Re: (TFT) Why not GURPS? --> Because it sucks! (No, seriously...)

["Ty Beard" <tbeard@tyler.net>]

----- Original Message -----
From: <ErolB1@aol.com>
To: <tft@brainiac.com>


> In a message dated 9/12/2003 9:08:47 AM Central Daylight Time,
> tbeard@tyler.net writes:
>
> > Same here. When the first bar fight in my game took 2 hours to resolve,
I
> > knew there was a problem. Basically, it's way too easy to get
parry/block
> > rolls that will succeed most of the time (the optional rule that says
your
> > parry roll must succeed by as much as the to hit roll succeeded helps a
> lot,
> > but then introduces another fiddly thing to worry about). Using that
system
> > "as is" resulted in endless fights.
>
> IME, the fights only seem endless because it takes 2 hours to play out 30
> seconds of game time, due to the 1 second turns. To get to where fights
last a
> long time due to parries & blocks succeeding most of the time, the
characters
> either have to be *very* skilled, or else have to have lots of PD - ie
heavy
> armor.

Well, if it takes 2 hours to play a single fight, then it *is* effectively
endless, regardless of the time simulated :-)

> In the second case, why would characters wear full armor in a bar? And as
for
> the first case, I think that fights between very highly skilled characters
> *ought* to last a long time. It's a matter of personal taste, but I like
it when
> characters can rely on high parry rolls to almost never be hit, and when
> duels between two such characters are long drawn-out affairs (Like the
duel
> between Inigo Montoya and the Man In Black in the Princess Bride. Or the
lightsabre
> duels in the Star Wars movies.)

I don't recall the specifics (it was right after GURPS came out, so it would
be in the mid to late 1980s) about the fight; only that it took 2 hours.

I don't care for long and drawn out fights, simply because they can get
boring.

> IMO its a strike against GURPS that it handles this sort of thing poorly,
but
> "almost impossible to hit, even by a highly skilled attacker" isn't in
itself
> a flaw.

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree on that point. I do like systems to
take comparative skill levels into account when determining if a figure is
hit (a flaw in pure TFT); I just never found the "parry roll" (pioneered in
Runequest, by the way) to be the ideal way to do it.

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