Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Yep. We may be of different faiths, and maybe political parties. I'm an Imperialist; the Glorious General may be from the Military Party - I never asked him, myself, as we were a little too busy most of the time trying to stay alive.

Actually I was also a proponent of the Imperial Party. Hence my reply to the Emperor when I got my first Gold of Glory... "My only wish is to be allowed to continue to serve the Petal Throne."

Originally Posted by AsenRG

Marketability is certainly important. Then again, you've mentioned that Tekumel never was a great commercial success, right?
Maybe dumbing it down isn't always the best idea.

$25 was BIG money in 1976. On the other hand those maps were indestructable. Ran into Terry Kuntz at GaryCon 2 years ago, he's STILL proud of those maps (he did the production design, including the fabric.)

Also, as far as "dumbing down," you ALSO have to remember that at this time Gary and Dave were being inundated by letters even this soon, asking for "explanations" and "clarifications" of such stuff as "how far does a dwarf move in armor."

By 1976 the stream of mail had turned into a flood. I think Gary and Dave were worried, with good reason, of having their flood of mail turned into a tsunami of letters about Tekumel.

Hel's bells, it took me years of weekly gaming to "get" some of this stuff.

Originally Posted by AsenRG

Marketability is certainly important. Then again, you've mentioned that Tekumel never was a great commercial success, right?
Maybe dumbing it down isn't always the best idea.

EPT was a very good commercial success; according to the Professor's royalty statements and a letter from Kevin Blume, the initial print run of 1,000 boxed sets sold out in three months - at $25 a copy, in 1975! - and TSR then did two more print runs of 5,000 copies each, 95% of which had sold out of stock by the end of the first quarter of 1976. (All remaining copies were sold to Gamescience.)

Unfortunately, this success was the beginnings of the problems that caused Prof. Barker and TSR to part ways. Phil thought he should be getting more money for all the work he was putting into promotion and marketing the product, and TSR had cash-flow issues over the royalty payments removing capital from the company. (This was also the root cause of the issues that Dave Arneson had with TSR, and which were fought out for about five years in a series of lawsuits.)

The IP went into what amounted to fan publication, and since there was no money for investment in things like new products, marketing, etc., the thing basically wilted.

See the post from Gronan on the thoughts of Gary and Dave; I think he's right, myself.

Originally Posted by Greentongue

From the answers that have been given, it doesn't seem to me to be any harder to run an EPT game than a standard D&D game, except for the players.

It seems much harder for players because it is a strange setting that they don't know every detail of to the nth degree.
They also have to re-orient their outlook from "ME" centered to "US" centered.
(I think using family name first would really help with this and I'm surprised that later editions didn't do it.)

Do you think it is especially hard to find and keep players for EPT these days?

Besides dealing with the expectations created by some people that it is an Exclusive Game,
what do you think is the hardest thing that new GMs have to deal with?
=

I think you're right; it isn't.

Paradoxically, people who don't have much RPG experience seem to have a much easier time getting into Tekumel as a world-setting. They seem to be a lot more open to new things, and they also seem to have a lot less to 'unlearn' then experience RPG players.

I don't have problems getting new players, assuming that I don't try to recruit 'gamers' to play. A friend's high school D&D group came over to play, and had a great time; OSR people will not play, as they are all fanatic worshippers of some new retro-clone or something. (The OSR folks seem to be very self-referential and self-absorbed, in my personal experience.) If I can talk to somebody for a bit about Tekumel, and tell them what we did, back in ye olden dayes, they tend to come and play - and stay.

The big issue is lack of support or encouragement for new GMs, from where I'm sitting. No new products, no new gamers; we've learned that innumerable times in the game industry over the past four decades.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Actually I was also a proponent of the Imperial Party. Hence my reply to the Emperor when I got my first Gold of Glory... "My only wish is to be allowed to continue to serve the Petal Throne."

And there you are; life on Tekumel in a nutshell.

Originally Posted by Hrugga

Thank you, Gents. I get the jist. Friendship and necessity play a role as well.

H :0)

Precisely!

Originally Posted by Hrugga

Just wondering about kitchens and bathrooms...I would think it depends on the country and where. But is the cooking that is done in the clan houses done in a fireplace or on open fires in special areas within the kitchen?

Also in the clan house, when one is using the water closet, does one sit or squat?

Thanks,

H :0)

PS Hope this question is not to silly. Some places I've been in the East, I had to squat...Different than what I was used to.

Kitchens - both. You also get fires under big flat stones, which serve as 'hot plates' for cooking. look at South Asia and the Middle East for examples.

One usually squats; again, Phil's experience in South Asia comes into play.