Quote from: Old Geezer;794481Jeff Dee made up some shit he thought would be fun.  All else is nonsense.

And Tekumel is a fringe subgroup in a fringe hobby; except for the top three or for companies, there is no fucking money in gaming.  And whether Tekumel is "OSR" or not is utterly irrelevant to the 500 or so hard core Tekumel faithful.  There is a core group who will buy virtually anything with Tekumel on the cover, and beyond that group, sales are trivial.

This.

And if Jeff Dee was actually interested in appealing to any group outside of the Tekumel faithful, the game wouldn't be called "Bethorm".

I love Tekumel, but this is an IP which hasn't even been able to make its title accessible for most of its published history.

A lot of folks teed off on Lars, for one of the two good reasons.  Here's the other:

I am not a missionary for tabletop roleplay. My own fun would not be materially affected if every tabletop roleplayer outside of New England vanished tomorrow. I am interested in having fun as a GM and a player. Therefore, I like keeping my group topped up. This is something I've never had a problem doing, either in recruiting players or teaching new ones, and whether there are hordes of eager gamers in your town or your town or your town is something in which I'm not in the slightest degree invested.

I'm a hobbyist ... I'm neither a game company shareholder, a marketing specialist or a FLGS owner. I am no more inclined to grab free spirits by the shoulders and insist they Do Things Our Way For The (Alleged) Good Of The Hobby than I am to grab model railroad enthusiasts, bridge players or origami folders and insist that our hobby is better than theirs.

Why not? Because they're having fun. Their way. Doing things the way they like.

And so am I.  

Sure, I'm a GURPS GM.  But I don't insist that classless, point-buy fans play that game.  You want to play HERO?  Fine.  Want to play FATE?  Fine.  Want to play Savage Words?  Fine.  Having fun there?  Good on you.  Keep it up.

Quote from: Old Geezer;794193Because they wanted to.

Right!  Making up stuff is fun, and playing with new stuff someone else has  made up is fun..

Quote from: Ravenswing;794642My own fun would not be materially affected if every tabletop roleplayer outside of New England vanished tomorrow.

Now I am feeling kind of hurt.



OK, better now. Pretty much where I am at as well.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;794607I love Tekumel, but this is an IP which hasn't even been able to make its title accessible for most of its published history.

Getting back to the original argument, going some d20 system, OSR, or variant would probably have been better.  If you go d20 at least players have something familiar to hang their hat on.  That helps when you are dropped into an alien world like Tekumel.

While some folks might throw shoes, I think you could do Tekumel in Fate!

Then there is of course the age old question. "Why not just reprint the original stuff?" which apparently IS still in some sort of POD print I thought?

I think it's interesting to compare what Moon Design is doing with Glorantha and this Tékumel product (which I helped kickstart).

Moon Design has been putting out high quality, in-depth setting books that are largely system agnostic. The products are consistent across the line and have been easy to get ahold of. Glorantha has been associated with long-term  and relatively successful games like RuneQuest and HeroQuest. Their recent, quite expensive, kickstarter raised $260,000.

Tékumel has, well, followed a different path. The Tékumel systems have been broken, incomplete, significantly hard to find, often of low production quality, and out of print. Tékumel is diverse enough a setting that piles of good quality regional setting books could have been a possibility (like Glorantha), but it hasn't really happened.

With this latest incarnation of Tékumel, I would have thought that Moon Design would have been the obvious model to follow. I can only assume that for some reason the Tékumel Foundation turned down these sorts of proposals, or that no such proposals were ever made. If Pocket Universe was the first reasonable proposal since Guardians of Order in 2005, I guess you take what you can get. In the end it got less than 10% of what Glorantha pulled in on the Kickstarter. But good on Dee for doing something and giving it a go!

I participated in the Kickstarter for Béthorm because I like "pseudo anthropology" and "pseudo linguistics" (to quote Pundit's blog entry). I don't care so much about the system of Béthorm – if it's good I'll use it, if it's not, I'll use something else. But what I want to see is a fully pseudo'ed out description of the world. I want all the complex languages and religions stuff. I want to see region guides. Because I want all this stuff, I'll toss in my couple of bucks to show my interest in Tékumel.

I think we can have a few, well-thought-out, and complex worlds à la Tékumel and Glorantha. It doesn't hurt anyone to have one setting based on linguistics, I certainly don't see why people get all pissed off about it.

As for the OP, I think using OSR/D&D for Tékumel would've been a mistake for two reasons. A) I feel like there's a glut in OSR/D&D stuff right now – I've got enough of it to last me ages and I'm not in the market for more. B) Something like RuneQuest is a better choice than D&D as I find it more flexible and focused for cults and cultures. D&D seems to have a higher rules-to-setting ratio simply due to the way the classes/levels/magic/races work. An easier-to-tweak mechanic like RQ just seems easier to me.

Because Jeff is a huge Tekumel fan, and he did the work to convert the old spells to his game system and drew loads of images.

It's therefore close to the original spell list and although a little 'worthy' like all Tekumel games, it has loads of resources to play a game.

A version of OSR D&D is not what he wanted to write or play.

I think you could do an OSR D&D Tekumel, but it's just as valid as using another system, especially since the original EPT wasn't D&D.

Quote from: tzunder;794704Because Jeff is a huge Tekumel fan, and he did the work to convert the old spells to his game system and drew loads of images.

It's therefore close to the original spell list and although a little 'worthy' like all Tekumel games, it has loads of resources to play a game.

A version of OSR D&D is not what he wanted to write or play.

Yes, times a fucking zillion.  Publish what you get.

"The Tekumel Foundation" is a bunch of Phil's old group trying to decide what to do with all this shit, not the Nobel Prize committee.

Chaosium and the various groups that later took on the mantle of publishing material for Glorantha are an excellent example of how to do this right. The system side of things was settled early, didn't change at all under Chaosium's watch, and barely changed under the handling of some of the subsequent groups that published for the setting (Avalon Hill, Moon Publishing). Really, the only system re-boots that happened were associated with the Heroquest era of publishing. Some people think that was a great idea; it think it was a mistake; regardless, it didn't scuttle the continuity of setting material, much of which is system-agnostic and some of which is explicitly compatible with the original system (i.e., MP's classic reprints series).

Quote from: Larsdangly;794714... didn't change at all under Chaosium's watch...

Have you read the CoC7e quickstart?

Quote from: trechriron;794723Have you read the CoC7e quickstart?

No. I'm referring to the runequest rules. Which were pretty much static throughout Chaosium's period running that line, and changed only in insignificant ways when transferred to Avalon Hill. So, basically the same system from 1978-2000. I couldn't comment on what they have done with other game systems in the last year or two; I still play their games, but generally in the first or second editions.

Quote from: Larsdangly;794714Chaosium and the various groups that later took on the mantle of publishing material for Glorantha are an excellent example of how to do this right.

Nay, nay and thrice nay. What happened to Glorantha and RuneQuest under Chaosium's watch after it's early success was a disaster which kept it out of sight and off the radar for *decades*. Avalon Hill was the first step into a disaster for RQ & Glorantha, except for a brief period but by that time it was too late. Despite Mongoose's best intentions they nearly destroyed RQ in Glorantha for good. It's only recently Moon Design has really got it right. The reprints are great but specifically not compatible with HeroQuest. The Design Mechanism is going to bring back RQ into Glorantha, and the 13th Age Glorantha development seems to have been a popular idea. The tortured history of RQ & Glorantha is not one I can imagine anyone would want to emulate.

That said creating a "Guide to Tekumel" in the style of the Glorantha guide seems like an obvious step but I don't think it would be anywhere near as popular. If Glorantha has a rep for being weird, I wonder what people think of Tekumel?

Quote from: Bilharzia;794739It's only recently Moon Design has really got it right. The reprints are great but specifically not compatible with HeroQuest. The Design Mechanism is going to bring back RQ into Glorantha, and the 13th Age Glorantha development seems to have been a popular idea. The tortured history of RQ & Glorantha is not one I can imagine anyone would want to emulate.

That said creating a "Guide to Tekumel" in the style of the Glorantha guide seems like an obvious step but I don't think it would be anywhere near as popular. If Glorantha has a rep for being weird, I wonder what people think of Tekumel?

Assuming Moon Design doesnt get landlocked in contest with GameZone over the whole HeroQuest fiasco in Spain. GZ just got the TM for HQ over there and are still trying to bypass MD in the US with their own Heroquest TM. December is likely when things will come to a head if they do.

People will gravitate to Tekumel for the same reasons people gravitate to any weird setting. Because its not another cookie cutter fantasy setting. That was one of the selling points of Skyrealms of Jorune too which is another oddball setting. Others will gravitate to it for the rich history the setting has or even the language system.

The trick is getting people aware the stuff is out there. Gaming magazines, reviews, previews, etc.