One of the most frustrating things about gaming is how demented gamers are with their conception of book prices.

My wife compiled a business book. It ran a few thousand copies, was composed of articles submitted by various businessfolk for free, and there was no artwork.

It cost $90, ~10 years ago.

Try selling a 300 page RPG book for $90.

Quote from: Will;800245One of the most frustrating things about gaming is how demented gamers are with their conception of book prices.

My wife compiled a business book. It ran a few thousand copies, was composed of articles submitted by various businessfolk for free, and there was no artwork.

It cost $90, ~10 years ago.

Try selling a 300 page RPG book for $90.

You should hear model railroaders whine about prices.

In 1956 a certain engine cost $25.  Its modern replacement runs about $250.

$25 inflated forward to 2014 is $218.23 in 2014 dollars.  And the new model is a HELL of a lot better.

Quote from: Awsyme;799888^^ 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! )

Phil kept saying, over and over again, that as far as he was concerend what you did in and with Tekumel in your campaign was your business, and nobody elses - including him! What frosted his cookies, and to which he objected in the strongest possible terms, were the people who kept insisting that he change his vision of his world, in his own campaign, because somebody had an issue with something he'd done. What griped him was that these people wanted - demanded, in some infamous cases - him to include their ideas and concepts in his Tekumel - and we're not talking simply publishing their material in our various 'zines, we're talking angry letters and nasty personal visits to his house to tell him that his Tekumel is all screwed up and that he's DOING IT WRONG.

Your Shunned One in a gas mask and cloaks is a good example of things that Phil liked - logical extrapolations of what he'd envisioned, and taken to a reasonable conclusion. Would I use it in my Tekumel campaign? You bet I would - it's 'good Tekumel'. Would Phil have used it in his campaign? Yes, I think he would, because it's 'inside the lines' of what he considered 'good Tekumel'.

(And to answer a recurring question - Do I run an 'authentic Tekumel campaign'? Heck if I know. What I run is very much the same thing that Phil ran for us - my two long-running campaign groups in the 1980s were the 'waiting room' for the original Thursday night group. All I did differently then Phil was 'compress time' when nothing was going on - I'd 'skip ahead' to the busy parts, which was something Phil didn't do; we watched a lot of ocean go by, on our ocean trips with Dave Arneson's Captain Harchar.)

What Phil would get really angry about was being heavily pressured to include something in 'OFFICIAL TEKUMEL' that had nothing to do with anything he was doing - or even interested in, in some cases. For example, the big push by one of Phil's later gamers for the 'OFFICIAL TEKUMEL ENDORSEMENT'  of gay marriage was prompted by that player's need for recognition in the LBGT circles that he moves in, and was something that Phil and his Tekumelyani simply don't concern themselves with - as Phil once said, "file the paperwork and bribe the right people, and anything will get approved by the Imperium."

It got old for Phil - his letter files are a really sad read because of this kind of thing.

Phil gace us his world to play in and with, and told us to make it our own - if you want to develop it further for your campaign, please do so - and I think we'll be interested to see what you come up with!

- chirine

Quote from: Old Geezer;800240Oh, indeed so!  Heck, getting to know Forrest Brown and Butch Leeper was almost worth the price of admission alone!

Good times, good times.

Agreed; I was out at Dave Wesely's place playing ACW on Wednesday, and had Dave Megarry in my game room last night. Good to see old friends and push some lead - Megarry was telling me about the miniatures game at Pete Gaylord's place when Arneson slipped Megarry the phaser and he fried Pete's war elephant.

Very good time, indeed!

- chirine

Quote from: chirine ba kal;800324Agreed; I was out at Dave Wesely's place playing ACW on Wednesday, and had Dave Megarry in my game room last night. Good to see old friends and push some lead - Megarry was telling me about the miniatures game at Pete Gaylord's place when Arneson slipped Megarry the phaser and he fried Pete's war elephant.

Very good time, indeed!

- chirine

What the heck convention was it when some Sweet Young Thing (c) (tm) (reg us pat off) stole Butch Leeper's bottle of Romulan Ale?  Was that a Minicon?

Quote from: chirine ba kal;800320Phil kept saying, over and over again, that as far as he was concerend what you did in and with Tekumel in your campaign was your business, and nobody elses - including him! What frosted his cookies, and to which he objected in the strongest possible terms, were the people who kept insisting that he change his vision of his world, in his own campaign, because somebody had an issue with something he'd done. What griped him was that these people wanted - demanded, in some infamous cases - him to include their ideas and concepts in his Tekumel - and we're not talking simply publishing their material in our various 'zines, we're talking angry letters and nasty personal visits to his house to tell him that his Tekumel is all screwed up and that he's DOING IT WRONG.

The same thing also happened to TSR quite early on.  Fan groups got vocal with not "these are our variants," but "these are better rules and you should use THEM instead."

That plus the propensity of some people to photocopy the entire LBB set of D&D and distribute it freely got up ol' Gary's nose a bit, and I don't blame him, honestly.  If somebody copied Kathy Marschall's or Ken Fletcher's art and distributed it without permission, I'd take just as dim a view of it.  There are certain things one does not do, although such attitude marks me as somewhat old fashioned I confess.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;800320Your Shunned One in a gas mask and cloaks is a good example of things that Phil liked - logical extrapolations of what he'd envisioned, and taken to a reasonable conclusion.

So the Shunned Ones are descended from the Delor of my Planetfall universe?

Will you have your players encounter a group who's managed to get a suit of the old Delor powered armor working again?

(Never mind the plasmanucleonic electrofrandibuliziers and other weapons... if the Shunned Ones have gotten the powered raptor arms working the PCs are in the chicken noodle for sure!)

Quote from: chirine ba kal;800320the big push by one of Phil's later gamers for the 'OFFICIAL TEKUMEL ENDORSEMENT'  of gay marriage was prompted by that player's need for recognition in the LBGT circles that he moves in, and was something that Phil and his Tekumelyani simply don't concern themselves with - as Phil once said, "file the paperwork and bribe the right people, and anything will get approved by the Imperium."

That's odd... it's what Phil would call "a typical American attitude."  I'd think any gamer who cared enough about Tekumel to even ask would realize that in a society of arranged marriages, the answer to his question is "nu".

I think I would have elaborated on Phil's answer a bit--

"If your clan coughs up the khaitars, the Imperium will approve anything.  And if you demonstrate how the marriage benefits your clan sufficiently, they won't care if what you marry is animal, vegetable, or mineral."

Quote from: chirine ba kal;800320It got old for Phil - his letter files are a really sad read because of this kind of thing.

- chirine

Made even more painful because the dear ol' curmudgeon was doing this as a hobby.  Yeah, he wanted it to be successful, but he was ALSO a full time University department chair and got enough "stupid people making ridiculous demands on him" in his day job, he didn't need it in his spare time.

Quote from: Old Geezer;800368

What the heck convention was it when some Sweet Young Thing (c) (tm) (reg us pat off) stole Butch Leeper's bottle of Romulan Ale?  Was that a Minicon?

Might have been; I thought it was the Gen Con where we all took that walk out on the jetty that night...

- chirine

Quote from: Old Geezer;800369The same thing also happened to TSR quite early on.  Fan groups got vocal with not "these are our variants," but "these are better rules and you should use THEM instead."

That plus the propensity of some people to photocopy the entire LBB set of D&D and distribute it freely got up ol' Gary's nose a bit, and I don't blame him, honestly.  If somebody copied Kathy Marschall's or Ken Fletcher's art and distributed it without permission, I'd take just as dim a view of it.  There are certain things one does not do, although such attitude marks me as somewhat old fashioned I confess.

Yep. I remember Gary having to fend them off.

Re permissions - ya mean, like the guy who copied Kathy's drawing from the cover of the language book and was selling it on coffee mugs on zazzle or some similar site?

- chirine

Quote from: Old Geezer;800382So the Shunned Ones are descended from the Delor of my Planetfall universe?

Will you have your players encounter a group who's managed to get a suit of the old Delor powered armor working again?

(Never mind the plasmanucleonic electrofrandibuliziers and other weapons... if the Shunned Ones have gotten the powered raptor arms working the PCs are in the chicken noodle for sure!)

That's odd... it's what Phil would call "a typical American attitude."  I'd think any gamer who cared enough about Tekumel to even ask would realize that in a society of arranged marriages, the answer to his question is "nu".

I think I would have elaborated on Phil's answer a bit--

"If your clan coughs up the khaitars, the Imperium will approve anything.  And if you demonstrate how the marriage benefits your clan sufficiently, they won't care if what you marry is animal, vegetable, or mineral."

Made even more painful because the dear ol' curmudgeon was doing this as a hobby.  Yeah, he wanted it to be successful, but he was ALSO a full time University department chair and got enough "stupid people making ridiculous demands on him" in his day job, he didn't need it in his spare time.

[Shunned Ones] Well, yes, actually. I tend to have them keeping a lot more of their ancient technology, due to their sealed dome-cities. It's more fun that way, too...

[gay marraige] Yeah, well, the guy seemed to need it for his political goals outside the game - "prestige", and all that. And yes, I thought that it was odd - the issue never came up in our time with Phil; we just didn't worry about it.

And yes, I think you have Phil's take on it exactly, too!

Remember when we were in Blackmoor, after Phil transported us there, and Dave and Phil got deal old Jajal married off to a sheep? Since I was the senior Imperial official, I got to sign all the papers - despite Jajal offering me large bribes not to...

[annoyance] Yeah, there was certainly a lot of that, wasn't there?

- chirine

The complaints and demands: wow, I never imagined that. I just picked up EPT and the Sourcebook (actually Dave Sutherland's Legions of the Petal Throne before either) and ran with it.

Took Glorantha and (to the extent I took it at all) Traveller's Third Imperium the same way, and never met anyone who cared much what was "official canon" until the Forgotten Realms became an obvious fan-fetish.

Quote from: Phillip;800406The complaints and demands: wow, I never imagined that. I just picked up EPT and the Sourcebook (actually Dave Sutherland's Legions of the Petal Throne before either) and ran with it.

Took Glorantha and (to the extent I took it at all) Traveller's Third Imperium the same way, and never met anyone who cared much what was "official canon" until the Forgotten Realms became an obvious fan-fetish.

Yep; we did exactly what you did - just read the rules and played them as they lay (to use a golfing term). We certainly discussed and talked about a lot of stuff with Phil, but we never demanded that he change his game, campaign, or world to suit us. We did that with all the games we played, like OG's wonderful "Planetfall" SF rules. All we cared about was exploring all these new worlds, and having fun in them. We were so young, and so innocent in comparison to the gamer of today...

For us, 'the rules' were the jumping-off point for our adventures; they provided a base of information and methods to run the games. It was, at least in our 'Twin Cities style of play', up to the GM or referee to fill in the gaps in the game if and when we found them.

An example of this was a "Tractics" game that OG was running; I was the DAK, and my light armor was getting hosed by the British Grant and Stuarts. OG asked me why I wasn't firing smoke shells to mask my position, and I pointed out that the 20mm auto-cannon in my Mk IIs didn't have smoke shells as an option; I had AP and HE, and that was it. He pointed it out in the rules that Gary had said that I should have smoke rounds, and I pointed out that in von Sanger und Etterlin that the Panzer Korps weren't issued with them. "Aha!" we all cried, and got on with the game. I got hosed, and fled back to Benghazi, and OG dropped Gary a polite note for the errata. After that, we simply made this a 'house rule' and got on with winning the war.

- chirine

Congrats to the Brits; my Stuarts usually end up being the Germans' smoke screen!

Quote from: chirine ba kal;800320Phil kept saying, over and over again, that as far as he was concerend what you did in and with Tekumel in your campaign was your business, and nobody elses - including him! What frosted his cookies, and to which he objected in the strongest possible terms, were the people who kept insisting that he change his vision of his world, in his own campaign, because somebody had an issue with something he'd done. What griped him was that these people wanted - demanded, in some infamous cases - him to include their ideas and concepts in his Tekumel - and we're not talking simply publishing their material in our various 'zines, we're talking angry letters and nasty personal visits to his house to tell him that his Tekumel is all screwed up and that he's DOING IT WRONG.

Your Shunned One in a gas mask and cloaks is a good example of things that Phil liked - logical extrapolations of what he'd envisioned, and taken to a reasonable conclusion. Would I use it in my Tekumel campaign? You bet I would - it's 'good Tekumel'. Would Phil have used it in his campaign? Yes, I think he would, because it's 'inside the lines' of what he considered 'good Tekumel'.

(And to answer a recurring question - Do I run an 'authentic Tekumel campaign'? Heck if I know. What I run is very much the same thing that Phil ran for us - my two long-running campaign groups in the 1980s were the 'waiting room' for the original Thursday night group. All I did differently then Phil was 'compress time' when nothing was going on - I'd 'skip ahead' to the busy parts, which was something Phil didn't do; we watched a lot of ocean go by, on our ocean trips with Dave Arneson's Captain Harchar.)

What Phil would get really angry about was being heavily pressured to include something in 'OFFICIAL TEKUMEL' that had nothing to do with anything he was doing - or even interested in, in some cases. For example, the big push by one of Phil's later gamers for the 'OFFICIAL TEKUMEL ENDORSEMENT'  of gay marriage was prompted by that player's need for recognition in the LBGT circles that he moves in, and was something that Phil and his Tekumelyani simply don't concern themselves with - as Phil once said, "file the paperwork and bribe the right people, and anything will get approved by the Imperium."

It got old for Phil - his letter files are a really sad read because of this kind of thing.

Phil gace us his world to play in and with, and told us to make it our own - if you want to develop it further for your campaign, please do so - and I think we'll be interested to see what you come up with!

- chirine

Really?  Jesus... I can't imagine anyone rude enough to do that to someones face.  At best say 'x isn't for us but best of luck'.

Re art - I have a vague memory of one tekumel site indicating that the shunned ones smell wasn't body odor but chlorine gas which they needed to breathe in to survive.  I liked the idea and they always struck me as the most technologically advanced of the races with a lot of 'science that has devolved into ritualized magic' - morso that humanity and their allies.  I also prefered hiding them in three layered robes to hint at their triple jointed limbs.  My impression of them as a race was sort of like the cenobites from hellraiser.  These horrible evil scientific things that hated you and came gliding down the tubeways of the underworld seeking things to experiment on.

I remember doing some sketches for a few of the other major races at the time for my own amusement.  The ssu were.... hard to get my head around as they had a very distinct visual look (the skin) and sketches of them either had them naked bar a few straps or wearing tekumel style armour which seemed far too human to suit them.  I think I went for very skeletal but muscular frames with slightly elongated heads that mimicked desiccated mummies and armour that felt far more organic with loads of edges and odd patterns engraved or grown into it.  And possibly leather robes and straps made from flayed human skin because, well, they're the ssu.

Ultimately as someone who never met the professor Tekumel always felt (and feels) like archeology ^^ You hunt through the few websites and books for clues as to how something might work and sort of take a stab in the dark.  Some things there's a fair amount of info published about.  Other things like the pariah gods or certain races - not so much

Quote from: Awsyme;800638Really?  Jesus... I can't imagine anyone rude enough to do that to someones face.  At best say 'x isn't for us but best of luck'.

Re art - I have a vague memory of one tekumel site indicating that the shunned ones smell wasn't body odor but chlorine gas which they needed to breathe in to survive.  I liked the idea and they always struck me as the most technologically advanced of the races with a lot of 'science that has devolved into ritualized magic' - morso that humanity and their allies.  I also prefered hiding them in three layered robes to hint at their triple jointed limbs.  My impression of them as a race was sort of like the cenobites from hellraiser.  These horrible evil scientific things that hated you and came gliding down the tubeways of the underworld seeking things to experiment on.

I remember doing some sketches for a few of the other major races at the time for my own amusement.  The ssu were.... hard to get my head around as they had a very distinct visual look (the skin) and sketches of them either had them naked bar a few straps or wearing tekumel style armour which seemed far too human to suit them.  I think I went for very skeletal but muscular frames with slightly elongated heads that mimicked desiccated mummies and armour that felt far more organic with loads of edges and odd patterns engraved or grown into it.  And possibly leather robes and straps made from flayed human skin because, well, they're the ssu.

Ultimately as someone who never met the professor Tekumel always felt (and feels) like archeology ^^ You hunt through the few websites and books for clues as to how something might work and sort of take a stab in the dark.  Some things there's a fair amount of info published about.  Other things like the pariah gods or certain races - not so much

May I take your points in order?

1] Yes, people would come out to the Professor's house to game with him; he'd put on his best show, and then have to sit there at the table while they let him have it. It wasn't like what you suggested, either; that would have been fine, as Phil loved a good discussion. It was flat-out 'you are doing it wrong!', and it got old pretty quickly.

2] It's in EPT, too. Yes, it's chlorine, or maybe hydrogen sulfide; Phil was not a chemist, and all he wanted was a race of non-oxygen breathers for his domed cities - a very '50s trope that he really liked. They as indeed still very technologically advanced, which makes them a real pain in the tush to have to deal with. You have them down precisely!

3] I agree with you about the Ssu; they really should look the part, and I think that a lot of the artwork from over the years doesn't do them justice - Craig Smith did quite well, as he was working directly with Phil, and Jeff Dee did a very good grey SSu in the old "Dragon" EPT issue. Jim Garrison, one of the artists who worked with Phil in the late 1980s, did a lot of the kind of 'organic-looking' armor that you describe; I have a lot of his work in my archives.

4] Yes, I agree with you entirely - and I was there with Phil starting in 1976! I did a lot of 'digging' to get to his 1940s and 1950s work on Tekumel, as he'd been at the thing for some thirty years before EPT was published. I think you could use the old (and probably now obsolete!) terms for the Maya, to describe 'Pre-Classic', 'Classic', and 'Post-Classic' Tekumel; the best artwork comes from the artists who worked with him at the game table in 'Classic Tekumel', in the 1970s - 1980s, in my opinion. 'Post-Classic' artwork can be very variable in scholarship, and should be checked against earlier sources - just like the results from a dig, really!

The odd gaps in our information come pretty much from the on-going needs of his campaign; we know relatively little about the Stability temples, as an example, because very few of his players were Stability worshippers. If it didn't come up in the game sessions, it often didn;t come up at all...

- chirine