Quote from: Greentongue;941164With this talk about Sandbox, how much setting details do/did you make up yourself and how much do/did you pull from "official" sources?

When starting from the original source do/did you feel that you can/could build whatever you want on top of the given basics?

Yes, once I felt I understood the source material. It seemed unapproachable until I understood that I should be looking at Indian, Mayan, and southeast Asian sources. Then I felt I could improvise details while keeping the exotic feel.

I'd missed that post:).

Quote from: Greentongue;941164With this talk about Sandbox, how much setting details do/did you make up yourself and how much do/did you pull from "official" sources?

It seems to me, and aplogies if I'm mistaken, that you're thinking of "setting details" as a zero-sum game. If I make something up, I'm not using the "official" sources.
It's not a zero-sum game, though. The more details I get from "official" sources, the more details I can think of on myself.
I see a description of ku'ur and its effects, and mentally apend "and there should be analogues of some syntethic drugs...maybe even Eyes that produce them out of raw materials, or Eyes that cure the dependency".

QuoteWhen starting from the original source do/did you feel that you can/could build whatever you want on top of the given basics?

That's the whole point of it:D!
I mean, why would I want to run someone else's setting verbatim?

QuoteDo/did you feel that you had to start as a foreigner washed ashore or could you start on the life boat from your sunken starship?
(Planet of the Apes style)

I'd prefer starting as a local, thank you;)! Always worked better for me, and it seems to have worked just fine for some Chirine ba Kal as well!

Quote from: AsenRG;941597I'd prefer starting as a local, thank you;)! Always worked better for me, and it seems to have worked just fine for some Chirine ba Kal as well!

But have you ever tried playing a "Planet of the Apes" style game with Tekumel?

You are "Silver Suits" but things have gone horribly wrong.
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Quote from: Greentongue;941633But have you ever tried playing a "Planet of the Apes" style game with Tekumel?

You are "Silver Suits" but things have gone horribly wrong.
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That sounds fun. I wonder, would you allow the players to take magic users and priests if you went this route? Unless I am mistaken I believe Chirine said that the Silver Suits might be some type of space marine from the humanspace empire(s) time space continuum, and that the Nluss were descendants of the original space marines that garrisoned Tekumel before the time of darkness. Would the party then be an all Nluss one? This has gotten me intrigued. I might have to try this out some day.

Shemek.

Quote from: Greentongue;941633But have you ever tried playing a "Planet of the Apes" style game with Tekumel?

You are "Silver Suits" but things have gone horribly wrong.
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I am one of the few people on this board who never watched "Planet of the Apes".
If you're asking "a game with PCs not from Tekumel", that's the Tekumel game I am running now. The PC that brings the others around (by virtue of the player being the most proactive one) is an Earth woman from Russia, who once discovered she has the gift for becoming a volhva (vlahva, and a slew of other pronunciations). Their main power is to walk between the dimensions, and acquire other powers there.

She came to Tekumel to gather power to overthrow the Wolf President, but really liked the place and the people. And since being from another dimension makes her a demon by Tekumeli standards, she got included in the pantheon of a Livyanu deity;).

Adventure Modules became a successful way to turn tabletop RPGs into a consumer-friendly mode of entertainment. Most people will NEVER work for their entertainment, so it is not surprising that forms of entertainment that take all of the bitchwork out of it get popular and those that don't remain niche. Adventure modules went down this road, until now we get entire 1-20 campaigns in a book or box; drop $60+ dollars, have a campaign that (for most) is entirely on rails that lasts a year or so at expected paces of play.

Even at $100 apiece, that's a steal, and historically they've gone for much, much less. Gronan's comparison to videogame RPGs is not at all inaccurate: that IS the goal, to make running a tabletop RPG as similar to what you can get on console or PC (or, for some, a boardgame) as you can get while allowing players have their Just So PCs that fulfill whatever fantasies they've got (and the modules allow) at the time. Mastery of the game, in this environment, means mastery of the rules; this is where Denners come from.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;941885Adventure Modules became a successful way to turn tabletop RPGs into a consumer-friendly mode of entertainment. Most people will NEVER work for their entertainment, so it is not surprising that forms of entertainment that take all of the bitchwork out of it get popular and those that don't remain niche. Adventure modules went down this road, until now we get entire 1-20 campaigns in a book or box; drop $60+ dollars, have a campaign that (for most) is entirely on rails that lasts a year or so at expected paces of play.

Even at $100 apiece, that's a steal, and historically they've gone for much, much less. Gronan's comparison to videogame RPGs is not at all inaccurate: that IS the goal, to make running a tabletop RPG as similar to what you can get on console or PC (or, for some, a boardgame) as you can get while allowing players have their Just So PCs that fulfill whatever fantasies they've got (and the modules allow) at the time. Mastery of the game, in this environment, means mastery of the rules; this is where Denners come from.

Yeah, the only thing I don't understand is why not replace the PCs and the GM, and the whole logistical mess, with a PS4 and no logistics.

Quote from: AsenRG;941901Yeah, the only thing I don't understand is why not replace the PCs and the GM, and the whole logistical mess, with a PS4 and no logistics.

Lots of people did do that. It's one of the reasons for the commercial decline of tabletop RPGs as a business; they choose business models that try to ape competing media and end up arguing for the superiority of those media by example, instead of focusing on the strengths of tabletop as a medium (starting with the Game Master), and wonder why they're lucky if they can make livings equal to a manager at McDonald's.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;941904Lots of people did do that. It's one of the reasons for the commercial decline of tabletop RPGs as a business; they choose business models that try to ape competing media and end up arguing for the superiority of those media by example, instead of focusing on the strengths of tabletop as a medium (starting with the Game Master), and wonder why they're lucky if they can make livings equal to a manager at McDonald's.

That's what I wanted to hear, but didn't want to say it myself, frankly:).
And that is exactly why I believe that playing a tabletop campaign that doesn't have complete freedom of actions is a waste of time, since you can get a limited experience from any console.

And being able to play with GMs that allow complete freedom is why I only use my PS4 for games that require reflexes or are just a strategic exercise;).

Quote from: Shemek hiTankolel;941674That sounds fun. I wonder, would you allow the players to take magic users and priests if you went this route? Unless I am mistaken I believe Chirine said that the Silver Suits might be some type of space marine from the humanspace empire(s) time space continuum, and that the Nluss were descendants of the original space marines that garrisoned Tekumel before the time of darkness. Would the party then be an all Nluss one? This has gotten me intrigued. I might have to try this out some day.

Shemek.

These details were not provided in the original rules so, I see no reason that a player could not be given a "Skill Overlay" as part of a "Survival Kit" for crashes on low tech worlds.
"Earmuffs of Knowledge" as the natives might call them.  At "Level 1" they wouldn't be expected to know everything.
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Just saw the movie The Great Wall and it looked like a great source of gaming to me.
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Quote from: Greentongue;949230Just saw the movie The Great Wall and it looked like a great source of gaming to me.
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Agreed. Lots of reviewers seem to miss the subtle Chinese viewpoint, which is also the Tsolyani one of: "There are nasty monsters out there, so send out the foreigner barbarian mercenary to deal with them. He's expendable, after all." Mayhem ensues.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;949796Agreed. Lots of reviewers seem to miss the subtle Chinese viewpoint, which is also the Tsolyani one of: "There are nasty monsters out there, so send out the foreigner barbarian mercenary to deal with them. He's expendable, after all." Mayhem ensues.

Funny, isn't it, that it's also the modern corporate viewpoint in cyberpunk games?