(TFT) TFT, numbers and crunchy bits. What a campaign says.

[Rick Smith <rsmith@lightspeed.ca>]

Hi David,
  Not sure if you are being serious, but the rules
in Thail were independently created by Dave Seagraves.
Actually, something like the superscript rules have
been invented by 4 people I know of, so I can't 
claim that they are wildly innovative.  They're a 
pretty obvious fix for something that a number of
people would like to tweak in TFT.

  I've read what you've written about Thief being
a full D&D character class and I half agree.  The
thing is that there are lots of talents for fighters
and not so many talents for Thieves.  

  If it takes 4 or 5 memory to learn all there is
to know about Thieving and 50 memory to learn all
there is to know about fighting, it is pretty 
obvious what the game system is oriented on.  This
bugged me and I added a bunch more talents for
Naturalists, and Thieves and Mechanicers, etc.

  Robin Law talks about game systems that give you
'crunchy bits', and some of the crunchy bits in TFT
are talents.  

  Some people like to play with TFT as written and
some people like to add to it.  I've got (totally 
unplaytested rules) for spells up to IQ 35.  I've
never had a PC or NPC take those spells, but I
like the fact that there is something better to 
aim for.

  All this is leading up to a gentle apology for
getting testy with you.  You had written about it
being so much better that people don't add more
attributes and numbers to define their characters.  

  I've added attributes, you bet.  In addition to
the superscript rules, I've added attributes like
Rvank (an attribute for demons only), Piety and 
others.  Some I've kept and others don't make it
into my next campaign.  Each changes the focus of 
the campaign and what it says in a small way.  
Those numbers are not meaningless, they are to 
make it easier for the game to express some -
thing different.

  I was irked enough by your diatribe on the right 
way to play TFT that I was tempted into pointing 
out the inconsistency with respect to your opinion 
on adding 'more numbers' and your adding a new 
attribute (psionic power) to the game even if it 
was kept a secret attribute.

  Anyway, no hard feelings I hope.

  Warm regards, Rick.
  

On Sun, 2011-20-03 at 17:39 -0500, David Michael Grouchy II wrote:
> Rick,
> just for the record,
> I love your superscript rules,
> and I had a real blast playing with them in
> Dave Seagraves PBEM campaign.
> 
> David Michael Grouchy II
> =====
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