Quote from: Bren;870485And Chrine is still covering the General's ass. Well played good sir. Well played.

Thank you; we try...

And this points up the style of play we were all familiar with - 'cooperative'.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;870487I never would have made it out of Milumanaya without him.

That first campaign up into the desert was miserable. It made the second one look like a cakewalk.

I'm assuming that you mean 'black box' in the same sense as a theater; I did twelve years at The Guthrie Theater here in the Twin Cities, so I think I understand the OP.

Yes. Both Gary and Dave are on record that 'the rules' are intended to provide a way for the individual GM create a world-setting of their own device, and then resolve situations that arise from the players' actions.

This lasted until the money started rolling in. Once the cash cow had arrived, then the market forces in the hobby took over, and selling new editions of the rules, 'suppliments', 'modules', and all sorts of 'accessories' became the business model - hence the emphasis on 'official', 'authorized', etc. in the product marketing.

Now, I do not blame either Gary or Dave for going down this path; if I'd had the kind of financial needs and overheads that they had in very short order, I'd have gone this route as well. What they did in their personal gaming was very different from what they did in their professional gaming, as they needed to be able to use their personal appearances to sell product.

Phil never followed that path. His personal gaming was always pretty much the same as his professional gaming, on the rare occasions when we could persuade him to go out to a convention, and did not (if I can be forgiven for being so crass) sell product. Likewise, his written output for rules did not mirror his gaming style, which had the same effect.

They are using "black box" in the sense of "the player does not need to know the rules," derived from "black box" software; that is, you are told what the inputs and outputs are, but not what's going on inside.

Essentially, it's the old "Don't worry about rules, just tell me what you want to do."

And once the money rolled in things did indeed change, especially since TSR was a for-profit corporation, and if the officers of said same do NOT pursue the path of profit they are subject to removal or even lawsuit by shareholders.

Huh, I had never heard of black box theatre.

I think the OP is referring, rather, to the computer science idea of "black box". Meaning that the players don't know anything about the internal workings of the mechanics or rules, and interact with the game purely by natural language conversation and description.

I think some earlier posts describe how this can be done. For example, players might not know their hit points or even their level, so when they suffer a wound the DM would just say if it was grievous or light, and whether they felt faint, or still strong, etc.

Pretty much the diametric opposite of how we played in our first few naive games, in which the DM would literally say, "Two Swordsmen walk into the room" meaning that two 3rd-level fighters had made an appearance.

Ah! My mistake! Sorry!

Quote from: Arminius;870587Pretty much the diametric opposite of how we played in our first few naive games, in which the DM would literally say, "Two Swordsmen walk into the room" meaning that two 3rd-level fighters had made an appearance.

Ah yes, we did that at first as well. We quickly made fun of our own silly practice by commenting on how those two guys must be wearing tee-shirts with a big '3' on the front and back. Shortly after we made the jokes we switched to "Two men in chainmail armor walk into the room." Problem solved. Sometimes making fun of dumb shit does help fix the problem.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;870583Thank you; we try...

And this points up the style of play we were all familiar with - 'cooperative'.

Interestingly, I don't recall Phil ever trying to make anything of the fact that Chirine and the Glorious General were opposite sides of the Change/Stability axis.  Quite possibly because both of us made it absolutely clear from Day 1 that as far as we were concerned, we were first and foremost Soldiers of the Tsolyani Empire, and everything else was secondary to that.

Being stuck in the Godsforsaken eastern desert with six thousand close friends only made the connection stronger; when it's your legion against everything and everyone within a thousand tsan, there is no room for any sort of internal friction.  Not to mention that in Tekumel and many other games of all types as well, we have always both been proponents of Sam Vimes' principle that "you do NOT drop your mates in the cacky."

For that matter, the Petal Throne has this artifact called the "Jade Arch," that if you pass through it makes you unshakably loyal to the Empire.  In the very early days when I was still a Kasi in charge of a single cohort, Phil was using it to threaten Dutlor and a few other clowns... er, characters.  The first time I got threatened with it, I told Phil that I was telling the friendly OAL officer to make me an appointment to form up my cohort and march through it in ranks, and that I would be delighted to have my eternal loyalty to the Petal Throne confirmed.

The old boy didn't know what to make of that.  I simply wasn't interested in skullduggery or power politics.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;870475Sometime in late 1972 1973 Gary brought in some sets.  They were also offered by Edmund Scientific, a school supplies dealer, but Gary was apparently ordering them in enough quantity to make the price competitive if not the same (I no longer remember).

I know that in Sept 1773 when I moved up to Minneapolis I had at least two sets of the early polyhedra.  I don't remember if I had more.

How was their quality as dice?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;870475Sometime in late 1972 1973 Gary brought in some sets.  They were also offered by Edmund Scientific, a school supplies dealer,

Were those the d20s numbered 0-9 twice and you had to toll a d6 to get if it was 1-10 or 11-20?

I've seen those and at least one RPG I had mad mention of using them. Starships & Spacemen I think???

A quick glance around shows that a company in Japan made some d20s back in the late 60s too? (Japan Standards?)

My first set of polyhedrals have the d20 like that. I think they were made or at least sold by Heritage. Back then there was no d10, so they did triple service as d10s, d20s, and (with two different colored dice) d%.

Quote from: estar;870613How was their quality as dice?

Horrible, but they are what existed.  They were created as Platonic solid demonstrators, not dice.  A few years later Forrest Brown of Martian Metals and then later FASA cut some in half.  They have enormous off center air bubbles inside them.

Quote from: Omega;870617Were those the d20s numbered 0-9 twice and you had to toll a d6 to get if it was 1-10 or 11-20?

Yep.  I've also got a couple pairs where I painted one set of faces a different color.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;870629Yep.  I've also got a couple pairs where I painted one set of faces a different color.

That was the recommendation back then. And yeah quality wise they sucked. The plastic was way too soft. My original D20s are nearly spherical due to wearing on the corners and edges.