Willing to Wait for sha-Arthan

“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Those who’ve followed James Maliszewski’s for a while know he’s quite knowledgeable about M.A.R. Barker’s Tékumel setting, having run a continuous campaign for nearly a decade and published a host of wonderful fanzines about the esoteric roleplaying game setting. But Barker’s creation — and its host of different game editions — carries the stain of his anti-Semitic novel Serpent’s Walk, published under a pseudonym in 1991 (as discovered through research by the Tékumel Foundation established to perpetuate his creative legacy). Fans have had to wrestle with this unearthed reality, some walking away from Tékumel, others continuing to embrace it, and many in between trying to find some acceptable balance between the creator and his creation. Maliszewski has discussed his betrayal at learning about Barker’s shocking past before, making many points no doubt shared with Tékumel fans grappling with this issue. Maliszewski has since channeled his creative energies into developing Secrets of sha-Arthan, a game evocative of Tékumel with his own interpretations and embellishments into a wholly original, more accessible setting. Who knows when it will be ready for release? All good things take time...and I am willing to keep my embers of enthusiasm burning as I wait however long to see it published.

Solo Tékumel Actual Play Report

Lately I’ve had an urge to explore M.A.R. Barker’s Tékumel setting through solitaire roleplaying. (You can read my earlier missive on this subject, “Prepping A Solitaire Foray into Tékumel.”) So one night while my wife was off watching Game of Thrones with friends and my son sat glued to the television screen watching American Idol (neither of which engages me in the least) I spread my solo gaming materials across my standing desk and indulged in a brief foray into the Empire of the Petal Throne. My heroes consisted of Ibásh, a young, idealistic priest of Keténgku; Bara, a protective aridani warrior late of the Legion of the Mighty Prince; and Thékuto, a well-traveled trade liaison for the Victorious Globe clan, to which they all belong. Their masters have quietly charged them with researching and retrieving an ancient automaton. As the first step in their journey they stopped along the sákbe road at the Tower of Deathly Hospitality (detailed in the earlier blog entry on this subject). Seeking shelter in the midst of a torrential monsoon, they find a caravan camped on the platform as far as possible from the dilapidated guard tower, with a lone fellow staring into the open door into the structure calling for his wife but, alas, not brave enough to enter and search for her himself. After learning of the tower’s haunted reputation from the encamped caravan, the group approaches Hóru hiArusá, a craftsman from the Silver Collar clan heading home with his new wife. Dzái sought shelter in the tower against his wishes; she has yet to emerge, call for help, or otherwise make her presence known. Although Ibásh wants to charge in, Thékuto, ever the voice of savvy reason, asks what Hóru’s willing to do if they group finds and returns his wife. The artisan offers them a finely wrought copper cup he himself crafted. Encouraged by this incentive the heroes enter the tower.

Prepping A Solitaire Foray into Tékumel

Reading Man of Gold and diving back into Tékumel source material inspired me to explore Professor Barker’s rich, very alien setting through solitaire play (my distant past attempts at running it with friends having met with little success or satisfaction). I took some time to assemble my resources and work out some story basics...and then I put it to the test on an adventure seed I wrote as a challenge I issued in on of my recent blog posts, “Demonstrating Potential: Adventure Seeds & Outlines.”

Demonstrating Potential: Adventure Seeds & Outlines

I’m re-reading M.A.R. Barker’s novel Man of Gold and it’s drawing me back into the rich, complex, distinctly non-western roleplaying game world of Tekumel. I’ve discussed this setting before (“Tekumel: The Lands of Joyful Addiction”) and how, despite the vast depth of the game world, I can never quite dive into it at the gaming table, at least for very long. After some reflection I’ve identified several reasons for this, not necessarily limited to Tekumel but particularly to games with esoteric settings. They all feed my growing list of elements I feel necessary in a good roleplaying game core rules set beyond basic, intuitive, yet easily adaptable mechanics (no doubt fodder for future Hobby Games Recce posts). But I want to concentrate on one aspect often missing from the various incarnations of Tekumel-based roleplaying games that could help make them and other games more easily accessible: adventure seeds and outlines.

Connecting with An RPG Setting

Roleplaying games present several challenges for newcomers, whether they’re new players at an experienced gamemaster’s table or enthusiasts seeking to run a particular game for others. Aside from the initial leap complete neophytes must make in understanding the roleplaying game experience, gamers must also learn a set of rules governing character abilities and actions in the game setting; though some might argue most people have at least some experience with both “roleplaying” and rules, gaining those from “let’s pretend” play activities from their childhood and game mechanic concepts drawn from more traditional family board games or sports. But not everyone has prior experiences from which to adapt to some roleplaying games’ more exotic settings.

One reason Dungeons & Dragons remains so popular – aside from being the first commercially successful roleplaying game – thanks in part to its generic fantasy setting, one that relies on familiar tropes from popular media such as the Lord of the Rings films based on J.R.R. Tolkein’s Middle-earth epics; stories, comics, movies, and television shows based on Robert E. Howard’s Conan character; magical fare like the Harry Potter franchise; and many other sources such as those listed in D&D’s own infamous “Appendix N.” Warriors and wizards fighting goblins and orcs in subterranean caves and ancient ruins; these trappings hearken back even to the most basic Western cultural legends of King Arthur, Beowulf, and the tales of the Brothers Grimm. These media and cultural foundations help players easily grasp the setting concepts behind D&D than other more esoteric game worlds.

Some other games don’t suffer from player unfamiliarity with their setting. Nearly any game based on a licensed media property has a loyal fan following intimately familiar with the universe...some of those fans also share an enthusiasm for roleplaying games which they indulge in themselves and sometimes seek to share with other fans. Take your pick: Star Wars, Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly. In these cases gamer-fans have to overcome the challenges posed by roleplaying game rules alone instead of both mechanics and an unfamiliar setting. Not familiar with the setting? Just sit down for a few hours with a DVD set for one season and immerse yourself in the setting.

Game designers and gamemasters do their best to present roleplaying game settings in familiar terms. Sometimes they can use a “crutch” to help impart the gist of a setting by drawing comparisons to familiar films, television shows, comics, and novels. For instance, one might describe GDW’s Victorian space fantasy game Space 1889 as Zulu meets Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom novels. One could compare Vampire: The Masquerade and other World of Darkness fare to roleplaying games based on Ann Rice’s vampire novels or the Underworld film franchise.

Sometimes game settings draw comparisons to other games or established genres. At the time of its release, Fantasy Flight Games’ Dragonstar was billed as “D&D in space” (though one might argue the Spelljammer setting holds that distinction). Wicked North Games’ Westward could easily be described as Wild West steampunk on another planet. R. Talsorian’s gorgeous Castle Falkenstein used comparisons to genre films and literature plus a healthy dose of fantastic artwork to bring its Victorian steampunk fantasy alternate earth to life for gamers. Aside from its groundbreaking game mechanics, Monte Cook’s visionary Numenera game also boils down to familiar if morphed fantasy tropes merged with lost science fiction bits amid the ruins of an extremely far future, all enhanced with inspiring illustrations.

Really esoteric and original roleplaying game settings can’t often draw on widely understood cultural elements. A few titles I’d consider “esoteric” come to mind include Skyrealms of Jorune – with which I regrettably have little exposure – and anything based on M.A.R. Barker’s Empire of the Petal Throne setting, including the recently released Bethorm: Plane of Tekumel game from adventure gaming luminary illustrator Jeff Dee (a subject I’ve discussed before). Some newcomers to the roleplaying game hobby might find some of the more exotic settings mentioned in earlier paragraphs just as esoteric. (As an aside Wizards of the Coast’s Everway game from 1995 remains largely forgotten primarily because of the inaccessibility of its setting – despite some groundbreaking game mechanics elements – at a time when many fans really wanted a game set within the rich world of the company’s wildly popular Magic: The Gathering collectable card game.) Certainly most provide at least a setting framework – if not comprehensive material on locations, equipment and treasure, meta-plots, characters, and potential adventures – though this often requires considerable reading and comprehension from an often voluminous core rulebook.

Some of these game settings are so intricately and deeply designed that players really have to immerse themselves in the source material to understand how to game in that environment. Aside from reading the rulebook’s relevant setting materials (possibly including some rule sections, too), what methods do gamemasters use to acclimate players to new and obscure setting material?

Media: It’s not always possible to find a corollary between existing novels, comics, film, and telelvision shows, but this remains one of the best ways to orient newcomers to at least the spirit of an unfamiliar if not esoteric setting. Sometimes the roleplaying game itself offers supplemental material specifically tied to the esoteric game itself; for instance, The Man of Gold, M.A.R. Barker’s first novel set in the world of Tekumel. I’ve occasionally dabbled in this kind of setting orientation myself; long ago in the days when Star Wars was all but a forgotten media property (the early 1990s, before the Timothy Zahn novels appeared), before embarking on an epic Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game campaign with friends, we all spent a day watching the classic trilogy (particularly because one player had managed never to have seen the Star Wars films before...).

Internet Surfing: Wandering the seemingly infinite halls of the internet can provide newcomers to an esoteric setting with some exposure to informative elements, from professional and fan-produced artwork to sites with game- or setting-specific material, actual-play reports, and encyclopaedic wikis filled with cross-linked information. Run a Google search on “Tekumel” and one finds a host of blogs, illustrations, maps, and comprehensive websites offering lots of setting information to absorb.

Player Handouts: Gamemasters can use a variety of handouts to both inform players and put them in the mood for the game. I’ve created information handouts for a variety of games in the past, usually focusing on knowledge the average character would possess. In some cases these include outlines on how players accomplish basic tasks using the game mechanics, but often they incorporate useful setting material. I even recall compiling a list of slang terms used in early Star Wars novels for my player orientation sheet used in running Star Wars d6 adventures at conventions (apologies for referring yet again for my involvement with the Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game).

Solitaire Tutorial Adventures: Frequent readers might recall I particularly enjoy solo tutorial adventures and have frequently discussed the subject before. These brief scenarios using programmed entries (similar to pick-a-path-style books of yore) to enable readers to dive into both the game setting and mechanics right away. Granted, this often requires sharing the rulebook with players (sometimes a limited resource), but it’s a good starting point to steer newcomers for quick immersion in both the game system and setting. Even such an esoteric setting as Tekumel has used this technique; Theatre of the Mind’s edition of Adventures in Tekumel presented much of its player-oriented material and several scenario books in the form of playable solo adventures (and some with lengthy narrative portions imparting the intricacies of the setting). I’ve used them to orient myself to new settings that interested me as a gamemaster, particularly West End’s Paranoia second edition and the multi-genre TORG.

The issue really comes down to how much investment players are willing to make in learning the setting beyond the time and focus required to comprehend the essential game mechanics. Not everyone can sit down, read, and absorb a hefty rulebook, nor are they always willing to do so to fully understand every game in which they wish to dabble as players. Familiarity with the setting genre goes a long way in enticing them to play and rewarding them with an entertaining experience (instead of a game session filled with complete bafflement). Some settings seem interesting but remain so foreign – despite various strategies to inform potential players – as to remain essentially inaccessible...a regrettable condition given the number of high-quality, esoteric game settings available today.

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Tékumel: The Lands of Joyful Addiction

I’ve been a fan of M.A.R. Barker’s Tékumel setting since discovering it in my early adulthood. I regret it’s been a rather solitary adoration; despite immersing myself in the world in its several incarnations, I’ve failed to interest any player group in trying it beyond a single game session. It comes to mind once again as renowned game artist and industry luminary Jeff Dee is currently running a Kickstarter campaign to bring the rich, exotic land of Tékumel back in its newest roleplaying game incarnation, Béthorm.

Tékumel was one of Dungeons & Dragons’ earliest campaign worlds, yet the first to fall by the official wayside in favor of more western-oriented medieval fantasy game environments. The setting combines two themes very alien to western audiences: exotic cultures and “magic” from a long-lost, advanced science age (one of the core elements of Monte Cook’s popular Numenera game). Rather than draw on the “traditional” western paradigm of medieval fantasy, Tékumel relied on more exotic foundations, inspiration from Indian, Middle Eastern, Egyptian, and Meso-American cultures. These historical elements combined with a science-fiction plot in which the formerly advanced interstellar resort colony was inexplicably warped into an isolated pocket dimension, plunging civilization into a primitive state which, over 50,000 years, produced an exotic, medieval-level society with pseudo-science magic.

Because it’s based in elements still very foreign to gamers, Tékumel remains one of the more fringe game settings, yet one with a rich and storied past and thus an extremely intricate depth. I’d consider its creator, M.A.R. Barker, among the Holy Trinity of the D&D game designers along with the revered Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, all of whom having now passed into the great Valhalla of the adventure gaming hobby. Barker, a linguistics professor, incorporated in his creation the same cultural and linguistic depth as another founder of modern fantasy literature, J.R.R. Tolkien. The novelty and intricacy of Tékumel and the intensely creative personality of its author garnered a core of devoted fans who’ve helped keep interest in the setting alive more than 40 years and through several roleplaying game incarnations.

This love for Barker’s creation and the vast opus of Tékumel material engendered several “official” game interpretations and numerous fan conversions.

I’d heard about Tékumel and Empire of the Petal Throne in the general adventure gaming lore I consumed as a kid immersed in fantasy roleplaying, primarily Dungeons & Dragons. I’m not sure if I read anything in the pages of the venerable Dragon Magazine, learned about it from friends, or caught a glimpse of it at local hobby stores, but it remained in the back of my mind well into my college years. Shortly after graduating and starting my first job (as a reporter for my weekly hometown newspaper) I ran my first game events at a local convention (a linked series of D6 Star Wars scenarios); I found a soft-cover, saddle-stitched edition of Empire of the Petal Throne: The World of Tékumel published by Different Worlds in 1987, a reprint of material originally published in 1975 by TSR. I read it cover-to-cover and immersed myself in the amazingly alien setting, though other gaming endeavors commanded my attention. At some point – I can’t recall when or where – I acquired one volume of Gamescience’s two-volume Swords & Glory version of the rules.

At this point in my life I was working full-time but had a host of college-aged friends who got together over the summers for regular roleplaying game campaigns. At the time these included story arcs for D6 Star Wars and Cyberpunk 2020, with occasional side-trips into Space 1889 and Call of Cthulhu.

I recall experimenting with a few games, notably Teenagers from Outer Space, The Morrow Project and Empire of the Petal Throne. My escapades in Tékumel did not last much past a character-creation session and a brief, two-part adventure introducing players to the setting. I quickly learned that when players make up silly names for their characters the gaming endeavor is doomed to failure. I relegated the Tékumel materials to my roleplaying game collection on the shelf as a personal interest without any intention to play.

In 1993 Theater of the Mind Enterprises produced an impressive boxed game, Gardasiyal: Adventures in Tekumel, containing several books, folios, and a map, and later supported with several supplements. At this point in my interest with Tékumel I might otherwise have let this pass, except that most of this game incarnation focused on solitaire, programmed adventures. I put the game system and solo materials through their paces as proven by several handwritten character sheets still tucked into my rulebooks, but the rules and setting still proved too complex to try with gamers used to more accessible fare. Alas, the game soon met an untimely and unsupported “death” and, like its predecessors, mostly faded from the general adventure gaming hobby’s collective consciousness as another blip in Tékumel’s publication history.

The last incarnation of a game based in the rich Tékumel setting – Tékumel: The Empire of the Petal Throne – came out in 2005 from Guardians of Order. After much pre-release hype, previews of illustrations, and some sample teaser PDFs, the 240-page hardcover came out...and then Guardians of Order disappeared beneath a flood of overwhelming debt (an unfortunate yet occasional occurrence in the adventure gaming hobby). I bought a copy when it released and read it, though it ultimately saw no actual play and ended up on the shelf with the rest of my Tékumel game collection.

A far more complete game history resides at tekumel.com, a website devoted to the setting, and at The Eye of Joyful Sitting Amongst Friends. Copies of past games remain difficult to find through retailers, though they sell at premium prices on the secondary markets.

After Barker’s passing in 2012 his fans helped establish the Tekumel Foundation, a non-profit institution “to encourage, support and protect the literary works and all related products and activities surrounding Professor M.A.R. Barker’s world of Tékumel and the Empire of the Petal Throne.” Barker left a host of notes and other world-related materials that never saw publication, and the foundation seeks to preserve his memory and maintain the interest in his innovative setting. Tékumel fans remain a vociferous and productive minority in the overall population of adventure gamers. They continue creating material for and celebrating Tékumel across the internet at such aptly named websites as The Tékumel Project, Skein of Destiny, and The Eye of Joyful Sitting Amongst Friends.

Why is Tékumel so difficult for gamers to comprehend and enjoy? It’s a rich, deep, intricately devised setting...so alien in its origins and interpretation that gamers need to really immerse themselves in it to identify and understand familiar roleplaying game paradigms. Aside from a very different culture, Tékumel incorporates a host of strange and often savage deities, lost-tech-driven magic, and a bestiary of wildly alien monsters and races with names steeped in Barker’s fictitious language. This kind of ground-breaking originality can seem foreign to westerners raised on European legends, medieval history, and the fantasy fare perpetuated by books, comics, and films.

I’m excited to see – and to back – the latest gaming incarnation of Tékumel, Béthorm, in the knowledge Jeff Dee can produce an outstanding game product that receives the support and promotion Barker’s fantastic setting deserves. I’m hoping the rules engine Béthorm employs strays more toward the rules-light end of the game mechanics complexity spectrum. From what I’ve seen Jeff Dee not only has a love for the setting but a keen and clear means of expressing it and sharing the excitement it holds for adventurers.

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