Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Please feel to ask more questions, too!

Sure! One review about a newer version of Tekumel wrote about that the magic in the setting/system was difficult to grasp, or perhaps it was an editing fault.

What was your impression about spells and rituals in Tekumel, specifically the division between divine magic and arcane magic?

Oh, not a question, but an observation. It must be because of a system and marketing thing that the gameplay has diverged from long term having fun to "must-collect-all-the-levels". My first introduction to RPGs was through the ever-popular Red-Box. By reading it here in Finland, where we didn't have any DMs then, the impression I got was vastly different from your and OGs experiences.

This must have been the same world-over. Consequently when people started creating their own games, their style differed very much from the intended.



You mentioned that you 'leveled' only through roleplaying your character's advancement.

How did those 'levels' affected your characters mechanically, if in any way?

Originally Posted by Moracai

Sure! One review about a newer version of Tekumel wrote about that the magic in the setting/system was difficult to grasp, or perhaps it was an editing fault.

What was your impression about spells and rituals in Tekumel, specifically the division between divine magic and arcane magic?

Let's hear from my leaden alter ego, eh?

"Well, let's see; I should mention at the start that I am a Tenth Circle Military Sorcerer of the Temple of Vimuhla, Lord of Flame and War. I was rolled up in early 1976, using EPT as the rules. In EPT, I am off the charts as these only go to Ninth Circle - I got the impression that the Professor didn't expect any of us to live long enough to go any higher."

"I hate to be the one to have to say this, but there is none of what you'd call 'magic' on Tekumel. There is no divine or arcane magic; it's all technology of the Ancients. When I 'cast a spell', I reach through the Skin of Reality to tap the energies of the Planes Beyond; what I do with my vocables and gestures, glyphs and incense, etc., or with my concentrations is to replicate the 'circuit boards' of the Ancient technology that is used in devices like the Eyes or the tubeway cars."

"Likewise, 'summoning a demon' is nothing like what the mages of your world try to do; in my world, I reach through the Planes of Reality to contact other beings, and bring them to my bubble universe to get something done. I myself, for example, regularly got 'summoned as a demon' to the odd world of Blackmoor by the Elven mages I knew in order to get things done for them. (I wish they'd called first; I was in the bathtub.)"

"When I use my skills, I serve as the 'software' / 'hardware' / 'wetware' for using the energies I draw upon. Eyes do the very same thing, but in a much more handy form for non-priests."

Right, then. I'll let you in on one of The Big Secrets Of The Game Industry: Tekumel, at least as practiced by one Firu ba Yeker / M. A. R. Barker, is not a 'fantasy role-playing game'. It's a game setting in a 'Sword and Planet Romance' universe, and the technology is what is doing all the work. No divine (the 'gods' are simply more advanced beings then we are), no arcane, no Vancian magic - it's all Sir Arthur's Third Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." The Lords of Humanspace were absolute masters of energy and matter, and could control anything.

The 'magic' description in EPT came from Gary, who felt that the gamers of the time (1975) would not be able to deal with a 'pure' SF RPG; he felt that calling it 'magic' would make it more accessible to the gamer audience. In effect, EPT paved the way for Metamorphosis Alpha at TSR. (Likewise, Gary asked that the Stability/Change thing be changed to Good/Evil, as he thought that the former was going to be too subtle for gamers to handle.)

When technic civilization on Tekumel collapsed, the various sages figured out ways to continue to tap other-planar energy through rituals and such; simpler 'spells' are those called 'psychic', and can be done by simply thinking about them; more elaborate ones are 'ritual', because you need to have 'ingredients' to make them work.

As a military sorcerer, I was unique amongst Phil's players - I have a very limited spell corpora. I do not have many of the usual spells that most players have. On the other hand, I do have what would have been the 'M series' spells in S&G if Phil had included them - the very powerful battlefield spells that mean that I am a pretty potent weapon in a one person package. It also means that I am a very high-value target for foes, and I tend to attract a lot of incoming attention. Hence the steel armor, which is a weapon in it's own right.

As a player-character, I am actually pretty useless in most adventuring parties. In effect, I am what I think is called a 'tank' in the RPG setting, and I am pretty good at melee combat. Give me a little fighting room, and some energy to manipulate, and I can do some pretty Big Things...

Does this help, or have I made things worse?

Originally Posted by Moracai

Oh, not a question, but an observation. It must be because of a system and marketing thing that the gameplay has diverged from long term having fun to "must-collect-all-the-levels". My first introduction to RPGs was through the ever-popular Red-Box. By reading it here in Finland, where we didn't have any DMs then, the impression I got was vastly different from your and OGs experiences.

This must have been the same world-over. Consequently when people started creating their own games, their style differed very much from the intended.

I would agree with this. It's like the way GW marketed their "Warhammer" game series. Businesses are in business to stay in business; in the industry, you do this by selling rules and accessories to people. See also Gary's famous comment: "We have to keep the players from finding out that they don't need the rules..."

Originally Posted by Moracai

You mentioned that you 'leveled' only through roleplaying your character's advancement.

How did those 'levels' affected your characters mechanically, if in any way?

I should note that I'm breaking these answers up into separate posts to make them a little easier to answer...

After about the first year of play, once we'd gotten away from the Jakalla Underworld 'dungeon crawls', Phil stopped handing out XP; he didn't like doing the book-keeping in a really big way, as he felt that it got in the way of the plot lines. We'd have to keep track of the numbers ourselves, and Phil expected us to be fair about it.

When we'd do something noble and heroic, getting a job done for the Imperium or somebody with pull, we'd get a promotion and some rewards. We could then spend the money on a tutor or something similar, with the idea that we could then 'go up a level'; Phil would have us deduct the costs of the 'classroom work' from our piles of loot, and then we'd have to go back into the rules and do the number-crunching to get the game mechanics taken care of.

(In the game group, this was a handy way to allow for people to drop in and out over time; if you had to take a leave of absence, you were assumed to be off at the Temple academy learning some new spells, or in the army doing a tour of duty with the troops. When you got back, Phil would tell you you'd gone up a level and do the math.)

So, basically we'd work on our skills when we could, and add them up after a couple of months in the game. As an example of this, I taught classes in specialized melee combat to some of the PCs while we were on our various sea journeys - there wasn't much else to do except watch the ocean go by - and so several PCs picked up levels in 'mace' and 'dagger' along the way.

Once we'd done the number-crunching, we'd get on with the adventure. It seemed to have worked fine for us.

Again, am I helping or confusing?

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Let's hear from my leaden alter ego, eh?

"Well, let's see; I should mention at the start that I am a Tenth Circle Military Sorcerer of the Temple of Vimuhla, Lord of Flame and War. I was rolled up in early 1976, using EPT as the rules. In EPT, I am off the charts as these only go to Ninth Circle - I got the impression that the Professor didn't expect any of us to live long enough to go any higher."

"I hate to be the one to have to say this, but there is none of what you'd call 'magic' on Tekumel. There is no divine or arcane magic; it's all technology of the Ancients. When I 'cast a spell', I reach through the Skin of Reality to tap the energies of the Planes Beyond; what I do with my vocables and gestures, glyphs and incense, etc., or with my concentrations is to replicate the 'circuit boards' of the Ancient technology that is used in devices like the Eyes or the tubeway cars."

"Likewise, 'summoning a demon' is nothing like what the mages of your world try to do; in my world, I reach through the Planes of Reality to contact other beings, and bring them to my bubble universe to get something done. I myself, for example, regularly got 'summoned as a demon' to the odd world of Blackmoor by the Elven mages I knew in order to get things done for them. (I wish they'd called first; I was in the bathtub.)"

"When I use my skills, I serve as the 'software' / 'hardware' / 'wetware' for using the energies I draw upon. Eyes do the very same thing, but in a much more handy form for non-priests."

Right, then. I'll let you in on one of The Big Secrets Of The Game Industry: Tekumel, at least as practiced by one Firu ba Yeker / M. A. R. Barker, is not a 'fantasy role-playing game'. It's a game setting in a 'Sword and Planet Romance' universe, and the technology is what is doing all the work. No divine (the 'gods' are simply more advanced beings then we are), no arcane, no Vancian magic - it's all Sir Arthur's Third Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." The Lords of Humanspace were absolute masters of energy and matter, and could control anything.

The 'magic' description in EPT came from Gary, who felt that the gamers of the time (1975) would not be able to deal with a 'pure' SF RPG; he felt that calling it 'magic' would make it more accessible to the gamer audience. In effect, EPT paved the way for Metamorphosis Alpha at TSR. (Likewise, Gary asked that the Stability/Change thing be changed to Good/Evil, as he thought that the former was going to be too subtle for gamers to handle.)

When technic civilization on Tekumel collapsed, the various sages figured out ways to continue to tap other-planar energy through rituals and such; simpler 'spells' are those called 'psychic', and can be done by simply thinking about them; more elaborate ones are 'ritual', because you need to have 'ingredients' to make them work.

As a military sorcerer, I was unique amongst Phil's players - I have a very limited spell corpora. I do not have many of the usual spells that most players have. On the other hand, I do have what would have been the 'M series' spells in S&G if Phil had included them - the very powerful battlefield spells that mean that I am a pretty potent weapon in a one person package. It also means that I am a very high-value target for foes, and I tend to attract a lot of incoming attention. Hence the steel armor, which is a weapon in it's own right.

As a player-character, I am actually pretty useless in most adventuring parties. In effect, I am what I think is called a 'tank' in the RPG setting, and I am pretty good at melee combat. Give me a little fighting room, and some energy to manipulate, and I can do some pretty Big Things...

Does this help, or have I made things worse?

Well then. All of that is pretty awesome sounding.

Originally Posted by econobus

Love it. The assumption matches what I've seen and the sense of his style matches what I've been able to reconstruct over the years. If there had been a grand ur-setting in a filing cabinet somewhere, it would have been published. As for style, a jazz metaphor comes to mind in which the only part of the number that can be easily replicated is actually very vestigial, but the improvised solo -- the performance, the "jamming" -- is a unique interaction among all parties.

A little different from playing in a cover band.



Happy to take it to PM or even something more civilized. I came out of the wilds of Atenveldt so have no dog in any fights. It's just interesting to me why a "Middle Rite" never evolved up there, speaking of searches for rules-based legitimacy, etc. Thank you already.

1. Very much so - this a really good way to describe the way Dave played and GM'd.

2. Yeah. The Middle Kingdom was, at least in my time, too geographically spread out to be a viable political entity. The kingdom's focus was always to the east, due to travel times more then anything else. Anything west or north of Chicago was in effect cut off from the center of things in the kingdom which is one of the reasons that Northshield was being mooted about as early as 1977. It was more like Italy in the 1400s, then anything else, with the north being the center of things and the south and Sicily being more or less ignored.

Originally Posted by AxesnOrcs

Well then. All of that is pretty awesome sounding.

Thank you! I hope I'm helping, here.

This is, I think, why Tekumel is a difficult thing for people to get their heads around - "impenetrable", as one reviewer described it.

We all came out of F/SF fandom at the time, and we 'got' the many references that Phil included in his world - the Grey Lensmen, Barsoom, Conan, and the Lovecraftian mythos. Phil had been very active in fandom in the 1940s and 1950s, and it really showed.

Have a look at "A Princess of Mars"; I think you'll see some fun stuff...

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

"I hate to be the one to have to say this, but there is none of what you'd call 'magic' on Tekumel. There is no divine or arcane magic; it's all technology of the Ancients.

I could have sworn that was in the original TSR EPT rules. I know we knew that back in the 1970s and we had to have learned it from somewhere. As far as I know, none of us played with the Minneapolis or Wisconsin crowds.

The three oddities about EPT to my recollection were (1) essentially no metal, armor and weapons made of that weird hardened chlen hide stuff, (2) no riding beasts in the major Empires, and (3) magic was really tech with the weird eyes and subway cars and stuff. Definitely swords and planets or like a lot of Andre Norton's or Leigh Brackett's stories.