Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > The Fantasy Trip

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 02-17-2018, 03:04 PM   #501
Rick_Smith
 
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Coquitlam B.C.
Default Forgetting Talents --> Very gamey.

Hi all,
One thing that I thought was a bit charming about TFT was the ability of dragons to hypnotize you and make you forget talents. However, the fact that they could not do so in combat was lame.

I understand WHY the rules were written as they were. In TFT, an IQ 12 figure (fairly smart), might find their head filled up completely after they had learned 4 or 5 talents. There had to be ways to manage this very, very precious resource.

Strangely, natural talents generally took up far more memory (mIQ), than spells. Talents cost 1, 2 or 3 mIQ each, and were generally corequisites, (so if you had Master Naturalist, you had to pay for Naturalist as well). Where as spells were all 1 mIQ and series of them were prerequisites of each other, (so if you learned 3 hex Fire, you got 1 hex Fire for free).

Heroes had to pay triple for spells where as wizards had only pay double for talents.

Also several talents could be bought by wizards for the regular cost.

These rules disadvantaged heroes compared to wizards in pretty much every respect.

***

Getting back to my main subject, TFT also had rules for forgetting talents. If you don't use it for a year, you can free up that memory (mIQ).

I think that the new TFT should revise how talents work in several ways.

-- Talents should be cheaper. In particular I would allow very easy talents to be half a memory slot. In GURPS 4th edition, you got rid of 1/2 character point talents, but in TFT where you have 10 or so mIQ for skills (as opposed to, say, 55 character points in GURPS), half slots makes more sense.

-- I think heroes should spend double for spells ---OR--- that wizards should spend triple for talents. Make it fair.

-- Series of talents should be prerequisites of each other like spells.

-- Some way should be made to allow figures to buy talents with experience. This will allow experienced heroes to have a reasonable number of skills. Also it will help reduce attribute bloat, as there are more things to spend exp on. (I allow figures to buy mIQ with experience, but other people have other solutions.)

-- If you keep the Dragon hypnotic ability, allow them to use it in combat. (Maybe in combat they have only time to make you temporarily forget a talent?)

Warm regards, Rick.

Last edited by Rick_Smith; 02-17-2018 at 03:11 PM. Reason: Reordered paragraphs to make argument clearer.
Rick_Smith is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-17-2018, 05:07 PM   #502
JLV
 
JLV's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Arizona
Default Re: Forgetting Talents --> Very gamey.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rick_Smith View Post
-- Talents should be cheaper. In particular I would allow very easy talents to be half a memory slot. In GURPS 4th edition, you got rid of 1/2 character point talents, but in TFT where you have 10 or so mIQ for skills (as opposed to, say, 55 character points in GURPS), half slots makes more sense.
A simpler way would simply be to multiply the IQ to determine the number of IQ slots available for talents/spells.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rick_Smith View Post
-- I think heroes should spend double for spells ---OR--- that wizards should spend triple for talents. Make it fair.
I disagree -- magic should be HARD for the layman to learn; and conversely, if someone is capable of handling magic they ought to find talents comparatively easier to acquire than a layman should to acquire magic.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rick_Smith View Post
-- Series of talents should be prerequisites of each other like spells.
Not sure what this is supposed to mean; many talents already have prerequisites, frequently tied to the skill they represent (e.g., you must have some kind of thrown weapon skill in order to be able to use THROWN WEAPONS; likewise, you can't gain UNARMED COMBAT III until you have already gained UNARMED COMBAT I and II).

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rick_Smith View Post
-- Some way should be made to allow figures to buy talents with experience. This will allow experienced heroes to have a reasonable number of skills. Also it will help reduce attribute bloat, as there are more things to spend exp on. (I allow figures to buy mIQ with experience, but other people have other solutions.)
Totally agree with this concept, though I don't understand why everyone wants to introduce unnecessary "middlemen" (such as mIQ or "Character Points") into what should be a straightforward and simple system.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rick_Smith View Post
-- If you keep the Dragon hypnotic ability, allow them to use it in combat. (Maybe in combat they have only time to make you temporarily forget a talent?)
This is an excellent idea, and still in keeping with the Silmarillion where I think the idea may have originated. In that story, the Dragon held the hero in play hypnotically while the Orcs finished looting the Elven fortress and taking the survivors off as slaves. However, I would argue that this trick would require the Dragon to take no other action while it held the character, and similarly, if it can make him/her forget something, that should probably be a multiple-turn action that allows the Dragon to do nothing else. Thus, it is best used (as in the book) when the Dragon has plenty of allies around to finish off everything else that the bad guys want to accomplish while the Dragon ties himself up stopping the most dangerous hero.
JLV is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-17-2018, 10:57 PM   #503
David Bofinger
 
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Sydney, Australia
Default Re: Forgetting Talents --> Very gamey.

In standard TFT talents are expensive (a character can't afford that many) and inelastic (a player can't choose to give up attributes for extra talents, save by increasing IQ). The main disadvantage of this is that it's hard to describe experienced characters from fantasy stories, e.g. Conan, without absurd attributes, in particular very high IQ.

There's one effect of limiting the supply of talents that is arguably an advantage. Because individual characters can't pick up all the talents that are required, they need to rely on other characters to cover their blindspots. That reduces the risk that other characters will have everything covered and some players will feel their character to be redundant. The cheaper you make buying talents, the more this effect is reduced.

Looking at the first and second paragraphs together, it's noticeable that many of the great heroes we want to model are people who worked alone (e.g. Conan) or in small parties (e.g. Fafhrd and Grey Mouser, Elric and Moonglum). In a small party the second paragraph isn't as big a deal. If your games typically have large parties the second paragraph deserves more thought.

The other issue with cheap talents is character diversity. If talents are expensive then players have to think carefully about which ones to buy and different players will hopefully make different decisions so characters differ from each other. Taking it to extremes, if talents become free then everyone buys all of them, all characters of a broad type at a given level of advancement are the same and we may as well be playing D&D. This would lose something precious from TFT.

On balance I think TFT is better with talents made more elastic. But there are issues to consider and there is such a thing as too cheap.
David Bofinger is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-18-2018, 12:37 AM   #504
JLV
 
JLV's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Arizona
Default Re: Forgetting Talents --> Very gamey.

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Bofinger View Post
In standard TFT talents are expensive (a character can't afford that many) and inelastic (a player can't choose to give up attributes for extra talents, save by increasing IQ). The main disadvantage of this is that it's hard to describe experienced characters from fantasy stories, e.g. Conan, without absurd attributes, in particular very high IQ.

There's one effect of limiting the supply of talents that is arguably an advantage. Because individual characters can't pick up all the talents that are required, they need to rely on other characters to cover their blindspots. That reduces the risk that other characters will have everything covered and some players will feel their character to be redundant. The cheaper you make buying talents, the more this effect is reduced.

Looking at the first and second paragraphs together, it's noticeable that many of the great heroes we want to model are people who worked alone (e.g. Conan) or in small parties (e.g. Fafhrd and Grey Mouser, Elric and Moonglum). In a small party the second paragraph isn't as big a deal. If your games typically have large parties the second paragraph deserves more thought.

The other issue with cheap talents is character diversity. If talents are expensive then players have to think carefully about which ones to buy and different players will hopefully make different decisions so characters differ from each other. Taking it to extremes, if talents become free then everyone buys all of them, all characters of a broad type at a given level of advancement are the same and we may as well be playing D&D. This would lose something precious from TFT.

On balance I think TFT is better with talents made more elastic. But there are issues to consider and there is such a thing as too cheap.
I'm not saying to make them "cheap," I'm saying stop requiring Conan to have an IQ of 32 (or whatever) in order to do all the things he does in the stories. An IQ of 10 or 11 is probably just about right for Conan; but it's the various skills he has (and picks up along the way) that make the real difference (well, that, and his enormous ST, which we somewhere learned would be in the 18 range or so), and there is no way in TFT terms he can do that with an IQ of "only" 10 or 11.

By simply not tying the number of skills to the IQ stat, we can solve this problem easily. If you let characters spend XP to acquire new talents/spells/languages, OR to acquire new attributes (each of which has their own advantages), then the problem of attribute bloat drops away immediately, character design and in-game development becomes a LOT more interesting, and even the best characters still have a chance to fail along the way (as Conan quite frequently did). Which solves a whole host of problems.

Fundamentally, what I see as the real problem driving ALL of the issues noted along the way with attributes is that XP may ONLY be spent on attributes. Give the players something else to spend them on, and they will, thus solving *almost* every issue that arises because of having only three attributes in the game
JLV is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-18-2018, 03:40 PM   #505
ecz
 
ecz's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2018
Default Re: The Fantasy Trip

The last two posts are enlightening.

It's clearly a matter of balance.

Our experience of 30+ years showed that truly heroic characters should have a very high IQ, impossible to reach.
This is a bad thing, but on the other hand the RAW forces everyone to make choices during the life of the PC and avoids the risk everyone has everything.

Every hero-type develops in a different way, and has weak spots, that is a good thing.

An intermediate way saving the very peculiar traits of TFT is to include always in the big talent the small one - like Sword and Knife - to save a few IQ/slots.

for example who learns Master Thief does not need anymore the Thief Talent.
Who learns Master Physicker, does not need anymore the basic Physicker talent. Same for Naturalist and Master Naturalist, Warrior and Veteran and so on...
The PC still keeps the old talent, but the IQ space is now free for other uses since the higher level talent absorbs and includes the past knowledge.

Besides, languages should cost only 1/2 IQ slot each being "half-talents".

The extra space can be used immediatly to add new talents during the creation of the Character, or - if the IQ space is gained during the adventures - to add talents waiting "in study" without any Exp points cost.

Not much space saved, but it helps and does not alter the foundations of the game.
ecz is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-18-2018, 07:18 PM   #506
JLV
 
JLV's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Arizona
Default Re: The Fantasy Trip

I don't know about languages. I took Fencing and Russian at the same time back in college. I mastered the rudiments of fencing in one semester (hardly full-time training); it took me roughly three years to become capable in Russian (again, hardly full-time training, but in both cases the number of hours spent per week was identical).

Using this as a yardstick, Russian (not considered one of the harder languages -- like Finnish or Mandarin Chinese) took me roughly six times as long to master sufficiently to be able to acquit myself well as Fencing did. To me, that implies languages might be harder to learn than some of the other talents on the list. Mind you, that's purely apocryphal, since it represents a sample of exactly one...
JLV is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-18-2018, 11:36 PM   #507
Rick_Smith
 
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Coquitlam B.C.
Default Re: Forgetting Talents --> Very gamey.

Hi Everyone, JLV.
My replies in inline below.

Quote:
Originally Posted by JLV View Post
A simpler way would simply be to multiply the IQ to determine the number of IQ slots available for talents/spells.
I disagree. Asking people to remember that your memory is 2x your IQ, is more complex than simply reducing the mIQ cost of most talents.


Quote:
Originally Posted by JLV View Post
I disagree -- magic should be HARD for the layman to learn; and conversely, if someone is capable of handling magic they ought to find talents comparatively easier to acquire than a layman should to acquire magic.
Really??? In TFT, you can learn Summon Bear, Fireball, 3 hex Fire AND 1 hex Fire as easily as Mimic. Each require 3 memory to learn. It seems to me that magic is very easy to understand and learn in TFT. In practice, it is far easier to learn lots of spells than lots of talents. Spells being alien, mind twisting ways of thinking, is certainly not how the TFT rules are written.


Quote:
Originally Posted by JLV View Post
Not sure what this is supposed to mean; many talents already have prerequisites, ... likewise, you can't gain UNARMED COMBAT III until you have already gained UNARMED COMBAT I and II).
Prerequisites are like spells. If you learn 7 hex Fire, you get 1 hex Fire and 3 hex Fire for free mIQ. Corequisites are like talents. If you learn UC iii, you must already know UC ii. But you have to pay mIQ for UC i and for UC ii when you learn UC iii.

Quote:
Originally Posted by JLV View Post
Totally agree with this concept, though I don't understand why everyone wants to introduce unnecessary "middlemen" (such as mIQ or "Character Points") into what should be a straightforward and simple system.
Well my superscript system solves the following problems:
-- Gives more variety in characters so that not all high exp characters (with attribute bloat) have similar attributes.
-- Allows wizards to have more fatigue (fST) to power spells with out beefing up like Conan.
-- Allows heroes to have a realistic amount of talents compared to heroes of fiction and many people in real life.
-- Reduces the problem of attribute bloat, since you have more ways to spend experience.

One subsystem that solves ALL of the above problems actually seems fairly parsimonious design. That is why I did it.

Warm regards, Rick.
Rick_Smith is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-19-2018, 12:32 AM   #508
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: Forgetting Talents --> Very gamey.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rick_Smith View Post
Prerequisites are like spells. If you learn 7 hex Fire, you get 1 hex Fire and 3 hex Fire for free mIQ. Corequisites are like talents. If you learn UC iii, you must already know UC ii. But you have to pay mIQ for UC i and for UC ii when you learn UC iii.
Is that your house rule terminology?

Seems backwards to me. Corequisite is a clever term to use but in academia it means courses a student is required to take at the same time as each other. That seems to me to match the case where you'd study Giant Rope and learn Rope at the same time.

In The Labyrinth uses the term Prerequisite for Talents (you need the Prerequisites first and in addition to the later talents. The Codex spells out spells that include lesser versions and clumsily calls them "the 'includes' spells".


I do like superscript attributes like you do them. To me at least, they let me make different sorts of characters, but can also often not be used, so often characters are described the three attributes still, but it's possible to also describe various other types. (It's how I generally conceive of most GURPS NPCs too - as simple as possible, with whatever details are needed to describe how the person is. It's good to be able to have a very healthy small person who isn't strong and who knows a lot but isn't particularly clever or observant, but also not to have to specify those distinctions for everyone.)

Last edited by Skarg; 02-19-2018 at 12:44 AM.
Skarg is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-19-2018, 12:09 PM   #509
JLV
 
JLV's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Arizona
Default Re: The Fantasy Trip

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rick_Smith View Post
Well my superscript system solves the following problems:
-- Gives more variety in characters so that not all high exp characters (with attribute bloat) have similar attributes.
-- Allows wizards to have more fatigue (fST) to power spells with out beefing up like Conan.
-- Allows heroes to have a realistic amount of talents compared to heroes of fiction and many people in real life.
-- Reduces the problem of attribute bloat, since you have more ways to spend experience.
Seems to me that "superscript attributes" is just another way of having more than three attributes. So naturally attribute bloat is never a problem for you -- you've got six attributes to spend XP on.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rick_Smith View Post
I disagree. Asking people to remember that your memory is 2x your IQ, is more complex than simply reducing the mIQ cost of most talents.
Why is it harder to remember you can have 2 x IQ talents/spells than it is to remember which individual talents are 1/2 slot or 2 slots or whatever against yet another attribute? Remembering one thing is a lot easier than remembering two or three things to accomplish the same thing.

Last edited by JLV; 02-19-2018 at 12:13 PM.
JLV is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-19-2018, 04:02 PM   #510
Steve Jackson
President and EIC
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Default Re: The Fantasy Trip

I should note here that I don't even have a copy of the Codex, which is all right because I would not legally be able to draw from it. But definitely, material added in the Codex is not (or not going to be) precedent or canon.
Steve Jackson is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
in the labyrinth, melee, roleplaying, the fantasy trip, wizard

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 08:55 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.