Quoting 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.
Actually, I fnd it tenable. But it leads to a very different sort of game than I prefer to run. It leads to that more heroic game. Most everyone are sheep, and the adventurer's are the wolves. When everyone else gets that -4 DX for being normal, any player character looks pretty good. And don't forget, just because a character doesn't have a Talent doesn't mean that they can't make the attempt, in most cases. Or, as you say, perform by rote. Not having a Talent is not the same as being stupid. Take your farming example. In your world, a farmer performing by rote isn't going to screw up making a hole and planting a seed. But he's not going to get a top yield like the guy who has the Talent. In my world, it's kinds the same, except that the guy with the Talent isn't going to revolutionize that village. That's because part of the Talent is judgement, and without the Talent taking up your IQ, you don't have the judgement. For example, old farmers in this world start getting pretty prickly about this time of year. That's because they're using their Talent to figure out the absolute best time to plow and plant. Unless it's completely written out (and the peasant is literate), he's not going to be able to use his judgement, even if he's been told the indicators. He's just not good enough. Now, if the guy with the Talent says, "Today's the day." then the peasant will get a better yield. But he's not going to get there on his own.
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"