Speaking of GenCon ...

Does anyone know if Mongoose had any advance copies of their edition of Stars Without Number on hand at GenCon? I know I'm going to regret asking, because the answer will be "Yes" and I'm many miles away from the con, but I figured I'd do so anyway, since I'm rather keen to get hold of the new version with its 40 pages of exclusive content.

Open Friday: Conventions

I'm not a big attendee of conventions. I've been to both Origins and GenCon once each and have attended a couple of small, local gatherings in various cities over the years, but, in general, con-going isn't my thing. I've long suspected that most gamers, even fairly devoted ones, don't attend conventions with any regularity, even ones in their own cities.

So, here's my question: if there's a sizable, well established convention that occurs regularly in your home city, do you attend it?

Star Wars Invades My Dreams

I woke up this morning remembering a strange dream about a new Star Wars movie I'd seen. As is so often the case with my dreams, it took me a little time to both realize it was in fact a dream and to understand exactly what it was I had dreamed. In this case, the "new movie" I'd seen was an alternate take on Episode I, one in which Obi-Wan and his apprentice, Darth Vader, journeyed to the distant planet of Tattooine on some mission vital to the success of the "good guys" -- I don't distinctly recall who Obi-Wan and Vader worked for -- in the ongoing Clone Wars.

At some point in my dream, the two Jedi are traveling aboard a starship or are aboard a space station in the vicinity of Tattooine. They're then personally assailed by a bunch of guys wearing armor similar to Boba Fett's, except that it was a different color (blue?). In their fight against them, some guy helps them out and he turns out to be Anakin Skywalker, whom Obi-Wan senses is strong in the Force, despite his being a lowly navigator from Tattooine, the very planet they're going to. Obi-Wan asks Anakin to act as his guide, since he's never been to Tattooine and having a friendly local in his company would be useful. Vader counsels against this course of action, but Obi-Wan rebuffs him and we see Vader begin to seethe with resentment against Skywalker.

And that's most of what I remember. What's interesting to me is that what I remember of the dream appears to be a composite of events from the actual Episode I and events from issue #24 of the Marvel Star Wars comic. Like most dreams, it's not filled with original ideas so much as reworkings of ideas from other places, although, in this case, if I do say so myself, it's actually pretty clever. What impresses me about it in retrospect is how many little details from the 1977 film -- details the prequel films either ignored or forgot -- were worked into it, like Skywalker's being a "navigator on a spice freighter" and Darth Vader's being a separate character from Luke's father. I also vaguely recall there being a "scene" in my dream in which Anakin's brother, Owen, argues with him about helping Obi-Wan, saying something about how "the Clone Wars don't concern us here on Tattooine."

As I've said before, I've don't hate the Star Wars prequels the way that some fans do. I even think there are a lot of solid ideas in them (and my dream self would seem to agree). What bugs me most about them is how many things established in the original trilogy they either outright ignore or twist into such knots as to be unrecognizable. I mean, Star Wars -- Episode IV in Lucas speak -- establishes very few specific details about Luke's father or about Obi-Wan's younger days. Even assuming that, as Lucas developed it, Obi-Wan was shielding Luke from the truth in his conversations, there are too many discontinuities with what we see in the prequels for it to hang together as well as it should have or indeed could have, had a little more effort been made to do so.

The Ads of Dragon: Marvel Super Heroes

1984 was a big year for TSR, with several big RPG products premiering, one of which was advertised in issue #84 (April 1984):

I've written of my fondness for Marvel Super Heroes before, but that post does little to convey just how excited I was upon seeing this ad. Back then -- heck, even now -- I wouldn't have considered myself a huge fan of superheroes in a broad sense, but I was a fan of several specific superheroes, like Spider-Man and Dr. Strange. Having a game that let me play these characters was, at the time, something I looked forward to with great anticipation. That I never needed a licensed game to do that was beside the point at the time and ads like this one ensured I was going to buy this RPG as soon as I saw (which I, in fact, did).

A Sci-Fi Pet Peeve

One of the overriding concerns of many science fiction authors whose stories (or games -- this applies equally to RPGs as it does to novels, movies, and TV shows) take place a hundred or more years in the future is historical extrapolation. How can one create and present a plausible course of events leading from the present day, which we know, to some point several centuries or millennia hence, which we don't. My feeling is increasingly, "Why bother?"

Think about it this way: when was the last time you read a novel or saw a movie set in the present day and much time was wasted in trying to justify the world as it is? When was the last time you opened up the rulebook to a modern RPG and found a lengthy history chapter stretching back to the Middle Ages or even earlier? No one in their right mind expects a James Bond novel to waste space explaining the history behind Britain's political situation in the 1960s, do they? Likewise, does anyone assume that a RPG set in 21st century America will devote pages upon pages to detailing the country's history going all the way back to 1776 (or before)?

I understand that many sci-fi creators enjoy creating future histories. Some even pride themselves on how prescient they are, but, really, except in rare cases, does all that history need to be laid out to the reader (or player), especially when much of it is decades or centuries in the past? From my perspective, if your setting is millennia in the future in some galactic empire far removed from Earth, does it matter what happened long ago and far away, generally speaking? Is it necessary to connect events of the present to those in the far future? I don't see it myself, except, as I said, in rare cases where the whole point of the setting is to explore that connection. Otherwise, I much prefer that "the future" simply be treated like the present from the perspective of the characters within it, which is to say, the way things are and let's not worry too much as to why.

Retrospective: The Nightmare Maze of Jigrésh

One of the most common knocks against Tékumel is that no one except Professor Barker can successfully run a campaign set on that alien planet. Tékumel, it is said, is just "too weird" for any referee to get a handle on who isn't himself the author of its mysteries, as Barker is. While I disagree with this assertion, I don't think it should be dismissed out of hand. There's no question that Tékumel is a bit more intimidating as a setting than, say, Greyhawk, but that's only because -- and I say this with the deepest respect for both Greyhawk and its creator -- it's not particularly original. That is, Greyhawk is based heavily on medieval Europe and so most gamers already know and understand its society and culture intuitively. That's never going to be true of Tékumel for the vast majority of gamers.

That said, the complexity and alienness of Tékumel tends to get overstated for rhetorical effect in a lot of discussions of the setting. This is often done both by those who haven't played in the setting, who wish to explain why they've never attempted it, and by those who have, in order to preserve the "elite" air that sometimes wafts around the setting. Now, I know for a fact that playing in Tékumel is both possible for the uninitiated and that no less an authority than Professor Barker himself feels Tékumel is only slightly more unusual than other fantasy settings, as he says in the Introduction to the original Empire of the Petal Throne:

once one gets past the original alienness, it is easy for others to become immersed in the elaborate societies, politics, and adventures of Tekumel. Players of my World of the Petal Throne quickly learn to shiver just as much at the mention of the sound of chiming and the odour of musty cinnamon (you may find out why below) as they do at the creaking of Dracula's coffin and the distant bellowing of the minotaur.

Of course, saying and doing are two different things. In my experience, a significant barrier to attempting to run a Tékumel-based campaign is the lack of easily available models. If one is playing D&D or Traveller -- or indeed most other RPGs -- there are a large number of pre-made adventure modules to which one can turn for guidance. That's just not the case for Empire of the Petal Throne. That's not to say there aren't any modules for EPT, but they are few and far between.

One such module is 1981's The Nightmare Maze of Jigrésh by Michael E. Mayeau and published by Judges Guild under license. This 16-page module details what even its author calls a "dungeon" for use with EPT, namely the eponymous labyrinth of an Engsvanyáli priest of Sárku named Jigrésh. According to the opening "designer's notes" section, Mayeau consulted with Professor Barker by phone when writing this module, receiving a great deal of help in placing the Maze and its backstory within the world of Tékumel. Though the notes don't say so, I can't help but wonder if Barker did the same thing with Mayeau that he did with me several years ago, imagining details that mesh one's own ideas with those he himself had already established about Tékumel.

The Nightmare Maze of Jigrésh is by no means a great module. In it, the characters set off to steal the fabled Claw of Srükárum from the Maze, which, as its name suggests, is a maze of twisting corridors and passageways, with little in the way of rooms or chambers. Good luck mapping it -- or, for that matter, describing it to the players! Within the maze, there are numerous Tekumeláni monsters, some with treasures. The module introduces a few new monsters (such as the undead Jájgi, which may have appeared in print for the first time in this adventure), along with excerpts from The Book of Ebon Bindings, along with wandering monster and treasure tables. In short, it's a pretty undistinguished dungeon, noteworthy primarily for its unusual flavor, at least some of which owes to Professor Barker himself.

For me, the banality of The Nightmare Maze of Jigrésh is its real value. Too many people have the false impression that Tékumel is too exalted to be sullied by hands other than those respectfully steeped in its minutiae for decades beforehand. Michael E. Mayeau clearly thought otherwise, as did Professor Barker. This module is nothing more than a dungeon crawl in a slightly exotic setting -- and that's fine. People often forget that Empire of the Petal Throne, moreso than many fantasy RPGs, provides a ready-made and culturally plausible explanation -- a couple, actually -- for the existence of monster and trap-filled "dungeons." The underworld beneath the great city of Jakálla played an important part in the earliest Tékumel campaigns, too, so Barker clearly did not look askance at delving for treasure as a focus for characters.

There's no reason anyone else should do so either. Like D&D, Empire of the Petal Throne (and, by extension, other Tékumel RPG) campaigns can easily start off as dungeon crawling expeditions into the underworld and then, over time, expand beyond that. Or not, as the case may be. After all, the underworlds of Tékumel are vast and deep and could occupy months or even years of satisfying play, if one is so inclined. There's no reason that Tékumel need be viewed as a "highfalutin" setting accessible only to a select few players. Both personal experience and modules like The Nightmare Maze of Jigrésh suggest otherwise.

So ... Google+

Yeah, I'm pretty tired of hearing about it, too, truth be told. To date, I haven't found it much more interesting than Facebook -- except that Google+ has this neat little "Start a Hangout" button that is tempting me to try to run an online game, maybe weekly or biweekly. The problem, of course, is that I've never run an online game like this before. I did try to run a play-by-post game a couple of years ago and I found the pace of it simultaneously too slow and too fast at the same time, because not all the participants posted with the same regularity or to the same extent. Doing something using video would be quite different, I think. I hope that it'd be more like real face-to-face play, but, again, I have no experience one way or the other.

For that reason, I'm looking for some short, straightforward advice on the matter. How difficult would it be for a complete neophyte and mild technophobe to use the Hangout feature of Google+ to run, say, an online Dwimmermount or Tékumel campaign? Likewise, is this something people are even interested in? I'll be absolutely honest here: I consider online games to be, at best, poor substitutes for meeting with friends in one's home every week. However, I'm also rather keen to give this a whirl, since I've seen a number of people speak well of it. I figure there's nothing to lose in testing it out for myself, but, as I said, I have zero experience with this sort of gaming and so welcome advice and insights from those who've successfully done this in the past.

Thanks!

The Ads of Dragon: Games Workshop (U.S.)

Issue #83 (March 1984) included the following ad, announcing the formation of a US branch of Games Workshop:

Despite the fact that the Delaware River doesn't border on Maryland, where GW was setting up shop in North America, it's nonetheless a mildly amusing advertisement. Since Maryland is my home state, I was actually ecstatic about this news at the time, since I hope it'd mean more ready access to British gaming products, in particular White Dwarf magazine, whose distribution in my neck of the woods had always been spotty. My hopes proved well founded and I actually subscribed to White Dwarf for a couple of years, owing to price breaks introduced to coincide with this move by GW. I also got a copy of the superhero RPG, Golden Heroes, that I'd heard about but never been able to find in stores until this point. Consequently, this ad brings back quite a number of fond memories.

Introducing Tékumel

Having thought about just how useful the first two Tékumel novels are in giving a sense of what characters might do in this famously complex and alien setting, I found myself (once again) reminded of the set-up provided in the original Empire of the Petal Throne.

For convenience's 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.

The rulebook goes on to explain that, as foreign refugees, the PCs may not travel about the Empire freely until they have reached level 3. In the meantime, to travel and earn money for their upkeep, they need to acquire Tsolyáni patron, who can assist them in these matters. In this way, EPT provides a perfect rationale for adventuring, particularly since, given the nature of Tsolyáni society, there are activities that the natives might wish done but would not wish to do themselves. Enter the player characters.

I honestly think this set-up is the best way to introduce newcomers to Tékumel. This structure makes no demands on the players except that they understand that they're strangers in a strange land, looking for work. That they no little or nothing about the complexities of Tsolyáni culture is, frankly, a plus, since their characters wouldn't know much either. Furthermore, EPT even includes rules for determining whether the characters make some social faux pas that results in trouble -- perfect fodder for yet more adventures! Also, such occasions allow the referee to introduce unfamiliar elements of Tsolyáni society to the PCs (and, through them, to their players), thereby slowly initiating them in the complexities of the setting.

Now, this set-up isn't needed for campaigns after the first, if you have a steady group of players. Indeed, they might well bore of the "fish out of water" approach EPT advocates. But, for first time players, I think it's a brilliant way to begin a campaign, so brilliant in fact that I frequently find myself wanting to start up an EPT campaign with total newbies to see how well it works in play. Maybe that's something to consider in the weeks to come (assuming I can find both the time and the players) ...

Pulp Fantasy Library: Flamesong

For the obvious reason that both M.A.R. Barker and J.R.R. Tolkien became university professors with a special interest in linguistic matters and also used that knowledge to aid in the imagining of fantasy worlds, the two men -- and their creations -- are often compared to one another. As a shorthand for the uninitiated, that's a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Of course, once one knows more about both men and their approaches to their imaginary worlds, it quickly becomes obvious that their similarities are mostly on the surface. This fact becomes is particularly notable in Barker's second novel of Tékumel, Flamesong, first published in 1985.

Flamesong is a sequel of sorts to 1984's The Man of Gold. I say "of sorts," because it tells the story of new characters rather than continuing those presented in the previous book. However, Flamesong is set against the same backdrop as its predecessor, the war between Tsolyánu and Yán Kór, and occurs after the events of The Man of Gold. This time, though, the tale Barker spins is more military-minded, at least initially, as its focus character is Trínesh hiKetkólel, a Heréksa -- a commander of 100 men -- in the Legion of the Storm of Fire, the Tsolyáni Twenty-First Medium Infantry, which is devoted to the fire god Vimúhla.

Trínesh is eager to prove himself, both to his superiors in the Legion and to Prince Mirúsiya, one of the Crown Princes who will one day attempt to lay claim to the Petal Throne of Tsolyánu. Consequently, he is quick to plunge himself and some of his men into a mysterious underground chamber discovered while scouting against the Yán Koryáni. Despite the belief of some of his men that the chamber led to the fiery domain of Vimúhla, Trínesh knows better. It is, he believes, a place constructed eons ago during the time of the Ancients, who once ruled Tékumel before the Great Darkness that plunged the world into chaos.

In the chamber, Trínesh comes upon a large sphere that contains two Yán Koryáni women, whose true identities they hide from the Tsolyáni as protection, for, as it turns out, they are very important indeed, so important that they could turn the tide of the war in favor of Yán Kór. The sphere in which they are found is in fact a transport device, one of the fast-moving tubeway cars that enable subterranean movement beneath Tékumel, often to locations otherwise inaccessible from the surface. Trínesh and several of his companions are tricked into the vehicle, which is then sent rocketing away, trapping them all inside. The Yán Koryáni women believe that the car is taking them home to Yán Kór and to safety, but, as they soon discover, it is not. On Tékumel, the devices of the Ancients are often not well understood and function according to methods unknown to most inhabitants of the world. Thus, even those who think they know how to operate one of these devices will find them not entirely reliable.

What follows then is a series of misadventures, as Trínesh, theYán Koryáni women, and others move from place to place across the world of Tékumel, attempting to get back to somewhere that one or more of them considers safety. Along the way, the characters come not only to understand one another but also the goals they hope to achieve, the revelation of which, in the case of the women, adds an urgency to what might otherwise be a meandering travelog of the wonders and terrors of Tékumel. As it is, Flamesong feels a lot structured than The Man of Gold, but it's also a lot more traditional in its pulp fantasy than was its predecessor. Trínesh and his companions go from trouble to trouble, at each turn barely escaping from a variety of dangers, which I think makes it a lot more accessible than The Man of Gold.

Flamesong still suffers somewhat from the flaws of Barker's first novel. The characters are often a bit stiff, particularly Trínesh, though, to be fair, he is described as being a fairly stolid and upright Tsolyáni in the book. Likewise, there are sometimes digressions into history and culture that, while interesting from the perspective of someone interested in Barker's world, don't necessarily add a lot to the story itself. For that reason, casual readers or at least those not deeply immersed in Tékumel beforehand might find Flamesong plodding at times, even if it moves at a far brisker pace than did The Man of Gold. All in all, I enjoyed reading Flamesong a great deal. If anything, it's another excellent primer on just what one might do in a roleplaying campaign set on Tékumel -- something that's sorely needed in my opinion.