Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

What fun! Lovely website - I'll give it a try and see what I can come up with.

Wandering through earlier parts of this thread and discussions of mid 20th century SF "hi tech...."

So, when the Burthoi fire up their house-size Babbage engine hyperdrive calculating engines with hair-fine rollers spinning in air bearings...

... you can tell when the calculations are done from the high pitched "Fweeeeeeee....." noise the air bearings make as all the rollers align.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Wandering through earlier parts of this thread and discussions of mid 20th century SF "hi tech...."

So, when the Burthoi fire up their house-size Babbage engine hyperdrive calculating engines with hair-fine rollers spinning in air bearings...

... you can tell when the calculations are done from the high pitched "Fweeeeeeee....." noise the air bearings make as all the rollers align.

Ah, sigh; those were the days, back when we would whip up entire civilizations to give us and excuse to use cool miniatures - what were we using for the Burthoi? I know that they were McEwan 'Starguard/Orilla" figures, but for the life of me I can't remember that he called them, the little teddy bears. They weren't intended for Fuzzies - Archive did those - and I think they are in "Orilla". This would have been back about the time of the "Little Fuzzy" scandal, which is why it sticks in my memory.

Which also brings to mind the 'future technology' of H. Beam Piper; some of it is still very advanced, and some of it is quite dated. Still good stories, though...

Originally Posted by Greentongue

I am constantly surprised by my players.
While I think at least one has, and is playing in multiple games, the things they do bring to question if they have ever played before.
Maybe they have just never played in a sandbox style game where what they do causes impact in the world.
=

Um, yes, I'd agree with this. I saw it in my own campaigns over the years, where players would bring a 'D&D mentality' to the table - they would have trouble understanding that this was a long-term meta-campaign, and that their particular game group's session were one among several 'adventures' all happening at once. 'Other games' just didn't seem to have any reality for them, at least not until they and one of the other groups happened to be in the same point in space-time and we'd hold a large joint game session. Quite a few had the same outlook for the NPCs as well, to be fair.

In Phil's Tekumel, at least in the time when Gronan and I had with him, actions on our part had a very direct and immediate effect on the world that we moved around in and interacted with. Phil was very much an 'open sandbox' GM - and he made it very clear, on multiple occasions, that we were part of his 'meta-campaign' and thus kind of small fish in a very large pond. We were successful as players and as PCs because we understood how the world worked, and played accordingly.

I still run things the same way, myself; the meta-campaign continues, waiting for the next party of players to arrive...

I've seen the same attitude. It crashes badly with my Refereeingredients style, so I warn the players about this.
If the warningremains unheeded, I'm more than ready to watch the character sheets piling up in my feet!

Originally Posted by AsenRG

I've seen the same attitude. It crashes badly with my Refereeingredients style, so I warn the players about this.
If the warningremains unheeded, I'm more than ready to watch the character sheets piling up in my feet!

Agreed. I've been doing a lot of 'market research' at the FLGS - observing what's being played of a Saturday afternoon - and what seems to be the big seller (besides CCGs, of course) are what look to me like 'pre-programmed' adventures; what we used to call 'modules', from my point of view. Within those adventuers, there's not a lot of interaction with the world-setting; lots of targets on the firing range to shoot up for the XP, but not what I'm used to for what I'd call 'depth' in the NPCs. Lots of people having a good time, from the looks of it, just not a gaming style that I like to work within.

Try not to be unhappy, my General, but Star Wars miniature spaceships are now going for 75% off at the FLGS. The game is now pretty much out of the store, as I gather that it had a first pulse of sales and then very low turnover. Still on the shelves at FFG, as you might expect.

X-wings we'd have given our left arm for, going for $3.75. I was very sorely tempted, just for old times' sake. Bought the new TRE quinquereme instead. The Forge of Ice 'Sleazy Merchant And Sleepy Guards' set is in, and shipping. It's going to be a good month, I think...

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Try not to be unhappy, my General, but Star Wars miniature spaceships are now going for 75% off at the FLGS. The game is now pretty much out of the store, as I gather that it had a first pulse of sales and then very low turnover. Still on the shelves at FFG, as you might expect.

X-wings we'd have given our left arm for, going for $3.75. I was very sorely tempted, just for old times' sake. Bought the new TRE quinquereme instead. The Forge of Ice 'Sleazy Merchant And Sleepy Guards' set is in, and shipping. It's going to be a good month, I think...

Hmmmm. The basic game minus the later stuff is still excellent.

....am I still daft enough to start amassing huge amounts of beadboard packing shapes?....