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Re: (TFT) Starting characters?



From: "David Michael Grouchy II" >To: tft@brainiac.com
Subject: Re: (TFT) Starting characters?
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 02:42:35 -0500

From: "John Paul Bakshoian" <hailmelee@hotmail.com>
(please forgive me the following rant...
John,
    This is a well written post.

Thank you.  That happens sometimes when passion is up.

I'm the guy with the 2 simultaneous characters that starts
off as 40 points and 30 points.

Ahhhh. I should be extra carefull here not to step on Michael Taylor's toes. I believe this is to happen in his campaign after all. That said, If
I may Michael?

I only jumped in quickly to mention I was the player just so there wouldn't be any embarrassing fauxpa (or however its spelled) when differing views are made. Micheal was fine job in protecting my name.

We are going to play a campaign that is lasting tentatively
only 6  games.  I have a very solid creative concept of how
my character is at the start of the game.  It does not fit
the mold of a thirty two point character . . .

   Yes.  To quote the first sentence of my original post
 I would allow it.
   My recomendation is just that the core idea of the 40 point character
take a job at 32 points and work his/her way up.  I have found that some 40
point designs, while they look alright at 40 points, could never have grown
into that design.  By doing it this way, sure, a couple may die but
eventually one will make it. Then you will have a character with some years
added, quite a bit of cash, and a first hand experience of the road they
took to power.
To go further, I allow players to work their characters at home on their
own time.

Well, I'm still tweeking the character and it appears it will be several weeks before we play. If it is OK with Michael, I'll post my character here as a 32 point character. The group can put him through the trials and tribulations as I build him to the starting year of the game. That way I'll get my 40point character and all of the group can experience his sufferring up through the condition.

The classic is the high IQ wizard with nary a single spell below
IQ 16.  Granted there is a rule in TFT for forgetting spells and tallents,
but this is just stretching it.  Another classic example is the Unarmed
Combat V character.  I have never seen a character survive the job tables
who was pure Unarmed Combat.  Just to get a fighting job they have to have
three weapon talents.  The weapons do a lot more damage than the UC.  As
they get extra points allong the way they loose interest in putting so many
points in IQ for UC talents.  They do more damage with weapons anyway.
Well, you see my point.

Yes I do. And if I were a stickler for working your way up through the ranks I would defend it. However, as some players say, if the reality (too much details like Chivalry and Sorcery) of the game interferes with the role-playing (or the guy who wants to play Jackie Chan in Camelot) ... pause... ya know... its actually all up to the playing style of the players and the GM. I will close up this conversation with the comment that creating a player however you want is an option if both the players and the GM allow it.


Running two characters is a lot like running one or five
characters.  Your character has a personality.  When you
run Miss Piggy,  you run that personality.  When you run
Kermit, you run that personality.

    I have to conceed the point here.  I agree completely.  By the way I
have never heard "The Miss Piggy" defence before.  Mind if I use it?

er.. "The Miss Piggy" Defence?... actually, it might be a riot to actually play a Muppets Treasure Island adventure.

a Game that  allows for great interaction and advancement
and takes the arbitrary NPC load off the Gamemaster.

I really like this sentiment.  I had one player who played a Jewish
fighter with animal handler who was also a drunk. His dog was called Judas.
 He was hilarious to watch at the gaming table.  Always drunk he would
loose sight of his dog a frequently call "Judas, where are you?  Come here
boy!"
All of this was completly fabricated by the player.  As you said, it
took a lot of the load off of me, and added a lot to the role-playing of
everyone involved.

I dropped in on a friend who was hosting a D&D game for a bunch of novice 10 year olds (for most of them, it was their first time.) Rather than but in on their game and run someone they could lean on, I decided I would run a monkey. It looked and acted like the monkey from Raiders of the Lost Arc.

I sat with the group, waiting for my intro and when it came I found I was a partner/pet of the Leading NPC, who was up in a tree in a forest. He was some type of Forest Monk and "Monkey" was independent and willfull little...monkey.

Well, watching these boys for the first time trying to figure out how to interact roleplaying wise with the Monk was entertaining. Seeing them interact with a person seriously (with comic overtones) playing a monkey was a treasure. Some just couldn't even work with the player who was doing the monk. But a few just let it rip with me as the monkey. They threw him food, tried tossing him ropes and making friends.

The best was when the druid actually tried "Animal Talk" and we had a conversation. I played the Monkey as confused that one of the tall hairless ones could actually communicate with me. I answered any of his questions as from the monkey viewpoint. Who was Monk next to me? He was my servant. He feeds me when I want food, I play with him by running all over him. He makes my bed at night. What else would he be but a servant? The druid player however, was still a novice and pulled back to let some of the more vocal players in.

I went with the party, doing monkey things. I ran away when the party was attacked by monsters and almost decimated, but jumped in at the last few moments to distract the remaining monsters and the heroes prevailed.

At the end of the night, I bowed out to the kids and said my gift to them was the monkey as an item for the treasure. The kids were more dazzled at getting MONKEY than any other treasure piece. You bet they knew how to run the character and they knew how to role-play better after that one session.

BUT WHAT ABOUT PLAYER KNOWLEDGE????  Yea, so Spock 's player knows what
Bones is going to do next turn.

Had not expected this point.  I make a point of not calling my players
on this.  If I fell they are using too much 20th century knowledge, or
knowledge that one character would have but their own character would not, I
just make a mental note of their inexperience as role players.

Actually, my point was not players possessing 20th century knowledge, but knowledge of what his other character is going to do. I was running a dwarf and a human in a party of other player characters. We came up against an ambush by elves and managed to push them back into a culvert. They were powerful, but in a bad position. They sent out their emmisary. The GM had us go through our initiatives. My human was the spokesman. He desperately wanted to avoid conflict and get our wounded to safety. He negotiated piece. The slower dwarf (due to wounds) got his turn. He let loose a crossbow bolt which missed. The other players were flabbergasted. Why would I as a player use my human to beat them all into negotiations and then my dwarf shoots. Because regardless of what I as a player thought, I knew my dwarf had a score to settle and he wasn't going to let bottled up elves get away.

I have run two adventures where I told all the players exactly what the
ending was, and then told them that what ever their characters did they
could not act on this information until I told them it was time.  They all
behaved admirably. No one acted on the information with any fore knowledge. In fact they great lengths to do everyting but act like they knew what was
going to happen.

    David Michael Grouchy II

I understand. They might at times gone out of their way to remind you to put penalties on them or enforce things you forgot, because it was truer to what might happen.

Hail Melee,
John Paul


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