Population Model

[Bill_in_IN]

Originally Posted by Shostak

The thing about games like TFT is that the rules for advancement explain how things work for the player characters. It does not follow that the rules for character advancement apply to the general population. It might be interesting, from game design and world-building perspectives, to see what the rules would imply about the general population as if the rules applied in those situations, but these are purely academic exercises.

I concur.

A GM must accommodate the PCs within the rules (RAW and/or House) in a consistent manner. This often means that your PCs and NPCs during the course of play are outside the norm of a society and even a fantasy society. This population model discussion is interesting and may provide a reasonable starting point for populating a GM's corner of Cidri. However, GM has to do what a GM has to do to keep the game interesting and fun.

[hcobb]

It's not just attributes.
A Army/police sergeant wizard has ten years experience. In that time she has bought at least 3 combat spells (3 memory points) and tactics (2 memory points) for 2500 XP.
Assuming 4 XP/week for a dangerous job she's earned 50*10 *4 or only 2000 XP.
But not every recruit becomes a sergeant, so assume that she started with 6 combat spells and so only spent 1500 XP on talents and spells, leaving 500 xp left over to flip into +3 dx.

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

If anything, if there are different expectations of advancement rates and/or XP costs for learning new talents, spells, and gaining attribute points for regular persons versus player characters and villainous NPCs, I'd expect that things would be easier for player characters and villains. Thus, the "normal population" should most definitely follow a normally distributed bell curve.

That said, curve breaking villains or player characters should still be extremely rare exceptions. And, those exceptions should have a great backstory explaining how it happened (even if it's just a 50,000 foot view of how it happened).

I also think that once the players' figures are above average, superior, of formidable, they should not regularly encounter foes of equal attribute point totals or XP totals. These encounters should be exceptional.

Where does the idea of 4 XP per week for NPCs working dangerous jobs come from?

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

Using Anydice.com and only d6's, I think that the sum of 9d6 is about right for the point total of any randomly encountered NPC. It skews slightly higher than the default mean of 30, but this would be for NPCs encountered by adventurers in unusual situations.

But, I think that this slight skew is acceptable. Especially, once the idea that not all XP are spent on attribute points is factored in. Just convert a few extra points to XP and buy more talents and spells to help keep the mean at 30.

Here's the link:
https://anydice.com/program/1104

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by Hrothgar Rannúlfr

I also think that once the players' figures are above average, superior, of formidable, they should not regularly encounter foes of equal attribute point totals or XP totals. These encounters should be exceptional.

All this highfalutin' concern about distributions would certainly lead to the conclusion you reach above.

Now, let's think about the consequences. The battles between PCs and humanoids would be one-sided in favor of the PCs quite often -- at least if both sides have the same number of participants. In that case, fights are rarely challenging.

Alternatively, we could regularly use n PCs and n+1 NPCs to make a fight challenging. This can work, but it can also go awry pretty quickly. I'd guess that three 34 pt. PCs would often have a tough time against four 30pt. NPCs. There's a certain swingy nature to being outnumbered, I think.

I tend to throw all of these concerns about how superior PCs are to average humanoids out the window and begin with the question: What sort of foe would be interesting, appropriately challenging and fun? More often that not, NPCs of < 30 attribute points do not fit that bill.

[hcobb]

Originally Posted by Hrothgar Rannúlfr

Where does the idea of 4 XP per week for NPCs working dangerous jobs come from?

That's my curve fit to get the expected NPC job promotions:
https://www.hcobb.com/tft/house_rules.html#Jobs

[Bill_in_IN]

Originally Posted by phiwum

All this highfalutin' concern about distributions would certainly lead to the conclusion you reach above.

Now, let's think about the consequences. The battles between PCs and humanoids would be one-sided in favor of the PCs quite often -- at least if both sides have the same number of participants. In that case, fights are rarely challenging.

Alternatively, we could regularly use n PCs and n+1 NPCs to make a fight challenging. This can work, but it can also go awry pretty quickly. I'd guess that three 34 pt. PCs would often have a tough time against four 30pt. NPCs. There's a certain swingy nature to being outnumbered, I think.

I tend to throw all of these concerns about how superior PCs are to average humanoids out the window and begin with the question: What sort of foe would be interesting, appropriately challenging and fun? More often that not, NPCs of < 30 attribute points do not fit that bill.

I concur. If you can't find a way to justify NPCs that are fairly equal to the PCs, the best way to balance it is with outnumbering them with NPCs. If the PCs survive it, they usually have plenty of healing to do afterwards.

[hcobb]

The more interesting bit of the population curve to me isn't the lunatic in the dungeon with his zombie army, but instead what to expect in a village or city block.

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

Originally Posted by hcobb

That's my curve fit to get the expected NPC job promotions:
https://www.hcobb.com/tft/house_rules.html#Jobs

Thanks!

Originally Posted by hcobb

The more interesting bit of the population curve to me isn't the lunatic in the dungeon with his zombie army, but instead what to expect in a village or city block.

Exactly. Individuals that are above average to the population curve are usually the ones making the adventures interesting. Some may be a few standard deviations away from the mean, but should not be curve breaking, either. Nor should they appear in such significant numbers so as to suggest that the mean is greater than 30.

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

Originally Posted by phiwum

All this highfalutin' concern about distributions would certainly lead to the conclusion you reach above.

Now, let's think about the consequences. The battles between PCs and humanoids would be one-sided in favor of the PCs quite often -- at least if both sides have the same number of participants. In that case, fights are rarely challenging.

Alternatively, we could regularly use n PCs and n+1 NPCs to make a fight challenging. This can work, but it can also go awry pretty quickly. I'd guess that three 34 pt. PCs would often have a tough time against four 30pt. NPCs. There's a certain swingy nature to being outnumbered, I think.

I tend to throw all of these concerns about how superior PCs are to average humanoids out the window and begin with the question: What sort of foe would be interesting, appropriately challenging and fun? More often that not, NPCs of < 30 attribute points do not fit that bill.

I think that the PCs winning too often is mostly brought about by the PCs gaining XP and/or loot at too great a pace. Getting to the top of the curve too quickly, is probably the problem, if things remaining challenging is most desirable.

When the PCs are of higher attribute totals, having hordes oppose them can be great fun. Especially, due to the swinginess that you mention. Then, once the horde weakens the PCs, it's the prime opportunity for the villains elite forces to resolve the problem.

So far, I haven't had much use for NPCs of less than 30 points. I've used a lot of 32 point myrmidons, though.

So far, my plan is to use enemies of the lowest attribute point total that is necessary for their role, with the exception of major villains and their elite companions. But, even those will not be curve breakers.

Right now, I see Tollenkar as a reasonable pinnacle level threat for a member of the normal races.

And, six standard deviations above the mean leaves a lot of room for potentially devastating threats at the high end. Even a four-point standard deviation allows for a few enemies of 46 to 53 attribute points, at the top end. And, if these are killed, there's probably someone around that will rise to fill in the gap.