Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Well, the idea is that we could host people for a weekend's worth of gaming and fun some weekend. There are a number of 'micro-cons' that exist; we had one a few years back here at the house, when we had a house full of guests over a very fun weekend. My wonderful Missus has said she'd be happy to have something like this happen - once we get Fifth Daughter unpacked, of course! The game room and lounge are always set up to receive visitors; the Missus has allowed me to have half her basement for these, and an additional quarter of the basement for the actual 'Chirine's Workbench'. My home office would also be open, as would the kitchen for light refreshments.

We have a small motel a couple of blocks away, and more lodging south of the airport - we live just north of the main airport, and the infamous Mall of America is about fifteen minutes away. So, plenty of places to stay, and things for the non-gamers in the family to do. Shuttles to and from the airport as needed.

What we are doing is leaving it up to folks to figure out what time frame they'd like to do this in, and a possible weekend to do it. I need about thirty days advance notice to get any time off of work, so that's a factor. Talk amongst yourselves, pick a date, and let me know. The Missus can put the kettle on, or do iced teas, depending on the season.

Serously; work some thing out, folks, and we'll host it.

Yep, I'm definitely down with this if we can make it happen. That sounds like a wonderful experience. and I'm pretty free as well, I live a sadly uneventful life, so 30 days notice should be no problem, throw some days people! As long as it's not Gen Con, this is an easy one for me. The Twin Cities are only a 3 hour drive or so for me, so I'm not even that worried about needing time off.

Brett Slocum runs this each year, ... So, we'll see. I will be there this year, all weekend, as I'm supplying the Skyline display and laptop that Bill Hoyt is using for his 'History of RPGs in the Twin Cities" display in the lobby. If you do wind up coming to the con, drop by and we can run off to the house so you can see what all the fuss is about. One of the big problems with my doing convention shows is the sheer volume of what I have; I have a cargo van (an Astro) with 64 cubic feet, and I can fill it up completely with game stuff for a show...

Excellent, thank you. I'm starting to seriously consider it, as long as I can finangle roommates and make sure the time off situation for Friday will work out with other planned excursions, but between a good Tekumel track and now this, I'm leaning towards doing what I can. The history of RPGs in the Twin Cities thing sounds pretty fascinating as well. And that's an impressive amount of con gaming stuff, no lie!

How wonderful! Let me know if you need any help!

This one I'll absolutely be taking you up on once things get in gear. Even if just some posts to this thread for ideas of some plot seeds to plant once I know what they'll be. So far I know one of them has interest in being a character who would be a specialist in Engsalyvani history, thankfully he's one of the ones already diving into the lore for fun, so he'll definitely be reading the PDF of such. He's currently waffling between Thumis or Ksarul (or a cohort of them), and will certainly be a priest. Either way, this one certainly gives me some plot seeds to work with. So I approve!

Do you mean the pictures I've posted on this thread? I didn't know that they went away after a while. If there's anything in particular that you're looking for, ask and I can see about reposting them, or you could look at my other photos on my Photobucket page - the link is in my signature block.

Yeah, either that or conversation was based on things recently added to the photobucket. I hadn't gotten to the blog or photos yet, pretty much because of this thread (I grow closer to the end!). I took a glance after seeing this post though, and saw the armor picture I was curious about.


Finally! Onto another question:

In the Ucon Conversations book, there was a point the Professor was talking about an Empire or Kingdom on the Southern Continent that used a weird magic system involving groups that each have a specific role. Something really different from the way the Five Empires do it. Did you, perchance, ever visit this place? Any any more you could elucidate about it?

Wonderful!

And here's a Geopolitical situation. What is the likely response to the Ssu starting to overwhelm Pechano (Let's hope not! I do like that place!) - if things were going bad enough, would Salarvyana, Yan Kor, or the Seal Imperium send troops to help stem the tide? Or all of the above? Would a big inimical threat be enough to lead to a form of temporary truce?

Where I'm up to now in the thread, there's been a lot of talk about revivitalizing Tekumel and drawing in new blood. And I really did want to give my own thoughts based on my own initial barriers, from the point of view of a later convert (2003-4ish - gaming since I was 10 or so in 1992) - not as a "one true way" solution, and definitely NOT a "do it chirine!" mind you, but just as a brain dump of thoughts knowing it's unlikely to ever officially happen:

I'll fully admit I'm a setting nerd. I dive into settings for fun, way more RPG books than I'll ever play because I enjoy reading fictional histories and cultures. So that definitely colors my ideas. But I also know there's a lot of gamers like me, and they're prime targets for Tekumel.

I'm not going to go in depth about what game rules would work. Frankly? I don't think rules is really the issue. Instead, I look to it as a setting and at all the barriers to learning about it, and most aren't the setting at all - us setting nerds are not afraid of funny words or lengthy reading lists, that's often the selling point! I was lucky back in late 2003 when I really started discovering it I could still get a lot of stuff from Titas (And honestly? Even back then I was concerned about shopping there, with no online storefront just email correspondance, thankfully he's an honest guy so it wasn't an issue, but I definitely hesitated for months before my first order), so I have many of the things that were published. Most people weren't.

For instance, when the Sourcebook got reprinted on Drivethru, there was actually a lot of buzz in Web circles I frequent about it. Until it was pointed out it was just a scan of the old version with super tiny font and hand drawn accent marks (and now that I know the story of that, it's even more sad!), which we could see on the Drivethru preview and then bam! Suddenly all sorts of people were going "Well, fuck that, my eyes can't take a small font" - and I do think it's probably a bit small for easy reading, especially on a tablet or phone. So, more lost sales.

So us setting nerds were still without an easy way to get Tekumel. Barriers. Availability, the format of what's out there, not knowing what to start with (The most common Tekumel thread I see on message boards is "where to start?"). so yeah, I think 'where to start' is the big one to address.

My view is a great, modern first step would be some form of a Quickstart Guide to Tekumel. A free "preview" sort of thing, 10-20 or so (depending on amount of art) pages of Setting and advice on why it's not so scary as it might appear. Wet the appetite, give people an idea of the wonder they'll get (not to mention something to hand to players). As awesome as it is, we don't need a large chunk on the history, don't overwhelm in any point. Again, wet the appetite, make sure people know there was something. If not for the cost of color art and printing, I'd even suggest pushing to make it a Free RPG Day handout, but that's probably out of the question unless done as a kickstarter or stretch goal for such. Though even an online file would be wonderful.

Maybe an outline something like:

1 page on history up to the Seal Imperium. Just enough to know these periods exist and had an effect on latter history, plus that there's more info out there. Focus on why each period was important, and give something to tickle interests. "Before - Distant future, terraformed, original inhabitants pushed aside, Humanspace lords big dicks" "Egsvan hla Ganga - Religion formalized." Etc.

1-2 Pages on religion - again, not much, basics of Pavar, names of the gods and cohorts, basics of their purviews, and I mean BASICS. This is the one place I'm not sure 1 page is enough, and could spill over - and that online because of listing out 20 gods and their domains (Sidebar?).

1 page or less on Modern History and situation.

1 page on the rest of the 5 Empires AND the world. this may or may not be combined with the above.

1 page on society, clans, etc.

And the rest of "How you can find ADVENTURE!" More advice focused, talk about influences like Barsoom and Sword and Sandals stuff. So like, this thread. Also, modern references. I keep seeing someone (was it Greentongue?) talking about anime being a good way to try and do Tekumel, and you know what? He's not wrong. There's no perfect anime to point to, HOWEVER, most anime fans are conciously or not already familiar with "Us" societies, and even how Heroes work therein. That's just a huge theme of so many Shounen stories like Bleach and Naruto. So honestly, just making those connections blatant would make the mindset a lot easier for people to grasp. They're also used to the concept of "enemy one day, ally the next."

I probably wouldn't even talk much about the non-human races, except mentioning the Ssu and Hlyss were the world's original inhabitants in the history. Otherwise? A page or two with a drawing of the "non humans you might encounter in the Imperium" and a short vignette about each. "A Mighty Shen!" "The Clever Tinalyia" "The diabolical Hlutgru" or whatever. Just a picture so you know what they look like and that. Again, appetite? Wet.

Oh, and at the start should be a pronunciation guide with the very straight up advice "It is pronounced exactly like it looks, don't be initmidated! Nor worry about getting it wrong."

Finally, and importantly, conclude with where to go for more information on the world or Rules to play yourself, cite Bethorm, Empire of the Petal Throne, the Sourcebook, Mitlanyal, the language guides, and other things on Drive Thru/RPGnow. And possibly have something about "stay tuned for a kickstart of an updated Sourcebook" (Yeah, I think a new layout, some color art, and the likes done through kickstart would be the way to go). BAM! A starting point, complete with guidance of where to go next based on what caught your interest and your gaming style preferences.

Maybe have a cute cover of an Ahoggya in a graduation cap looking all Scholarly in front of a chalk board. "You too can Tekumel!" (With the latter written on the board in English AND Tsolyani). Or not, and something more Epic.

A shame one of those other barriers would see this approach as being wrong.

So to bring this back around, I'm curious about a good way to get this rough effect for the incoming players I'm getting for my own game. The better and quicker the intro for them, the better for all! Because this is exactly what I'd love to have for my game. Because ultimately, you're all right. This isn't a hard game or setting to grasp! It's just getting it out there.

Originally Posted by Dulahan

So us setting nerds were still without an easy way to get Tekumel. Barriers. Availability, the format of what's out there, not knowing what to start with (The most common Tekumel thread I see on message boards is "where to start?"). so yeah, I think 'where to start' is the big one to address.

This is useful ... You, too, CAN run Empire of the Petal Throne
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