Re: (TFT) long talent/skill lists

[PvK <pvk@oz.net>]

True, Swimming, Climbing, Horsemanship, languages, and accounting are all TFT Talents... 

In TFT though they "use up" six IQ points, meaning if someone knows how to do a bunch of things, they must necessarily have a fairly high IQ, and therefore apparently "be real smart" too. So, how do I create, for example, a capable character in terms of skills, who isn't terribly smart?

As for GURPS, its skill list is huge compared to TFT's talent list, and a character (especially a PC who is played for a long time in a campaign that gives him an opportunity to learn some skill in a lot of different things) can end up with a very long list of skills.

Most of these are numbers details, where it's specified exactly how good the character is at different skills, or different aspects of the same weapon (e.g. knife, knife throwing, fast-draw knife being three skills) or aspects of a range of abilities that would just be one "has it or not" Talent in TFT (e.g. one healer has not just "Physicker" but different levels in First Aid, Physician, Physiology, Diagnosis, Poisions, Surgery). 

Looking at a specific GURPS PC I played in a TFT-ish world for several years, he ended up with 17 combat skills, 10 physical skills, 9 outdoor skills, 8 social skills, 2 medical skills, 6 knowledge skills, 6 craft skills, 3 foreign languages, and 7 area knowledge ratings. He's only IQ 12, and some of the levels are quite high, and some of them pretty modest. If I try to convert him to TFT just giving him talents for the things he's particularly good at, it'd be like:

Quarterstaff
Knife 
Ax/Mace
Crossbow
Unarmed Combat III
Tactics
Alertness
Silent Movement
Climbing
Swimming
Horsemanship
Naturalist
Literacy
Master Physicker
Cooking
3 foreign languages

What's that? something over 30 IQ points worth of talents? And, it leaves out many significant non-trivial abilities that were earned during play but maybe don't quite merit a TFT talent, or are at least less trained than his better skills, even though he could still beat many people at things like using a bow, sling, broadsword, fishing, escaping being tied up, dancing, teaching, knowledge of religions, boating...

I entirely agree about generic classes and D&D details tending to undermine (by making generic) characterization. 

PvK

--- raito@raito.com wrote:

> I think maybe raito didn't literally mean that the ONLY reason to have a
> big list of talents is not being able to figure out how to roleplay, but I
> can't resist replying that it is not the only reason. At least for some
> types of players, it can be helpful and important to know which
> characters, for example, know how to swim, climb, ride a horse, speak
> French, work as an accountant, etc., and which do not know that, and who
> would not like some players just improvising that their characters have
> whatever talents are convenient out of their imagination, and/or not being
> able to remember who has what skill or not.

I'm not seeing where this has any bearing on number of Talents. Every
skill you mention has a Talent counterpart. All you seem to be addressing
is whether they're written down or not.

What I like about TFT is precisely that characters don't have reams of
game-mechanic related information.

I played D&D for a long time. And part of the problem there was that a
fighter was a fighter was a fighter. You were stupid to not wear plate and
carry a longsword.

The Talent system breaks the sort of class-based personalities of D&D, and
that's a good thing. But the character sheet is just a sketch. Fortunately
for TFT, it's enough of a sketch to let the character play well, but
leaves enough room for personality.

And I like that the sketch stays sketchy. Remember, my model is Nehwon.
Characters can't do everything. In fact, they can hardly do anything (out
of a world of possibilities). And that's just better for the roleplay.

I don't want to play Superman.

Neil Gilmore
raito@raito.com
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