Rather soon it will be my turn to run a game for my Saturday Night group. And I want to run a Tekumel game more than anything else.

Unfortunately, I'm guessing the group will want to play Exalted. (Another game I love, I'm just burnt out on it). But I honestly think they can be convinced if I can make a cool enough pitch for the game. Two of the five players already know Tekumel at least a bit (One through owning the GOO game as well, the other through skimming my books). So they shouldn't be a problem. It's just getting the others. And honestly, this situation should work out perfectly, because the guy who has the book tends to be the Leader-PC sort when I'm not a player as well. So he can probably be in a position of slightly more authority. And the other guy will probably make a more scholarly sort. And again, will do the research. And the rest, I just am certain they'll like it, but they'll want the familiar rather than the new. And I want to convince them of the new darn it!

The sort of game I want to do is to have them be members of a small legion posted along the Mu’ugalavyáni border, probably in an outpoost. Which legion is not yet decided, nor is which clan. I want them to decide what sort of group they want to be, in generic terms. Said legion will either be very new, or old and so undistinguished as to be almost forgotten about by all but the PC's clan (Which is one of its major supporters). Either way, it will be rather understrengthed. Probably only a couple cohorts worth of troops at first.

Hopefully this undistinguished thing won't last forever, though. So obviously warfare will be a major theme. As the conflict with the Mu’ugalavyáni escalates into a full war. One of the first things I want them to be a part of is the 'little war' (Sorry, I can't remember the term, the organized battle between equal forces) with a Mu’ugalavyáni force, in this case one much larger. Just to demonstrate the peculiar sort of honor in warfare on Tekumel. I'm not sure if they will win or lose this, from a story perspective it works better if they lose it. But it feels railroady and like a downer to have them lose early on. On the other hand, they are a group that doesn't seem to mind railroading as long as the story is good. But I'm digressing.

Also early on, they'll end up engaging the Ssu, and pursuing them into the underworld and finding a tubeway station to shut down. I want to use this as a chance to do a 'trip through history' so to say. They'll probably find some steel weapons in the process.

Eventually, they'll end up having more fights with the Mu’ugalavyáni and Dhich'une's followers having found him and trying to restore him to the throne prompting another Civil War. PC's get to pick loyalties!

That's all rather preliminary. But I implore you all! Help me come up with a wonderfully catchy pitch. I want to run this, and I want to introduce more people to the wonders of Tekumel!



edit: And to keep it on topic for this subforum too. Any system quirks that I might want to focus on in the pitch?

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La! Chlen beasts, Pocket Universes, Tinaliya not traffic cones, and Undead Legions sound fun? PM me or go to my Tekumel campaign, For the Love of Golden Sapphire.
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Well, it's happening.

So far the group has decided to play a Medium Clan (They decided that being a pawn in the big struggles is fine with them, a good change of pace from two extremely epic games in a row - Star Wars and before that High Essence Exalted) and probably a Medium Infantry legion. So things are working out quite well.

Not sure what religion if any they are going to lean towards - it sounded like Change might have been the one they were leaning towards though, if not Sarku... I'm not sure I want them to be blatantly Sarku, but as it hasn't been chosen yet I'm not going to worry, there's at least one player who wants to be a priest of Thumis, so it might not even be Change (Though he admits he could easily change over to Ksarul and have his concept mostly intact).

They all seem to think the idea of the campaign seems pretty cool, though they are a bit intimidated by the weirdness of the setting (Mostly the terminology, but that's easy enough to get around), but I'm going to be doing my best not to overwhelm them with it. Hence why things start small.

Chargen will likely be in around two weeks.

Congratulations! It's always nice to hear of a new Tekumel game getting started. I was sorry to see that nobody else jumped in on your npc thread on rpg.net. Maybe you could try it here with more success?

It looks like I'm going to have at least two Sorcerors, one has already chosen and the other is strongly leaning towards it. That should be interesting. Not sure how to handle their role in the military situations. But I haven't read the magic rules in the GOO rulebook that closely yet either. So that may yet come.

I know I'll have at least one bruiser/warrior sort. Always does. All the remains to be seen is if he does a Priest of whichever wargod is most closely aligned to whatever side the PCs choose.

Not a clue yet on the other three players. Though I'm hoping the one that typically plays a leader sort (And also has the Goo Tekumel book) will reprise his usual role.

Either way, it should end up being a decently mixed group.

Sounds interesting, good luck, let us know how it goes.