RE: (TFT) Wizard mods - out of balance?

[David Michael Grouchy II <david_michael_grouchy_ii@hotmail.com>]

> From: pvk@oz.net
>
> So really it seems to me that you are focusing play on remarkable talents,
and just not concerning yourself much with who has what mundane talents or
not, yes?


Yeiks.
When you put it that way, yes the position is completely untenable.
In the course of my campaigns the question has never come up.
Please bear with me while I too discover what I'm doing in answering.


Gritty realism comes to mind.
Morale checks, people who flee when even slightly cut, Nervous and sweaty
farmers impressed into duty and given spears.
How many of them even try to attack during combat.
How many people can fight all the way down to two strength and never falter.

In the Samurai culture to do this made one a respected and legendary figure
even amoung the other Samurai.  They are considered a true samurai.  Truly one
with the way of the sword.

I guess I treat the vast majority of people as "studying" a talent, or two.
But they dont' actually have it.  Not in the full Taoist sense.

They play at it, they take it serously, they aspire to it, but in reality the
best that can be said in TFT terms is that they are studying it.  They never
actually Take the talent.  There is always an excuse.  Something more
important to do, some new crisis that has to be solved first, some disaster
that must be solved.  In other words, life, or their own mortality gets in the
way.

To encounter someone who actually has the "Sword" Talent, odds are they would
be into, or doing, something else.  They already have sword.  Now they are
studying Tactics, or Armorer.


As to how I play this out with mechanics I don't.
I roleplay their sense of their own reality and show personality.
Sometimes they players laugh, sometimes they feel sad, but mostly they are
dealing with the emotionality of those they encounter.

If a farmer who has never picked up a sword actually decides to attack, and
their story is one such that they wont flench, or blink, or doubt,
then I let then roll 3D vs DX just like anyone else.

Jay can tell you about the old woman in Berkely who almost killed his time
traveler.

In China there are random stories of the ocasional farmer who waxed a mighty
warrior like nothing.

David Michael Grouchy II
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