From the updates in the thread Questioning chirine ba kal it is clear that you had a different initial experience playing EPT in Tekumel.

Could you tell us about it?

How many players started?
What was the mix of characters?
How many lived past the first few games?
How many gave up and quit playing?

Was it harder than other games at that time?

And of course the most important question ... since I assume it was FUN, what did you enjoy the most?
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Uff da.  You don't want much out of forty year old memories...

I don't remember all the people in the first group.  Me, Al Muscielewicz (probably butchered the spelling), Deborah Naffziger, two or three others... very likely some subset of Mike Huggins, David Thornley, Michael Wollan from the Tuesday University of Minnesota group.  Possibly Gary Rudolph as well.

Other than Al, Deborah, and me, this is a guess.  I know there were more, but sodomy non sapiens.

The first session started much like any D&D game except we didn't speak the language.  It was STRAIGHT out of EPT... show up in the leaky rowboat, hide in the Foreigner's Quarters, try not to get robbed and killed for your money, and wait for some local who needed muscle that was cheap, noisome, and easily expendable.  I've talked a bit about those early days in Chirine's thread.

Almost everybody started out worshiping Dlamelish, because we were a bunch of horny 19 year olds (yes, including Deborah), and tee hee boobies.

The first expeditions into the Jakalla underworld were an old school D&D dungeon crawl turned up to 11.  Take a look at the damn map and you'll know why.  And Tekumel is almost completely free from 1 HD monsters; EVERYTHING has more hit dice than the players, or poison, or magic, or multiple attacks, or all the above.

A LOT of people played a few times and then drifted away.  Dozens if not more.  Mostly because the game was too weird with no gains.

I think that may be a big part of why Phil dropped the "barbarian in a rowboat" aspect.  The game is much more interesting when it becomes "exploring life in Tekumel" and less "D&D with unpronounceable names."

Some people rolled warriors and some rolled priests or magic users, just like any D&D game.  Nothing noteworthy.

Those of us who kept playing past the first few sessions were serious D&D hounds, and we kept playing because we'd play in any D&D (or D&D style) game we could get into.

The game got a lot better for me once I joined the Army.  THAT was different from the usual D&D game.

Yeah, memories, we all got them but they are not as dependable as some think.

I'm just looking for a feeling of the beginning since most people start there.
If you can't hook people from the start, you go nowhere.
Examples of how it was done are helpful.
If you can still remember them, they are good enough to have value.

Do you recall if NPC "meat shields" were included in your party?

Did everyone join the army or what?

How about in the army, more NPC in the party?
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Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;864390The game got a lot better for me once I joined the Army.  THAT was different from the usual D&D game.

How so?

Do you recall what level your PC was when you joined the Army?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;864390A LOT of people played a few times and then drifted away.  Dozens if not more.  Mostly because the game was too weird with no gains.

I think that may be a big part of why Phil dropped the "barbarian in a rowboat" aspect.  The game is much more interesting when it becomes "exploring life in Tekumel" and less "D&D with unpronounceable names."

Now there's an intriguing perspective. Tékumel didn't drift from foreigners dungeon-crawling to natives wallowing through a labyrinthine society because "swine" demanded "anthropological wank" but because Prof. Barker's crawls were plain brutal!

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;864390Some people rolled warriors and some rolled priests or magic users, just like any D&D game.  Nothing noteworthy.

Don't both these things, in Tékumel, require joining a temple? How was this handled with regards to being a barbarian fresh off the boat?

Quote from: Greentongue;864407Yeah, memories, we all got them but they are not as dependable as some think.

I'm just looking for a feeling of the beginning since most people start there.
If you can't hook people from the start, you go nowhere.
Examples of how it was done are helpful.
If you can still remember them, they are good enough to have value.

Do you recall if NPC "meat shields" were included in your party?

Did everyone join the army or what?

How about in the army, more NPC in the party?
=

We hired torchbearer slaves, but they were useless other than lugging, and had shitty morale.  For the most part, we WERE the NPC meat shields for the citizens.

We did try some expeditions into the City of the Dead ourselves, but outland barbarian grave robber isn't a high status job.

It was better in every way for me to fight as a gladiator in the arena.  More status, less risk, better reward, until the odds in betting on me got to be 4 will get you 1, because I kept winning.  We had a couple of different gladiator games, and we'd play them out.  I was good at them.

The Army was the army, and after that things went in a totally different direction.  "Kasi, march up to Khirgar."  "Yes, My General."  Hup ho off we go.

Quote from: Bren;864408How so?

Do you recall what level your PC was when you joined the Army?

I was 3rd or 4th level.  I was a cohort commander, and from then on, I was a soldier in the Legion of Serqu, Sword of the Empire.  I lived in the Legion barracks, spent my days in the Legion bivouac, and when General Serqu said "Kasi, do such and so," I saluted and said "Yes, my Kerdudalikoi."

Imagine the Musketeers during the campaign around La Rochelle.

Quote from: The Butcher;864421Now there's an intriguing perspective. Tékumel didn't drift from foreigners dungeon-crawling to natives wallowing through a labyrinthine society because "swine" demanded "anthropological wank" but because Prof. Barker's crawls were plain brutal!

A lot of truth to that.  Brutal, and the added danger of the society itself killing you if the monsters didn't.  I have a longer post on "Game Versus World" forming itself.

Quote from: The Butcher;864421Don't both these things, in Tékumel, require joining a temple? How was this handled with regards to being a barbarian fresh off the boat?

I vaguely remember that low level temple functionaries got sent to the Foreigner's Quarters to recruit potentially useful people; there were shitass little temples there too.  I figure that's where you got sent if you pissed somebody off.  If you had the ability to wield other planar energy, you were useful as more than merely a meat shield, and the temples wanted to control as much of that as they could.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;864425I was 3rd or 4th level.  I was a cohort commander, and from then on, I was a soldier in the Legion of Serqu, Sword of the Empire.  I lived in the Legion barracks, spent my days in the Legion bivouac, and when General Serqu said "Kasi, do such and so," I saluted and said "Yes, my Kerdudalikoi."

Imagine the Musketeers during the campaign around La Rochelle.

Thanks. Starting out as a cohort commander helps get a sense of what enlisting meant.

Was there a rationale (other than you being Level 3-4) for someone making a foreigner like you with no army experience* a cohort commander?


* My assumption (probably influenced by something I read or heard) is that the army in Tekumel is professional, more or less in the way that Roman armies in the late Republic or Imperial period were professional, i.e. long term service, issued weapons, actual training, real tactics, real barracks, support organization, etc.

I have no idea why Phil made me a Kasi, and honestly, I never asked.  Inscrutable are the ways of Tsolyanu to the foreign barbarian.

I was expecting to be made a line infantry soldier.

It might have been the fact that even a Kasi, though part of the army, would have a lot more freedom to act than a common footsoldier.

I was tired of trying to negotiate my way through a hostile society and just wanted something where my character had a place in society.  That's why I enlisted.

Well, and I hate political intrigue and wanted nothing to do with any of it, and really didn't give a flying fuck at a rolling donut who the next Emperor was going to be.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;864445I have no idea why Phil made me a Kasi, and honestly, I never asked.  Inscrutable are the ways of Tsolyanu to the foreign barbarian.

I was expecting to be made a line infantry soldier.

Clever man that Phil. If you were a line trooper than he'd have to play your file leader, your company commander, your cohort commander, and your legion general. Much better to give you the cohort commander job leaving him with the general to run.

Quote from: The Butcher;864421Now there's an intriguing perspective. Tékumel didn't drift from foreigners dungeon-crawling to natives wallowing through a labyrinthine society because "swine" demanded "anthropological wank" but because Prof. Barker's crawls were plain brutal!



Don't both these things, in Tékumel, require joining a temple? How was this handled with regards to being a barbarian fresh off the boat?

The former took place in the late 1970s; the latter took place in the middle 1990s. Different game groups, really.

Hello Glorious General,

Could you tell us a bit about Korunme's background(I got horny, young barbarrian, gladiator, then soldier)? Where did you originally hail from? I'm curious about his stats?

Was Korunme your only character? Were there others you played as well?

Fondest(or not), memory of the Professor?

Thanks,

H :0)

He was a barbarian from the southern continent who washed up in Jakalla.  Just like in the original EPT book.

He had no other background.

The "horny" part was ME, not the character.

I played a temple guard of a moderate level in the temple of Karakan for about six months, accompanying some priests out to the Chakas.