Re: (TFT) Skill, knowledge, tricks and talents

[Dan Tulloh <dwtulloh@zianet.com>]

>>Good post, David!
>
>Why do you call it good?  To tell the truth it was your "Spell 
>casting talent" Idea that brought my argument into focus for me
>in the first place.

Your post mentioned that there's more behind the talents than 
what's written - each talent reflects a number of hours of study
and/or training.  Ummm...some talents, like Alertness, may be 
innate and maybe should be handled differently.  But, I digress.

Having a talent like "SpellCasting" would reflect the large 
amount of time and training required to reach that point where
you can cast your first spell.  Learning other spells is a 
simpler matter.  Said another way, there's a steep learning
curve associated with gaining that ability.  Charging a cost 
for each spell, as is currently done, doesn't reflect that 
very well.

>I remember reading it and thinking "Well, if spell casting is 
>made a talent, and spells get their own book; then all talents 
>should have their own book." Or to say it forward: If one can't 
>write a whole book on it, then it isn't a talent.

I venture to say that, in a fantasy setting, there probably 
COULD be whole books written about spellcasting (achieving the
trance state, learning Sorceror's Tongue, etc) and that's just
what is required to cast your first spell!  Subfields of 
Summoning, Illusions and Demonology could have entire books
written about them as well.

>>If TFT ever moved into a Sci-Fi setting, then the talents
>>will have to be changed to reflect that.  Astronomy n such
>>will need to be broken out from the general field of math.
>
>   I don't think that a talent for mathmatics would preclude 
>someone from knowing that galaxies receed.  Poor optics would.
>The mathmatics required  to understand that galaxies receed, 
>once they are discovered and measured with red shift, doesn't 
>strike me as that complex.

Well, no - the math behind that isnt that complex.  But my 
point was that when the knowledge associated with a certain
discipline (scientific or any other) reaches a 'critical mass',
it should have its own talent to reflect the time it takes to 
learn that discipline.

TFT talents were designed around a low-tech fantasy setting.
As such, some fields have been rolled up into single talents.
Were the technology level to increase, then these fields would
become their own discipline, require more hours of study and
thus require a talent of their own to reflect that.  Knowing
21st century Math shouldn't automatically give you 21st century
knowledge of the entire field of Astronomy.

I think the entire subject of TFT knowledge n talents is trying
to figure out some way to come to grasp with the following:
1) Knowledge and learning rates, as a function of IQ, increase 
at an exponentially, not linearly; and 2) the current system of
charging wizards more to learn some talents than warriors and
vice versa feels 'kludgy'.  Its a first cut at attempting to 
keep warriors from learning combat magic or wizards from learning
blade combat.  IMHO, there should be some way to keep this 
dichotomy of character classes without having it imposed in 
such a 'draconian' fashion.

Dan
=====
Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com.
Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message body
"unsubscribe tft"