Post originally by spike at 2005-06-16 00:25:59
Converted from Phorums BB System



Scott Maxwell wrote:
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As for the first, I read the review and I cringed. Whenever I read a book with guns in at and it is obvious that the author knew NOTHING about books, I get the same result. Tekumel is very internally consistant and logical. It is also very frustrating to a Westerner who does not understand the mindset. As for the vast timelines, I find that fairly silly myself, butit is part of the game, and much of the "history" is myth, or is it? So the 60,000 years could be a lot less, et al.




Assuming for the moment that my review is a book about guns, are you saying I know nothing about guns (Tekumel, I assume) or nothing about books (RPG or otherwise)?

More importantly, I would love to know where everyone gets the Idea that I don't understand the Mindset, that I am a narrow minded westerner that barely grasps his own culture, much less is able to go beyond his limited expirences to attempt to understand other cultures?
To this view I have two rebuttals: First of all, I never stated in my review that I didn't get it, I said it was flawed and difficult to roleplay in. I beleive I made a comment about it's potential as a literary setting, where you are not bound by RPG conventions. In short, do get it, I do think it's pretty cool, once you ignore the warts and cracks.
Secondly, I avoided, and continue to avoid making value based judgements on the presented culture. I make a habit of studing other cultures than my own, for one I could tell you far more about the last 2500 years of Japanese history than I could of American history. It's my hobby. I could make an argument that I prefer typical Eastern cultures to Western ones, and by Western I must assume you mean Euro-centric, as Meso-america is pretty Westerly.

Really, this isn't an attack on you, I just get tired of the assumptions about who I am. At least being called a Junior High school D&D mouthbreather has the benefit of being amusing, being catagorized as a narrow minded bigot, however, is offensive, no matter how subtly it is stated.