Quote from: chirine ba kal;1116595This. It's what I saw and heard about at the time, and fits everything I've seen and read since. Unless, of course, you want to buy into the myth that Prof. Barker actually invented RPGs, and Dave and Gary stole the idea from him to produce D&D before Dave had actually met Phil. This is, of course, absolute proof that Dave and Gary were actually time travelers.

It simply astounds me that the context of those times, where we all spoke pretty much the same language as we'd seen the same movies and read the same books, has been lost or is being ignored. Occam's Razor is dead, I gather.

Oh Hai! Thanks for popping in! Got a couple things for you real quick!

First, there is a copy of the Tekumel Boxed set up for auction on ebay right now for just under $290 which puts puts it at about the average price of a White D&D Bookset, even though it is much more rare;
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Empire-of-the-Petal-Throne-Box-Set-Tekumel-M-A-R-Barker-Huge-MegaExtras/352559708928

Second I apologize for the kerfluffle over here, there seem to be some folks hell-bent on redefining some of the things that actually happened back in the day, and as I've noted earlier up-thread I have not been pleased that many of the folks responsible for keeping an accurate accounting of the history discussions and accounts have been remiss in their duties to maintain an accurate record of the ongoing discussions. Many here say I should not have any expectations at all that forum and bulletin board mods remain impartial, and try to maintain an accurate records about gamers and what they like to talk about, and I'm almost inclined to agree with them.

After all, ...on one hand, I have folks like Antiquitation! here basically just telling me to just shut up, and leave. On the other hand I'm over on Facebook chatting with Shohreh Aghdashloo about the 5th Season of The Expanse.  You know she invited me to Indianapolis ComicCon next summer? Seems The Expanse crew is going host some breakout panels and workshops on their award winning Sci-Fi show, that was, based on an RPG. I'm mightily tempted to ring up Marc Miller and invite him to join me in San Diego, as I think it would be just lovely to introduce the two of them.... "Shohreh, I have this guy I want you to meet, I love that you are in this award winning sci-fi show that was based on an RPG, ...this here is Marc, he wrote the first hard Sci-Fi RPG, You don't suppose we could all just get a photo together, eh?" I hope they are having a dinner party too, I would reeeaaally like to wrangle an invitation to that.

It's either that, or dealing with these mmm... rather dense folks here. Still though, someone will stop by these forums one day because they want to know if Dave wrote Chainmail as Gary was obviously just like this hanger-on. So I still need to post here to clarify about misconceptions like that is being introduced by the same folks on them boards that have not even been keeping accurate records of what my discussions and contributions consist of.

Anyways, good having you stop by, ...am looking forward to seeing some good Tekumel action at GaryCon in March! Ta!

Quote from: GameDaddy;1116603Oh Hai! Thanks for popping in! Got a couple things for you real quick!

First, there is a copy of the Tekumel Boxed set up for auction on ebay right now for just under $290 which puts puts it at about the average price of a White D&D Bookset, even though it is much more rare;
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Empire-of-the-Petal-Throne-Box-Set-Tekumel-M-A-R-Barker-Huge-MegaExtras/352559708928

Second I apologize for the kerfluffle over here, there seem to be some folks hell-bent on redefining some of the things that actually happened back in the day, and as I've noted earlier up-thread I have not been pleased that many of the folks responsible for keeping an accurate accounting of the history discussions and accounts have been remiss in their duties to maintain an accurate record of the ongoing discussions. Many here say I should not have any expectations at all that forum and bulletin board mods remain impartial, and try to maintain an accurate records about gamers and what they like to talk about, and I'm almost inclined to agree with them.

After all, ...on one hand, I have folks like Antiquitation! here basically just telling me to just shut up, and leave. On the other hand I'm over on Facebook chatting with Shohreh Aghdashloo about the 5th Season of The Expanse.  You know she invited me to Indianapolis ComicCon next summer? Seems The Expanse crew is going host some breakout panels and workshops on their award winning Sci-Fi show, that was, based on an RPG. I'm mightily tempted to ring up Marc Miller and invite him to join me in San Diego, as I think it would be just lovely to introduce the two of them.... "Shohreh, I have this guy I want you to meet, I love that you are in this award winning sci-fi show that was based on an RPG, ...this here is Marc, he wrote the first hard Sci-Fi RPG, You don't suppose we could all just get a photo together, eh?" I hope they are having a dinner party too, I would reeeaaally like to wrangle an invitation to that.

It's either that, or dealing with these mmm... rather dense folks here. Still though, someone will stop by these forums one day because they want to know if Dave wrote Chainmail as Gary was obviously just like this hanger-on. So I still need to post here to clarify about misconceptions like that is being introduced by the same folks on them boards that have not even been keeping accurate records of what my discussions and contributions consist of.

Anyways, good having you stop by, ...am looking forward to seeing some good Tekumel action at GaryCon in March! Ta!

...

Quote from: GameDaddy;1116575...Here let me fix this for you.  I doubt you'll find it as good as good conversations about games though.

You're part of that dumpster fire. I like you GameDaddy but you seriously crapped on this thread. You think you're talking about games? No, bullshit. You have not been talking about games. You'e been talking about personal beefs with other posters and boards for hours and hours. You have not said a word about games or gaming in quite a while. All you're doing is airing dirty laundry.

Hence, the need for popcorn, watching you and some other schmucks whine bitch moan and complain to and at and about each other.

You want to talk games? Cool, I am all ears. But this cross-board drama you're engaging in isn't that.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1116597Game Daddy, you're often a nutburger on these forums, but when you're not freaking the fuck out, you DO have interesting and worthwhile insights into the early days of the hobby, its development and what's been gained and lost over the decades. THIS is what you need to save and preserve as your RPG legacy.

Again, I urge you to be proactive with your treasured knowledge.

BTW, if you're a Metamorphosis Alpha fan, please start a thread discussing MA vs. Gamma World and your thoughts on the original game and the various later developments. Feel free to cut & paste stuff you've posted elsewhere.

FYI, Troll Lords has a Warden Kickstarter happening now. Apparently, Ward mapped out the whole shebang.

Mmm. Thanks for that eccentric compliment, ...I think.

I mainly played and ran Gamma World, however also had a copy of the 1st edition Metamorphosis Alpha by 1980 or so, and used that to support my Gamma World games. My real start with Metamorphosis Alpha didn't begin until I finally met Jim Ward for the first time back in 2002 when he was working for Fast Forward Entertainment. He had re-released a 25th anniversary edition of Metamorphosis Alpha, as Metamorphosis Alpha Universe, and I picked up a copy at Origins because my ex-wife had auctioned my first edition copy before my divorce, sometime in 1984. After that, I was on the mailing list and was notified when the 4th edition of Metamorphosis Alpha was published by MudPuppy games in 2006, and of course, picked up a copy of that as well.

Now Jim always had all of the deck plans for the Starship Warden, and in fact provided an outline of every deck, so the game ref could create adventures on the fly. There was also this great map of an alien asteroid that is like 50 miles in diameter, and one hundred miles high, that is under powered flight, that deliberately collides with the Starship Warden.

One of the interesting things about MA 4th edition is that it also included new rules for designing your own starships including Alpha Class Colony Ships identical to the Starship Warden. In 2006 I designed and wrote up an adventure about the Alpha Class Colony Ship the Mao Tze Tung which had been launched by the Pan-Asian Collective and sent to colonize Delta Trianguli which is a solar system just over 35 light years from Earth and features a G0V type sun. after Jim found out I was working on this, he asked me to send him a copy for editorial approval, prior to me releasing this, and I of course, obliged him.  I did my ship including a full set of deckplans, and the storyline was different from the original adventures onboard the Starship Warden as featured in the original Metamorphosis Alpha.

This adventure debuted at Origins 2007 on July 5th in support of the 4th edition Mudpuppy Games release party there that year for Metamorphosis Alpha. I have included the cover sheet, as well as the players' handout for your reference today.
Metamorphosis Alpha RPG "New Hope" Adventure - 2007

An interesting story about this adventure, in 2008 my personal computer at home was hacked, either by the Chinese, or by the NSA (They were both conducting hacking ops based out of the Shanghai province of China in the summer of 2008, and I did manage to backtrack the origin of the attack on my system to that location, before the trail went cold based on my website logs, as the attack had actually originated as a strike going through a website I owned that was being hosted on GoDaddy at the time. When they hacked my PC, they completely wiped my hard drive when they finished so I couldn't conduct a post-forensic examination to determine the software they actually used, or the actual origin location of the attack. All my gaming files were suddenly gone including my original files for this Metamorphosis Alpha adventure. I did have five hard copies of the adventure still, because I had made copies to give away as prizes, to the players who participated in playing at Origins, and had a few leftovers from my small print run.

Jim Ward has a copy, I have a copy, I auctioned a copy off in 2018 at Garycon which went for several hundred dollars, the proceeds of which were donated to Jim Ward's medical fund that year, I have one copy for his son, who requested it last year at GaryCon, but I didn't get the chance to meet him last year at GaryCon to give it to him, and the last copy is sitting on my desk right now. I'm scanning the cover and the player introduction for you guys. If they run out of stretch goal awards, I 'll offer this up as an additional reward for the Starship Warden Kickstarter.

I'll also post in a new thread a bit later on as you requested, about my earlier gaming history with Metamorphosis Alpha, and Gamma World.

Quote from: Mistwell;1116611You're part of that dumpster fire. I like you GameDaddy but you seriously crapped on this thread. You think you're talking about games? No, bullshit. You have not been talking about games. You'e been talking about personal beefs with other posters and boards for hours and hours. You have not said a word about games or gaming in quite a while. All you're doing is airing dirty laundry.

Hence, the need for popcorn, watching you and some other schmucks whine bitch moan and complain to and at and about each other.

You want to talk games? Cool, I am all ears. But this cross-board drama you're engaging in isn't that.

That's good. It is laundry that needs to be aired out and dried. Also It's not cross-board drama you idiot, it is simply the other board mods who claim to support old school gamers failing to support old school games, They are failing to support the people that posted real gaming articles, notes and commentary on their forums, just because they happen to disagree with, they are practicing incompetence, or they have an agenda to suppress other gamers. It's not just me by the way, I just happen to be the one of the few willing to speak out about it. There would be no need for any drama at all IF THOSE MODS ACTUALLY DID THEIR JOB AND LEFT REAL ORIGINAL GAMING ARTICLES AND COMMENTARY POSTED ON THEIR BULLETIN BOARDS AND FORUMS INTACT AND UNMOLESTED!

I posted here,  mainly as an advisory for other gamers that may consider contributing on those fora. It's not my idea to keep the dumpster fire going by the way, it's yours, with your retarded insistence on continuing to post about the matter, while I have today made two separate posts about gaming here on the RPGSite in this thread on one hand, while with the other, I'm beating you trolls with a flaming torch metaphorically speaking, until well, eventually ...you die, or otherwise quit posting non-gaming commentary.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1116617and the last copy is sitting on my desk right now. I'm scanning the cover and the player introduction for you guys. If they run out of stretch goal awards, I 'll offer this up as an additional reward for the Starship Warden Kickstarter.

I imagine modern scanning software would be able to extract a word processor file from the pages. It sounds like an interesting project. I like the concept of the players having 17 days to save this massive ship from collapsing into a sun. It's both a seemingly long time and a very finite time, making it a good mini-campaign. I've run several short campaigns with timed arcs and its fun watching the players panic when they approach the last few days.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1116617I'll also post in a new thread a bit later on as you requested, about my earlier gaming history with Metamorphosis Alpha, and Gamma World.

Excellent!

Quote from: GameDaddy;1116618There would be no need for any drama at all IF THOSE MODS ACTUALLY DID THEIR JOB AND LEFT REAL ORIGINAL GAMING ARTICLES AND COMMENTARY POSTED ON THEIR BULLETIN BOARDS AND FORUMS INTACT AND UNMOLESTED!

Is that even realistic? Especially over many years? And in an era where forums are fading as many migrate to social media sites instead? Also, mods are volunteers which means their commitment to archiving is going to be very variable.

I barely trust Google docs to keep my files intact.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1116598Are you writing your book under that rock? If not, get thee to a word processor!

Like Game Daddy, you're another not-spring-chicken who has unique life experiences regarding our hobby that are very interesting to read and illuminating to learn about.

Amazon has made self-publishing very easy.

Thanks for the kind words. Yes, I'm back to writing and to painting, with some of the best games I've ever done in the offing. Looking at having the book done by the end of 2020, when it'll be a free-to-download PDF since all I'm interested in is telling people about our adventures with Phil. All of the old artists in the Original Thursday Night Group are allowing me to use their artwork, so you'll be able to see what we did back in the day in the context that it was created in.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1116603Oh Hai! Thanks for popping in! Got a couple things for you real quick!

First, there is a copy of the Tekumel Boxed set up for auction on ebay right now for just under $290 which puts puts it at about the average price of a White D&D Bookset, even though it is much more rare;
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Empire-of-the-Petal-Throne-Box-Set-Tekumel-M-A-R-Barker-Huge-MegaExtras/352559708928

(snipped)

Anyways, good having you stop by, ...am looking forward to seeing some good Tekumel action at GaryCon in March! Ta!

Thanks for the notice; I have copies of all three  of the TSR editions, as well as the Gamescience, Tekumel Games, and Tita's editions. I will let the people who have asked me for boxed sets know, though, as they are always looking.

I'm staying out of this one; I only posted because of the overly complicated premise of the original document. It simply wasn't that complicated, back in the day; we were mostly a bunch of friends siting around laughing our fool heads off.

I think you'll be well-catered for at Gary Con. Both Bill Hoyt and Victor Raymond will be running RPGs there. I will not be at the convention, as the Tekumel Foundation raised such a stink with Luke about my going a few years back that it's simply not worth the hassle to either he or I for me to go down there.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;1116631Looking at having the book done by the end of 2020, when it'll be a free-to-download PDF since all I'm interested in is telling people about our adventures with Phil.

Excellent news!

Take a look at how the Basic Fantasy RPG being sold on Amazon. You can easily sell on Amazon via POD and set the price at their cost so people could get a dead tree of your work for the price of a fancy coffee. Also, with low cost POD, you can also sign copies and give them as convention goodies or charity events.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1116633Excellent news!

Take a look at how the Basic Fantasy RPG being sold on Amazon. You can easily sell on Amazon via POD and set the price at their cost so people could get a dead tree of your work for the price of a fancy coffee. Also, with low cost POD, you can also sign copies and give them as convention goodies or charity events.

Seconded -- I would love to see this book printed (and others like it!).

From the customer side, I've also been really happy getting stuff from Lulu. I don't know how they compare from the author side.

Quote from: Antiquation!;1116553Way to deliberately censor and curate history dude. What did you do with my keys?! Tell me!

:cool:

You would find the keys here. Go to https://www.proboards.com/login and login to your proboards account and go to the Dashboard, it will list all of the proboards forums that you belong to. Then go to account settings where you will find
Export Member Data      Export the PMs and Posts of a linked Forum Account.     Export
Export Global Data        Export your Global Account data.                                  Export

This lets you export all of your own data yourself.

The most amusing thing is that I am being accused of censorship by someone who hasn't posted anything over at The Ruins that I disagree with. Odd that someone thinks people who agree with his historical posting would censor it. At any rate I sent him a complete copy of all of his posts and he can easily check that by logging as noted above and doing his own export. Odd also that someone would pick a fight with people who enjoyed and liked his posts, created a sub-forum for his personal use and were willing to provide him any assistance he needed. I guess it just shows that there is no pleasing some people.

I also find it amusing that people want to act like Gary designed everything in a vacuum. As an example he openly and self-admittedly stole the thief class without giving credit. Yep, he did a lot of original work of which we are the beneficiaries. I do find the Church of Saint Gary to get a little tiresome at times. Did Arneson create the game engine that D&D and other RPGs are built on? Yes! Did Gary take Dave's game engine and on that frame work construct D&D and replace many of Dave's mechanics with his own. Yes! Am I grateful that OD&D if not filled with d100 rolls, I sure am.

"Ma'am, this is a chick-fil-a."

Quote from: Antiquation!;1116553Is this what they call a "stinging truth"?

Way to deliberately censor and curate history dude. What did you do with my keys?! Tell me!

1: Only until they decide on the NEW TRUTH!

2: Your keys are behind the couch with your left sock playing FATAL. :eek:

Quote from: chirine ba kal;1116595This. It's what I saw and heard about at the time, and fits everything I've seen and read since. Unless, of course, you want to buy into the myth that Prof. Barker actually invented RPGs, and Dave and Gary stole the idea from him to produce D&D before Dave had actually met Phil. This is, of course, absolute proof that Dave and Gary were actually time travelers.

This will be the NEW TRUTH!!!

Actually I've seen on one or two fora someone try to claim that Barker actually was the originator.

As I noted in an older thread. I think that everyone was converging on this from some central seed concept. At the same time there was this new movement in education to use "simulations" in the classroom. I was part of one wayyyyyy back. And have looked at some academic papers on it that go back to the 60s but did not gain traction till later.

So we have alot of people getting this idea all at once, possibly academia getting it first and it percolating out from there. Or just everyone converging from different angles.