Re: (TFT) Re: Speed of New Horizons

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

Sorry guys!

I've been home for about two hours now and am TRYING to catch up with a slow machine, but my ride is here and I gotta show some hospitality just now so here's  what I wrote after getting cleaned up.
Sorry If I'm missing someones important comments just now, I'm not USUALLY this bussy.

So the weather has Jay stuck in town for another day.
We got the easy ones during today's rain.
If the stuff settles in like it's gonna, then it's just me for the deep stuff.

So the game stuff I'm packmuleing up the hills is concerned with mass combat CRT's and a chart of movement timings.

I have "notes" versions of both of these but their written in "old Jayish" and only a thirty third degree Jayite Sorcerer can decipher the stuff.
My CRT's are currently 6 printout pages that are covered with data like;
Results for 17 heroes, paired up for 100 bouts each
  Victs   %Vict   Hero#;stats and equipment
00000377, 23.5% 022 .....

and etc, etc, etc,

The last page seems to be Jay's attempts at applying these datum to a basic CRT for units.
Lot's of strange scribblings like apparent variation ~2.5% +/- so about 5%.
It looks like I've tried to add missile weapons and HTH to the stuff.
There's a lot of info on "mixing" different equipment types in the same unit.
Also stuff on formations advantages and disadvantages.
Military training is represented as Talents for the individual Figures and as Orders for the unit as a whole.


Movement timing addresses the 'Time Required (Actions)' section of the rules.
Ready, light and throw molotail takes 5 seconds, but it requires 10 seconds to remove a backpack?
Really?
That's a Rule?
We won't even mention what an SCA invention the idea of the modern backpack is right now.
So I've got info that does double duty.
It's the Army 6 - 12 conditioning project.
I've talked about this a little bit in a previous post, and SOMEONE (Jay has a mind like a steal sieve) had asked me the purpose of the thing.
I get 2 major benefits from this info.
The thirty six exercises are grouped according to age group and fitness level.
The Athletic Talent places a Figure in fitness group A.
Fitness levels B and C are for commoners, and Wizards who don't have the time for an exercise program.
I can divide total time given for a fitness level performing a certain exercise by the component movements of said exercise and get a rough idea of the time required for a fit character engaged in strenuous exercise to complete a given movement.
This gives MUCH clearer results than the 10 Actions timed on the GM Screen.
All that timing stuff also gives me a downtime figure for Figures possessing Talents like Athletics.
20 minuet warm-up (injury chance increases w/o), 12 minuets of strenuous exercise, and with proper cool down and transitions I figure it requires a minimum of 1 hour per day, 6 days a week to "keep in shape".
Figures unable to put in this time end up suffering "atrophy".
ST 10 ~ Joe Average
ST 20 ~ Profession Athletes
ST 30 ~ World Records
Maintaining ST 30 for a normal Human takes quite a bit of time...
Wizards study with IQ under similar time constraints.
So you've got Hero's and Wizard's...
< humms 'Hero's and Villain's' >

On the Giant thing.
A 12' tall Giant with human proportions is a three hex figure when considering hexes and reach.
This Figure still fits inside a baseball batters-box, but just barely.
This leaves me thinking that Giants bat like a cricket batsman.

Oh that wasn't the point was it?

Sorry.
As pointed out by Mark, the big bugaboo to my way of thinking is the mass to surface area problem.
We can eliminate the ratio altogether, but this is EXTREAMLY poor in MHO.
I consider such a move w/o physical explanation VERY bad form for creative artists such a ourselves.
It's poor art.
So how do I smart ass my way outta this?
Actually build them outta Davinci's bones?
I think better is to make their bones denser as well as thicker.
Of course this makes them harder to break...
Eye-yai-yai! I'm gonna have to open up the anatomy can-o-worms...
Further talk on this is "Monster Lab" stuff.
< humms the 'Monster Mash' >

What a GM allows...
What a GM allows...
Very interesting questions Mr. Eawn.

What a GM allows...

Okay, I'm interested in setting up fairly dynamic situations that allow the players to become involved in the "story" in ways OTHER than simply beating on things.

I don't believe a player should be told "you can't do that" by a GM.
By the simple expedient of tying the rules to common reference material as much as possible many player "distraction Actions" can be handled with a touch of objective grace, rather than a clumsy "No!" based on a GM's subjective "feelings" about the situation.
 I'll starve 'em to death if'n they're TOO stubborn about the issue, and I'll prove it out from the reference stuff.

If they are violating a cultural "Taboo" then I, as GM, speak to them in the person of their conscience reminding them that they've forgotten their muddy bellybutton so to speak.
At this point, the ownus is upon the player.
I have learned to expect a certain amount of "to heck with it" from players, ESPECIALLY ones who've yet to fall under my tutelage.
I make cities that work a little like "SimCity".
As a matter of fact, I put players out in the boonies sans any towns at all.
I've gotten this one too fly three times for about a year each.
I have other places, but nobody has gotten the "explorer" spirit other than to go trekking into "black" squares/hexes.
They stay there and start building.
Even the half-dozen or so attempts to fly her that didn't get a lot of history behind them had players hanging around "Happy Valley", later adjusted to "Silvertown" in Happy Valley.

When you let the players have a large level of control over an area, they develop they're own culture and, more importantly, they develop they're own methods for enforcing that culture.
Make the players build the Jail, then adjust to the various NPC's they'd care to "confine", cause they're FFH is opposed to the "powers that be".
Have Leo show up just before the order to "Charge" needs to be given to the troops so the "player" can take the city.
To "ignore" him is to delay construction on the Temple that will increase the peoples Happiness, especially during this time of war when the players dispatch of Units away from their families is creating Unhappiness.

MY job as a GM is to set up and run the Timeline for the Campaign, and interpret the Rules in an objective and unbiased fashion.
In groups that develop a strong "Role-playing" element to they're style of play (RPG group = irregular Unit), a GM is also responsible for bringing to life the major (and unexpected minor) NPC's.

It's the PLAYER, not the GM, that determines the speed of play.
Players interested in traditional "dungeon crawls" would SEEM to be spending more time in POV but I'm not so sure about this.
Mui Thai cats at the toughest only squeeze in about 20 "real" bouts per year.
Healing is a b!, especially when your @ ST 30ish and your bedridden for a month or two.

Large scale control of the Population is a question of functions like government, legal systems and economic control.
Government can be thought of as the "prevailing culture" of the time, with 'Culture' being loosely defined as a group of people with a common belief in a manner in which to live.
I use Civilization type mechanics to handle Populations.
The government type attempted to be inflicted upon the population gives the "Ruler/s" a level of "control" (large scale Actions) at the expense of a roughly equal level of unhappiness for the Population in general.
I use a Fortune, Fame, and Happiness thing here to make individual (random) NPCs a tad more "unique".
Rather than make a GM write out an index card for EVERY member of the total Population I've come up with factors that affect a "Population curve".
It's a Bell, (sorry Gavin) but it's a funny shaped Bell that gets "pinches" in times of natural disaster or war...

I REFUSE to give war without rules for the care and Feeding of the Population.
I've SO overdone war that I can pretty much use any wargame to model a specific conflict, and furthermore I can loosely define the "after-effects" over the course of the years.

Who wants Risk with each unit defined loosely using Mr. F's wonderful Melee sim?
I've drawn regions "production" using the World Book as a base.
HOPEFULLY folks will catch on to what I'm attempting and contribute.
My data SUCKS!
So do my math skills.
And I lack a lot of give a crud about stuff that's gone down since the turn 'o the century.
(This kind of attitude is my loss, but at SOME point I like to attempt to master a few things and Jay's a little slow.)

Also pay attention at this point to DMG's building program.
Uhhh, Grouch, is that still there?
I've only got 64 megs of physical memory on the 56-k-flex machine that'll do internet.
Jay ain't surfing just yet, but that'll change eventually.
If Job kicks it before the end of the Summer I'll probably suffer through learning a Mac.
Else if, I'll cry my way through Vista.
I swear to goodness I'm tempted to play with the fact that I'm SO behind the curve that the tech boys 'taint playing with my lot no more.
These ISP'ers 'taint even loosing my conn when I cut/"click" it on they're interface.
I'm still there, just w/o they're GUI...

SHUT UP Jay!
LOL
If'n I'z tryin fer badness, I shan't inform THIS lot!
Plus, you may not be as smart as you THINK...

Oh well...
< sings >
" Bottle of red...
A bottle of white...
It all depends upon you appetite..."

I gotta meet the guy's at 'Fullios'.
They hauled my fanny around in SUV's all day and are gonna buy me dinner?
After pouring a few beers down me throat?
I dressed up my boots; I oiled down my duster for...
Jay's gonna pull a night or two in the woods even if'n I'z gotta Bridger 'em, i.e. head off deeper into the bush once'en I'z done me bit.
I don't "totally" understand how "I" got into this..., it seems to me that ANYONE could GPS it..., although "I" know more about celestial navigation than the "captains" I've conversed with up this way.




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