we say, 'challenging'.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Again, he's not kidding, folks. Phil had a total aversion to anything after about 1300 AD.

Yep. Absolute ban. No exceptions. Energy weapons were all right, as they were nice and clean.

First off, thank you all for the kind words about my little group of bearers and the trireme. I've been thinking about them and you for a bit, and i'd like to make an observation if I may...

Back in the day, at the Conflict Simulation Association meetings, this kind of modeling in gaming was very popular. A GM prided himself on doing stuff like this to amaze, amuse, and delight the players - no matter the period or the scenario or the genre, we'd do this kind of thing 'just because'. We thought it added a lot to our games, and really increased what the toy designers call 'play value'. It was fun, both to make and to play. Like the time the Japanese destroyer ran into the Japanese minefield - handful of BBs dropped onto deep blue velvet, and oh! the pandemonium.

I dunno; we just liked doing it. I'm glad to be able to share it with you.

Originally Posted by Greentongue

How many "Top Clans" do you think there are/were and did/do you know of all of them?

I ask because it seems to me that in a game that is/was heavily social this would be critical (for at least the GM).
Who "matters" and how close to them the person/people you are currently dealing with seems very important.

Do/did you have a "connection map" on paper or in your head?
If not of the specific people then at least of the clans and their spheres of influence.
=

Empire-wide, or locally? In general, there are about a dozen really high-status clans, and they do have varying spheres of influence. Usually, it's the 'Engsvanyali nobility' clans that are the highest, with the 'Bednjallan noblity' clans right behind them. The Vriddi are older, of course, and sort of in the upper-high category; they do get looked down on by the Bey Su and Jakallan high clans, though. Yes, I used to know all of them off the top of my head, but this was because I was playing all the time; now, it'd take a quick glance at the Sourcebook to get them right and in order. The Tlakotani, by the way, are not an upper-high clan; outside of the Imperial lineage, they tend to be small-holder farmers outside Bey Su and Imperial officials. The one clan that is totally outside the status system is the tiny and very secretive clan of puppeteers, who are quite firmly dated back to the time of the Priest-kings and before; they are considered so noble and high status that they are deferred to by everybody. Nobody messes with them, either; one guy in Bey Su who did was found dead with a lot of little wounds from what seemed to be miniature weapons - the his room was still locked from the inside, too.

Agreed! The way Phil played his world, this was very important and we learned very quickly to gauge people and their relative status. I think the hardest thing for gamers to learn about Tekumel is that one is part of a society that has very real rules and mores, and very powerful sanctions to use on those who don't play by those rules. 'Murderhobos' need not apply; one can certainly be a ruthless adventurer - see also my career - but one has do do it in the context of the society one lives in. See also the greatest compliment I ever got from Phil: "Chirine, you've gone native."

Yes, I do. I suppose I could put it on paper - a big whiteboard would be better.

Is this any sort of good answer for you? I worry...

Chirine,

Continuing with some other naval questions, how was/is magical combat handled at sea? Specifically, did Naval Battle Magic operate in the same way as Battle Magic would on land, i.e. would there be groups of mages casting in unison, offensive and defensive spells? Also, what would the range/area of effect of the spells be at sea; would you use the same ones provided in the EPT spell descriptions, or some other listing?

Shemek

Viz rigging, have you tried the elastic thread that's sold for stringing telegraph wires on model railroads? Same idea, prevents devastation when this huge giant reaches into the scene to open the coupler.

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

Chirine,

Continuing with some other naval questions, how was/is magical combat handled at sea? Specifically, did Naval Battle Magic operate in the same way as Battle Magic would on land, i.e. would there be groups of mages casting in unison, offensive and defensive spells? Also, what would the range/area of effect of the spells be at sea; would you use the same ones provided in the EPT spell descriptions, or some other listing?

Shemek

This topic created a very lively and interesting discussion between Zirunel and I over on the Tekumel Yahoo group; I strongly recommend his booklet on naval matters( downloadable from his blog), by the way. He, quite logically, raised the question of why there isn't a corpora of longer-ranged naval spells, reaching out beyond the usual range of battlefield spells. I replied that for Phil, his model of naval warfare was the Greek-Roman one, especially as seen in the movies "Ben Hur" and "Cleopatra"; since spells are limited to line-of-sight, and pretty much as far as an unaided human eye can see, there's no real way (in Tekumelyani terms) to come up with more effective 'naval artillery'. Spells are limited out to a kilometer or two, at least in Phil's usual practice. he rule of thumb was that "if you can see it, you can try to hit it". Phil was quite upfront that sorcery is not the decisive weapon in battle; it's usually people at close quarters in melee.

Having said that, yes, you can have a legion's magic users afloat, but they aren't going to be all that effective; the ship's deck is tossing around, and the crew is messing about with the ropes, so the kind of group sorcery you'd see on land may be there but not very good - a lot of missed saving throws, if you like. They'd also be grouped on one larger ship, probably the squadron flagship.

For personal magic, use EPT as is; that's what Phil did, as you read about in my sinking of the pursuing nest ship. For larger scale battles, try my set of miniatures rules or Dave Sutherland's "Legions". These work better with the small scale ships; EPT works better with 28mm ships.

And don't think I haven't thought of a 28mm scale large sea fight; I have a 100' tape measure, and I know how to use it. Give me a stout ship, a big enough floor, and a moon to steer by...

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

<snip>. The one clan that is totally outside the status system is the tiny and very secretive clan of puppeteers, who are quite firmly dated back to the time of the Priest-kings and before; they are considered so noble and high status that they are deferred to by everybody. Nobody messes with them, either; one guy in Bey Su who did was found dead with a lot of little wounds from what seemed to be miniature weapons - the his room was still locked from the inside, too. <snip>

I think I read something about this clan once long ago, but can't recall exactly what it was... Could you elaborate on this please?


Shemek