Re: (TFT) Killing Joe

["Craig W. Barber" <craigwbar@comcast.net>]

Anybody remember "STALKING THE NIGHT FANTASTIC", a weird game predecessor to
things like Men in Black or Jasper Fforde's books or something like that, back
in 1980 we woulda called it "Lovecraftian": anyway, PCs work for the
government agency in charge of hiding the truth about trolls, vampires,
witches, UFOs, etc...

STALKING had an really accurate damage system (accurate in some regards only,
natch) which divided the human body into a fine grid of boxes, a LOT of them,
maybe only a couple inches on a side scaled, then randomly allocated a hit to
a single box and told you what the bullet would hit as it passed through the
PC.  Great stuff, and as unplayable as all get out.

At the other end of the spectrum: the original D&D in the white box.  When you
finally found the damage rule it was: "all hits do 1d6 damage".  Players
rolled 1d6 per level for their hit points.  Hmm.... meaning a 1st level
character probably had a 50-50 chance of dying from his first hit.   Which,
like TFT, apparently never left a scar if you survived it.  I mean, what does
your 52 point Highwayman/Brigand really look like after racking up  15,500 EP?

SOOOOO... do you track the damage down to which organs get hit until the
bullet hits the bone?  Or come up with a lump sum number and subtract?
Neither one being actually ACCURATE, of course, but one notably more so than
the other, but not very playable.  Pick your poison already!





----- Original Message -----
From: Jay Carlisle
To: tft@brainiac.com
Sent: Sunday, August 26, 2007 9:29 PM
Subject: Re: (TFT) Killing Joe


> Jay,
>
> Just where are you going with this?

Damn near stumped me with that one (lol)
I'm doing my best to find a reasonable (200ft. lbs.?) physical unit to
try and tie 1pt dam to common reference materal. This is because I'm
lazy. If I know the local building materal is sandstone and one of those
"I start digging, what do I find?" guys shows up to the party, I can back
of the envelope and reference him into submission. Or at least into a
box. If the dude still has problems well then nobody ever claimed this
stuff was licenced thearapy... sometimes I wonder about the thearapy
part.....

> Way back when in...uh...high
> school, a friend and I tried to expand on the system to be more, I
> don't know he word, maybe "measurable" and realistic.

after reading this post I could tell.

> We came up
> with elaborate charts for wounds based on whether the weapon gave
> slashing, crushing or puncture wound. Depending on what type of
> wound you received in a particular spot, you suffered immediate
> effects regardless of the number of hitpoints you actually had. You
> might bleed out in a turn or two or you might just be killed
> outright. It was fun but did slow the game down considerably.

Ababazolutely! Having a well worked out system that adds additional
complexity can be a blast used in moderation. Else if you've got South
Parks spoof on 300. The Daniel Day Lewis character in 'Gangs of New
York' said something to the effect of the Priest was the only man he'd
ever killed worth remembering. Wonder if he remembered dieing? It's
good to give the bad guy his comeupatance.

> I think much of the difference between the damage that weapons can
> do in TFT is just a way of allowing characters to do more damage as
> they increase in attributes, specifically Str. This ability to
> inflict more damages as you get stronger is an offset to the very
> important DX attribute. Sure, some weapons would do more damage
> based on mass . I like that TFT abstracted out weapons into groups
> and unlike D&D didn't distinguish between every type of sword.

last bit first I agree. Steve knew JUST what he was doing.
first bit second Don't forget it's not so much a see-saw as it is a game
of Paperq, stRock and deXcsors. No fair adding Dynastat if nothing
offsets it for instance. ST=HP means that weapons are in the mix. So's
damage. ITL pg 45 MISSLE SPELLS says 30pt normal doors. I've done
a BOATLOAD of work on buildings but being that they have ST how do
you balance? Answer I use Units tied to IQ and Action Time tied to DX.
Spend away me little droogies, spend away. Experience is intimate
here as well. The more powerful the figure, the bigger the chunck o' exp
required for the next bump. Traditionally games handeled this with the
boatload codex of bigger critters. Nothing wrong with this, I even have a
crude way to model 'em, but why did I never see a source on how much
exp a town's worth as opposed to a dragon. Of course this kinda thinking
leads straight to War which comes right back to Building either through
rebuilding after the war or as an alternative to War i.e. fame lets you get
exp for Building rather than razeing and, and, and,

Steve Levey quote again.....

sigh

> A sword can do more damage than a knife, even though both can kill
> a human in one strike if used properly. While some swords rely more
> on weight for damage, others rely on speed and cutting edge of the
> blade. Just look at the difference between a western European
> bastard sword and a katana. They are used differently.

yeah but even up to a mono-molecular blade it's all for cutting. If it looks
like a sword and you use it like a sword, it's a sword to me I don't care
how you made the bloody lightsaber have a tip. Course if'n it aint got no
edge, I'm gonna call it a club.

> OTOH, is
> there any real difference as far as damage goes between a short
> sword (roman gladius/bolo) and a cutlass or broadsword? Maybe on a
> hunk of meat hanging from a hook when it is hit with full
> Louisville slugger power...but then again, maybe not. Have you guys
> seen the Cold Steel clips where the guys hacks at meat with various
> Cold Steel swords? Most do enough damage to kill a human in one
> strike or at least end the fight with one good smack.
>
> In reality, a sword or knife may be slower or faster than another,
> may be used to attack the opponent in general or may be used to
> attack specific vital targets. The realization of damage is a
> combination of weapon type, style of fighting and skill of the
> fighter, the enemie's skill and armor...oh, luck plays into it
> too...I think. :-)

That's why we still roll the dice! Yeah if you got the idea I'z gonna mess
with Combat as given in AM no. I know this stuff has little order at the
moment. The algorythm is finished but the program aint written.

>  IMHO, it's too complex to figure out and
> represent in a game in terms of stats. That's what D&D has tried to
> do in the past (who knows what 4th Ed holds). And since I don't
> believe the TFT damage system was necessarily built from the ground
> up by taking into consideration the real world effect of weapons, I
> think you're talking about making a significantly different game.

I hope not (lol)

> This complexity of representing the dynamics of real combat is also
> why I think unarmed combat is so difficult to replicate,
> particularly if you are attempting to distinguish between various
> martial arts. I've never seen the GURPS martial arts book but I
> wonder if it distinguishes between a Wing Chun/Kung-fu fighter and
> an Okinawa Karate fighter. Throw Aiki-jujutsu or Brazilian jujutsu
> in the mix and it's a mess!
>
> I would love to be able to represent different fighting styles but
> I don't think it is possible. I have the role-playing game
> "Bushido". It distinguishes between striking attacks and grappling
> attacks but that is it.

What I'm hopeing for with Action Time mentioned above is a way to
bleed off extra DX by letting them chop down a 5 sec turn finer and
finer and finer...

> Hope this helps.

Thank You

> Aidan

Jay

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