Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Somewhere back a while ago, Chirine was wondering how I thought things had changed since the early 80s.

Well, of course, now we have the Internet. But that's tricky because it's hard to tell sometimes if an opinion popular on the Internet is really popular, or if there's a small number of really noisy people who think that way. I call this the "Bandar-Log Syndrome," for those of you up on your Kipling.

However, the greatest difference I've noticed has literary roots. Briefly put... Sword & Sorcery is dead. Oh, sure, the books are still out there, but Arnie's two CONAN movies of the 80s were the last gasp of S&S in popular culture. "Epic Quest Fantasy" -- what Will Shetterly dubbed "The Magical Doohickey and the Sharp Pointy Thing" -- has won. Big time. And that's pretty much all that people know.

This has had a huge effect on gaming in my observation, in real life, with actual gaming groups. Briefly... nobody knows how to find adventures any more. The notion of Fafhrd and the Mouser hearing about a cursed tower and going off to explore it just because it's cursed is totally beyond them. I have observed this in several groups that do not know each other. They are used to adventures being served up on a platter. Even when I print out and give them Gary's instructions from OD&D --

"Obtaining such news is usually merely a matter of making the rounds of the local taverns and inns, buying a round of drinks (10-60 Gold Pieces), slipping the barman a few coins (1-10 Gold Pieces) and learning what is going on."

... actually finding adventure is utterly beyond them. They have been trained to expect a story to drop into their laps, and expecting them to find their own excitement has proven to be frustrating and boring for all concerned.

"Let's fight pirates."
"Okay, there's a river port here... let's go talk to people."

It doesn't seem that hard. But it's utterly alien to a lot of players these days.

So I have observed.

I call it the "swing by the DM's Bait Shop to buy an Adventure Hook" problem. The players go about the motions of exploring a city, town or area but they're just going down the "Laundry List of Genre Things We Know We're Supposed To Do Until The Story Activates" it's like running around town in a MMO looking for the NPCs with the Quest Here Symbol above their head.

If there were a Big Bad in town, the last thing you'd want to do is walk in and declare yourselves Adventurers, you're getting poisoned the second night in.

Epic Fantasy, Narrative Logic, Computer Games all play a part, but you're right, the wandering hero who makes his own adventures simply by Getting Into Shit has gone away.

However, to be honest, you get a party of S&S heroes Getting Into Shit and as a DM you're herding cats with everyone doing their own thing. Of course the Sword and Sorcery answer is some version of "Ninjas Attack" to focus the players on something, anything, as a group, but you do that too often, then they just wait around for Ninjas to Attack. Cyberpunk games or any other type of game where you're an assortment of individuals as opposed to a "genre-appropriate functional unit" have similar problems.

The answer though is a balancing act, not an Amusement Park.

Originally Posted by rawma

And today marks the second anniversary of my surgery.

Same here, I am happy to say, although I have to use

At least you're here!

Bonus time, as my dad said after New Guinea in 1943...

Originally Posted by AsenRG

I'm not sure I understood all the nuances in the dialogue...but that's fine, no need to explain.

My blood pressure was about twice human normal, I had lost sight, smell, taste, vision, and all motor control. I was basically dead on the of the Tekumel Foundation's office, where I'd been installing a door knob for them.

My daughter and wife were right next to the paramedic when he was basically saying I was dead.

The rest of the station crew and the remaining paramedics thought I had a chance, so off we went to get my head drilled and drained.

Yes, I am your basic Undead Lich...

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

It doesn't seem that hard. But it's utterly alien to a lot of players these days.

So I have observed.

Interesting. Some good hypotheses on the why too. I wonder if part of the why is just that people in general are lazy and having an adventure drop in your lap is about as effortless a way to find an adventure as there can be.

Originally Posted by Greentongue

With 60K+ years of history, how much did the detailed depth of history ever really matter in game?

I was looking something up earlier and saw a player talking about a convention game they played in where the ancient languages
and art were detailed by the (rather well known proponent of Tekumel) GM and the player didn't feel that the level of detail added anything critical.
While they did think it was flavorful, the time might have been better spent on the characters actually doing something.

Was this only important to the Professor's Other play group?

How much did it matter to your play group and the players you have GM'ed for?
=

In game, not a lot. Phil was always delighted to talk about things he'd done, been to, and seen over the years, as well as his fannish doings in his youth. However, he'd do this only if we wanted to talk about it, or we were taking a break from the game play. In game, it just didn't come up very often, unless it was An Important Plot Point. Phil expected me to know this stuff as a matter of course, as I was the guy who was suppose to know this stuff for the group.

Out of game, like when we'd come over on a weekend or something, we talked about this stuff constantly. Most of us were F/SF fans, and having that look into the foundations of fandom and the creative process that Phil was having was utterly fascinating. (Like our talking to Gordy about the Dorsai, for example.) We loved to hear his stories, and he loved to tell them We learned from him in the living room what our players would have learned in the Temple academy, and you know, I think that was one of the best parts of playing with him.

I can see what you're saying, too. I've had the same reaction to my GM'ing at conventions, where my very fast-paced and very active style of gaming is contrasted with the almost 'academic' style of play that a lot of modern Tekumel GMs have; I've also seen this in my own game room, where guest GMs do this exact same thing. There's this notion that 'proper' Tekumel has to be run in an almost totally detail-obsessive manner, and every little nuance of every little detail has to be gone over and over and over with the players. I've seen players fall asleep at the table when this kind of play is going on; if I can say one thing over the years, people don't fall asleep when I'm running the show.

Neither of Phil's early groups had this issue; Phil limited himself to the details only if they were needed by the game, and liked to move along with the story. Keep in mind that there were really six game groups that he ran; the 'proto-group' at CSA in the 1973-74 period, the original Elmwood Place group in the 1974-77 period, and then the split to create the Monday and Thursday Groups. These later dissolved into two very different groups, with most of the original players being gone by the early 1990s.

The massive emphasis on detail seems to have gotten started in the middle 1990s, and it's become the public perception of what Tekumel is like for most gamers. (See also The Pundit's observations on this subject.) I don't swamp players with detail; unless it's something vital, I just don't push it - after the game is fine, but not during the game session. I normally tell somebody if they would know it in the game, but otherwise I don't obsess on details - I tell people that they will pick up on it as we go along.

I agree with the player - you are there to play, not go to Tsolyani Language Camp. It certainly does not add anything crucial to the game, and really slows the game down...

Originally Posted by CRKrueger

However, to be honest, you get a party of S&S heroes Getting Into Shit and as a DM you're herding cats with everyone doing their own thing. Of course the Sword and Sorcery answer is some version of "Ninjas Attack" to focus the players on something, anything, as a group, but you do that too often, then they just wait around for Ninjas to Attack. Cyberpunk games or any other type of game where you're an assortment of individuals as opposed to a "genre-appropriate functional unit" have similar problems.

The answer though is a balancing act, not an Amusement Park.

Well, the game is "whoever shows up that night," not "band of heroes welded at the hip." The point of our game is to have adventures, and it's never been a problem for the four to six players to quickly agree on what type of trouble they want to find for the night. If somebody is pursuing an ongoing situation I'll ref for them separately as needs be.

Which is another thing that's changed. "BAND OF HEROES ONE AND INDIVISIBLE WELDED TOGETHER AT THE HIP" seems to be not just the default but the only way to play any more; the notion of "four to fifty players who play at various times in various combinations" seems to have vanished like the steam locomotive.

Of course more than one person has asked how Gary got 50 people together at the same time, so a lot of people have no levels in "figuring out the bloody obvious."

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Somewhere back a while ago, Chirine was wondering how I thought things had changed since the early 80s.

Well, of course, now we have the Internet. But that's tricky because it's hard to tell sometimes if an opinion popular on the Internet is really popular, or if there's a small number of really noisy people who think that way. I call this the "Bandar-Log Syndrome," for those of you up on your Kipling.

However, the greatest difference I've noticed has literary roots. Briefly put... Sword & Sorcery is dead. Oh, sure, the books are still out there, but Arnie's two CONAN movies of the 80s were the last gasp of S&S in popular culture. "Epic Quest Fantasy" -- what Will Shetterly dubbed "The Magical Doohickey and the Sharp Pointy Thing" -- has won. Big time. And that's pretty much all that people know.

This has had a huge effect on gaming in my observation, in real life, with actual gaming groups. Briefly... nobody knows how to find adventures any more. The notion of Fafhrd and the Mouser hearing about a cursed tower and going off to explore it just because it's cursed is totally beyond them. I have observed this in several groups that do not know each other. They are used to adventures being served up on a platter. Even when I print out and give them Gary's instructions from OD&D --

"Obtaining such news is usually merely a matter of making the rounds of the local taverns and inns, buying a round of drinks (10-60 Gold Pieces), slipping the barman a few coins (1-10 Gold Pieces) and learning what is going on."

... actually finding adventure is utterly beyond them. They have been trained to expect a story to drop into their laps, and expecting them to find their own excitement has proven to be frustrating and boring for all concerned.

"Let's fight pirates."
"Okay, there's a river port here... let's go talk to people."

It doesn't seem that hard. But it's utterly alien to a lot of players these days.

So I have observed.

Fun fact, I've found that there's a significant minority of gamers that still get it. Some of them aren't even S&S fans. They just have ideas, and aren't interested in following a GM's plot, so they go out and look for ways to achieve their goals.
It's those people I prefer to play with, and the rest of my players just learn from them.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

My blood pressure was about twice human normal, I had lost sight, smell, taste, vision, and all motor control. I was basically dead on the of the Tekumel Foundation's office, where I'd been installing a door knob for them.

My daughter and wife were right next to the paramedic when he was basically saying I was dead.

The rest of the station crew and the remaining paramedics thought I had a chance, so off we went to get my head drilled and drained.

Yes, I am your basic Undead Lich...

No, I understood that. What I wasn't sure is who was made to clean what.

Originally Posted by Greentongue

With 60K+ years of history, how much did the detailed depth of history ever really matter in game?

I was looking something up earlier and saw a player talking about a convention game they played in where the ancient languages
and art were detailed by the (rather well known proponent of Tekumel) GM and the player didn't feel that the level of detail added anything critical.
While they did think it was flavorful, the time might have been better spent on the characters actually doing something.

Was this only important to the Professor's Other play group?

How much did it matter to your play group and the players you have GM'ed for?
=

I think it mattered mostly to Phil. Remember, he spent something like 40 years building Tekumel as a world BEFORE I introduced him to D&D. It was obviously something he loved doing, and I think it also gave him satisfaction as a game master to know that wherever we went, he knew what was going on. In my fantasy games there are always huge areas I haven't made up anything for and I think most are like that. But Phil built Tekumel first, THEN played in it.

It's part of what makes Middle Earth so engrossing. All throughout The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, the kindly old Professor gives us glimpses of the First and Second Ages. "Deep they delved us, fair they wrought us, high they builded us, but they are gone."

It's one of the things the movies did actually manage in a few places, like the overgrown pillars and tumbled down statues in Lothlorien; those visual touches gave the feeling of great, great age.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

My blood pressure was about twice human normal, I had lost sight, smell, taste, vision, and all motor control. I was basically dead on the of the Tekumel Foundation's office, where I'd been installing a door knob for them.

My daughter and wife were right next to the paramedic when he was basically saying I was dead.

The rest of the station crew and the remaining paramedics thought I had a chance, so off we went to get my head drilled and drained.

Yes, I am your basic Undead Lich...

Fortunately, you smell better than most. Also, you seem to have managed the spell that allows you to eat human food (saw him snarf a chicken cutlet sammich with my own baby blue eyes, folks) unlike that story by... Clark Ashton Smith, was it... the undead lich drank blood but couldn't digest it, so just got more and more bloated with clotted, rotting blood until the venal last priest grabbed a silver paper knife and stabbed it and it burst and all the reeking, clotted mess spilled out...

Originally Posted by AsenRG

Fun fact, I've found that there's a significant minority of gamers that still get it. Some of them aren't even S&S fans. They just have ideas, and aren't interested in following a GM's plot, so they go out and look for ways to achieve their goals.
It's those people I prefer to play with, and the rest of my players just learn from them.

They're out there, but recruiting from players of later editions can be very frustrating all around. Non gamers are often the most fun to game with.