Re: (TFT) Heretical notion --> DoU

[pvk@oz.net]

... Howard Thompson:
> "TFT is too complicated as completed by Steve Jackson. He completed the
> project as he wished, not as I'd hoped or even laid down constraints."
...

Too complicated? For whom? Certainly not for me when I was 11 years old...

... Howard Thompson:
> "I think the system is better than D&D, but not by a huge margin."

Not better by a huge margin? Well, maybe by an apples and well, Cheeze
Whiz margin, more like.

> "All the
> material in Advanced Melee and Advanced Wizard didn't need to be added at
> all. More spells and weapons fine, more detail of combat, no."

Didn't need... for what purpose? For playing microgames, I guess. I wanted
more content, not less!

> "My feeling is that in the extra two years of work TFT got longer instead
> of better. I'm having work started [on] a new FRP system that can be
> introduced in 3-4 years and is closer to what I think the market wants
> and what I'll feel comfortable in publishing."

Hmm, so it seems to me this shows HT to be a mareketer/publisher who
didn't really appreciate TFT, but got the rights to it.

Charles Gadda:
> And so on. I do not feel that TFT was "too complicated" (I would consider
> it almost too simplistic); rather, it just wanted for better organization
> and streamlining.

Yes.

Charles Gadda:
> Actually, TFT has a good enough basic concept that one can rather easily
> portray a fair amount of semi-realistic detail without bogging down with a
> lot of die rolling or excessive rules. ...

Yes.

> Further, TFT can easily be
> made to accommodate modern technology and so forth, in a manner similar to
> GURPS but much more streamlined. One could say that TFT, in its idealized
> form, could become what GURPS should have been.

I think the qualitative comparisons of different systems tend to boil down
to personal taste and experiences. Even as far as HT claiming TFT isn't
better than D&D - for Cheeze Whiz fans and players with certain tastes and
lacking others, perhaps so.

Personally, after playing TFT to the point where we'd utterly mastered the
rules and tactics and were more interested in making new advanced rules
than playing, GURPS was just about perfect for us. Some years later
though, I'd mastered GURPS so well I was making up lots of house rules for
it...

PvK
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