(TFT) Lovecraft horror and sanity

[Rick Smith <rsmith@lightspeed.ca>]

I do Fear checks and the like using the Bravery 
'personality' attribute from ITL page 6.  I 
would be interested in hearing about your sanity
rules.  

I have Call of Cthulhu so my default would be 
just add sanity to TFT and use their rules.

Warm regards, Rick.

On Wed, 2012-09-05 at 13:07 -0500, Meg Tapley wrote:
> One of the players in my current campaign is into Lovecraftian horror  
> stuff. As a fun experiment - this isn't likely to become a permanent  
> thing - I've considered adding a Sanity stat (randomly rolled on 2  
> dice, but can be bought up with experience?). It might regenerate like  
> fST at the rate of 1 point/day. Making Illusions cost sanity to cast,  
> or to disbelieve,
> could change the balance a lot...
> 
> 
> On May 7, 2012, at 1:29 PM, <dwtulloh61@cox.net> wrote:
> 
> > IMHO, in order for an illusion spell to work, you need a "victim."   
> > The
> > illusion exists only in the victim's mind.  This means you can't  
> > create
> > things like Illusory Scouts because there is no victim.
> >
> > Technically, this means that if you have multiple opponents, you
> > should have to cast an illusion spell for each opponent - not one
> > illusion that affects all.  In order for that to work, you need some  
> > sort
> > of "Mass Illusion" spell.  This can become a bookkeeping nightmare,
> > but it's doable on a small scale.
> >
> > This ought to go a long way towards reigning in the power of the
> > dreaded Illusion.
> >
> > Dan
> >
> > ---- PvK <pvk@oz.net> wrote:
> >> * I don't think the Illusion spell is overpowered, per se, but I
> >> have always noticed that it is one of the best spells in the system,
> >> mainly for the reasons you mention. It depends on the context,  
> >> though.
> >>    For example, If your enemies realize or guess that the figure  
> >> you summoned is an
> >> illusion, and they have people who would otherwise have nothing
> >> better to do than disbelieve it, then your wizard just wasted a turn
> >> and 2 ST.
> >>    I don't think it is a problem needing balancing unless your
> >> game or style or opinions feel it is, which it might. In that case,
> >> it would be up to the person with the opinion to choose what to do
> >> to rebalance it, since they are balancing their own opinion about it.
> >>    As for a scout version, it seems to me that is pretty much the
> >> Image spell that already exists. Removing the see-through-eyes of
> >> Illusion is an interesting idea for variety.
> >>
> >> * I don't think it's necessarily so that there would be a ton of
> >> spell variants, but if it's interesting to the GM, then he can
> >> certainly make it so, and it would be appropriate for him to do
> >> so rather than for there to be an official list of local variants.
> >> But there are many house rule spells people have made out there
> >> that start that out.
> >>  I do very much like the idea of local spell versions, and I
> >> tend to fit them into my local cultures, which I find much more
> >> interesting than just having everyone have the same spells available.
> >>  I also like _limiting_ what spells from the common lists are known
> >> or available or popular or whatever, by region and community.
> >>
> >> * In the real world, magic definitely came before agriculture.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --- barnswallow@sbcglobal.net wrote:
> >>
> >> From: Meg Tapley <barnswallow@sbcglobal.net>
> >> To: tft@brainiac.com
> >> Subject: (TFT) Magic: illusions, cities
> >> Date: Sun, 6 May 2012 23:55:19 -0500
> >>
> >> Who thinks that Illusion, at IQ 11 and ST cost 2, is overpowered?
> >> Sure, it can be disbelieved, but opponents have to lose their action
> >> while doing so, and can be engaged by illusory figures, meaning that
> >> illusions can create a huge tactical advantage - not to mention the
> >> constant use as scouts. Solutions could be bumping the ST cost to 3
> >> and/or increasing the IQ level.
> >>
> >> Another question: Is it better to have lots of specialized spells, or
> >> a few general ones?  For example, Illusion could be split into
> >> "Illusory Scout" (you can see through its eyes, but it can't do any
> >> damage), and "Illusory Opponent" (can do damage, but you can't see
> >> through its eyes). Or, you could make Stone and Iron Flesh the same
> >> spell, except that the better version costs more ST/turn.
> >>
> >> Regardless of gameplay advantages or disadvantages, from an "in-world
> >> logic" perspective, there should be lots of specialized spells. Think
> >> about it: Wizards have been studying magic for hundreds, probably
> >> thousands of years, and for a lot of that time, the Wizard's Guild  
> >> has
> >> been encouraging and rewarding the development of new spells. Spells
> >> are hard to invent, but not that hard, so there are going to be a lot
> >> of them, and many will necessarily be pretty specialized.
> >>
> >> On the other hand, wizards would also be interested in learning to do
> >> the greatest possible number of things with a single spell, which
> >> would lead to generalized spells. There are probably adepts looking
> >> for the Unified Spell of Everything ("Change Reality") the same way
> >> physicists are looking for the Unified Theory of Everything...
> >>
> >> Also: I got my hands on a copy of "Guns, Germs and Steel", by Jared
> >> Diamond. I'm probably not the first on the list to stumble across it,
> >> but for those of you who haven't, it's a pretty cool resource. It
> >> deals with the question of why some societies developed better
> >> technology (and nastier germs, and more complex social structures)
> >> than others. Neat stuff, and useful for worldbuilding.
> >>
> >> It occurs to me that magic must have developed after agriculture. In
> >> order to have a wizard per the TFT system, it seems that you have to
> >> have a special wizard school, which means a social structure that
> >> supports that kind of thing, which means a city, which means
> >> agriculture.
> >>
> >> One final item: What's a good name for a long, piecemeal post like
> >> this one? A shotgun post? Brain dump? J-rant? ;-)
> >>
> >> - Meg
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