Re: Steve Jackson - major change to TFT.

[raito@raito.com]

Hi everyone,

Ultimately, the rules are whatever the GM wants. But I wonder that
perceived 'problems' this solves. I can guess at some of them. And you
long-time readers will already know my opinions. They haven't changed.

1. Monty Hall/Haul There's not a problem is characters don't get obscene
attribute numbers. And you only get obscene attribute numbers if the GM
hands out XP like candy.

2. Playing the sheet rather than the character. There's an awful lot of
players out there who seem to want extremely minute detail on what their
character is capable of, mostly so they can min/max everything. This runs
counter to any idea that a campaign or even a single adventure is a story.
Remember that the literary double-0 agents were all min/maxers who were so
conservative that they lived, but were dull. The only reason Bond got
anywhere was that he was reckless.

3. Not playing with the full set of rules. There's already mechanisms to
keep characters from becoming obscene. Combat and aging.

4. Having to keep track of who killed what. Not a problem for me. But
then, I also use the detailed shield and armour degradation rules, and
keep track of encumberance.

Now on to opinion.

These rules, if I cared to use them, would completely destroy my campaign.
Part of the point is that once characters get personally powerful enough,
they really should consider not exposing themselves in petty combat and
instead build up a base of temporal power. I don't care how many points
you have, you're not really going to defeat an army. Far, far better to
grab the reins of power and multiply it by how many followers you can
attract. Besides, one of the basic tenets of TFT is that any character can
try anything. Choose and attribute and number of dice, and have at it!

Years ago here, I recall calculating attributes for characters who just
had jobs. They got pretty powerful, but ultimately died off. Adding
adventuring doesn't really skew things, except at younger ages. The XP
from combat isn't that much in the scheme of things, and the disincentive
of being killed is one of the charms of TFT. How many combats does it take
to gain all those points? More than you can run...

I've always been a fan of TFT as a sort of less-is-more approach to
roleplaying. Your sheet doesn't have much. 3 basic attributes, MA, Spells
and Talents. Race. And that's about it for the character himself. And even
Spells and Talents only amount to a handful. Are there really IQ60 figures
around who know everything? Not in my game.

As for Mana, again, one of the charms of TFT is that doing magic is
powerful, but weakening. Essentially doubling the amount of ST skews it up
quite a bit.

Neil Gilmore
raito@raito.com