(TFT) TFT-style rules

["Kirk Woller" <kwoller@satx.rr.com>]

Thanks for your welcome!  Since 1977 I have had a real fondness for The
Fantasy Trip.  I had tried once or twice D&D in 1975, and Traveller, and
Gamma World and though interesting, the tactical combat aspect and character
development really lacked the elegance of TFT.  And to address someone's
comment about the "map" nature of TFT, I definitely think this is a major
strength of the system beyond any other FRP style system.

So, to business, and I apologize for the upcoming long post.

Everyone knows about the bankruptcy of Metagaming and Steve J. going off to
form his own successful company in the early 1980s.  When I graduated from
college and was trying to decide if it made sense to try and make a living
playing and designing games I went to the mountain, so to speak, and got a
job at SJG, since I had just graduated from UT Austin and lived in the same
town and thought, what better time than now? The experience taught me that
making money in gaming is very tough, that usually, it seems, only one head
honcho can set the pace (collaborative design and decision-making in the
craft of game design seems very problematic, but possible), and that the
playtesting I did during the development of Steve's TFT replacement had some
good ideas (I liked the defensive roll that made your skill important in
dodging blows).  It also taught me that everyone would key on Steve in any
game played just to make sure he didn't win, poor guy! :-)

The eventual GURPS was just too detailed (I want to armor my ring finger
only) and I really disliked the round robin "you move and hit me, then he
moves and hits me, then she moves and hits me, then I get to go but OH NO I
am dead now" form of combat really turned me and the large group of players
I played with OFF. Even though there were no new microquests coming out, we
preferred rehashing old adventures in TFT and coming up with the time to
design our own over playing GURPS mostly because of the overdetail and the
uncomfortable combat system.

Why did Steve design GURPS?  He lost the rights to his genius game design
and though he had in it him to design a "better" game and one that would
allow all types of plug in modules for future sales (space, western,
whatever).  But it seems I am not alone in my love of TFT and dislike for
AD&D, GURPS, and other systems that just aren't clean gaming systems, IMO,
and don't have the proper tactical "feel" that TFT has.

So why this little diatribe?  Someone had mentioned a "TFT II"!!!  When I
started with George helping him to get the company moving toward
understanding how to possibly publish new microquests we had to overcome
several obstacles.  How to find affordable artwork and artists, how to make
people aware of what we were doing as cheaply as possible, determining if
there was a market for this out-of-print game system, how to get into game
stores, format of the adventures, printing maps, and the list goes on.  We
were able to work through almost all of these issues to get some first
modules out.  The company strives to break even, and all of our work is a
labor of love for these games.  George has done a great job in making this a
reality and he should be thanked for it.

One point we don't totally agree on, though, is how close we could exhibit
to the original TFT rules.  Outright publication, even though DCG *owns* the
trademark "The Fantasy Trip" and so would even prevent the current owner of
the rights (some bank, I imagine) to print the booklets again (IMO), was
probably out.  Some people had made the original rules downloadable from
sites, and so we thought that might be good enough.  We talked about a link
to these downloadables from DCG, but decided against it just to make sure we
were separate from any possible "cease and desist" orders that might come
down from someone, rare as I think that is.  And George prefers the round
robin GURPS style action sequence rather than the TFT move/combat which I
prefer, and so the resulting TFT-lite inspired Legends rules resulted, not
to my total satisfaction.  And though they are a good basic introduction to
the uninitiated they are not TFT.  A mini-campaign module of my design still
sits in production and may stay there because of the mismatch between TFT
references and Legends references, and the resulting difficulties in play
balance due to the differences in the two systems (I wrote Final Orders of
the King to mesh with TFT basics, not Legends).

What I would like to do is rewrite the all of the TFT fundamentals to avoid
any copyright problems, but stay true to the heart and soul of what, IMO,
makes TFT great, and that is its character creation and tactical combat
system, which is not preserved in Legends.  For older and experienced
players that can dust off their own games to introduce to friends and family
of the next generation that might work fine, but for those dependent on what
DCG provides, i.e. the Legends basics rules, I think they will miss the
opportunity to play TFT as it was intended, though some may find the Legends
rules sufficient unto themselves.  And I spent two hours recently looking
for a link to the TFT rules and *COULD NOT FIND AN ACTIVE LINK" anywhere,
meaning that TFT is fundamentally unavailable to anyone even if they know
what to look for.  I would even consider allowing downloadables of this
rewrite for cheap just to make sure players have the option to use the TFT
system with new microquests or adventures people might develop on their own.

So my question to the group is, what do you think about a "rewrite" of the
TFT rules, in effect bringing them into the 21st century under another
copyright?  Saying the same things in essence, but in other literal words,
to preserve this game system for future generations before it is lost
completely.  How many of you love the way TFT works versus other FRP game
systems and this is what keeps you playing it?  Would the brainiac site, for
instance, host a link to this rewrite of TFT if it were available and if DCG
would not?

I truly would like some input on this from the list as George and I have
struggled on this issue for quite some time, and perhaps hearing from a
segment of the game playing "public" might help us decide which way to go on
this.

Oh, another "thread" that I will just throw in here.  I am looking over the
cybergame boxes and obviously need to spend a lot of time figuring out how
to use them, but can anyone tell me if the software allows "real time"
combats or is it just a way to record a set of moves to email to someone
else to reproduce and follow on their own?  How do you use it for TFT
tactical combat, in other words?

Thanks,

-Kirk
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