Quote from: Willie the Duck;1041481That sounds like the start of a Firesign Theatre routine, where you have to guess what the yak and the scuba gear are for...

If you've ever been around a yak, you know what the scuba gear is for.

Quote from: Fiasco;1041496This made me laugh.

It made me laugh, too, when I first heard it. It's from a guy who knows all of them, going back a very long way, and who they were trying to touch for some serious money for their operation. They's apparently forgotten how they'd trashed him over the years, and were shocked - simply shocked, I tell you! - when he refused to cough up the dough.

Everyone who's ever had to talk to them or deal with them has commented on their 'deer in the headlights' look. Which is why I was so genuinely (and loudly!) amused at their idea that I would work for them, running the Foundation for them, while they sat back and collected their checks from the proceeds. They genuinely couldn't fathom why I declined the position of unpaid 'General Manager'...

I think there was a lot of initial naivite... been there, done that.

They thought

1) Tekumel
2) ??
3) Profit!

And when the world did not beat down their doors and press wads of cash on them, they had no idea what to do next.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1041474Speaking of which, you have GOT to play World War Tesla.

Seconded. It is a blast. Such an awesome game that fits a cool niche.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;1041520Fat Dragon does some nice stuff, don't they? Pity about the size, but I know this guy who can scale it up to God's Own Scale...

I will say I think the size actually is perfect for this game. Something about the microscale really fits and the minis look cool. Scaled up would work, of course, especially if you have a nice table and terrain but it really is great as is.

And the fat dragon 28mm terrain is really nice. I use their stuff for underworld battles, etc.

There is a bunch of really nice 3d stuff out there right now but no Egyptian or Mayan stuff yet to use for Tekumel. I have some cool arabic and roman buildings that I use for Tekumel games but would love to have stuff like pylons and pyramids.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1041530I think there was a lot of initial naivite... been there, done that.

They thought

1) Tekumel
2) ??
3) Profit!

And when the world did not beat down their doors and press wads of cash on them, they had no idea what to do next.

Exactly - very accurate, and very concise! They said as much, in the first 'strategic planning retreat' that they had. Their assumption was that Phil had this hugely profitable publishing enterprise going, and that Tekumel was such a barn-burner of an IP that all the big companies would be banging on the door with offers of The Big Money. Basically, they convinced themselves that the OSR was this hugely moneyed market that was ripe for their exploitation, with powerhouse publishers ready with hundreds of thousands of dollars being held ready for them to get.

Ah, no. I explained this to them in some detail, and they blew me off. Never underestimate the the power of wishful thinking.

But, The Prestige!!! The Fame!!! The Love and Adoration Of The Gaming Masses!!! It's all there, isn't it???

Quote from: Big Andy;1041545Seconded. It is a blast. Such an awesome game that fits a cool niche.

I will say I think the size actually is perfect for this game. Something about the microscale really fits and the minis look cool. Scaled up would work, of course, especially if you have a nice table and terrain but it really is great as is.

And the fat dragon 28mm terrain is really nice. I use their stuff for underworld battles, etc.

There is a bunch of really nice 3d stuff out there right now but no Egyptian or Mayan stuff yet to use for Tekumel. I have some cool arabic and roman buildings that I use for Tekumel games but would love to have stuff like pylons and pyramids.

Understood; I just have too many 25mm - 28mm figures on the shelves to change now.

There was a Canadian Kickstarter for an Egyptian version of Dwarven Forge, a while back. I'll see if I've got the link someplace.

Blue Moon makes a very nice pyramid, and you should look at Stonehouse Miniatures: http://stonehouseminiatures.com/ They have both Meso-American and Egyptian stuff; I have their huge 'Temple City', and it's simply great. Also, keep an eye on your local big-box pet supply places. The aquarium and hermit crab sections will often have both Mayan and Egyptian items - I have a lot of these. And a good 'New Age' shop, like Eye of Horus here in the Twin Cities, will often have useful stuff - I have a massive Sphinx that I got from the proprietor. Gift shops often have stuff, too; my lovely Missus got us some really cool stuff one day at the Minnesota State Fair's 'International Market', cleaning up a very nice Bolivian's and an Egyptian's market stalls for them.

Photos on my Photobucket page...

Quote from: chirine ba kal;1041565Exactly - very accurate, and very concise! They said as much, in the first 'strategic planning retreat' that they had. Their assumption was that Phil had this hugely profitable publishing enterprise going, and that Tekumel was such a barn-burner of an IP that all the big companies would be banging on the door with offers of The Big Money. Basically, they convinced themselves that the OSR was this hugely moneyed market that was ripe for their exploitation, with powerhouse publishers ready with hundreds of thousands of dollars being held ready for them to get.

Ah, no. I explained this to them in some detail, and they blew me off. Never underestimate the the power of wishful thinking.

But, The Prestige!!! The Fame!!! The Love and Adoration Of The Gaming Masses!!! It's all there, isn't it???

Not to mention the sex, drugs, and rock and roll!

As you are so fond of saying, "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."  Or, in this case, naivite and wishful thinking.  And I have no leg to stand on... at the 84 Worldcon I sat there with Don Wollheim and Phil discussing movie rights for Tekumel with a straight face.

I will try to abide in charity, and think that the Foundation had a very high level strategic idea of a mission statement, but no idea how to create a tactical plan.  And for some reason, everybody is scared to death of making a decision, probably for fear of not making the right one.

I remember decades ago, you and I talking about "We made the best decision we could with the information we had at the time."  That's all one can do.

Or, as my oldest brother likes to say, "Do SOMETHING, even if it's wrong.  But do something."

But let's face it, there are a LOT of venues in our society where it's better to do nothing than take a risk.  The employment world is like that, especially.  And if you've been slapped down for "exceeding your authority" enough times, you're going to act like a turtle.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;1041565Their assumption was that Phil had this hugely profitable publishing enterprise going

You've mentioned this before and it never ceases to kill me. How could they have gone to his house, spent time with the man, played games with him, and still believe this? Was he lighting his cheap cigars with $100 bills? Did he drive a Rolls Royce with a "My other car is a chlen cart" bumper sticker and a "Kaitars" license plate? What gave them the impression that the money was rolling in like that? Every story that everyone has ever told about being around the Professor all describe a typical university professor living a typical university professor lifestyle, not somebody raking in cash by the wheelbarrow full on the side.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;1041565Tekumel was such a barn-burner of an IP that all the big companies would be banging on the door with offers of The Big Money. Basically, they convinced themselves that the OSR was this hugely moneyed market that was ripe for their exploitation, with powerhouse publishers ready with hundreds of thousands of dollars being held ready for them to get.

Sad thing, other than the Big Money and powerhouse publishers, the rest is kind of true. There is money to made in the hobby, maybe not hundreds of thousands per year, but still. One need only look around and see people like Kevin Crawford , Pundit, and many others making money, and not just in the OSR. And Tekumel is ripe for exploitation.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;1041568There was a Canadian Kickstarter for an Egyptian version of Dwarven Forge, a while back. I'll see if I've got the link someplace.

Blue Moon makes a very nice pyramid, and you should look at Stonehouse Miniatures: http://stonehouseminiatures.com/ They have both Meso-American and Egyptian stuff; I have their huge 'Temple City', and it's simply great. Also, keep an eye on your local big-box pet supply places. The aquarium and hermit crab sections will often have both Mayan and Egyptian items - I have a lot of these. And a good 'New Age' shop, like Eye of Horus here in the Twin Cities, will often have useful stuff - I have a massive Sphinx that I got from the proprietor. Gift shops often have stuff, too; my lovely Missus got us some really cool stuff one day at the Minnesota State Fair's 'International Market', cleaning up a very nice Bolivian's and an Egyptian's market stalls for them.

Photos on my Photobucket page...

I have seen your photos and drooled over the stonehouse stuff many times but I was speaking about things you can print on a 3d printer, like fat dragon's dragonlock dungeons and world war tesla, which includes scale terrain you can print. I would love to be able to print some Egyptian and Mayan stuff! The 3d printer stuff I have is great but some pyramids and temples and stuff would be awesome!

I've done a lot of paper crafting but my eyes aren't what they used to be and I am also a lot lazier!

Quote from: chirine ba kal;1041454I would think so too, but I'm told by players at the FLGS that by-the-book is the only way to play. Which maybe why I don't play much, these days.

I'm running my games, Uncle, so it's not:).

Quote from: chirine ba kal;1041565Exactly - very accurate, and very concise! They said as much, in the first 'strategic planning retreat' that they had. Their assumption was that Phil had this hugely profitable publishing enterprise going, and that Tekumel was such a barn-burner of an IP that all the big companies would be banging on the door with offers of The Big Money. Basically, they convinced themselves that the OSR was this hugely moneyed market that was ripe for their exploitation, with powerhouse publishers ready with hundreds of thousands of dollars being held ready for them to get.

It was very attractive as a campaign setting. In the late seventies I kept hearing stories about awesome Tekumel games, and of course read the Raymond Feist Magician series of books where he let people know he had imported the Petal Throne legions and wizards from Tekumel, as the invaders of the Kingdom of Crydee, which was clearly a Welsh-based fantasy kingdom.

There were no copies of  Empire of the Petal Throne available back in the 70's, as the game at TSR had went out of print, and as far as we knew was sold out at TSR becuase they stopped advertising it. It was not immediately reprinted in a new edition, and I didn't see used copies available at any gaming store or convention until after 2000 or so, when Lou Zocchi brought some copies of Swords & Glory, vol 1, The Tekumel Source Book to Origins right around then. This is where I promptly bought the only Tekumel book he still had in stock. He had sold out of Volume 2, The Tekumel Players Handbook, which contained the actual rules for Tekumel RPG, so I had to originally run a D&D version which is not even close to the same, as the rules for magic between the game systems are quite diverse.

I would have bought these books back in the 80's if they had been available at conventions or game stores where I lived. A Tekumel movie would be quite awesome, I always figured it would be kind of like Doc Savage meets Bollywood kind of a thing.

Also, back in the late seventies and early eighties I was actually envious after hearing all of the exotic stories from a few players I knew who had a chance to actually sit in on a Tekumel game at a game show, or with one of the few rare GMs who would sometimes visit our gaming group and run a Tekumel game, which seemed to always happen when I was conveniently not around to play.

A couple things here... When I say gaming group, That refers to the extended group of gamers around us, not my core gaming group. It might be a few players I saw and played games from across town with maybe for a few weeks a year, who actually ran into us during a gaming weekend and shared a story of the Tekumel game their brother's cousins had ran for them during Christmas Holiday break, ...like that.

The other thing, all of us, in my close gaming/RPGcircle were actually figuring out for the first time, how to make our own believable and entertaining fantasy worlds. Just that fact that a game world existed with multiple kingdoms, fleshed out, with languages, creatures, customs, and unique magic was just over the top impressive, because we would spend hours, and weeks, and sometimes months deciding just how cultures for just one of our kingdoms in our fantasy world were created and evolved over time. Another words, Tekumel was a complete immersive fantasy RPG gaming world, at a time when there were just a few really detailed worlds, none from RPG gaming, all that existed were from fantasy or science-fantasy literature, except for Tekumel.

Now after forty years of practical experience in world-building, I can actually make something entertaining for just about any gaming system, however M.A.R. Barker had a huuuge head start, because he had been working on Tekumel for almost forty years already when the Empire of The Petal Throne, the RPG was first published in 1975-76. There were just no other fantasy game worlds at the time. People were playing in Dave Arneson's Blackmoor, Gary's Greyhawk, and Bob Bledsaw's Wilderlands campaign setting, but Wilderlands wasn't published until almost a year later in late 76 or early 77. It was mid-late 77 when Blackmoor finally became available, and no one saw Greyhawk or Mystara until almost 1980 or so.

Until then, it was just the bits, and pieces, and fragments we put together, to make our own campaign settings. Empire of the Petal Throne was whole, and super detailed, and immersive. I inherently knew that, based on all of the stories from other gamers, however didn't actually get to see it in it's entire original format, until this year.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1041530I think there was a lot of initial naivite... been there, done that.

They thought

1) Tekumel
2) ??
3) Profit!

And when the world did not beat down their doors and press wads of cash on them, they had no idea what to do next.

And they still don't. They're still wedded to the fannish lifestyle, and can't understand why that didn't work in the past four decades.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1041589Not to mention the sex, drugs, and rock and roll!

As you are so fond of saying, "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."  Or, in this case, naivite and wishful thinking.  And I have no leg to stand on... at the 84 Worldcon I sat there with Don Wollheim and Phil discussing movie rights for Tekumel with a straight face.

I will try to abide in charity, and think that the Foundation had a very high level strategic idea of a mission statement, but no idea how to create a tactical plan.  And for some reason, everybody is scared to death of making a decision, probably for fear of not making the right one.

I remember decades ago, you and I talking about "We made the best decision we could with the information we had at the time."  That's all one can do.

Or, as my oldest brother likes to say, "Do SOMETHING, even if it's wrong.  But do something."

But let's face it, there are a LOT of venues in our society where it's better to do nothing than take a risk.  The employment world is like that, especially.  And if you've been slapped down for "exceeding your authority" enough times, you're going to act like a turtle.

Oh, I agree - but I'd respectfully point out that the middling 1980s were the one time when movie rights might have been viable - Don got a nice fat check from the Gor movie, remember.

And also agreed about the total inability to make any decisions, either.

Quote from: Big Andy;1041592You've mentioned this before and it never ceases to kill me. How could they have gone to his house, spent time with the man, played games with him, and still believe this? Was he lighting his cheap cigars with $100 bills? Did he drive a Rolls Royce with a "My other car is a chlen cart" bumper sticker and a "Kaitars" license plate? What gave them the impression that the money was rolling in like that? Every story that everyone has ever told about being around the Professor all describe a typical university professor living a typical university professor lifestyle, not somebody raking in cash by the wheelbarrow full on the side.


Sad thing, other than the Big Money and powerhouse publishers, the rest is kind of true. There is money to made in the hobby, maybe not hundreds of thousands per year, but still. One need only look around and see people like Kevin Crawford , Pundit, and many others making money, and not just in the OSR. And Tekumel is ripe for exploitation.



I have seen your photos and drooled over the stonehouse stuff many times but I was speaking about things you can print on a 3d printer, like fat dragon's dragonlock dungeons and world war tesla, which includes scale terrain you can print. I would love to be able to print some Egyptian and Mayan stuff! The 3d printer stuff I have is great but some pyramids and temples and stuff would be awesome!

I've done a lot of paper crafting but my eyes aren't what they used to be and I am also a lot lazier!

1) Abject poverty. Most people these days don't understand just how poverty-stricken most fans and gamers were, back then. I was considered to be very affluent because I could afford my one one-person apartment - most fans would have had three to six people living in such - and owned my own car. And could afford food on a regular basis.

2) Agreed. A ot could be done with it, if the IP was being controlled by people who had a clue and weren't so fearful and insecure.

3. Oh, yes!!! It'd be lovely!!

Quote from: AsenRG;1041599I'm running my games, Uncle, so it's not:).

That's good to hear. I've been invited to play in a game, believe it or not!

Quote from: GameDaddy;1041631A very good history of what went wrong with Tekumel publishing - worth reading, if you asked me!

You have it precisely - and we fought this for years. Neither Dave or Lou saw any point in marketing their products, and it really hurt sales and awareness of them. All but two (Pentantastar and Complete Brigadier) of the other AGI games went on to decent success with other companies - Harpoon is still making Larry money. We fought to get any kind of funding for anything, and very rarely got anything besides chump change.

could this be done better? You bet. There's this thing called the Internet...