From: "David Michael Grouchy II" <david_michael_grouchy_ii@hotmail.com> Subject: Re: (TFT) Starting characters? Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 15:06:04 -0500From: Michael Taylor <MichaelTaylor1@compuserve.com> Here's a question for the group: I'm trying to start a new campaign. I have a player that wants to play TWO new characters at the same time, one with 30 points and one starting at 40 points. What do you people think?Michael, I would allow it. He would have to make a starting character with new followers. Then he could take a job and work him untill he was a fourty point character. Facing the chance of being killed and/or getting old. As he got extra points he could add them to the character. There is a HUGE difference between growing a character too fourty points and designing one from scratch. I would NEVER allow a player to start a fourty point character from scratch. Some designs always die. If they can't survive at low point totals then they would never make it to the big time. David Michael Grouchy II
David,(please forgive me the following rant... it is truly not raised at you, but just defending a playing style that I have adopted. I know the following is controversial going in and am not surprised that others have differing viewpoints. The words may seem heavy at times, but none of us are in the same room to guage visual cues or joking comments; take the following not as a flame.)
I'm the guy with the 2 simultaneous characters that starts off as 40 points and 30 points.
We are going to play a campaign that is lasting tentatively only 6 games. I have a very solid creative concept of how my character is at the start of the game. It does not fit the mold of a thirty two point character and I don't have the time to pre-play the 6 games it will take for him to enter this game as a 40 point character. If one watches a movie, not all the main players are lowlies. Some start out the movie as 40 point characters. That is all I am doing. There are all sorts of comments that TFT allows a player to role-play the game and not be too worried about the mechanics. This is one mechanic that I would like to put aside for this particular game to allow the player (me) the ability to play the character he envisions.
I take the TFT concept with me when I play D&D. I can't even think of rolling up a character and being stuck by the rolled parameter to being a halforc assassin. I imagine what I want the character to be, create the stats to fit it (never overdoing it), and outfit the character in the armor that I imagine he would wear (not full plate and shield, more often leather jerkin). I would even choose a lower level if I thought it was apt for the character. The other D&D players *never* question how I make a character and if they did, I would say that I am a Fantasy Trip player and can't roll up a character.
I am taking liberties on 2 counts when I am making this request: One is that I want to enter a game with a 40 point character. Two is that I want to play two characters simultaneously. I just covered one above. Lets look at two.
Running two characters is a lot like running one or five characters. Your character has a personality. When you run Miss Piggy, you run that personality. When you run Kermit, you run that personality. It is not difficult to have Miss Piggy and Kermit in a game even together. It is not difficult to have the same person run these two characters in a game together interacting. Their personalities and drives make it easy. With someone else running Gonzo and Fozzie Bear at the same time, one could have a Game that allows for great interaction and advancement and takes the arbitrary NPC load off the Gamemaster.
I have played many a TFT (and D&D) game running simultaneous characters. I have loved it and it has actually made better play because it filled out a group much better. I have run games where several players have run two characters. That is also easy. Just ask player Joe what Spock is doing. Then ask him what Bones is doing. Easy to keep them seperate.
BUT WHAT ABOUT PLAYER KNOWLEDGE???? Yea, so Spock 's player knows what Bones is going to do next turn. If he is playing Spock correctly, Spock will do what he character must do, regardless of foreknowledge. Come now, you've replayed dungeons where you know that 12 spiders are going to jump out of the chest...If you were really playing the character, you should probably still have him open it.
Anyway, regardless of what I think, I will bow to the other players will and the GM's because playing matters more than not playing. But I will make them logically defend their premise before I back down.
By the way David, If all your players rebelled and said they wanted to play Camelot at the time of the Holy Grail, would you force all the Experienced Knights to be 32 points?
Hail Melee, John Paul _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ===== Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com. Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message body "unsubscribe tft"