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

[Rick Smith <rick_ww@lightspeed.ca>]

Hi Jeffrey,
  (Do you prefer Jeffrey or Jeff?)

  I agree / understand your points below.  A couple comments:

-- Having the tables hidden from the PC's makes sense.  it is
harder for players to game the tables if they can't study them.
I think that is a good idea.  If the tables are hidden, it is even
more attractive to go to 3d6.

-- Celebrity is 'minor reputation' in a town.  As such it is tied to 
the town.  Remembering one number per town is far better than
one number per table!  Having another 'currency' for the tables
to affect, would give you more useful results than having to use 
exp so often.  Also the tables can use the Celebrity as a 
modifier if it makes sense for that table.  

-- Generally the tables should be better to roll on than not.  If
they usually give some cool little boost, that is ideal.  

  I am pretty busy for a few days.  However, I would be happy to
look at your mercantile tables.  It may be a while before I can 
comment on them.  

  Warm regards, Rick.




On 2015-09-03, at 11:39 AM, Jeffrey Vandine wrote:

> Yes, I agree with most of your comments, but will take the opportunity to r
> emind you that they were written many, many years ago (30 or so, as I recal
> l), and I haven't done anything with them since.  As I was looking the
> m over again last night, I realized there was a LOT there that I would need
> to change if I used them again!
> The Witchcraft table was left off because of one player's objection, and be
> cause it was hard to figure out how to make it work with TFT magic as writt
> en.  I suspect I would add it in now, with a slightly different approa
> ch to the whole thing.
> I'd agree with reworking the XP rewards; at the time TFT was simply deadly 
> (no healing magic to save you in the middle of a dungeon, remember), so we 
> tried to get some meaningful XP rewards that the guys actually had a chance
> of surviving to earn; but with the addition of minor healing spells and po
> tions it is potentially much less deadly and clearly XP rewards would need 
> to be reworked entirely.  I think I'd also scale the tables somewhat, 
> so that some of the less riskier tables simply have smaller rewards and los
> ses but either "cost" nothing to try or have minimal requirements, while th
> e more "expensive" tables have commensurately greater rewards and losses.
>   Going to 3d6 would also be a good idea -- I think I went with 2d6 in
> the originals because a) it matched the DWTK tables, and b) it was quicker
> to gin something up.
> Celebrity points might be a good idea, and having them tied to location mig
> ht as well, but I think I'd try for some way of intuitively handling it so 
> that it was simple, elegant and required the least amount of paperwork poss
> ible to use.  I'll think on that one some more and see if I can figure
> a way out that works smoothly and simply.
> Regarding printing the tables out for the players -- that thought never act
> ually occurred to me.  To me these were gamemaster tables, to be used 
> by the GM.  The players got a laundry list of suitable activities they
> could try, along with their "costs" and could decide what they wanted to d
> o based off that.  The actual results were handled like any other GM m
> anaged roll.  But then I didn't give them a copy of the risk/reward ta
> bles for jobs either -- just some idea of what was riskier for them to do.
>   The bottom line is that these tables smack somewhat of deus ex machi
> na in terms of rewards and the like, and so I wanted to keep how the sausag
> e was made sort of behind the scenes as far as the characters were concerne
> d.  I'd let them make the roll, and tell them that higher was better, 
> but other than that I just kept it behind the screen, as it were.  Doe
> s that make sense?  I don't know if I'd do it differently or not nowad
> ays....  Another thing to think on.
> I might also point out that with all the new talents available from you and
> others out there, the tables would need redevelopment anyway, just to get 
> them more into synch with all the new opportunities!
> 
> Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the tables!  Now I wonder if I sho
> uld send you the "mercantilism in TFT" tables that I used as the GM to crea
> te a minor model of a "working trade economy" for the players to exploit or
> not....
> v/rJeff
> 
> 
> 
>      From: Rick Smith <rick_ww@lightspeed.ca>
> To: tft@brainiac.com 
> Sent: Thursday, September 3, 2015 12:56 PM
> Subject: (TFT) Jeffries "Down with the King" style, spare time tables.
> 
> 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 p
> er
> 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 in
> to 
> 
> 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 s
> end 
> 
> 
> it t
>> o you directly....
> 
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