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Re: (TFT) Re: Detail levels



Okay let's see how this goes.

TFT lacks detail on Figures/monsters.

TFT ITL pg50:

Men - no info on size.
8,8,8+8

Orcs - "Orcs are very similar to men; just nastier". No info on size. A naked Pict, painted blue with his hair greased up in spikes is an Orc to a Roman in my gameworld. In other words, I see no no reason for Orcs. (Maybe a salve for sore psycies after a bloodbath? "They're not even human!")
8,8,8+8

Elves - "Of average height, but more slender than men." Same height, less weight.
6,10,8+8

Dwarves - "Dwarves average less than 5 feet tall, but are very stocky and strong." Yea for some data! sorta...
10,6,8+8

Goblins - "Goblins are small (averave 120cm) green-skinned humanoids, with long heads, poined ears, and long, tapering fingers." 120cm is 3 feet 11 1/4 inches and is the first hard data for any Figure we've gotten.
6,8,10+6

Hobgoblins - "These are big, stupid goblins." and, "Although bigger than goblins, they are smaller and weaker than most other races.
6,6,6+8

Halflings - "Halflings are small, peaceful, and usually potbellied."
4,12,8+6

Prootwaddles - "Prootwaddles can be recognized by their bizarre attire (which often includes strange slogans painted on their bodies) and their cry of "Proot! Proo-ooot!" as well as their small size and generally moronic attitude."
6,10,10(+6?, 4?)
{an aside here, I think smart Proot's move to the land of Giants and become plantation owners}

There's one other 'humanoid' type out there w/o a tail (or wings if your Gargoyles are tail-less; ITL dosen't say) but we'll save Giants till later.


So are all these humanoids actually similar in proportions, or are races like Elves and Humans homonid types while others like Orcs and Dwarves are more primate oriented?

Goblins spring to mind.
I'll leave LOR "is an Orc a Goblin?" outta this and goto an old fantasy flick called Ledgend.
"higher, higher.... Burning fire! Making music like a choir!"
Neet Goblin... but what about Terry Jones?
David Bowie is the Goblin King?
Did Willow ever mess with Goblins? I remember the Trolls on the drawbridge...

I wonder what AD&D said 'bout em... uhhhh... intresting, 4 foot tall and yellow to red in skin colour, with the chiefs being equal in size and stats to Orcs... let's see... 6'+ tall. (David Bowie IS the Goblin king!) Didn't Palladium have... Wait a second, I don't have to do all this as it's been done already.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goblins_in_modern_fiction

So if you've got a pack of goblins rideing wolves at me singing "fifteen birds in five fir trees" instead of a single green-skined fellow with long fingers chanting "May be innocent May be sweet... ain't half as nice as rotting meat" then I catch a bit of a mental image of what one of these guys looks like. If the wolf-riders are orange-skined and in a group of 40 to 400 then that's telling me a little more about them; like expect 5 or 6 big ones, or there's 9 more Goblins on foot for every Goblin on a wolf, and there's 10 to 40 more wolves with them that are riderless, and other stuff from the AD&D MM.

Building monsters outta "Legos" (3.25" blocks on 1/4 inch graph) is kinda fun and gets across a LOT of info w/o a ton of words and rulers/charts.

Looking for a graph-paper printable thing on the net I run across graphpaper.com
It's a site on interactive design.
Please see "Totaled Recall: How technology is ruining our brains"
Here's a taste.

"Outside of language itself, writing and drawing are humanity's most fundamental information technologies. These three technologies are the closest we have come (so far!) to perfecting "the human interface". In fact, speaking, writing, and drawing are such efficient interfaces to direct cognitive experience that they can, as Andy Clarke has argued, be considered cybernetic extensions of our minds."

You don't have to be an artist to draw out your monsters in blocks on graph-paper or build the shape with Legos (I use modeling clay stuck on legos for REALLY odd shapes)
You don't have to be a scientist to figure out the measurements either.
IMO this stuff "streamlines" role-playing rather than complicates it.
Anything that helps me "see" what someone else is "seeing" imaginativly by the expedient of drawing the outline on graph-paper is a boon in my book.
Elseif, the goblin in your head might not match the goblin in mine.

faculty.gvsu.edu/chaphalp/aseenc09/Worshop-Nano.pdf



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