(TFT) Skill, knowledge, tricks and talents

["David Michael Grouchy II" <david_michael_grouchy_ii@hotmail.com>]

> From: "Pasha and Rick Smith" <pnrsmith@istar.ca>

> 	Well I've run out of things to say for
> now. Maybe I'll post a bit more on this subject
> late.  Comments are welcome!

Skill, knowledge, tricks and talents.

    GURPS defines a skill point as a thousand hours of study.  There is a 
saying that after four of five years of university study a person is ready 
to learn their job.  Not that one knows how to be an engineer or lawyer, but 
that they now have the vocabulary and training necessary to learn the job.  
The background and overview required.  This comes as a surprise to many 
graduates.
    They think that they have already learned the job.  After five years of 
study, they think, they should be talented already.  This usually isnt the 
case.  Real talent only comes with experience.
    My favorite example is the long bowmen of England.  They were required 
by royal edict to practice regularly.  This took up a lot of their time.  I 
heard that at one point golf was made illegal, as it was cutting into the 
time spent practicing the bow.
    A person can only do so many things regularly during each week of their 
life.  In TFT this is represented by how the IQ points are spent on talents. 
 An eight IQ person with running spends a quarter of their free time 
jogging.  A person with a higher IQ is able to use their week more 
efficiently.  This is about practicing and honing talents in perpetuity.  A 
heroic level of ability.
    Look at the Mathematician talent for example.  It includes algebra, 
geometry, some Trig, accounting, astrology, even astronomy.  In the modern 
world astronomy itself is considered a major field of study.  Including many 
areas of specialization.  All the others are considered fields unto 
themselves.  Accounting, geometry, astrology.  But In TFT, a character gets 
a talent for all of them with only 2 IQ points.
    Consider ship building.  This is a talent for such.  There are 
countless types of ships, means of construction, yards to build them in, 
crews to do the work, teams that need to be managed, designs to be made, 
even lumber mills that need to be constructed so the raw material can be 
manufactured.  Again, huge areas of knowledge, ability and skill.

    I consider the TFT talents in the context of the time the game was 
written.  Compared to the modern games; sure, it seems stingy with 
abilities.  But I dont think it meant to give just plain ability or 
knowledge to the characters.  I get the impression that each individual 
talent was meant to compete with what AD&D called an entire character class. 
 In AD&D a thief was a characters entire being.  Sure there were 
multi-classed characters, but the rules for them were strange.  In TFT each 
character was multi-classed in the AD&D sense.
    A character could be a fighter, a thief, a preist, have a spell, and 
know monk like Unarmed combat skills.   It was brilliant for its time, and 
it gave unprecedented power and choice to the players.  I find the modern 
games have diluted the abilities.  They are almost like little decals one 
pastes on to a model of a tank or jet.  There is also a risk in this 
proliferation of skills an knowledges.
    Once it gets to the point that there is a specific skill for any known 
ability, it sets the precedent that a character cant do something new 
unless they get the required skill.  In my view of TFT talents, and new 
trick or skill can usually be served by an existing talent.  Consider the 
sample character sheet for Fox Moulder that was posted to the list a while 
back.  It had stuff like detective, and land-vehicle driver.  Now I dont 
want to offend anyone so let me say, I like the character as posted.  But 
for the sake of this argument I would have described Moulder with only these 
four talents.  Guns, Literacy, Detect Lies, and Scholar.  In fact, I find 
that the majority of what Moulder does, knows, and the entire FBI is about 
can be handled under a Talent for Scholar.
    Probably not a popular perspective.  But, there it is.  My two cents.

    David Michael Grouchy II


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