Re: Re: (TFT) Two Weapons/Thrown Weapons

[Maou.Tsaou@gmail.com]

Okay I agree wholeheartedly with the point about "Rules As Written".
In my pov's defence I don't want to treat TFT as a "dead" system.
It's hard to reduce the die system to something simpler for a randomized  
system that remains interesting w/o actual money in the game.
Craps springs to mind... but that's REALLY a different game.
All I want is to use TFT as an example of how to take a simple form and add  
complexity as the group deems entertaining and have a "jargon" to share  
that back with the rest of us.
If I can offer a way to add something like a sporting event to the  
TFT "concept" it's YOU as a reader who gets to pick and choose.
But I REALLY do like the simplicity of the 3 stat system as well as it's  
deadness.
Not so many folks are plotting against Jay's insanity to try and beat him  
to some sort of "pen and paper" gaming coup these days are they?
IMHO I believe there is a place in this world for getting a group of people  
together in a room face to face with a singular purpose.
Even if that's just in the guise of entertainment... is that such a bad  
goal or should I just bow to our digital masters and say that I can't make  
an epic game w/o going over to the "videogame" side?
I prefer a few hours of entertainment spent amongst some semi-likeminded  
friends telling our OWN versions of the old stories rather than being  
forced to always comment on how some poor "director" slob has to take the  
heat for the fact that a massive budget means a massive comprise to get  
things done on the "cutting" edges of entertainment technology.
Poor old Peter Jackson... how can you ever get Tolkien right if you have  
all that "investment" pressure?
You didn't.
So did an Idol of mine... Laura Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit's story got some  
flack for a supposed lack of fair consideration of the Kayak II connection.
Same family owners and it is possible that there might have been some  
collusion there... fair point to raise.
I don't know enough about this subject to offer definitive conclusions  
about this but I can point out that some horses have a "will" in them that  
drives them to exceed what the physical body can endure in physical test...  
ie the will is stronger than the body.
I shan't force a "maudlin" view on this but if anyone cares to look at  
which horse tried with MORE effort once she was being passed as opposed to  
the males who saw their superior as he passed them...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTg5h_zMYaw
IMO TFT offers me the most basic "toolset" for getting my "vision" across  
to the largest "audience".
This is probably a "bad thing" for the people reading this but nonetheless  
it's my "goal".
I'm not trying to "teach" subjects of knowledge... rather I'm trying to  
encourage "interest" in a given Mnoren's interests from the entertainment  
pov.
Of course, I personally am quite the poor example of the Mnoren I'm trying  
to talk about...
We're all better persons in our perceptions than we actually come across as  
in the real-world... but Jay's on the forefront of that issue so I'd MUCH  
rather get someone hot on this stuff and pass the baton in this relay race  
rather than keep hammering at this myself alone.
...
WOW, Jay's quite the helpless little baby huh?
...
Check today's ramblings out...
How to quickly offend people using real-world history as a game-world  
template.

#1 Mention that you're loosely tying the classical 'fantasy races' to  
actual ethnic groups.
In the approach I'm taking with all of this I have to have a basic idea of  
how the population is organized and what goods and services are required to  
maintain the populations half-life over a year or more.
This means I need a basic idea of what Joe (and Jane and the kids) Averages  
average daily routine is like.
Because I'm using planet Earth as the sandbox it seems prudent to look to  
cultures that historically existed in a given region as a basis for the  
daily activities likely for a fantasy culture in the region.
When discussing this approach I've found that it tends to encourage the  
Archie Bunker in folks.
Mention that the elves are in China in my game-world for instance and many  
folks tend to conclude that I'm suggesting the Chinese people are the Elves.
Turns out I was discussing some design theory with a fella who had an  
affinity for Peter Jackson's Elves coupled with a major opinion about  
China's role in the debt crisis.
The idea of Chinese-Elves drove him a bit nuts.
However, I've also learned some things in these types of discussions.
Apparently it's okay to nickname Ryan Braun the Heeb-Brewer (but NOT  
hebe ???).
Anyway, the concept gives bad visuals w/o detailed explanation.

#2 Mention that you've tied the magic system loosely to the history of the  
major religions.
First off, the whole term magic is really up for grabs.
AW takes a stance eleven feet away from it and then tries to touch it with  
a ten-foot pole saying Possibly there are wizards on Cidri who understand  
what magic really is; the rest of us are merely apprentices, using what we  
were taught.
Mr. Jackson's right in assuming that an in depth concept of what magic  
actually IS, is superfluous in the frame of a dungeon-crawl.
But this can lead to a bit of a speculative quandary in both background  
history as well as research and future plotting on the timeline when  
framing much larger stories.
There can also be significant visual problems between GM and players with  
wizard Figures if the term is left too vague.
So for my Example Earth game-world I have magic described as a psychic  
effort on the part of the spell-caster that is able to manipulate a kind of  
universal luminiferous aether if successful.
I won't go into virtual particles and vacuum genesis here, but just note  
that it's big enough in concept to give all humanoid wizards an equal  
playing field as far as mother nature is concerned, eg a Neolithic or  
aboriginal wizard won't have any more or less potential to perform magic  
than a modern wizard would have even though the spells would likely be  
quite different.
Considering the timeline of the universe as a whole and the teeny tiny  
ittsy bittsy miniscule little window available for the existence of  
large-scale human civilizations this background structure for magic should  
remain pretty constant across the whole human timeline.
Then again, although I certainly didn't want to get bogged down in a bunch  
of theological debates in a game, I also didn't want to ignore the large  
part organized religion has obviously played on the historical timeline.
The question was how to vanilla it down.
As the Wizards' Guild on Cidri seemed to be loosely based on the structure  
of the medieval church in Europe it seemed somewhat natural to try and  
extend the idea to other cultures.
Pagan Hierarchies are still hierarchies but their Wizards Guild Spell  
List is likely to be quite different from that available to the mainstream  
(think a History of Western Civilization) Guild in medieval times.
A population of nomadic hunter /gatherers are gonna have a completely  
different Spell List from seafaring/pastoralists or urban/agrarians or  
hedonistic/anarchists or etc.
This seems to fit the bill for the larger scale kind of social pressures  
instituted via organized religion without stepping on anybody in  
particulars religious toes, until I mention that the Spell List was built  
with considerations to Polynesian religious practices.
Apparently non-christian wizards invoke the wrong kind of worship or  
something.


#3 Mention that you use slavery to reduce the amount of killing in the game.
There seems to be some sort of general kneejerk reaction going on with this  
one.
The problem is that by simply mentioning the term slavery a whole lot of  
people seem to jump straight to the bad guys assumption when considering  
the slave-holding culture.
It's a tough to get across the idea that the slave owners don't have to be  
straight up baddies without seeming to be in a david duke kind of position.
Still, when dealing with production in pre-industrial societies it's pretty  
much a given that you don't waste labor unless absolutely necessary.
And don't forget that turning out a bunch of agrarians' off their land to  
hunt and gather somewhere else is tantamount to a death sentence for the  
vast majority of them.
I find it hard for me to get that idea across to moderns.

I'll leave off the rest of the top 10 (#4 the more people you bring  
together in a group the quicker your killing some of them etc.) and just  
mention that most of this only comes up in discussions of design, none of  
it is meant to offend anybody, and all of the issues mentioned are mostly  
a result of Jay's failure to communicate.

After all, the majority of this stuff is made up with meat byproducts (ie  
my brains thoughts) and Momma always used to say 'life is like a link of  
sausage, you never know what's in it.'
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