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Re: (TFT) TFT, 2nd edition ?



From: "Dan Tulloh" <dwtulloh61@cox.net>
Reply-To: tft@brainiac.com
To: <tft@brainiac.com>
Subject: Re: (TFT) TFT, 2nd edition ?
Date: Sun, 7 May 2006 18:17:50 -0700

Its always bothered me that, with enough experience, you could have your
character exceed all known bounds of physical & mental ability.  Warriors
with an ST of 25 and a DX of 20?  Please.  Wizards that are uber-Einsteins?
Come on.


So, are you suggesting upper limits for attributes? I have thought about that too, especially for ST and DX. For IQ, however, I'm not so sure. IQ covers both intellectual height and capacity . . . or either. In other words, a high IQ rating might indicate a genius, or it might indicate someone who has a lot of ability to develop talents. So, for example, a character could have an IQ 18 but not be a genius. He (or she) could have an intellectual IQ of, say, IQ 11 but with a lot of different talents and languages . . . or with a lot of skill in a few talents.





What I would've liked (and what I've been working to create - very slowly)
is a system where you choose your initial stats, much like TFT ... but then
you would put your experience into your talents. You would buy your talents
at a skill level ( ie, Sword 0 ) and then, as you get experience, you could
learn Sword 1, Sword 2, etc.  These would be bonuses which you might
apply to your attack roll (or damage roll - for example, a character with
Sword 2 could apply 1 point to his attack roll and then apply 1 point to his
damage roll ).

Such a system would prevent the creation of uber-attribute characters, but
would allow more skilled characters (and more individualized ones as well)


That reminds me of the system that Traveller had. Frankly, I liked it because of the reasons you gave. I've often wondered if that kind of system --of progressive levels of skill within a talent-- could be done with TFT.

Overall, I like how TFT allows players to create individuals (and not just members of a "class") and to develop them as individuals. I also really like the elegant simplicity of the TFT system, including having only three attributes. I would want to see these things continued in a TFT 2nd edition. But I like your ideas for an upper limit on ST and DX and allowing talents to be developed.

On a completely separate issue, what about other intelligent races? The races for player characters all seem to come from Earth -- from the Earths that were in different parallel universes that the Mnoren found and conquered. As the different parllel universes had slightly different laws of nature, so the Earths in those parallel universes developed different creatures... including intelligent ones. Hence, dwarves, elves, orcs and so on. (This, at least, is just my interpretation of the TFT milieu.) Now, imagine that other worlds ... worlds besides Earth ... produced intelligent life and were contacted by the Mnoren. What would they be like in TFT, either as player characters or as NPCs? What got me wondering about this was rereading the rules from the original Traveller game; how (for example) to incorporate an Aslan race (the lion-people) from Traveller into TFT ? Just more food for thought . . .

-- John
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