Heheh - obviously I explained myself badly - my fault!

I'm fairly well aware of some of the weirder armour sets in the world (hello jaguar warriors) and also the 30s to 50s pulp tropes Barker was drawing on for his races.  While I'm not neccessarily drawn to either I appreciate em as a thing.  

What I was really getting at is the initial sketches of the armour and creatures (and other things) have largely acted as the templates for any drawing or illustration thats come after it.

Example.  This: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Hy12Hoguvyk/T3uqcfnSZFI/AAAAAAAAA0I/vCX4fJVG-xg/s320/Ssu.jpg is pretty much the same as: https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/projects/423840/photo-main.jpg?1397806558  The lines are better of course and Mr Dee has done a nice job making it look better but its pretty much exactly the same creature.

Compare that to say D+D orcs: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/86/D%26DOrc.JPG/200px-D%26DOrc.JPG vs http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-p0V8j0eAUM0/T5gG_Ll6wAI/AAAAAAAAAdE/jh0OeCSaTmU/s1600/orcshamanblogready.png  The latter illustration has changed, evolved, lost some of the piggy features and had its armour and weaponry reworked.  

On a more pulp level Barsoom is full of many limbed creatures many of whom looked sort of silly in early illustrations.  The recent film (love it or hate it) worked into the concepts to make them plausable and took potentially daft ideas and proved they could work: http://www.snoutypig.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/JohnCarterBringIt.jpg The armour feels unique to the character, worn and hints at the ancient culture while remaining straps and bone.

My arguement is that the weight of the original game creator had effectively 'locked' tekumel's look for decades - any artist approaching the work largely tried to go off his initial sketches line for line instead of adding their own touches.  My feeling is thats a shame.  The Lord of the rings films didn't entirely stick to: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/9/20/1348135551253/Tolkiens-illustration-of--008.jpg and I'd be fascinated to see the armour, weapons and creatures of Tekumel illustrated in perhaps a more functional fashion a la: http://www.fernbyfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/apocalypto-006.jpg

My opinion (and I'm often wrong) is that this particular game has a vast wealth of ideas to offer players and GMs and anything that helps raise interest would be a good thing instead of it dying out.  Its always bothered me that, for example, some roleplayers might read the Arcanis rpg among others and not realize the entire religion was lifted from Tekumel...

What Chirine does ...
Naughty Chirine! Wicked Chirine! Gronan spank!!!
:jaw-dropping:

It's not just talk.
=

Quote from: Greentongue;799586What Chirine does ...
Naughty Chirine! Wicked Chirine! Gronan spank!!!
:jaw-dropping:

It's not just talk.
=

That game went into a second session, as part of a micro-campaign. I built a 'vertical extender' for the game table, and added the Underworld area below the surface temples. We then did the next series of adventures, with everyone having to work in a true three-dimensional environment. [Edit - forgot to mention: This three-dimensional game session is up in four segements on my You Tube channel.]

I'm just heading out to work now, but I'll upload the photos from that game session tomorrow or Friday for your amusement; in the meantime, I added a few snaps of the scene of all this 'retro-fun' to the Photobucket page for you.

More later!

- chirine

Quote from: Awsyme;799499My arguement is that the weight of the original game creator had effectively 'locked' tekumel's look for decades - any artist approaching the work largely tried to go off his initial sketches line for line instead of adding their own touches.  My feeling is thats a shame.  The Lord of the rings films didn't entirely stick to: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/9/20/1348135551253/Tolkiens-illustration-of--008.jpg and I'd be fascinated to see the armour, weapons and creatures of Tekumel illustrated in perhaps a more functional fashion a la: http://www.fernbyfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/apocalypto-006.jpg

My opinion (and I'm often wrong) is that this particular game has a vast wealth of ideas to offer players and GMs and anything that helps raise interest would be a good thing instead of it dying out.  Its always bothered me that, for example, some roleplayers might read the Arcanis rpg among others and not realize the entire religion was lifted from Tekumel...

For a functional look at things, may I suggest my Photobucket page? I've uploaded some snaps of the game room just now, as I'm off to work.

Yes, Tekumel does have a lot to offer people; you, and everyone else, are certainly welcome to help yourself and scoop up whatever you like. That' what my book is intended to do - offer up my and our adventures from a simpler and more innocent time for you to have some fun with.

If your not happy with our little stagnant corner of the game hobby, please do feel free to take what you will and move on; there's never been a need around here to, as one would-be Tekumel publisher told me, to "toss out all that old stuff and completely re-imagine Tekumel". What they wanted to have was basically "World of Warcraft" or "EverQuest" imagery - Tekumel with all that old "Barker stuff" removed. If that's what you like, please do feel free; we're pretty open-minded in these parts.

- chirine

Quote from: Awsyme;799499My arguement is that the weight of the original game creator had effectively 'locked' tekumel's look for decades - any artist approaching the work largely tried to go off his initial sketches line for line instead of adding their own touches.  My feeling is thats a shame.

And my feeling is that it's Phil's fucking world, and nobody else gets a vote.

Quote from: Bren;799408Add my complement as well.

You scooped me. Without knowing what Prof. Barker based stuff on, it has long reminded me of various Earth cultures. The armor looks like sculpures and drawings I've seen from Thailand and India and the multi-pointed blades remind me of African throwing irons.

Also, I like the look. I've used a modified Petal Throne miniature for my Humakti Runesword, Tamlorn Two-Sword since the late 1980s. I like the unique look. It's not every miniature that facilitates depicting a character with dragon-scale and iron armor,  leopard skin trousers, and two swords.

I recently visited the Ethnological Museum here in Berlin and was amazed and delighted to see a suit of armor covered almost entirely with teeth, paired with a helmet made of a tanned blowfish.

Here's an image of it from a pretty good flickr site.

https://secure.flickr.com/photos/georg-erber/2780435764/in/set-72157606834063153

The rest of the exhibit is amazing, with stuff from all over the world. My first thought on entering the Mesoamerican section was "Welcome to Tekumel!"

Quote from: Old Geezer;799356La, you are entirely correct.  Tekumel has always been a fringe setting... I'm sure you remember as well as I hearing many of the same complaints at tables at Origins and Gen Con.

Remember the guy who kept coming up to the table at successive Gen Cons for a few years, tore us a new one very year for not having realistic stuff and unpronounceable words? Were you there when Gary (yes, that Gary) threw him out of the convention with a full refund for being a git?

[And, yes, I tell the story on one of my podcasts - "The Adventure Of Gary Gygax And The Unpronounceable Name".]

- chirine

Quote from: languagegeek;799256I'm someone who owns most of Tékumel RPG stuff and has read most of the novels; I've yet to run Tékumel.

I think one reason is that the kind of GM that likes the unusual in-depth religions, cultures and languages, is also the kind of GM who likes to make up their own unusual in-depth religions, cultures and languages. That's certainly me and I kind of think that this is in the spirit of the game.

For me Tékumel is inspiration, I read the sourcebooks and it gets me thinking about concepts for my own campaigns. I don't necessarily borrow ideas straight from Tékumel, but it helps me consider what sorts of things cultures find solutions for.

Tékumel is something I'd love to be a player in - if I'm GMing I'll run my own setting.

And there you go - that's what it's all about!

- chirine

Quote from: Old Geezer;799357Ayuh, as they say Down East.

Don't you wish we had known then what we know now about demographics and statistical analysis?

Yeah; I would have saved over $12,000. Heck, though, we did have some fun doing it!

- chirine

Quote from: Greentongue;799586What Chirine does ...
Naughty Chirine! Wicked Chirine! Gronan spank!!!
:jaw-dropping:

It's not just talk.
=

More photos of the game are now up. See the videos for the best flavor of the game, though...

- chirine

Quote from: Old Geezer;799663And my feeling is that it's Phil's fucking world, and nobody else gets a vote.

Yep.

- chirine

Quote from: Awsyme;799499Heheh - obviously I explained myself badly - my fault!

I'm fairly well aware of some of the weirder armour sets in the world (hello jaguar warriors) and also the 30s to 50s pulp tropes Barker was drawing on for his races.  While I'm not neccessarily drawn to either I appreciate em as a thing.  

What I was really getting at is the initial sketches of the armour and creatures (and other things) have largely acted as the templates for any drawing or illustration thats come after it.

Example.  This: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Hy12Hoguvyk/T3uqcfnSZFI/AAAAAAAAA0I/vCX4fJVG-xg/s320/Ssu.jpg is pretty much the same as: https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/projects/423840/photo-main.jpg?1397806558  The lines are better of course and Mr Dee has done a nice job making it look better but its pretty much exactly the same creature.

Compare that to say D+D orcs: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/86/D%26DOrc.JPG/200px-D%26DOrc.JPG vs http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-p0V8j0eAUM0/T5gG_Ll6wAI/AAAAAAAAAdE/jh0OeCSaTmU/s1600/orcshamanblogready.png  The latter illustration has changed, evolved, lost some of the piggy features and had its armour and weaponry reworked.  

On a more pulp level Barsoom is full of many limbed creatures many of whom looked sort of silly in early illustrations.  The recent film (love it or hate it) worked into the concepts to make them plausable and took potentially daft ideas and proved they could work: http://www.snoutypig.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/JohnCarterBringIt.jpg The armour feels unique to the character, worn and hints at the ancient culture while remaining straps and bone.

My arguement is that the weight of the original game creator had effectively 'locked' tekumel's look for decades - any artist approaching the work largely tried to go off his initial sketches line for line instead of adding their own touches.  My feeling is thats a shame.  The Lord of the rings films didn't entirely stick to: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/9/20/1348135551253/Tolkiens-illustration-of--008.jpg and I'd be fascinated to see the armour, weapons and creatures of Tekumel illustrated in perhaps a more functional fashion a la: http://www.fernbyfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/apocalypto-006.jpg

My opinion (and I'm often wrong) is that this particular game has a vast wealth of ideas to offer players and GMs and anything that helps raise interest would be a good thing instead of it dying out.  Its always bothered me that, for example, some roleplayers might read the Arcanis rpg among others and not realize the entire religion was lifted from Tekumel...

If I may make an observation, from the point of view of a game publisher...

Artwork costs money. Good artwork costs more money. Color artwork costs even more money.

Reproducing artwork in a book costs money. Reproducing photographs in a book costs more money. Reproducing color artwork in a book costs even more money.

For the first twenty years of Tekumel publishing, personal computers and desktop publishing didn't exist. The technology and the software hadn't been invented yet - many of the people who invented it hadn't been born yet.

Black and white line drawings were the industry standard, and all we could afford. That, in turn, set the standard for what we published for two decades.

The nice thing about being alive today is that I can use the new (to me!) technologies to add color artwork, video clips, and sound bites to my book - as an e-book, down-loadable on your smart device, you can have what we only dreamed of back in those days.

It was a very different world, back then.

- chirine

^^ Don't I know it.  I worked on a small roleplaying magazine in the late 80s and remember struggling with the shaky computer and the very bad desk top software that made simple things like placing a black and white picture such a chore.  Modern computer stuff... its awesome.

I suspect I should stop typing though before I really annoy someone (which isn't my intent) and I too am ejected from the hall.  Re the earlier comment about only Barker gets the vote.  Utterly fair if that's how he wanted it!  I have mixed opinions on the sanctity of the original creators work.  I'm aware many authors hate, say, fan fiction and stare in horror at book covers that fail to match the scenes and people in their imagination. So there's that.  On the flip side once work is published its... largely 'out there' and if successful often mutates, is adapted and reworked by the ages.  Without such adaption we wouldn't have stuff like the BBCs sherlock, the musical Wizard of Oz... even close adaptions such as Lord of the Rings made the original heirs extremely unhappy yet made a lot of fans delighted (my argument falls down when I think about the hobbit... on that they might have had a good point).  

I grew up a huge fan of revisionists authors like Alan Moore so... hey... I'm probably biased far too much in that direction but I do understand if people want to adhere as closely to the original stuff as possible (and if that is the consensus I apologize to the late Prof for the many years my painting of a shunned one has squatted on the front page of the tekumel site... In my defence three layer cloaks and odd face masks leaking their breathing gas are easier to draw than odd wrinkled faces! )

Quote from: chirine ba kal;799705Yeah; I would have saved over $12,000. Heck, though, we did have some fun doing it!

- chirine

Oh, indeed so!  Heck, getting to know Forrest Brown and Butch Leeper was almost worth the price of admission alone!

Good times, good times.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;799709If I may make an observation, from the point of view of a game publisher...

Artwork costs money. Good artwork costs more money. Color artwork costs even more money.

Reproducing artwork in a book costs money. Reproducing photographs in a book costs more money. Reproducing color artwork in a book costs even more money.

Quite.

There are elements of the RPG market that frankly want the impossible; they want hardcover books with heavy weight, glossy paper and full color art.

But they want it for the same price point as a coffee table book with a print run in the hundreds of thousands, rather than a RPG with a print run of 5000 if we're doing good.

It's one reason I'm delighted at some of the small press offerings; we're getting back to the "basement workshop" feeling of the late 70s and early 80s dealers' room at Gen Con.