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Re: (TFT) Jobs table
I offer up my most humble opinion on this subject, fully realizing
that everyone has a different "style" of play and no "one" way is the
correct way.
But......
I'll never forget my first game of Traveler way back in the late
seventies. A friend of mine invited me over to play this (at the time)
very popular space themed RPG. He loaned me the books, I read up on
the rules and created a cool character. I was really looking forward
to it.
Then we started playing. The first three hours was all about how much
cargo could we carry and how big a ship we needed and how far could we
go to get the maximum yield for our investment. Some math nerd whipped
out a calculator and started doing algebra, and two players got into
an argument with the referee trying to prove that their interpretation
of the economics rules were correct.
Gone were the visions of daring deeds and epic space battles ala Star
Wars. I feigned a headache, thanked the referee, and left early. Much
to my probable detriment I never gave Traveler another chance. It was
b.o.r.i.n.g.
Maybe I was lucky but the first time I played TFT the referee did not
whip out the economics tables. We didn't care that the Wizards guild
would hire out an apprentice for $50 a week for a Wizard of IQ 9 or
other such nonsense. Instead we played a cool adventure. I was a human
fighter with a sword. I was mauled by bears. It was fun. I've been
playing TFT ever since.
The point of this story is that in all honesty I, in over 30 years of
playing TFT, have never even read through the economic rules more than
a casual glance. IMHO they appear to be dry, counter productive to
both creativity and what the game is, at heart, all about. They are
simply not needed. I've often wondered why they were even put in there
in the first place. (Most likely because they were trying for a
complete RPG package and felt like they had to pad the rules out a
bit. They were competing with D&D at the time after all.) And, for
what it's worth, let me point out that Steve Jackson didn't even write
the economics rules. As he mentions 75% were done by a playtester
named Draper Kauffman, Jr.
The same can be said for other elements of ITL. I don't really use,
nor rely on, the random stocking tables, trap tables, guilds, weight
carried and I especially don't use Prootwaddles.
So, my personal style of playing TFT is probably summed up by
Shakespeare: "The play's the thing". For me the economics rules don't
"fit" into my style of playing TFT. If it did I might give Traveler
another chance.
One last thing and I'll cease my ramble. In the market today there are
RPGs - and there are board games. TFT is unique. It is, at the same
time, both an RPG - and a board game. The rules are like Heroscape, or
Castle Ravenloft, or some other current miniature combat game. The
difference between TFT and these games is that, in RPG fashion, I can
create my own characters with TFT, have input into who and what he or
she is. Those other games give you set, pre-generated characters.
Why this matters is that it might explain the wide set of differences
we all share. It all depends on your point of reference. Do you look
at and play TFT as an RPG with miniature combat rules; or do you see
it as a miniature combat game with RPG elements? Or do you, as I see
it, play it as a unique hybrid of both?
I'll shut up now.
Cheers!
David O. Miller
www.meleewizards.com
On Sep 9, 2011, at 1:33 AM, PvK wrote:
I played TFT for years and no one did a statistical analysis to
discover that people got attributes too quickly then.
I bet Metagaming didn't figure that out, or care, or intend it to be
that way.
The NPC's in the existing published products seem to me to be the
best guide as to what non-player attribute levels were intended to
be like. I.e. they are the most accurate data if we wanted to do the
calculus to improve the job table so it would tend to statistically
give the "right" attribute levels.
Or we could just do what we always did and "GM discretion it".
Mundane job retirees are not generally 50+ point characters.
Maybe a PC gets the chances he gets to advance fairly quickly,
because he has the spirit of an adventurer, and approaches life
differently, or is just gifted, or whatever.
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