The Kap - A premise too far?

[mahoux]

Mike Holmes wrote:

Well, we are at least a niche of two. What you described is very much what I personally envisioned (I especially like your "mythic" concept).

Make that three.  I initially wasn't really drawn in, but the more posts and a little rereading makes the Kap more intriguing.

Part of it stems from a campaign setting where players are trying to save Atlantis (Thera) from destruction.  But that's neither here nor there.

As far as playing the game– it's the invisible magic that got me.  Keep developing the Kap, and keep posting your progress.  I would enjoy playtesting it.[/quote]

[Clinton R. Nixon]

This is your second unprovoked attempt to draw an interesting thread into Permenant Floating Internet Flamewar #63.  Please stop.  Or at least do it in some other thread.

I have been thinking about this disturbing slander for a couple of days.  I'm afraid I see no requirement to claim to see the Emperors New Clothes on this 'board; I was not aware that being an American patriot was a requirement of being a poster.  If this is indeed the case you'll have to bar me.

Gareth,

I'd like to ask both you and Epoch to calm down. You and I have talked before: no political belief or any other belief is a requirement of being a poster here. I would appreciate people leaving politics completely out of discussions here. I did find your quotation a deliberate attempt to bring politics into the discussion. I would not mind if you and Epoch reached an agreement to edit your posts in order to remove the conflict.

Thanks!

Clinton R. Nixon

[Mike Holmes]

I'm also to blame Clinton. Apollogies, I should've left it alone.

Gareth, nobody is saying you can't have an opinion on political subjects, I believe. What we're worried about is this forum's very high signal-to-noise ratio dropping through the introduction of arguments that tend to cause tremendous friction and flamewars on other fora. Possibly an over-reaction, but we're just spoiled by how good the discussion is here.

I just hope we can get this thread back on the topic of Paul's game concept. Again, thanks Gareth for all the great links. I found the following quote from the description of Memphis to be inspiring:

"Enormous as are the extent and antiquity of this city, in spite of the frequent change of governments whose yoke it has borne, and the great pains more than one nation has been at to destroy it,...to mutilate the statues which adorned it....these ruins still offer to the eye of the beholder a mass of marvels which bewilder the senses and which the most skillful pens must fail to describe."


Mike

[Epoch]

Hey, random thought: did ancient Egypt in the rough time period we're talking about have relations with any foreign powers?  I've never heard of any kind of ancient Egypt/other nation relations anywhere besides Exodus, but surely they weren't that isolated.

If so, an alternative/addition to playing students/graduates of the Kap might be to play some kind of diplomat from outside Egypt or someone in the retinue of such a diplomat.  It could, again, be a way to exist outside of the highly stratified part of Egyptian society.

Also, you could easily see envoys from other powers having interest in either the affairs of state high up in the Egyptian government or in dealing with the kind of menaces to humanity/horrors that someone suggested for a more "mythic" game.

[Ben Morgan]

If we're going with the whole "all historical periods rolled into one fictitious era" thing, then there's lots of room for a gigantic alliance with Rome. Hell, one or two of their most promising sons might even get invited to study at the school (and thus become a character option).

You could highlight all the differences in culture, language, military styles, and all that.

[Mike Holmes]

Mr. Sullivan, yes, the Egyptians did often have massive foreign relations including conquering parts of the middle-east occasionally. Egypt expanded and contracted quite a bit in pre-Roman times. Given that this occurred over a couple of millenia makes it unsurprising, but there were a few Pharohs in particular that did a lot in that arena (Ramses the Great being an obvious example).

OTOH, Paul is going for a more historical setting and has mentioned specifically that he would prefer to keep the outsiede world minimized. Still, that doesn't mean there wouldn't be any diplomacy. I'm still seeing a potential for another whole game here, though. The massive diplomacy thing would fit better into your mythic vision, I'd think.

I found this site that deals with a lot of interesting alternate historical theories (probably mostly bunk, but fun, nonetheless):

http://www.100megsfree4.com/farshores/amyst_1.htm

Many deal with Egypt if only in part.

Mike

[Mithras]

Hey, random thought: did ancient Egypt in the rough time period we're talking about have relations with any foreign powers

If so, an alternative/addition to playing students/graduates of the Kap might be to play some kind of diplomat from outside Egypt

Mmmm, in this era it was common for princes and kings to send representatives to the Egyptian court (if my memory serves me right). So that you might be a poor prince of Syria attending the Kap (by invitation). This way you grew to appreciate Egyptian culture and bonded with the princes, your potential overlord in years to come. All very calculated of course, but it does open the way for a Syrian student, a Mycenaean or Minoan student, Assyrian, Mitanni, Babylonian, Hittite and so on ...

BTW - some good links coming in here!

[Epoch]

Mr. Sullivan, yes, the Egyptians did often have massive foreign relations including conquering parts of the middle-east occasionally. Egypt expanded and contracted quite a bit in pre-Roman times. Given that this occurred over a couple of millenia makes it unsurprising, but there were a few Pharohs in particular that did a lot in that arena (Ramses the Great being an obvious example).

OTOH, Paul is going for a more historical setting and has mentioned specifically that he would prefer to keep the outsiede world minimized. Still, that doesn't mean there wouldn't be any diplomacy. I'm still seeing a potential for another whole game here, though. The massive diplomacy thing would fit better into your mythic vision, I'd think.

I'm totally down with the "keeping it internally focused" deal.  I didn't mean for the diplomats' actual native countries ever to really come into play -- more like, "provide an alternate background for the PC's as they deal with totally Egypt-focused problems."

Now that you and Mithras have confirmed the possibility, I'm sort of of two minds in allowing it.  I think that having one player in a group of six or so who was a (to pick up Mithras' example) the fourth son of the Syrian king would probably be cool and add a lot of flavour to the PC-group composition.  On the other hand, having four of six PC's be non-Egyptian would clearly be detrimental to the game as a whole -- and, obviously, it's a well-known trend in RPG's for everyone to want to play the "exotic" guy.

So.  Eh.  If it were me making this game, I'd probably include it as a possibility and warn the GM to stomp down hard on the proliferation of the concept.

[Mike Holmes]

Mmmm, in this era it was common for princes and kings to send representatives to the Egyptian court (if my memory serves me right).

Heh. The Romans sent their best and brightest to Egypt and the Middle-East for education as a general rule, after these had been added to the empire. It was acknowledged that these places were much more enlightened than Rome itself.

Again, though, Rome is very late in Egyptian history. Still, though, gotta love the Roman stuff. :-)

Mike

[Mithras]

Computer ate my post … garrgh! So I’ll try again! One aspect I’ve not mentioned is the big Egyptian Order versus Chaos thing. Chaos (Nun) was there at the start of time, and the first piece of land became the first piece of Order (Ma’at). This rising from the waters was probably inspired by the annual innundation. But Egyptians saw everything as a battle to keep Chaos at bay. I believe it was regarded as a miasmic entity at the edge of the world. All of the Egyptian rituals of pyramids, coronations, births, initiation, marriages, death etc were part of stability, order, Ma’at. So anything that harms these cosmic institutions will feed the encroachment of Chaos.

This is a nice, cool, pure fantasy aspect. Shit – if it all starts breaking down, the dead might not die, the sun might not rise, the Nile might not flood, etc. etc. The Egyptian universe is a great big machine.

Note that Apophis, a demon, is an agent of Chaos, trying to slay Ra the Sun god just before dawn every morning. He always fails and the sun always rises.

I want my Egyptian kap students to feel this incredible sense of machinistic logic, and a real fear that if they don’t stop this cult from summoning the demon Apu Tib, then plants will start shrinking back into the earth never to rise again, and the waters of the Nile will turn to blood. The stars might start to go out and the moon fade away to nothing…

Support the status quo!!!!!!!!!!

[Marco]

I got here a little late but I do think this is an excellent idea. There's just so much rich Egyptian mythology and history to draw from--and your idea of the Kap is dead-on perfect.

I very much did like Mike's idea of Place (hell, I liked all of Mike's ideas). At any rate, you've got a game that deserves a heavy setting narrativist or not.

I think it's brilliant.

As for the mechanist aspect you mentioned: it struck me that a mechanic where one success builds on another might be an interesting way of getting in character (i.e. you could sort of store success points from one resolution to spend on the next). Maybe you could use a timer to sort of simulate a machine-like clock winding down (the success points drain out).

-Marco

[contracycle]

Found this HW-ish comment:

The king's identification with Ra was not merely a symbol of power, but a magical act. The Egyptians held that the classic stories of the gods happened in a primeval time, and that the energy of a god at
this time could be tapped into through ritually identifying oneself with him. Once the connection between a person and a god had been
established in this way, it was possible for the person to use the power of the god for his own ends. The king climbed the stairs of the Temple of Morning at precisely dawn each day after a ritual bath, symbolizing Ra's (and therefore his) daily rebirth from the primordial waters. Since the king symbolized Ra, all his subjects always addressed him in the same way one would address Ra. They
believed that this constant reinforcement actually endowed the king with the power to act as the god. During war, the king and other magicians performed rituals that linked the adversary to the demon Apophis, whom Ra slew. If the king was linked to Ra and the enemy was linked to Apophis, it was considered certain that the power of the myth would ensure the destruction of the enemy.

[contracycle]

http://www.100megsfree4.com/farshores/amyst_1.htm

Many deal with Egypt if only in part.

Wowser, did you chak out the kite theory?  Direct link here: http://www.fdsmail.com/archeologee/?GXHC_gx_session_id_=d17944a76a211ca6

This is quite a fascinating concept; the site owner is an amateur who suggests that the Egyptians might have used kites to raise obelisks etc.  Its an interesting if tenuous idea; I'm not convinced but I am intrigued.  Probably the best bit is in the Discoveries section which presents some very interesting ideas on novel interpretations of egyptian symbols, like the ankh as a belaying loop.  She says that her thought was: "Just as the Crook and the Flail, the ultimate symbols of pharaonic power, were tools, it struck me, why aren't the rest of these symbols tools as well?"

And that, I have to say, is a very good question.  Check it out.