Re: (TFT) 1 point of 'damage' vs. 1 point of Fatigue

["Jay Carlisle" <Jay_Carlisle@charter.net>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joey Beutel"
Subject: Re: (TFT) 1 point of 'damage' vs. 1 point of Fatigue


> What I was talking about was the purposelessness of making 1 damage
> equivalent to a certain number of pounds of force. The players
> shouldn't even know this stuff (in game, I mean), and so its
> irrelevant in that way.

Ahhh but shouldn't they're Figure "know" at least some of this stuff "in 
game" so to speak?

How about punching through a sheetrock wall?
There's certinally going to be a point in the ST progression where this 
could be considered pretty much a given I'd think but if that's around ST 12 
in my gameworld and ST 25 in someone elses that signals some real potential 
for communication problems for the visual between us in play.
I'm expecting about twice as much in their gameworld and they probably are 
under utilizing their Figures potential in mine just by assumption.

Now a quick search of the internet suggests that sheetrock gives at around 
40 to 50ish pounds of force.
Probably a bit more than that as those are max rateings for mollys and the 
like.

What I'm concerned with is not sm much if it's called 12 ST or 25 ST to 
consistantly breach a drywall but rather that it's a consistant ST figure 
for all drywall.
Then we are useing the statistic as a tool for communication.

> It also doesn't really line up with how damage
> works in TFT. Also, as you even mentioned, the dice and stuff determine
> where you hit and such... so the force pounds end up not being useful
> anyway, because they'd need to be adjusted based on where you were
> aiming, where you hit, and how much damage you actually did (let alone
> if the enemy has Warrior or Veteran).

Okay.
My approach here is again focused on useing the game tools to communicate 
between myself and my players.
Over my far too many years involved in this stuff I've found that the vasy 
majority of players have some sort of picture in their mind of what Action 
is being attempted when they roll a die check.
Five second turns or no most people seem to "see" a roll to hit as a single 
swipe of their sword generally.
If I'm married to 5 second turns and only five second turns then I need to 
go to some lengths to point out to players, especally those new to TFT, that 
a five second turn is usually encompassing a series of manuevers and 
inactivity and dosen't represent a blow by blow account of the fight.

Also, TFT is not what I'd call a compleate system.
For one thing we have all of these nifty techno gadgets that just wern't 
around at the time.
Not panicking here but we still thought digital watches were a pretty neat 
idea back then.
Today we have MUCH more information about some of this stuff than we had 
30ish years ago (Sports Science).
Had SJ been with it longer I think a few of the more muddled up areas might 
have gained quite a bit of clairity but alas...
Anyhoo, one of those areas is the subject of this thread.
Wizards just HATE getting killed by a small amount of damage just because 
most of their ST got spent as fatigue recentely.
I don't blame them because it's really not reciprocal for heros.
It seems just as fair to drop a fighter with a small amount of damage 
because he has exausted himself throwing a flury of blows as it does to take 
out the sorcerer who has just worn themselves out through the effort of 
spell casting with the same damage, all else being equal.
Part of the problem as I see it is that a wizard gets a Spell effect for his 
expended fST but a hero doesn't really get anything but a very vague mention 
about potential for fST effort.

"Wizards lose ST when they cast spells. This is "exhaustion" and is as 
dangerous as wounds are. ANY Figure can also suffer exhaustion from running 
too far too fast, trying some great feat of strength, etc."

So what I've been reaching for is something that let's a hero expend fST for 
increased effort.
Let's say I want Joe Average to punch through a sheetrock wall.
Joe's ST is only 10 and I require about 12 ST to breach the drywall.
So rather than tell Joe no, I let him expend fST to throw a 12 ST blow at 
the risk of adding modifiers or dice to his check.
Let's call it 2 fST @ a 5d6 check for ST 10 to throw a ST 12 shot and I'm 
tempted to call it an adjST 12 for the check so that Joe has an almost 10% 
shot at success as opposed to just over 3% @ a ST 10 check.
Of course Joe could go to adjST 19, for a 12d check to hit the thing... but 
the way I count ST that's not quite 105 pounds of force.
With a success range from 12 to 19 on 12d6 it seems a little harsh to add a 
full die per fST.
Adding a +1 to the roll rather than a full die is interesting.
Your about a third more likely to get a 10 or less than a 9 or less on 3d6 
on a single roll.
Your about 3 times more likely to get a 10 or less than you are to get a 7 
or less.
Better maybe is to allow the player to add either a +1 to the roll or 1d6 to 
the roll at their discretion...
...
Ugggg I ramble.
+9 fST = adj ST 19 @ +7 5d6 check
That one has about a 10% chance of success... it would have been almost 70% 
if Joe really did have ST 19 and of course he could choose to distribute the 
dice/mod's differently...

Of course that's pretty much just a raw stat.
Talents can make stats do great things.
Talents cost IQ which in this form I use as the amount of time a Figure must 
devote to training and practice to maintain a Talent's benifits.
Pro-football players have spent many hours in practice training to sustain 
violent tackels as well as boosted their stats over the years allowing them 
to absorb forces of over a ton with proper equimpent and form.
I call that part of Warrior.
Martial Arts experts sometimes develop an Iron "whatever" by spending 
regular periods of time subjecting the region to strong blows that create 
micro fractures that cause the bone to gain denseity as they heal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km4WTDH7B2M
I call that in the realm of Veteran as I don't see much Iron Crotch 
technique in the NFL, at least without a flag.

In a lot of ways Talents represent a series of simpler Actions practiced to 
some amplified effect when useing 5 second turns which is back to where I 
started from in the first place except heading for who studies rather than 
runs faster...

That's part of what's so neat about a good horse in sync with a good rider.
It's the Jockey's perception coupled to the animals reactions, at least 
somewhat.
If I don't get a pony post up before Saturday bet the Jockey this year and 
not the horse by the by. 
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