Re: (TFT) High Level Play ... and "House Rules"

["Jay Carlisle" <Jay_Carlisle@charter.net>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Tapley"
Subject: Re: (TFT) High Level Play ... and "House Rules"


> Flexible means both,
>
> 1) scales nicely to the size of the party, by referee fiat
> on-the-spot if necessary, *and*
> 2) can be met by any of several techniques (magic-heavy party, sneaky
> party, brute-force fighter party .... ) and the party can choose
> which technique to apply.
>
> That second measure of "flexibility" is what's crucial in
> satisfying the "locus of control" criterion Jay referred to, and
> getting that right (neither too scripted nor too open) is an
> important part of the art of entertaining the players, in my opinion.


Hi Mark!
uhhh.... here is a quote from me.

"Owing to a need to attempt to "simplify" some of the "downtime" stuff for 
example and explanation purposes I've switched effort towards a "sample 
game-environment" from the Goblin port to a slightly smaller island.
I'm gonna use Easter Island as a "starter model"."

and this;

"Wikipedia says; "The island is approx 24.6 km (15.3 mi) long by 12.3 km 
(7.6 mi) at its widest point - its overall shape has been described as a 
triangle. It has an area of 163.6 km2 (63 sq mi), and a maximum altitude of 
507 metres. There are three Rano (freshwater crater lakes), at Rano Kau, 
Rano Raraku and Rano Aroi, near the summit of Terevaka, but no permanent 
streams or rivers."
At this scale the island roughly fits in a 3-hex triangle on the map of 
Southern Elyntia where each hex is 12.5 kilometers sts.
Using my STR-hexes the island is 63 / 16 = ~3.9 STR-hexes in area.
At a total paper size (8x10) of ~35 by 50 hexes for the Elyntia map she's 
well over 150 hexes away from anything (3 pages n/s or 5 pages e/w), the 
closest being the Pitcairn Island group (4 islands totaling ~16 sq miles (1 
STR-hex) with a modern day population around 50).
This is an area less than one hundred million Melee hexes to describe and 
quite isolated as well.
A nice little nursery for examples I'd think.
The real-world history of the island is secondary to the idea that this is a 
sufficient area to support a population large enough, and rich enough in 
resources, to do work worthy of monumental status.
What the real-world history does is inform me about what "problem areas" 
there are that need to be addressed."


What I'm trying to do is set a "Sim-'community' thing" that can eat and work 
off this area and make monuments with its resources.
If you want to do Melee with the native Figures then you get clubs (ua), 
staves('ao), and spears on the weapon list.
Elseif the stuff (like sword metal) comes from someplace... and it's HARD to 
get it there.

The otherside of the "frame" might be stuff like time-limits or control 
issues like being an inferior officer in a military setup.
The townsfolk in Blazing Saddles had the time to replicate their town... but 
the whole concept broke down soon thereafter... cool for Mnoren but how many 
GM's are ready for the basics of a time-travel type campaign?
That's alot of bookkeeping, but a good GM is like Tom Sawyer talking their 
'players' into white-washing his campaigns facade...
Maybe we all get a "classic" outta it?
=====
Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com.
Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message body
"unsubscribe tft"