Re: (TFT) long talent/skill lists

[PvK <pvk@oz.net>]

Here is the ITL quote:

"FORGETTING OLD SPELLS (AND TALENTS)

A character may wish to "forget" a spell or talent to make
room for a more powerful one as his/her IQ increases. This
may be done several ways. A wish will do it. The Wizard's
Guild will help you forget a spell, by entering your mind.
However, if you have any great secrets, this is not a good
idea, because then the Guild will know them. The standard
Guild fee for helping one forget is ten times the IQ level of
the spell or talent you wish to forget, in gold pieces; only one
day is required. The third way to forget a spell or talent is
by going to a dragon; they have the ability to make you forget
but will not see what else may be in your mind. However, care
is necessary in dealing with dragons ...

You can also forget a spell, talent or language in a more
conventional way - by not using it. If you wish to forget one
in this manner, inform the GM of your decision to do so, Mark
a line through that talent (or whatever) on the character
record sheet, along with the date (in game terms). If you can
avoid using it for a year, you will have forgotten it - you can
erase it and use that IQ for something else. If you want to
use the ability at any time during the year, you may. However,
your DX will be at -4 the first few times, because you'll be
"rusty" b and you'll have to start your year of forgetting
all over again."
(ITL pg.9)

This is NOT what I was suggesting.
"Oh, I think I want to learn a new Talent, but I feel the
need to forget something else first. What's my first thought?
Try to get a magical Wish... um no. Oh I know, I'll have a
Wizard erase my memory... hmm, maybe not. Perhaps a DRAGON
would be another mighty supernatural creature I could get to
help me... yeah, no. What other way could I possibly achieve 
this AMAZING FANTASTIC TASK of forgetting something so I can 
squeeze the ability to swim into my poor brain?"

I mean, it's classic gaming humor, and so funny it makes me
almost want there to be some reason for it to make sense.

Ok, so then, actually not using it, which IS what I was 
suggesting, but what is the game mechanic ITL offers us?
Oh right, it's the one that makes players want to consider
dealing with demons, wizards and dragons rather than resort
to it. The one I have never seen a player actually choose
to use. It takes an entire year, and has a bizarre gamey 
mechanic about needing to avoid actually using the talent
or else it will re-invade your memory points.

Isn't there some other weird Q&A from Metagaming somewhere
also suggesting another way, which involves losing half 
your experience point progress towards your next point, or
something even more silly?

What I was thinking would be more like this:

You can neglect practicing a Talent, in order to learn a 
new Talent. You can start learning the new Talent right 
away, and that takes however long that takes. Meanwhile,
your neglected Talent will fall out of practice and 
eventually become something you know about, but will 
eventually be very rusty with. GM's can come up with 
exact descriptions of how this decay takes effect, but
the suggestion is -1 to die-rolls for every month of
neglect, up to -4, and after six months, most special 
abilities are mostly not available, or only with added
difficulty.

The Talents under study rules let you list up to three
that you are studying to learn. Oh! Right! That's where
the MORE silly rule is. It goes like this:

"If a figure, once having started to study a talent or language,
wishes to abandon that study, he or she may do so, but
there is a penalty: loss of half the experience points he/she has
at the moment the study of that ability is abandoned, or 1,000
EP, whichever is higher. It is possible for a character to have a
negative amount of experience points, but this does not cause
loss of attributes or abilities b it just means the character must
work up to zero before accumulating a positive total again."
(ITL pg.16)

"Damn it, Ragnar! I started learning to be an 
Artist/Calligrapher, but now we need to save the world again
from the Prootwaddle Blight, and I must learn to ride a horse
after all. I just can't seem to make myself study it - it's
like my brain won't stop thinking about calligraphy! If only
I had mastered the arts, I feel sure I could forget them by
myself, if only I had a year or so, but I can't manage to
stop studying! I tried hiding my quills from myself, but I
just start drawing letters in the dirt compulsively! I feel
that if I quit now, I will somehow lose all the adventuring 
experience from our last quest, and more. Looks like I'm
just going to have to go back to the Wizard's Guild and pay
up for telepathic memory wiping again."

You know you have a weird game rule when the people in your
world end up doing weird stuff like that. Sentimental value
aside, it's nonsense.

And no, there's no good rule about getting any bonus for
studying a Talent. And there's a section on pg.12 
discouraging people from trying to do things they don't have
talents for.

You are of course correct about needing skill increases to 
be more effective than just increasing the entire related
attribute. And that needs to be done considering that a
character may have several skills they could increase, so
at some point it can be tricky to balance. Mainly I think 
skills should have caps on their default levels, so you 
can't just become skilled in everything by boosting your
attributes.

PvK

--- raito@raito.com wrote:

> However if I didn't like that and wanted to keep the IQ limit, I might add
> a system where you can learn a new talent, but if you don't "have room",
> you need to neglect attention on an old talent, which you still have but
> it becomes officially Rusty or Neglected and has some penalty to use it -
> maybe even with a system where the penalty is based on how long you
> neglect it, or how many neglected talents you have.

This is mentioned in TFT. If I weren't at work, I'd find it and quote it.

> The other Talent issue is that I'd want to be able to represent both
> masters (Talent+1,+2, etc.) and dabblers (people who have some competence
> but not enough to be counted as the full Talent). That _would_ allow the
> kind of skill development I was talking about from the GURPS campaign,
> albeit with a less grainy system.

I'm less sure of this, but it may also be mentioned in the sections
detailing learning Talents, at least as far as trying to use a Talent one
is learning, but has not learned. As for 'masters', there are lower and
higher levels for many Talents (just not all of them).

And how would you implement this?

If a character adds to an attribute, all the Talents that depend on it are
generally improved. Adding to a single Talent would have to be cheap
enough that it's worth it to not hold out for improving attributes.

If these extra levels just improve die rolls, you'll run into scaling
problems. If these extra levels comfer other abilities, they ought ot be a
Talents on their own.
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