(TFT) test plain text cut/paste

["maou_tsaou1@netzero.net" <maou_tsaou1@netzero.net>]

Okay, all the rules are available as a PDF @ Steve Jackson's game site.
So for a refresher...

ILLUMINATI

Alignment
There are ten possible political alignments. It is easier
for a Group to control or neutralize Groups with similar
alignments, and to destroy those of opposite alignments.
Some cards have one alignment, some have several, and a
few have none. Meanings of the alignments, for the purposes
of this game, are:

Government - An arm of the U.S. government; its opposite
is Communist.

Communist - Inspired by the Soviets or Chinese or
Albanians or somebody; its opposite is Government.

Liberal - Politically "left," whatever that means; its opposite
is Conservative.

Conservative - Usually mad at the Liberals; its opposite is
Liberal.

Peaceful - Philosophically opposed to the use of force; its
opposite is Violent.

Violent - Armed and/or dangerous; not necessarily vicious;
its opposite is Peaceful.

Straight - Socially middle-of-the-road; Middle American;
its opposite is Weird.

Weird - Peculiar, offbeat, notably different from the neighbors;
its opposite is Straight.

Criminal - Extorting money from citizens through force or
threat, and/or breaking the law professionally; there is
no opposite.

Fanatic - Adhering to a limited system of beliefs in defiance
of all others; any two Fanatic Groups are considered
"opposite" to each other.


ILLUMINATI RULES SUMMARY

ALIGNMENTS
Government is the opposite of Communist.
Liberal is the opposite of Conservative.
Peaceful is the opposite of Violent.
Straight is the opposite of Weird.
Criminal has no opposite alignment.
Fanatic - Any two Fanatic Groups are considered "opposite"
to each other.

SEQUENCE OF PLAY
Play goes counter-clockwise around the table.
1. Collect income on all cards that have an Income
number.
2. Draw a card. If it is a Special card, the player keeps
it. If the card is a Group, it is placed face-up in the
uncontrolled area.
3. Take two "actions." See list, below.
4. Take any "free actions." These do not count against
the two actions allowed during each turn. They may
be taken before, between, or after the two regular
actions. See below for list.
5. Transfer money. Part or all of any Group's money
may be moved to an adjacent Group. Two money
transfers are allowed per turn.
6. Take special-power actions.

ACTIONS
Regular Actions: Attack a Group (to control, neutralize, or
destroy); Transfer money; Move a Group; Give a Group
away.
Free Actions: Drop a Group; Give away money or Specials;
Use a Special (Exception: Bribery is a regular action.)
Passing: A player may choose not to take any actions of any
sort and collect 5MB instead.

ATTACKS
Attack to Control. Defending Group's Resistance is sub-tracted
from attacking Group's Power, including any
Transferable Power from other Groups aiding in the attack.
Only members of attacker's own Power Structure can aid the
attack.
Modify this number for attacker's or defender's special
powers, for money spent by both sides, and for other factors
shown below.
Using two dice, attacker must roll this number or less. A
roll of 11 or 12 is an automatic failure.
Same alignment (e.g., Weird vs. Weird) . . . . . . . . . . . . +4
Opposite alignment (e.g., Straight vs. Weird). . . . . . . . . -4
Each Megabuck (MB) spent by attacker . . . . . . . . . . . . +1
Each MB spent by defending Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -2
Each MB spent by defender's Illuminati . . . . . . . . . . . . -1
Each MB spent by other players to Interfere . . . . . . . . . -1
Each MB spent by other players to Assist. . . . . . . . . . . +1
Defending Group is controlled directly by Illuminati . . -10
Defending Group is 1 Group away from Illuminati . . . . -5
Defending Group is 2 Groups away from Illuminati . . . -2
Attack to Neutralize. As above, except that attacker
receives a +6 bonus.
Attack to Destroy. As above except:
1. Roll "Power minus Power," instead of "Power minus
Resistance."
2. +4 for opposite alignment; -4 for identical.
3. Attacking Group does not need an open control arrow.

BASIC GOALS
Groups to be controlled, including Illuminati
2 or 3 players (not recommended). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4 players. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5 players. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6 players . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
7 or 8 players (not recommended) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

SPECIAL GOALS
Bavarian Illuminati. Control Groups with a total power of
35 or more (including their own Power of 10).
Bermuda Triangle. Control at least one Group of each align-ment.
A Group with more than one alignment counts for
each of its alignments.
Discordian Society. Control 5 Weird Groups.
Gnomes of Zurich. Collect 150 megabucks (in the whole
Power Structure's treasuries).
The Network. Control Groups with a total Transferable
Power of 25 (including their own 7).
Servants of Cthulhu. Destroy eight Groups.
Society of Assassins. Control six Violent Groups.
UFOs. At the beginning of the game, after players choose
their Illuminati, the UFO player picks one of the seven
Special Goals listed above. He writes it down, keeping
it secret from the other players.



Okay, Take a look at my attempt to add "Power Structures" to TFT.

Government - An arm of the U.S. government; its opposite is Communist.

Nope. This needs to be defined more generally as the Power Structure in control of the Government, also called the Nomic "system", or Legal Code.
In a checks and balances form, where there are several branches of government, each branch or department is considered a separate Group.
In a democratic system, opposing political party's are considered opposites, and in general Government is its own opposite.


Communist - Inspired by the Soviets or Chinese or Albanians or somebody; its opposite is Government.

Communist is a form of government. It's opposite would be something like Capitalism.
Government subsumes this.


Liberal - Politically "left," whatever that means; its opposite is Conservative.

A Liberal Group works toward reform of the current "system" or controlling Power Structure.
The key idea here is that Liberal Groups work to change how things are currently run. 
Liberal Groups are the most likely to produce new Groups.


Conservative - Usually mad at the Liberals; its opposite is Liberal.

These Groups usually work to maintain the current Power Structure.
A Group is more likely to become Conservative the longer it is a part of a controlling Power Structure.


Peaceful - Philosophically opposed to the use of force; its opposite is Violent.

This is pretty straightforward.
Worth noting is that some level of subterfuge is required to employ a Peaceful Groups resources in an attack to destroy.


Violent - Armed and/or dangerous; not necessarily vicious; its opposite is Peaceful.

Remember, if they'll shoot then they're Violent. A "peacekeeping" force is Violent. So is a police department. 
These groups are used in attacks to destroy.


Straight - Socially middle-of-the-road; Middle American; its opposite is Weird.

The subtlety on this one is to remember your cliches. A Straight Group will exemplify the clichi. This is important to note from a culture shock standpoint, as two different cultures/governments can produce quite different examples of Straight.


Weird - Peculiar, offbeat, notably different from the neighbors; its opposite is Straight.

A Roll-playing Group is Weird. A Role-playing Group is weirder.
Weird differs from Liberal in purpose and from Fanatic by degree.


Criminal - Extorting money from citizens through force or threat, and/or breaking the law professionally; there is no opposite.

The problem with Criminal is that crime is determined via the "Legal Code" of the society. Owing to this, I give Criminal Groups an opposite of Lawful.
A Lawful Group restricts its activities within the Legal Codes of its culture, where a Criminal Group has no such compunctions, and actively flaunts the Code.
Criminal Groups often attempt to legitimize their activities via amendment of the Legal Code, i.e. NOMIC.


Fanatic - Adhering to a limited system of beliefs in defiance of all others; any two Fanatic Groups are considered  "opposite" to each other.

A caveat here is that any two Fanatic Groups with additional alignments, all of which match, are not considered to be opposites, however if they also share a Goal together the two Groups will conflict for members.
This is true for all Groups.


I also add Public/Secret as alignments.
A Criminal police force (Serpico) which purports to be Lawful must also carry Secret as an alignment.
Publicizing Secret activities is a method of attack.
A Secret Group is like a hidden file in windoe$ to most viewers of the Power Structure.



Groups
Groups are a segment of the population that has been joined together by a common Goal or interest.
All requirements, duties, Goals, etc. of a Group are written in its "Charter".
A Group's Charter is subject to change or manipulation from its leaders and/or voting members or the like.
This is the NOMIC thing I've babbled about.
Many Groups break down to Power Structures at smaller Scales with only the smallest Groups breaking down to individual Figures.
A party of adventures, a roll/role playing group, or a group of players that make up a unit of a football team (a compound Group with a Power Structure controlled by the "owner" and played at the 5 second Scale by the Coach via "play choice") are all examples of Groups that breakdown into the individual Figures that compose them.


Basic Goals are determined via the Groups Charter and it's Leaders.
Special Goals are determined by the controller of the overall Power Structure that controls the Group.
A Group that achieves its Goal/s is likely to disband i.e. Woman's Suffrage Groups are likely to cease after women are given the vote.
A Power Structure that achieves its Goal/s is likely to start a new "Age" on the Timeline.

A Group is controlled much like a Follower and its members can be divided into Units. 

Usually, the most dominant Power Structure at the start of a campaign is considered the government and is played by the GM.
In large, political campaigns, especially ones that start with "1st level characters", the GM can find oneself playing all the multiple factions solo for quite some time. 
That's why I've paid a considerable amount of attention to Downtime. I stuck with tradition and kept with a Traveler style "solo" feel, with considerable nods to Brian Reynolds and Sid Meier of the old MicroProse of yore.
Think Civ, Colonization, and/or Masters of Orion, but using TFT as the method of focus that divides the ultra-long turns. I call TFT's Scale "Detailed Melee" because, @ 5sec a turn, TFT is NOT detailed enough to reach POV, as (Joe) average human reaction time clocks in around 1/5th to about a quarter of a second.
(Point of view games are things like Quake, and yes most of this is my concepts of how to tie many games into one Meta-game. Ouch! My head hurts!)

Towns, Military forces, Guilds, and most Jobs can be considered as individual Groups.

Actual Illuminati are a hazier concept.
I define the term like this.
An Illuminati is a Group that has one or more Goals that involve the conversion, subjugation, coercion, control, or otherwise influencing humanity as a whole.
The easiest example here is religion, but science, economics, law, education, and many other concepts seek to address all of mankind.


Yes Virginia, a Player can try to start an Illuminati.
I've got some loose figures for the number of couples needed to sustain a viable population that apply to this point.

An Illuminati of one is the path of the great religious prophets, but also of the worlds great villains.
It's more often the path of madness. (see Jay)



Control, Neutralize, and Destroy
>From a roll/role-playing standpoint these attacks are not simple die rolls but can be considered scenarios in and of themselves, ripe for adventures.
A successful adventure can be considered to add a modifier to the attack roll at the Illuminati Scale.

Control
A Group's Leadership positions are given in it's Charter.
New Follower, kidnap family, or otherwise coerce enough of them to dictate the NOMIC vote and you have Control.

Neutralize
The easiest thing here is to give a Group its Goal.
When this is undesirable, a Groups Goals can be rendered untenable, such as making firearms illegal thereby Neutralizing the NRA.

Destroy
The night of the long knives.
It is possible to have a Group declared illegal without actually killing anyone but the threat is always there, so these actions are carried out by Violent Groups.



Groups, Units, and Scale
A Unit in this system is a subset of a Group but these terms are interchangeable depending on the Scale of focus.
At a Scale sufficient to show a feudal kingdom as a Power Structure, the kingdom itself is the Power Structure, and its Groups consist of its various counties as well as non-geographically tied groups like its religion and military.
At this Scale the Groups of a given counties Power Structure are considered to be Units.
A county has its various settlements as Groups, and each village, town, or city has its own Power Structure.

Income
The movement of "Mega-Bucks" on the Power Structure represents the "Economy".
A Group with a negative Income requires funding to remain active on a Power Structure.
A Group with a positive income must consider its alignments to determine its source.
Regional Atlas's list a regions production in the following categories.
Primary Income derives the "monetary value" of its Income from the extraction of the regions Natural Resources in a raw form.
This Income "appears" until the resources become exhausted.
Secondary Income is the refinement of raw Natural Resources into Goods.
"The Butcher, the Baker, and the Candlestick-maker."
Tertiary Income involves the actual sale of refined Goods, or the rendering of services.
Treasure hunting, aka dungeon crawling, is Tertiary Income and a big strike can REALLY mess up the regional Power Structure.
Tertiary Incomes are the most likely to become negative.
Competing Power Structures in a region move Mega-Bucks in a "black market" Economy.
Cooperative Power Structures (holy roman empire) Economies are counted as a GNP that is the sum of the shared percentages of the cooperative Incomes.

Government is the Power Structure that represents the Government as Chartered via the Campaigns Nomic system.

Civilian Groups are either Lawful, Neutral, or Criminal, according to its Charters recognition by the Government.
All Groups are either Government or Civilian, and several alignments are defined by the Government.

Liberal is the opposite of Conservative.
If a Group has a Goal that seeks to alter the Government it is likely to be defined as Liberal, while a Conservative Group will likely have a Goal in support of the Government, such as providing Income.
Criminal is the opposite of Lawful.
A Group must be actively violating the current Legal Code (i.e. Nomic) to be Criminal.
A Group that is willing to violate the Legal Code, but not doing so currently, is Neutral.
If the Legal Code provides, then a Group can be penalized for Criminal actions in its past.


The following alignments are not determined solely by the current governments stance on its Charter but can also be determined from within by its membership, Leadership, or similar factors.

Public is the opposite of Secret.

Peaceful is the opposite of Violent.

Straight is the opposite of Weird.

Fanatic - Any two Fanatic Groups are considered "opposite" to each other but any two Fanatic Groups with additional alignments, all of which match, are not considered to be opposites.




98 Cards in a basic deck of Illuminati.
15 special Cards (15.3%), and 83 Groups (just under 10.5 Groups per Illuminati if all eight are active) per deck, with 4 starting Groups (about 5% of the total Groups).




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