Quote from: Willie the Duck;1028315Yeah, it was about 90 minutes of zero visibility, and then just 4-6" of wet, annoying-to-shovel snow. The two previous snowstorms were much more onerous.

I am really going to try to get down there (both to be sociable, and because Tekumel is that one thing I've really never gotten a chance to play/see-in-action). I just can't promise anything because we close on a house on the 29th.

Yep; the first one put the van back in the shop. We think the freezing rain got into the electrical system.

Understood. The March 25th game is the %e Blackmoor / Tekumel campaign, where we tend to flit back and forth as the situation develops in the game; if you want a specifically Tekumel session, I'd suggest coming to Free RPG Day on Saturday, June 16th; I've been asked to run a specifically Tekumel game for the day, in Ye Olden Style for the benefit of the crowds.

In my version of Tekumel there are "boat people". Is this something unique to my version or is this something you commonly encountered?
What were some of the non-standard places people lived that you encountered?

I assume that every square inch of livable space has someone living there. Was this your experience?
How did crowding effect things that happened in your games?
=

Quote from: Greentongue;1028892In my version of Tekumel there are "boat people". Is this something unique to my version or is this something you commonly encountered?
What were some of the non-standard places people lived that you encountered?

I assume that every square inch of livable space has someone living there. Was this your experience?
How did crowding effect things that happened in your games?
=

We saw communities like this all the time. There was - at least, in Phil's campaign -  a large 'boat people' community in the Missuma River delta, south of Jakalla, and there are the 'river folk' all up and down that river and others. Provided we were polite and respectful, they'd be happy to help us; get stroppy, like some of the PCs did, and offenders would go for a swim. Usually with fatal consequences, given Tekumel's aquatic life.

People, we found, lived everywhere and anywhere there was room to sleep and a source of food and water. Even out in the high deserts, you'd see nomads off in the distance, living in the rocks; same thing out in the high mountains, for that matter. Maybe smaller communities, but well-established and reasonably successful at the business of survival. Out in the rural areas, people are more concentrated in villages as the fields are used for agriculture, but even here you see multiple-family dwellings in tight groupings.

We found that this was invaluable for our survival; being polite to the locals always seemed to get us by until we figured out what to do to get us out of our latest predicament. Acting like your typical D & D 'murder hobos' got people killed; there's an infinite number of angry villagers within striking distance of the party, as more then a few would-be heroes found out. Getting along with the locals always paid off in help and information.

Actual crowding was always fun in the games; we had quite a few 'chase scenes' where we kept tripping over the locals, leading to either a hue and cry for help or an angry mob coming after us for tripping over their aged granny in the alleyway. Urban locations usually had more of this, with the more rural ones being more localized and concentrated. One epic chase through a small village took an entire evening of gaming, and was both exciting and funny.

Which is why I've put so much money and effort into the 'extras' / 'junior artists' for the Big Crowd Scenes; it's funnier and more exciting, as well as being spectacular on the table. Photos on my Photobucket site.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;1028391Yep; the first one put the van back in the shop. We think the freezing rain got into the electrical system.

Understood. The March 25th game is the %e Blackmoor / Tekumel campaign, where we tend to flit back and forth as the situation develops in the game; if you want a specifically Tekumel session, I'd suggest coming to Free RPG Day on Saturday, June 16th; I've been asked to run a specifically Tekumel game for the day, in Ye Olden Style for the benefit of the crowds.

I will do my best to attend. :-)

Quote from: chirine ba kal;1028391Yep; the first one put the van back in the shop. We think the freezing rain got into the electrical system.

Oh, crap.

Sort of like hitting deep slush in a diesel electric locomotive and getting it in the traction motors.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1029140Oh, crap.

Sort of like hitting deep slush in a diesel electric locomotive and getting it in the traction motors.

Precisely, my General. We had a nice Sunday, then a bout of freezing rain, and the van would not start. It went to the shop instead of Der Bug, where it's been annoying our mechanics for two weeks - they moved it into the shop, it thawed right out, and now starts very time very reliably. They are now discussing opening up the engine compartment and wetting down each individual wire, one at a time, to get the van not to start. We're looking at getting either a big tarp for it, or seeing if it'll fit in the garage.

Der Bug, on der other hand, runs just fine and gets over thirty miles per gallon in city driving. It's a joy to drive, and now Gary Con can be a day trip for me to see if there's any fun miniatures in the dealers' room. (There weren't at Gary Con VII, but I'm told that this has changed. See anything interesting?)

Iron Wind was selling a number of miniatures by the ounce, including "undead," "townspeople," and others.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1029248Iron Wind was selling a number of miniatures by the ounce, including "undead," "townspeople," and others.

That's a novel way to sell miniatures. Guessing these weren't plastics...

Blaise

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1029099I will do my best to attend. :-)

I'll look forward to it! Thank you!

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1029248Iron Wind was selling a number of miniatures by the ounce, including "undead," "townspeople," and others.

That's funny! I really boggled their minds at CinncyCon last year, when they were asking me if I wanted to buy some of their elves; I had to point out just how many of them I have in stock from the original molds, and they simply boggled. It seems that I was one of their largest customers, back in the late '70s and early '80s, and it flabbergasted them to learn that I still have the lead in the basement.

Quote from: bconsidine;1029303That's a novel way to sell miniatures. Guessing these weren't plastics...

Blaise

Nope, they do all metal, and pretty nicely too. This is an old convention gimmick; take stuff that normally doesn't sell very well, has a high profit margin (as in, the molds were paid for years ago), and flog them by the ounce for the metal cost as a loss-leader to get people to stop by the booth. They buy a pile of your overstocks and then do impulse buys of the more expensive stuff. It's a winner, all the way around.

(So, if I may ask, have you gotten anywhere in the text? )

Quote from: chirine ba kal;1029308(So, if I may ask, have you gotten anywhere in the text? )

Not as far as I'd like to be. But I've enjoyed what I've read so far.

Blaise

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1029248Iron Wind was selling a number of miniatures by the ounce, including "undead," "townspeople," and others.

Iron Wind is/was Ral Partha, correct? Wonder if they'll re-release the old "not Tekumel" chaos figures.

Blaise

Quote from: bconsidine;1029352Not as far as I'd like to be. But I've enjoyed what I've read so far.

Blaise

That's a relief! I always worry that I put people into a coma with the book...

Quote from: bconsidine;1029363Iron Wind is/was Ral Partha, correct? Wonder if they'll re-release the old "not Tekumel" chaos figures.

Blaise

A bit of historical information, here. Iron Wind is indeed the successor company to Ral Partha; a group of Partha employees got together and bought up the assets of the company from FASA after FASA closed it down - FASA had bought Partha some time before, and it's always been a mystery to me why they shut everything down when and how they did it. Anyway, back in 1978, Ral Partha sold me the entire 25mm Tekumel line, including the Bill Murray / Old Guard sculpts that they'd bought from him; they told me that the line simply did sell very well, and after TSR had dropped EPT they felt that there was no future in having the line. In addition to the actual molds, I also got the rights to the sculpts themselves - in effect, the entire line was my personal property. The molds went to first Tekumel Games and then to PHD; they are, at this point, some forty years old and pretty much gone as are both companies. I still have all my own figures, as well as the master sets for the molds, and I was also given the rights to the later Dave Sutherland figures by Dave. This did come up when the Foundation's lawyer was deposing me regarding the old Tekumel product lines, and she advised the Foundation to come to an agreement with me; they did not, and basically ignored the issue, for whatever reasons.

Fast forward a couple of years later to Gary Con VII, when the Ral Partha brand name was reborn; I was congratulating the Iron Wind guy on this, when he got a funny look on his face and asked me if I knew who had the rights to the line. I told him I did, and he blurted out that he and the other Iron Wind people had thought I was dead. After the convention, they contacted me, had their lawyers look over all the contracts and documentation I have on file, and we reached an agreement. I got some Bob Charette miniatures that I had been looking for, and they got the rights to the sculpts back. It's now up to them what they do with them; not my territory, any more. I am in the process of divesting myself of all the residual rights that I have for various aspects of the Tekumel publishing that I did over the years, as I frankly have no commercial interests in gaming - and trying to keep it that way, thank you very much.

When I visited their factory last year, I helped identify a lot of the old mold cavities that they have; they have the original master molds that were used to make the production molds, so they are in pretty good shape. One thing that I did do, I wrote into the agreement that they not compete with Howard Fielding's wonderful Tekumel Project line of 28mm figures, and they agreed to that. Which I thought was sporting of them, actually.

Bottom line, it's up to them.