Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by CRKrueger

Sometimes putting an accurate, human face on things, so that both sides get represented fairly as far as their strengths and weaknesses, can be a better testament to them than pretending things didn't happen.

Ok, So, in the last few years, I'm talking about 2004-2008. Gary and Dave had made their peace, and they even talked amicably on more than one occasion. They both went to conventions, a couple times to the same convention, and ran games, and played RPGs, and wargames as well. When I spoke to Dave, and also when I spoke to Gary, and thanked them for making D&D, I got the sense they were eminently gratified that they had created a game so many people enjoyed. They were both genuinely pleased to be at gaming conventions, and at the center of attention for the fans, even after everything that had occurred over the previous years.

Neither of them pretended that bad, as well as unintended things, didn't happen. What both of them, and Bob Bledsaw as well, conveyed to me personally, was that they wished that gamers to continue to enjoy RPGs, especially D&D (...of course). They were both ok with gamers running any edition of the game. I also got the sense, when I spoke to them, that they had both wanted things to turn out much better than things actually did, and like every good wargamer or RPG player, I'm sure they spent countless hours mulling over all the moves they had made, trying to figure out what more they could have done, to make the RPG gaming experience even more awesome for the players. Not only for the profits, but just overall, for the gaming experience. In the end, they chose how exactly they wanted to do just that, and both of them came back to their gaming roots.

That's one of the reasons that Gary kind of adopted Stephen and Davis Chenault, especially over the last few years, inviting them to his house, and helping them so much with Troll Lord Games, and writing books with them, and running LGG Con and such. Gary went back to his roots, and was working on making awesome old school style games with his Yggsburgh Campaign (Published in 2005), Gaxmoor, and Castle Zagyg. These books were written for C&C, but can easily be used with any version of D&D, and OGL as well. This was one of Garys' final projects. His actual testament for you. Look, and Learn.

Dave? Same deal. He was working with Joe Goodman, and had published the d20 version of Blackmoor in 2004, as well as some other supplements, and then followed that up with the 4th edition D&D version of Blackmoor, with Zeitgeist Games in 2008.

Here is one of the last picture of Dave that I know of, Him and Dustin Clingman at the Zeitgiest Games Booth. This is the accurate human face of Dave Arneson. What he wanted in games, and what he wanted for his fans, and Garys'.

http://jovianclouds.com/blackmoor/works.php

Get well, Chirine old boot.

Oh, look, 4,000 Milumanayani tribesmen with poisoned bone spears have just shown up to wish you well. How touching. I'll have the Molkars form up the crossbowmen, shall I?

Originally Posted by Spinachcat

Feel better chirine ba kal!

When you're better, I like to know your thoughts on why Phil didn't market and publicize Tekumel himself post-TSR?

Also, were there ever any EPT / Tekumel comic books?




Chirine, would you ever identify the who and the what they did?

Gronan, are any of these creeps going to get called out in your book?

Even by pseudonym? AKA, the inner circle would know who you're referencing, but the rest of us would just get a general story?

Thank you; going to be some very short replies - I had a bad medication interaction last night, and it's taken the last twelve hours to get everything flushed out of my system. So, short replies, and then I'm back off to bed.

My best guess is that he'd lived in academia for all of his adult life, and simply didn't have a clear idea of how the marketplace worked. This became apparent when he was dealing with TSR, and was a constant throughout his life. He was interested in what he was interested in, and if other people were not then it wasn't his concern.

No. No interest in them at the time.

I could; they left paper trails a mile wide. However, all it does is get my blood pressure levels dangerously high, as it did during my interviews. If somebody wants to write that book, more power too them. I have other goals and priorities in life.

My daughters, on the other hand, do not. What they do with my papers will be up to them. Personally, I would not have shit on them like some folks have.

Originally Posted by CRKrueger

Bah, name names, accuse, and allege. Blow the lid off everything like a classic Hollywood Tell-All.

No, thank you. Living it for the past forty years was enough, thank you.

So, since we're on the subject, how long have you been fucking your adopted daughters? Didn't you take care of Prof. Barker in his last illness simply to steal Tekumel away from it's rightful heirs? What's this I hear you had to flee to Canada to avoid the IRS, for which your wife divorced you after losing the house? Why did you steal the local SF convention's lighting equipment? Why are you a racist bigot who persecutes gay people? Why do you persecute pagans by allowing known Christians to play in your gaming group? Why are you a sexist swine who allows nudity in miniatures?

I've had a lot of this, over the decades. If you want to know, do the work and write your own book. I'm busy with mine.

Sorry about the rant, by the way, not your fault; you didn't know.

Originally Posted by CRKrueger

Sometimes putting an accurate, human face on things, so that both sides get represented fairly as far as their strengths and weaknesses, can be a better testament to them than pretending things didn't happen.

Agreed. "Playing At The World", by Jon Peterson.

Originally Posted by GameDaddy

Ok, So, in the last few years, I'm talking about 2004-2008. Gary and Dave had made their peace, and they even talked amicably on more than one occasion. They both went to conventions, a couple times to the same convention, and ran games, and played RPGs, and wargames as well. When I spoke to Dave, and also when I spoke to Gary, and thanked them for making D&D, I got the sense they were eminently gratified that they had created a game so many people enjoyed. They were both genuinely pleased to be at gaming conventions, and at the center of attention for the fans, even after everything that had occurred over the previous years.

Neither of them pretended that bad, as well as unintended things, didn't happen. What both of them, and Bob Bledsaw as well, conveyed to me personally, was that they wished that gamers to continue to enjoy RPGs, especially D&D (...of course). They were both ok with gamers running any edition of the game. I also got the sense, when I spoke to them, that they had both wanted things to turn out much better than things actually did, and like every good wargamer or RPG player, I'm sure they spent countless hours mulling over all the moves they had made, trying to figure out what more they could have done, to make the RPG gaming experience even more awesome for the players. Not only for the profits, but just overall, for the gaming experience. In the end, they chose how exactly they wanted to do just that, and both of them came back to their gaming roots.

That's one of the reasons that Gary kind of adopted Stephen and Davis Chenault, especially over the last few years, inviting them to his house, and helping them so much with Troll Lord Games, and writing books with them, and running LGG Con and such. Gary went back to his roots, and was working on making awesome old school style games with his Yggsburgh Campaign (Published in 2005), Gaxmoor, and Castle Zagyg. These books were written for C&C, but can easily be used with any version of D&D, and OGL as well. This was one of Garys' final projects. His actual testament for you. Look, and Learn.

Dave? Same deal. He was working with Joe Goodman, and had published the d20 version of Blackmoor in 2004, as well as some other supplements, and then followed that up with the 4th edition D&D version of Blackmoor, with Zeitgeist Games in 2008.

Here is one of the last picture of Dave that I know of, Him and Dustin Clingman at the Zeitgiest Games Booth. This is the accurate human face of Dave Arneson. What he wanted in games, and what he wanted for his fans, and Garys'.

http://jovianclouds.com/blackmoor/works.php

I could not agree with this more! By this date, the two of them had had twenty years to look back at what had gone on, and if you will permit me to use this phrase, repent of their sins.

Luke Gygax said much the same thing to me, too; they're all gone now, so why not let it rest?

Sadly, there is a small know of people here and in Lake Geneva who won't, and I am very, very tired of them.

"To Serve The Petal Throne" won't have much, if any, of 'the good dirt' in it. You'll have to go someplace else for that; what I'm trying to do is remember the great fun we had with Phil, adventuring in his creation.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Get well, Chirine old boot.

Oh, look, 4,000 Milumanayani tribesmen with poisoned bone spears have just shown up to wish you well. How touching. I'll have the Molkars form up the crossbowmen, shall I?

Thank you! I'm back to bed in a moment, after some more fluids.

Save the big chunks, my General; they're good for stew.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Thank you! I'm back to bed in a moment, after some more fluids.

Save the big chunks, my General; they're good for stew.

Sleep and fluid are your friends.

Okay, gang, for the record we never quite were reduced to cannibalism in Milumanaya, but it got damn close sometimes. I do seem to remember that Shai'Hulud is actually pretty tasty.

Originally Posted by Zirunel

Sounds like a whole bunch of vileness. Maybe it's just me, but reliving decades old "he said she said" just isn't worth the upset. Certainly not interesting or important enough to stir it all up again if it's simply vile.

Changing the topic a little, a while back you mentioned the crown jewels of the Professors archives. My sense was, you were talking about documents we don't already know about but that could be (reasonably and practically)developed for publication. So I'm curious, what, in your opinion, are the crown jewels?

Agreed. I've known some real shits, over the years, and I don't feel the need to give them any more of my time and energy. What's been done has been done, and they'll have to live with the consequences of their actions.

Well, I think I need to state my bias at the outset; when I first started with Phil, back in early '76, I was right up front with him about wanting to be the informal archivist of his creative process. Nothing more, nothing less; what I wanted to do - and then did for decades - was simply collect, record, and store the data being generated every Thursday night. The 'custom of the house' was that every time Phil did a map or drawing, I'd make a copy and he'd keep the original. Phil was a very disorganized 'housekeeper', and after a while I would up running two sets of records in parallel. For all intents and purposes, I was the 'back-up copy'. That's it; that's all. And that's what I did.

After he passed away, I was able to make a full and complete copy of all of his files, both paper and electronic. I filled in the gaps in his collection from mine, and mine from his; I also got help from Tekumel fans from all over the world, who contributed bits of their own that they'd found over the years. At this point, what I'd consider 'the crown jewels' would be:

- The 1950s 'proto-Tekumel' materials: The maps, documents, house rules, and artwork from Phil's high school and college games. These include his fannish materials, as well as the unfinished (and lost for decades until I found it) first Tekumel novel.

- The 12-13 chapters of "Beside The Dark Pool of Memory". his last and unfinished Tekumel novel.

- His childhood toy soldiers. We did a complete photo inventory of these, as well as making copies of the photos of his childhood games that his dad took.

- The bitmaps of his fonts for his languages. A lot of these were never published.

- His artwork. One could do a coffee-table book of his artwork.

- The audio tapes. Several of the original players in our group did a series of recorded interviews with him in the late 1980s, on all sorts of Tekumel-related subjects. These tapes have never been published, and have been sitting in my files for decades unheard. We also have tapes of game sessions with him.

What did surprise me about going through his files was that there was not a lot of 'new' material - by which I mean, 'new' to me. A lot of it would be new to people, especially now that most of our old publications are no longer available. Could it be published sooner, rather then later? Sure, if somebody put the effort into it.