Re: (TFT) Heretical notion --> DoU

[ErolB1@aol.com]

In a message dated 3/10/2005 7:53:46 PM Central Standard Time, 
cgadda@earthlink.net writes:

>However, HT was on to something in his criticism of SJ's work. I suspect
>that a lot of it was probably due to the very sloppy organization inherent
>to AM, AW, and ITL (especially AM). There is no question that the lack of an
>index, meaningful TOC, and in general incoherent organization (AM in
>particular has various rules scattered to the four winds). But with AM and
>AW one does find a bit of excessiveness - some examples:
>
>- The HTH rules are overly verbose and clumsy, not to mention have different
>mechanics

After many attempts to write my own set of HTH house rules, I've come to the 
conclusion that a simple, elegant set of HTH rules isn't possible. The best 
I've 
been able to do is come up with a complicated set that's at least cleaner 
than the AM rules. 

(One of the problems I've found is that HTH tends to make animals *really* 
dangerous. A lot of the complication in my house rules comes from trying to deal 
with the "if animal gets into HTH with character, character dies" effect.)

>- The "Aimed Shots", "Dagger Marksmanship" and "Crippling Hits" rules have
>too much overlap and really should be combined and condensed.

Oh yes. One of the first things I did was to combine "Dagger Marksmanship" 
into the general "Aimed Shot" rules. And I dumped the "Crippling Hits" rules as 
being exactly the sort of gritty uncinematic thing I didn't want in my games.

>- The stats for armor MA and DX penalties, encumbrance rules, and rules for
>exceptional strength vis a vis armor penalties are a needless multiplication
>of mechanics. One could eliminate the latter rule altogether by assigning
>minimum penalties for armor wear that would apply to everyone regardless of
>ST, and then "amp up" the penalties of the normal encumbrance rules, to
>approximate the original penalties for figures with less heroic ST's. I'll
>post some ideas on this later.

Hm. I just dropped the rules for "great St" wrt armor penalties. Partly 
because high St figures tend to be bigger & to have armor that weights more for a 
given
type, but mostly because I *liked* the effect the standard armor penalties 
gave wrt making the game more "swashbuckling." Even if it wasn't realistic. 

Encumbrance is another case where I've concluded that simple elegant rules 
are impossible. No matter what, it requires a lot of bookkeeping to determine 
how much the character's stuff all weighs. What I've ended up doing is to say 
that total encumbrance (armor and other) gives MA penalties based on total 
weight & character St, that armor and backpacks give fixed Dx penalties, and that 
stuff scattered about the character's person gives additional Dx penalties 
based on weight & St. 

But I'd like to see your ideas, if only for comparison. 

Erol K. Bayburt
Evil Genius for a Better Tomorrow
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