Merry Christmas

I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas. Although it has been quiet around here lately, I haven't abandoned the blog yet.

Merry Christmas

P.S.

Santa Ssu wishes everyone a Merry Christmas as well.

Remembrance Day, 100 years later.

A Canadian Soldier of the Great War

Today is Remembrance Day, a day that marks the end of  WW1, also known as the Great War, and commemorates the sacrifice of those British and Commonwealth troops that served in this conflict. Coincidently,  today also happens to mark the 100^th anniversary of the cessation of hostilities. The participants are all gone now, consigned to the pages of history texts, and yet it would seem that we are desperately in need of their conviction and courage these days. The familiar evils of tyranny, and suppression, are still very much alive and well these days. In fact some might say that they are thriving! Although we cannot say that the First World War was fought to end these patterns of behaviour, many of the participants surely felt that they were doing just this. After the guns fell silent at 11:00am  on November 11, 1918,  the Western world, so horrified at the slaughter of the previous four years, felt that this was a war so horrible that no other wars could be considered if one remembered the horror of the trenches. Sadly, how wrong they were.

Today I will spend the day with family and then, later, sitting in front of the fire, have a drink to the memory of those that served, and to those that I served with. I may even meet up with some of the lads and talk about the old days, but probably not. Lest We Forget…..

In Flanders Fields

By Lt Col John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

    That mark our place; and in the sky

    The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

    Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

        In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

    The torch; be yours to hold it high.

    If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

        In Flanders fields.

Still Here

Well, its been a very long time since my last post, but I'm still here. Stay tuned for more.

Some Miniatures

I recently came across a wonderful miniatures site that sells some truly unique 28mm figures –Hydra Miniatures. Based in the US, their inspiration is derived from the pulp science fiction of the 30', 40's, and 50's, some of the same stuff that MAR Barker was inspired by when creating Tékumel. The miniatures' aesthetics would be  perfect for Tékumel games set in the Latter Times, or during the Human Spaces Empire's epoch. I plan on purchasing some of these soon, and when I do I will be sure to post a review. I have included some images taken from their website below.

They can be found here:

http://www.hydraminiatures.com/

Leader Type/ Potential Player Character

Another Leader/PC

Another Leader/PC

Complete Unit with Leader/Guards

Magic User

Zrné?

Ru'un?

Guardian Ru'un

 

 

 

Service Robot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shunned One?

Is Tékumel too hard to play?

I normally don't  bother such things on this blog, but recently, on a site that I have been known to frequent, the often voiced opinion that Tékumel is not a popular, or well known setting, because it is too complex to run successfully, unless you are MAR Barker, was repeated again

Tékumel as a setting is as playable as any other commercial setting. The failure lay in the foolish notion that somehow arose, and was perpetuated by many gamers, that the only/one way to run a game using this campaign setting was to follow Phil's "Tékumel Prime game" in order for it to work. All of the later affectations regarding pronunciation, immersion, etc stem from this desire to emulate the original campaign game, even though from the get go MAR Barker asserted that this was not possible, and people should make Tékumel their own. I have never understood this attitude. The complexity of the setting is not a prerequisite to playing a Tékumel campaign, but something that needs to be gradually developed over many sessions, if that is what the DM and players want. This is the crux of the matter. Do you want an Anthropological exercise, or do you want to play make-belief, "make some shit up," and push some lead figures around? From my experience, and probably the experience of the vast majority of regular Tékumel players, including  "Chirine baKal", "Gronan of Simmerya" (aka General Korunme), Dave Arneson (aka "Captain Harchar") and MAR Barker himself, the latter is closer to so-called "real Tékumel" than the former.

I am currently running a Tékumel Campaign that is in its second year, with two of the four players in the group not having a clue what the game world was like before they sat down to play. The remaining players in the group had, at best, a passing familiarity with the milieu but certainly were not "experts." They are now, finally, "getting" Tékumel. They have absorbed the background material and, to quote the above mentioned Chirine, have "gone native." The reality is that I could have easily had the same campaign set in Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, or my own campaign world and changed very little of the story. The complexity would have gradually developed except that you would have a faux medieval world to explore instead a fusion of Mughal, Meso-American, Egyptian and Barsoomian cultures. Both have their challenges if an immersive gaming experience is desired, but in both cases you can still enjoy yourself and not give a toss whether a name is pronounced a certain way, or someone should be greeted by a particular honorific. There is no need to understand the cultural nuances of Tsolyáni society prior to playing. I would be curious if anyone knows if such a requirement is even stated anywhere in the official literature.

The fact that many gamers feel that some type of major prep work is mandatory in order to play is too bad. They are missing out on a playing experience that is not a mere re-hash of the same Tolkienesque tripe.