(TFT) More on TFT Weaknesses (or Strengths, as I like to call them)

["John J Hyland" <johnnyboytmm@juno.com>]

---------rsmith@lightspeed.ca writes:------------------------------------
> As for weaknesses in TFT I would say these are
> my top candidates.
>
> - Not enough fST (fatigue strength).
> - Not enough memory for spells and talents.
> - HTH could use polishing.
> - Many people are bothered by lack of healing magic.
> - "Industrial Disease" on magic system. (Magic & magic
> items are too predictable. Too technology like.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------
Like most weaknesses, or features, of a game, it depends alot on personal
preference, and the type of game you run and play. For the first two, the "not
enough" weaknesses, and Erol's related not enough Hit Points, it has alot to
do with the style of play and preference.
If you want to play, "Ordinary people doing extraordinary things" then TFT is
a really good fit. Heroes have a couple of skills that set them apart from
farmers, but not all that many. And the IQ limit on skills and spells has the
play balance effect of encouraging less overlap in the party. The thing is, an
ordinary man with a shortsword and shield is threatened by 5 farmers with
baseball bats an pitchforks. If you want to have Conan the barbarian wade
through vast armies of less skilled and buffed warriors, TFT is probably too
deadly, unless your barbarian is a 60 point character with great equipment,
and he fights dramatically less powerful foes. Which can be fun, don't get me
wrong - but TFT may not be the best system for it. Similarly, for fST, a
wizard who knows a few useful spells, and can cast them a couple times a day
to help the party along, is the sweet spot for TFT. Wizard as battlefield
artillery is more a D&D strong suit. Different strokes for different folks,
and all.
All that having been said, TFT is simple enough to tweak without breaking it.
So the house rules discussed around INT for skills and spells, and fST for
spell casting are easy enough to implement to get a different feel to the
game. Now, I generally play TFT almost as written, right out of the box, as a
low magic, low money, low powered fantasy, which is, IMO, something it does
really well.

HTH - I think Erol has the right of it. It is a potentially very powerful
(possibly unbalancingly so) combat tactic - with the balance, such as it is,
being the restrictions on entry, and the roll to enter. I think that this was
an intentional design choice. I avoided using HTH for decades, and only
started using it recently asa result of DMG's description of TFT in the
"Uncle" adventure. That was what made the rules sensible to me, and the
potentially powerful tactical effects clear as well (though as I recall DMG
may have house ruled them a little bit, but it was still illustrative enough
to enlighten me) now the TFT HTH rules as written have been used in my game,
and it has worked out fine. ( I should point out that I never banned them or
anything, I just never had NPCs enter HTH, and the PCs never chose to either.
Now it is one more tactical option in a fast simple combat system full of
them.
HEALING - This is a topic of great (and pretty entertaining) debate on this
list. Well worth scanning the archives for this one (as well as weapon and
armor quality, IMO, though both occasionally get a little heated as we list
members type faster than we think sometimes). But again, I see it as a
preference thing. There is very little healing in my games, since I play TFT
almost as written, though extra strength healing potions are rumored to exist,
and I added rules for convalescence doubling the natural rate of healing, just
to shorten the killing time recovering phase of the game, and make real
resting under the care of a physicker have a benefit. Also I use a
modification of Tys Death and Dying rules, so you can be revived from 0hp by
a fast acting physicker (it has come up twice in my game) so even I tend to
think TFT might be a little deadly. I may some day adopt a simple rule to
widen the gap between knocked out and dead, unconscious at 1, dead at -5, and
be done with it, who knows.
Industrial magic - I am with Neil here It's how the campaign runs that
determines this. Yes the magic system is well defined so you can calculate
all sorts of stuff and extrapolate the trade benefits of a network of gates,
and the potential for a mad king to use youth potions to rule forever, or you
can just leave all that alone and decide how things are in order to run the
game you and your friends want to play. If everyone wants to play the game
that way, it should not really matter. I dont think this phenomenon is really
limited to TFT either. If magic is somewhat reliable, it can be
industrialized, if it is not, playing a wizard will be very different.

So, for anyone who is still reading, How does it all come together in MY
games? Naturally it varies by game. But using the last two campaigns, a weekly
2 yr affair in late 80s when we were all just finishing or finished with
school, and my current 4 yr game where we can just about get together 4 or 5
times a year, Ive had bits of all the above features/bugs in the game show
up.
fST for spells. I use as written, and fatigue uses ST and makes you easier to
kill. So it is a good idea to use those spells wisely. In my old game the
wizard often cast artillery combat spells (fireball, fist, etc) at the start
of combat until he cast himself into unconsciousness. If he woke up, he
figured his team won, if not, at least hed die in his sleep. In the current
game the wizards summon the occasional bear, cast illusions, add a well placed
trail twister, or a timely blur that can make all the difference, or even
enter melee with staffs a clacking. Also a mend or two between fights is
rarely unappreciated.
INT slots for skills and spell, I just use right out of the book, so the
players all pick the ones they want, and learn to live without the others.
Sometimes (old game) they coordinate among themselves to take a good mix
across characters, sometimes (this game) 3 heros have alertness and 2 have
acute hearing. In the current game I have 2 wizards, with different
specialties (chosen independently), and one started with a few unspent IQ
points to save up for better spells later, She also started the game with
cloth armor and was often seen in melee swinging that staff of hers (or just
engaging an opponent and defending when an opponent needed to be engaged),
then she got to ;earn the spells she wanted when she got the needed IQ
minimum. Interesting choice I thought.
Hit Points, heroism and healing - Old game right out of book, dead at 0, no
way back, thanks for playing. 32 pts to start, pick your fights carefully,
eventually the party reached about 50 pt characters, with only one replacement
character, and one major henchman NPC death. New game, the slight
modifications (convalescence and fast acting revival chance) described above,
32 pts to start, at around 38-39 now. 2 such revivals. In both cases people
rarely willingly fight to the death, terms of surrender are often offered and
accepted by intelligent foes.
INDUSTRIAL MAGIC - Has never been a problem (as mentioned, I think it is a
game style thing) though it has come up. Old game there was a family of
wizards, one maried an armorer, and they all settled down and made a nice
living enchanting plus 1 swords and sheilds for the local constabulary and
militia, and selling more enchanted weapons on a contract basis to those with
enough means. Also the party wizard spent a couple of days casting 1 hex walls
to encircle a mining camp that needed a little protection.
New game, the dwarves use light enchanted items as fuel and smoke free
street lamps in their mountain, and the guys have used move earth and Earth
to stone (new spells off the list) to excavate a foundation or two. Plus Ill
use a little magic when I detail the fish sticks of fury dwarvish enclave. So
industrial magic exists in small doses, but has yet to be a problem, in large
part because neither I nor my players have made it one.
Well that is probably more than enough rambling for one (or maybe 2 or 3)
e-mail.
John
=====
Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com.
Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message body
"unsubscribe tft"