Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by Bren

Makes arresting people once you've caught them much easier since you are obviously official. Might make catching them harder....kind of a win/win I'd say.

Yeah, I'd agree about that!

The arena is quite popular. Pretty much like Rome.

Until I was high enough level to leave the foreigners' quarter I fought a lot there. It was a good way to make some quick money, especially by betting on other PCs. After I won too many fights the odds were too poor to make any money on bets. That's about when I joined the Army. If I'm going to have people trying to kill me, I might as well do it with stout comrades on either side.

Originally Posted by Greentongue

Experience points...
From your descriptions of game play you often talked your way out of situations.
How was experience points determined then?
The printed rule specify looting and killing. Even so much as "the killing blow".
Was experience based on "value of service rendered" more often then just killing and looting?

I don't know. We never really counted experience points in my time with Phil. We just got on with the job and got it done, and we'd get promotions and stuff like that.

Sorry. We just didn't play that way.

Originally Posted by Greentongue

Experience points...
From your descriptions of game play you often talked your way out of situations.
How was experience points determined then?
The printed rule specify looting and killing. Even so much as "the killing blow".
Was experience based on "value of service rendered" more often then just killing and looting?

In the early phase, "you are a barbarian outcast who lives in a ghetto and robs tombs for ornaments to sell to collectors," pretty strictly.

By the time our command of the language was good enough to talk our way out of anything, experience points were in the "not applicable" column. I think Phil stopped worrying about it around the second Qadarni duel with my first cohort as Kasi.

Originally Posted by Greentongue

Hirilakte arena...
Is this the Tsolyani version of Sunday Night Football?
Is it every day?
Are there crowds?
How popular is it to watch or fight in?
=

Yep. Hugely popular. You get everything from 'guest fighting teams' to comedy acts in between bouts by the fighters. A special treat was a duel between sorcerers, which is where Phil's neat little board game "War of Wizards" comes from.

You make your money on seat cushions and food and beverage, and running the betting windows.

And like the man says, it's a good way for low-level people to make money and get a reputation.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Yep. Hugely popular. You get everything from 'guest fighting teams' to comedy acts in between bouts by the fighters. A special treat was a duel between sorcerers, which is where Phil's neat little board game "War of Wizards" comes from.

Did that game include wizards putting up walls of stone or moving walls to crush each other?

Just used Google to find it. I had totally forgotten that game. My buddy the game collector had a copy. We played it a few times. Wow I had totally forgotten that.

Originally Posted by Bren

Did that game include wizards putting up walls of stone or moving walls to crush each other?

Just used Google to find it. I had totally forgotten that game. My buddy the game collector had a copy. We played it a few times. Wow I had totally forgotten that.

Yes, I think so. It has all sorts of very powerful and very visually impressive spells in the game, and it is the foundation stone of all the later magic systems in the various RPG rules sets. Spells move toward the opponent, and they get to cast counter spells to try and stop the attacks. It gets tense pretty quickly, and you have to be alert and decisive; otherwise, you get dead and the betting is wonderful.

I built a miniatures set for this game, with sorcerers and spell effects all done up in 25mm. Nobody's interested in playing it, though - the game is "too old fashioned" for people, I've been told. Might want to do it with suitable action figures and LED lights and stuff on a really big board...

One thing that might help is to re-approach the questions from a different direction. A lot of life on Tekumel pivots around the question "Do you look like you belong here?"

For instance, if Moxie and Pepsi hi Dingleberry of the Clan of Odiferous Sewer Scrapers go to the workshop of the Clan of Pooper Scooper Artificiers and pick up a dozen Super Duper Pooper Scoopers, nobody will bat an eye. Moxie doesn't even need a "chit;" he just signs the journal book, which at the end of the month is sent to the clan house. If it's a proper purchase nobody will bat an eye.

If a young nobleman and a couple of friends show up, dressed well from a high clan, the Pooper Scooper shopkeeper will get worried; these young blades are out to raise a little hell, and the low status clan will have little they can do. Claims for shamtla will be met by a pittance; broken shovels and broken noses among the lowly are of little concern to the high clan lords.

If I show up at the shovel shop dressed in full Imperial General garb complete with helmet, breastplate, greaves, hemi-demi-semi informal early late midafternoon hip cloak, battle spats, and jeweled eye-shields,* the shopkeeper is going to think I'm lost and courteously attempt to give me directions back to the military district.

In general, if I have legion business, I'll be dressed in my legion armor; if I'm on clan business I may well wear civilian clothes with my clan emblem, or possibly light parade armor if the clan business involves anything to do with my legion, but I will have clan emblems visible; if I'm visiting the temple of Karakan I'll wear my armor but with the epaulets engraved with symbols of Karakan and my forearms bare to show my ceremonial scars. Et cetera.

Think of it in terms of "Does this person look like they belong here." Tsolyani society is very much about "fitting in." That which looks out of place will be viewed with suspicion, whether a ragged, filthy bumpkin in one of the rich parts of town, or a person of obvious wealth and power wandering the streets of the Foreigners' Quarter.

*10 XP to the first person (besides Chirine) who identifies the reference without looking it up.

Also, one BIG difference between EPT and D&D is that in D&D, "dungeon adventurers" are bold, daring types who dare great danger to go after legendary riches... "King Solomon's Mines" sort of thing. In EPT, at least in the "Underworld" in settled areas like Jakalla's "City of the Dead," you're a bloody body snatcher robbing tombs for trinkets to sell. Rather like the people who did, and regrettably sometimes still do, plunder tombs and pyramids in Egypt. And whereas in D&D a dungeon explorer is considered "successful" due to their wealth, in Jakalla you are considered a criminal, if anybody knows.

Of course Tekumel has plenty of forgotten places too; finding a cache of gold... or iron bars... in some ancient, long forgotten, and, most importantly, not entered into the Imperial land office place is considered suitably bold and adventurous. The Chakas seem to be full of that sort of stuff, and it's not a bad place for the young and bold to get some experience and some wealth, provided you don't get dead instead.