(TFT) Re: Talents

[James Eckman <fugu@wenet.net>]

> From: Pasha and or Rick Smith <pnrsmith@istar.ca>
> 
>         I have added many new talents for 2 basic reasons.
> First to allow new adventure hooks.  (Talents such as
> Ship's Captain and Admiral.)

Why not go for 1 point each or have the equivalent 2 point talent
created?
 
>         However, how could such super skilled fighters be
> created in TFT?  The answer was they couldn't.  Any 40 or
> 45 attribute figure could get all the sword talents and fencing
> etc. and then no further differentiation of great fighters was
> possible.  (Tougher fighters could always be given bigger
> weapons, but this did not match what happened in those
> classic stories.)  Also by this time, I was trying to put less
> emphasis on enchantments, and was trying to find more ways
> to differentiate competent adventurers.

A mere 40-45 points ;) Err... my reading of these stories is that they
were very good but maybe not the best. They often won using brains and
luck also. Of course to represent this form of fantasy, same weapon,
much grosser damage and unkillable, you could use D&D :) This also seems
to be a problem with creeping talentism. Running campaigns with 1 point
cost or greater talents forced more specialization in the characters.
One extreme of this was one new character that was recruited via
advertising! Wanted, an experienced maintainer of traps and
entanglements, please apply...
 
>         Everyone seems to like new talents, and several
> dozen have been suggested.  (How many are you up to now
> Michael?)  If any significant number of new talents are added
> this will place even more pressure on the character's demand
> for memory.

Nothing wrong with new talents, they just should be very broad
catagories similar to the existing ones.
 
>         I feel that the value for talents is much less per
> memory point than what wizards get for their memory.
> Contrast what a competent fighter gets for 2 memory:
> Sword (no -4 DX penalty using a sword), or Mimic
> (can make animal noises and talk without an accent),
> to what a competent wizard gets for 2 memory:  Lightning,
> or Summon 4 hex Dragon.

People play both with great gusto, so it's not a totally unbalanced
game. Close is good enough.
 
>         Finally there are some character classes (like the
> standard Thief / Assassin of fantasy) which take up a huge
> amount of memory.  How they are supposed to have all those
> talents and then disguised themselves as even a half decent
> fighter I have no idea?

Yep, one friend had several variations on the 32 point ninja, one was a
sneak master, one could deal with traps and fight, the other was
strictly an assassin. In past campaigns I've allowed the following:
1. One character per player
2. One character in play at a time, multiple characters allowed
3. Multiple characters, one primary character with sidekicks
4. Multiple primary characters.

One example, characters are clan members that defend their territory and
perform other duties. Players pull the current sessions characters from
a pool of available characters they have created.
 
>         Basically the higher the level of the campaign
> the stronger the desire to get more memory.  Beginning
> heros are supposed to have a limited number of talents,
> and the steep costs feel ok.  But the longer the campaign
> goes on, the more you wish that your hero could pick up
> SOMETHING new.

??? Going to 33 or 34 points is a big deal! Dex or talents, etc. Just
don't spoil them ahead of time ;)
 
>         In summary, the single most common change
> to the TFT rules I've seen, is various ways to give
> experienced figures more memory.  Thus my suggestion
> that if there was a single change to TFT, it is that the
> memory cost of most talents is reduced.

And IMHO the least desirable change to the rules that can be made. GURPS
went this route, I think it made the characters very bland. My players
and I tried it and went back to TFT.

Jim Eckman
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