Quote from: AsenRG;843681Complete Player Agency (CPA): A Platonic ideal of non-railroading the players, which has about as many meanings as there are people using the term. Possibly the meanings might outnumber the users, as I suspect:).
In extreme forms, it means you want to kick the person using the term out of your group now, before there's time for him or her to create too much drama around it;).


This is definitely how I see sandbox play. Since there's no vocabulary of roleplaying games, some people think that a sandbox game means the NPCs and locations don't change unless the PCs visit them and bring some change.
I usually oppose such statements with the argument that this is merely how a poorly done sandbox looks like:D!

Um, all right. Gotcha.

I should say that I do not have any players in my games who think this way; I ran into this when I tried to do some 'outreach' to local gamers, inviting them to play in my campaign. The effort failed quite miserably; I was told that I am quite out-of-step with modern gaming.

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Quote from: Greentongue;843682I think a lot may come down to "players expecting to be entertained" or "GMs trying to entertain" instead of having players entertain themselves in a moving world, with a GM turning the hand-crank.

I think that "Dungeon World" re-introduces that with its "Fronts".
What's old is new again.
=

Ah! Understood!

In the EPT rules there is a section on intelligent weapons.
(I gather this was an Arneson innovation that was included.)
How frequent were these found and what impact did they have?

For that matter, how much "special loot" was normal to be found in your early adventures?
=

Quote from: chirine ba kal;843563The thing is solid gold, with bronze, copper, silver, and enameled inlay. Weighs a ton when worn, and makes a good breastplate.

Holy chlen crap that is one big honking medal. I was expecting the Glorious General wore it on his chest, not that it was as big as his chest. I retract my quibble about polishing.

I like the picture. Reminds me of the artwork I commissioned for our Star Wars games and a few of the RPG props I've created in the past. (Nothing quite as elaborate as you guys though.)

Quote from: AsenRG;843565BTW, Gronan, wasn't "playing fair" assumed in those early days in the 70ies? Or is Chirine an outlier by always playing fair?

That was the expectation and assumption in our  1970s era groups. It's why we sometimes called the DM the Referee.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;843570"Changing the location" is, at least to me cheating of a sort. It's my job as your GM to plan my strategy just as carefully as you plan yours - we're trying to outwit each other, more then anything else. I have always told my players that "the rules are fixed and immutable; I will not change them just to get my own way." To me, that's being dishonest with my players, and with myself.

I get what you are saying. Though I backed off trying to outwit the players some decades ago after killing way too many PCs. Now I play the NPCs based on their personality and stats. The clever, tactically minded NPCs are tough to outwit, the dumb or tactically poor NPCs are…well they are like dumb and tactically idiotic people in history. Pretty easy to outwit. I enjoy playing the differences and the players enjoy getting to be smarter than some of the NPCs so everybody is happy.

Changing location if not done to beat the players doesn’t quite strike me as cheating. To me it comes across as laziness on my part as the GM. It is also aesthetically distasteful to me as a style of play. I enjoy the players making choices I didn’t anticipate. If I didn’t, I’d just go play solitaire.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;843678I find this discussion fascinating. I have been accused by some players of running a 'railroady' campaign because I have this over-arching 'meta game' running in the background. I have been told by these folks that unless I have something called 'complete player agency', they will not play in my games. I will confess to being very confused by this, as in both Phil's and my games I allow the players to do literally anything they want. I do not 'script' adventures; I let them grow organically from the players' actions and how these affect their interactions with the world-setting. This seems to be a bizarre notion, in some places.

Near as I can tell the objections are not about player agency, they are about PC power. Some people have a notion that the PCs should be the most important or powerful characters in the setting and that the game revolves solely around the PCs. (I’m guessing you’ll have a hard time grokking this as well because it is the antithesis of the way you played and run Tekumel.

I also had to chuckle to myself as I am running Honor+Intrigue in 1624 France. Absent almost inconceivably massive player based activity, the French are going to lay siege to La Rochelle in three years. Plot doesn’t get much more meta than playing through real history. The players have agency. They chose their patrons from the people they helped or impressed and who then offered them positions. Those choices weren’t up to me as the GM. They decide whether they want to follow their orders and succeed at their missions or desert and they decide whether to betray their current patron to some possibly more important future patron. And when I planned for them to climb up the donjon tower to free a prisoner from the dungeon inside, they decided to ask – “So where do they hold the hangings? Are they in town or out at the prison?” And then change from breaking the prisoner out of prison to freeing the prisoner on the way to the hanging. Which was a much easier task actually and one that for some reason I had not anticipated. To me that is agency.

QuoteFor Phil, Tekumel was a living, breathing thing that kept right on going no matter what we might or might do in the game sessions. Every month, he'd sit down with his copy of Tony Bath's book, and roll for what was happening in the world of his 1,800 NPCs. We'd then get to hear about their adventures through the marketplace rumors, dispatches, and other 'media' at our disposal. I do the same thing; my campaign keeps rolling right along, and my players drop in and out as they are able to.

Now that is an impressive amount of background activity going on and it’s way more NPCs than the sometimes ludicrous number I have in my H+I game. Kudos to both of you.

Quote from: Greentongue;843718In the EPT rules there is a section on intelligent weapons.
(I gather this was an Arneson innovation that was included.)
How frequent were these found and what impact did they have?

For that matter, how much "special loot" was normal to be found in your early adventures?
=

Yeah, this was a section that Phil tossed in for Dave; Gary got some pet sections, too.

They were very, very, very rare in Phil's campaign. We got exactly one, in over a decade of gaming. It was the intelligent sword that Vrisa got, before we marched off to the Northwest Frontier; we never did figure out if the damn thing was an AI or an imprisoned demon. The former was favored as a theory, but nobody wanted to get close to the thing to find out. It bonded with her, she bonded with it, and we all avoided it like the plague, as it did have a mind of it's own. It was made of the ceramet material of the ancients, and had a energy field as an edge; it would cut through just about anything, and with Kathy's close-to-max S&G stats it made her a real threat to anything that annoyed us. Saved my bacon a few times, too.

We didn't see a lot of 'special loot', ever. Yes, there was some pretty cool stuff, but Phil tended not to hand out the goodies unless you really ran some pretty severe risks. I got a +4 +5 mace off some dead Bednjallan guy, which I still keep around for unwelcome guests, but I had to kill a heap of nasty critters to get it. It was one of the few game sessions where I used all of my spells, as there was a heap of killing that needed to be done.

Wholesale slaughter, that's me!

Quote from: Bren;843722Holy chlen crap that is one big honking medal. I was expecting the Glorious General wore it on his chest, not that it was as big as his chest. I retract my quibble about polishing.

I like the picture. Reminds me of the artwork I commissioned for our Star Wars games and a few of the RPG props I've created in the past. (Nothing quite as elaborate as you guys though.)

That was the expectation and assumption in our  1970s era groups. It's why we sometimes called the DM the Referee.

I get what you are saying. Though I backed off trying to outwit the players some decades ago after killing way too many PCs. Now I play the NPCs based on their personality and stats. The clever, tactically minded NPCs are tough to outwit, the dumb or tactically poor NPCs are...well they are like dumb and tactically idiotic people in history. Pretty easy to outwit. I enjoy playing the differences and the players enjoy getting to be smarter than some of the NPCs so everybody is happy.

Changing location if not done to beat the players doesn't quite strike me as cheating. To me it comes across as laziness on my part as the GM. It is also aesthetically distasteful to me as a style of play. I enjoy the players making choices I didn't anticipate. If I didn't, I'd just go play solitaire.

Near as I can tell the objections are not about player agency, they are about PC power. Some people have a notion that the PCs should be the most important or powerful characters in the setting and that the game revolves solely around the PCs. (I'm guessing you'll have a hard time grokking this as well because it is the antithesis of the way you played and run Tekumel.

I also had to chuckle to myself as I am running Honor+Intrigue in 1624 France. Absent almost inconceivably massive player based activity, the French are going to lay siege to La Rochelle in three years. Plot doesn't get much more meta than playing through real history. The players have agency. They chose their patrons from the people they helped or impressed and who then offered them positions. Those choices weren't up to me as the GM. They decide whether they want to follow their orders and succeed at their missions or desert and they decide whether to betray their current patron to some possibly more important future patron. And when I planned for them to climb up the donjon tower to free a prisoner from the dungeon inside, they decided to ask – "So where do they hold the hangings? Are they in town or out at the prison?" And then change from breaking the prisoner out of prison to freeing the prisoner on the way to the hanging. Which was a much easier task actually and one that for some reason I had not anticipated. To me that is agency.

Now that is an impressive amount of background activity going on and it's way more NPCs than the sometimes ludicrous number I have in my H+I game. Kudos to both of you.

Heh! Thought you might think so...

The art is a redraw I did from Phil's original that he did for the Glorious General - the GG asked Phil what the thing looked liked, ans phil wihipped this off for him.

I like and agree with your points about 'agency'. Very good, and very well put.

Yeah, Phil really put a lot of work into his 'meta-game', but it made a real difference in how the place felt. Once you set the thing in motion, it runs itself; Dave Arneson created a 'sub-routine' for this, with sea captains and their ships moving about between ports; very easy to use, and I have a lot fo fun with it. 'Course, I made models of all the ships, too...

I love reading this thread!

Let me ask you a question, and please keep in mind this is coming from someone who's not very well-versed in Tékumel lore:

What's the relationship between Church (Churches? Cults? Sects?) and State?

I know about the very basics about the Gods of Stability and Change, but how does all that exist on an institutional level? Is there a "Unified" Church which comprises all worship in a single social institution? Are the churches/cults of the various gods independent of each other and sometime even hostile? To what extent is insitutionalised (or private) religion a part of the political machine? Is religion subservient to the Imperium in all ways, or do they lie outside secular jurisdiction in some way? Could a god's church, or a god's priest, or a god him/herself prosecute the Emperor or a high-ranking state official for violating religious tenets?

I would be grateful for any details you fine gentlemen would care to share.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;843809Yeah, this was a section that Phil tossed in for Dave; Gary got some pet sections, too.

They were very, very, very rare in Phil's campaign. We got exactly one, in over a decade of gaming. It was the intelligent sword that Vrisa got, before we marched off to the Northwest Frontier; we never did figure out if the damn thing was an AI or an imprisoned demon. The former was favored as a theory, but nobody wanted to get close to the thing to find out. It bonded with her, she bonded with it, and we all avoided it like the plague, as it did have a mind of it's own. It was made of the ceramet material of the ancients, and had a energy field as an edge; it would cut through just about anything, and with Kathy's close-to-max S&G stats it made her a real threat to anything that annoyed us. Saved my bacon a few times, too.

We didn't see a lot of 'special loot', ever. Yes, there was some pretty cool stuff, but Phil tended not to hand out the goodies unless you really ran some pretty severe risks. I got a +4 +5 mace off some dead Bednjallan guy, which I still keep around for unwelcome guests, but I had to kill a heap of nasty critters to get it. It was one of the few game sessions where I used all of my spells, as there was a heap of killing that needed to be done.

Wholesale slaughter, that's me!

What are the details of this weapon? +10 Strike and damage? Even worse:D?

Also, I heartily approve this approach to special loot. I'm playing a game in Creation (the setting of Exalted) and am still to get any artifact, or even a special masterwork item. Despite having the money to buy them, I might add.
Then again, I also avoid them, because special weapons mark you out.

Quote from: Bren;843722That was the expectation and assumption in our  1970s era groups. It's why we sometimes called the DM the Referee.

The GM is Referee in Traveler as well. I'd say it was expected in early gaming styles. (Which reminds me of the "somewhere along the path something went wrong" t-shirts).

QuoteNear as I can tell the objections are not about player agency, they are about PC power. Some people have a notion that the PCs should be the most important or powerful characters in the setting and that the game revolves solely around the PCs. (I'm guessing you'll have a hard time grokking this as well because it is the antithesis of the way you played and run Tekumel.

Well, this is one reading. There's also one reading saying "players need to have input in what's happening to their characters". Which is, admittedly, kinda hard unless you're playing a narrativist system where such things are codified.

Either way, both of these are a "have a talk with the player(s), if you can't reach a compromise, you don't get (a) new player(s)".

Quote from: AsenRG;843820The GM is Referee in Traveler as well. I'd say it was expected in early gaming styles. (Which reminds me of the "somewhere along the path something went wrong" t-shirts).

It's a matter of taste. Some people like blueberry or elderberry flavored beer. Some like story games.

Quote from: AsenRG;843820Then again, I also avoid them, because special weapons mark you out.

I was under the impression that the "really good stuff" got claimed by "authorities".
Either your clan, your temple or the Imperium would contact you as soon as word got out you had such a thing and basically confiscate it/them.  

So, if you got something really powerful, basically it was "on loan".

Am I wrong?
=

That would make sense for a culture that isn't anywhere near as individually focused as are most modern industrialized societies.

The attitude of being part of a group and really seeing and believing that the group is more important then the individual is something I find difficult to grasp emotionally. Intellectually I know that was the case in many socieities, but personally I just don't feel it the way I expect the vast majority of people in those cultures felt it.

Quote from: Bren;843863Intellectually I know that was the case in many societies, but personally I just don't feel it the way I expect the vast majority of people in those cultures felt it.

Can you emulate it? Would it be "fun"? Too much Role playing or the wrong kind?

I agree that it is a different mind set but thought that was part of its "charm".

What I don't yet know is where the group/individual balance should be.
That is one of the things I hope to determine through questioning.
At least as far as gaming is concerned as "The Real Tekumel" is something I won't be visiting.
=

Quote from: Bren;843851It's a matter of taste. Some people like blueberry or elderberry flavored beer. Some like story games.

Of course it's a matter of taste.

Quote from: Greentongue;843853I was under the impression that the "really good stuff" got claimed by "authorities".
Either your clan, your temple or the Imperium would contact you as soon as word got out you had such a thing and basically confiscate it/them.  

So, if you got something really powerful, basically it was "on loan".

Am I wrong?
=

We're talking about adventurers here. They can do lots of stuff with "loaned equipment", not to mention potentially "forgetting" to mention it:)!

Quote from: Bren;843863That would make sense for a culture that isn't anywhere near as individually focused as are most modern industrialized societies.

The attitude of being part of a group and really seeing and believing that the group is more important then the individual is something I find difficult to grasp emotionally. Intellectually I know that was the case in many socieities, but personally I just don't feel it the way I expect the vast majority of people in those cultures felt it.

It isn't so long ago that it was the norm in our societies. And military organisations still expect it from the conscripts. Funny enough, they achieve it by putting them in conditions similar to the life of clans;).

Quote from: Greentongue;843867Can you emulate it? Would it be "fun"? Too much Role playing or the wrong kind?

I agree that it is a different mind set but thought that was part of its "charm".

What I don't yet know is where the group/individual balance should be.
That is one of the things I hope to determine through questioning.
At least as far as gaming is concerned as "The Real Tekumel" is something I won't be visiting.
=

I'm not sure what "too much roleplaying" or "the wrong kind of roleplaying" might mean.
Personally, I'd expect it to differ from person to person, but those that don't put the interests of their clans and temples first would be punished at least socially.
Of course, since you're pretty much dead without your support network, and your friends and relatives would go along with you to meet Sarku, for many if not most people the math might be simple!

Quote from: Greentongue;843867Can you emulate it? Would it be "fun"? Too much Role playing or the wrong kind?

Yes. Yes. No. No.

I'm not arguing against playing people their PCs as being clan first, individual second (or maybe third). I'm just commenting that for me that is an intellectual exercise not one I can truly empathize with. I suspect that is true of many modern folks, though not all. Ironically, a lot of the folks who are most active and extreme in the social wars are closest to a old timey clan attitude with their nothing my side does is wrong, but everyone on the other side is awful because they do X, Y, and Z.

Quoteagree that it is a different mind set but thought that was part of its "charm".

Sure, I expect that in Glorantha or to an extent in Pendragon. A trait and passion system is one way to simulate that sort of behavior. Or players who understand and can act it out. I've just not found a lot of players that consistently do that.

QuoteWhat I don't yet know is where the group/individual balance should be.
That is one of the things I hope to determine through questioning.
At least as far as gaming is concerned as "The Real Tekumel" is something I won't be visiting.
=

For that Chirine's POV is much better informed that mine . I'm just speculating based on what I do know. So if we disagree, you should probably listen to Chirine not me. Unless my idea sounds cooler to you. Then make your Tekumel the way that appeals to you.

Quote from: Premier;843819I love reading this thread!

Let me ask you a question, and please keep in mind this is coming from someone who's not very well-versed in Tékumel lore:

What's the relationship between Church (Churches? Cults? Sects?) and State?

I know about the very basics about the Gods of Stability and Change, but how does all that exist on an institutional level? Is there a "Unified" Church which comprises all worship in a single social institution? Are the churches/cults of the various gods independent of each other and sometime even hostile? To what extent is insitutionalised (or private) religion a part of the political machine? Is religion subservient to the Imperium in all ways, or do they lie outside secular jurisdiction in some way? Could a god's church, or a god's priest, or a god him/herself prosecute the Emperor or a high-ranking state official for violating religious tenets?

I would be grateful for any details you fine gentlemen would care to share.

Thank you for joining the discussion! Let me have ago at this, if I may...

There is no 'unified church', at least in the Five Empires; some places do have a single Temple devoted to one deity, like the theocracy of the Temple of the Goddess Mretten out east in the Nyemesel Isles. All of the Temples are ruggedly independant, and depending on political and other factors can very either very hostile, very neutral, or very friendly to each other - sometimes all three at once, which is why PCs like me can lead lives of such rich complexity!

Because of the way the place works, at least in Phil's campaign, the Temples are part and parcel of the political landscape - this is why we have the Great Concordat, which is the treaty between the Temples and the governments that regulates political (and social and economic) life; Put simply, "no open fighting between anybody, or the government comes down on you like a ton of bricks." The attitude is pretty much that you can do what you want in the underworlds or out at sea, where there is no jurisdiction by anybody, and in the really remote 'uncivilized areas' - of which we also have lots!

The only area in which the Temples - as well as the clans, the legions, or any other group - is not subject to the government is in their own internal affairs; this is part of the Great Concordat. So, a Temple could indict somebody internally for something, and if it wasn't 'an Imperial matter', the Imperium would not care. Ditto for clans, by the way. There is no extra-territorial enclave or anything; the Imperium rules everything, subject to what will work in the context - the Imperium is a master of the art of the possible, and is very pragmatic.

None of the Temples would even think of trying to 'prosecute' the current sitter-upon-of-the-Petal-Throne for any sort of theological crime; it would be a very bad precedent, and all of the other Temples would gang up on the Temple to swat it down. The recourse, is civil war, and nobody starts that kind of thing unless the situation is really out of control.

There is no 'church and state' dichotomy; it's all one big interdependent society.

Does this help? Please feel free to keep asking questions, too!!!