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Re: (TFT) Sports stuff



MA 10 is definitely pretty slow... if you assume it to be movement from the start of the turn to the end, then its nothing more than a stride.

But I think PvK is right. Things are a bit abstract, and the rules include the idea of waiting around, thinking about waht to do next, and so on. I'd say that you might wan to make it possible to move much faster, but perhaps only in noncombat situations (or perhaps in circumstances where the character is specifically deciding to go on a sprint for the next few turns.... he can't change his mind hte next turn, but gets to go much faster, representing the lack of having to decide to start moving that turn... he already is!).... rarely in medieval warfare would a man run in a full on sprint (it fatigues your troops before the fight, armor and weapons are heavy and dangerous if you swing them around too much... never run with scissors!), and if you view each turn as a separate thing, then each turn the character is also deciding to move there, or attack this fellow, taking up a lot of that turn.

Alternatively, you could view each turn as less time... say, 3 seconds. Its not a perfect solution, but if it satisfies you, so be it....
On Apr 17, 2011, at 10:10 AM, PvK wrote:

Maybe so. As for the "heroin" comment, I would say that it actually works out fine on average and for the purposes of people who like TFT's level of precision.

As you keep noticing, the 5-second turns do not work well with MA ~10 for modeling running speeds that match real-world speeds.

And, certainly it is possible to land more than one blow per 5 seconds (and the armor rules don't quite make statistical sense for an abstract number of hits per turn).

However, the speed of attacks (and of tactical movement, as opposed to covering distances by constant running) is I think not that lethargic if one accepts it as an abstraction of many things that could and would happen in combat, but which are not specifically modeled.

Comparing to GURPS, where seconds ARE one second each, it is possible to get in ten melee attacks per turn with a balanced melee weapon. On the other hand, there are also chances even well-aimed attacks will be avoided by the defender's actions (block, parry, dodge, retreat...). Also, the rules point out that in real life, people almost never spend every second of a combat actually attacking others. What people really do is spend a lot of time standing around, watching each other, taking small steps maneuvering and waiting for an opportunity that looks good. In game terms, this looks like standing around doing nothing, since the players are taking even more time than the characters, and having made their decisions during all that real-world time, they may see no in-game reason why their character shouldn't be able to act like a hyperactive Hollywood or kung fu movie character in the middle of a frenetic flurry, all the time.

I added some house rules to GURPS where people have to roll against their abilities, with various values for each character measuring how well and how quickly they are able to notice, understand and react to what they are experiencing and to get themselves to do something sophisticated about it, and how effectively they can direct or coordinate with others. This results in many people having to stand around during their turn, or having limited options such as continuing what they were doing last turn, merely protecting themselves, etc. The net result, combined with GURPS' active defenses, being that combat (in hits per second) is slowed down to more like TFT's 5-seconds per attack roll. However the reasons why are shown, and alert, experienced and well-trained characters get to do more and more sophisticated things than others. Though it's not just an action/speed multiplier, because the less alert characters can usually still defend themselves and fight back when attacked, ! so it's more a matter of who has the initiative and gets to drive the action.

PvK

--- Jay_Carlisle@charter.net wrote:

I have a strong suspicion that the whole 5 second turn resulted from a
trained archers assumed average rate of fire.
You might as well call that a hunch but I'm still making it.
The data dosen't seem to be wrong... just the RPG visuals.
It's like TFT gladiators are on herion and only come to for about a second
of action every 5 seconds.

...
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