(TFT) Jeffries "Down with the King" style, spare time tables.

[Rick Smith <rick_ww@lightspeed.ca>]

Hi Jeff, 
  I got the file and it opened up no problem.  

  It was a bit of a trip down memory lane reading the tables.  If I was
to use them in my own campaign, I likely would add a few extra
tables that would be of use in smaller villages.  I also note that you
dropped the Witchcraft table which is a darn shame.  ;-)

  The biggest concern was how often people were getting 25 or
50 experience points.  Let us say that the players are rolling a 5/15
risk roll.  That is pretty dangerous work.  They will 4.6% of the time
gain an attribute.  (Call it 250 exp since I max experience gains from
risk rolls at 500 exp.)  This is equal to 11.5 experience per week.
However, there is also a 4.6% chance that they will have to roll 4 vs
their lowest attribute or take 4 dice of damage.  

  The players earn that 12 exp with a real risk.

  Admittedly, most of your tables have a -10 exp here and a -3 exp
there if you roll very badly.  But if a player is rolling (say) on the 

craft table, they are likely to have Master Armorer for a +2 modifier.
After a successful roll, they are likely to get a +1 or +2 modifier on 

the next roll on the table.  So players are FAR more likely to be 
gaining +25 exp than losing 10.

  In Down with the King (DwtK hereafter), they had modifiers that 
you carried over to the next roll.  That was OK, as those tables were
a big part of the game and their was a score pad for tracking these.  
In TFT, where the tables are rarely used, I am not enamoured with 
keeping track that I have a +1 on this table, a +2 on that table, a +1 

on an other table and I am not rolling on THAT table at all because 
I have a -2.  I would likely change the tables so that you had more 
modifiers based on your attributes or talents, but you didn't have to 
record all these modifiers for each table.

  Your rules do not say if charms or curses (or other things) can 
affect these tables.  Given that they are 2d6 tables, a +2 charm 
would have a huge effect.

  You have 19 tables.  If you format them so you get two tables per
page, and make it so you have 20 or 24 tables, then you could fit
all of them on 4 or 5 card stock handouts for your players.

  ****************************************************************
  In DwtK, there were 3 things that the tables usually adjusted:
Influence Points (how much influence you had with the royal 
family), Prestige Points (how much the other nobles respect you)
and money.  

  In TFT, the only rewards you have are exp and money, so you
use those two a lot.  However, I would likely say, that if you want
to use tables like these, you record one value per town you use
these tables in.  Call it Celebrity Points (which can be positive or
negative).  

  Normally players can only have celebrity in one or two towns at a 
time as celebrity is quickly forgotten.  If you get a critical success 
or 
failure, you can gain a reputation in the town (positive or negative) 
which is permanent.  If you manage to accumulate a lot of Celebrity 
Pts you must convert them into a reputation (positive or negative)
for that town.

  If I were to rework these tables, I think I would turn the tables into 

3d6, and put in a couple more extreme results and a few not much 
happens results into each table.  The middle result of every table
could be "People have short memories" which moves the Celebrity
Points one closer to zero.  Each month you are away from a town,
your Celebrity moves one closer to zero as well.


  SUMMARY:
-- Good points: The tables are more lively than rolling a risk roll
and can occasionally provide a plot hook.

-- Bad points: They are too generous about giving experience 
points and require a lot of record keeping per table per town.
Also, you have to have a set of tables printed out for the players
to look thru.  Perhaps too 'gamey'?


  So what do you think?  Do you agree with any of these points?

  Warm regards, Rick.



On 2015-09-03, at 8:13 AM, Jeffrey Vandine wrote:
> Well, hell, maybe not -- I can't seem to upload files at any of the 
TFT gro
> ups -- unlike the WarpWar group.  So maybe the solution is I send 
it t
> o you directly....

Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com.
Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message body
"unsubscribe tft"