Re: Steve Jackson - major change to TFT.

[raito@raito.com]

I, and my campaign, predate Dark City by decades.

Neil Gilmore
raito@raito.com

> Uh, this seems to be heavily influenced by Dark City Games mechanics.
> __________________________________________
> David O. Miller
> Miller Design/Illustration
> www.davidomiller.com <http://www.davidomiller.com/>
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>> On Jun 12, 2018, at 10:26 AM, raito@raito.com wrote:
>>
>> 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
>>
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