-
The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Did you ever play Empire of the Petal Throne?
- Thread starter grizzo
- Start date
Lancelot
Adventurer
Once. Original edition, some 20-25 years ago.
I remember next to nothing about my character or the session, other than the ending. The party was fooling around with some kind of magi-tech in a vine-strewn ruin out in the jungle. As the newest player at the table, I was "volunteered" to test out the device. One blinding flash of light later and I was... gone.
The GM was pretty non-specific about what happened, and was trying to coax the others into further experimentation with the device. They shrugged, went something like "Oh well... it was only a new character. Barely one step up from an NPC. You can just make another one next week." The GM seemed slightly frustrated, but said "Fine"... and called the session.
The following week, I played D&D with a different group of friends. So that's my Tekumel experience.
I remember next to nothing about my character or the session, other than the ending. The party was fooling around with some kind of magi-tech in a vine-strewn ruin out in the jungle. As the newest player at the table, I was "volunteered" to test out the device. One blinding flash of light later and I was... gone.
The GM was pretty non-specific about what happened, and was trying to coax the others into further experimentation with the device. They shrugged, went something like "Oh well... it was only a new character. Barely one step up from an NPC. You can just make another one next week." The GM seemed slightly frustrated, but said "Fine"... and called the session.
The following week, I played D&D with a different group of friends. So that's my Tekumel experience.
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
I ran quite a long campaign using the first set of EPT rules, the PCs rose from 1st level to about 11th or so.
I loved the setting. IIRC the original rules assumed that the new 1st level PCs were barbarians washed up on the shore near Jakalla and had to learn how to fit in to the society... so the players innocence of the society fitted in with the game.
I bought Swords and Glory but as someone else noted it was exceptionally rules-heavy (and not even in a good way). On the positive side it did have an awful lot of additional information about the game world, and it allowed me to replace my long-defunct maps which was good!
I was interested to hear that MAR Barker tended to run a very 'rules light' game (perhaps sjmiller could comment), and it seemed weird to me that the rules tended to get heavier and heavier!
RQ2 has always been my favourite game system, and I wrote an EPT version of the RQ2 rules (matched pretty well on the whole - bronze == chlen hide was a very close match anyway. I made 'psychic magic' == battlemagic and 'ritual magic' == Runemagic; although that isn't necessarily a good match to the straight-up EPT way of doing things, it matched well enough for me - especially when there was some cult-only battlemagic available to give gods and their cohorts traditionally distinctive spells.
Certainly if I ran it again I'd use my RQ2 variant rules to do so.
Cheers
I loved the setting. IIRC the original rules assumed that the new 1st level PCs were barbarians washed up on the shore near Jakalla and had to learn how to fit in to the society... so the players innocence of the society fitted in with the game.
I bought Swords and Glory but as someone else noted it was exceptionally rules-heavy (and not even in a good way). On the positive side it did have an awful lot of additional information about the game world, and it allowed me to replace my long-defunct maps which was good!
I was interested to hear that MAR Barker tended to run a very 'rules light' game (perhaps sjmiller could comment), and it seemed weird to me that the rules tended to get heavier and heavier!
RQ2 has always been my favourite game system, and I wrote an EPT version of the RQ2 rules (matched pretty well on the whole - bronze == chlen hide was a very close match anyway. I made 'psychic magic' == battlemagic and 'ritual magic' == Runemagic; although that isn't necessarily a good match to the straight-up EPT way of doing things, it matched well enough for me - especially when there was some cult-only battlemagic available to give gods and their cohorts traditionally distinctive spells.
Certainly if I ran it again I'd use my RQ2 variant rules to do so.
Cheers
A couple of my players are experts. I'm not... I obviously did some research, but I can't say that I know all that much about the world. Enough to run a convincing game of it, I suppose.
Haffrung Helleyes
First Post
me too
Add me to the list of those that never got to play EPT but who wants to!
By the way, have you guys seen the EPT supplement "The Book of Ebon Bindings"? Best summoning supplement ever!
Ken
Add me to the list of those that never got to play EPT but who wants to!
By the way, have you guys seen the EPT supplement "The Book of Ebon Bindings"? Best summoning supplement ever!
Ken
dougmander
Explorer
I had the same experience -- my dad bought me the boxed set and a zillion minis in 1978, but it was too unfamiliar to be appealing to my friends. Ultimately it was too much work to DM, but I loved reading the books and poring over the wonderful map included in the boxed set.
Achan hiArusa
Explorer
Yes, and it was one of the first conversions I placed in the old conversion library. My initial version was a bit more D&D-like and I think Blue Troll (Blue Troll's Netbooks - Welcome) still has a copy but Google absolutely will not let me get there because it is a listed attack site. My most up to date conversion to 3e (which still needs to be worked on) can be found on tekumel.com (Tékumel :: The World of the Petal Throne) but I never updated the temple spell or psionics lists from 3.0.
As for running it, yes I ran it twice as one shots. The first time I did the classic off the boat, the second time I ran with Very High Clan players. The only person who really got it was the Pakistani who loved it and wished we could run it more (he also said that about my one shot Mindshadows game).
As for running it, yes I ran it twice as one shots. The first time I did the classic off the boat, the second time I ran with Very High Clan players. The only person who really got it was the Pakistani who loved it and wished we could run it more (he also said that about my one shot Mindshadows game).
Last edited:
WayneLigon
Adventurer
I'll probably have to wait for the Tekumel 2020 version where they have a digitized MAR Barker on the game media to run it for you. I've always wanted to try it, but nobody ever wanted to run it.
