The Fantasy Trip

[David Bofinger]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

sDX is important because some of my new talents require a minimum speed. Speed is nicely balanced now, and I don't want to debuff it too much.

I don't think an underpowered sDX is a huge deal. If I create a new sub-attribute (in Rick's terminology, "superscript") and everybody goes, "Wow, that's really cheap and powerful, give me a bucket and a half of that, please," then that's a serious problem because I've made inefficient all the old-fashioned characters that don't use it. But if I create a new sub-attribute that makes 90% of players go, "Meh, not for me, thanks," then I've done little harm.

So one possible extension of TFT is having lots of sub-attributes, and assuming that most characters will only buy a few of them and settle for their default values most of the time. Obvious candidates include:

• Based on ST:
  • Health and hit points
  • Fitness and endurance
  • Spellcasting capacity
  • Slow feats of strength like bending bars and maybe encumbrance
• Based on DX:
  • Speed
  • Finger dexterity for thievery
  • Archery
• Based on IQ:
  • Perception
  • Willpower
  • Memory for Talents and Spells

Some of these might be combined: for instance Rick's fST provides both spellcasting and fatigue ST.

Now this would be a valid way to build a game, but RAW TFT chooses to do it a little differently: instead of having these sub-attributes there are talents like Alertness, Missile Weapons and Master Thief that have the same effect as a few points in a sub-attribute. But not all the possible sub-attributes have corresponding talents, you don't get a lot of choices as to how much you want to invest and obviously this approach doesn't work at all for memory.

Still, maybe this is the natural in-the-spirit-of-TFT way to extend TFT: have talents or other goodies that take the place of desirable sub-attributes the RAW rules neglected. e.g.

• MIGHTY (7, 1) Roll one less die when attempting feats of strength like lifting things, carrying friends (or anything?), bending bars, etc.
• HARD TO STOP (8, 2) Increases hit points by 4.
• HARD TO KILL (8, 2) If the character goes to negative ST having this talent improves the chance of survival.
• STRONG-WILLED (8,1) Rolls one less die when resisting being influenced, frightened, etc.
• COUP DE MAIN (10,2): Adds 3 to DX when determining who attacks first. May also give a lesser bonus when dodging a trap if it requires speed rather than accuracy.
• MISSILE WEAPONS: Maybe should be more expensive?
• etc.

One could also make a case that creating lots of sub-attributes and discarding Alertness etc. would be a better approach, because it gives more flexibility to the characters, but it's a more major change.

Attributes spend on mIQ do not go into wholesale attribute increases which was my goal.

That's another reason why prerequisites are a bad idea: they force people to put experience into attributes.

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

Hi Ty, everyone.
Not sure if anyone cares, but the guys in the thread I was reading, had no problems with TFT combat. Their point was that experienced characters were too much the same (high attributes in all 3 stats), and that experienced characters always hit, always disbelieved, always made the saving throws. I don't recall his exact words, but it was something like, "there is nothing else to spend experience on but whole sale upgrading of attributes. Pretty soon, everyone has high attributes and always succeeds."

This is me speculating a bit, but they may have been in a campaign where the GM was a bit too generous with experience. They seemed to feel it didn't take very long for the characters to get such high attributes that the system started to break down.

Speaking personally, I started as a killer GM, where people died a lot. I didn't really notice the problem with Attribute Bloat, until my GM style changed - so that people were not writing up new characters every 2 to 5 months.

It irked me that they were so dismissive of my favourite game, but the argument, "... it is possible to FIX that problem with house rules!" was a weak comeback to a serious problem in the base game, which I actually agreed with them about.

Warm regards, Rick.

Once, in a fit of boredom, I used the Job Tables to progress a character through attributes all in the 30's.

Perhaps I shouldn't have, but I then sent that überdwarf through grail quest for an easy-cheesy time of it in his full plate and greatsword.

[David Bofinger]

Originally Posted by ak_aramis

Once, in a fit of boredom, I used the Job Tables to progress a character through attributes all in the 30's.

Let's see. On a 5/16 job he gains an attribute on the average every 23 weeks, including a little for recovery from injuries. To get him to 30-30-30 would take about 1300 rolls and 25 years.

You'd have to be careful not to get promoted.

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by JLV

Thanks for the tip; it's a good book. I picked it up a couple of years ago for exactly that reason. It has some great info in it, but I think it's too complex to be suitable for TFT as actual rules. It does inform my desire for better economic rules though! ;-)

I'm curious about this "Grain into Gold." Can someone give a brief summary of what is in it? How suitable is it for TFT?

Warm regards, Rick.

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by Dave Crowell

...
Yes, people will come right out and say they haven't played the game they are reviewing. Usually right before they offer a bunch of advice on how to fix its "problems".

Hi Dave, everyone.
I know. When I presented my Healing spells for TFT on Brainiac's site, I had one guy say that he had not read my rules, but he guessed that I wanted to make healing like they did it in D&D and so he didn't like them.

I had a hard time deciding how to reply to that. I lack the gall to offer an opinion on rules I've not read.

I eventually just wrote, "You guessed wrong."

Warm regards, Rick

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by ak_aramis

Once, in a fit of boredom, I used the Job Tables to progress a character through attributes all in the 30's.

Perhaps I shouldn't have, but I then sent that überdwarf through grail quest for an easy-cheesy time of it in his full plate and greatsword.

Hi ak_aramis, everyone.
You mean you rolled on the job tables until you reached a 30:30:30 figure?!? Wow! How long did it take you to roll that?

Very early in my TFT GM'ing days I changed the rules so you got just enough experience to bring you up to 1 attribute worth of experience, or 1,000 exp which ever was less. Later I changed it so you got a flat 125 experience.

Which is another bit of advice for Steve. With attribute bloat being a problem, I suggest you give a flat amount of experience for job roll successes. Which makes sense. A low attribute figure is at a much higher risk from a job roll failure than a high attribute figure.

Warm regards, Rick.

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

Hi ak_aramis, everyone.
You mean you rolled on the job tables until you reached a 30:30:30 figure?!? Wow! How long did it take you to roll that?

Very early in my TFT GM'ing days I changed the rules so you got just enough experience to bring you up to 1 attribute worth of experience, or 1,000 exp which ever was less. Later I changed it so you got a flat 125 experience.

Which is another bit of advise for Steve. With attribute bloat being a problem, I suggest you give a flat amount of experience for job roll successes. Which makes sense. A low attribute figure is at a much higher risk from a job roll failure than a high attribute figure.

Warm regards, Rick.

About a week of a an hour or so a day. Keep in mind the math: 32 points at start, goal of 90 points. 58 points to roll. 10/216 of adding a point, so about 21 character weeks per point, and I rolled in batches of 5 sets at a time.

Takes about a minute per 5 sets of 3d, plus ticking the pay, and about every 2 sets, making a save; every 5th set, add an attribute point. Once you cross 18 points in the best attribute, the risk of injury doesn't go down any further, and by pumping ST first, the 4d damage on a fail is likely to be survived.

[vitruvian]

Originally Posted by Dave Crowell

If I only had a dollar for every game review I have read where the reviewer states "I haven't actually played the game, but..."

Yes, people will come right out and say they haven't played the game they are reviewing. Usually right before they offer a bunch of advice on how to fix its "problems".

Unless you want all reviews delayed by a couple months, I'm not sure it's fair to require all reviewers to have actually gotten a game together, let alone for long enough to suss out all the actual game play issues.

I do require them to have actually read the thing from front to back a time or two, and hopefully tested out at least some of the rules by maybe playing a 'solitaire' version of a combat or other interaction a time or two.

[tbeard1999]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

Hi ak_aramis, everyone.
You mean you rolled on the job tables until you reached a 30:30:30 figure?!? Wow! How long did it take you to roll that?

Very early in my TFT GM'ing days I changed the rules so you got just enough experience to bring you up to 1 attribute worth of experience, or 1,000 exp which ever was less. Later I changed it so you got a flat 125 experience.

Which is another bit of advice for Steve. With attribute bloat being a problem, I suggest you give a flat amount of experience for job roll successes. Which makes sense. A low attribute figure is at a much higher risk from a job roll failure than a high attribute figure.

Warm regards, Rick.

I really don't consider endlessly rolling job rolls to constitute "roleplaying".

As I recall, I generally allowed 1 roll between adventures, regardless of how much time actually elapsed. Characters could collect salaries for however many weeks elapsed; but only 1 risk roll.

As an alternative, give a flat % chance of death, regardless of the character's highest attribute if he rolls the high risk number. Otherwise a character with any attribute of 15+ will only fail 5% of the time. And if the character has ST25+ he's invulnerable.

This one fix would make the "keep rolling jobs until you get as many points as you want" strategy unlikely to work long term.

[Rick_Smith]

Hi all,
I have advised that the new TFT has contest rules built into it. One advantage of this is it will make it trivial to write better rules for sneaking and hiding.

I also suggest that two or three talents are added which help people sneak, hide and camouflage (themselves or equipment) better.

Quite apart from making thief characters more interesting, it will allow rangers (specialists in stealth, scouting and ambush) to be more viable character types.

TFT has lots of rules and 'crunchy bits' for fighting. I think it is important that some other areas which TFT is weak in, are reinforced.

I welcome comments.
Warm regards, Rick.