Dark City Games etc

[Peter von Kleinsmid <pvk@oz.net>]

At 09:02 AM 9/28/2016, Jeffrey Vandine wrote:
> Wouldn't we all?  Of course, you can check out Dark City Games and 
> Heroes and Other Worlds for a more modern take on the old 
> system.  Frankly, I think DCG is pretty close to the way Steve 
> Jackson himself might have re-worked the skills set in a 
> hypothetical re-write of TFT.

I recently took the effort to study those rules and give them a run. 
I think they are basically pretty good, but are sorely lacking in 
detail. So they're good enough for people who don't know or don't 
care what's missing or weakly defined. And for people who do know 
what's missing (like experienced TFT players), those players can add 
house rules (and/or TFT rules) to fill in the gaps. That is, I'd 
rather have a decent core system with many missing details to fill 
in, than a system with details done poorly.

I do like the DCG system for learning and improving skills better 
than the ITL system in some ways, though like the entire DCG system, 
it wants some embellishment and details (or a GM who want to use GM 
discretion all the time for all the missing details, or players who 
don't notice or don't care about the missing details).

The DCG programmed adventures are many and those I tried seem well 
done, though... again with the exception of being a bit lazy on the 
details (e.g. re-use the same maps for everything with little or no 
terrain specified or different for each room - room says there is 
furniture but no map for it, etc.).


> If I ever become a billionaire, I fully intend to buy the rights to 
> TFT and then commission Steve Jackson to do an update and rewrite...

Excellent!