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Old 02-18-2018, 09:48 AM   #15
ecz
 
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Default Re: The Economic System in TFT

Quote:
Originally Posted by larsdangly View Post
Good idea for a thread. I am passionate about games that have well developed support for campaign play outside of murdering things, so I've put a lot of work into puffing up this side of my house rules for TFT. In brief outline form, here are some things I think are valuable, positive additions:

•*Jobs that are fun (makes you excited to have a character that does that), mostly realistic ('Bailiff' is a medieval job; 'arcane archer' is not), and organized into hierarchical groups that will provide both a path for advancement and ready-made ideas for allies, rivals, contacts, etc. For example, my house ruled TFT has something like 150 jobs, most of which fall under a dozen-plus groups (guilds; city leaders; mercenary or other military bands; etc.).

• Some connection between the idea of a Job and social status, with some sort of tangible consequences for differences in status, beyond just wealth.

•*'Risk' rolls with more varied, interesting and balanced outcomes. Basically, a table of a dozen or so good things that happen when you roll well and a dozen or so bad things that happen when you roll badly

• Organize campaign play into weeks and months, where you perform 1 action of your choice per week, in addition to assumed job activities (chosen from a list of a couple dozen actions, like 'enchant an item', or 'practice a talent', or 'fight a duel', or 'invest in a venture', etc.), and you settle up finances, experience points, and resolve your 'risk' roll every month.

•*Provide a half dozen ways to bring in cash and property (earn, invest, embezzle, purchase, lease, trade, etc.) and a half dozen ways to lose cash and property (taxes, rents, etc.), tied to the schedule and actions of the campaign.

• Add a campaign encounter roll, to be resolved at the start or end of each monthly period.

•*Provide some sort of structured way to change jobs and move up the ladder of hierarchies, to provide goals to campaign play.

This can be accomplished mostly by re-organizing and carefully tending the rules in ITL rather than radically expanding them. It really doesn't take much page count to revise a job list and organize your thoughts about income, rents, taxes, etc. A table or two goes a long way here.

Also, a smart designer pays attention to examples of other games that do something really well. Flashing Blades, En Garde, Warhammer FRP and Traveller have nice treatments of things more or less like Jobs in TFT. En Garde! and the 'down time' rules from 5E D&D provide some ideas for weekly campaign actions. Original D&D, Chivalry and Sorcery and Traveller provide good fodder for finances and property in campaign play.
I mostly agree on the above.
I also prepared a list of different risks/rewards where the attribute gain or the damage was just one of the possible events.

Also I created complex rules for finding a job, mantaining it, and re-employ once the PCs left the job. I also created detailed rules for trials, jails, punishments...

As I mentioned above I also reduced the rate of the risks allowing a dice roll once a month.
I was satisfacted with these house rules at that time.

But now I believe things should and could be kept more simple.

For example I think we need less jobs, easy to learn rules for IQ rolls to find the job and mantain it when at risk.
The GM should adjust the odds/pays and be flexible when things are harder (for example it's impossible gain many $ working as master armourer in a small pacific village where everyone is farmer or a fisher).
No reason to create too elaborate rules when the system is flexible and GM/players have common sense.
The test 3/IQ once a month basically works pretty well. But it could be 4/IQ or 5/IQ if it's a job hard to find given the circumstances.

For a self-employer things are not so much different since also a petty thief must find an agreement with the local Guild to start his "job" and avoid problems.

But the most important thing is that jobs during a RPG like TFT should never take the place of the adventures and nobody should say: "well, I'll work for six months and then I'll buy that nice warhorse!"
Jobs are mostly for substistance in a hard fantasy world, as an excuse to find a plot for an adventure, and as filler during adventures when a PC is temporarily unavailable.

I understand who says that players like complex worlds and a pre-created rule for any situation, but TFT is not exactly a simulation of a Fantasy world and (IMHO) all we need is a solid set uf basic rules allowing everyone to move from it if someone wants to shape the universe in detail.

Steve, please give us the basic (updated) tools, we'll build our worlds!
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