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Re: (TFT) football and IQ

----- Original Message ----- From: "Joey Beutel" 
Subject: Re: (TFT) football and IQ



I'd disagree on the idea that one point of damage is too 'subjective.'



I hear you Sir and preach it to me!
I do not mean disrespect, rather I mean too celebrate difference of opinion.


First of all, it needs to be, by definition.
There is no such thing as
'objective' damage, because as has been pointed out, the same amount
of force applied in different ways results in very different amounts
of damage, let alone the countless variations in people, ways to
inflict force, where the force is inflicted, the psychological
aspects, etc. Its just not possible to be able to totally map things
out, so its better to be a bit subjective about it.



Case in point:
To a St:10 human, 12 points of damage is more than enough to kill you.
To a St: 60 dragon, its a bad cut, but nothing debilitating. If you
ignore the differences between the dragon and the human (and the
differences between where you cut, how you cut, etc) and assume that
those 12 points of damage are just the same amount of force being
applied, which it seems you have tried to do, you will be
disappointed, because thats NOT how it works in real life, and it
doesn't make the game any better. Or more objective.
Uhhhh, I've bothered to do some thumb-fingered considerations as to how my dragons breathe fire and what the anatonomy is like compaired to something that I can show data on like a cow. I understand that I'm not trying to be a scientist but I'm also trying to play a particapatory thing. 
Why ley players roll dice if they can't affect the outcome?
I don't care so much about how it works as shadows on the cave wall as long as my players feel they are being treated fairly. 


Secondly, the real issue is not over 1 pt of damage, its a much deeper
problem with 'what is 1pt' of ANYTHING in this game? How DO we plug in
the real world to the game? Simple enough, we find one 'constant' and
say 'that lines up with the real world in THIS way.' The closest thing
we have to that in TFT is "10 St, Dx, or IQ = average human." Even
then, its literally impossible to come to any real conclusions
involving units, measurements, etc. We dont' really know what ST is
measuring, exactly, its more of a 'feel'. it IS subjective, its meant
to be. Just like "strength" (in the sense of toughness, ability to
take damage, carry things, break things, wield weapons, etc) in the
real world is no one thing, but countless things, with many 'spare
tires.' one guy might be able to take more damage due to having so
much more mass that it just takes more 'oomph' to cause him
significant damage, while another person has such strong will that
they are able to take the damage but keep going. These are both ST in
TFT, but are totally different ideas in the real world.
Well my counterpoint to this is the person you speak of with the strong will sounds like a Wizard. 
Are you not forgetting how Talents can focus a stat to a specific effect?


So what CAN we get out of this is the following:
10pts of damage is enough to kill the average person.


Uhhh huh... and what kills an average person in real-world data?
10,000 degrees f should best be left to my opinion I guess.


The average person can carry a rapier or dagger, but not a shortsword,
and use it effectively in combat.
The amount of kg's an average person can carry (i'd need to look this
one up...)--> this is one of hte few that DOES scale, cause its in the
rule book. This is basically the only hope for success in ever finding
anything consistent about what ST means ,but even then its not enough
info to actually get any farther than  TFT already does by telling you
how much different STs can carry. And even then, its not really enough
info to account for all the real world reasons for this.
10 talent points worth of talents is the amount of talent your average
person has (this could be used to determine what a talent actually
means, but of course, with the idea of needing to actually train to
have a talent, this is skewed anyway.)

Etc.

Nothing else. And as can be seen, this in no way can be connected to
real world numbers, as the STARTING POINT is vague. So you CAN
subjectively make approximations, and a good GM will be able to synch
with the group's ideas on what makes a good approximation, but because
the starting point itself cannot be equated to real world numbers, you
can never get anywhere by expanding upon it.

Finally, even with the above numbers, it doesn't "scale" the way I
think you think it does. You tend to assume that 1 IQ is equal to 1/10
of 10 IQ. Not only is this ignoring the abstract nature of such things
in TFT, but the idea is completely disproven by the fact that 9DX does
not equal 9/10 of the chance of hitting compared to 10 DX. So,
basically, 1 point of ANYTHING (and this applies to damage too, by
extrapolating this idea, and taking the idea of being unconscious and
dead and the difference between 10 and 11 ST, for example) is
inherently subjective within TFT's system, changes depending on
context, and therefore cannot (lemme say it again CANNOT) be equated
to real world numbers in a way that actually works.



Wow, your as hard to read as I am.
The difference between 9 and 10 on 3d6 is 1/8th.
Bell curve.
1/8th is 12.5%
Of course pro's roll 10 dice and more for the really great moves...


In conclusion: your stuff on sociology and such is great, and can be
of great use in a campaign (though I think you should start just
applying it, for overthinking things can just make it more difficult
for no gain).
The physics and biology stuff is, frankly, useless, and it would be
more effective to just play TFT as an internally consistent game
(which it is) with the only connection to the real world being the
idea of the 'average' and the collective idea on what makes a good
'approximation' based on your and your players' minds.
So 1 point of ST is undefinable because it's too broad a term trying to account for too much. Ergo 1 point of ST is worthless as a game term beyond myself and my players minds. 
Well good for me.
BANG! Your dead! ===== 
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