RE: (TFT) Is it an RPG or really a Tactical RPG? - Rick Weighs in.

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

> Boy, isn't that the truth, I keep dying in the solos!
> 

Ahhhh, what is a RPG?

Style?

That's a pretty good answer...

Of course each GM is unique (assuming I admit you people exisist independantly of my head, something of which I can't say to have much in the way of proof), but Rick is hiting closer to home with the observation about combat.
>From the way the numbers line up with existing referance materal from the era I strongly feel that Mr. Jackson was shooting for a simple model of REAL combat.
If you want a combat that has a ton of blows (i.e. fencing) then either the weapons should be light (rapier) or the focus of the timescale can be focused more narrowly than the 5 second turn.
Or both.
What I mean by this is that the Rules strongly affect the style.
A bad but obvious example is movies.
The actual product or film is the Style but the Rules are the actual cameras and equipment.
How I use the equipment is my Style, but creating a new camera is not making a movie.

Game Rules are Roberts Rules of Order for Roleplaying.
(see how SJ uses a critter as a Sergent at Arms on an unruly party in the AM combat example)

The Rules mean we're all playing the same game.
This is pretty important because ultimatly, an RPG system is a meta-game or Set, the members of which are all Games.

I can have poker night by the simple expediant of having the players figures gambel at the local Tavern that session.
The Timeline only move forward one night, and the players spent the session playing a game inside the Game.
Etc.

I'm strongly of the opinion that if the combat system is deadly, you gotta give the players more options to "power" (whatever THAT is).
i.e. a Figure that becomes mega-wealthy should at some point, be able to buy power.

Ultimatly these things are about entertainment.
Where these forms excel is in the "hands on" feel of the world your exploring.
In a film you can only go where someone else takes you.
In a good Campaign you can "go where you wanna goto, do what it is ya wanna do".

What's the term they use?
"Suspend disbelief"?

Call it hubris,
Call it $#!^,
Whatever it is I'm full of it!

Jay

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