At what point is detailed setting a detriment?

[greentongue]

As with many settings that have great depth, Tekumel's has been a problem for new players to absorb.

I believe that one of the advantages of the Original EPT release is that this wealth of detail had not been generally available. This allowed people that wanted to try a non-Euro centric game to not feel overwhelmed.

With the gradual availably of the extensive setting information, too much (IMHO) is now available for a new player to feel comfortable.

This has worked against making it accessable to new players.

Should OEPT keep the setting details to a minimum or include all the later information?
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[Finarvyn]

I'm glad you asked this, becasue this very question has bothered me about EPT as well as in other settings.

For example, I love the Greyhawk folo and the boxed set, but I can't decide if I want to own every module and sourcebook ever made. I'm a huge fan of Blackmoor and the First Fantasy Campaign but haven't really had a chance to absorb material from all of the ZG sourcebooks. You can extend this to many other settings with elaborate detail, like Middle-earth or Star Wars or whatever.

Tekumel has its own unique challenges in that it's unusual. The language is funky, which sometimes makes it more like homework than pleasure reading. There are so many sourcebooks that I really can't decide what to buy, let alone have time to catch up on 30 years worth of writing and evolving a world.

I find in general that the original product for any setting is usually the best. The original book tends to give a skeletal view of everything and the GM can fill in the details. By the time piles of sourcebooks are introduced, I can't keep track of all that they have to say. I'd love to be accurate and know everything, but just can't keep up anymore.

So ... in general, stick to the original book or boxed set. That's my take on the question. :-)

[ffilz]

The detail of Tekumel definitely is a problem for getting into it. A further problem is that the type of "stories" the setting inspires are not really supported by the game systems very well (especially the original EPT system).

In some sense I would agree with Finarvyn, though one exception I see is Glorantha. You really did need more than just RuneQuest to really get the most out of it. But somewhere along the series of Avalon Hill published supplements, it started to get overloaded with detail.

Frank

[doc]

As I've mentioned before, the level of detail depends on how much you want to add to it. The Blackmoor setting, to use an example we are all familiar with, involves a number of city states declaring their independence from a decadent kingdom that refused to protect them from ravaging marauders. It deals with the complex negotiations between the myriad human communities who all support the King of Blackmoor as their ruler to very different degrees. Some of the cities still have some loyalty to the old kingdom and relations between them and the cities loyal to Blackmoor are quite complex. Then you need to throw in the Egg of Coot, a possibly alien intelligence of malignant scope with unknown plans for the world of Blackmoor and it's people. The setting is a hotbed of political maneuverings, double-crosses, stands of independence, and a strained balance of power between the men, dwarves, and orcs.

But you can still say "to heck with all that" and just gather up some mates to smack around goblins in the hills.

Which is to say, the complexity of the world makes great background, but that doesn't mean it has to be the defining characteristic of the game if that isn't what you want to focus on.

I've found that worlds like Tekumel work best when the players are given just a bit of knolwedge, just what they need to start off with, and then new knowledge is introduced with every new adventure. Just because the players don't know the proper way to address a female war leader of Yan Kor doesn't mean that the characters don't know, but it would be useless to make mention of it in the game until the characters are actually in that situation as it would just be extraneous information.

Doc

[bigjackbrass]

doc said:

I've found that worlds like Tekumel work best when the players are given just a bit of knolwedge, just what they need to start off with, and then new knowledge is introduced with every new adventure.

That's certainly the way I'm running things these days, after an earlier attempt to drop players a little too heavily into the thick of things. The Guardians of Order Tékumel book has some nice touches aimed at easing both players and GMs into the setting, such as the "Five things you need to know about X" sections, and there are plenty of little bits of fiction to put matters in context, so I'm using that book as a sort of edited sourcebook to go along with the EPT rules. I don't think that it's the volume of material that is the problem so much as the way it is presented. Ideally Tékumel could have used a grand campaign leading players from the Foreigners' Quarter right through to the heights of political intrigue at court. With no such resource available I'm working along similar lines myself (and so far, so good.)

[korgoth]

If I were to run EPT, I would use the setting as the backdrop (a way to trot out broadly orientalist scenery and customs) and actual setting details as a spice. You know, just drop in one or two things per session or whatever feels appropriate.

The normal substitutions are just changes in flavor, anyway: instead of knights in shining armor you've got heavy footmen in lacquered plate, instead of carriages you've got palanquins, instead of castles you've got ziggurats, etc. And then you just make the names of everything sound more pompous and florid.

I suppose it does depend on the sort of game you want to play. I think the above comments should be accurate when applied to a Sword and Sorcery style dungeon-plundering game. One of those deep immersive quasi-larp games where you delve into the intricacies of the culture and society (which is just fine if that's what you find to be fun) would require some serious homework.

The principal potential downside I can see to the "setting as spice" approach is if one or more of your players are serious Tekumelheads who have memorized every sourcebook, are trying to learn to speak Tsolyani, etc. That might end up causing some friction.

[greentongue]

korgoth said:

If I were to run EPT, I would use the setting as the backdrop (a way to trot out broadly orientalist scenery and customs) and actual setting details as a spice. You know, just drop in one or two things per session or whatever feels appropriate.

The normal substitutions are just changes in flavor, anyway: instead of knights in shining armor you've got heavy footmen in lacquered plate, instead of carriages you've got palanquins, instead of castles you've got ziggurats, etc. And then you just make the names of everything sound more pompous and florid.

By Jove, I think he's got it!!
;D

I believe that the other style should be reserved for the newer rule set. Which IMHO, works better for that style of game anyway.
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[badger2305]

In the past, I've run "Retro-Tekumel" events at UCon, which used EPT to go delving in the Jakalla Underworld. They were a lot of fun for most of us (Epengar got bored with the old combat system, which was fair).

What was interesting to me as the referee was attempting to see the setting of Tekumel through the lens of Empire of the Petal Throne. It's there, but it's got a different spin to it compared to the other rules sets for the world. But I liked finding some of the rules justifications for why things were the way they were, and connecting them to deeper setting-related reasons.

This is a roundabout way of saying that if you are playing Empire of the Petal Throne, you're still playing Tekumel, even if all that later detail isn't there immediately.

[James Maliszewski]

badger2305 said:

What was interesting to me as the referee was attempting to see the setting of Tekumel through the lens of Empire of the Petal Throne. It's there, but it's got a different spin to it compared to the other rules sets for the world.

I've been re-reading EPT before I go to bed each night and it's a very illuminating experience. What I find most fascinating is that EPT's Tékumel isn't all that different from later iterations, even down to the point of explaining that "Good" and "Evil" in reference to the deities -- a common complaint I've heard about the original game -- aren't the clear-cut concepts the names might imply. EPT presents the "real" Tékumel but it has different emphases, so it might seem, compared to later stuff, that it's somehow different when in point of fact most of the "differences" stem from its more limited focus.

Personally, I find EPT even more amazing than later versions of Tékumel. When you consider when it was written, the depth of information presented and its overall coherence is remarkable. I also, frankly, prefer its presentation, because it's both more digestible and because it wears its "sword & planet" roots more obviously on its sleeve.

[Brett Slocum]

Jan 29, 2008 17:19:08 GMT -6 James Maliszewski said:

I've been re-reading EPT before I go to bed each night and it's a very illuminating experience. What I find most fascinating is that EPT's Tekumel isn't all that different from later iterations, even down to the point of explaining that "Good" and "Evil" in reference to the deities -- a common complaint I've heard about the original game -- aren't the clear-cut concepts the names might imply. EPT presents the "real" Tekumel but it has different emphases, so it might seem, compared to later stuff, that it's somehow different when in point of fact most of the "differences" stem from its more limited focus.

The biggest difference for me between EPT's Tekumel and the 'real' Tekumel is the spells. Everything else is a somewhat filtered version, but filtered in a really good, beginner way.

I think that GoO's T:EPT does a good job of having an introductory level of detail.

Personally, I find EPT even more amazing than later versions of Tekumel. When you consider when it was written, the depth of information presented and its overall coherence is remarkable. I also, frankly, prefer its presentation, because it's both more digestible and because it wears its "sword & planet" roots more obviously on its sleeve.

I think its still one of the best old school games out there, and it explains Tekumel more completely and succinctly than any other product.