Quote from: chirine ba kal;837216As an example of 'getting' Tekumel, at one point the Monday players tried to have one of our players arrested and imprisioned. (Kathy Marshall, Princess Vrisa Vishetru of Saa Alliqui). The messenger gave me the verbal orders, and I sent him back to get written orders as per proper Imperial protocols. Phil gave me some grief about this, and I gave him precedents from one of his own books. He went off and had a two-week pout, as I was entirely within my rights as an Imperial official, and came back with a beautifully done Tsolyani document - the proper arrest warrant. I read it, approved it, and then chewed him out, telling him that if he'd gotten his paperwork right the first time we'd have saved two weeks of annoyance. I then handed the warrant to Kathy, who gave me a 'come-hither look' and asked "Your tent or mine?" Phil nearly swallowed his cigar, in his astonishment.

He stared at me for a few minutes, and then gave me one of the very best accolades I have ever gotten: "Chirine, you've gone native."

Let me check for confirmation. By giving her the hard-to-obtain official order instead of acting on it, did it allow her to destroy it, thus preventing her own arrest, or otherwise act against the people that wanted her arrested:)?
It's a nice story even if I've misnuderstood;).

Quote from: chirine ba kal;837216He stared at me for a few minutes, and then gave me one of the very best accolades I have ever gotten: "Chirine, you've gone native."

What I'd done was what I think people call 'immersion', nowadays; I was being my Tsolyani alter ego, and playing the role to the hilt. Kathy did the same as Vrisa, and so did the rest of the group. We took on our roles, every Thursday, and we played them as if they were real people. We learned the cultures of Tekumel, and we moved within them like fish in the sea...

I've seen people 'get' Gloriantha, as well as other world-settings as well; it's possible to do...

Working with and within the setting is great fun! I love it when my players do that.

Quote from: AsenRG;837244Let me check for confirmation. By giving her the hard-to-obtain official order instead of acting on it, did it allow her to destroy it, thus preventing her own arrest, or otherwise act against the people that wanted her arrested:)?
It's a nice story even if I've misnuderstood;).

By showing her the warrant, she was apprised of the reason why I was arresting her. She handed it back to me, and i handed it back to my adjutant for the files. Since we were very old friends and comrades, she was delighted to have me arrest her - hence the "Your tent or mine?" comment. So, she was throughly arrested, moved in with me and the wife, and we then nailed the nitwits who came up with the idea later on.

Later in the same story arc, she 'escaped', in order to get on with her own mission. We all stood around and said "Gosh! We're baffled! How could this have happened? We must launch an investigation! Etc., etc., etc."

Having her under arrest also meant that her room and board didn't come out of her money pouch; it was now Official Business, and we billed the Imperium for all her expenses - we actually made money off the affair, much to the Professor's annoyance!

Quote from: Bren;837276Working with and within the setting is great fun! I love it when my players do that.

Agreed, and very strongly at that! This is what we did as a matter of course, back then; GMs with campaigns that didn't allow for this kind of engagement just didn't last long, and their campaigns tended to die off in a few months a nobody could get interested in them.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;837324By showing her the warrant, she was apprised of the reason why I was arresting her. She handed it back to me, and i handed it back to my adjutant for the files. Since we were very old friends and comrades, she was delighted to have me arrest her - hence the "Your tent or mine?" comment. So, she was throughly arrested, moved in with me and the wife, and we then nailed the nitwits who came up with the idea later on.

Later in the same story arc, she 'escaped', in order to get on with her own mission. We all stood around and said "Gosh! We're baffled! How could this have happened? We must launch an investigation! Etc., etc., etc."

Having her under arrest also meant that her room and board didn't come out of her money pouch; it was now Official Business, and we billed the Imperium for all her expenses - we actually made money off the affair, much to the Professor's annoyance!

That's even better:D! I guess the word "give" tripped me up, and I didn't know your official could decide in what condition the arrested is to be kept.
I'm still behind on my Tekumel lore, though:).

Quote from: chirine ba kal;837325Agreed, and very strongly at that! This is what we did as a matter of course, back then; GMs with campaigns that didn't allow for this kind of engagement just didn't last long, and their campaigns tended to die off in a few months a nobody could get interested in them.

These days, it's the other way around for some of my players. They tend to engage with the setting because they've learned, sometimes the hard way, that it's the only way to see one of the multiple traps before walking into them.
Well, some of them are just naturals in engaging with the setting, the rest had to be motivated;).

Yes, I'm sorry - I should have been more clear!

I was the Deputy Governor of the province at the time, and so had a lot of say in the process. I did clear everything with my Governor, of course, who thought that the idea of arresting the noble Lady was about as dumb an idea as you can get. We were also on campaign with our little army, demonstrating the benefits of civilization to the locals, which also meant that we had a lot of leeway in the process.

Very interesting comment on your players! Can you tell me more?

It sounds like a spectacular sort of campaign.

Quote from: RPGPundit;838021It sounds like a spectacular sort of campaign.

Well, I guess you could have called it that. We played the same player-characters for over a dozen years, 'growing' them from your basic entry-level people to pretty high ranking ones in that time. Some also 'went up in level', as they invested time in the various temple schools to learn new skills - which was how we dealt with people having to drop in and out of the campaign over time.

By the middle 1980s, we were well into what I think people refer to as 'the domain game' as we tried to manage the affairs of the province that I was assigned to. Phil had handed out fiefs to two players back at the beginning of the campaign in 1974, but it just didn't work out - the players involved were just too 'footloose' to stay and manage the fiefs. I will freely admit that I loved the challenge of running the government; Phil was worried that we would not have enough to do, but I used to send out the other players on 'missions' and 'quests' that were generated by the problems we faced in governing a frontier province.

Over the years, we played against the backdrop of a dozen major story arcs, and we heard about them through the usual rumors in the market place - Phil would then add our adventures into his novels, as rumors that the characters in his books would hear from their sources...

It was all great fun - we had immense amounts of what I think is called 'immersion', these days, and being in the main all F/SF fans we did a lot of 'non-gamer' things like artwork and the costumes our characters would have worn.

I don't think one could run a campaign like that, any more. My perception is that people don't have the time to devote to something like that, and I get the impression that there's a desire for 'rules turnover' amongst players these days.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;838042I don't think one could run a campaign like that, any more. My perception is that people don't have the time to devote to something like that, and I get the impression that there's a desire for 'rules turnover' amongst players these days.

I think so too.

And to add to your impression, people like to play different characters in different settings more and not to devote their experience to just one character for such a lenghty period of time. There's a thing called "gamer ADHD", and I too suffer from it occasionally.

Great story nonetheless

Quote from: Moracai;838043I think so too.

And to add to your impression, people like to play different characters in different settings more and not to devote their experience to just one character for such a lenghty period of time. There's a thing called "gamer ADHD", and I too suffer from it occasionally.

Great story nonetheless

Thank you! And I want to say that I'm not meaning to denigrate anyone's play style, either. About all I;m saying is that the past is a different place; we did things differently there...

Quote from: chirine ba kal;838042I don't think one could run a campaign like that, any more. My perception is that people don't have the time to devote to something like that, and I get the impression that there's a desire for 'rules turnover' amongst players these days.

We still play the long game. We still play the Call of Cthulhu characters we started in the 1980s and the Star Wars characters we started in the 1990s. Our current game of Honor+Intrigue has run 165 sessions with each PC having run on between 1 and 137 sessions.

But judging by what I read online there are a lot of folks who don't play long campaigns. I suspect that people who play short campaigns or who switch systems a lot are more likely to post online than folks like you or me.

We played Warhammer back when we were kids somewhat in the long run, but had to switch characters because they always became too powerful.

I played a whole family. It started out with one female elf noble, who then later had kids with another male elf PC, and I played those brother and younger sister too for quite a while.

Nowadays we play usually one story at a time, and then switch GMs to another setting and system. Hell, on a private RPG guild forum, a friend from another town commented that if they manage to go six sessions with same characters that is a minor miracle!

But enough about my experiences.

Chirine, have you read any of the new Tekumel products and  if so, what do you think about them?

Quote from: Bren;838061I suspect that people who play short campaigns or who switch systems a lot are more likely to post online than folks like you or me.

Not to bust your balls here... but, you've got 2400+ posts on this site in nearly a year, which seems like quite a lot of active online posting to me. So, that doesn't seem like that strong a measuring stick to determine who likes short/long campaigns.

I haven't had a CoC or RQ campaign last for more than a year for the past 30 years (too much insanity; murdering by crazed cultists; or general dismemberment), and I can barely get off my ass - or have the time - to post on a forum once a day.

How rarely we get these opportunities!

1. Back when you were quitting the site you mentioned the "mythology" that's sprung up around Blackmoor. How would you characterize the way people now imagine Arneson games worked? I'm not looking for any evaluation of that imaginary approach, just your sense of what they're thinking.

2. The mundane historical accounts for the early history of the Kingdoms of the West and East are a little more complete than what we have on the Middle. Any reminiscences you might have on how things in what is now Northshield developed would be welcome.

Quote from: Bren;838061We still play the long game. We still play the Call of Cthulhu characters we started in the 1980s and the Star Wars characters we started in the 1990s. Our current game of Honor+Intrigue has run 165 sessions with each PC having run on between 1 and 137 sessions.

But judging by what I read online there are a lot of folks who don't play long campaigns. I suspect that people who play short campaigns or who switch systems a lot are more likely to post online than folks like you or me.

Very cool! I think you're right about the forum postings, too.