Re: (TFT) New File on Dwarves on Rick's web pages.

[Rick Smith <rick_ww@lightspeed.ca>]

Hi all, Peter.
  My comments are inline.

On 2016-02-07, at 6:57 AM, PvK wrote:
> ...
> I also think that it's ok that TFT is vague about the descriptions
> of elves and dwarves and (especially) orcs, because it leaves room
> for GMs to design their own interesting flavors and ideas about 
> them.

  Well, this GM wants to liven the standard races up a bit.  :D
> 
> Some players I've known have long bemoaned the generic fantasy
> races, and not just for TFT in particular. One comment that stuck
> was that usually elves are just "humans plus (something)". In
> ITL, Elves are given extra lifespan but half EXP, but mainly we
> tended to ignore that a bit because half EXP is a big disadvantage
> and extra lifespan doesn't generally come up for PCs. So PC Elves
> got normal EXP, and NPC Elves got the extra lifespan taken into
> account, I think, unofficially or unthinkingly.

  I checked ITL, and elves get double lifespan, but I never saw any
rule that says that they get 1/2 experience points.  I suspect that is
a local house rule.  Page 11 of ITL lists those races for which exp
cost is doubled, and elves are not listed.

> ...
> 
> I always thought the D&D vision abilities were arbitrary and silly,
> as you say like magic abilities, which seemed to be invented by
> game designers wanting to hand out different random abilities 
> rather than having a reason for things that made sense, and also
> using yet another mechanic that doesn't seem to be how the real
> world works - vision limited to 30' range doesn't make much sense,
> unless there is a magic illumination field that only extends so
> far. It could make sense though for dwarves to be short-sighted,
> if they really are somehow specialized to caves, but how did 
> that happen, really?
> 
> Ah well.

Dwarves seeing better in the dark seems a natural advantage to them
rather than arbitrary.  However, D&D didn't have detailed rules for
low light conditions, so saying that they could have no penalty in
darkness is far simpler to write and game master than a more 
realistic, "they can see 25% better in low light conditions".

Warm regards, Rick.
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