Re: "Steve Jackson's greatest mistakes",

My counter-arguments are a good deal less silly than your strawman examples were to begin with. And as far as the 1000 XP go, he clearly intended to punish indecisive players. None of the players I ever played with did the "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" thing; "Blue! No, wait, Green!" Is the punishment excessive? YMMV, but I don't see it as a game-ending "mistake" on Steve's part. As for his comment he was going to change these things -- just look at the Blunderbuss thread.

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 2:00 PM
Subject: Re: "Steve Jackson's greatest mistakes",

On Jun 22, 2018, at 11:45 AM, Jeffrey Vandine <jlv61560@yahoo.com> wrote:

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.

Really??? No one has ever wanted to change a study?

That is what this comes down to in the end.

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.

I don’t do this, because I don’t use that rule. And yes I

help my new players. But let us say that some new kid

who has never GM’ed before is trying to run the game by

the rules. This rule is going to lead him astray.

But fundamentally none of the things you bought up ARE

important. Why should people lose 1,000 OR MORE

experience for changing a study?

It is a silly rule. How does it improve the experience of a

new or old player?

I note that your best defence of this silly rule is to argue that

smart people will carefully arrange things so that it never

comes up.

Second example; skipping, for a moment, that Steve has already stated he's changing this,

Really? I don’t recall that he said that he was changing it. He

never replied to the thread where we were talking about the

accuracy of Napoleonic era fire arms. If so, good news. Can

you give me a link to where he says this?

But my point was that SJ has made mistakes. You might say

that his mistakes are fairly rare (I would agree with you), but I

hardly think that his designs are flawless.

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;

OK, call it a kobold then. Or a teenaged goblin. Or give the

goblin two extra attributes.

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.

OK, my mistake. I thought that it took 12 turns to reload.

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.

Or he could start 300 meters away and aim for an extra

turn.

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.

If the goblin is 400 meters away, he is so far that there is

a decent chance he could set up and fire before you

notice him.

But fundamentally, your point is good. There are precious

few TFT battles are such ranges. However, Steve DID claim

that its range is 400 meters, and he DID give the rules for

long range missile fire.

But let us say that you are in a dungeon and walk into a

largish room. Hidden behind some arrow slits are 5

kobolds with:

ST 6, DX 10, IQ 9, - Guns, Missile Weapons, etc.

Range is -1. These low attribute figures know adventurers

are in the area, and are set up. What is their DX?

10 + 3 + 4 = 17!

While I have not seen a lot of 400 meter long range fights,

I have seen goblins firing from behind arrow slits in

dungeons a dozen times or more in my TFT experience.

The thing that burns me about this is primitive guns are

WILDLY inaccurate.

David gave this data.

Guns from the 1800 fired at a wooden fence 6 feet high

and at a range of 25 yards, 20% to 25% of the bullets

missed the fence!!!

I’ve read that such weapons, (when firing at a person,

rather than a big fence), wanted to be under 10 yards or

the shot would likely miss.

Further…

This is in accord with what I know. Let us use the 6% chance of hitting (a large formation) at 83 yards. So let's look at the following character...

Goblin: ST 6, DX 12, IQ 9. Talents: Guns, Missile Weapons.

The goblin under the current rules gets +4 DX for firing an Arquebus with Guns talent and +3 DX for Missile weapons. 83 yards = 75.9 meters. 75.9 meters / 1.33 meters / hex = 57.1 hexes.

57 hexes is -8.5 DX for range, round up to -9 DX. But under the long range missile fire rules on page 25 of AM, from 51 to 100 meters (hexes?) the modifier is actually -6 DX if you have Missile Weapons talent.

The goblin has an adj DX of 19. We subtract 6 for range to get a final DX of 13 = 83.8% change of hitting.

So a 27 attribute goblin is hitting 14 times, (13.967 actually), more accurately, with a more primitive fire arm, than soldiers from more than 2 hundred years later. AND it is doing 3d+3 damage!

The 6% chance at 83 yards was for 1800 weapons which

were lighter, easier to use and more accurate than the

1400 to 1500 Arquebus. And they were not firing at a

single person, but at a company of men, 2, 3 or 4 men

deep and many yards wide.

When writing this post I was web searching about the

accuracy of arquebuses. One contemporary writer noted

that their long range allowed them to outrange crossbows,

(which was demoralizing), but noted that at these ranges

they never hit the formation that they were shooting at.

So I think it is fair to say, that the arquebus is the least

accurate missile weapon in TFT. But it is the ONLY weapon

that gives a +4 DX for its users.

Which is silly.

I suggested in the forum that the +4 DX is dropped, that you

can not get the Missile Weapon bonus for guns until they

are rifled.

Rick

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?