Re: (TFT) Aimed Shots - MPNS hobbits are slow...

[Denis DesHarnais <denisdesharnais@gmail.com>]

Wow.  I didn't see this earlier, but that is a reasonable and non-defensive
response to PVKs comments.  I get so used to flame wars online I sometimes
forget how pleasant people can be.

As someone who used to play ADnD as a teenager in the 80s, and who was a
truly awful GM of the Monte Hall variety, I used to get very bored with the
way the players would carve up my thoughtful, sensitive and
generally good-natured monsters, and honestly, I think the players got
bored with it too.  As a defense mechanism, I retreated into story-telling,
which actually turned into a fairly decent adjunct to the game.  For
instance, an ancient metal stairway, ascending behind a waterfall that
cascades down a towering cliff, crashing water on one side, a dim-lit cave
on the other receding into blackness, and out of the blackness sounds -
clanking? slithering?  metal grating on stone? - made up for some otherwise
tedious combat.

That said, since most players are fairly well experienced in the fantasy
role-playing universe, and there is some spill-over from TnT, Arduin and
ADnD into the TFT world, it can be excitingly wrong-footing when a GM warps
a known monster (PVC Slime - an intelligent polymer that gives off
noxious dioxins when ignited!) or sets an ambush such that the illusions
are already in place before the players arrive (In fact, the enemies are
all illusions!  The party is being stalked by a group of
psychopathic hobbit-hating wizards (PHHW)!).

I say this, realizing that I'm talking to people who are GMs with lots more
chops than I have.  Just thought I'd share my own experiences.


On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 6:21 PM, Joel BoardgameRpger <
joel.siragher@gmail.com> wrote:

> ok. maybe I havent run this in 20+ years as a campaign
>
> Bears some remembering
> :)
>
> On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 5:47 PM, PvK <pvk@oz.net> wrote:
>
> > Joel,
> >
> > I would say the same thing as I did about your aimed shot elf arrows to
> > the head question:
> >
> > It sounds like you're just not very experienced with what exists in TFT
> > and what their effects are, and you are used to thinking in terms of
> other
> > games where combat is about power levels and whittle fests rather than
> > cause and effect.
> >
> > IMO it is COOL that a game actually has cause and effect, so that if
> there
> > is a giant reptile man jumping on someone, they get shredded quickly with
> > claws, and if someone takes arrows to the head, they stop fighting back,
> > and if someone gets shredded by a bunch of knives, they fall quickly, and
> > if it all happens at once, several people die at once.
> >
> > Too many games have too high hit points, too low damage, predictable
> > combat effects, no map, little or not tactics, impossibility of avoiding
> > damage, etc.
> >
> > What's missing here, it seems to me, is GM experience and wisdom. Are the
> > players having fun when their character designs work really well and take
> > out the enemies with lightning force? Ask them, but I'd say probably so,
> or
> > if they're disappointed, I bet it's just that there aren't more people to
> > kill. So... seems to me the players are the heroes and when they win
> > heroically well, that's cool. Next chapter. The wise GM shares the fun of
> > the players and likes when something unpredicted happens, and figures out
> > what happens next. Congratulations! Your players are participating and
> > forging their way in your world. Make room! Let them have great success
> for
> > a while and even get more cool stuff because of it... and slowly think
> > about who else in the world is going to take notice, and what the
> realistic
> > (not excessive wrathful punishment by baby tantrum GM!) results there
> might
> > be. If there is a powerful group accumulating wealth and power and
> causing
> > damage and upsetting the bala!
> >  nce, there will be a reaction of some sort. Be restrained, but have
> there
> > be logical effects, and it can turn into a great experience for everyone.
> >
> > PvK
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