Re: (TFT) long talent/skill lists

[Joey Beutel <mejobo@comcast.net>]

On Mar 7, 2013, at 10:33 PM, PvK wrote:

> --- mejobo@comcast.net wrote:
>> Just to offer an alternative view... How many people are capable in terms of skill (and a wide variety of skills, for that matter) and aren't smart, at least in the way that IQ is used in TFT (ie seems to mostly imply savvy while "book knowledge" is more about spending those IQ points on a variety of more intellectual talents as opposed to weapons)? 
> 
> Sure. I don't think TFT fails for most characters. I just think it has limits that don't make sense, and which do get in the way of:
> 
> 1) Player characters wanting to do reasonable things like add a talent to a "full IQ" and not being able to without resorting to things that don't make sense, like gaining EP (often, killing people) to get more IQ... and considering paying the Wizard's Huild to erase existing talents to make room.

True... perhaps the easiest solution thats true to the original games would be to just provide more opportunities for XP outside of combat... For example, if the guy who wants to learn how to swim is really actively trying to learn how to swim, he could be given the XP he needs to get a higher IQ to get Swimming. I admit its a bit round about compared to some systems but it works.

> 2) Creating or recording or training other characters who have a wide range of talents, but aren't particularly smart, even if they would be unusual or rare.
> 
> ...
>> It has always been my opinion that languages should generally be kept separate from Talents, especially if they are learned "naturally"... but lets ignore that for now;
> 
> Both GURPS and TFT don't charge anything for native spoken language ability.

I know, but IMO many people in real life would qualify as having more than one "native" language.
> 
>> Does he really have all of those talents?
>> 
>> Unarmed Combat 3 is pretty darn good. It doesn't really matter if he's pretty capable in GURPS.... is he as good as master martial artists? TFT refers to UC3 as being at a level that would be considered "mastered." Additional levels of UC are for the top masters.
> 
> He has a very high level of unarmed combat skill, with about half as many skill points in Brawling and Wrestling as he has in his other weapon skills (mostly in Staff, which he has at an extremely-high level - if anything, in TFT he should have some advanced Talent in Quarterstaff that doesn't exist in canon). 

Adding more advanced weapon talents (like Fencing or Missile Weapons) is usually a good idea in my opinion.
> 
> He's not nearly as masterful at Ax/Mace, but he is +5 higher than if he had no skill in it, and two levels better than he is in Broadsword. The point being that it's entirely reasonable and caused by actual played-out game actions, and it's easy to show this in GURPS, but there's no way (except GM discretion) to represent this in TFT. I'm just trying to illustrate the difference rather than argue it's better or anything, but it seems to me it does exist in real life that you have fighters who specialize in one or more weapons, are competent in others, and have not practiced other weapons at all, and in TFT this is only possible to show with talents like Fencing (swords only), Missile Weapons and Thrown Weapons (which cover ALL weapons of those types). Also in real life, often weapon masters do have unarmed combat training as well, and those really burn IQ points in TFT, to the point where someone with even UC II, a few weapon talents, and one master skill (say Sword, Axe/Mac!
> e, Pole Weapons, UC II, Fencing) would need to use about 11 points of IQ and need to start being quite intelligent if they also want to be able to read, climb, or swim, etc.

My one objection on this would be that I think UC 1 or maybe 2 would be considered the level of UC that most weapon masters would have. 3 seems like its a bit high for your character but I suppose it depends on the other characters you play with.
> 
>> Tactics is probably fine though it really depends on his exact ability level because its not like one can have Tactics and not be pretty capable; its not like better officers have "more" Tactics in TFT, so unless he is at a level that is equal to people who are officers professionally I'd consider not having tactics.
> 
> Sure if I needed to actually have this character in TFT I'd consider dropping Tactics ... but thinking of how I played the character in the actual GURPS game... to me it shows that if I had played him in TFT and hadn't had the points for all these talents, I probably would have roleplayed the character differently, and he would not have evolved to be capable in so many areas... as a subtle effect of the IQ limit rule.
> 
> I actually left out several talents I could have listed... and I could have left some in, but I still would be hard-pressed to represent this character and keep him at IQ 12, without invoking a "memory-IQ subscript house rule", which is what I would tend to do if I were to actually run TFT.
> 
> Now, I should say that the specific character example was a fairly extreme example, in that he had been played for several years under a GM who was fairly liberal with character points. On the other hand, I did concentrate most points to get high levels in his best skills, and we also used a house rule where we actually tracked success rolls and hours spent studying skills, and you couldn't just spend points arbitrarily at all. I think though that character is (and the campaign way) a great example of players enjoying and roleplaying and having gameplay effects for developing their characters' abilities in great detail, and it was something that really could not be done without tracking the level of each skill. If in order to be a master at one thing, you needed to raise one of ST, DX or IQ, and therefore could then do ANYTHING in that category pretty well, one of the main areas of gameplay would not have existed in that game. That is, the players all started as different so!
> rts of peasants, and much of the dynamic of the game was the contrast and competition between the characters as they evolved. Developing skills and knowledge was a huge part of that.
> 
> And... it was kind of a shame so many points WERE given out, and that we were allowed to raise our attributes as much as we did, because that has a similar kind of effect in GURPS, and once we were all quite competent at a wide range of things, it started to remove some elements from play. Which is another reason I like to be able to detail skills rather than just raise everything through base attributes.

True. Ultimately I think this is a limit of the whole system. I really like TFT and GURPS (for slightly different things) but I've always found that they were games that worked best in certain circumstances... the XP and advancement systems being one of the main problems. They're great for what they usually need to do but they can be a problem in other situations (ie see how if you use the job tables most peasants will be in the high 50's for attributes when in their middle age).
> 
> PvK
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