03-13-2018, 10:52 PM | #11 |
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Join Date: Mar 2018
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Re: TFT Dungeon Crawling
If by this you mean to ask if there are any traps in the tunnels connecting the rooms to each other, no. There are plenty of traps located elsewhere though!
As additionally informed by the rules: "(2) You need search for no "secret" doors. All chambers, passages, etc., will be clearly marked. This is a test of skill and bravery, not eyesight." - Jackson, Steve. The Fantasy Trip: Death Test. Austin: Metagaming, 1980. p1. I hope that answers your question. Last edited by Jim Kane; 03-13-2018 at 11:52 PM. Reason: Clarity |
03-14-2018, 12:58 PM | #12 | |
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Tyler, Texas
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Re: TFT Dungeon Crawling
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1. Character advancement/improvement. 2. Exploration of the unknown maze. 3. Resource management (and the concomitant ability to survive a significant number of battles before the resources run out). D&D managed to provide all three, from the very beginning. In particular, the much derided hit points system allowed for resource management and numerous battles (however unrealistically). And resource management was very straightforward with the Vancian magic system. As my previous post indicated, I think that there are 2 issues in TFT dungeon crawling to contend with: 1. Allowing players to survive more than 1 or 2 combats, preferably by their own abilities, not fortuitous discoveries of healing potions. 2. Not slowing the game down significantly. Issue #2 precludes a simple fix for #1, like doubling or tripling ST for hit points. Doing that will make TFT combats last significantly longer (and make them more boring as movement gives way to slugfests). TFT combats are faster than D&D 3rd ed., but slower than the typical AD&D "theater of the mind" combat that I ran. Time-consuming tactical systems frustrate the classic dungeon crawl in my opinion because they limit the number of combats possible in a game session. TFT's combat system is barely fast enough for a dungeon crawl in my opinion. I'd jealously protect its speed. Therefore, it seems to me that you need some kind of damage recovery system *after* each fight is over. However, this system should also be limited somehow to provide a resource management aspect. Last edited by tbeard1999; 03-14-2018 at 07:47 PM. |
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03-14-2018, 03:54 PM | #13 | |||
Join Date: May 2015
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Re: TFT Dungeon Crawling
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What we did houserule, was to track every individual wound and let physickers treat each wound, not to make it easier but because healing per-battle made no sense to us otherwise.* That effectively does add a LOT of survivability especially against light & moderate injuries, and with armor. (* Why does it make no sense? Trog takes four -2 hits in one fight, then can only be physicked once for +2. Bob takes a -2 hit and gets physicked, again and again as many times as you like. Result: Trog is at -6 and will take 12 days of rest to recover. Bob could take -2 hits and get physicked all day long and have 0 damage.) How did we manage to survive labyrinths with many combats? Well, having played and won most of the Microquests, we had a pretty good sense of tactics. That goes a long way to learning how to reduce risks of getting hurt. Applying that to campaign play also helps - be stealthy and smart about how you go about it. But also, it was about being smart and prepared at the adventure management level, mainly meaning you come prepared and bring enough people for the adventure you're on. It was pretty clear even for the first adventure that a party going (in this case) a week or more off-road into a deep forest to find a particular labyrinth was going to want to have some pack animals to carry ample supplies in and loot out, at least one wagon that can carry wounded as far as it could go through the woods, at least one physicker whose main task in battle is to not get hurt, and enough fighters for 24 hours of guard shifts and so that when there were wounded, they could be guarded while they healed up in the woods, and there could even be some people who could continue to adventure from camp at the same time. Bring enough people for the job, and expect casualties and unexpected challenges. Either have multiple characters per player, recruit/befriend/join NPCs, and/or don't go on adventures where you're screwed if some of you get hacked up. Actually managing the situation of taking wounds and needing to heal was part of the challenge of play and what made the game feel like the situation it was supposedly about. Just like Death Test or Grail Quest, a major challenge of play is being able to survive a series of situations without being able to heal up between each one. But in ITL, there's a whole world and more detail and more options. Can you actually figure out ways to manage to survive the situation described, or is it hopeless for you unless you are practically invulnerable because you have a barrel of healing potion? When healing is fast and abundant, it can remove a major element of play, make the details of what happens less consequential, and raise the stakes to more like the players always survive with little/no consequence, or get killed. I also feel it's a far more interesting and immersive gameworld when there are unpredictable outcomes including death and defeat, lasting wounds accumulating, a need to consider retreat & recovery, and not getting to be the only ones who heal and recruit NPCs and move around the world. Now, looking at some D&D-style adventures, sure those tend to look ridiculously deadly for TFT (even the first "non-magical weapons have no effect" monster could wipe many good TFT parties), but that's because they play entirely differently and that's what it takes to make those games even interesting because the combat is abstract and the main combat mechanic is slowly eroding a huge pile of hit points and there's no map and little/no tactical game about how you fight and might manage to not get wounded. Quote:
When PCs start having armor, many foes need double or triple damage to pose much threat at all. |
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03-14-2018, 04:29 PM | #14 | |
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Arizona
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Re: TFT Dungeon Crawling
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Of note, games like Call of Cthulhu (another extremely highly lethal RPG) would have the same issues if they actually did Megadungeons, but since it's "modern" combat in time-sensitive situations which are designed to allow for a lot of downtime between confrontations (by requiring investigation/research and travel and those sorts of things), the lethality of CoC combat comes out in the wash -- you have time to recover, and that time can be spent actually roleplaying the scenario. Plus, if you confront anything truly hideous, odds are that you'll go insane, or faint, or something, and wake up hours later without any idea of what "actually" happened! ;-) The biggest maze I ever saw in CoC was in the tunnels beneath the pyramids on the Giza plateau, and I think there were a total of *four* actual encounters (including the "Boss" encounter) in a mile or so of passages... So maybe one potential answer is, if you keep lethality in TFT to its current level, to provide something useful/interesting/effective for the players to do in their downtime besides sitting around staring at the thatch in the ceiling while slowly healing up (and frankly, working as a mule skinner or a pottery caster isn't it). Oh, and just say right up front that players/FMs should eschew megadungeons as not a productive use of their game-time. However, here's an interesting philosophical point for keeping things the way they are: If anyone can actually "clear" a megadungeon, how could it ever have gotten as bad as all the legends about that megadungeon make it? If the Dwarves could clear and reclaim Moria, it never would have been a spooky and horrifying as it was in the book. Maybe the mere fact that it sits there unconquered, beneath the mountain or the old ruined castle or whatever, is because it CAN'T be conquered. The best you can do is go in on a quick commando mission to kill a particular beast, or recover a particular article, or seal off a particular section so whatever lives there can't get out any more, and dreams of "clearing" it are just so much nonsense without a literal army going down there with you. Mind you, that still takes away one of the great adventure themes of other FRPGs, but maybe that's enough to overcome the problem anyway, at least thematically. You can still have a megadungeon, but it's an unattainable goal... |
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03-14-2018, 04:50 PM | #15 | ||||
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Tyler, Texas
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Re: TFT Dungeon Crawling
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Last edited by tbeard1999; 03-14-2018 at 05:44 PM. |
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03-14-2018, 04:53 PM | #16 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: TFT Dungeon Crawling
This thread seems to have started from inaccurate premises -- that traditional dungeon crawling doesn't involved 'dungeon peristalsis'. Since first edition D&D, the standard for dungeon crawling was "continue through encounters until you run out of healing and/or major damage spells, then camp", and, absent time pressure, camping every fight makes sense. It's really just a question of how long you want people to camp, and even that only matters when there's time pressure.
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03-14-2018, 05:20 PM | #17 | ||
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Tyler, Texas
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Re: TFT Dungeon Crawling
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I stated - and there seems to be some agreement - that classic dungeon crawls were fun for 3 main reasons - character advancement, exploration of the unknown and resource management. We then discussed ways to adapt TFT to better reflect the classic D&D experience (while still retaining most TFT features). I’m not sure how that constitutes “inaccurate premises”. Quote:
Last edited by tbeard1999; 03-14-2018 at 05:41 PM. |
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03-14-2018, 05:41 PM | #18 | |
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Tyler, Texas
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Re: TFT Dungeon Crawling
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03-14-2018, 05:52 PM | #19 | |||
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Tyler, Texas
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Re: TFT Dungeon Crawling
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03-14-2018, 09:50 PM | #20 | ||
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Arizona
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Re: TFT Dungeon Crawling
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