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GOOD NEWS, GOOD NEWS, GOOD NEWS.Well, good news for me anyway. To mark theyear in which I intend to publish the WaterMargin, a nice company has decided to releaseThe Water Margin on video (see the letterscolumn for one or two more details). Nice timing,folks!

Also sort of good news is the purchase at thisend of a nice little printer that prints 600dpi butmakes it look like 1200dpi.

I've also finally got a regular game going here,with a bunch of good, enthusiastic players.Perversely, the game in question is not Outlaws,but Empire of the Petal Throne. We might switchsome time in the future, though, especially as allmy players are interested in China.

Even better news is that I have a contributedarticle at last. Thanks Lee! Now I need somemore off the rest of you.

Dumb news of the issue is that I'm finallygoing to start taking Chinese lessons. Yes, Iknow, I should be striving for fluency inJapanese rather than farting around withanother language (when I try to speak French orGerman nowadays, Japanese wordsautomatically interject themselves). Oddlyenough, this has coincided with the decision todecrease the amount of Chinese language used inOutlaws of the Water Margin.

And if this issue seems even more thanusually obsessed with that stupid game, thenjust remember that a lot of good things related toit have all happened at once, including thediscovery that my wife can draw exactly thekind of pictures I wanted to illustrate the gamewith. Examples are to be found in the Once UponA Time In China column later in the zine. NowI've just got to get her to churn out three a dayfor the next month... I

This issue (16 pages):

REVIEWSJapan, China and Putney

EARDRUM BUZZ

Rolegaming FuturesONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA

Society Is To Blame

BLACK BOXPersonality Crises

COLLOQUYLetters to the Editor

ROLEGAMING MAGAZINE

ISSN 0267-5595

Issue 25

Spring 1996

Editor: Paul Mason

This publication is FREEWARE.

It may be freely copied and

distributed on condition that no

money is charged. All material is

copyright the original authors and

may not be reproduced without

their permission.

Contributions may be sent on

paper, on disk (IBM or Mac

1.44Mb accepted), or by email.

Imazine/Paul Mason, 101 Green

Heights, Shimpo-cho 4-50,

Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464 Japan

Fax:

+81 (Japan) 52 723-4897

Email:panurge@tcp-ip.or.jp

URL:

http://www.tcp-ip.or.jp/~panurge

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RIGHT, I SAID TO MYSELF, I'M JUST GOINGto have to buckle down and make the best of it.No Western games are grabbing my attentionyet (I'm still looking forward to Feng Shui) so Ihave actually been (gasp! wait for it!) buyingsome Japanese ones. I realise you aren't going tobe able to rush out and buy them, and if youbought them you probably couldn't make muchuse of them, so I'll try to keep my reviewspertinent and ideas orientated.

Before we get on with the all-singing, all-dancing Yamato rolegame show, though, let'sskip back to Blighty for a look at a few

magazines which are well worthy of a mention.

Delusions of GrandeurRobert Rees, editor ofCarnel, continuing thenoble tradition of slagging off competing zines,says ofDelusions of Grandeur, 'Take issue three,Imazine may have had a long letters column butit was never the entirety of the zinethere wasalways some articles to go along with it.' It's aninteresting comment. The letters column was,after all, the purpose of imazine, and if I could

have made it the entirety of the zine I wouldhave.Thus by my own standards, Delusions of

Grandeur appears to be more successful thanimazine.

It also scores highly on the irregularity index.Issue 4 recently emerged, representing the firsttime that two issues had been produced duringthe same year. I thought I was being a bitexcessive resurrecting imazine after a gap ofhowever long it was (six years?), but that's justNathan's normal production schedule!

Basically, Delusions is an entertaining read, afanzine of the old school. It is more concernedwith articles (in this issue: the future of role-playing, reviews, the world of Deverry andaborigine magic) than such flash as colourcovers. This isn't a dig at those journals which dohave colour covers (Tales of the Reaching Moon,and Interactive Fantasy spring immediately tomind), it's a dig at those people who considersuch things important.

In this issue, the article on Aborigine magicwas of particular interest to me. It takes a realworld culture and extracts from it role-playing

ideas, without patronising or distorting theculture, as is so often done in role-playing. Thezine is worth getting for this alone.

Delusions of Grandeur costs 1.20 per issue fromNathan Cubitt, 446A, Garratt Lane, Earlsfield,London SW18 4HL UK. 24 page A4 magazine.

Borkelby's FolllyI mentioned this last issue, and since then he hasbrought out number two. It seems to back up thetheory that although most fanzine editors putmost of their effort into their first issue, thesubsequent issues are usually much better. HereRay has got into his swing, and a large dose ofwit lubricates the proceedings nicely.

For those of you who came in late, the zine isdedicated to the fantastically realised world ofJorune (which according to some pundit on theNet is 'dead'could have fooled me). Quitesensibly, the zine contains an introduction toJorune for those who picked up the zine out of amild interest. Backing this up is a lot ofdedicated material, including modifications tothe new edition Jorune rules, advice onapplications and a large amount of backgroundfleshing out. It's wrapped up with an interestingscenario based on the sport ofreener, which

makes it an interesting alternative to adventuresinvolving monsters, and a good way ofconveying the cultural aspect of the background.

Anyone with a slight interest in Jorune shouldpick up a copy of this zine, if only because it'scheaper than buying the game, lessembarrassing than walking into a shop andasking to see inside the box, and supportive offanzines.

Borkelby's Folly 2 is available for the price ofpostage, or some kind of a trade, from RayGillham, 22 Mirador Crescent, Uplands,Swansea SA2 0QX UK. 40 pages A4 magazine.

arcaneThere was a time when I spurned prozines assoma for the masses, purveyors of massprocessed, bland fare for the hard of thinking.Then I got an article accepted by IMAGINE. So Istarted to feel that all prozines except IMAGINEwere soma for the masses, etc. Then I got a jobon White Dwarf.

So as you'll imagine, my ideas on what to look

for in a professional games magazine are notquite as radical as they once were. On the otherhand, elements of my attitude remain. If I

REVIEWS

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tolerate prozines more now, it's because I'vecome to accept the necessity of taking a certainapproach with them. When it comes right downto it, rolegaming is a tough market to make amag for, so you have to sell your magazine.

Accepting the commercial necessities, I now

tend to focus more on the attitude of a magazine.How is it pitched? How does it balance thepopulist concerns of the mass market, and theobsessions of the hard core? This latter is aparticularly difficult balancing act, especially forthose with little knowledge of the hobby. I thinkboth Fantasy Chronicles andAdventurer sufferedsome kind of schizophrenia in this area, andprobably the Last Province too. I haven't seenValkyrie, only read what some of its proponentshave written on the Net, and I have to say theycome across as squawking elitists (someone

correct me, please). The soon to be undeadinteractive fantasy on the other hand, is really ahigh-class fanzine masquerading as a prozine.

Judged by these standards, I think arcane is aqualified success. When I read it, more thananything else, I do get a feeling that this is aprozine for everybody. It doesn't pander to thefanzine hard-core, but nor does it ignore orpatronise them. It is unashamed of role-playing,and it fairly glows with this message.

It contains a huge amount of stuff whichdoesn't interest me. I don't mind this, though,because I know that someone out there, whodoes share my hobby (though approaches it anentirely different way) is getting a buzz off it. Itencourages diversity in the hobby, but embracesall.

Maybe this is its greatest flaw: its positivityleads to a certain wishy-washiness in thereviews. But then how many prozines have everprinted reviews with bite? I can't remembermany: maybe old IMAGINE did a few. I knowthat I was their hitman reviewer at one point: ifthey had a game they hated they'd send it to mein the sure knowledge that I'd slag it off. This

worked with Indiana Jones and The Worlds of BorisVallejo, but rather failed when it turned out Iloved Chill: Black Morn Manor. IMAGINE, though,had to tread carefully with most TSR products,just as White Dwarfpunctiliously observeddouble standards when it came to GamesWorkshop games.

Since then most prozines seem to haveemployed wide-eyed fanboys as their reviewers.Only interactive fantasy aspires to any depth, and,as I mentioned earlier, it seems unlikely tosurvive. Despite the presence ofif's Andrew

Rilstone as a regular contributor to arcane, thereviews still seem to be mostly pretty wide-eyed.Criticism is muted, praise is rarely faint, and

lavished on generous advertisers. The scope isvery wide, however.

On the articles front, arcane fares better.There are 'standard' subjects such as worlddesign and characterisation, intermixed withmore exotic fare. Issue 3 provides a home for

Phil Masters' amusing Skool Roolz rolegamebased on life in an English boarding school. Thisis an excellent idea. Magazines are the place forthese kinds of games, either that or 'compendia'of half-a-dozen games, released in magazineformat, which the Japanese have been doing forthe last few years.

For my tastes, some of the articles are a bitsimple, but then I've been knocking around toolong. Recommending comics as primary sourcesof ideas for characterisation seems to me to be apeculiarly blinkered attitude, but for all I know

in the years I've been gone Britain has zoomedinto the same state of post-literacy as Japan, andcomics are all people can be expected to read.(Yeah, I know, comics fans, comics can be greattoo, but can it be a coincidence that Alan Mooreis a voracious reader of... books?)

Andrew Rilstone has a column which, givenhalf a dozen issues to get into his stride, mighteventually start to be about something. Like theabove-mentioned articles, it does occasionallystimulate a train of thought.

A regular centre-page scenario usable in anybackground is a marketable idea. So far, thetopics seem to have been chosen to get awayfrom the clichd monster-bashes, which isadmirable. Issue 3's strikes me as a bit of a stealfrom Fritz Leiber, but then the current role-playing market could do with a bit more stuff ofthe quality of Leiber, and a lot less of thisDragonLance crap.

The design, for my money, is excellent. It is, inshort, designed by a proper designer. And therehaven't been many role-playing magazineswhich could boast that. It's colourful, lively, yetavoids the whizz-bang excesses of many

computer games mags.Most importantly, it is backed, not, as has

been the case in the past, by two men and adonkey, or by a games company, but by FuturePublishing, a large, successful magazinepublisher. This is significant. This is extremelysignificant. It means that while the magazinewill have the usual Advertising vs Editorialpressures, it won't suffer from those two disasterareas: the games company looming over theshoulder, and the inability to get through leanperiods or bad luck.

For me, it's a godsend. Now I can find outwhat's happening in the UK role-playingindustry, something I'm not motivated to make

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much of an effort to check up on myself, withoutany effort at all! And into the bargain I can beentertained with the odd article. And maybeeven sell them the odd article (the very oddarticle, in the case of my first for them).

So a thumbs up to Steve Faragher, Andy

Butcher and Maryanne Booth for a worthysolution to a difficult blending problem.

arcanecosts 3 and should be available from yourlocal newsagent. Grief, they even sell it in Nagoya'sMaruzen bookshop so you should have no trouble atall!

DaikatsugekiA Japanese rolegame based on the TV samuraidramas? Bushido done properly? The answer tothe dreams of every fan of role-playing in Japan?Well almost.

It's another Japanese rolegame. It's like aJapanese car. It's pretty good, to be honest. But itisn't art.

So what is the score? Bushido is set in a veryvague 'Nippon' which is never clearly identifiedwith any Japanese historical period, although itmainly combines elements from the Edo periodwith the increased violence of the Warring States.Daikatsugeki was written by products of thealmighty Japanese Education System, and let metell you, whatever else they don't know, they doknow their Japanese history. Date by date.

On the other hand, since they are writing foran audience which has also gone through thesame education system, they don't need to fill

the book with the history. Slight allusions hereand there are sufficient.

The background is also crystal clear. It isbased onMitokomon, the most popular samurai

TV drama, and the other shows of a similar ilk.A feature of these shows is that they have thesame story every week, to prevent the elderlyaudience from being unsettled by theunexpected. They involve a group of people (agang of player characters, basically) wandering

around Edo period Japan. Each episode theyencounter some injustice. Each episode they sortthings out. In the case ofMitokomon everyepisode ends withMitokomon getting out hisTokugawa seal and revealing himself to be theVice-Shogun, at which point everybody presenthurls themselves to the ground.

So, the background is the Edo period.Daikatsugeki is actually set in Edo. Unlike mostrole-playing backgrounds, this is not a turbulentperiod. Japan has severed itself from the outsideworld, and Tokugawa Ieyasu's empire-building

has created a strong, resilient centralbureaucracy that is quite capable of keeping theG D L P \ in line.

The scale of the game is quite small, then. Youwon't encounter all-out warfare between G D L P \ (fans of Kurosawa's Kagemusha and Ran will bedisappointed, I'm sure). Your problems will bemore small-scale, more human.

The game comes supplied with a lot ofscenario ideas and a sample scenario. These tendto revolve around incidents such as murders.May not seem much to the average rolegamer,accustomed to scything their way through fieldsof NPC baddies, but it's accurate. The Edoperiod portrayed in the TV dramas is fairly safe.A murder was a significant event.

What of the game, anyway? The rules followthe tried and trusted Japanese approach. Youdivide points up to decide your characteristics:the usual Strength, Dexterity, Agility,Intelligence, Charisma, plus the more distinctivekiai, which is a measure of determination andpresence of mind. You then get to haveappropriate skills according to your twoprofessions: your omote (or surface skill, the one

you present to the world) and your ura (orhidden skill, your real adventurer profession).

Skill resolution is very simple. The refereeassigns a difficulty on a scale of 1-20, the higherthe number the more difficult. You then roll asmany 20 sided dice as your skill level. If any ofthem equal or exceed the difficulty you havesucceeded.

Even combat preserves this level of simplicity.Hence the character book, containing thecharacter creation, skills and ability rules is amere 32 pages long, with copious areas of white

space (and indifferent manga-style art).The second book, the worldbook, is also 32pages long, again because the background is so

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familiar. The art is again rather weak, but isgood at illustrating things you really need to see:what different types of people wear, for example,what the weapons look like, what money lookslike and so on.

This gets even better in the third book, the

game masters book. 48 pages were deemednecessary here. As well as the aforementionedscenarios, and descriptions of typical baddies,this includes fantastic descriptions of typicalbuildings, along with pictures and floorplans.These are great. Bushido should certainly havedone this, and I'm going to rip off the idea forOutlaws.

The package is completed with a nice map ofEdo, some floor plans and some cute colourcardboard figures (another idea I'll steal for usewhen playing my own game).

Overall impression is of quite a light game,but I think that's a good thing. It takes a genre itsreaders are familiar with and provides a simpleset of rules, and a lot of scenario ideas and stuffto assist visualisation. I'm not sure how well thiswould do if translated into English, as theplayers wouldn't have enough of the necessarybackground knowledge. Gold Rush games, whowill be publishing the new edition ofBushido,should definitely give it a look, though.

OkahoshinOr rather, N D K V K L Q (I haven't yet found a wayof drawing a macron over letters in fonts thatdon't have the appropriate characteranysuggestions, computer whizzes?). The title isn'teasy to translate, but I'd render it very loosely asImmortals of the Middle Kingdom. Or if this was aWhite Wolf game, as Immortal: The Confinement.

It's a game in which you get to play a ChineseImmortal. Or rather, an Immortal in the land of N D

which is a sort of play on one of the namesof ChinaI guess the nearest analogy is a gameset in 'Albion'. It's therefore one for all you fans

ofZu: Warriors of the Magic Mountain, EagleShooting Heroes, or The Swordsman.

Unlike Daikatsugeki, which comes in a box, N D K V K L Q can be found on the shelves of manybookshops in the glory of its tiny book format.Visually, it's crap compared to Daikatsugeki.

There are very few black-and-white illos, so youhave to make do with the eight pages of colourat the front of each book. Here we have a feast ofmanga art. Yeah, I know, I'm old and prejudiced,but I don't picture Chinese Immortals as huge-eyed cuties dressed in primary colours.

This game is squarely addressed at a JuniorHigh School audience (ages 12-16). In fact, someof the kids I teach play it, in between GURPS. Itfocuses mainly on the nasties which theImmortal player characters will encounter, andthe Immortal treasure (magic items) which the

player characters will use to defeat said nasties.Oddly enough, this makes it very true to itssource material!

The system contains a few novelties. At base,it's a rather fiddly version of the same old stuffyou get in all Japanese games. Characteristics inStrength and Body, Dexterity and Adroitness,Knowledge and Reasoning, Willpower andImmortal Bones, and Charisma, are derived by acombination of dice and choice. Basically each ofthe pairs shares an assigned die roll, and theneach gets another die roll on top.

You then get a selection of special abilitiesdepending on what type of Immortal you'vechosen to be. Options include Elementalists,Occultists, Illusionists, Feng Shui experts and soon. Each type has certain taboos and stricturesthat should be observed.

Maybe the most interesting area comes in theimmortality rules. All characters are assumed tohave become enlightened at some point.However this by no means guarantees that theywill live forever. Instead their life has beenextended, and this extension constitutes a gameattribute (it's possible to take damage to it, and

overusing your immortal abilities will reduce it).It's also related to your 'virtue' as all charactersin this game are considered to be on the side ofthe angels. 'Hit points' are divided into twoelements: one is 'human lives' and the other is'heavenly lives'. If the latter is positive itrepresentsyang energy, which in this game isgood. Baddies will have negative 'heavenly lives',representingyin energy.

One thing I liked about this system is that thetwo figures are used in combat. They arerepresented on the character sheet by a lot of

little boxes. Basically you have as many boxes ina line as your 'human lives' score, and as manylines as your 'heavenly lives'.

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A response to last

isssue's Buzzz Words bysomeone on the inside

HAVING WORKED IN THE COMPUTERGames industry for the past several months, I'vecome to a new appreciation of what thecomputer offers in the future of 'interactive'entertainment.

Though I understand your frustration at theindustry's abuse of the term 'interactive' it has tobe pointed out that there is a big differencebetween the 'point and click' passivity of a CD-ROM database and a computergame. In a gameyou are truly interacting, even if only with thegame's AI. The AI is a big chunk of a game'ssoftware, invariably taking up a substantialproportion of the processor's time. Even arelatively straightforward AI program, such as

that controlling the opponents in a racing game,represents a big workload on the machine andattempts to give you a truly intelligent opponent.What's more, game AI systems are becomingincreasingly intelligent as players themselvesbecome more sophisticated in their tastes andappreciation.

The Art of NoiseFrom where I stand now, the computer gamesindustry is on the verge of becoming a

respectable art medium. A loose analogy is tocompare computer games with the developmentof cinema. Movies developed artistically astechnical innovationssound, technicolor andcinemascopeallowed moviemakers to refinetheir craft, develop an idiom and a grammar forthe medium, and raise it to the status of an art.

With computers right now, we're still in the'silent' era. Some basic game formats, such as theplatformer, have been played out and may well(at least in their current form) die out. Others,particularly in the case of 'interactive movies'and those games that have substantial Full

Motion Video linking/branching sequences, areembryo artforms. As consoles become moregraphically sophisticated and more intelligent,

as the industry becomes prepared to invest moretime and cash into developing and producingthese kinds of game, whole new forms ofinteractive entertainment will appear.

FliintstonesThe game consoles of just ten years back are inthe stone age compared to the 32- and 64- bitmachines of today. And these machines

themselves will be dwarfed by the affordablegame consoles of ten years hence. Thosemachines will be intelligent enough to acceptverbal commands; to talk back at you; to makereasoned reactions to your game decisions andprovide a myriad of multiple storyline optionscreating satisfying interactive stories. And whoknows, if ten years beyond that someone buildsHAL, or something like him, you bet the firstthing the games industry will do is to have himcreate and GM a complete rolegameenvironment, to be beamed into your virtuality

helmet. Science fiction? Well, I've seen the future,and I think not.In the meantime, you're right to say that the

most satisfying form of interactive entertainmentwill involve other humans. You talk about theneed for some kind of modem-linked game, butfail to mention that such games, the multi-userdungeons, or MUDs, have been in operation formany years now. Of course, up 'til recently thesehave been very crude, entirely text-based affairs.But with the widespread use of faster PCs andeven faster modems, the interactive divisions ofall the big entertainment companies have seenthe commercial potential of the 'linked' gameand are, even as I write, furiously gearing up torun central MUD sites that will allow hundreds,even thousands, of players to interact withintheir attractive 3D graphically generated gameenvironments. There, you will be able tocustomise the look of your polygonally-constructed character ( la Virtua Fighter orTekken), talk to other players by text orcompressed voice messages, and fight againstthem or the computer-generated bad guys. Allyou have to do is link up your machine to the

site and pay as you play.

EARDRUM BUZZby Lee Brimmicombe-Wood

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Influence and Status In

The Water Margin

I WAS HAVING A PHONE CONVERSATIONwith Dave Morris recently, and he was talkingaboutMitlanyal, a new product for Tekumel, tobe published by TOME. This book, which coversthe gods and religions of Tekumel has beenpromised for years. Why is it so late? Well, itturns out that the author is determined to covereverything, and so the job keeps on expanding.As Dave pointed out, most peoples' games areset in Tsolyanu, and that part of the volume iscomplete, so why not just publish that?

He's quite right, of course, and demonstrates

another reason why it is that Tekumel is aminority game and always will be.So anyway, you're thinking, this has nothing

to do with The Water Margin. Actually it does. Itmade me realise that I have been doing a similarthing to the author ofMitlanyal. In my quest forthe perfect game, I've been putting it off andputting it off.

So now I've decided. I'm going to go aheadand finish a flawed version of the game, inpreference to never getting round to publishinga perfect version of the game.

The flawed version will have omissions. I'lltry to cover these omissions after the gamecomes out. The flawed version won't becomplete. I'll try to add to it after it comes out, ifanybody's interested.

I've always been pissed off by games thatwere published this way, which is why I've beengoing on about getting round to doing the WaterMargin 'some time' for the past seven years.However , my patience has expired. The game Ipublish will omit a lot of things I intended.These include: details of how to run a variety ofdifferent types of games, other than the 'outlaw'

game which is the basic style envisaged. Anyonewho wants to do a political game, or amagistrate game, or a supernatural (flyingswordsman) game, will have to work it out for

themselves (or wait for the imazine article or,gulp, supplement) .

Also missing will be a lot of detailedbackground that I wanted to include. In its placewill be moderately sketchy details about Daoism,Confucianism and so on. I'm sorry to have to dothis, but then I'll still include more than suchworks asMystic China or GURPS China.

Bad news for the ambitious, too, is the factthat I am resolved to go ahead with my rather

amateurish, late seventies shoddy binding plansfor publishing. The reasoning behind this issimple. Publishing the game properly, withoffset litho printing and proper binding, is onlyeconomically viable with a print run of 5000+.Let's assume I manage to get the unit cost downto 3. That's 15,000 I have to lay out. Being ahorrible capitalist who graduated inManagement Science, I then sell the game at 15a throw, reaping a magnificent 'profit' of about5 if I'm lucky (shop margins, distribution). I sellcopies beyond my wildest expectations (1001),

which converts to incoming cash of 8008,leaving me a mere 6,992 down on the deal.Now you know why I graduated from the

UK's number one business school, and why Ihave little interest in starting a games company.

I'd rather work with a unit cost of around 8and sell it to people who really want it at a priceof 12 plus postage. Since I would not printmore than I could sell, I wouldn't make a loss,and any small profit could be pumped into thecost of producing the follow-up game, Kwaidan:Life & Death in Old Japan (which I must confess isinteresting me more and more).

If any of you think that my calculations aboveare fatally flawed, because I've grosslyunderestimated my potential sales, I can only

Once Upon A Time In

China

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suggest that you take a look at the role-playingmarket. Phone up GDW and see what they haveto say. Then ask Wizards of the Coast for theiropinion of the rolegame market.

I will be hoping to make PostScript files of thegame available to those who can read them, but

they're going to be big, even zipped, so don'tthink that's the easy option!

Outlaws of the Water Margin artwork by Keiko Kito

Back In The Reaal WorldSo that's over a page I've wasted so far, wafflingon about irrelevancies. This is supposed to beabout influence and status, right? Right, so whatare my thoughts on this? To an extent, a relatedaspect is covered in this issue's article Black Box,

about the modelling of personality in rolegames.Here, however I want to focus on the way acharacter interacts with society. In a culturegame, this assumes even greater importance.

For me, the challenge was to find one or tworelatively simple concepts, which both provide asimple key to understanding the workings of asociety, and which lend themselves to gamemechanics.

In the case of China, I settled on the notion ofdebts of gratitude or, as I now call them in thegame,favours. 'I owe you one' is an expressioneasily understood by Westerners. To reflect therelations between characters in more formalterms (important in a relatively formal societysuch as China), I thought it useful to formalise

favours. Characters will thus owe favours toanyone who assists them (especially thosepeople whom they have influenced). They willalso owe a favour to their patrons (in otherwords, their superiors in the hierarchy) andmost of all they will owe three favours to their

parents.It's also possible, of course, that characters

will be owed favours by others. When creatingyour character, why not put a few points intohaving somebody useful owe you a favour?

It needs a little bit more, though. The favourshave to have some relation with society to workproperly. What happens if you owe loads offavours? What are the consequences of refusingto repay a favour on demand?

Goddfather BluesThis is where respect comes in. For a game set ina real culture, whether it be China, Japan,Medieval England or Tekumel, you need someway of measuring a person's informal standingin society. Call it honour, call it face, call itwhatever you like. I call it respect. It's thatquality which accrues to people who do things.And the more respect people have for you, theeasier you find it to get things done.

So the consequence of not repaying favours isthat people lose respect for you.

Respect has another use. It reminds peoplethat they live in a hierarchic society. SongDynasty China is a vertical society. There's nogetting away from that. There are some peoplewho cite the title of one of the translations of theWater Margin, Pearl Buck'sAll Men Are Brothersas evidence that outlaws, at least, practice someform of equality. This misunderstanding arisesfrom the language. In China, as in Japan,'brothers' are by no means equal. A differentword is used for elder and younger brothers.The word used in that title is based on a twocharacter compound which combines both of the

words. In other words, all men (or all heroes)relate to each other with the closeness ofbrothers, but those relations are still vertical.When Lin Chong and Lu Da swear brotherhood,an episode well-captured in the recent HongKong movie, it is very important to establish thatit is Lin Chong who is the 'Elder Brother'.

Respect is the stick with which to beat thisinto your players. Respect derives from whatyou do, but it is mainly based on your place insociety. In short, if you are high up in ahierarchy people will respect you, because that's

what society conditions them to do. Conversely,a player character group which persists inbehaving as if they are democratic equals will be

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treated with ridicule by those they meet, andtheir respect will suffer. A group of five playercharacters behaving as equals will have norespect score they can use. If one of them isselected as leader, that character will gain apoint of respect. In the end, the whole group can

benefit. My thanks go to Dave Morris forsuggesting this elegant solution to a problemthat had bugged me for a long time.

Outlaws of the Water Margin artwork by Keiko Kito

Status Quantum?Let's move on to society. For years, people havebeen designing social status rules. These haveoften had problems because they tended to beone dimensional. A character was given anumber which represented their status in society.It gave an absolute position. This is simple, butunsatisfactory to me. The kind of game I likemakes the most of the possibilities of situations

such as that in which a wealthy and successfulmerchant with influential friends at court meetsan out-of-favour official who has been consignedto a dreadful frontier post as magistrate. It's nota one-dimensional encounter. The magistrate isfrom the official class, at the top of theConfucian tree. The merchant is at the bottom.On the other hand, the merchant has influence atcourt, and a lot of money.

In strict societal status terms, the merchant isfar below the official. In practical influence terms,the merchant probably has the upper hand. But,

by exploiting the merchant's overall low positionin society, the official could redress the balance. Itwould depend on how much was public andhow much private. In public, the merchant

would have little choice but to bow to theofficial. In private, his money would be a wholelot more loquacious.

To allow for the ambiguities of suchsituations, I felt it was important to avoid asingle scale. Social classes are clearly arranged in

order, and that order affects influence attempts,but it's not the only factor. Characters havepositions within their occupations. Forcharacters following the same occupation theirrelative position means pretty much everything,and relative social class isn't so important.

Professions are also rated relative to eachother. There is no mechanic for multiplying yourposition within the status by the status of theprofession itself in order to obtain a 'global'status value. Influence attempts will be affectedhowever.

In short, the social status rules are basedaround practicalities rather than abstractions. Tosay that the official is higher status than themerchant is true in a theoretical, 'that's the waysociety as a whole views things' way. The truthof their relative status would only truly emerge,however, in an influence contest between thetwo. Here class would be a factor, but so wouldfavours owed, position within the occupation,money, and the influence ladder used.

Social CliimbingI didn't mention influence ladders earlier? Theinfluence rules as I've written them are fairlystrict. A lowly clerk hasn't a hope in hell ofgetting an official to do him any favours. Hisboss, the magistrate is a different matter...

The way for an ordinary person to scale theheights is to go via intermediaries. If our lowlyclerk can persuade his magistrate boss tointercede, he may be able to get something fromthe official without the necessity of robbing theImperial Mint. He'll end up owing a lot offavours, of course, but what do you expect...

The proof of the pudding is in the culinaryscience textbook, of course, and these rules haveas yet received little testing. I'm fairly sure,however, that they will encourage players totake a more involved view of society, and tothink of it in terms of transactions, with thefavourbeing the medium of exchange. This maystrike some people as a bad thing, but I find itsingularly appropriate for China, and I'm usinga slightly modified version of the same in mycurrent Tekumel game.

Comments, as ever, are invited. I

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The problems of

representing character

personality in

rolegames

IT'S QUITE POSSIBLE THAT THE RELATIVELYsmall number of fanzines around now is partlydue to the Usenet. Many of the people who

would normally be expressing theirargumentative natures in the pages of a fanzineare siphoned off into newsgroups. Increasingly,the Net community is starting to acquire anexclusive mentality. People are forgetting thatthere are those who are not connectedthatthere are those, indeed, who do not even possessa computer.

This is why I persist in publishing a paperfanzine. The Usenet has its uses, but it isaltogether too reminiscent for me of the mightyAlarums & Excursions, a 160-page zine which, at

the time I was getting it anyway, was publishedmonthly. For a student it was greatwith theleisure to read it, you could wade through thekipple and find some fascinating insights. Theworld, however, as well as containing those whoare not connected to the Net, also contains thosewho have little time to wade though kipple.

TV PersonaliitiesAll of which preamble is proffered as an excusefor the fact that this article arises from adiscussion on the Net. The discussion wassparked by a piece by James Wallis in theTekumel newsgroup, in which he lambasted thenew Tekumel rules system and compared it tocertain 'FGU games of the mid-eighties' becauseof its failure to provide guidance on thecharacter's personality.

James subsequently caught a lot of flak for theinaccuracy of his comment about the 'mid-eighties'. It's a pedantic place, the Net.

Perhaps worse, though, was my use ofJames's comments as a preface to a rant aboutrules for personality, which provoked a long and

heated discussion.My point was rather simple. The personality

of the character, I argue, is the province not ofthe rules, but of the player. It is what the player

does. I stated this case forcefully, as I have beenfinding James's claims that spoof games aboutstuffed animals, D&D-worshipping societies,and Buck Rogers constitute the 'cutting edge' ofrole-playing increasingly hard to swallow.Maybe they represent the future of role-playing.Maybe they are innovative and funny games.But they are a long way from the sort ofadvances being discussed in serious gamingcircles (that means interactive fantasy, by the way:imazine is a semi-serious gaming semi-circle).

As the discussion showed, the case is notsimple. Many people cited Pendragon as an

example of a game in which the character'spersonality is represented by traits and passions.When I played Pendragon this was an aspect Irather disliked. I do appreciate the intention,though. Greg Stafford was doing his best toencourage players to get into the mind of anArthurian character.

The mistake, I can't help feeling, was to makeit into a rules system. By making players roll'against' their traits, you set up a situation inwhich the player feels that he or she is opposingan aspect of the character's personality. The

medieval mindset is something the player has tostruggle against.Yes, I know. You don't have to play it that

way; you don't have to think about it that way.But that, I feel, is what the rules set up. Mostrules are about opposition of some kind. Surelyif we think that developing an appropriatemindset is a good thing, then reinforcement is amore suitable strategy?

We thus have to think about what kinds ofreinforcement we could employ.

Monty HaulThe traditional methods of reinforcement inrole-playing games include the distribution ofgoodies. Experience points, treasure, statusallthese can be used to reward players who dothings right. Many articles have argued thatgood role-playing should be rewarded withexperience bonuses. This baffles me. It hasabsolutely no correlation with any reality that Iinhabit. If I happen to behave in a particularlytypical way, do I suddenly make great strides inmy taiji practice? Do I bollocks!

It also encourages the idea that the purpose ofthe game is rules-based and that role-playing ismerely a means to that end. I favour the idea

BLACK BOX

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that the purpose of the game is role-playing, andthat the rules are merely a means to that end.Inevitably, therefore, where rules areunnecessary, they shouldn't be used. A strangecomment, you might think, from someone whohas previously shown few signs of championing

the ruleless or diceless causes. Nevertheless it isstrongly felt. Although the rules I design are alittle overcomplicated by modern standards (Icut my teeth modifying Chivalry & Sorcery, youshould realise) they are designed to wither awayin use, not least because when I run a game I'mbuggered if I can remember anything but thesimplest of ruleseven when I designed therules myself.

So, coming back to personality, I don't feelthat most aspects benefit in any way from beingregulated by rules. There are, on the other hand,

some areas where the rules intrude. These arethose areas where a reflection of the character'sdetermination or motivation enters the picture.

In this case, many systems reflect the situationwith a rule. The most common is to have somekind of attribute called willpower. So, thedetermination of the character is quantified insome way. Are these rules necessary? Notstrictly. As an aid to characterisation; certainly

not! As a mechanic to divorce certain elementsof personality from referee fiat and thepersonality of the player: yes. Willpower is notan aspect of player personality which oftenfigures in games (except perhaps in those casesin which it's late and you're trying to stay awake,or when you're trying to remain focused whilefellow players discuss the plot of last night's X-Files). However, like the physical characteristicsof the character it is both necessary to mostgames, and difficult for players to simulatedirectly.

Smart MoneyA similar problem arises with intelligence,though here the issues are more complex. Unlikewillpower, intelligence directly correlates withthe player's abilities. A logic problem facing acharacter poses a logical problem for the player.Here, the issue is a little different. A system forintelligence is clearly not necessary. On the otherhand its presence makes it easier for us to role-play characters who differ from us. It still cannotbe done perfectly, of course, but without apartial systematisation of intelligence I certainlycould not play a genius. With a system I am atleast reassured that my character is going to beable to show some (dice-inspired) flashes ofbrilliance.

What other aspects of personality are there?Back in the mists of time, when people wrotesystems for anything they could think of, manypersonality systems were created. These oftenrated the character on axes such as introvert-extrovert, cheerful-depressed and so on. I evenused such ideas in one of the worst articles I ever

wrote, about characterisation, for the late,unlamented Fantasy Chronicles. You might like toask yourselves why such systems failed to makeit into the current generation of rolegamesyesterday's 'cutting edge'.

As a general rule, those personality ruleswhich have survived the test of time have beenculture or genre specific. I would cite thePendragon traits and the White Wolf use ofwillpower. In other words, the rules are invokedin cases where it is felt that the players might notbe capable of adequately characterising a person

from that culture or background withoutassistance. For this reason, it is of crucial interestto a person like me whose favourite games are

Self ControlMuch of the discussion on the Usenet concernedthe question of how much control the playershould have over their character. If we believethat in our daily life we are to some extentcontrolled by urges, cravings or whatever,shouldn't we model that lack of complete controlin the game? If a character is hypnotised, forexample, the player loses control over them.What is the difference between this and thearachnophobic character encountering a spider?

There's no easy answer to this. Some arguedthat immersion was helped by imposing limitson the player's control because it modelled theexperience of life more accurately. I can see theirpoint. On the other hand, I've always found thatcharacters in which I become immersed generatetheir own weaknesses. In other words, the 'gameplayer' in me loses control of the character

automatically. Ultimately, I am in control, but Iam not aware of this, because as the character Iam subject to the limitations of 'my personality'.This is my experiencewhat have you found?

My reaction obviously colours my response tothis whole issue. Imposing personality via rulesor referee fiat will interfere with this immersion,and lead to a dissociation between me and thecharacter. I am not a very good player, so Iwould imagine that the above would apply tomany other people who try to immersethemselves in their character. Rules for

personality seem to me more appropriate to amanipulative, dissociated style of play. Thesnobbish, 18-years of role-playing part of medoesn't much care for that approach.

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Chinese, Japanese, Arthurian or Tekumel-based.Yet, as I have mentioned, I oppose the use ofrules in opposition to the player, and I feel thatrewarding good role-playing is a meaninglessactivity.

What I'm left with is this: I am currently

trying to formulate a method of encouragingplayers to cast aside their 20th century ideaswithout pummelling them into submission withrules systems or giving them illogical sweeties.There are two strands to this.

The first, and most important, lies in thebackground. If I can make the non-playercharacters reasonably credible denizens of theirculture, the players will be encouraged to adopta similar worldview. Further, the way thebackground operatesthe way people relate toeach othercan help to challenge players.

Getting used to a vertically structured societycan be difficult, especially for Americans. But ifa player character group of 'equals' ispersistently met with the question 'Who is theleader?' and is treated with contempt anddisbelief if they don't have a clear hierarchy,then they may get the picture. Obligation andinfluence are other ways of demonstratingdifferences in the social fabric which affectpersonality: they are discussed elsewhere in thiszine.

The second method is through motivation.Motivation, for me, represents a very strong linkbetween the rules (in the form of the characteradvancement system) and the character'spersonality. People are motivated by manythings. Many are common to all humansthepursuit of happiness, for example. Others areshaded with more culture-specific ideassuchas a desire for spiritual perfection, or a love ofjustice. I therefore persuade my players tochoose a motivation, and provide them with alist appropriate to the setting. They have a freechoice, and that motivation does not restrainthem in any way. What's more, the motivation

may be changed at any time. Its purpose is toallow the referee and the player to negotiate alevel of effort which the character is likely tobring to skill improvement.

At the moment, this part is rather loose andundefined. I feel that the referee and the playershould take a couple of minutes after a game todiscuss how the events of the game contributedto their character's motivation. This is imperfect,I am aware, and there are those who don't likethe idea at all. I know many people who find ananalysis of their character a little distasteful

they feel it interferes with immersion.Actually, I feel this way myself, so I am alsoconsidering the idea that the discussion shouldbe between the other players and the referee. In

other words, the reinforcement or otherwise ofyour character's motivation would be decidedby other players. Hmm, that has problems too,doesn't it.

Either way, specifying motivation and usingit as a means of assisting character advancement

is a useful way of tying role-playing, the settingand rules together. It doesn't restrict the playerand, unlike the experience for good role-playingsystem, it has a direct correlation with in-gamereality. It can also stimulate narratives: acharacter with a motivation of revenge, forexample, has a good story-related reason forimproving skills.

Maybe I'm trying to be too arty-farty here andstraying into Mark Hagen*Daaz territory. Thenagain, his idea of having another player as yourshadow-self (it was him, wasn't it?) is, for me,

one of the most innovative solutions to theproblem of self-control... for that background,anyway.

It's also possible that you'll consider what I'vewritten a betrayal of my argument that thecharacter's personality is the province if theplayer. James Wallis, in particular, might benarked by this, given the bashing he received asa result of me lifting his comment out of theTekumel newsgroup and dumping it naked andunprotected in the miscellaneous role-playingarena. Them's, as they say, the breaks.

Whatever, I'm very interested in anycontributions on this subject. I

Eardrum Buzz, continued

The first such 'new generation' MUD sites arejust months away from coming on-line, andsubsequent generations will refine both the userinterface and the sophistication of such gameseven further.

There'll be some fallout from this, of course. Ipredict that eighteen months to two years from

now (and no later), the Daily Mail will be tellingthe story of how little Johnny spent hundreds ofhours and thousands of pounds playing inMUDs; how MUDs threaten to turn him into ahomicidal devil worshipper; and how some kindof censorship is absolutely required. The knee-jerk is just a handful of months away.

Though I look forward to such thingsandbelieve me, they're so close they are 'tangible'I'm happy for the moment with my Tohshindenand Tekken games. (Which are not quite the rip-offs you claim them to be, I have to say.)

I'll meet you in the arcades. Expect to haveyour arse kicked, pal. I

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SO HERE WE ARE ONCE MORE. AS THEimmortal Fish out of Marillion once sang. On thefirst song of their first album. Stupid bugger.Anyway, allusions to dismal Genesis-rip-offs ofthe dim and distant past aside, what have we inthe post bag this time?

In the following, comments by me areitalicised and preceded by > .

Mattters arisingRobert ReesI do dislike the way that you chunk

>

Ill thank you to keep your personal commentsto yourself!

Robert Reesletters up into little bits though. Not a real

criticism but I like to do letters as a coherentpiece.

> If letters are written as coherent pieces, that'sfine. My way, on the other hand, allows people tomake piecemeal comments as they like. In theory atleast, I provide the coherence.

Robert ReesAs an idea for the next letters col could you

be really nice and see the gram of validity ineveryone's point of view? Please?

> Whyever would I want to do that?

Robert ReesHa, only kidding. > Phew.

Nathan CubittThe only way that I can see someone going

pro is to freelance for the various companies,and, except for a very select few, there certainlywouldnt be a living to be made from it. This, ofcourse, is going to make it a very interestingtime for any fanzine editors out there. Given thatthe new pro-rag (arcane

>

) will cover

fanzines, I wonder how many will jump on thebandwagon like I did in the 80s (Was it the 80s?Somehow it seems longer ago than that...

>

). At

least I realise that this time no real career ingaming will come from it. Will they? Tee hee.

>

Astute readers will notice that Nathan alwayscomments, not on the last imazine, but on an olderissue. Dont be alarmed, this is merely his style, andis fully consistent with the publishing schedule of hisfanzine, Delusions of Grandeur. Talking of which...

Nathan CubittOne day Ill finish one and go Yesthats it

exactly how I wanted it. One day.

> Thats the day you put out your last issue.Trust me. I know!

Robert ReesThanks for the review of Carnel and it costs

50p. Basically Issue 6 was the let's get it done so Ican get rid of it issue.

> Funny that, all my issues are 'let's get it done

so that I can get rid of it' issues.

Water (Margin) BillllPaul Snow

I am sure you will be pleased to know that theThe Water Margin has just been released on videoin the UK at least according to Empire (Britain'sBiggest Selling Movie Magazine).

The details are The Water Margin cert.15.12:99 (Fabulous Films) Empire no. 80 p114

Also tells us, ' Don't despise a snake for not

having horns, who's to say it won't become adragon?'

>

Good advice, that, though I must admit thatdespite being a Water Margin junkie I still have noidea what the hell it means. David Weir, who handledthe translation, did a bit of a Magic Roundabout onit, to tell the truth, hence his book is set in the wrongperiod and features more court intrigue and Daoistphilosophy than rip-roaring swordplay.

Still, great news, and my deepest thanks to theirbearer for sharing them.

Nathan CubittHave you considered releasing Outlaws on

disk, like Forgotten Futures. Its not the ideal

COLLOQUY

Lettters to the eeditor

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method, but...?

>

I have a sentimental attachment to paper.However Iwill release a disk version ofOutlaws. Itwill consist of PostScript files, and can therefore beexpected to occupy several disks.

JapanMatthew Pook

I think that much of what you are sayingabout Japan comes down to the concept of theirown cultural identity, and how that is perceivednot only by us (the West, primarily theAmericans and ourselves), but also bythemselves. What does our media paint but asimple choice of 'noble samurai', 'worker-beesalaryman' and faceless soldier of Imperialist

expansion? True, some of these perceptions arebeing changed as reported in the news, but onlyto highlight the new differences that areperceived in Japanese society. We, of course, buyall of this. Why? because not to do so would begetting into complexities that most peoplecannot or do not want to understand.

In some ways I think that you are in the bestof two worlds. A stranger in a foreign land ableto look in at their culture/society from theground up and an exile abroad able to make thecomparisons between Japan and home. If theJapanese as a whole suffer from an inferioritycomplex, what does British culture suffer from?Apathy?

>

Er, well, like, ynow? Erm, did you seeCracker by the way? Well, yknow, its sort of... thiswhole kind of British thing, its sort of, well, how canI put it?

Ray GillhamBushidoI still think does what it sets out to

do, that is create a playable and fairly believablyversion of a pseudo-Japan. I certainly enjoyed it

as a player and later as a GM, in fact its the onlygame that Ive done both with.

> All right. I bow to the massed opinions of theBushido fans (which include the editor ofarcanemagazine). I guess Im overly harsh on the game, andoverly pedantic in demanding that a term like on(which actually means obligation, but is used to meanhonour) be replaced by something more appropriate,such as kao meaning face.

For anyone who doesnt know: Bushido is aboutto be republished by a company called Gold Rush

games. Imagine my excitement when I discoveredtheres going to be a Middle Kingdom supplementfor it. And that some people I know are going to bewriting for it. Probably.

Phil NichollsHave collectible card games penetrated the

Japanese market? Many of the CCGs show alack of play-testing in the design stage.

> Not surprising, given the speed and quantitywith which they are being released. In answer to yourfirst question, yes, by golly, they have. Despite theenormous hurdle of having to understand crypticallyworded cards, the Japanese have taken to Magic: TheGathering like flies to a dunghill.

Hobbbby ImageMatthew Pook

How do you bring new blood into the hobby ?No idea. I can identify what the problems are in

the UK though. They are two fold. Firstly theimage of the hobby. This term I put up a noticeat college asking for RPGers to contact me andwithin days it was plastered with derogatoryterms. Two stuck in my mind: anorak and StarTrek fan.

It appears that the hobby cannot escape theselabels: Dungeons & Dragons is a game for geeks,nerds and so on.

Secondly it faces the marketing giant that isGames Workshop. Traditionally shops thatstocked GW products also carried RPGs andnew blood could gain exposure to both becausethey were near each other on the shelves. ButGW open up their own shop and stop supplyingor undercut the old shop and the new blood nolonger go to the old shop, but to GW's own anddo not see RPGs. Now you can find GW gamesin the high street, but you have not been able todo this with RPGs for a long time... And just tobe controversial, Games Workshop products arenot as difficult to play as traditional RPGs ...

Lea CroweI have to confess that critical legitimacy is

something I do crave. It's partly just an ego thing,of course, but there is the point that by winningthat sort of respect for the hobby it becomeseasier to develop and market serious games,and to bring in players who play in a seriousway. Obviously this is predicated on theassumption that serious is a good thing, but forsome of us that's certainly the case.

I don't know about other people, but I thinkthere is something of substance to be gainedfrom considering role-playing as art. You askedwhat has art got that role-playing needs? Depth

is the answer that leaps to mind. Most role-playing games are very shallow by comparisonto a novel: the characterisation is poor, the

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description is flat, there's little or no thematiccontent, the setting is unoriginal, clichsabound... you get the idea. By trying to learnfrom other media, we can develop richer games.As ever, this is only relevant if that's what youwant, so the argument is somewhat circular. I

want to consider role-playing as art because Iwant my role-playing games to be artistic.

> I agree up to a point. But... Most role-playing games are very shallow by comparison to anovelwhich novel? If you mean Most role-playinggames are very shallow by comparison to a goodnovelthen Id agree, but Im sure you see theproblem with that line of reasoning.

I want my role-playing games to be artistic... up toa point. More importantly I want them to have depth,but I dont think art has a monopoly on depth. I think

thats why Im increasingly tending towards a sort ofauthenticity (not realism) in the games I play andrun.

Its interesting that role-playing has tended toattract people from the science side of the science-artdivide. As a child I displayed the classic artcharacteristics, but my education funnelled metowards science. My post university-life has beenconcerned with writing and publishing, as well asarts education. Its only relatively recently that Ivefully come to terms with the fact thattemperamentally I dont perceive a divide betweenthe twoI like both equally. I think role-playingattracts me because it, too, spurns a clear distinction.Thus it is a niche hobby: too arty for most scientists,and two engineering studenty for most artists.Since that is its appeal for me, it might explain someof my resistance to an over-emphasis on role-playingas art.

Tarts MagicaMatthew PookTarted up dungeons? Dungeons are all a matterof perception, intended use and so on. In EPT

you have the Underworld: a mixture of the sun-conscious, the built upon buildings of previouscivilisations, the travel tubes and so on. InJorune you have caves and tunnelsthis iswhere the original inhabitants of Jorune, theShanthas lived. Also in FASA's recent game,Earthdawn you have dungeons. These, thoughhave been lived in, people using them to hidefrom 'horrors'. Some now lie vacant and ready toexplore. It is all a matter of perception andrationale. The basic idea of a dungeon in D&D isjust a beat 'em up sessionboring and pointless.

The last time I ran a game ofAD&D, I just saidthat there were no dungeons. Simple.

> Good stuff. Were there any Dragons, then?Or Advanceds?

Ray GillhamI think you've been unfair because the

snippets read like I'm denigrating EPT in favour

ofJorune, for example in your reply to `Tekumelnuts'. In fact I was commenting directly on the`feel' segment of Daedal Visions (an article by meappearing in issue 3 of Rays Borkelbys Folly

>

); though I'll stick my hand up and admit I gotcarried away and talked shite. I'd have preferredthat you'd made clear that a large chunk of myletter was specifically tied to the article you'dsent me, and the particular excerpt you quotecame at the end of numerous points thatdiscussed EPT and SkyRealms of Jorune in what Iconsider to be pretty fair terms.

> Consider it made clear. Actually you werentreally talking shite. There is a lot of Tekumel-fansnobbery about. Some of it even happens amongTekumel fans!

Matthew PookWhat Ray Gillham says about the elitism

between EPT and Jorune players has only a ringof truth. It is not wholly true. Tekumel has theadvantages of a more intricate and deeperculture. It does not have great artwork and it hasyet to have a decent, well supported gamesystem. Think about it, give the game to SteveJackson and let him do the GURPS version, itwould have an amazingly high profile. Paul, Ican see you gagging at this idea, but what elsedo you suggest ? Jorune has great art, is bettersupported with a (for the most part) better gamesystem. I like both games, although I have onlyplayed EPT via the solo books.

> Those solo books could be a lifesaver forTekumel, though goodness knows they should havebeen written as either gamebooks or stories, rather

than the somewhat wasteful form they appeared in.Ihave no objection to the idea of a GURPS Tekumel.

Social PresssuresPhil Nicholls

I am hoping to run a Napoleonic RPG and Iwould like my players to act as gentlemen asdefined by early 18th Century European society.

In my rather limited experience it is verydifficult for rules to impose too heavily on thecharacters position within society. Honour

systems and the like do not work for all players.Dedicated players will act within such a system,but then would probably do so anyway. Thoseplayers who lack conviction in the milieu will

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ruin whatever system the rules use. Perhaps aset of Commandments would be best. GMshave enough to do without keeping track ofrunning honour totals! Yet some numericalvalue may allow players to keep track of anyprogress they make within a social structure.

>

Yes, and I feel the key is to make sure theplayers appreciate the value of that honour (or asIm calling it, respect) total. If the players realise thatit has a practical use to them, and is not just anabstract thing that the referee, only, uses, they maybe more inclined to do what is necessary to increaseit.

As you say, those who want to play well probablywill anyway. Thus our task is to structure the gameso that those who have little inclination to play welldont spoil things for those who do. I dont care much

for commandments. Bribery is marginally better, andIm prepared to go along with it as long as the briberyis logical within the context of the game background.

Lea CroweI'll admit to rather a lot of pretentious

thoughts in the art direction myselfbut I havealways found the concept oflegislating role-playing bizarre. You can encourage it in goodways (the Lace & Steel combat system) and badways (giving experience points or other benniesfor role-playing), but you can't make rules forit.

The Last WordMatthew Pook

Look forward to Imazine #25. I can only hopethat I don't get too much of a mauling in theletters page!

> Grrrr.... Woof Woof! Grrrrrrrrr.

END PEACEIm starting to wonder about the wisdom ofdoing an electronic version of the zine. All thatfussing around with HTML (and goodnessknows, I do precious little) seems to besomething of a waste of my time. I wouldntmind so much if it led to a flood of contributors,but Im realising that most inhabitants of theNetscape eschew traditional forms ofcommunication and intercourse.

On the other hand, I have got in touch with afew people simply because of the presence of the

zine on the Net. Maybe the solution is just tostop all the faffing around with HTML andupload the zine in PostScript format? I

Reviews, continued

When you suffer one lot of damage, it mustbe written on the same line. The next lot ofdamage you suffer may be written on adifferent line, however. When any one of your

'human lives' lines is filled, you are dead. Thismeans that a phenomenally powerful blow willkill anybody, no matter how many 'heavenlylives' they have. However a character with a lotof 'heavenly lives' will be able to shrug off alarge number of lighter wounds.

I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I?Skill resolution works like this: the referee

specifies a level of difficulty from one to 40 (youhave to be three times better than human best tohave a chance at 40). The player rolls two diceand adds his skill. The referee rolls two dice and

adds the level of difficulty. The higher scorewins.Combat and opposed rolls work the same

way, of course, but with the opposing character'sskill replacing the difficulty.

Combat is dead simple. Different varieties ofweapon don't make any differenceI only whatthey are made of counts for anything.

The rest of the two little books are mainlytaken up with monsters and treasure. Thereferee's book betrays the fact that the game isaimed at the young with copious explanationson how to play a game (at a level of detail mostwould find amusing), along with a 'replay', ablow-by-blow account of a game. Even thedesigner's notes are presented in the form of aconversation, and here the designer reveals thatthe game is based on a Chinese novel, which hehasn't bothered to find out any details about. Hedoes, however, compare it to the other famousChinese works: The Water Margin, The Romance ofthe Three Kingdoms, andMonkey. There is littlebasis for comparison.

; N #

/Fengshenyanyi (the work on whichthe game is based) is set in a mystical version of

the dawn of Chinese civilisation. As with allChinese novels, however, it mixes in copiouscontemporary references. It's the direct ancestorof the movies I mentioned earlier, the books ofLouis Cha, Blades From The Willows and theentire corpus of flying swordsman literature

I

China's pulp fiction, in other words.I'm happy to see another Chinese-based

rolegame. I'm a little sad that it's set up mainlyas a monster bash. At least there's someimagination in the monsters and magic items,but I do wonder if the kids I teach will be

playing it in a year or two.I