(TFT) TINKERING with the rules...

["Jay Carlisle" <selfinflicted_wounds@boardermail.com>]

Okay for just one example look up TFT ITL pg31 OTHER SOCIAL STRUCTURES...

I am welcome - nay, encouraged! - to add detail and reality to 
gamers worlds. Bearing in mind the following...

This is a "beer and pretzels" game. When truly functioning as 
intended these games are social events and TOO many rules, charts 
and bookkeeping make for a session of work and not an enjoyable 
evening. Playing a ROLE usually means something quite apart from 
playing ones own persona and done properly is quite the escape.

I feel that the best way to reach this kind of dynamic is to have a 
few basic tools that all players agree on. I don't expect every 
person on this list, or even most on this list, to agree with me on 
all I have to say. 
Even when folks agree with me, I don't assume that this implies 
agreement in the future or even 'wholehearted' agreement with my 
point.

I'm posting this stuff here because I consider many people on this 
list my insperation for this kind of work, the rest of y'all are my 
pears. You cats wouldn't be reading this now if y'all didn't have 
SOME kinda intrest and I appreciate y'alls comments on my ideas... 
good or bad. Else if' I'd just 
publish. I'd rather bounce this stuff off my pears.

I'd like to quote this real quick if I may...

No cause, since the earliest organization of civilized society, has 
contributed more largely to embarrass business transactions among 
men, especially by interfering with the facility of commercial 
exchanges between different countries, or between different 
provinces, cities, or even individual citizens of the same country, 
than the individual citizens of instrumentalities employed for the 
purpose of determining the quantities of exchangeable commodities. 
For the inconvenience and confusion resulting from this cause, but 
one effectual remedy can possably be suggested; and that is the 
general adoption throughout the world of one common system of 
weights and measures.

Frederick A. P. Barnard,
President of Columbia College,
in an adress to New York State educators,
August 1, 1871


I came across that in a little volume called "Mastering the Metric 
System" that I grabed for obvious reasons. It goes a LONG way in 
summing up some of my fealings about individual campagines and 
storylines. We really all need to agree on the basics. I'm not 
trying to say that we all need to run our games in the same 
fassion, or even on some "Mega World" like Cidri. What I'm trying 
to advocate is that a "HEX" in my world be the same "HEX" in your 
world; 1pt dam, in my world be the same as 1pt dam, in yours, 
things like that. None of this is TWEAKING the rules as long as I 
look to the rules themselves to determine my answers. HOWEVER if I 
deam it nessacary to the plot of my story to scale things up to a 
very large aera to represent something like a nuclear explosion for 
exampale, then I believe the ability to do this is inhearant in 
these rules with little to no TWEAKING on my part.

The 'little' in the above statement comes from the fact that there 
are a few "assumptions" built into this that work abit like a 
cosmological constant. Economics asside (another post tonight on 
this, I had no idea he might have passed...) Mr. Jackson seemed to 
be hung up on the 30pt limit idea. Take a look at HTH dam for an 
example. (did I post something on that already? I'll check and post 
more if needed...)

Also there was the EXP Tables
1st there was MELEE

COMBAT TO THE DEATH 50pts (+20pts if opp had >+2CHARpts)

ARENA COMBAT (winners +30pts; suvivors +20pts [unless run away 
unhurt]; +10pts if opp had >+2CHARpts)

Then there was TFT ITL

to 36  =  125pts per CHARpt
37 - 40 = 250pts per CHARpt
41 - 45 = 1000pts per CHARpt
46 - 50 = 3000pts per CHARpt
51 - 55 = 5000pts per CHARpt
each additional 5 = x2 previous

which by the GM Screen had a revised tabel that runs...

to 35  =  125pts
36 - 39 = 250pts
40 - 43 = 500pts
44 - 47 = 1000pts
48 - 51 = 2000pts
each additional 4 = x2 previous

now who's TWEAKING the rules here? I was 9yrs old (21CHARpts LOL).

Finally I'd like to point out that TFT is just a massive TWEAK on 
Dungons and Dragons. It has been elgently demonstrated by Mr 
Grouchy of this list that TFTs combat order is mearly D&D's order 
inverted. Check the Dungon Masters Guide.

This game has turned 30 this year. I would imagine that it would 
become more refined with age. Elseif why have rules at all? After 
all, in the end it's all makebelieve...

Jay

Post Script; My math and quotes in these posts are correct to the 
best of my ability to make them so. Working by myself. Please bear 
in mind that if I present statistics for instance, this is for 
illustrative, not statistical, purposes. Some information is 
disputable, some out-of-date and some is probably wrong from the 
get-go. I ain't no expert at ANYTHING. Don't bet the farm on my 
math.


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