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Post by Finarvyn on Nov 27, 2010 11:35:46 GMT -6
When we created the EPT sub-board there seemed to be a lot of enthusiasm over EPT, but of late this has dropped off to nearly zero.
Have the original EPT posters lost interest? Gone away? Decided to play instead of post? What happened?
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Post by James Maliszewski on Nov 27, 2010 12:22:09 GMT -6
EPT is one of those games that I dearly love and think a lot about, but, in general, I tend not to post about any games unless I'm actively playing. Alas, there's no danger of my doing that anytime soon, so I don't really have much to say on EPT at the moment.
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Post by Achán hiNidráne on Nov 27, 2010 14:22:47 GMT -6
Frankly there is not lot that's new to really talk about. Last weekend I played in a modified-EPT game in Madison run by Victor Raymond and just last night I ran a game with a group of friends who have very little background knowledge of Tekumel.
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Post by geoffrey on Nov 27, 2010 14:40:58 GMT -6
My enthusiasm for EPT is still 110%. ;D
I've been putting a lot of effort into my two projects for LotFP, so my posting has become somewhat less frequent, I'm afraid.
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Post by grodog on Nov 28, 2010 0:10:57 GMT -6
I had the pleasure of chatting with Victor @ GaryCon this year, and having him correct my apparently-hideous EPT pronunciations  EPT's not really my passion or area of expertise, though, so I defer to others herein! |
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Post by ckutalik on Nov 28, 2010 14:40:43 GMT -6
Ironically I've been falling back into love with the original game and setting again myself (thus all the interviews and related posts on my blog as of late).
The eternal optimist that I am, I'm hoping that the projects and energies coming out of the two recently-formed Twin Cities public foundations will kick start new interest in the game.
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Post by greentongue on Nov 29, 2010 12:40:58 GMT -6
I like the original version played in the original way, with or without the original rule system. Unfortunately the time machine is broken and people can't seem to get back to the innocence of those times. Most of the peole that remain interested in it "know too much" and the simple pleasure of the original is no longer enough. "That's not how it is supposed to be!" is the end of many initial games. I'd like to recapture "Den" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Den_(comics) and not an anthopology course. = |
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Post by Mr. Darke on Nov 29, 2010 16:10:06 GMT -6
In all honesty, I don't know enough about EPT to begin to discuss it.
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Post by stonetoflesh on Nov 29, 2010 16:38:47 GMT -6
I like the original version played in the original way, with or without the original rule system. Unfortunately the time machine is broken and people can't seem to get back to the innocence of those times. Most of the peole that remain interested in it "know too much" and the simple pleasure of the original is no longer enough. The "know too much" syndrome was what derailed my first affair with Tekumel back in the late 90s. Like many others, I was drawn by the setting's pulpy & weird flavor. I made the mistake of subscribing to the "Blue Room" (or whatever the Tekumel mailing list was called)... The quasi-scholasticism and sheer amount of detail and canon presented there was fascinating, but at the same time it trampled and mangled this would-be EPT referee's desire to run a game like a rampaging herd of Chlen beasts. I'm still interested in Tekumel, but only the sketchy bare-bones version presented in EPT (maybe with a few bits from S&G vol. 1...) At some point I may send our PCs through a nexus point to Tekumel, we'll see. It's a fantastic setting, I'd love to play in a tabletop EPT game with a ref who knew it intimately but I don't foresee something like that ever happening. |
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18 Spears
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Post by 18 Spears on Nov 29, 2010 17:59:08 GMT -6
I got involved in a local EPT game and was having a great time, but after a few months the group disbanded. I knew next to nothing about the game when I started playing. I've purchased the reprint and have been reading about the game mechanics, but I've avoided learning too much history and lore.
Just in case, you know, if the campaign ever gets going again.
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Post by aldarron on Nov 29, 2010 20:38:23 GMT -6
EPT was one of those things I'd always heard about, found interesting, but didn't delve into until about a year ago, partly because I'm more strongly drawn to other cultural backgrounds than the ones EPT is based on, but I think maybe the main thing is that it doesn't, and never did have much in the way of product support. I've always been a big fan of modules. Sometime I have bought them just to read them with no intention of ever running the game.
Anyway, my point is that while Tekumel has oodles of cultural resorces,and even rule sets, theres very little in the way of published adventures. If folks would start dusting off thier gaming notes and publish a few of those EPT dungeons I bet we'd see a lot more interest in the game.
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Post by geoffrey on Nov 29, 2010 21:10:31 GMT -6
I can't remember where I read it, but I recently read that Prof. Barker's megadungeon is getting prepared for publication. ;D
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Post by James Maliszewski on Nov 29, 2010 22:01:13 GMT -6
I can't remember where I read it, but I recently read that Prof. Barker's megadungeon is getting prepared for publication. ;D I know for a fact that this is so, though I would not expect it to be completed and available for sale for quite some time. |
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Post by Achán hiNidráne on Nov 29, 2010 22:06:13 GMT -6
I'm still interested in Tekumel, but only the sketchy bare-bones version presented in EPT (maybe with a few bits from S&G vol. 1...) Personally, I'd like to pair EPT with the S&G/Gardisyal magic system and spell list. |
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Post by James Maliszewski on Nov 29, 2010 22:12:52 GMT -6
Personally, I'd like to pair EPT with the S&G/Gardisyal magic system and spell list. I don't really care for the system as such, but the names of the spells in Swords & Glory are definitely much more evocative than those in EPT. A project I'll undertake one of these days, should I ever be lucky enough to start a EPT campaign, would be to rework the original game's spells ever so slightly to make them feel less generic and more like the cool stuff we see in the later Tékumel RPGs. |
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Post by xerxez on Nov 30, 2010 0:51:24 GMT -6
I've got to concur wholeheartedly with those who stated that EPT with the Gardasiyal spells would be awesome.
I obtained EPT and began to run a campaign that lasted almost 6 months, and honestly, I enjoyed the flavor more when I ran it from the EPT rulebook but didn't know a whole lot about the setting.
As I tried to align my games with subsequent studies of the Blue Room, the novels, and the Swords and Glory sourcebook, I found that only a couple of my players really appreciated the uniqueness of the setting--mostly they just tried to play D&D. They found the Tsolyani culture a bit constraining so I changed to a homebrew setting that was Tekumel inspired as well as other sources and that played more like D&D.
I think EPT is an excellent and amazingly comprehensive rules set, and if I had at least three players who wanted to play it as set forth in those rules, I would probably run a game now and then.
On that note, it was the Barsoom section of this board that piqued my interest in John Carter books, which somehow I had never read--I was always strictly fantasy, no sci fi, so I felt it would not be of interest to me. As far as pulp went I had read all the Conan and Kull stories but never the Barsoom saga.
Well, I have been happily devouring these books for weeks and they are the best!
Having said that, unless mistaken, I think I now see ALOT of Barsoomian elments in Tekumel, which is cool actually.
But it's a hard setting to get a lot of gamers interested in, and I gave it my dead level best.
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Post by greentongue on Nov 30, 2010 7:00:32 GMT -6
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Post by James Maliszewski on Nov 30, 2010 10:29:08 GMT -6
Having said that, unless mistaken, I think I now see ALOT of Barsoomian elments in Tekumel, which is cool actually. You're not mistaken. Burroughs, along with Vance and Howard, is a literary influence that Professor Barker specifically calls to mind in the introduction to EPT. Tékumel has a distinctly "swords-and-planet" feel to it in mind and I honestly think the game is much less intimidating when viewed in that light. |
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Post by ckutalik on Nov 30, 2010 10:51:47 GMT -6
I can't remember where I read it, but I recently read that Prof. Barker's megadungeon is getting prepared for publication. ;D I know for a fact that this is so, though I would not expect it to be completed and available for sale for quite some time. It might have been on my blog last week. I had asked the Tekumel Foundation about the status of the project after my interview with Jeff Berry. Victor Raymond (who posts here, right?) answered a few questions and characterized it's status as "advanced" but wanted to not (rightfully) not over promise and say it was on the cusp of publication before the end of the year. One thing the Foundation is looking for is volunteers especially artists, so if folks really want to see these things come to light then you might want to think of volunteering some elbow work.(I did.) |
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Post by stonetoflesh on Nov 30, 2010 17:11:07 GMT -6
Tékumel has a distinctly "swords-and-planet" feel to it in mind and I honestly think the game is much less intimidating when viewed in that light. Excellent advice that I wish I'd heard 10 years ago. Rereading EPT through this sort of pulp science-fantasy lens actually makes me want to run some sort of fast-and-loose Tekumel adventure... |
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Post by kesher on Nov 30, 2010 17:52:53 GMT -6
I'll actually be playing in a three or four session game in the upcoming weeks---I'll keep you all updated!
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Post by greentongue on Nov 30, 2010 18:56:37 GMT -6
Tékumel has a distinctly "swords-and-planet" feel to it in mind and I honestly think the game is much less intimidating when viewed in that light. Excellent advice that I wish I'd heard 10 years ago. Rereading EPT through this sort of pulp science-fantasy lens actually makes me want to run some sort of fast-and-loose Tekumel adventure... Agreed! I'm tempted to use the Mythic GM Emulator and just start playing from the docks. Now if I can only find time... = |
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Post by harami2000 on Nov 30, 2010 19:07:13 GMT -6
> xerxez wrote: > Having said that, unless mistaken, I think I now see ALOT of Barsoomian elments in Tekumel, which is cool actually. You're not mistaken. Burroughs, along with Vance and Howard, is a literary influence that Professor Barker specifically calls to mind in the introduction to EPT. Tékumel has a distinctly "swords-and-planet" feel to it in mind and I honestly think the game is much less intimidating when viewed in that light. Much of the EPT intro was written before The Dying Earth was published, except for the framing device. The key textual breakpoint in the 1975 TSR release is "The earliest records now preserved by human scholars..."; the original text up to that point being a short "shrouded mists of history" spiel. Burroughs.... as with Lin Carter, yeah?  See also odd74.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=ept&thread=1742&page=1#24394 Quite where Phil's Egyptian obsession vanished off to is another question entirely. ^^ d. |
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