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Re: (TFT) Re: TFT Digest V4 #4
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Tapley"
Hi Mark!
The Speed Factor thing came from "Man To Man" combat in Chain Mail I
believe.
Among other factors a Figures weapon helped determine the number of blows
that could be struck in a round.
The lower the Speed Factor the shorter/lighter the weapon and a Figure got 2
attacks per turn with a SF of 4 less than their opponets SF and got 3
attacks per round with an SF of -8.
Other factors could add/subtract "blows per round" such as defending on
rampart from above or striking from behind.
Nobody I know ever used this system.
At 21:29 -0500 1/18/10, Jay wrote:
Traveller
...is a *whole* *different* system for representing combat. I'm not
sure there's much value in trying to map Traveller into TFT for
combat systems. Traveller has a lot of good stuff in it, particularly
the Trillion Credit Squadron starship design system and the Vehicle
design system add-on (forgot the name). Given the "magic technology"
assumptions they make, those are pretty impressive. But snap-shots,
directed energy weapons, and balancing your technology against my
technology are really out of family with TFT's balancing missile
weapons, pole weapons, DX, ST, IQ, etc.
Traveller is a 2d6 combat system useing conceptual range bands to determine
movement/range.
Snapshot is a 2d6 combat system useing 1.5m squares to determine
movement/range.
TFT is a 3d6 combat system useing 1.3m hexes to determine movement/range.
When designing a "adventure" I consider myself a "director of the
imagimation" and the ruleset is my "camera".
I consider TFT the best "lens" for the bulk of my hand to hand combats.
I handel the majority of gunfights with the basic Traveller system.
The more rulesets I have available, the more tools I have for storytelling
purposes.
The problem of course is in translation...
I think the only real way to compare the two systems is to compare
each to "real life" (modulo the missing magic for TFT and technology
for Traveller) to see what aspects of real life are
streamlined/simplified/oversimplified by each, and how much fun the
resulting game is to play.
While "fun" is the great imponderable in the mix I do agree that a good
ruleset facilitates "fun" by providing simple play.
Complexity is a fun-killer.
TFT does a better job of that, imho. I note that "Melee" was a fun
game on its own, while "Snapshot" wasn't much.
I had fun with Azhanti High Lightning but I think that had more to do with
the diffrent secnarios offered.
Have not played AD&D enough to comment.
I mention it because it goes straight to minatures wargameing. Chain Mail
offered a turn system, a simultainious "order" system and a 1 Figure = 1:1
system.
The Wizards of the Coast guys basically used Traveller @ 5 foot squares and
three "movements" per 2 squares moved diagonally.
I'm not much hung up about different weights. What Traveller calls a
"Battle Axe" may be the exact same thing TFT calls a "Small Ax".
Let's see... TFT Small Ax 2.5kg, Battle Ax 10kg... AD&D has a battle axe @
75gp and a hand axe @ 50gp...
So calling 10kg 50gp, I have a armourer producing $150 of production (TFT AM
Fine Weapons and Armor pg22) each week for $100 a week pay, or a master
armourer producing $200 a week for $150 per week pay.
An armourer makes one $150, 7kg Great-Sword per week for $100.
In seven weeks, or $700 wages, said armourer forges 7 Great-Swords worth
$1050 weighing 49kg.
An armourer makes ~8 $130, 10kg Battle Axe's in seven weeks for $700 in
wages to produce $1040 worth of axes weighing 80kg.
The problem is here.
An armourer makes 15 $10, 0.1kg Daggers per week or 105 over seven weeks for
$1050 worth of Daggers produced for $700 in wages and 10.5kg of material.
If your sittin in Helms Deep and the orc horde is gathering and reckoned to
be at the gates inside of 2 months from now then these questions could be
pretty important.
Of course, too many armourers and not enough ore is another story, and
adventurers off to secure more resources are likely to be under considerable
time presure as they are costing the defence 2+ Daggers per armourer pre day
they lack metal.
At 21:29 -0500 1/18/10, TFT Digest wrote:
Any thoughts?
"Air War" broke down 1960-80 jet fighter combat into 0.5 second (?)
turns, and tried to very accurately model physics. It did a pretty
good job, but the result was > 100 pages of rules, tables, charts,
etc.
The more players mess with something, the more detailed it gets.
... hummmm, assuming I ever ran a period of gametime involved in piloting
those flying bottle-rockets I might just use those rules for the actual
plane combat. I'd still use TFT for a drunken brawl on leave though.
I wonder what the IQ on a supersonic flight spell would be?
I wonder what the IQ on a supersonic flight spell that allowed high-g
manuvers would be?
I wonder how many wizards, apprentices and peasents to feed them it would
take to cause a 8,424giga point damage fireball 3000 miles away?
I wonder if it's about the same as the number of scientists and workers it
took to pull off a 15 kilo-ton pop over Hiroshima?
(I figure 1 point of damage at 5.5 foot pounds of force currently or about
7.45 joules per point of damage. At 4.184giga joules per ton of TNT I get
over 550,000,000 pts dam per ton. Intrestingly, black powder is considered
to be roughly half as powerful as TNT and english longbows come in at about
half the impact force of an unrifled musket at comprable range. Compare
longbow arrow speeds to the best baseball pitchers and I go with the light
number, even though info like the break/drop formula uses a force of 1260
lbs to break a neck, or just over 229pts dam)
Playing out a combat which took 30 seconds of game time took all day
on the clock. Worse, the players had plenty of time to think out
their next move, count hexes, and basically turn it into a "chess
game" rather than anything remotely real-time. TFT can be played on a
pretty close to real-time time scale, for small engagements, and it
takes a lot of the chess-playing out of it and puts a whole lot of
excitement back into it.
I would suggest that a whole game session focused on a minuet or less of
gametime can work in the same way that a game session that passes
weeks/months/years of gametime can work.
from a blog...
"points: 20.4
yards per play: 5.1
running plays: 28.0; 4.0 yards/run
passing plays: 32.1; 10.7 yards/pass
total yards: 316
there are a little under 2 time-outs per game per team, and a little over 7
penalties per game per team.
So there are 60 plays per team in 60 minutes. Because there are two teams,
each play consumes 30 seconds of clock time. But remember the 1/5 rule - so
of this, 6 seconds is the actual bone-crunching, running, passing, and
tackling - on average. We should check this out - sit down with your
stopwatch (in the hand without the beer) this weekend..."
I did the stopwatch thing so this checks out well for me.
I got 1 to 3 turns of "Action" per play, this is very hard to average but
basicly call it 2 turns of "Action" per play.
720 turns in 1 hour is 360 turns per offence per game. Divide that by the 30
seconds or 6 turns per average play and each team gets 60 plays per game on
average.
"Air War" broke down 1960-80 jet fighter combat into 0.5 second (?)
turns, and tried to very accurately model physics.
and
Playing out a combat which took 30 seconds of game time took all day
on the clock.
30 seconds of half-second turns is 60 turns per player per session...
I've got that...
However in an american professional football game it's only maybe a dozen or
two plays that "matter" when it comes to how the game is remembered.
If I spend an hour on the last play between the Rams and Titans it's
probably for a good reason.
I can roll an "Aint's" circa 80's whole season through in about 5 seconds
gametime too.
"Make a 'Saving Throw' for your coaches Job (charter, stadium and finance +
team puts Job on list of Jobs)
I believe the "button" in computing circles is/was called something like
"auto-calc"...
For computer games, arbitrarily deep levels of detail are OK, as long
as they are used to present a "realistic" interface to the player, in
close to real-time.
Civ uses 20year turns i.e. 1 generation...
Drop "realistic" and replace with your earlier term "Fun".
I am striving hard to make it "fun" to plug "realistic" data into the game
format in such a way that all players have a better chance to share the
"group" picture created by their "Actions".
Imho the better the "adventure" material is designed the less of a job a
game-master has to do to make the thing "fun" for the players.
A really well designed "adventure" can be run solo...
For board games, the appropriate arena for the deep level of detail
is only to help the referee add realism into his scenario.
I can't disagree with you more here, this is something I feel is very
important and I'm saying it for that reason, NOT trying to take my friend
Mark to task.
All this "Simple Jack" math I spit is buried in the components as much as
possable.
I use 1inch hexes on 1/4inch graph paper because I can cut paper "chits" to
proportion w/o making everybody do a bunch of math to figure out what the
chit is standing for.
For all practical intents and purposes 1 square on a Melee scale 1.3m from
hex-side to hex-side hex at 1 inch per hex on a standard cut page equals 1
square foot. (It's more like 13" x 13" but if you wanna argur about WHERE in
that particular square something went down then we can just blow up the
scale by a factor of 4 (1 hex is 4" across or 16 1/4" squares) and you have
body relative measures. Each 1/4" square is about 1 palm across for an
average human or about 3.25 inches across, and offers simple ways to use the
tape-measure to not only reckon distance between small scale units on a
table-top, but also can be used to measure/translate motions pantomined by a
player for their "Figure" on said table-top to the battle-map?
TFT pretty
much nails the level of detail the players need to know, in my
opinion. More is overwhelming (D&D, Traveller) and should be carried
by a computer (World of Warcraft) if it's going to be present. Less
is too simple, and no longer corresponds closely enough to realism to
interest the players or to allow enough flexibility in character
design.
I can now play Quake, War Craft 2, Sim City, Railroad Tycoon and
Civilization 2/3 "somewhat" simutainiously...
The key is to ask "how many Quake "turns" in one War Craft 2 turn?" and so
on...
Ever "cram" for a test?
Life is the ultimate 'open book' test!
If I try to link everybodys gameworlds together I risk "breaking" the "rule
of five"...
....
Couldn't finish this before "friends" showed up what don't understand why
Beta-Max really won the battle of VHS vs. Beta, and why that would make any
diffrence to someone intrested in "shareing imagination...
"Can you say ILLUSION?"
"Go and say it too your Mom!"
"Did she slap you?"
"You said it RIGHT!"
lol
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