You, too, CAN run Empire of the Petal Throne

[badger2305]

Introduction

Shortly after I returned from GaryCon, I wrote about my experience running Empire of the Petal Throne:

"Fascinating! You can run Empire of the Petal Throne and you don't have to be M.A.R. Barker..." said one of my players, after experiencing some of the game.

You don't have to be Prof. Barker to run Tekumel. What people get hung up on is making their game as identical as possible to Prof. Barker's game and that's a mistake. There's more than enough material in the original EPT rules to make a campaign work, and if you add more material from other sources, it becomes even easier. Don't be afraid of creating another "branch on the Tree of Time," as Prof. Barker would say.

I made a mental note to revisit this topic, since I well know that people hold EPT and Tekumel up as "the game too difficult to run." Which got me thinking, "so what's holding people back from running EPT for themselves?"

Sure, there's the languages and the background culture. Then there's the weight of 35+ years of accumulated writing and background material, mostly scattered willy-nilly across the hobby. But neither of these is really a game-stopper. What did occur to me was the possibility that people simply haven't sat down with the rules as presented, and figured out what to do.

That's what this thread is about, and what I want to address.

[thorswulf]

I talked with John McEwan of Reviresco (formerly McEwan miniatures) about gaming in the old days, and EPT in particular. He felt that while it was an amazingly creative effort, it was a little lost on most people because it was based on cultures unfamiliar to them.

It seems that most people I have gamed with certainly take a Western view of fantasy, and occaisionaly play in an Asian based campaign. While ancient China, and Japan have their own wonderful flavors, most people never bother with India, the various Pacific islands and nations, Africa, or South America. I don't want to say they are ethnocentric, but our education system in the USA certainly is. I think this is the root of some of the problems. How many kids read Greek or norse myths? Even less know about non western ones. Sadly the desire to understand more about these things seems not be encouraged enough as far as I am concerned.

I certainly feel EPT as it is isn't that much of a stretch from OD&D, oh the language may be a bit of a stumbling block, but then how many people know how to pronounce Otyugh, or Shaguin?

[badger2305]

Part One: the Stuff

So I'm going to assume that you are (a) interested in running Empire of the Petal Throne, and (b) you don't have immediate access to Prof. Barker. All you've got is what you can lay your hands on from the Internet. Fortunately, that's a fair bit of material. Since we're addressing this from an Old School perspective, we won't worry about getting copies of Swords & Glory or Gardasiyal or T:EPT.

What can we easily find?

• Empire of the Petal Throne is available from DriveThru/RPGNow, or via mail-order.
  
• The original maps of the Five Empires and the City of Jakalla are, as well.
  
• ...and the original articles published in The Strategic Review and The Dragon are available from Tekumel.com for free.
  

Let's stop there. No need to grab the Sunuz Grammar, or any of the really esoteric stuff that Tekumel has to offer. Just what a Tekumel gamer might have back in 1977 or so - that's enough to start with. I would suggest that this is fairly important, because there really IS a lot of additional material, and just like later versions of D&D, it's easy to get overwhelmed with stuff.

[badger2305]

Aug 1, 2011 18:09:52 GMT -6 thorswulf said:

I talked with John McEwan of Reviresco (formerly McEwan miniatures) about gaming in the old days, and EPT in particular. He felt that while it was an amazingly creative effort, it was a little lost on most people because it was based on cultures unfamiliar to them.

It seems that most people I have gamed with certainly take a Western view of fantasy, and occaisionaly play in an Asian based campaign. While ancient China, and Japan have their own wonderful flavors, most people never bother with India, the various Pacific islands and nations, Africa, or South America. I don't want to say they are ethnocentric, but our education system in the USA certainly is. I think this is the root of some of the problems. How many kids read Greek or norse myths? Even less know about non western ones. Sadly the desire to understand more about these things seems not be encouraged enough as far as I am concerned.

I certainly feel EPT as it is isn't that much of a stretch from OD&D, oh the language may be a bit of a stumbling block, but then how many people know how to pronounce Otyugh, or Shaguin?

In the past, I would've agreed with you about ethnocentrism being a stumbling block. However, there have been a sufficient number of truly alien worlds and cultures presented in games over the past 20-30 years that this is less of an issue now than in the past. Heck, even Morrowind has a "fresh-off-the-boat" start to it; you aren't expected to know anything about where you are.

But this thread is dedicated to getting the referee in a position to run the game. If they can run a D&D game, they can run EPT. We'll get to the players later.

[badger2305]

Part Two: Thinking About The Stuff

So you've now got the game and the maps, and some additional background material. Good. Let's "open the box" and see what we have.

From a mechanics perspective, original Empire of the Petal Throne is very much like OD&D. That actually makes things easier, since that's a familiar framework for anybody into the OSR. We'll come back to that.

From a setting and background perspective, you get eight - count 'em, eight pages of introductory information. I would suspect that the latest materials from WOTC for Eberron are much longer - and less well-written. It's true there is additional material presented later in the book, but what you get in the beginning is history, culture, and politics - just what a referee would want, right? Absolutely. Start making notes about what's going to happen in your game, based on this information.

What's interesting is that these eight pages provide a rather extensive amount of material to start with. Besides all of the "ancient history" stuff, you get lots of "here-and-now" detail, which Prof. Barker intended for referees to use as their campaigns developed. Two clues that this is correct are as follows: the discussion of how various classes progress in Sec. 2300, and the advice provided in Sec. 2820 on developing scenarios.

Additionally, you also get a lot of NPCs, straight away. In addition to Gen. Kettukal and others, we find out about various Imperial princes and princesses: Eselne, Dhich'une, Rereshqala, Mridobu, and an unnamed princess - we find out in the Strategic Review and Dragon articles that she is named Ma'in Krythai. Start keeping track of each of these NPCs - Prof. Barker uses 3x5 cards; you might want something more than that, however.

But before you start writing everything down, take a moment and pause to remind yourself of one basic fact: "I can take this game any direction I want to."

Emperor Hirkane dies suddenly and you have to hold a Kolumejalim? Go for it - one fellow did and reported it in The Space Gamer #6. An Undying Wizard wants to circumnavigate the globe and needs a crew for his Ship of the Ancients? Do it - you'll never have to worry about the War with Yan Kor for the rest of your game. There's a Hlyss invasion and Ssu uprising that threatens the stability of the Five Empires? It's all possible - and all up to you.

Next: Part Three - You're fresh off the boat. I'll have that later this week.

[geoffrey]

Aug 1, 2011 18:53:06 GMT -6 badger2305 said:

From a mechanics perspective, original Empire of the Petal Throne is very much like OD&D. That actually makes things easier, since that's a familiar framework for anybody into the OSR.

I'd go so far as to say that the mechanics of EPT are basically a cleaned-up version of the mechanics of OD&D.

A person completely ignorant of RPGs, if handed a copy of EPT, would probably be able to basically understand the rules in the way that Prof. Barker intended.

That same person, if instead handed a copy of the 1974 D&D rules, would most probably understand the rules in a manner considerably different than Gygax and Arneson intended.

[ckutalik]

Thanks for doing this Victor. People tend to focus over-much on the player end of this--will they get past the exotic trappings and all that. I appreciate the advice and encouragement on the ref end, as like most things with a good and determined ref just about anything can be understandable and enjoyable no matter the layers of detail.

Sounds like some critical mass is building for some kind of Google Plus. Who gets press ganged into GMing is still up in the air.

[badger2305]

Resource Interlude

Here is today's contribution - a list of all of the characters mentioned in Empire of the Petal Throne, along with notes as to who they are and when they lived. A second section includes additional characters from the material presented in The Strategic Review and The Dragon.

Empire of the Petal Throne is about languages, so rather than being all American about this, go ahead and get into it. If you've ever spent time looking at Klingon or Quenya or Sindarin, this isn't any harder, and actually probably easier. Let the names roll around your tongue. The accent mark shows where to put the stress - I'll use a capital letter to show in an example: NayAri or "nay-YAR-ree". Don't worry about getting it right - that's not the point. What is intended here is to give you a sense for names and how they might sound.

Once you have "tasted the words" so to speak, look at what you have. It's a list of NPCs - some of them historical figures, and some of them current in the setting. That means you can use the former for reference purposes, and the latter as people you don't have to think up on your own. The possibilities are endless and you can impart a great deal of flavor just by making connections between places, people and things. Think about that.

Attachments:

[Falconer]

I think if I were trying to get into Tekumel, I would collect:

1. Man of Gold and Flamesong novels
2. Empire of the Petal Throne box
3. Tomb Complex of Nereshanbo module

First, I would read the novels. Then, I would use normal D&D PCs with normal D&D rules in my normal D&D campaign, and just have them get magically teleported to Tekumel at some point (via a portal in a megadungeon or whatever). There, I would run them through the aforementioned Tomb, and see how we like it.

[badger2305]

Aug 2, 2011 11:07:18 GMT -6 Falconer said:

I think if I were trying to get into Tekumel, I would collect:

1. Man of Gold and Flamesong novels
2. Empire of the Petal Throne box
3. Tomb Complex of Nereshanbo module

First, I would read the novels. Then, I would use normal D&D PCs with normal D&D rules in my normal D&D campaign, and just have them get magically teleported to Tekumel at some point (via a portal in a megadungeon or whatever). There, I would run them through the aforementioned Tomb, and see how we like it.

I hear you, Falconer, in your choices - particularly Man of Gold and Flamesong. I have to admit I thought about this long and hard, but I concluded that the novels - while incredibly useful once you have started to play - can make it harder when someone is actually starting to run a game, just because of their depth. Besides, the idea here is to take the game and run it straight out of the box - how do you do that?

I would submit that Tomb Complex of Nereshanbo is similarly fraught - while you can buy it, it's somebody ELSE's work, which isn't necessary. There's more than enough in original EPT to give a starting referee ideas of what to do - it's just a matter of thinking about it carefully and drawing some of your own conclusions. (Incidentally, it's also not necessarily representative of what Prof. Barker had in mind in original EPT, either).

[Falconer]

Aug 2, 2011 11:14:49 GMT -6 badger2305 said:

I hear you, Falconer, in your choices - particularly Man of Gold and Flamesong. I have to admit I thought about this long and hard, but I concluded that the novels - while incredibly useful once you have started to play - can make it harder when someone is actually starting to run a game, just because of their depth. Besides, the idea here is to take the game and run it straight out of the box - how do you do that?

Alright, I wasn’t trying to derail your thread, and I appreciate your thoughts. Basically, I won’t know until I have read the books, but my guess is I’ll get the “feel” of EPT a lot better once I have. I did read the introductory material in EPT, and it was intriguing, but the info isn’t internalized yet. FWIW, I also got into Greyhawk initially via the Gord novels, so my method may be unorthodox in that sense!

Aug 2, 2011 11:14:49 GMT -6 badger2305 said:

I would submit that Tomb Complex of Nereshanbo is similarly fraught - while you can buy it, it's somebody ELSE's work, which isn't necessary. There's more than enough in original EPT to give a starting referee ideas of what to do - it's just a matter of thinking about it carefully and drawing some of your own conclusions. (Incidentally, it's also not necessarily representative of what Prof. Barker had in mind in original EPT, either).

It looks like a sweet dungeon level though:

If the goal is to take EPT for a quick spin, it should be fine, no? Like using B1 to get a sense of D&D?

[Finarvyn]

This is a great thread. I've owned EPT since the '70's and thinking about running it scares the heck out of me. I played a few games back in the day and it was fun, but strange, and I've always worried about not "getting it right" since there are so many details already established. The language freaks me out as well.

Anyway, nice thread and some good advice!

[badger2305]

Aug 2, 2011 12:56:24 GMT -6 Falconer said:

Basically, I won’t know until I have read the books, but my guess is I’ll get the “feel” of EPT a lot better once I have. I did read the introductory material in EPT, and it was intriguing, but the info isn’t internalized yet. FWIW, I also got into Greyhawk initially via the Gord novels, so my method may be unorthodox in that sense.

(Snip)

If the goal is to take EPT for a quick spin, it should be fine, no? Like using B1 to get a sense of D&D?

My intention is not to "take EPT for a quick spin" - not that that's a bad thing; if you are just trying to get a feel for things, running Tomb Complex works pretty well. Rather, it's my intention to provide a framework for refereeing, using the original rules set as enough to play Tekumel. I also think you might be falling into the "it's gotta be REAL Tekumel" trap by relying on the novels. Wait. You have all that you need in EPT itself. Have some faith.

I will also note that Tomb Complex is really not the equivalent of B1; rather the equivalent material is already in the EPT rulebook. By the time I'm done with this thread, we'll have some sample scenarios, an Underworld section, and some ideas on where to go from there - especially when it comes to other Tekumel material. Trust me.

[geoffrey]

Victor, thank you very much for that PDF of the named characters in the EPT boxed set. I didn't realize that there are so many!

The nomenclature of Tekumel is one of the most attractive things about EPT for me. Just reading that list of names makes me happy.

[kent]

This thread is fascinating. Too often is Tekumel material read as an encyclopedia to goad a creative DM to greater ambition. This sensible patient methodical slow reintroduction to ept is a very clever timely idea and Im looking forward to some goodies like the Names pdf. Cool stuff, thanks.

[badger2305]

Part Three: You're Fresh Off the Boat

Empire of the Petal Throne begins with a very simple premise:

"For convenience' sake, it is assumed that all player characters arrive in a small boat at the great Tsolyáni port city of Jakálla. It is also assumed that everyone speaks understandable, though non-native, Tsolyáni and can read the modern form of this language." (pg. 37)

James Maliszewski noted that this is really the perfect set-up for starting new players in Tékumel - and he's right. The problem for any beginning EPT referee is that they are just like their players - a stranger in an alien land. What does a new referee do?

Fortunately, the answer lies in remembering that "it's just a game" - particularly a game like D&D. What do players do in D&D? Attempt to act heroic, kill things and take their stuff. EPT isn't any different. What does set EPT apart from D&D is the intense social milieu that forms the backdrop for any campaign - and I suspect that's where a lot of potentially-interested referees get lost and give up. Let's step back from that issue, and look at the game side of Tékumel.

Beginning: player-characters arrive in Tsolyánu, looking for opportunity, i.e. how to act heroically, kill things, take their stuff and somehow advance themselves. There are three ways they can do this, as suggested by the rules in EPT: fight in the Hirilákte Arena, go on an Underworld expedition, or perform a mission for a patron. In the latter case, anyone reminded of the Classic Traveller Supplement 76 Patrons shouldn't be surprised. Let's chart this out:

Fresh off the boat (1st level)
|
------------------------------------------------------------------
Hirilákte....................Underworld........................Patron
Arena........................Expedition.......................Mission
------------------------(1st-2nd level)------------------------
Gain fame and fortune

So for characters of 1st or 2nd level, these seem to be the options available to them. But then what?

"Upon reaching experience level III, a player character may travel freely within the Empire. When he or she attains level VI, Imperial citizenship is granted, and the character may then act as a Tsolyáni and recruit new players for adventures or expeditions; he or she may sponsor champions in the Hirilákte arenas, and he or she has the right to hold military or civil rank in the Imperial government." (emphasis added) (pg. 37)

Mid-game: With that in mind, we can chart the intended progress of the successful player-character:

Fresh off the boat (1st level)
|
------------------------------------------------------------------
Hirilákte....................Underworld........................Patron
Arena........................Expedition.......................Mission
------------------------(1st-2nd level)------------------------
Gain fame and fortune
|
May travel freely about the Empire (3rd level)
Gain more fame and fortune
|
Gain Imperial citizenship (6th level)
You've finally arrived!
|
------------------------------------------------------------------
Sponsor.......................Recruit for..................Hold Official
Champions.....................Expeditions.................Rank and Posts
|

Advanced play: Once a character has developed to this point, our cue comes from Sec. 2300. Support, Salaries, Jobs, Fiefs, and Taxes. Warriors of 6th-8th level may accept commissions as a Legionary officer, while priests of a similar rank are appointed to a supervisory post, which may include special missions. Magic-users may act somewhat more independently for themselves as consultants or entrepreneurs. After that, it is possible for characters between 7th and 9th levels to pursue becoming fief-holders from the Imperium - lucrative but also a great deal of administrative work! At this point, the game becomes similar to that of "name-level" D&D - a larger frame for adventure and potential activity. Let's continue with our illustration:

Gain Imperial citizenship (6th level)
You've finally arrived!
|
------------------------------------------------------------------
Sponsor.......................Recruit for..................Hold Official
Champions.....................Expeditions.................Rank and Posts
|
Advancement! (6th-8th level)
------------------------------------------------------------------
Legion..........................Temple.......................Consulting
Commission......................Posting......................Entrepreneur
|
Fief-Holder! (7th-9th level)

End game? After all of this, a player-character may be expected to retire, settle down in their adopted clan, sponsor new heroes, and rake in the káitars. Well, probably not.

Not too surprisingly, the chart as presented is just a framework for understanding how things might work. It is still up to the referee to come up with adventures to make the world come alive. But having this in mind will make that all a lot easier as you grapple with the details of Tékumel. This is especially true since the framework as presented isn't that different from what player-characters are expected to do in D&D.

Next - Part Four: The BIG picture view of things

[kent]

My very limited experience with Barker's campaign prompts me to recommend the following material initially and in order:

EPT 1e
The Book of Ebon Bindings [which supersedes Carcosa IMO]
Swords and Glory Volume I
Create a Religion In Your Spare Time for Fun and Profit [just 20 pages but core to any D&D campaign]
Deeds of the Ever Glorious


Can someone please recommend the swiftest way to become comfortable with PRONUNCIATION of Barkers Pronouns? I tend to see his pronouns as images rather than sound them out but Im sure there is an article or blogpost covering this somewhere.

[badger2305]

Resource Interlude

Today's attachment is a list of places. Like the first list, sound out the names and see how they sound to you. Again, don't worry about getting it right - just see how they sound.

I'll be revisiting this list when I post Part Four. Enjoy!

Attachments:

[badger2305]

Aug 3, 2011 18:26:08 GMT -6 kent said:

Can someone please recommend the swiftest way to become comfortable with PRONUNCIATION of Barkers Pronouns? I tend to see his pronouns as images rather than sound them out but Im sure there is an article or blogpost covering this somewhere.

Actually, this might just exactly what Constantcon might be good for...

[geoffrey]

Aug 3, 2011 18:26:08 GMT -6 kent said:

My very limited experience with Barker's campaign prompts me to recommend the following material initially and in order:

EPT 1e
The Book of Ebon Bindings [which supersedes Carcosa IMO]
Swords and Glory Volume I
Create a Religion In Your Spare Time for Fun and Profit [just 20 pages but core to any D&D campaign]
Deeds of the Ever Glorious


Can someone please recommend the swiftest way to become comfortable with PRONUNCIATION of Barkers Pronouns? I tend to see his pronouns as images rather than sound them out but Im sure there is an article or blogpost covering this somewhere.

Kent, have you looked at Prof. Barker's two-volume The Tsolyani Language? It notes on page 1 that the transcription of Tsolyani into the English alphabet "has NO silent letters, and each letter (or pair of letters, in the case of /ch/, /sh/, etc.) has only ONE pronunciation". Since several pages covering pronouns are supplied, complete with stress marks, I'm confident that one would be able to arrive at correct pronunciations with the aid of this work.

I'd note that The Book of Ebon Bindings precedes Carcosa by three decades, and is an inspiration. With no shame I admit that Prof. Barker's Tekumel is the superior of Carcosa in every way (with perhaps one exception), as Tekumel is the superior of any RPG world of which I'm aware.

The one advantage that Carcosa might have over Tekumel is that Carcosa's lack of the profound excellences of Tekumel can make Carcosa less intimidating to a new-comer. (Of course, as Victor is explaining in this thread, there is no reason that a new-comer couldn't jump right in to Tekumel via the EPT game.)

[badger2305]

Part Four - What, No Dwarves or Elves??

Empire of the Petal Throne also eschews the usual fantasy tropes of dwarves, elves and halflings hobbits, and instead presents an entirely different set of non-humans for potential use as player-characters. Prof. Barker makes it pretty clear that these are something of a second choice, as Tsolyánu is human-centered. That's not all that different from usual fantasy ideas - the elves are over THERE and somewhat withdrawn from human affairs, the dwarven kingdoms are HERE and HERE, and are mostly concerned with gold, gold, gold, etc. The difference that matters is in the non-humans themselves:

• Friendly: the Páchi Léi, the Pé Choi, the Pygmy Folk, the Swamp Folk, and the Tinaliya.
  
• Neutral: the Ahoggyá, the Hláka, the Shén
  
• Hostile: the Hlutrgu, the Hlyss, the Shunned Ones, and the Ssu.

So there are eight possible non-human choices, and each one of them has its own unique appearance and cultural expression. But you're a beginning EPT referee! How do you convey all of this to your players? That's easy - have players start as humans (that is the starting assumption, after all). You get to figure out who all those non-humans are, before they do. That way, you don't end up with the situation of, "okay, lessee: Pe Choi are Elves, Tinaliya are Gnomes..." because they're NOT.

The best advice is to generate a character for each of the non-human races, and use these as non-player-characters to convey who and what these non-humans are, so that players can begin to develop ideas about each race, their habits, social patterns, likes and dislikes, etc. Some relevant factors to keep in mind in this process are:

• What do they look like?: each race is carefully described in Sec. 1127, pp. 48-54. Use these to figure out how each race sees the world and relates to humankind. Note down any special abilities, for later use, e.g. it's very difficult to sneak up on an Ahoggyá, due to having four sets of eyes.
  
• Where are they from?: each race has a distinct "homeland" which influences what human cultures they are familiar with and how likely they will be encountered. Páchi Lei and Pe Choi live in western Tsolyánu, making them comfortable with the Tsolyáni and relatively frequently encountered if you were in Jakálla. The Tinaliya homeland is much further away, near Livyánu, with all that such a location entails.
  
• What do humans think of them?: Each non-human race may be stereotyped in some fashion: Ahoggyá are considered uncouth; the Hláka are nervous and excitable; "to bargain with a Pygmy is to throw away one's purse"; the Pe Choi are elegant and graceful; the Shen are aloof and fearsome fighters; the Tinaliya are literally-minded, and so on. Use these as "touchstones" to help you in characterization, while keeping in mind that there is always individual variation.

Expanding this a bit further, it helps to think about social and political interaction on a larger scale. Once you have your own ideas about each race and you have rolled up an example of each as an NPC, consider how players might encounter non-humans. For example, it's easy to note that the Pe Choi are friendly and integrated into the military and priesthoods - but that means that the average Tsolyáni does not consider Pe Choi unusual - but a non-human from far away might be. Another observation is that the Hláka are flying creatures - but they probably don't just swoop in and out of human cities. Rather, they will land near the city gates, gain the appropriate passports, and then likely enter through the gates into the city proper.

One last bit of advice: it might be best to think of non-humans in Empire of the Petal Throne as aliens, a la any decent science fiction (rather than fantasy) novel. That can be a subtle reminder of Tekumel's distant technological past - which may suggest potential adventure ideas in and of itself. It also frees you up to think of them as really different, rather than as, well, elves, dwarves, and halflings hobbits.

Okay, I know I put down Part Four as supposedly being about the Big Picture, but my significant other, Lynn, pointed out that if I was going to talk about character progression, I couldn't well leave out different characters races. Next time, then, will be about that Big Picture.

[miked]

This is all kinds of awesome. Thanks for posting, looking forward to the rest!

Mike D.

[Finarvyn]

I'm loving this information. Game on!

[kent]

Aug 5, 2011 11:43:25 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

Kent, have you looked at Prof. Barker's two-volume The Tsolyani Language? It notes on page 1 that the transcription of Tsolyani into the English alphabet "has NO silent letters, and each letter (or pair of letters, in the case of /ch/, /sh/, etc.) has only ONE pronunciation". Since several pages covering pronouns are supplied, complete with stress marks, I'm confident that one would be able to arrive at correct pronunciations with the aid of this work.

Thanks. I'll take a look. Your two observations already make it easier. It is strange that Tolkien's more exotic pronouns are easily pronounced by a teenager but knowing that Barker is using non-european roots induces a sort of paralysis of the tongue.

Aug 5, 2011 11:43:25 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

I'd note that The Book of Ebon Bindings precedes Carcosa by three decades, and is an inspiration. With no shame I admit that Prof. Barker's Tekumel is the superior of Carcosa in every way (with perhaps one exception), as Tekumel is the superior of any RPG world of which I'm aware.

I think I heard about The Book of Ebon Bindings through you when you were discussing Carcosa a couple of years ago. Your book is a well written fantasy. Barker's book is convincingly real.

[ragnorakk]

Thanks Badger, this is really interesting. Never had any access any Tekumel material, found Man of Gold and read that (and liked it), but that's really been it - so yeah, very interesting stuff!

[sd]

This thread is very relevant to my interests.

[kent]

From rpg,net:
I think Barker's go-to mechanic is a d100 system of his own house-sys, but I have heard it is all very simple with an attempt to encourage narrativist play.

Can anyone point me to a discussion or article about the actual mechanics that Barker used himself and how close to story-telling his own games were? My first AD&D campaign back in my late teens naturally evolved into something close to story-telling & discussion as the characters approached name level so Im very curious to learn how to read this quote if it is accurate.

[badger2305]

Aug 6, 2011 22:42:18 GMT -6 kent said:

From rpg,net:
I think Barker's go-to mechanic is a d100 system of his own house-sys, but I have heard it is all very simple with an attempt to encourage narrativist play.

Can anyone point me to a discussion or article about the actual mechanics that Barker used himself and how close to story-telling his own games were? My first AD&D campaign back in my late teens naturally evolved into something close to story-telling & discussion as the characters approached name level so Im very curious to learn how to read this quote if it is accurate.

Generally speaking it is quite true - you can find the specific description here - sans the very straightforward rules for playing 9-8-7 as the necessary preparation for game play. Having played for many years in the Thursday Night Group, I assure you it's how we gamed.

[kent]

Victor,

Following link, final paragraph:
You have dice to resolve any questions (01-10 good, 90-00 bad, use common sense). You know that you operate within a web of interdependent forces - you want THIS, but your wife wants THAT, but your clan wants THIS OTHER THING and your temple wants SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY.

Thanks. My impression is that you are covering the material you linked to with greater thoroughness in this thread with the exception of the final paragraph. that is, dice mechanics for *conflict of interest resolution*.

There are three rules sets written with Barker's own pen associated with Tekumel: OEPT, Swords & Glory II and Gardasiyal and it appears that OEPT remains the best integrated rule and background introduction to Tekumel. However I don't have a clear picture of how Barker at his own table resolved questions of risk and Im glad I can ask you because you were there!

So far my only impression is that Barker confidently used a d100 to decided to outcome of all conflicts of interest, with simple succeed or fail bands. I also guess that he rolled for the players? How would he distinguish between veteran and green fighters with such a simple 10-% fail, 90+% succeed mechanic. Did he not adjust at all, adjust on gut feeling or did he have a system of modifiers written down. It would be possible with good players for the green fighter to say 'I try to hit him with my club' and the veteran to say 'I try to stick my rapier in his mouth'. That is, a simple mechanic with the responsibility for plausibility shifted to the players' descriptions of their actions.

Please correct any misapprehension on my part and clarify how he used dice.

[badger2305]

Aug 7, 2011 7:11:44 GMT -6 kent said:

Victor,

Following link, final paragraph:
You have dice to resolve any questions (01-10 good, 90-00 bad, use common sense). You know that you operate within a web of interdependent forces - you want THIS, but your wife wants THAT, but your clan wants THIS OTHER THING and your temple wants SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY.

Thanks. My impression is that you are covering the material you linked to with greater thoroughness in this thread with the exception of the final paragraph. that is, dice mechanics for *conflict of interest resolution*.

I think you may be misunderstanding Bob's description. We never used dice for conflict of interest resolution. The entire notion of "conflicts of interest" were resolved by on-going role-playing. That having been said, all of this was done after we had developed a very deep familiarity with the world and background. So dice were used only to resolve issues that needed dice.

There are three rules sets written with Barker's own pen associated with Tekumel: OEPT, Swords & Glory II and Gardasiyal and it appears that OEPT remains the best integrated rule and background introduction to Tekumel. However I don't have a clear picture of how Barker at his own table resolved questions of risk and Im glad I can ask you because you were there!

So far my only impression is that Barker confidently used a d100 to decided to outcome of all conflicts of interest, with simple succeed or fail bands. I also guess that he rolled for the players? How would he distinguish between veteran and green fighters with such a simple 10-% fail, 90+% succeed mechanic. Did he not adjust at all, adjust on gut feeling or did he have a system of modifiers written down. It would be possible with good players for the green fighter to say 'I try to hit him with my club' and the veteran to say 'I try to stick my rapier in his mouth'. That is, a simple mechanic with the responsibility for plausibility shifted to the players' descriptions of their actions.

Please correct any misapprehension on my part and clarify how he used dice.

No, he did not and does not roll for the players. Very little, if ANYTHING, was written down or structured as a "rules system" - one of the interpretations of Prof. Barker's rules system is far more detailed than anything I've experienced as a part of the Thursday Night Group.

I would not recommend using this system for beginning Empire of the Petal Throne referees and players; it requires a high level of trust AND familiarity with Tekumel - neither of which is the case when you are first beginning. That's why using EPT as it was originally written is actually a much better choice; the straightforward similarities with OD&D provide familiarity for a referee and players to fall back on when developing a better sense for the world.

As a last note, it is worth noting that when Prof. Barker first started, he used EPT as the framework for introducing Tekumel, and only over time as players build up their own sense of how things worked, did the rules change. The changes made over time were responses to what was supposed to be a "fun" way to play, not necessarily anything else.