Re: (TFT) Madison Traditional Gaming.

[Jay Carlisle <maou.tsaou@gmail.com>]

A dull throbing...

An aching darkness.

Pounding, pounding, pounding...

Your shattered senses tumbel from the spaceless void back into
yourself, filling your rapidly returning conconious with a thousand
little agonys of pains.

Your eyelids flutter open, only to screw tight against the assualt of light.

You become aware of the hard pressure of a wooden floor against your
body and you stir to a sitting posistion, rubbing life back into your
protesting limbs.

What the hell?

Where are you?

What's going on?

You squint your eyes.

Slowly, hazy images begin to form and then resolve as your vision
swims into focus.

You are sitting in the middle of a bare, ten foot square room walled
in black flecked granet.
Light shines down on you from a thick wroght grate that makes up the
cealing of your enclosure, well above your reach.

A rythmic chant rings through your cell.
The cry of thousands of voices, thrice calling together followed by a
reverberating boom that shakes the walls,and then a cheer.

You scrambel about the space, runninging your hands over the cool,
rough stone of the walls and the solid wooden floor.
There is no door.

A shadow flicks breifly across you and you peer up in time to glimps a
dim silouete through the gate, passing from view.

The figure calls a few words in a language you do not understand, and
you hear muffled voices reply.

Your confused mind trys to reach back for connections.

What's happining?

How did you get here?

Nothing comes.

Who are you?

A vague panic builds in your chest.

You don't know.

Suddenly the strange background noise swells to an excited creshendo
of cheers, puncituated by bells and horns.

As the noise slowly receeds, you become aware of a flurry of activity above you.
Voices call to each other in the unmistakeable cadience of command and
adknowledgement and the thumps, creaks and rattles of machinery
intermixes.

Once again shadow falls across you and you gaze up upon the backlit
form above you.

As he turns and raises his hand, you catch a glimps of his face in the light.
Surely this must be a man, he stands as tall as you, yet his face is
as bare as a childs.

With this thought his hand falls, and as his hand falls so does the floor.

You feel the decent in the pit of your stomach as the floor plumits away.
Your limbs flail despertly for purchace as the platform crashes to a
rest at a steep angle and you half drop half slide through an opening
filled with blinding light.

Your fall is quick and a covering of straw on the ground beneath helps
to break your mometium.

Your eyes roll wildly in panic as you take in your suroundings.

You are in a large, circular area, perhaps 50 yards in diameter with a
hardpacked earthen surface of an orange-red hue, and gleaming white,
smooth surfaced walls, enclosing you to a height of twenty feet.
There are openings every 20 yards or so about 15 feet up the walls.
It seems that you've been dumped from one of these openings, but your
eyes have been drawn to the sea of people that encircles the walls
above you, more people than you have ever seen before, riseing in row
upon row, ridiculasly adorned and beardless all.
A voice booms out, imposabally loud, cutting clearly through the noise
of the crowd in its oddly lilting tounge, and the crowd responds.

"Blood, blood, BLOOD!" they cry in the old tounge, and then in a
single, unified motion they rise to thier feet with a stamp and let
out a cheer like a roar.

There is a flash above you and you watch several metal objects glint
in the sun as they arc down from the walls to land, scattered about
you.
A short bronze sword.
A small leather shield.
A broad tiped spear.
The blade lies at the center of a damp, rust coloured stain in the dirt.

"Blood, blood, BLOOD!" comes the chant again, and as the crowd roars
their cry the muted sound of a platform dropping reaches you from
across the way, drawing your fractured attention to the angry Lion
that plumits through the breach.

The mighty cat twists its body through the air, gracefully landing on
its feet, and you can empathise with its frightend, confused whall.
Empathise that is until the Lion turns its paniced gaze on you.
As you meet its stare there is no doubt.
Your about to be attacked.

The feline snarls as the drums begin to pound.

Welcome to the Arena.
Your not gonna survive.

< Star Trek generic fight music >



I present a learning session as just that with the idea that these
"characters" are not going to survive stated specifically... elseif
Players get attached at creation and can get more of a psyche slap
than intended I find... I don't offer a campaign until Players are
prepared to Play. Easier to meet expectations when explicit in
describing what's being offered for "Play" I find...

On Tue, Dec 1, 2015 at 1:25 PM, David O. Miller
<davidomiller@verizon.net> wrote:
> I'd definitely suggest running Dark City's free adventure Orcs of the
> High Mountains. I've run it several times at local conventions and it
> fits a 3 - 4 hour time slot nicely. Of course I embellish that hell out
> of it to pad it out to fit the time slot. In one of our play throughs I
> even let the little girl turn out to be a hobbit in a blonde wig. He
> explained that the older couple had lost their daughter many years ago
> and were both quite senile and blind. He was pretending to be their
> little girl. As he put it it was a kind gesture for the older couple,
> plus he got free, hot meals out of it. The players didn't know if they
> wanted to kill him for his deceit or let him live to keep the older
> couple happy. It was a great and unexpected ending.
>
> David
> __________________________________________
> David O. Miller
> Miller Design/Illustration
> www.davidomiller.com
>
> 2 Dean Court
> East Northport, NY 11731
> (631) 266-6875
>
>
>
>
> On Dec 1, 2015, at 3:08 PM, Jeffrey Vandine <jlv61560@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Well, the real answer, as always, is :  "depends on your group."
>> Personally though, why not do both?  You could start them off in some
>> thing like Death Test as a starting scenario, and, once they survive
> it, th
>> ey become soldiers of the city and can be sent on missions.  Like, say
>> , Orbquest, or something you make up.
>>
>> Alternatively, go to the Dark City Games web page and download one of
> their
>> introductory modules (free) and use that as a starter.  (If you haven
>> 't already done so, you should definitely consider investing in some
> of the
>> ir adventures too -- they're all "solo," but they are also all
> organized so
>> that you can convert them easily to a GM run thing, complete with flow
> cha
>> rts and the like.)  There are also a couple of GURPS adventures you co
>> uld easily use with minimal retrofitting -- I'm thinking Orcslayer and
> Cara
>> van to Ain Erris, if you wanted to -- both are available from
> Warehouse 23
>> in PDF form.  None of these alternatives would require much from you i
>> n the way of re-stating or re-inventing for TFT, and could serve as an
> intr
>> o to Cidri just as easily as anything else could.  If you wind up in a
>> creative hole later because of them, just pass your players through a
> gate
>> to the place you REALLY want them to be!  ;-)
>>
>> In short, I think you could have your cake and eat it too!
>>
>>      From: Jay White <riskoridan@hotmail.com>
>> To: "tft@brainiac.com" <tft@brainiac.com>
>> Sent: Tuesday, December 1, 2015 11:00 AM
>> Subject: (TFT) Madison Traditional Gaming.
>>
>> I have a question for everyone.  I am in a gaming group at the local g
>> ame s
>> tore and we meet every Tuesday evening.  What we do is several of us a
>> re GM
>> s, actually anyone can GM, and about every four months or so we switch
>
>> game systems.  The only requirement is that the system be pre-2K.�
>
>> � I have b
>> een running MERP.  And am considering running TFT in the new "season"
>
>> start
>> ing in January.
>>
>> Would it be better to run basic Melee/Wizard or could/should I jump
> right i
>> nto TFT/ITL?  I have been playing TFT since the time of the Beginning,
>> th
>> e '80s...  Just would like some thoughts/ideas...
>>
>> Jay White (the other Jay)
>>
>>> Subject: Re: (TFT)  Shields and Feats.
>>> From: rick_ww@lightspeed.ca
>>> Date: Tue, 1 Dec 2015 10:22:10 -0800
>>> To: tft@brainiac.com
>>>
>>> Hi David,
>>>   Thanks for the comments.
>>>
>>>   Two handed weapons used to do one extra point of damage.
>>> In my revised weapon list they usually do 3 extra points of
>>> damage.  (The exception is pole weapons.  A two handed pole
>>> weapon does +2 damage, but then gets a x 1.5 multiplier if
>>> it charges closing the distance by 3 hexes.)
>>>
>>>   I have added lots of talents some of which come on the even
>>> number of IQ points, (e.g. IQ 10, 12, etc.).  However, to make
>>> talents easier to find, prerequisites are 2 IQ lower than the
>>> more advanced talents.  This means that given that Shield is
>>> IQ 7, then advanced shield talents will fall at IQ 9 and 11.
>>> (I've added so many talents, that this rule is actually fairly
>>> important to help people remember where to find talents.)
>>>
>>>   We will have to agree to disagree about making an IQ 8
>>> fighter obsolete.  I feel that a barely trained fighter SHOULD
>>> be beaten by highly skilled adversaries.  I am not troubled
>>> that many of the advanced fighting skills are higher IQ than
>>> 8.  That is how the TFT system is set up.  If you wanted to
>>> grab a bunch of my talents, but make them all IQ 8, it would
>>> not trouble me.
>>>
>>> The last edition of D&D that I played much was 2nd, which
>>> was before feats, so I can't comment much on them.  But if
>>> you were to write up a bunch of feats, I would read them
>>> with interest.
>>>
>>> In D&D you get more feats with higher levels.  Would your
>>> feats be based on buying DX and ST (but not IQ), or would
>>> you have another system?
>>>
>>> Warm regards, Rick.
>>>
>>>
>>> On 2015-12-01, at 1:25 AM, David Bofinger wrote:
>>>> If you make shields much better, you need to make two-handed weapons
>
>> much
>>>> better as well. Or one-handed weapons worse. Probably a bit of both.
>>>>
>>>> Caveat: This is based on what I've seen of Rick's advanced weapon
> talen
>> ts,
>>>> which might have changed since I saw them.
>>>>
>>>> Rick, you seem to like putting all your combat expertise talents
> (shi
>> eld,
>>>> weapons) at IQ 9, 11. I'm not sure why you do that but it has a
> coupl
>> e of
>>>> effects I suspect are undesirable. First, IQ 9 is only just above
> the
>> hard
>>>> deck of IQ 8 so it makes the classic IQ 8 fighter pretty much
> obsolete.
>> The
>>>> benefits of IQ 9 talents greatly outweigh the cost of 1 point so IQ
> 8 i
>> s no
>>>> longer a sweet spot. As an example:
>>>>
>>>> Fighter ST 12 DX 12 IQ 8 [Knife, Sword, Shield, Running, +3 @ I
>> Q 8]
>>>> broadsword, small shield: 2+0, aDX 12, stops 1, parries on 12 (
>> 10%), MA 12.
>>>>
>>>> Fighter ST 11 DX 12 IQ 9: [Knife, Sword, Shield, Improved Sword
>> , Shield 2,
>>>> +2 @ IQ 9] shortsword, small shield: 2+1, aDX 12, stops 3, parr
>> ies on 14
>>>> (22%), MA 10.
>>>>
>>>> OK, it's not absolutely one-sided, but I know who I'd rather back i
>> n a
>>>> fight. It's a pretty huge gulf in capability. Two-handed weapons
> also t
>> ake
>>>> a hit.
>>>>
>>>> I don't think the simple fighter should be made obsolete. Have to
> compe
>> te,
>>>> sure, but not get badly outcompeted by obvious analogous designs.
>>>>
>>>> Generally it tends to make the odd-IQ levels more useful than the
> even
>>>> IQ-levels, for anyone with an interest in melee combat. That's
> alread
>> y true
>>>> to some extent in the standard rules, because the best stuff is, IM
>> O,
>>>> somewhat more common at odd IQ than even, at least at lower IQ
> levels
>> . IQ 8
>>>> has Seamanship/Boating/Horsemanship which might be useful but is
> highly
>>>> situational and anyway that doesn't count because we don't get to
> choos
>> e
>>>> whether we have IQ 8. IQ 9 has Missile Weapons which can easily be
> real
>> ly
>>>> important, IQ 10 has Fencing but that's not a huge deal, IQ 11 has
>
>> Two
>>>> Weapons which can be quite a big deal (along with three critical
> party
>>>> skills, it's a big skill monkey level), IQ 12 has nothing much, I
>> Q 13 has
>>>> nothing much, IQ 14 has the high level unarmed combat abilities
> thoug
>> h they
>>>> cost a fortune. Add in your special combat talents and I think
> characte
>> rs
>>>> will be putting their IQ up two at a time.
>>>>
>>>> (Another feature of your weapon talents is that IQ 9 to IQ 11 is a
> smal
>> ler
>>>> jump than IQ 11 to IQ 13 so characters tend to stop at IQ 9 or IQ
> 13. I
>>>> think.)
>>>>
>>>> I'm not sure what the answer is to this. But I sort of like the idea
> th
>> at
>>>> the special abilities should be a bit more like what D&D calls feats
> an
>> d
>>>> less just "add two". Actually, my current theory of RPG design is to
>
>> ditch
>>>> as many numbers as possible and describe everything by characters
> havin
>> g
>>>> feats. Because feats are more fun than numbers.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> David
>>>>
>>>>>> Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com.
>>>> Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message
> body
>>>> "unsubscribe tft"
>>
>>
>>>
>>>> Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com.
>>> Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message
> body
>>> "unsubscribe tft"
>>                �
>> �
>>
>> Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com.
>> Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message body
>> "unsubscribe tft"
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com.
>> Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message body
>> "unsubscribe tft"
>>
>
>
> Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com.
> Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message body
> "unsubscribe tft"
>

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