Re: "Steve Jackson's greatest mistakes",

I have never had any player, newbie or otherwise, so dramatically change their character concept in mid-stream. Clearly the character you describe below wants to be a martial arts master, and suddenly deciding in mid-stream to switch to Missile Weapons is just silly. More importantly, why not finish one of the subjects you are studying (UC I, say) and then simply add the new item to the study list -- which is how everyone I've ever played with did it. More importantly, there is nothing in the rules that say you MUST study three things, just that you can ONLY study a maximum of three things. Leave a slot blank, if you're not sure what you want to study next. In short, your "what if" is another primary example of the kind of bleeding edge arguments you've been making all over the place. More importantly, where were you as the GM? You just sit back and snicker up your sleeve at your poor newbie, and then ruthlessly punish him for a mistake he made, at least partially because you didn't take the time to explain the possible consequences of his decision to him? In the groups I've played with, we always took the time to help the newbies, not attempt to drive them away.

Second example; skipping, for a moment, that Steve has already stated he's changing this, your proposal seems a bit off. Even if your numbers for the Goblin were correct (they're not -- Goblins start with a ST of 6), and he had the skills you mention and engaged a figure at 250 meters (187 hexes range), the most the Goblin could get off would be one extra shot; it takes four turns to ready the Arquebus, he fires, and then it takes another 16 turns to get off the second shot (12 turns to reload, 4 turns to ready the weapon); total 20 turns to get the second shot off. This assumes that the attacking figure doesn't run at him at full speed the entire time (remember it will only take the attacker 19 turns to close the distance. If the attacker DOES run at him at full speed, then the Goblin will never get off that second shot, and given his lack of armor and puny ST, he's dead meat when the attacker arrives. His best bet would be to take his shot and then run away. More importantly, the tactical considerations would preclude this situation from ever arising; no one would go up against an arquebusier in an open field, especially if he was by himself. No, any players I've ever played with would never be this stupid. The Wizard would cast an Illusion or two, the real figures and the illusions would charge the Goblin, pausing only to Dodge the turn the Goblin was ready to shoot, and then resuming the full speed charge, until they closed with and killed the Goblin (were he actually stupid enough to hang around to try and reload). Turning to the second part of that argument, if he starts shooting at 400 meters (how likely is the attacking figure to attack across a 400 meter open field (that's almost a half kilometer)?), the attacker now requires 30 turns to cross the distance. The Goblin aims for 4 turns before he can shoot, then reloads for 12 turns, the aims again for 4 turns, shoots, then has six turns before the attacker closes and kills him. Again, this assumes that the attacker tries to do this on his own, without the rest of the party, instead of say, just walking away and finding a place to ambush the Goblin as he tries to catch up to the lone figure, or dropping prone and lowcrawling towards the Goblin, using cover and concealment (or is your 400 meters of range a perfectly flat marble floor too?), until he gets close enough to just jump up and charge, say within 40 meters thus closing on the Goblin before he can get his 4 turns to ready the weapon -- which is what every player I've ever known would do. If his party is there, the Wizard casts a couple of Illusions... Of course you might assume that the Goblin is standing there with his Arquebus already ready, in which case, he would get one extra shot off at 250 meters (as opposed to none) but wouldn't increase his rate of fire at 400 meters, but either way, good luck with your Goblin against even a reasonably competent party. Again, another highly unlikely bleeding edge example.

From: Rick <rick_ww@lightspeed.ca>
To: "tft@brainiac.com" <tft@brainiac.com>; Matt Fraser <mathesonfraser@gmail.com>; Alec Morrison <alphaalec@gmail.com>; "The_slope@googlegroups.com" <The_slope@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2018 9:10 AM
Subject: "Steve Jackson's greatest mistakes",

Subject: "More of Steve Jackson’s greatest mistakes", and

Subject: "Who Is this Steve Jackson person anyway?”

Hi Jeffrey,

Here are two examples...

ItL page 16 Steve Jackson wrote (on forgetting studies):

"… they may do so, but there is a penalty: loss of half the

experience points he/she has at the moment or 1,000

experience points, which ever is higher.”

Expert players RARELY take the wrong studies, so this rule

just brutally punishes new players. I’m a newbie who has

written up a new character and have taken a bunch of dumb

studies (UC 1 thru 3), and then I figure out I really should

have taken Missile Weapons instead. I lose 1,000 exp???

That mistake cost me over 6 attributes for my new character!!!

What was SJ thinking??? (Is there a GM anywhere that

actually enforced this?)

Under current rules, gunpowder weapons have no minimum ST,

if you have Gun’s talent Arqubuses get +4 DX to use (page 24 AM),

are very long range (400 meters!?!, see page 24 AM), and

Arqubuses do 3d+3 damage. So this character is legal…

Goblin:

ST 4, DX 15, IQ 9, Talents Guns (2), Knife (1), Missile Weapons (3)

Equipment: Arquebus 3d+3, Knife 1d-1.

15 DX, +4 for using an Arquebus, +3 for Mis. Weapons gives this

goblin a 22 adjusted DX!!!

Using the long range missile fire rules (AM page 25), it could shoot

someone at 250 meters at -8 DX (hits on a 14 or less), and if the

goblin misses, it will have time to reload that gun before the enemy

can close with him. If it starts shooting at 400 meters, the goblin

can aim for 2 turns, and still gets 3 shots.

What was SJ thinking???

I’m feeling the same way about his fast, 3:1 healing spell. On the

TFT forums there have been 5 or 6 better spells suggested, but he is

going with the first thing he thought of. A dull, industrial magic, spell.

(To be fair, I don’t think that the healing spell is not as bone headed as

the above two examples. But it will have a MASSIVELY greater impact

on the typical campaign.)

Ugh. Oh well, I won’t be using it in my campaign.

Rick

On Jun 21, 2018, at 9:48 PM, Jeffrey Vandine <jlv61560@yahoo.com> wrote:

Wrote what?

From: Rick <rick_ww@lightspeed.ca>
To: "tft@brainiac.com" <tft@brainiac.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2018 8:52 PM
Subject: Re: [Slope: Ch 12] New Type of Healing Spell & Death Magic.

I can give some examples of Steve Jackson rules which are terrible.
I wondered, was he drunk or hungover when he wrote this?

Rick

On Jun 21, 2018, at 11:01 AM, Jeffrey Vandine <jlv61560@yahoo.com> wrote:

Different strokes for different folks.

But why is it so unacceptable to allow a healing spell to be created for the game by the designer (which, given SJ's reputation for carefully thinking his way through things, will be well-balanced in the context of the rest of the game) and then, if you feel so strongly about denying it to your players, simply saying that the spell doesn't exist in your world? You can have it your way, and other people can have it theirs. Rather than "policing" how other people play, why can't we just say; "Okay, no big deal, it doesn't work that way in my world because mana can't interact with living tissue in a non-confrontational way -- it can blow you up, but it can't put the pieces back together again."

As the GM, you can make your world any way you want, but why try to enforce YOUR rules on anyone else?