Keeper of the Flame

 Sometimes we get interesting emails from the O.G.'s, as we like to call them; the people in either Minnesota, or Wisconsin, who took part in creating these games, either by actually designing them, or by play testing them.

Recently, Bob Meyer wrote us a quick note about a game he got to play in:

"[…]Just wanted to let you know that I made it to a game that Jeff ran at The Source in June…
(He's talking about Jeff Berry a.k.a. Chirine Ba Kal an original member of Phil Barker's gaming group)
​
[…]  This is actually the first time that I have seen Jeff run a game.
It was interesting to see Jeff running the game the same way I have been running Blackmoor.

Of course Jeff was running an EPT adventure. ​(Empire of the Petal Throne by M.A.R. Barker: TSR game company,1975)

It should not be a surprise to me that our styles as a gamemaster are the same, considering that we both go back to the origins of the games."

Here we have one of the original Blackmoor players making an observation about an original Tekumel, or Empire of the Petal Throne player.  Bob didn't go into any more detail on how Chirine was running his game in the same way.  We'll have to email back some questions. 

Perhaps what is most interesting is that the two -Keepers of the Flame- for both games, were in the same room.  Bob is the current Blackmoor referee, and Chirine is doing the same for Tekumel by being the oldest active referee from Barker's group.  One was running a game and the other was noting how they played the game in the same way despite any difference in the rules.

And just to add some more commentary, when we sat in on the most recent Blackmoor game, David Megarry's praise for Bob's ref'ing was bountiful. He said things like, we played it exactly as we did when we first began.

It's a tribute to Dave Arneson that his Adventure Game play method continues to be passed down to new gamers when these original players run a dungeon game.