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

[raito@raito.com]

We differ considerably in philosophy, so I'm going to only address 
specific parts of this. 

Quoting David Michael Grouchy II <david_michael_grouchy_ii@hotmail.com>:
> Just that I always felt that
> games that have to add in more mechanics and/or bigger numbers are condemning
> their original versions as guilty of incompleteness. 

Not conciously. It's more like there's a lot of munchkins out there. 
Why do you think that WoC made so much money from MtG? Mostly because 
the people who played it had the attitude that they could win every 
time if they just spent enough money. There's a lot of people who don't 
really roleplay as much as they play the numbers. And when you do that, 
you need bigger numbers to win. 

> In financial terms every game that adds new abilities and/or inflates it
> numbers (pretty much all of them) does nothing but dilute the value of the
> currency of their own first edition.  TFT being the gold standard has only
> appreciated in value and is still worth more than a 10kg stack of D&D books. 

I find that most of the D&D books past AD&D are useless to me. There's 
little in the sourcebooks that I can't find out on my own, and the new 
classes, spells, etc. don't excite me. 

For a good example of dilution, you have only to look at another game 
written by SJ -- Car Wars. Rather like TFT, the 'microgame' version was 
playable enough, and the first boxed set was enough to do some very 
decent campaigning. Even the first coupld Uncle Albert's were horrible. 
But as soon as gas engines and grenade launchers came in (and 
seriously, did anyone really think in their heasd that their CW cars 
were electric?), it was all over. I remember seeing the grenade 
launcher and prediciting that the next AADA champion would use them. He 
did. (really, when your shot has a 1 in 6 chance of ending the game, 
and you don't even have to aim...)

Even Cosmic Encounter and Talsiman got stupid. 

> answer many of my posts with "well you should try G.U.R.P.S. then."

That's hilarious, seeing as part of the reason GURPS is as broken as it 
is is because SJ had to step around the copyrights on stuff he'd 
already written. 

> You may be right.  I resist the idea that D&D defines TFT though.  I meant it
> more as an example that no matter what the game, or how big the 
> numbers, I can
> use existing TFT to interpret that new game.  I didn't mean to suggest that
> D&D sets the word values of TFT in stone.  On slowing down and looking at it
> again though.  I have to conceed your point.  That is what I wrote. 

Your explanation helps. And I really wasn't trying to imply that D&D 
did define TFT, as much as I was trying to encapsulate what I expect 
most people (me included) think of when someone says 'Thief' in a 
roleplay context. I could have chosen any number of systems in addition 
to TFT. I chose D&D because it seemed as though most of the readers of 
this list are familiar enough with it to understand the point I was 
making. 

Neil Gilmore
raito@raito.com
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