Re: (TFT) Intentions

[Joe Hartley <jh@brainiac.com>]

On Fri, 11 Jan 2008 04:44:45 +0800
"Jay Carlisle" <selfinflicted_wounds@boardermail.com> wrote:
> If someone want's me to play a "programed" adventure, why would I need a GM? 
> Just hand me the adventure.

This is the one nugget in the post I want to respond to.  There are a few 
different ways to approach TFT (and RPGs in general) and this question gets 
to the crux of the biscuit.

There have been very few times over the decades when I've been able to find
a gaming group.  There was a nice little core in HS that I played TFT with.
We started with some of the MicroQuests and moved on to Tollenkar's Lair before 
one of the group decided he wanted to try his hand as god and write his own
adventure.

We had a good time learning TFT from the MQs and TL, but had the best time when
Dave turned out to be very imaginitave as a GM.  He learned a lot from the canned
adventures, both what worked and what didn't.

After college, gamers were hard for me to find, and what little gaming I did 
came in the form of solitaire playing through the MQs we hadn't done, and replaying
ones I recall being pretty good.

When the internet rolled around and I started this list, I had the opportunity to
play Grail Quest online, which ended up being one of the most satisfying games I'd
ever played.  I GM'ed it, and added enough to it to keep the other player on his
toes.  Some of that was planned by me, but some of it came about because of interesting
decisions on the other player's part.  I could have just stuck to the script and not
allowed the action chosen somehow but the game ended up being much better because I'd
learned some flexibility.  (I'm pretty sure I still have the CyberBoard files from
this game - I should run through them and see if it holds up to my memories.)

That said, I have made some feeble attempts at developing my own adventures, but have
always been so dissatisfied with the results nothing ever came of them.

So I think there's room for everything here - preprogrammed adventures for some
solitaire gaming, adventures like Tollenkar which are more of a framework than a 
step-by-step dungeon crawl, and adventures sprung whole from the GMs imagination.
That's exactly the kind of flexibility that's made TFT unique to me.

-- 
======================================================================
       Joe Hartley - UNIX/network Consultant - jh@brainiac.com
Without deviation from the norm, "progress" is not possible. - FZappa
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