(TFT) Jay's a ramblin guy...

["Jay Carlisle" <Maou_Tsaou1@netzero.net>]

A box 9 and 3/4 inches by 6 and 1/2 inches by 9 and 3/4 inches fits an 
average sized human head.
I can also fit 18 smaller scale boxes 3.25" per side into a head box, each 
with a volume of about 34.3 cubic inches, or about two and a third cups.

A head shot in TFT is -6 DX but that's with the caveat that the enemey will 
instinctivly guard his head. Shield arm simarlly draws a -6 DX because of 
the shield, with the weapon arm drawing a -4 penalty.

Now I'm assuming that we're talking face on with this shot.
A headshot from a Figures side hex isn't looking at a face area of 2 by 3 
scale squares, but a side of the head area of 3 by 3 scale squares. That one 
third again more area may alone justify a -4 DX headshot from the side, and 
of course there's the issue about weather the target sees you.

The way I've built my flexable,visable, scale man he has arms encompassed by 
9 scale boxes, or 2/3rds of the volume of a head-box.
Arranged properly, these boxes present the same 3 by 3 square area as the 
side of a head (half the volume of the head-box).
Each 3.25" square is roughly a palm across.

A master of the bow in Japan during the Samauri period was able to hit a 
willow leaf between heartbeats from 100 paces.
On the fly I'll call a willow leaf 2 palms long (about 6 inches) by about a 
finger wide, or a quarter of a palm wide which is about half a palm in total 
area.
Assuming the master is aiming for the center of the leaf, the shot can stand 
to miss the center up or down by quite a bit more space than being off from 
side to side.

So here's my problem.
When looking at the body proportions of Joe Average I keep seeing areas that 
are relative to the head.
That's 3 squares by 3 squares.
But a Scale hex breaks the 16 squares of a square hex into 3.25" scale 
squares 4 x 4 in area.
This would allow me to draw a hit location in hexes (making misses easier to 
randomize w/d6's than the 8 squares srounding a target square) but puts a 
called shot on the vertice of the grid IMO.
Highly skilled Figures can still hit even though they failed their check 
slightly, but they don't hit where they wanted.
"Wing him in the shoulder!"
"Oops! I hit him in the head."

I generally figure out how often this might happen over a 5 second turn and 
adjust for TFT but sometimes this stuff can be important dramatically to a 
games feel to break it down to a smaller, quicker scale.

I write here because I use TFT as a base for everything and only tweek what 
I feel I have to to keep the scale stuff consistant.
I still think it's TFT for the most part, and I can tie TFT ST to Car Wars 
(and Ogre) engines which tells me how much encumberance a car can handel 
relative to a TFT Figure.
I also use Illuminati principals for handeling Units, so I figure that if 
I've tied up all of somebodys diffrent work into a single system then this 
is probably as good a place as any to talk about it.

Joe dosen't seem to mind anyway, and several of you guys have been quite 
complementary about my babble.
There is a method to my maddness, and I think I've got a pretty nifty 
"canned-adventure" group of adventures that tell a story with a war.
The diffrence between making an "adventure" work with Jay running it and 
reading it from print is eminence.
I may not be Conan physically but I can aparently be a charming asshole when 
I try.
I don't care how charming the a-hole was what wrote Death Test from a 
consumers pov... I just want the thing to entertain me.

Edgar Allen Poe felt that the time needed to read the "short story" should 
be roughly 90 minuets.
Movie production companies have found the same.
Mr. T recently reported a old-school marathon session.
I miss those, and I never got to measure this personally, but my general 
fealing is that 90 minunets is about right to get through a drama-point in 
an adventure.
Mark, does about 90 minuets twixt intenst action in the game sound about 
right for the game?
Potty breaks and whatnot? (I don't smoke in front of my non-smokers for 
example.)
This becomes interesting when you start trying to fit 100 years of detailed 
downtime into a 90min play session as opposed to a session of 5 second turns 
in 90 min.

Scale is both fun and descriptive.
Jay is both fun and insane.

The dude abides...

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