03-09-2010, 10:11 AM
[I'm snipping this a bit for brevity; my answers are in brackets. I hope I don't mess it up as I'm not very web-literate, so feel free to edit as needed to have it all make sense! - Chirine]
[Dave was an *expert* in the sailing ship era; he was very widely read, and could have done a doctoral level paper on the subject. He really was extraordinary on this, and if Dave said something was so, you didn't bother to look it up; he already had, and would even do things like tour actual wooden sailing ships to get a better feel for the period and the technology.]
[We played our Tekumel selves, as they were. We arrived in the bay, Gertie showed up, and I made instant contact with her as Chirine is a magic users descended from the ancient Dragon Lords of Tekumel's past. It was pretty smooth sailing with the locals after that, aside from the language problem. I'll go back to my notes and get the rest of the details for you; I kept a log book of all our games, starting in 1976.]
[The film had just come out, and we'd all seen it; I'd spent a weekend at the 1976 World Con talking to George Lucas about the movie, and came back with all sorts of neat stuff that we used in my Star Wars series of games. We did Mos Eisley as a huge miniatures game, the chase around the Death Star with a set of modular corridors and rooms I'd done up, and finally the flight down the trench in miniature with a set of Death Star 'tiles' that I'd done up. I think I had something like twenty feet of Death Star that the Rebels had to fly down, and we used 1/700 scale fighters I'd made.]
[Dave's 'old' group were a lot of the Napoleonics guys that he was gaming with; his newer players were more receptive to fantasy then some of the old guys like Greg Scott, who was frankly hostile to the whole notion. Dave Wesley was one of the historicals guys who wasn't, and who ran very fun games of his own, the 'Brownsteins'.
I knew some of the guys from the U of MN group where they played; I'm responsible for the "No Cannibalism" rule in "Source of the Nile"; I did some historical gaming, mostly WWII and medievals, so I didn't play a lot with them; they were always happy to play in my large games like the Star Wars series, though, and had a lot of fun.]
Hopefully, I've been able to answer a few questions; sorry about my limited skills at the keyboard!
yours, Chirine
Edited by Havard, at author's request for the sake of clarity
Havard Wrote:Quote:"Other Influences": Well, Dave's interest in ships and naval combat really influenced Phil; we spent several years exploring Tekumel by sea on Dave's ship, and got transported to the most unlikely places. Phil was familiar with boats and the water, but was in real awe of Dave's expertise with sailing ships and nautical matters.
Interesting. As mentioned in the other thread, this is something I would like to explore further. I like hearing about how much Dave knew about the subject.
[Dave was an *expert* in the sailing ship era; he was very widely read, and could have done a doctoral level paper on the subject. He really was extraordinary on this, and if Dave said something was so, you didn't bother to look it up; he already had, and would even do things like tour actual wooden sailing ships to get a better feel for the period and the technology.]
Quote:Quote:"Playing in Blackmoor": Yes, Phil did play in Dave's Blackmoor for a while; the two of them conspired to transport us there in our ship, and we just appeared in Blackmoor Bay one day. Phil wanted to take a break from GM duties, so Dave took over the job of running our Tekumel PCs in his world. Phil played a Livyani character he'd rolled up, and was a very active player.
Great! This is something I have been wondering about (hearing rumours) for a long time. I think it is really interesting to learn that you used Tekumel characters in Blackmoor! Now I really must read up on Tekumel! Maybe you can share some of your experiences in Blackmoor? What character did you play?
[We played our Tekumel selves, as they were. We arrived in the bay, Gertie showed up, and I made instant contact with her as Chirine is a magic users descended from the ancient Dragon Lords of Tekumel's past. It was pretty smooth sailing with the locals after that, aside from the language problem. I'll go back to my notes and get the rest of the details for you; I kept a log book of all our games, starting in 1976.]
Quote:Quote:"Dave as player": He was just one heck of a lot of fun; like a lot of his friends, he was very fast on his feet and very, very smart. He threw himself into any role that he took; I once did a huge Brownstein-style "Star Wars" game set in Mos Eisley, and Dave played Jabba the Hut with his two friends and fellow gamers Ross Maker and Dave Wesley as his henchmen. It was hysterical, as they started to take the town over right under the noses of the Imperial Stormtrooprs; playing with Dave was an matter of yelling "GO!" and then holding on for dear life as he took the game and ran with it. Crafty, clever, funny, and a genuinely great guy to play with.
Wow, what a great idea! Were you all Star Wars fans? Its great hearing about Dave as a player as I have always thought of him primarily as a DM/Designer.
[The film had just come out, and we'd all seen it; I'd spent a weekend at the 1976 World Con talking to George Lucas about the movie, and came back with all sorts of neat stuff that we used in my Star Wars series of games. We did Mos Eisley as a huge miniatures game, the chase around the Death Star with a set of modular corridors and rooms I'd done up, and finally the flight down the trench in miniature with a set of Death Star 'tiles' that I'd done up. I think I had something like twenty feet of Death Star that the Rebels had to fly down, and we used 1/700 scale fighters I'd made.]
Quote:It is interesting to hear about you playing with Maker and Wesely. I think I have seen Wesely referring to himself as part of the older gamers, with Greg, Bob and the others who joined when Blackmoor was really developing into its modern form as the younger group. How well did you know Arneson's group? I might be totally misrepresenting things here, just basing myself on random quotes from various places on the net.
[Dave's 'old' group were a lot of the Napoleonics guys that he was gaming with; his newer players were more receptive to fantasy then some of the old guys like Greg Scott, who was frankly hostile to the whole notion. Dave Wesley was one of the historicals guys who wasn't, and who ran very fun games of his own, the 'Brownsteins'.
I knew some of the guys from the U of MN group where they played; I'm responsible for the "No Cannibalism" rule in "Source of the Nile"; I did some historical gaming, mostly WWII and medievals, so I didn't play a lot with them; they were always happy to play in my large games like the Star Wars series, though, and had a lot of fun.]
Hopefully, I've been able to answer a few questions; sorry about my limited skills at the keyboard!
yours, Chirine
Edited by Havard, at author's request for the sake of clarity