Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal - part II

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Yes, indeed, my General; the first is from the Board meeting in August of 2012, and the latter from the 'strategic planning retreat' in June of that year. It's all on tape, too.

By the by, my General, about that book you're writing talking of the early days of gaming? l am told that you will need to contact the TF to get a license from them for your chapter on gaming with Phil, because you will be receiving compensation for it and thus are in violation of the TF's "sole and exclusive license for the commercial exploitation of the Tekumel IP". This, according to them, is what the lawyers call 'unjust enrichment' and so you need to pay a license fee and a percentage of the money you get to them - I'm assuming that you'll have to pro-rate the percentage by the number or words or something. Had this come up with another guy in the same boat; after reviewing all his options with his lawyer, he dropped all mention of Phil and Tekumel as it saved him a lot of time, labor, and money. Had some interesting discussions with my own lawyer about this kind of thing, too.

We live in interesting times, don't we?

If it comes to that, I'll just turn the chapter into "This was to be a chapter about my gaming with Phil Barker both in and out of his world of Tekumel, but I cannot present it due to the demands of the Tekumel Foundation."

Or, since you taught me "Divide and conquer," just get ahold of Moose and ask "What the fuck is this?"

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

If it comes to that, I'll just turn the chapter into "This was to be a chapter about my gaming with Phil Barker both in and out of his world of Tekumel, but I cannot present it due to the demands of the Tekumel Foundation."

Or, since you taught me "Divide and conquer," just get ahold of Moose and ask "What the fuck is this?"

Agreed. It's bizarre, but there it is; more concern for control then marketing. It does baffle me, it really does; I thought they'd gotten better over the years.

You could, but last time I talked to him he said he'd had nothing to do with the TF for a couple of years; no data from there, I'd venture to guess.

Again, sigh. It had such potential, too. Not the big pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that was their dream, but it could have actually done some good.

Had an absolutely grand game yesterday; I was the Second Unit Director for a friends marvelous pulp game set in the 1920s. My job was to be his live memory bank, feeding him with period details while he ran the game. I also provided bits of side business, in order to give him some thinking room. All very 'Free Kriegspiel', and lots and lots of fun. Could not have asked for a better game session with better people!

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

If it comes to that, I'll just turn the chapter into "This was to be a chapter about my gaming with Phil Barker both in and out of his world of Tekumel, but I cannot present it due to the demands of the Tekumel Foundation."

You don't need to bother. These guys clearly have no actual knowledge of either the current RPG industry (if they expect to earn $50K a year for tekumel) or law (because trust me, they can't sue you for talking about Tekumel or Barker in a book, at least not for any kind of copyright or trademark infringement).

Originally Posted by RPGPundit

You don't need to bother. These guys clearly have no actual knowledge of either the current RPG industry (if they expect to earn $50K a year for tekumel) or law (because trust me, they can't sue you for talking about Tekumel or Barker in a book, at least not for any kind of copyright or trademark infringement).

Sure, I know that. The problem is that anybody can file a lawsuit, and the issue becomes how much trouble it causes to get clear of it.

A couple of footnotes to your posts, if I may, gentlemen...

You are quite correct, Pundit, re the total unfamiliarity with the current game market - their expectation was that each of them, all six surviving directors, could expect a $50K a year salary - a total income of $300,000 for themselves, and a bit beyond that to pay for their expenses. I agree with you; I doubt that there's that much free money in the game industry...

And you are also correct, my General; the legal expenses involved in beating threats and bluster are far more then any possible return in the game industry / hobby. I can think of several IP holders who have discovered that while they are in very firm control of the IP; they have taken themselves right out of the market. And threats and bluster do pay; see also the career of Prenda Law, and the estimated $14.5 million they made from their scheme before they were closed down.

As I said, we live in interesting times.

At least by the Glorious General, not much. I had good steel armor and weapons, of course, and I might have had a +1 sword.

Eyes are almost all quite short range, so not much wartime use. Military sorcerors are more plentiful and can join together to create much larger effects.

Assuming you're talking about the Qadardalikoi.

Originally Posted by Big Andy

After the campaign was in full swing, how much magic equipment was the party carrying? Eyes, magic/demon weapons, etc? How much steel gear? Any oddball/unique items of note?

How often were eyes used in war?

Well, let me look at my notes...

In general, I and Vrisa had steel armor and good weapons; I had my 'enchanted' mace and she had her 'enchanted' sword. The rest of the party were usually magic-users, so little or no armor - and any they did have would be chlen-hide - and the usual assortment of knives, poignards, daggers, and maybe a regular mace or two. No steel. When sailing with Harchar, Vidlakte and his marines all had chlen-hide armor and weapons - no rust to worry about, Ken pointed out to Phil. Narkhodlan added to the fighters when he came along in the later 1980s; Chris had steel armor, and a steel sword like the Glorious General did. So, out of eight to ten people, two to three to four fighters in good gear, and the rest as 'soft' magic-users / sorcerers.

The magic-users usually had an Eye or two, with usually three to five assorted ones in the whole party. For 'oddball / unique' stuff, there was Harchar's 'dimension hopper', but that wasn't ours; I will look again, but I don't recall us ever having any really cool or powerful stuff in the party. We lived by our wits, which was a challenge given how wily and clever Phil was; by most gamers' standards, we were pretty under-powered and lightly equipped.

Oh, wait - we had one of the Helmets of the Three-Pointed Star, for the first couple of years of underworld crawls; came in handy, a few times. That was it, as I recall.

Eyes were nominally personal items, and so got used in small-scale stuff like underworlds or skirmishes. As the Glorious General said, their ranges are usually too short and too limited for large-scale fights. They are devastating in PC adventures, which is why we tended to let the PCs in the party do our scouting for us - they were pretty effective in killing things. Most of the time, anyway.

Does this help?

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

At least by the Glorious General, not much. I had good steel armor and weapons, of course, and I might have had a +1 sword.

Eyes are almost all quite short range, so not much wartime use. Military sorcerors are more plentiful and can join together to create much larger effects.

Assuming you're talking about the Qadardalikoi.

I remember you did have a +1 sword; it was a gift from Serqu, as I recall.