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Old 10-06-2018, 03:33 PM   #11
robertsconley
 
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Default Re: TFT Setting Influences

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Originally Posted by JLV View Post
Personally,we always liked the Wilderlands maps and ideas from Judges Guild, and while novels helped us conceptualize our descriptions (and added a few cool monsters/creatures -- the Stenrect Stinger, anyone?), they didn't cause us to create a campaign world to play in (I think probably because we all read mostly the same books, and would have found it far too easy to navigate in such a campaign world; already knowing the major "plot points," as it were).

I'd love to see Rob Conley do a TFT adaptation of his Majestic Wilderlands products!
Appreciate the shout out.

I am just waiting to see what the 3PP license is about before determining which project to write and release.

The nice thing about TFT is that it's minimalist approach made easy to adapt what I am doing for classic D&D.
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Old 10-06-2018, 03:36 PM   #12
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Default Re: TFT Setting Influences

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Hmm, I feel like TFT has always been great at simulating lots of settings. In many ways it is a more natural fit with familiar fictional fantasy settings than is D+D.
I don't see anything so far that would be an impediment to converting any of my ten hexcrawl settings to TFT. I would likely add a set of house rules for divine magic if permitted by the license as religion is a thing in most of my setting.
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Old 10-06-2018, 09:10 PM   #13
malchidael
 
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Default Re: TFT Setting Influences

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Originally Posted by JLV View Post
Personally,we always liked the Wilderlands maps and ideas from Judges Guild, and while novels helped us conceptualize our descriptions (and added a few cool monsters/creatures -- the Stenrect Stinger, anyone?), they didn't cause us to create a campaign world to play in (I think probably because we all read mostly the same books, and would have found it far too easy to navigate in such a campaign world; already knowing the major "plot points," as it were).

I'd love to see Rob Conley do a TFT adaptation of his Majestic Wilderlands products!
I don't have the Majestic Wilderlands product itself, but I do own much of the original Wilderlands series and CSIO, as well as some of the updated releases from Mr. Conley's Bat in the Attic Games. My plan is for my first TFT campaign since the olden days to take place along the caravan route/road called "The Emperor's Way", from Catalan to Thunderhold.

It's good stuff.
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Old 10-07-2018, 03:28 AM   #14
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Default Re: TFT Setting Influences

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Originally Posted by malchidael View Post
I don't have the Majestic Wilderlands product itself, but I do own much of the original Wilderlands series and CSIO, as well as some of the updated releases from Mr. Conley's Bat in the Attic Games. My plan is for my first TFT campaign since the olden days to take place along the caravan route/road called "The Emperor's Way", from Catalan to Thunderhold.

It's good stuff.
That's a good plan! ;-)

I managed to pick up just about everything ever made for Wilderlands over the course of the past 30-odd years, and love the setting. On a side note, Rob Conley is releasing the maps for Wilderlands again (in pretty much the same format as the originals, but with vastly improved art work) over on RPGNow -- here's the link to Bat in the Attic's page there -- he's released the City State of the Invincible Overlord map, and the first two sets of Wilderlands Maps (Wilderlands of High Fantasy, and Fantastic Wilderlands Beyond) plus guidebooks for the two map collections so far, with the other two sets due to come out pretty soon.

Well worth a look, if your original copies are either a) too precious to expose to regular use, or b) getting a bit ratty now after 35 years or so...

In addition, his other products are there (except for the ones written for HoW, which are for sale over on Lulu (here), and which would be easier to translate back into TFT terms than the straight D&D versions).

In fact, any of you readers out there might be interested in CR Brandon's Heroes and Other Worlds -- it's a clone of TFT (with a couple of fairly significant changes), but is easy enough to reverse engineer, if you just want to adapt the available material to TFT. He's done a ton of things translating D&D spells and monsters into TFT-ish terms, has some pretty nice adventures available, and has one truly outstanding "source/campaign book" out for a place called Raedwald. That one alone is worth purchasing even if you don't pick up anything else, just for all the clever ideas throughout every single page of the book! But all of the HoW stuff is good -- I can't speak to the space stuff -- and is worth a look.

Last edited by JLV; 10-07-2018 at 03:33 AM.
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Old 10-07-2018, 10:42 AM   #15
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Default Re: TFT Setting Influences

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I am just waiting to see what the 3PP license is about before determining which project to write and release.
I'm already writing my own. It's a labor of love, and bizarre, though. So I have doubts about whether SJ would want to publish it, and if they don't I'll just post it online as a free fan thing.

So! Pretty decent odds there will be at least one free TFT campaign out there, but it's going to be crafted almost entirely from Wyzard's insane nonsense. So there are downsides.
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Old 10-07-2018, 11:32 AM   #16
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Default Re: TFT Setting Influences

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That's a good plan! ;-)

I managed to pick up just about everything ever made for Wilderlands over the course of the past 30-odd years, and love the setting. On a side note, Rob Conley is releasing the maps for Wilderlands again (in pretty much the same format as the originals, but with vastly improved art work) over on RPGNow -- here's the link to Bat in the Attic's page there -- he's released the City State of the Invincible Overlord map, and the first two sets of Wilderlands Maps (Wilderlands of High Fantasy, and Fantastic Wilderlands Beyond) plus guidebooks for the two map collections so far, with the other two sets due to come out pretty soon.

Well worth a look, if your original copies are either a) too precious to expose to regular use, or b) getting a bit ratty now after 35 years or so...
I already have Bat in the Attic's CSIO maps and Wilderlands of High Fantasy set, and they were worth every penny. The Fantastic Wilderlands Beyond is next (once budget allows...... I'm getting pulled back in to BattleTech and my gaming budget is focused there for the immediate future).

I've actually redrawn several areas of Wilderlands Map 1 in Campaign Cartographer to add my own touches; I'll be doing the same for the trade route area.

I've also been considering one of the Judges Guilds' other products - Verbosh - for a campaign area. While the map scale seems wonky, there are parts of it that I enjoy and have borrowed for other games.
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Old 10-07-2018, 05:01 PM   #17
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Default Re: TFT Setting Influences

Verbosh was a good supplement. JG did a bang-up job on their various city products; not overwhelming you with endless bits of detail, but definitely giving you plenty to work with.

I really enjoyed the Wilderlands way back when, and now you've got me all fired up to start up again there when the hard copies show up next March! Hmm. I wonder what my prospective players would think of Tegel Manor? <evil laugh>
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Old 10-08-2018, 09:02 AM   #18
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Default Re: TFT Setting Influences

Back in the day I felt like there was some Vance (Planet of Adventure/Dying World), Zelazny (Amber/Jack of Shadows), Farmer (World of Tiers), Andre Norton (Witchworld) stuff in TFT. Squinting I could also see a little John Varley (Gaea Trilogy) and Larry Niven (Ringworld) in Cidri.

Anyway, there was this matter of fact tone to the writing of TFT that I really liked - it was casual and kind of funny. For example - Children as a nuisance encounter was both funny and also really pushed your role-playing and made my friends and I think bigger about how to play. That style seems unique to Steve Jackson

I'd love an appendix N if Mr. Jackson has time for that!
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Old 10-08-2018, 12:46 PM   #19
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Default Re: TFT Setting Influences

While hardly able to be an influence at the time, I've thought for a while now that TFT would be pretty good for something like Game of Thrones (the tv show, I haven't read the books). It has decent mechanical support for playing someone with absolutely no combat inclination at all who is still very useful, and since combat is very dangerous that may be a good choice for survival anyway.

Because death is never far away when getting into combat, all fights feel more important, there are very few throwaway fights where it doesn't feel like one side is in danger at all. Being very experienced does not mean you are close to invulnerable either, and being ambushed by crossbowmen will probably spell your doom even if you are a great fighter. Plus TFT has built in a dichotomy between heavily armored but slower fighters and agile unarmored ones.

Lots of characters may die, but it is very easy to make a new character and get back into the thick of things, emulating somewhat the large cast of characters of Game of Thrones.
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Old 10-09-2018, 01:40 AM   #20
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Default Re: TFT Setting Influences

For me, I wasn't a big fan of fantasy as a reader, nor as a watcher.
I found TFT in sophomore year...
so, the complete fantasy list I'd willingly read by that point: Lord of the Rings; Bored of the Rings; Earthsea Trilogy; The Life of St. Simon of the Cross. 3 D&D pick a path books. And the first 100 pages of Beasts of Gor. (age 9 was NOT the right time in my life to read that...)

Comics: 2 issues of Heavy Metal. about 10 years worth of Hägar the Horrible.

I'd not watched much fantasy, either: Conan the Barbarian, the animated LOTR, the animated Hobbit, Excalibur, Monty Python's life of Brian.

Adding the musical stage, Don Quixote, Princess & the Pea, the Mikado, Camelot, Pirates of Penzance, The Magic Flute (Deutsch libretto), and half a dozen more that I don't recall the names of... (I had seen pretty much every opera done in Anchorage from 1976 to 1983. Mostly student passes to final dress rehearsals.)

And, of course, I'd played a bunch of D&D. (And Traveller. And a few sessions of Star Frontiers Alpha Dawn.) D&D felt then, and still feels now, more like Medieval Super Heroes than the sword and planet or sword and sorcerer novels I would later come to enjoy.

And then, both Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica franchises: comics, novels, film, and TV.

On the other hand, i'd had lots of exposure to classical greco-roman and biblical mythologies, as well as egyptian, and the harryhousen movies based upon them.

So, for me, TFT leant itself to the human power levels of the operas, with movie-conan action, and a healthy dose of Earthsea. But more than anything, the solos matched my fantasy expectations far better than D&D had... well, except for the lack of BDSM, for which I'm thankful..

Most of my friends didn't appreciate mid-fantasy that much; they wanted D&D level ultra-high. Well, almost all, except for Dan. Who happened to be the guy who got me started on TFT... with Melee.

It was about the same time that I discovered ElfQuest, Pern, and McCaffrey's short stories...
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