Re: (TFT) New File on Dwarves on Rick's web pages.

[PvK <pvk@oz.net>]

My guess about why a Dwarf article gets attention is that dwarves 
get used in a fair number of games and people like the notion.
And you're right that TFT doesn't detail or distinguish them all
that much, especially if you don't study ITL. 

ITL though does detail them more than Melee does, if you study 
the whole book. The race description says a few things, but then
there are special exceptions for dwarves also hidden in the ITL
rules for encumbrance and digging and exploring caves.

I also think that it's ok that TFT is vague about the descriptions
of elves and dwarves and (especially) orcs, because it leaves room
for GMs to design their own interesting flavors and ideas about 
them. I've seen some pretty interesting additions, which also came
from not having many interesting details in the rules. That is,
by making the descriptions hint at something but not really give
many interesting details, it left room for players to eventually
feel an absence and want to provide something creative.

Some players I've known have long bemoaned the generic fantasy
races, and not just for TFT in particular. One comment that stuck
was that usually elves are just "humans plus (something)". In
ITL, Elves are given extra lifespan but half EXP, but mainly we
tended to ignore that a bit because half EXP is a big disadvantage
and extra lifespan doesn't generally come up for PCs. So PC Elves
got normal EXP, and NPC Elves got the extra lifespan taken into
account, I think, unofficially or unthinkingly.

My original TFT campaign had dwarves tend to be a bit more
distinguished and dignified than humans. Bearded ladies tends to 
seem to me like a joke humans would make.

I always thought the D&D vision abilities were arbitrary and silly,
as you say like magic abilities, which seemed to be invented by
game designers wanting to hand out different random abilities 
rather than having a reason for things that made sense, and also
using yet another mechanic that doesn't seem to be how the real
world works - vision limited to 30' range doesn't make much sense,
unless there is a magic illumination field that only extends so
far. It could make sense though for dwarves to be short-sighted,
if they really are somehow specialized to caves, but how did 
that happen, really?

Ah well.

--- rick_ww@lightspeed.ca wrote:

From: Rick Smith <rick_ww@lightspeed.ca>
To: tft@brainiac.com
Subject: Re: (TFT) New File on Dwarves on Rick's web pages.
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2016 23:30:32 -0800

Hi Meg, all,
  I thought my Dwarf write up pretty ho hum, but it has generated the most
feed back lately of all my articles.  Strange.  :D


  The thing I don't like about 'infravision' is how does it work when the 
dwarf him or her self is generating heat.  The sensors (the eyes) would
drown out the signal with their own emissions.  (I suppose it could work 
in the very near infrared, but then it wouldn't be much use as a night 
vision ability.)  The D&D infravision, only made sense to me as a 
magical effect.

  Perhaps I was not clear, that the silent movement thing for dwarves 
is of limited help if they are wearing metal armor and banging pots
and pans together.  (Altho a dwarf with this ability who was in metal
armor and banging pots and pans together would be a bit harder
to hear than one doing the same thing with out the ability.  Both would
surely be heard tho.)

  My Advantages of Great ST start giving you bonuses, at fairly low ST.
(The threshold number of leather armor is 13 for example.)  I think that
Adv of Great ST would be a good thing to put up on this site.  If I get 
time I will see about tidying it up and posting it.

  As for bearded ladies, I LIKE there to be significant differences between
races.  :-P

  Warm regards, to you all.  :-)
  Rick
...
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