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Greg, MAR Barker, Glorantha, and Tekumel


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I'm curious if Greg and MAR Barker ever crossed paths?

Both men developed elaborate fictional universes leading up to the 1970s with comprehensive mythologies etc that were entirely divorced from the rather-pedestrian Tolkienesque canon.

Both men worked on developing role playing rules to experience these worlds (RQ for Glorantha, and EPT for Tekumel).

Tekumel is a fascinating world (frankly, I used Sandy's Tekumel stuff as my "Western Magic" fodder, worked great), I'm curious if these two minds ever encountered each other?  Seems like they'd have had a lot to chat about.

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Hello All

 

Yes, MAR and I met several times at conventions. We got along famously. I once challenged him to a miniatures battle, the Lunar Army versus whatever Tekumel army he wished. All in good fun of course. Alas, he never took me up on it.

I did once have a friend who would spend every summer in an ashram. He looked at Tekumel for three minutes or so and said, "Oh, this is SE Asian mythology."

I used to think it was strange that someone would have gone to India and come home a muslim, but have since learned that India is the third largest muslim countries in the world, coming in right after Indonesia and Pakistan.

 

I've spoken to many people who played in his campaign, and they all said he was one of the greatest gamemaster they had ever gamed with.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 2/27/2016 at 6:22 PM, Mr Glorantha Pendragon said:

Hello All

 

Yes, MAR and I met several times at conventions. We got along famously. I once challenged him to a miniatures battle, the Lunar Army versus whatever Tekumel army he wished. All in good fun of course. Alas, he never took me up on it.

I did once have a friend who would spend every summer in an ashram. He looked at Tekumel for three minutes or so and said, "Oh, this is SE Asian mythology."

I used to think it was strange that someone would have gone to India and come home a muslim, but have since learned that India is the third largest muslim countries in the world, coming in right after Indonesia and Pakistan.

 

I've spoken to many people who played in his campaign, and they all said he was one of the greatest gamemaster they had ever gamed with.

"newbie"

(guffaw)

Thanks GS. :)

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9 hours ago, Rick Meints said:

Ask questions... Keep Greg busy... He has an untapped and untold well of stories and secrets to tell.

Well I can rise to the level of distraction machine! Two to start out with: you mentioned somewhere (maybe the orange Glorantha box) that you regretted not reading the theory of religion books they assigned back at Beloit. I can relate. Do you remember which books they were or even which classes you were taking or who the professors were?

Second one is easy and fun. Warding cubes. Was that a reference to Katherine Kurtz's Deryni books that snuck in, or were she and the RQ group working independently from a shared common inspiration?

Thanks,

Edited by scott-martin
clarity

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Sentient animals -- baboons, ducks, morokanth; those seem to be "intentionally" PC'able, meant to be played in core Glorantha.  Is that a correct impression?

Any others in the "core"?  Any others "meant to be" (originally overlooked, didn't fit pagecount, or planned for a later expansion) in the core?

 

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On 3/11/2016 at 2:18 PM, g33k said:

Sentient animals -- baboons, ducks, morokanth; those seem to be "intentionally" PC'able, meant to be played in core Glorantha.  Is that a correct impression?

Any others in the "core"?  Any others "meant to be" (originally overlooked, didn't fit pagecount, or planned for a later expansion) in the core?

 

Any sentient creature can be playable, even the notoriously excluded dragonewts or chaos creatures.

All you need are background/profession bonuses for previous experience and a culture for magic/cults, but in reality you don't even need those.

Edited by soltakss
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Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

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On 3/11/2016 at 10:32 AM, soltakss said:

Any sentient creature can be playable, even the notoriously excluded dragonewts or chaos creatures.

All you need are background/profession bonuses for previous experience and a culture for magic/cults, but in reality you don't even need those.

"Can be played" is different from "meant to be played from RAW, without extra work" (fwiw, btw:  there was a Dragonewt in my 2nd Glorantha campaign back in... 1981, that must have been)

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Guest Vile Traveller

All races were playable without modification under RQ2 RAW, because previous experience was an option in the appendices. The monster chapter had everything you needed to start play as a "16-year old" of pretty much any species. Trying out every conceivable race as player characters was one of the first things we did when we switched over from B/X D&D. Then someone read the appendices and everybody started playing 21-year old humans instead. Oh, for those lost days of innocence ... ^_^

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11 hours ago, g33k said:

"Can be played" is different from "meant to be played from RAW, without extra work" (fwiw, btw:  there was a Dragonewt in my 2nd Glorantha campaign back in... 1981, that must have been)

We had human, elf, dwarf, dark troll, great troll, minotaur, morocanth, centaur and duck PCs in our RQ2 campaign. The campaign before that, before I joined, had ogre, broo and vampire PCs. All the PCs worked well without any extra work.

 

 

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

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