Re: (TFT) On the Subject of Armor...

[Rick Smith <rsmith@lightspeed.ca>]

On Mon, 2006-09-25 at 14:28, lifeisfun@aol.com wrote:
> I'd love to have seen a system where both characters 
> roll against their adj. dex and compare the delta to 
> see if the parrying character succeeds or fails to 
> block the blow.  But, that's not the way Mele is played.  
> I just sort of like the idea.  Plus, are defending and 
> parrying the same thing? You have to have a weapon to 
> defend.  Why have a parry at all?  it's bogus, if you 
> ask me.  Woo hoo.. nice job.  You successfully parried, 
> but he still hits you.  
>  
> Good Fortune,
> Richard

Hi Richard,
   I agree with the realism aspects that you mention about
parrying, but I'm not sold on it in game terms.

   I played a GURPS Fantasy campaign.  I said, the reason
that GURPS never caught on before is that it is complex,
and we have never played it long enough to really get it
smooth.  So we set down and played GURPS until we knew the
system cold...  And then we went back to TFT.  (Sorry PvK.)

   The thing that got me is that my campaign style has lots
of talking, planning, debating, negociation, BSing, and 
then a sudden brutal combat.  (Altho the players like it if
the session ends in a good combat.)

   In GURPS where every blow had one or more parry rolls,
combat just took longer.  Yes it was more realistic.  But
we found that we liked the more gamish fast and deadly 
TFT combat.

   In GURPS, the same monsters die.  It just takes 3 times
longer.


   If you check out Dave Seagrave's Thail TFT pbem 
campaign, you can see some parrying rules that are 
pretty good.

   I spent a long time fiddling with parrying rules and 
I confess that I have largely given up trying to find a
system that is:

1) Realistic,
2) Does not slow combat,
3) Is easy to learn,
4) Is easy to use, 
5) Does not give a gigantic advantage to the high DX figure.

  Warm regards, Rick.
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