Last week, in the comments to last week's post, "Rules, Rules, and More Rules," reader Bonnacon asked me to elaborate on something I wrote there. Specifically, he wanted to know more about this:
However, I still kept the magic-user and priest classes as separate things with unique skills for each, along with lots of other stuff that doesn't quite "fit" into the setting as it evolved. My vision of Tékumel is my own and undoubtedly at odds with the "official" version in several places.
This is all in reference to my ongoing – and soon to end – decade-long House of Worms Empire of the Petal Throne campaign. When I began the campaign in March 2015, my intention was to stick with the original 1975 EPT rules as closely as possible. That was, in fact, part of the reason I started the campaign in the first place: to play in Tékumel using its original ruleset. Those rules are quite "primitive" by contemporary standards, being an offshoot of 1974 OD&D. For the most part, I'm quite fine with this, since I prefer minimal (even minimalist) rules over more complex ones.
Of course, in extended periods of play, especially over the course of ten years, it's all but inevitable that even minimalist rules will start to change in response to unexpected circumstances. That's certainly the case with the House of Worms campaign, where we've made little adjustments here and there. For example, I've allowed the optional adventurer character class from issue #31 of Dragon (and further developed by Victor Raymond). Similarly, I clarified the way that weapon skills work in the game, since the rules don't really explain what purpose they serve or what penalties a character might suffer if he doesn't possess the skill associated with a weapon he's currently wielding.
The matter is further complicated by the fact that Empire of the Petal Throne presents an early version of Tékumel, the earliest published. Although most of its setting is present in the 1975 rulebook, much of it is still vague. For example, clans are barely mentioned at all, despite later being a foundational aspect of Tsolyáni society. Now, since I was a long-time Tékumel fan playing in the 21st century, I was already familiar with many elements later added to the setting. Even though my goal with the House of Worms campaign was to go back to the beginning, so to speak, it was nigh impossible for me not include things like clans, even though EPT doesn't really include them.
Furthermore, even in later Tékumel materials, such as the encyclopedic Tékumel Source Book released in 1983, there are still matters that are not fully explained or even discussed. Any attempt to referee a campaign for more than a short period of time will certainly run into "blank spots" that needed filling. That's especially true of the deeper mysteries of Tékumel – prehistory, the gods, parallel worlds, the College at the End of Time, and so forth – but it's just as true of even more mundane topics, like the lands at the edges of the continental map.
It has sadly been my experience that a lot of Tékumel fans have been reluctant to come up with their own answers, instead rushing to the Source Book or archived Usenet posts from the 1990s for the Truth™. I think that's a mistake for many reasons, not least because the introduction to the Source Book itself ends with the following:
Even if we were to issue a monthly newsletter or exchange data by telephone, there is no real way to prevent your history from diverging from mine. I can indeed provide further materials – and some are already available from the publisher of this book – but we cannot keep your Tékumel from drifting away from mine. This is as it should be. You have just bought MY Tékumel. Now make it YOUR Tékumel.
I think this is good advice for a referee making use of any published setting, but it's especially so for Tékumel, whose idiosyncrasies are many. Trying to get every detail right and never deviating from every jot and tittle of its diffuse canon would be a Herculean task and, ultimately, a Quixotic one. That's why I decided early in the House of Worms campaign not to get too hung up on such matters. My goal was a fun roleplaying experience for everyone involved and achieving that often meant adding, subtracting, and otherwise altering previously established material about Tékumel.
I'll get into more specifics in Part II of this post next week. With luck, it won't be too "inside baseball" in its content and readers without much knowledge of Tékumel will also find it useful.
At the same time, if you're not going to make use of the huge amount of canon, why play Tekumel at all? The whole point of the thing is that it is a very fully-realized world - without that, what is the appeal?
ReplyDeleteFor me, the appeal is in using as much as I need/want. It's a time-saver to make use of some setting elements rather than having to make up everything from whole cloth. In my case, though, I generally wasn't subtracting a lot from the setting so much as adding to or expanding on what was already there.
DeleteI agree James. The setting I use is Glorantha but the same stuff applies. In my case, I leverage my long history of running the game on and off since 1978 and I use the content I want and ignore the rest.
DeleteThose who look at a setting as the previous reply suggests seem to since way more time arguing about the setting than playing it.
Thankfully both MAR Barker and Greg Stafford had the same mindset of take it and make it yours.
I think the idea of a setting, however richly detailed, is that you make it your own when you start to play in that setting. As you play, the setting may change based on the DM's preferences and how the players react.
DeleteBut more than that, isn't the point of "make it yours" the idea that playing these games involves indulging in shared imagination, and if your group's shared imagination differs in some way from the source, why is that a problem?
I have never played EPT and so I can't judge whether his campaign deviates substantially from the source material but I am fascinated by what I've learned from James' campaign and I don't give two figs whether it's 100% true to the source material. Much more importantly, I bet his players don't either.
And that's the real measure, isn't it?
I'm just glad I get to vicariously experience it and I bet the denouement is going to be a great read.
EDIT: My deleted comment below was meant as a reply here:
DeleteThe point is that the background in EPT is enough and actually differs in some way from later Tékumel. For example, it sure looks to me like the conception of Fu Hsi and the Mihálli kept changing, from Fu Hsi being Mihálli and serving under the Seal of the Petal Throne to eventually being a human wizard who had established control over the Mihálli. With different versions of the world available, why not pick the one you want and tailor it? And with so much background added over the decades, how could one not end up making “mistakes”, which would force you to deviate anyway?
As opposed to other fantasy settings, the appeal to me of Tékumel are the plausible, original history, cultures, and languages, whose creation would not be my strong point. And that seems ultimately the reason to use a setting created by someone else, to fill out aspects that you would be hard pressed to provide or simply would not want to spend the time on.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to part two of this!
ReplyDeleteI'd be particularly interested in hearing about any decisions to _change_ setting materials (whether 1977 era or later): to introduce new things that contradict canon, to ignore/delete things that are in canon, etc.
...keith baker advocates a similar philosophy for your eberron versus his published material...
ReplyDeleteReally ? Hrm. Thus far, I have always been of the totally uninformed opinion that Keith Baker (as the creator of the setting) considered himself as *the* authoritative source on all things related to Eberron, but am glad to have been proved wrong there.
DeleteFrom what I've read of his blog Keith's approach has been to make it clear that everything he writes on his own is just how he runs Eberron and is distinct from officially published 3.5e and 5e material (which he calls 'kanon' versus 'canon') as well as GMs who want to make their own changes, and he usually couches even his 'kanon' in the fact there are questions/issues in the setting he doesn't want to ever publicly give his answers to. I only expand on this cause I think his writing is a great example of a designer staying passionate about his setting but also letting it stay alive, and it's worth checking out!
DeleteIt's also worth bearing in mind that the provenance of a lot of "canon" is pretty dubious to begin with.
ReplyDeleteSometimes the creators of the setting contradict themselves over time, either because they've overlooked something they wrote earlier or because they decided to go in a different direction.
Often other people come along and add to the setting (eg modules or additional sourcebooks). At the beginning, they are usually working alongside or under the guidance of the original creator. A lot of that stuff is usually pretty derivative but sometimes they contribute something extraordinary in their own right and so the whole thing grows from there.
More often than not, the creator steps back, dies or retires or loses the rights to the setting and the setting falls into the hands of others. Sometimes it's fans who have a good feel for the setting (or not!). Sometimes it's a company that sees an opportunity to revitalise a franchise. Sometimes you might get lucky and the new stuff is worthwhile or interesting. But an awful lot of the time, it's just not nearly as good, even though there might be a ton of it. Why should you pay attention to that stuff, just because the IP rights fell into someone's lap?
#glorantha
Delete#seconded
Delete#not_that_TEPT_has_had_or_is_likely_to_have_that_kind_of_experience_qua_IP
I was wondering if - when making modifications and/or additions to the setting - you were still able to keep track of what changes/additions you made, and keep them the same during the entire campaign, or if you retconned things (perhaps without even fully realizing it or doing it on purpose) ?
ReplyDeleteMore the former than the latter, though I'm sure there were a few occasions of retconning. That's more or less unavoidable, especially in a campaign as long-running as House of Worms.
DeleteFair enough, I think I can see the necessity of retconning from time to time in order to keep the story moving forward in a meaningful manner. I guess I should have phrased my question as something like 'can you keep track of all the changes/additions' instead, but you did answer that question already in your reply. Thanks for the response.
DeleteJames, I know your Tekumel campaign has been a joy for your and your players, but because there’s this continuous “gap” of not knowing the entire ins and outs of of the world, doesn’t make you just want to go back and run your own campaign worlds you were GM’ing in the past or develop a new one? My own setting may not be as rich as Tekumel, Glorantha, or others, but it is mine and mine alone, and the time I spend developing and learning about it is a far greater satisfaction than using someone else’s secondary world, so to speak.
ReplyDeleteThat's a very good question and one worthy of a post all its own. For the moment, I'll reply, yes, it does, but with the caveat that there are distinct joys to playing in a pre-existing setting.
DeleteFor me, the joy of using someone else's setting is all the work I don't have to do and that is not my forte. I could never make as nice a map as are available for Tekumel, Glorantha, or Majestic Fantasy Realms. I could never put in the amount of details those settings have.
DeleteBut I can always add my own stamp the setting. I can spend as much time as I want adding details.
So for me, it's almost more a question of what the downside to using someone else's setting?