Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by Greentongue

I guess this is the thing that gets to me. It is first and foremost a Game Setting and yet people treat it as an Actual Real Place.
So much angst and vitriol over the "Real Tekumel" and against not sticking to the "facts" of the setting.

It is good to hear that someone who played in the original games doesn't feel that, not slavishly following what has been documented, is some kind of horrific slander.

I feel there is so much potential to go off on a unique "branch of the tree" and have fun.
It is a pity that there is such trepidation of scorn, if that is done.
That somehow, it is a desecration.
=

It gets to me, too. Phil was pretty clear, over the years, that 'real Tekumel' was the space where he was writing his novels about the place. What happened in his basement of an evening was not. He liked it have a fun time, hearkening back to his childhood with people like Conan the Cimmerian and John Carter of Virginia.

The 'Tekumel is a real place' stuff got started by some people who need to be IMPORTANT - "Barker's Own", as they are called. People who tell you that you can't read Phil's texts and make up your own mind - you have to have it all 'properly interpreted' for you to 'properly understand Tekumel'.

I believe that's a load of chlen poop. I run what many people think is a 'canon' campaign. No. What I do is use all the mass of information that Phil left us about his creation, and then I use that to run games that people enjoy. Just like I do with my Barsoom, Ancient Egyptian, or Pirate settings. Is Lord Meren 'canon'? I don't know; I don't worry about it, and get on with investigating who's made off with the Queen's jewels.

And I do get crap for this attitude, in the tiny little hothouse world of 'main****** Tekumel fandom'. The same people who told me that my book about our adventures is AWFUL because "it makes Tekumel sound like fun". Not enough 'grimdark' and 'realism'. Well, tough; our games with Phil had some truly scary and terrible moments - we had adventures. And generally, we had fun.

"Here's my Tekumel; now, make it your own." - M. A. R. Barker

Originally Posted by Baron

Well, for 99% of the gaming world, what "gaming in Tekumel" means comes from the published works. EPT postulates new characters gaming as FQ residents for three levels. Ergo, this scenario must be 'playable' for the majority of folks. How the author gamed at his table, what anyone experienced at that table, and how everyone who plays actually chooses to play, is all entirely variable. I won't be playing an unplayable starving disease-ridden Untouchable lying in a cesspool of feces and urine for even one session, let alone three levels. Also I find it hard to believe that Low, Medium and High social status foreigners will be staying in resthouses in such a FQ. Sounds more like an international incident waiting to happen, to me. See Barry Blatt's 'These Mean Streets' if it's difficult to imagine playing in a playable poor, lower class slum of foreigners. But in any case, please note that I'm repeating the same phrase everyone else is, that we play games however we choose to. Again Gronan, sorry that you didn't enjoy your experience.

Agreed; that's because well over three-quarters of the published works are out of print, not on line, and not available to people. The vast majority of what's been published for Tekumel over the past decades presents, in my opinion, a very different picture of Phil's Tekumel then what's being touted as 'canon' these days. What we did back in the day was very different then what you can see today, and I think Phil's Tekumel suffers greatly for this.

The Tekumel we lived in was, from what I can see, a very different place then what most people think it is. Which I think is too bad; it was fun, scary, and exciting. I've noticed that when I run 'our Tekumel' for people, they tend to like it; to quote entirely too many people that I've talked to over too many years, "I wish I'd met you first!" I happen to love Phil's Tekumel, and possibly it's biggest fan. Which is why this thread exists, really, to tell you about the Tekumel I knew and love and the man who created it.

Hey Chirine/Gronan:

Barry Blatt's 'These Mean Streets'
Is this thing accurate, either to the Tekumel in BookSpace or the Tekumel at Phil's table?

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

I've read Thieves' World. Though you could play the foreigner's quarters like that... it's your game... that was not how Phil pictured or described it. The Foreigner's Quarter was a shit hole that any sentient creature could not wait to get out of. "Ruling" the foreigner's quarters would be like being "king of the shit eaters." You're still a shit eater.

Really, foreigners were "untouchables." The Empire didn't care what they did there because they were non-persons. And there was no money there.

Don't think of Sanctuary, think of the God damned "black hole of Calcutta" and you're closer to the mark. There was nothing "exotic" or "adventurous" or "edgy" about the foreigner's quarter; it was a festering dung heap.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

May I offer an opinion?

I came in right when Gronan finally got something nice, and we didn't play in the FQ at all after that; all of us had gone up enough in 'level' - and I started at third, BTW - so that we didn't go there any more; place- and job-seekers came to us.

Gronan's 'Calcutta' comment is entirely accurate, in Phil's case; Phil used his time in the similar very slums of South Asia for the basis of his version of the FQ. And, in my opinion, while it's 'historically accurate' and 'canon' to run it that way - and I kinda puke whenever I hear the word 'canon' - it's also not very 'playable' or 'gameable' unless you happen to be Phil with his rich lifetime of experiences with the seamier sides of life in the Third World. Which may be why he didn't use it again as a setting, after the first couple of years of gaming; I dunno.

Would I use "Thieves' World"? Maybe, if that's what the players wanted and/or expected. Normally, I'd do what Phil did after he'd gotten a few years of DMing under his belt and start people in the society with bit of connection and status. Yes, still low level, but socially acceptable. Do what you need to do for your game - in the end, that's what really matters.

And as for what those folks were like, read Fine's book. The first few years of Phil's campaign was very different from the next decade, once we spilt off into our own group. Had a much nicer time, too; Gronan is being very diplomatic...

Originally Posted by Greentongue

I guess this is the thing that gets to me. It is first and foremost a Game Setting and yet people treat it as an Actual Real Place.
So much angst and vitriol over the "Real Tekumel" and against not sticking to the "facts" of the setting.

I do both. In fact, I treat all settings as "real places"...but they're only "real places" if the guy who is running the game brings you there.
The best another GM can do is get you to a similarly-looking "real place".
Think about GMs as Amberites and different campaigns as Shadows, and you'd have my point of view.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

There is a long sliding scale with "D&D with different monsters" on one end, and "exact duplicate of Phil's Tekumel" on the other. Position the slider where you will.

In a word, this.

Originally Posted by Hermes Serpent

I see an interesting discrepancy between players of games in Tekumel in the US and the UK (and maybe Europe). In the Uk we still have a very much class based society and our media is full of examples of the rich posh boys doing unspeakable things to poor people. The society is the US is very different and has none of the class based issues. The US issues normally revolve around not being white more than being poor with non-whites generally being at the poor end of the scale as well. In my view this makes it a lot harder for US players to accept the FQ than UK (and European) players who generally have more cultural exposure to status as class.

Phil's exposure to Eastern cultures make him exceptional as an US RPG author and indeed as a US citizen most of whom rarely travel beyond their own borders. His use of this exposure to make him game far more out there than anything else has tended to push Tekumel to the fringes of gaming as most of his potential audience cannot identify with the situations he places them in and don't enjoy it even if they try.

You are on to something. As an example, none of the Bulgarian players I've bothered to introduce to Tekumel has had any problems getting it. It was clear to all of us that the game is becoming part of the elite - only then can you enact any changes, if you still feel like it!
Flashing Blades was equally simple to grasp for this very reason, too.

In contrast, US players were telling on another forum how they'd feel compelled to head a slave revolt, or something equally stupid and destructive. Admittedly, that was their reason for not wanting to play in Tekumel, so they might have been overstating it!

Well, my first thought is "why are you playing Tekumel?" If you want to play in Sanctuary, why not play in Sanctuary? If you want to play in Lankhmar, why not play in Lankhmar?

This has nothing to do with "Tekumel purity" and everything to do with "using a tool in the way it was designed." You could play PENDRAGON as a game of looting dungeons and mugging kobolds, sure, but why on EARTH would you? Not that it's "wrong" or "bad," but it to me would be like driving nails with a screwdriver.

Phil wrote EPT as a game of "fitting in to society." If you don't want to play a game of fitting into society, why are you playing it?

Form follows function.

"Forms follow function, Haldeman, and sometimes obliterate it completely. This is the iron law of bureaucracy."

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Well, my first thought is "why are you playing Tekumel?" If you want to play in Sanctuary, why not play in Sanctuary? If you want to play in Lankhmar, why not play in Lankhmar?

This has nothing to do with "Tekumel purity" and everything to do with "using a tool in the way it was designed." You could play PENDRAGON as a game of looting dungeons and mugging kobolds, sure, but why on EARTH would you? Not that it's "wrong" or "bad," but it to me would be like driving nails with a screwdriver.

Phil wrote EPT as a game of "fitting in to society." If you don't want to play a game of fitting into society, why are you playing it?

Form follows function.

"Forms follow function, Haldeman, and sometimes obliterate it completely. This is the iron law of bureaucracy."

I shall use that quote in a game.

Originally Posted by CRKrueger

Hey Chirine/Gronan:

Barry Blatt's 'These Mean Streets'
Is this thing accurate, either to the Tekumel in BookSpace or the Tekumel at Phil's table?

Honestly, tl;dr. I skimmed about half of it.

However, nobody with any status would be content in staying in the foreigners' quarter any longer than they had to. Think of Blackthorne's crew in SHOGUN staying in the Ita district as opposed to Blackthorne's reaction.

Of course, I didn't really like "Thieves' World" all that well either, so maybe I'm not the intended audience. But honestly this seems to me like playing PENDRAGON and deciding you want to be King of the Beggars. There are other games that work better for that.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Well, my first thought is "why are you playing Tekumel?" If you want to play in Sanctuary, why not play in Sanctuary? If you want to play in Lankhmar, why not play in Lankhmar?

This has nothing to do with "Tekumel purity" and everything to do with "using a tool in the way it was designed." You could play PENDRAGON as a game of looting dungeons and mugging kobolds, sure, but why on EARTH would you? Not that it's "wrong" or "bad," but it to me would be like driving nails with a screwdriver.

Phil wrote EPT as a game of "fitting in to society." If you don't want to play a game of fitting into society, why are you playing it?

Form follows function.

"Forms follow function, Haldeman, and sometimes obliterate it completely. This is the iron law of bureaucracy."

That is about the most effective argument I've ever seen to discourage people from even looking at Tekumel. Congrats.

I never said people who want to play in Sanctuary should play characters in Jakalla's FQ. I said that playing characters in the FQ should be just that, playable. And pointed to the fact that EPT is written specifically so that every PC will. So it's your responsibility to run it in a playable fashion. If you want to play a GAME, which is supposed to be a fun thing.

Then I tried to come up with a couple of examples of playing characters in lower class slums. It can certainly be made to be an enjoyable challenge. There's no reason to make the players get disgusted and quit. In any game, in any setting. Such beginnings can be a step in any future hero's journey to greatness. You were disgusted. Sorry 'bout that, but not my fault, and I'm certainly not obliged to do the same to my players.

Now, because I can imagine, play and run games in such a setting, doesn't mean I'm not interested in playing in Tekumel. Is Tekumel gaming ABOUT fitting into a society? In some respect, any role-playing game will have a setting for the characters to strut and fret their hour upon the stage. But it doesn't have to be the focus of play; that choice is for my players and I to make. Becoming more powerful seems to be the most common motivation for characters. And as a foreign visitor to a strange land, working my way up to being able to leave the FQ is a good short-term goal.

So I don't see a problem. I don't even see how it's an issue. And I'll bring up this anecdotal thing again. Maybe I run with more mature players (although many of them are young people). But I've never yet, in 40 years, had a player not understand a situation like "You're looked down upon, it's up to you to put up with it and become mighty." I don't think you need to be a non-American to get it.

But game on. Let's hear more stories about gaming at Phil's table, and less about what won't work or won't fit. OK?