Re: (TFT) Lifeisfun: Weapons and STR mins

[pvk@oz.net]

DMG, the weakness is that the rules don't match a sophisticated player's
understanding of the way things work in real life. One may be able to
rationalize the ST system one way or the the other for each specific
example, but the rationalizations tend to be inconsistent with each other,
and/or with realism. Strong rules are one way to overcome that, and TFT in
general does a great job of providing a realistic framework that covers
most situations in a way that makes sense. These are some of the places
where I think the system begins to break down. Of course, different
players have different points at which they get dissatisfied with rules
that don't match reality. "GM discretion" can take over when the players
start getting dissatisfied, but for very common and straightforward
situations (like weapon use, and marching), solid rules seem preferable to
GM imagination.

In the example where the GM tells his players the rationalization that:

>> To me, it is more of a measure that after
>> two minutes, you would no longer be able
>> to swing the mace if you were strength 9.
>> But by contrast, a strength of 11 would
>> still be able to weild the mace after the
>> two minute flurry of orc smashing.

I would expect players to start wanting to at least sometimes use weapons
that are +2 higher than their ST, since most fights are shorter than two
minutes and are followed by rest. Without solid consistent rules for
things players are interested in, things can start to break down.

Similarly, if players are interested in having rules that match reality,
and start noticing that big strong characters that were never described as
particularly fit or active, can march farther than rangers with lower ST,
this would seem to me like a place for a better rule, and one that begs
for more than TFT's ST attribute to represent it.

Not to all players, I guess. Many don't care about realism or the details,
or only want a framework and for the GM to handwave everything else. Or
whatever. To me, the TFT ST rules stop making enough consistent sense in
the places I mentioned, and to me that's a weakness, or at least a limit -
a frontier, if you like.

PvK
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