Tekumel d20 system

[Deleted]

We may see more on this. I am presently in discussion with the owner of the rules as created for Guardians of Order and Professor Barker.

With all strings ironed out, they can be published in a number of ways, and I'm working on that too. Its too early to say anything else.

-Hlucha

[Finarvyn]

Is there any particular reason why you selected d20 as your game system? I was wondering if Castles & Crusades or Labyrinth Lords or some other system might have a more "classic" feel to it.

I only ask because I find that many neat games seem to feel sterile when stuck into the d20 mold. For example, Gamma World was a great game originally, but as a d20 game it just fell a bit flat for my tastes.

I think that GoO's problem was that the Tekumel Tri-Stat (dX) edition was too different from the original EPT, so lots of gamers never got "into" the new system. (I know I bought it and it sits mostly unread on my shelf; I tend to drift back to the classic boxed set when I get the urge to read EPT.)

And does WOTC's announcment of 4E impact at all the plans you are making?

Just curious.

[bert]

I think the motivation was that d20 sells. Wonky and turgid though the rules system is to the eyes of those who use these boards, it has many, many fans and shifts much product.

There are a few D&D-based rules conversions floating about the web - the latest one I saw used a variant on the Unearthed Arcana 3.5 system of three very broad character classes - but I agree with Finarvyn that a Labyrinth Lords OD&D-with-the-odd-knob-on style game would be more fun and closer in spirit to OEPT.

Where would one start with such a conversion? IMO the important bits of the Tekumel background you must include are the social system and the marvellous religion. Have a social status stat with skills/proficiencies/whatever that go with certain castes eg Noble - Command Slaves, Punctilious Insults; Mid Clan - Trade skills, Grovel to Boss, Flog Slave; Low Clan - Craft Skills, Work Like a Bloody Chlen in Intense Heat. Each religion should have its own spell list, lifted from Gardasiyal.

Any further thoughts?

[greentongue]

It depends on your intended audience.
Are you trying to woo the World of Darkness fans or the Dungeon Crawlers?

Do you want more abstraction or more details?

I admit to being bias. I am tinkering with a Savage Worlds conversion of OEPT so I have picked my preference of the focus.
=

[bert]

I'm not sure about intended audience - all I know is that the current d20 is not for me.

Personally I do not mind the not-quite tri-stat GOO TEPT rules, though the combat is clunky and dice-heavy, I quite like the trade off between attributes and defects, the teamwork rules, the fact that the spells are customisable and upgradable in various ways. It does the job, and IMO the key to good Tekumel game is capturing the flavour of the background which is part of DMing and roleplay, not the rule system.

I think this puts me on the World of Darkness side of your dichotomy, not that I know much about the WoD games.

[Finarvyn]

bert said:

I'm not sure about intended audience - all I know is that the current d20 is not for me.

This was sort of my perspective as well. While I'm not sure I could select a single "favorite system" for all occasions, I know that d20 just doesn't do it for me.

That's why I suggested that a system such as Labyrinth Lords could be adapted to Tekumel. Very B/X D&D-like, which makes it somewhat compatible with the 1E EPT boxed set. I think many of the old-time EPT players would be more interested in seeing a revised edition more similar to the old version. (I know that d20 Blackmoor had that problem -- too different.)

Either way, thanks for the update. I'm looking forward to hearing more about this project.

[bert]

As hlucha said the d20 rules were written, done and dusted some time ago, they just never got published when they were supposed to as GOO went belly up. I'll wait and see what they actually consist of when they come out before thinking about launching into a Labyrinth Lords adaptation.

[Finarvyn]

bert said:

As hlucha said the d20 rules were written, done and dusted some time ago, they just never got published when they were supposed to as GOO went belly up.

Okay, so I guess I missed the part where it was mentioned that these rules were already DONE. That changes things somewhat.

Hlucha's "they can be published in a number of ways, and I'm working on that, too" colment suggested to me that he was thinking about d20 (hence the title of the thread) and I was suggesting some alternate approaches.

If they're already written as a d20 product, certainly it would be easiest and most efficient to publish what's already done!

[casey777]

Being sorta a GOO product, I've always wondered how close this T:EPT d20 would have been to T:EPT BESM since BESM d20 is pretty much BESM with a d20.

Yes, D&D4E's upcoming release does change things though I still think the d20 market even now is likely larger than BESM's esp. now that roll-high BESM 3e is out (T:EPT was derived from roll-under BESM 2e). While T:EPT is not perfect it's a good digestible synthesis first product for newcomers. So a d20 or 4E d20 based version has potential IMO, esp. since the d20 version has been already written.

As for a LL version, well Mutant Future is in the works. But I think it'd be possible to tweak it (I've already seen skill rules for LL) for making works compatible with B/X & with EPT. Have to see how Prof. Barker at al feel about that.

[Achán hiNidráne]

admin said:

Is there any particular reason why you selected d20 as your game system? I was wondering if Castles & Crusades or Labyrinth Lords or some other system might have a more "classic" feel to it.

I guess that I'd primarily get behind a d20 Tekumel because the mechanics are more or less the 'standard" of the RPG industry. They usable D20 stats, you could easily port out to other system like True 20 (a d20 variant), or Savage Worlds (which has conversion rules), or Castles & Crusades (which is an amalgam of "Classic" D&D and d20).

Now, I agree a LL conversion would be very cool and the closet in feel to the original EPT, and you wouldn't have been the first to have thought of it.

[James Maliszewski]

An important thing to bear in mind is that EPT, both in terms of its rules and its presentation, has been more or less abandoned by Professor Barker and the most fanatical Tékumel fans. It's considered not merely "primitive," but also "incorrect;" in a recent interview, Professor Barker called it "simplistic" and compared its portrayal of Tékumel to Monopoly's portrayal of Atlantic City.

Given all of that, I don't think we're ever going to see an officially sanctioned version of EPT that isn't complex and geared more toward the fantasy linguistics and ethnology crowd because that's what the fan want. The number of people who like EPT as it is and appreciate its science fantasy sandbox approach is small, very small.

[Finarvyn]

jamesm said:

An important thing to bear in mind is that EPT, both in terms of its rules and its presentation, has been more or less abandoned by Professor Barker and the most fanatical Tékumel fans.

Really? I had no idea.

I suppose that I just assumed that Tekumel was gradually evolving from the 1974 EPT boxed set, but that it was essentially the same world (even if the game mechanics changed along the way).

Prof. Barker's attitude seems sort of "elitist" to me. Why can't he just be happy that others want to share in the enjoyment of his creation?

[James Maliszewski]

admin said:

I suppose that I just assumed that Tekumel was gradually evolving from the 1974 EPT boxed set, but that it was essentially the same world (even if the game mechanics changed along the way).

Well, it is the same world. What Professor Barker has said in various places is that EPT is, at best, "beginner" Tékumel, a simplified introduction to give you the gist of the setting and prepare you for "advanced" material later. I know, for example, that he dislikes the way that the gods are divided into "good" and "evil" rather than "stability" and "change" and sees the former as a concession to Gary Gygax and TSR's way of doing things.

Prof. Barker's attitude seems sort of "elitist" to me. Why can't he just be happy that others want to share in the enjoyment of his creation?

I think he does derive enjoyment from this, but I also think he has a very clear vision of what Tékumel is and that vision is now at odds with the presentation in EPT. Professor Barker isn't one to come out and issue denunciations against gamers who play in Tékumel "wrong;" that's not how he feels from what I can gather. However, he makes a sharp distinction between "real" Tékumel, which is what he plays, and the way the world was presented in EPT and other early sources (not to mention the way it's played by many gamers).

[bert]

admin said:

jamesm said:

An important thing to bear in mind is that EPT, both in terms of its rules and its presentation, has been more or less abandoned by Professor Barker and the most fanatical Tékumel fans.

Really? I had no idea.

I suppose that I just assumed that Tekumel was gradually evolving from the 1974 EPT boxed set, but that it was essentially the same world (even if the game mechanics changed along the way).

Not actually so - the story as I understand it is that Tekumel was an idea of Barker's long before RPGs. He was a linguist following the same sort of path as Tolkein and Middle Earth, inventing a fantasy world around the synthetic languages he had invented and inspired by the mythic literature he had read as part of his studies.

For Tolkein this was Early English and Germanic languages and books like Beowulf and the Prose Edda, for Barker Sanskrit and books like the Baghavad Gita. Also, being American, Barker had been exposed to a lot of good old lowbrow pulp sci fi in the 30's.

When D&D came along Barker tried to compromise between his fantasy world and the conventions of the only RPG ruleset in town. As time went on he tried to make the rules a better fit for the world as he had originally imagined it, IMO leading to some of the worst excesses of 80's 'simulationist' games.

OEPT is not 'dead' as such; it's a fun game, but the world it depicts it is a pale shadow of the 'real' Tekumel, most fully described in the background materials to the later (flawed) games and in the novels, and better used in an RPG by taking whatever ruleset you find most playable and adapting it to the background as YOU see fit. Greentongue favours Savage Worlds, others like GURPS, IMO the Runequest version has much to be said for it, but each to their own...

Doing a Labyrinth Lords - style version of EPT would be (like all such rulesets) a compromise between playability and 'accuracy', but one which I think would avoid rules overload and retain the 'old school' feel of OEPT

[Epengar]

To echo and expand a little on what jamesm wrote...

It is very much is the same setting and world. The places, deities, clans, culture, etc. are pretty much same. However, there are some things that were simplified or modified in order, as jamesm notes, to fit better with D&D. For instance, no subsequent publications refer to the gods as good or evil, only stability and change, and Barker takes a much more "ethical relativist" approach to the Tsolyani ethos and morality. Also the EPT distinction between priests and sorcerers and their magic is a concession to D&D's model of clerics and magic-users. In Barker's Tekumel, the temples of the Five Empires have an almost total monopoly on magical lore and spell-casting (at least within the empires). The temples only teach magic to their priests (though some temples aggressively recruit young people who are psychically gifted). If priests have sufficient aptitude, they can learn either ritual spells (EPT's priest spells) or psychic spells (EPT's sorcerer spells) or both.

[dwayanu]

Off the "d20" topic, but related to the general "more accurate than EPT" subject:

I once went the route of mixing EPT and S&G. A good chunk of the latter's (and Gardasiyal's, from what I understand) complexity comes in ways that are not particular to Tekumel but part of a more generally rules-heavy approach -- just as T:EPT reflects the GOO style as much as the setting.

In many cases, one can use the more accurate material as a guide to adjustments to EPT. For instance, one need not adopt the whole nine yards of character generation and skill rules to make characters more closely fit Barker's depiction of the world.

The magic system seems to be a big shibboleth for serious fans. EPT does not reflect at all the distinctions among temples, for instance. It's not too difficult to modify specifications to fit EPT mechanisms, but the rules are intrinsically more complex. Sandy Petersen's Tekumel variant for RuneQuest may give a rough indication of what's entailed and of the "flavor" of the spell lists. The AD&D variants I've seen do not include (e.g.) full spell descriptions but refer one to S&G for details and merely offer guidelines for conversion (or else substitute the AD&D system with custom spell lists).

Tirikelu offers a magic system that does not directly match the S&G standard, but I happen to like it (and the game as a whole) very much. It is at once more accurate than EPT and much less complex than S&G -- a happy medium for me. If you check it out, be sure also to get the Honor rules from Eye of All-Seeing Wonder (I forget which issue).

[korgoth]

Since I presume that everybody up to and including Barker agrees that Tekumel doesn't actually exist in the first place, I don't see what it matters if people have differing stories about it.

It's not even the same the LOTR from the standpoint that LOTR is an established body of literature that makes a number of subtle philosophical and theological contributions to cultural discourse. Tekumel is just another fantasy world, albeit a unique and distinctive one that has a lot of thought and erudition behind it. It doesn't have any presence in the culture because almost nobody has even heard of it. It has no wider meaning beyond what it is.

So why should it matter if my story about magic and the temples is different from somebody else's? There's no fixed substrate in which one or more set of attributions actually inhere. So there's very little about Tekumel which it's actually possible to be right or wrong about.

[dwayanu]

I reckon it matters to the extent it figures in players' expectations.

I greatly enjoyed the Spider-Man movies, but in my own treatment of the character I would (e.g.) stick with the original story that he invented web-spinning devices -- as opposed to acquiring that arachnid ability as an organic mutation.

Hobbits in Tekumel? Ssu in Middle-Earth? It's up to the ref, natch!

[James Maliszewski]

korgoth said:

Since I presume that everybody up to and including Barker agrees that Tekumel doesn't actually exist in the first place, I don't see what it matters if people have differing stories about it.

The extent to which Professor Barker agrees that Tékumel doesn't exist is an open question. When I was involved more heavily in Tékumel fandom, I corresponded with him regularly (heck, I even co-authored an article with him) and I recall at one point telling him about my then-active Tékumel campaign. I mentioned some NPC to him in the context of describing an adventure I'd run and he replied to me something like, "Oh, yes, I know the man in question" and proceeded to give me all sorts of details about the NPC, his family, and so forth. It was pure gold for me as a GM but the way he presented it to me creeped me out a bit. And I know from reports from people who game with Barker that often, when asked a question about something he hasn't prepared, he closes his eyes, leans back, and 'transports' himself to Tékumel to find the answer.

Obviously, he may just know his creation well enough that he can visualize things very well. I imagine Tolkien could have done the same thing with Middle Earth, but it's still a bit strange in my opinion.

So why should it matter if my story about magic and the temples is different from somebody else's? There's no fixed substrate in which one or more set of attributions actually inhere. So there's very little about Tekumel which it's actually possible to be right or wrong about.

Without delving into the larger philosophical question you raise, I agree that it doesn't matter or at least shouldn't. But Tékumel has always been unique in that a significant portion of its fandom wants their campaign to mirror Barker's and to take advantage of his obvious creativity and knowledge. I can understand that desire even if I don't share it myself. I'm only saying that Barker himself thinks EPT is too simplistic a presentation of his world and that games based solely on it will diverge significantly from the "reality" of the setting as he conceived it. Whether that bothers anyone is a different question, it seems to me.

[James Maliszewski]

dwayanu said:

Hobbits in Tekumel?

Amusingly enough, there is in fact a hobbit in Tékumel, an unfortunate D&D character transported there who wound up as a permanent "guest" in a zoological garden in Jakálla, one of the larger cities of Tsolyánu. I can't find the reference but Barker mentions this in an old article from the 70s.

[badger2305]

dwayanu said:

Tirikelu offers a magic system that does not directly match the S&G standard, but I happen to like it (and the game as a whole) very much. It is at once more accurate than EPT and much less complex than S&G.

I've never found the S&G magic rules all that difficult, though truth be told, we rarely used them precisely in the Thursday Night Group. While I have not actually played Tekumel using the Tirikelu magic rules, they did not appear to be that much more accurate than EPT. But, as they say, your mileage may vary.

[badger2305]

jamesm said:

The extent to which Professor Barker agrees that Tékumel doesn't exist is an open question. When I was involved more heavily in Tékumel fandom, I corresponded with him regularly (heck, I even co-authored an article with him) and I recall at one point telling him about my then-active Tékumel campaign. I mentioned some NPC to him in the context of describing an adventure I'd run and he replied to me something like, "Oh, yes, I know the man in question" and proceeded to give me all sorts of details about the NPC, his family, and so forth. It was pure gold for me as a GM but the way he presented it to me creeped me out a bit. And I know from reports from people who game with Barker that often, when asked a question about something he hasn't prepared, he closes his eyes, leans back, and 'transports' himself to Tékumel to find the answer.

Obviously, he may just know his creation well enough that he can visualize things very well. I imagine Tolkien could have done the same thing with Middle Earth, but it's still a bit strange in my opinion.

I wonder if you see a connection between Prof. Barker's practice, and the philosophical perspective Tolkien wrote about in "On Fairy Stories"?

Taking a different tack, many science fiction and fantasy authors I know speak about their creations as if they were other places, just around the corner, so to speak. I agree with you that Prof. Barker's sense of Tekumel is uncanny, but it's a degree of difference, not of kind, as far as other writers and their creations seem to be concerned (or so it seems to me).

[greentongue]

jamesm said:

<snip> I can understand that desire even if I don't share it myself. I'm only saying that Barker himself thinks EPT is too simplistic a presentation of his world and that games based solely on it will diverge significantly from the "reality" of the setting as he conceived it. Whether that bothers anyone is a different question, it seems to me.

To me, this is a positive.

I like not having to worry that I'm not "Getting it right".
That I don't have to exactly match someone else's vision of the setting.

I don't want new players to be worried they are not getting it right either.
As far as I'm concerned, if we're having fun, then we ARE getting it right.

All I want from the setting is a solid framework that I can build MY game with.

[badger2305]

greentongue said:

I like not having to worry that I'm not "Getting it right".
That I don't have to exactly match someone else's vision of the setting.

I don't want new players to be worried they are not getting it right either.
As far as I'm concerned, if we're having fun, then we ARE getting it right.

All I want from the setting is a solid framework that I can build MY game with.

You know, if you substitute "rules" for "setting", you have exactly how I feel about Original D&D.

[James Maliszewski]

badger2305 said:

I wonder if you see a connection between Prof. Barker's practice, and the philosophical perspective Tolkien wrote about in "On Fairy Stories"?

It's been years since I read it but my recollection is that Tolkien's point was that the key to a good fairy story is that it seem "realistic" through the use of lots of little details and other dramatic devices to achieve verisimilitude.

Taking a different tack, many science fiction and fantasy authors I know speak about their creations as if they were other places, just around the corner, so to speak. I agree with you that Prof. Barker's sense of Tekumel is uncanny, but it's a degree of difference, not of kind, as far as other writers and their creations seem to be concerned (or so it seems to me).

I have no doubt you're right on the first point but it sure looks as if it's a difference of kind rather than just degree. I doubt Tolkien would ever, if confronted with a rabid fan who presented him with his ideas for a character who lived in, say, Bree, have said, "Oh yes, I know the gentleman" and then added details that implied he wasn't just adding details but actually describing an actual person. That strikes me as a very different, much more immersive way of interacting with one's creation.

[James Maliszewski]

greentongue said:

I like not having to worry that I'm not "Getting it right". That I don't have to exactly match someone else's vision of the setting.

And I share this sentiment. However, I would say that a great many Tékumel fans, particularly those for whom EPT is seen as "simplistic," have a very different set of priorities. They want to keep up to date on what Professor Barker is doing and wish to keep their campaigns in as much tune with his as they can manage. The irony is that this isn't in fact something Barker encourages (neither does he discourage it); it's just the way Tékumel fandom has evolved over the last 30 years.