d(sqrt(-1))

Jack Vance fan, perchance?

Doesn't look like Tekumel to me - the shields and swords are fairly plain, as is the armour.

I certainly managed to get a copy of RQ1 in the UK when it came out, I think as a result of seeing adverts in White Dwarf. Can't remember if it was by post or in a shop though! The RQ2 box set I have is the Games Workshop version. Not sure how many of those 5000 copies of RQ1 would have made it to the UK at that time.

From that group it sounds like you should cross planes to the Tragic Millennium!

Completely agree. I much prefer to have a setting like this. Thanks for the mention of Back to Balazar - I'd not come across it before.

The two separate boxed sets of the initial AH RQ in the UK were about £40 each in 1984 (and that's £40 then, not £40 now). Luckily those were the days when students still got grants, and beer was about 50p/pint. I believe a similar thing happened with the Empire of the Petal Throne box Gardasiyal - it was also expensive and paper cover rulebooks (not a bad set of rules but hardly any Tekumel info in it)

I used to amuse myself in the early 90s going into Games Workshop stores and asking if they had any copies of Runequest...

I have to say that I did watch their Call of Cthulhu 5 part playthrough and really enjoyed it - they had the rules down mostly and the GM was very good at evoking the right atmosphere.

Flashing Blades (also FGU) and its supplements would also provide useful/stealable info, d20 based but easily convertible to d100. Pretty good game in its own right too. The High Seas book includes rules for ships, and a mini campaign including possibility (or not) of some voodoo being involved.

I suspect that you are right - this may well be the way a lot of games go. However it does come with a significant downside in that it removes a lot of the flexibility of GMs and players to arbitrate rules and change/invent things on the fly, which for me is one of the major strengths of RPGs. D&D 5+ is already heading this way with classes and powers predefined (pretty much the nature of a class system) in a much more constrained way that 0e, 1e, 2e or even 3e did. I don't mind 5e - it works well, but it does tend to shoehorn people into what the rules say, and once you've got a hard-coded rules implementation it starts becoming difficult to change things without unintended consequences and/or people saying "but that's not what the rules say". I play a lot of board games, and I am quite happy there to thrash out the exact meanings of rules, in RPGs not so much as I prefer them to allow for creativity in interpretation. (Strangely enough I came across a couple of slide rules the other day and was thinking about learning to use them!)

Advantage in RQ2 usually came about as a result of ganging up on people - most people only got 1 Attack and 1 Parry unless they had two weapons, so if two of you attacked an opponent they could usually only parry one of you. RQG changed this with the -20%(?) per parry/dodge, but you can still run people down if there's enough of you...

Any chance of a POD version?

I watched the first one and am finding it hard to muster any enthusiasm for the others. Continually saying how hard the rules are, and then making it obvious that no-one seemed to have done much actual reading of the rules beforehand seemed weird to me, but I find that in a lot of streamed games. If I'm running something new I make sure I know it fairly well, and if I were streaming (which thankfully I'm not) I would be making even more certain I had a decent grasp of it. Also I got a bit annoyed at the constant "oh here's some names and words that don't mean anything to me so I'll just dismiss them" thing. Either take time to explain stuff or don't mention it until later.

Agreed - I don't see why ROW should be delayed because of UK stupidity

Yelorna for me too. Which is ok except for the, you know, not being an Amazon in any way...

Not quite - I'm usually ok with the language and with undefined things - I'm a big fan of Vance and Wolfe who do this all the time for evocative purposes, but in those stories they are there to provide a wider scope and stir imagination. A myth /story is usually there to provide some insight into expected behaviour or moral code but I often find myself thinking "what am I supposed to have learnt from this? How would hearing this alter my behaviour?". I have the same problem at weddings and funerals! Glad to hear you picked up on the name - I think you are about the third person ever to have mentioned it!

I have the opposite problem - I read the myth, whether it be Gloranthan or something else and think "I have no idea what that is supposed to mean".

See above posts from Leketh. I assume that the official errata will be posted on the Osprey site.

Very sad to hear this. A huge part of RPG history belongs to him.

I had a very quick response from JMD to say that he is working on errata, and will try to answer the questions from this forum ASAP....

Re Imbue Lesser Elements, I suspect there will be a reason to use it for item preparation in future supplements - for the moment its use seems to be for the invulnerability benefit and the +1 to damage/protection. I agree re errata, and I wish we could get some answers (anyone know JMD's email address, or can point him at this thread?) but the play throughs are useful in that they do show how JMD runs the game. AFAIK Travellers on the War Road is another book with expanded rites, magic items, etc. It is certainly mentioned a few times in the Cult of Ceenon playthrough, where the PCs come across a Gerwan item that can restore Mettle quickly(!) EDIT: I found a mail address for JMD so I will send our questions across and see what he says...

The Corruptive Actions table (p152) I think "Raid" is referring to Banditry specifically, and Murder I would take to mean premeditated killing rather than just in a fight, so I'm not sure it would be that much Corruption. I guess it might mean that bandits generally are corrupted though! "Imbue Lesser Elements" (p86) does have the useful effect of making something indestructible and gives +1 damage or Protection until the rite is dismissed. BTW there are some playthroughs with the author here: Jackals Actual Play which do cover some of the rules questions, and also mentions in passing that there is another book "Travellers on the War Road" which has new rites etc.

Having received "Fall of the Children of Bronze" I also reread through Jackals and found a few more questions: - p68 : Mettle : Says to recover lost Mettle requires a full day of rest, plus make END check to regain 1/1d4/4 Mettle. p74 says "One night of rest in a bastion removes 1 point of Mettle damage". Is this in addition, or is there a contradiction here? Also is there a specific definition of "bastion" - Village? Town? Orsem? - p85 : Powder of Ibn al-Hanef : Range 3 yard radius, Advancement : range 6 yards. Dust of Geb (p86) has range 3 feet, and advancement says increase range to 6 yards - should this be 6 feet? Looks a bit like a copy and paste error. - p111 : Quick Reflexes, repeated in Unarmed Combat (p112) - do these work for both? i.e. if you choose Quick Reflexes (Melee) does it only apply to Melee rolls? Skillful Strike explicitly says "Unarmed Combat check" but Quick Reflexes doesn't. Others that cross over e.g. Graceful Reflexes (Melee/Unarmed) just add +3 to initiative score so do they stack? - p117 : Imbue Rite : When the imbued rite is activated does this require a skill roll? Presumably of the maker's skill (at time of manufacture?) as the holder may have DEV=0 and therefore no relevant skill. Or does it just work? - p169 : Awakening an Item to greatness : rule says Wisdom x 3, example says Wisdom x 5.

XdY = roll X dice of Y sides each. 3d6 = 3 x 6 sided dice. Square root of -1 is an imaginary number. The perfect dice for RPGs therefore have a number of sides equal to the square root of -1. Voila.

Possibly true! I believe that Prof Barker basically just had opposing sides roll d100, highest roll prevailed, and went with that. The basics of Tekumel are not much different from what any set of RPG rules could handle, the magic is specifically structured though. But the cultural differences are what makes it what it is, and those are usually generated by the interactions between the players/NPCs rather than rules per se.