Q&A with Jeff Berry

[chirine ba kal]

[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]

"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.]

"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.]

"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.]

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

[aldarron]

To the best of my knowledge, Phil hadn't played any D&D before he wrote EPT; he had watched a few sessions run by Dave at the old University of Minnesota wargame club, as he was the faculty advisor of the club. Dave and quite a few of the original Blackmoor players were members and regularly ran games. Neither Phil or Dave ever said to me that they'd played together until the time in Phil's Tekumel sessions where we wound up in Blackmoor, which is why it was such a big event. Phil had done 'proto-role-playing' with college friends in the 1950s, so what dave was doing would have been familiar to him.

The two did have very similar gaming styles, though. Neither one was what we used to call a 'rules lawyer', and were much more interested in the flow of the game then looking up chapter and verse in the rules. Both Gary and Dave told me that Phil's rules for EPT were faster and cleaner then what they had done, and were both very impressed by them. Both Phil's and Dave's gaming styles were typical of the way we gamed here in the Twin Cities at that time, and I still game that way.

Great! That just cleared up a lot of fog. So its safe to say that Arneson and the Blackmoor players would have had some influence on how Mr. Barker saw the game and he would have had ample opportunity to quize them on how things were done if he had any question. EPT no doubt reflects that influence to some degree.

[chirine ba kal]

Great! That just cleared up a lot of fog. So its safe to say that Arneson and the Blackmoor players would have had some influence on how Mr. Barker saw the game and he would have had ample opportunity to quize them on how things were done if he had any question. EPT no doubt reflects that influence to some degree.

Yes, it is, and it does. Phil had had a lot of exposure to Dave and the Blackmoor players, and he'd also had exposure to the 'Gygaxian style' of playing D&D; one of the people at the club was an immigrant from Lake Geneva, and was very much a player and GM in Gary's more formalistic / rules-oriented approach to RPGs. It was after observing one of the D&D sessions run in this style that EPT was written; Phil had raised an objection to something he observed in the game, and was told that if he didn't like it he should go write his own rules. So, he did...

yours, Chirine

[aldarron]

Yes, it is, and it does. Phil had had a lot of exposure to Dave and the Blackmoor players, and he'd also had exposure to the 'Gygaxian style' of playing D&D; one of the people at the club was an immigrant from Lake Geneva, and was very much a player and GM in Gary's more formalistic / rules-oriented approach to RPGs. It was after observing one of the D&D sessions run in this style that EPT was written; Phil had raised an objection to something he observed in the game, and was told that if he didn't like it he should go write his own rules. So, he did...

yours, Chirine

And that must be Mike Mornard. I had read his version of the story of how he influenced M.A.R Barker to create EPT but he never mentioned anything about whether Barker knew anyone else who played D&D at the time. Thanks again Jeff.

[chirine ba kal]

Yes, it is, and it does. Phil had had a lot of exposure to Dave and the Blackmoor players, and he'd also had exposure to the 'Gygaxian style' of playing D&D; one of the people at the club was an immigrant from Lake Geneva, and was very much a player and GM in Gary's more formalistic / rules-oriented approach to RPGs. It was after observing one of the D&D sessions run in this style that EPT was written; Phil had raised an objection to something he observed in the game, and was told that if he didn't like it he should go write his own rules. So, he did...

yours, Chirine

And that must be Mike Mornard. I had read his version of the story of how he influenced M.A.R Barker to create EPT but he never mentioned anything about whether Barker knew anyone else who played D&D at the time. Thanks again Jeff.

Yep, that was him; Michael was running a D&D session, and Phil objected to the players being able to squash the Archangel Gabriel like a bug; pointing out that said Archangel was a semidivine being. Michael, who had moved up here to the Twin Cities from Lake Geneva, informed Phil with a degree of lofty superiority that a) Michael had gamed with Gary Gygax, and knew more about D&D then Phil did, and b) it was in The Rules, "Gods, Demi-gods, and Typos" having just come out. Phil pointedly asked "Then how many hit points does Jesus Christ have?" and Michael (an undergraduate student at that time) got all bent out of shape and heatedly told Phil (a full professor with tenure and the Department Head of the South Asian Studies Department at that time, as well as the Faculty Advisor of the club and thus holding the powers of life and death over the club and everyone in it) that "If he didn't like the rules, then he should go and write his own rules!"

(There was, shall we say, a certain amount of pandemonium that erupted, as the other club members figured they were all dead. Phil was not noted for being nice to rude people.)

Phil vanished for six weeks, and came back with the complete EPT, the maps of Jakalla and the continent, the Jakalla underworld, and 1,000 NPCs on cards. Dave Arneson took one look, called Gary Gygax, and the rest (as they say) is RPG history.

And, yes, Phil did get even with Michael several times over the years. My personal favorite was when Michael came up with the name Hck'ptoo for his EPT character, and then nearly got impaled for 'spitting' before the Petal Throne in Avanthar when asked to give his name for presentation to the Seal Imperium. There was a very, and I do mean ***very*** fast change of name...

yours, Chirine

[Havard]

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.

What else can you tell us about Chirine? I am really interested in those details from the game! Wow that would be amazing to see.

Do you remember anything more about Gertie?

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.

What else can you tell us about Maker and Wesely? What were they like in roleplaying situations? Do you remember any specific episodes?

Sorry it took me a few days to get back to this thread Chirine, I really appreciate you taking time to answer our questions

Havard

[aldarron]

Hey Chirine,

I asked an EPT question regarding the one minute round on the ODD74 forum you might know the answer to. http://odd74.proboards.com/index.cgi?ac ... 375&page=1 It may relate to how Dave was handling rounds in Blackmoor too. Any Thoughts?

[chirine ba kal]

Thanks for your questions; again, please feel free to edit this into an easier to read format! Thanks!

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.

Q: What else can you tell us about Chirine? I am really interested in those details from the game! Wow that would be amazing to see.

A: Chirine was one of the last player-characters rolled up out at Phil's under EPT rules; the folks who came in after me were part of the playtest of "Swords and Glory"; Jim Danielson and Rick Bjugen were 'gradfathered in' with EPT characters they had created in a parallel EPT game run by the artist, Craig Smith.

He's a military sorcerer-priest of the Temple of Vimuhla, the 'change' deity of war, and got to about as high as one could go in that rarefied specialty; he's also the only such person who was ever such in Phil's games, as it's way too specialized a field for players to use effectively in a 'normal' RPG setting. He can blow stuff up, burn stuff down, and that's about it; he's a very limited character, in game terms, but in the right circumstances the best solution to nasty problems.

He spent most of his time as either a staff officer in various legions or as a sort of roving trouble-shooter for the Seal Imperium, and you can find traces of his adventures in the Tekumel novels. His full titles, earned the hard way in something like twelve years of gaming with Phil *every* Thursday night at 7:00 pm (and yes, Phil did take attendence), are:

Lord Chirine ba Kal

of the Clan of the Iron Helm and of the Clan of the Eye of Flame,
Governor of the City and Provence of Hekellu and of the Chaigari Protectorate,
Holder of the Gold of Imperial Victory and of the Gold of Imperial Glory,
Tenth Circle Military Priest of the Temple of Vimuhla,
Kasi of the Legion of The Searing Flame and of the Legion of Mnashu of Thri'il,
Benefactor of the Legion of The Searing Flame and of the Legion of the Translucent Emerald,
Beloved of the Petal Throne.

(Which, I admit, sounds better when cried forth by the heralds.)

Chirine, being a military magic user, could cast military spells while wearing his enchanted steel armor, but couldn't cast either ritual or psychic spells while wearing all the ironmongery; that's when his nasty flanged mace or the big two-handed sword came into play. (There's a picture of Himself in his armor on my blog, by the way.) He survived by thinking faster in his feet then anyone else could, really. It helped that he spoke Nlyssa, the ancient tongue of the Dragon Lords, as well as several other languages.

Q: Do you remember anything more about Gertie?

A: As I recall, she lives in the rocky island out in the bay opposite Blackmoor castle, and serves as a handy Menace to Navigation that keeps people from casually invading Blackmoor by sea; you either get along with Gertie or you're dead, and the locals will have great fun laughing their heads off as they rob your scorched and mangled corpse when it washes up on the beach in front of town. We popped out of our inter-planar nexus point right into the bay just in front of her unwelcome mat, and Dave positively shrieked with delight and glee as he lovingly described to us what our immediate future was most likely going to be as he rolled to see if Gertie was in. You could tell he'd been just waiting for this for weeks, and had it all thought out.

(Gertie wasn't always 'in' by the way, as she had an active social life and a busy schedule of appointments to keep in the way of terrifying the surrounding countryside. Anyway...)

So Gertie is in, the players are doing the usual running around the decks preparing to go down fighting, and the ***biggest*** ***damn*** ***dragon*** you can possibly imagine starts coming out of the cave. Fear stalks the decks of the ship we're on with Capt. Harchar, and panic is pretty much the order of the day. Dave played up the drama for as long as he could, and then Chirine addressed said damn biggest dragon you can imagine in Ancient Nlyssa; the tongue of the Dragon Lords, remember?

Dave, who was expecting one of my M-10 level Doomkills and having to figure out how many dozen hit dice Gertie really had (He'd seen me cast one of those before, and was seriously concerned for Gertie's continued good health) was completely flummoxed, and rolled to see what Gertie's reaction was. She and Chirine took to each other instantly, and for the rest of the time we spent in Blackmoor the two of them hobnobbed together and exchanged Secret Dragon Lore (read "gossiped like two little old ladies") with each other. (Luckily, Chirine does not get airsick.) It was not what either Dave or Phil had expected me to do, and it sort of left them standing there with their mouths hanging open.

(I should say, though, that unless you have the same stats and history as Chirine, don't try this yourself. And if you ever happen to see a guy in funny-looking armor on Gertie's back, well, say hello as we fly overhead.)


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.

Q: What else can you tell us about Maker and Wesely? What were they like in roleplaying situations? Do you remember any specific episodes?

A: They were hysterically good fun; very fast on their feet, very smart, and very, very good at what ever roles they took on. When I did the Great Mos Eisley Spaceport Raid, they played Jabba the Hutt's henchmen and along with Dave's wonderful Jabba (think Al Capone with a blaster) took over the place with great gusto and panache. By the end of the game, they'd wiped out the Imperial Secret Police's spies, bribed the Imperial Stormtroopers in the local garrison to work for Jabba's mob, and were hot on Han Solo's trail, shooting up Darth Vader's personal unit of stormtroopers so they could nail Han themselves. Oh, and they robbed the bank of Mos Eisley along the way, and sold Princess Leia her own Rebel Alliance Treasury back to her (after they stole it) for a small 'finders' fee'. And they all looked so ***innocent***, too, like demented elves or something.

Sorry it took me a few days to get back to this thread Chirine, I really appreciate you taking time to answer our questions

Havard

No problem; sorry about the bad formatting; please feel free to fix it!

yours, Chirine

Edited by Havard for clarity

[Rafael]

Not sure if this was already part of the earlier question, but did you also have some trademark Blackmoor character?

[chirine ba kal]

Hey Chirine,

I asked an EPT question regarding the one minute round on the ODD74 forum you might know the answer to. http://odd74.proboards.com/index.cgi?ac ... 375&page=1 It may relate to how Dave was handling rounds in Blackmoor too. Any Thoughts?

I do happen to know the answer to this one; may I suggest having a look at a copy of the original "Chainmail" which, back in those ancient days of yore, was the standard set of miniatures combat rules here in the Upper Midwest:

"The ratio of figures to assumed is 1:20, the ground scale is 1":10 yards, and one turn of play is roughly equivalent to one minute of time in battle."

Everybody associated with the Castle and Crusade Society used these rules back then, as the WRG rules sets were very hard to get as you had to send off to some mythical place called "England" to have them mailed to you. As far as I know, the original RPG game sessions used "Chainmail" with the man-to-man rules, and everybody used the one minute round as the standard. From there, it got into the RPG rules that came out of those games.

Does this help, or am I making things more confused?

yours, Chirine