[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: (TFT) TFT Industrial Revolution
I think my goal is being misunderstood here...
I know that gunpowder can cause explosions when it comes into contact
with fireballs, this should be obvious. I also realize that guns
coexisted for some time in the late middle ages and early renaissance
of Europe, for example. This is well within the realm of fantasy,
though: I'm not looking for 'more guns,' I'm looking for "wouldn't
this be cool if some half elf cowboys wearing chainmail rode in,
revolvers blazing, as the half orcs charged the bank with axes?" I'm
looking for mid to late 1800s and steampunk elements being mixed in
with medieval weapons, thief style gadgets (which really defy genres),
and TFT's magic.
I actually did a few test games with some characters that i quickly
made, a mix of straight up technologists, more traditional fighters,
wizards of several sorts, and some thieves, as well as some people who
tried to mix these things. I ended up with the following results:
Traditional fighters (with bows and swords!) almost always beat
technologists in a head to head battle, though they would be HEAVILY
battered by that initial musket blast or shotgun.....
Wizards depend entirely on how they use their spells and what spells
they have- wizards with spells like Shadow, summoning creatures, etc.
Sometimes would be knocked out by powerful attacks early on (like from
a musket...) although said weapons are inaccurate enough that it
didn't kill a very high percentage of the time, allowing the wizard to
start doing stuff.
Thieves kinda destroyed everyone overall. Because I had them using
something along the lines of a middle ground tech/magic/medieval base,
they had the advantages of the bow (quick, accurate fire), stealth
(obviously), health potions and other magical devices, as well as tech
devices such as flash bombs that allowed them to avoid deadly arrows,
bullets, and spells by blinding their opponents. However, when they
DID get hit by any of the other groups, they were screwed. However, if
they could avoid the enemies strong point (shoot with bow if enemy
uses a sword, attack with rapier if the enemy has a gun or bow), they
usually won. However, I was kinda biased towards the thieves- they got
special combats that allowed them to use their stealth powers. In a
head to head fight they have a much lower chance of winning. Still,
the point stands.... the stealthy guy with a rapier and bow is just as
useful against a wizard, a barbarian, a bow and arrows guardsman, or a
shotgun wielding soldier, as long as he uses his powers.
Technologists were VERY mixed. I started with a lower tech version of
the technologist, using weapons like Musket, Blunderbuss, and
Flintlock Pistol in combination with rapiers and light armor (enough
DX penalties come from/ money goes into the guns, thanks). They were
repeatedly destroyed, one on one, by every other group, just because
they were just so slow to load. The damage is high, but with a
starting character hitting isn't that likely and the damage isn't
often enough to actually kill a man wearing a reasonable amount of
armor. The Blunderbuss in particular is a weapon that really fits the
feel of the era of Muskets and Bayonets- it does a bit of damage
rather quickly to a large group of opponents, but then you got to
charge and finish them with a sword. Muskets were more or less useless
due to how hard it was to hit (relatively speaking). The added
readying time meant the other guy could often get a shot off first or
get close enough without needing to worry about dodging even that you
were quickly dead.
Then I tried upping the scale a little, to 5 on 5 battles using
technologists vs the other various groups. I found that technologists
won more often this way, although not one hundred percent of the time.
Benjamin Franklin famously thought we should equip our troops with
pikes and bows- they were actually more effective weapons in the late
1700s, but the key to muskets was that a large number of them given to
troops who needed far less training to use them would be more
effective than training from an early age to use a longbow for a
relatively small number of soldiers. This kinda showed- archers
frequently won against technologists, especially when archers had
Missile Weapons. However, the technologists would often weaken a
charge enough with their combined firepower that melee enemies were
easy pickings. In either case, these earlier gunpowder weapons felt
well balanced with swords, arrows, armor and wizards.
Deciding to up the tech level to Revolvers, Rifles, Shotguns, and even
a Repeating Rifle or two changed things quite a bit. Suddenly
individual starting guys could shoot 2d6 damage once a turn with only
one hand, and faster if they felt the need to miss with the -2dx
penalty to shooting twice in a turn. Revolvers really changed things a
lot. They are better than crossbows (not at a long range, but still).
They do enough damage to kill, knock out, or knock over an unarmored,
average man almost 50% of the time. If found that adding some armor to
their opponents did even things up a bit, as did shooting from a
farther distance (5 megahexes is -2dx for a bow, but -3dx for a
revolver.... a significant difference). In addition, thieves using
bows (silent) still could make short work of revolver packing gunmen.
Charging was near suicide though. Dodging did help things, as did
armor, but things just felt a little bit biased towards the
gunslinger. As for Riflemen, they had the same flaws a a musketman-
slow rate of fire. Their advantage was that they were a little more
accurate. This did mean they had a slightly higher chance of killing
outright, but they were still slow and could often be out attacked by
a single soldier wtih a sword, mace, magic fist, or bow. However, the
higher accuracy (and cheaper ammo) does mean it easily outfights
muskets. Repeating rifles weren't even funny. Strongly armored
opponents could often survive a bit, but the repeating rifles were
really very powerful. Rightfully so, I suppose. I'm thinking I will
reduce accuracy of this gun to make the Rifle have an advantage over
it (currently its just a super fast and SLIGHTLY weaker rifle) and
possibly even reduce its damage to 2+1, though. Shotguns were super
destructy and full of doom for all opponents. I'm basically thinking
that it shouldn't be any more powerful than a blunderbuss, and should
just have a quicker reload and cheaper ammo, which would balance it a
bit. Again, in groups these guys dominated, although despite my
reports of the later guns being so powerful it was rarely a total
massacre, and it was hardly that high of a win rate.
People trying to go the middle ground failed for the following
reasons: disadvantages to magic when carrying metal, lack of points to
buy spells AND talents, etc. However, people who ignored magic and
instead used a mix of guns and swords and armor were the best in some
ways... on one hand, they were less accurate with their guns. However,
they took less damage, and real swords are much better than the
knives and rapiers I gave technologists.
I'm thinking of changing the Wizard rules so that Wizards don't get
-4dx with metal, they get -4dx with technology being on their person
OR if it dominates their surroundings (in a factory, for example). I'm
thinking the same is true for technology, -4dx if holding something
magic (or a spell is cast on them that does not have any other
negative effects) or if their surroundings are dominated by magic
(perhaps even within 2 megahexes of a powerful wizard). This allows
wizards to wear armor and use swords, but this is nice because it
makes them a little less screwed against most everyone else (i mean,
they already payed for the talent, let them use the weapon).
I'm not entirely sure what to make of my results. I think that some of
what I've done has worked quite well, while other bits are going too
far in one direction or another. It is possible that I should just
reduce the damage of all guns by a bit, although then they would
really suck compared to Bows, so its all rather complicated.
On Jul 1, 2010, at 6:17 PM, raito@raito.com wrote:
Under certain circumstances, firearms are more capable than bows.
Part of those circumstances involve ready access to ammunition.
Bows are more capable, overall, than firearms when the industrial
base is low. All you really need to make a bow is a knife, and the
right types of plants in the area. This will allow you to make a
crude bow effective enough to bring down a small mammal and a bird
or two. Now you've made a technological leap to gut strings and
feathered arrows. Even better if you have some flax-like plants
around for strings. Under such circumstances, nearly everyone can
have a bow.
Forearms are more capable, overall, than bows when the industrial
base is high. Guns can be manufactured en mass, as well as
ammunition. Because, after all, a gun without bullets isn't even
that good a club. But under such circumstances, nearly everyone can
have a gun.
But as soon as everyone can have a gun, nearly everyone forgets how
to make bows.
The same applies to magic. The sorts of things that are more capable
when the base of magic is low is very differentr than when the base
is high. I think that we tend to industrializew magic because we are
products of the industrial revolution, and so we naturally try to
bring economies of scale to any endeavor.
I recall an old Shadowrun discussion that pretty much proved that
their character generation system was crap, especially for
charactersa who were former corporate employees. They wouldn't have
been taought a large number of skills, but been insanely proficient
in eactly the one skill they were paid for, since the training came
from the corporation.
This sort of thing in the milieu can have a very large effect on a
campaign.
In my campaign, magic has been extremely industrialized, but the
industrialization has been kept out of the public eye. It's hard for
someone between 20 and 80 to outwit a cabal of people who have been
alive for centuries (potion of youth anyone?). It's a shame no once
ever actually figured out that there was more to the Thorsz than met
the eye. I really wanted the players to try to fgure out how to take
on the magical-industrial complex. It certainly could have been
done, but probably more through politics and the masses instead of a
strong sword arm. One lesson I really wanted the players to learn
was that temporal power is a much bigger multiplier than personal
power. Your 20 DX doesn't matter when the other guy can send a
hundred guys after you, or a single good lawyer.
Anyway...
So in order to balance forearms and bows, regular TFT seems to take
the stance that the industrial base is low enough that the power of
a firearm is offset by its unreliability, high cost, and rarity of
skill and weapon, while the bows weakness is offset by its
reliability, low cost, and availability of weapon and cost.
If you want to see a time and place where archery and gunnery were
approximately equal, look to the mid Sengoku in Japan. You had untis
of archers, but also units of matchlock-bearing troops. The balance
was that the gunners could get minimal training quickly, but the
volley was required to get effect. The archers took more training,
but each man was more effective.
Neil Gilmore
raito@raito.com
=====
Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com.
Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message body
"unsubscribe tft"
=====
Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com.
Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message body
"unsubscribe tft"