Our First Character Generation Session
Taken from a post to the Blue Room mailing list, dated 17 February 1996. Not the most coherent writing I've ever done,
but I've included it for its immediacy.
I have just had the most phenomenal character generation experience of my
seventeen-year-long roleplaying career, and I have to share it -- and
congratulate Professor Barker on his Adventures on Tekumel books.
They are a powerful tool for getting players involved in the world of
Tekumel, while educating them at the same time.
I didn't get interested in Tekumel until fairly recently. Hearing
stories from friends in a campaign in London convinced me that I should
really find out more about it, but material was hard to find and I was
concentrating on law school, work, and Amber. Last spring, a game store
opened up here in Ann Arbor; the manager is an old friend of mine, so I
agreed to help him out in exchange for an employee discount.
I discovered the Adventures on Tekumel series, and fell in love with
it. I quickly bought all the volumes, the Bestiary, the Book of Ebon
Bindings, and all the older material the store had on hand (the
two-volume Tsolyani language set, for example). I bought a copy of
Gardasiyal. I cleaned the store out. (Remember, I get a discount....)
I read the material -- during law finals, no less; fear not, I got an A
in Patent Law anyway -- and decided that I had to run a campaign in
Tekumel. I would use the AoT series as the character generation system.
Various things intervened, though, and I didn't get around to actually
doing it until this past Saturday. I still haven't recovered.
Knowing that the generation would be time-consuming, I only had part of
the group do it at once -- one couple, where she was already quite
enthusiastic and he was game for it, and my girlfriend (Lisa, now
a reader of the Blue Room list), who had somewhat mixed feelings, as she
loved the novels but hates making up new characters and has a novel of her
own to work on.
I started with Lisa (the others were late), and we forged ahead. You
should know, by the by, that I do not generally approve of random
generation systems. I prefer to give players a choice. I had planned to
adapt the AoT system to allow distribution of points, but Lisa said "I
don't know what kind of character I want. Let me see if the dice rolls
inspire me," and we did just that. The other two, Paul and Shelley,
showed up, and I gave them some additional briefing material (courtesy of
Patrick Brady, a gentleman and a scholar) to read while I got Lisa started.
To make a long story short, we started before 6pm -- and finally had to
break to eat dinner at 1:15am! Fortunately, we here in Ann Arbor are
gifted with an excellent Hong Kong-style restaurant that is open until 2;
we drove there, ate, returned around 2:45... and then I had to bodily
throw people out at 4, so I could get some sleep. Paul and Shelley were
still busily reading and scribbling to the very end, and Lisa's first
words to me, as she slid between the sheets, were "About my clan-brothers..."
I have never seen a character generation system which evokes such
enthusiasm, gives people such a sense of their characters, as AoT.
Tekumel is a complex world, but putting characters through those
adventures makes the world manageable and gives the players lots of
information their characters should know. AoT also makes people think
very hard about their characters. "I think my religion has become much
more important to me; I want to join the temple instead of the Army."
(following the monastery adventure). "Penom is a shitty place!" (you
can guess the context) "No more caravans for me; they're long, dusty,
and you lose all your money." "I have an unhealthy fascination for
Livyanu; I am just drawn there..." One player's face showed genuine
pain, almost, as he read of the death of his Prince, Eselne (he'll get a
chance to put it right; I'm planning to run the archeology adventure in
modified form for the whole group, which should also solidify their
dislike of Dhich'une).
The result: much fatigue, plus the following questions:
1. What are some lineage names for the Might of Ganga and Golden Bough
clans?
----
Professor Barker answers...
Qolyelmu, Chaishyani, Saynuch, Ssanmirin, some Ssankoral, Ketkolel -- almost
any will do since there is so much intermarriage at these upper levels of
society.
----
2. Are the names of Rereshqala's children known? Lisa managed to roll up
a member of the Tlakotani clan, much to my shock. She is from Jakalla,
is of great beauty and prowess, and worships Dlamelish, and I
wondered if it would be appropriate to cast her as one of the Decadent
Prince's children. (If not, I'll probably use him as the "other close
relative: clan uncle" she rolled, as an interesting but not very...
ahem... dynamic political contact.)
----
Professor Barker answers...
Prince Rereshqala's children are indeed known, though I don't think I
have ever given them. His offspring are particularly prone to parties,
ceremonials, hunting, and laziness. They'd make very poor player character-
vehicles. Joe can use the Prince as her clan uncle. Poor Rereshqala will
be horrified to find his niece worshipping Dlamelish, but it serves him
right -- Princess Ma'in Kruthai has taken refuge with him in his palace
southeast of Jakalla, after his troops took the city, and she's had a lot
of influence on his friends and hangers-on.
----
3. How does etiquette dictate that the members of Very High clans should
deal with Tlakotani who are not Imperial heirs? Is she going to be able
to speak with them at all informally?
----
Professor Barker answers...
Yes, one can speak to these people informally. Once even speaks to princes
and princesses with relatively informality -- when they are off-duty, as
it were. Honorifics are still used in speech, but prostrating oneself
before the glory of the Throne is not necessary. It's rather like our
world: I gather one no longer has to back out of the presence of Queen
Elizabeth. One is always respectful, unlike our own American society in
which humorous insults and ridicule play a larger social role.
----
4. Anything I should know about the internal customs of any of the clans
listed? I'd like to get it right...
----
Professor Barker answers...
This is complex. There really isn't much that MUST be observed, but there
are lots of small traditions and customs that each clan has that are
valued and hallowed by time. The Might of Ganga, for example, still tries
to celebrate the acession of the last Priestking of Ganga, but they have
the date wrong and now commemorate the 1st of hasanpor with all kinds of
feasting and gift-giving, whereas history says -- possibly incorrectly --
that it was _summer_ (month and day not known) when the last Priestking
ascended the Throne... Who knows?
----
Congratulations, Professor, on a job very well done. I read the shorter
passages to people, let them read the longer ones to themselves, made
sure nobody duplicated anyone else's experiences, and it by the Gods
*worked* even better than I could have imagined.
Joe Saul
