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Old 02-06-2018, 02:38 PM   #1
Chris Goodwin
 
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Default TFT and GURPS - where is the line between them?

From a philosophical standpoint, where does TFT end and GURPS begin? I suggested starting a thread to talk about this, so I'm going to do so.

If I have any authority to set ground rules in this thread: speak positively about both games. TFT is a fine game; so is GURPS. We wouldn't all be here if at least one of those weren't true. I'm not trying to knock GURPS or pump TFT at its expense, and I don't want anyone else to either.

I've seen lots of house rules for TFT that make it more like GURPS: separating fatigue from damage. Adding a HT attribute. Spending points on talents (or spells) separately from those provided by IQ.

So... what is TFT that GURPS is not? What is GURPS that TFT is not?
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Old 02-06-2018, 07:31 PM   #2
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Default Re: TFT and GURPS - where is the line between them?

I don't know the answer, other than to say that way back in the 80s I visited my local game store and saw the original GURPS set and the big yellow BRP book. I spent a couple of hours looking them over and decided that GURPS would be a relatively seamless transition for my long-running TFT group.
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Old 02-06-2018, 08:50 PM   #3
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Default Re: TFT and GURPS - where is the line between them?

A major design difference that transcends just the overall complexity is the fact that GURPS lets you trade everything against everything, including both positive and negative departures from the 'default case' human. So, if I am contemplating how high my ST score or battleaxe skill can get, I can consider raising them in exchange for taking on a fear or spiders or innumeracy or something. In TFT your 'trade space' is tightly constrained - ST can only be traded for DX or IQ (and visa versa), within narrow limits when characters are first defined. And the 'trade spaces' associated with talents and gear and so forth have a similar balance in effective outcomes, and narrow ranges of things that can be trade for each other. With the exception of leaving a stat low at character creation, there also aren't any really negative things you can trade for different positive things. This makes it much easier to play 'build a bear' in GURPS to create characters who are exceptionally effective at one thing (usually fighting), whereas if you try that **** in TFT it is pretty hard to change your overall dangerousness in combat or survivability on adventures just by design.
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Old 02-07-2018, 07:36 AM   #4
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Default Re: TFT and GURPS - where is the line between them?

(moved from another thread)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Goodwin View Post
If outrageously high attributes are a problem, give characters things to spend XP on besides attributes.

<snip>

If you're worried about TFT turning into GURPS, then maybe it's time for a thread about what TFT is that GURPS is not and vice versa.
Well said.

In my opinion, here are some key distinctions -

TFT offers a FAR simpler and quicker character generation system. GURPS offers a much slower and infinitely more detailed character generation system.

TFT offers a better compromise (again in my opinion) between slow, detailed combat and fast, abstracted combat. In any case, TFT offers a faster combat system with a bit less detail.

TFT necessarily is more "generic" than GURPS in terms of character definition.

TFT is NOT "GURPS Lite" any more than GURPS is "Advanced TFT". They are very different games that share certain similar mechanics. Indeed, I always felt that GURPS looked a lot more like Champions than TFT.
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Old 02-07-2018, 01:53 PM   #5
sir_pudding
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Default Re: TFT and GURPS - where is the line between them?

I think comparison to the whole tool box thar is GURPS is a mistake. You should compare it to the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game, since both systems are aimed at the same kind of FRPG experience.

Having never played TFT, or even heard of it before I started playing GURPS, there's no real nostalgia reason for me to play it now. I probably won't be playing it because I suspect it won't be appreciably more focused than DFRPG already is.
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Old 02-07-2018, 03:27 PM   #6
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Default Re: TFT and GURPS - where is the line between them?

TFT and Dungeon Fantasy are really, really different. Beyond the complexity and speed of play, Dungeon Fantasy characters are more like those in the jacked-up modern versions of D&D (4E, or high level 5E characters), whereas TFT is a much deadlier, easy come easy go sort of game, where your characters are more like those in Tunnels and Trolls or low-level basic D&D.
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Old 02-10-2018, 12:45 PM   #7
ak_aramis
 
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Default Re: TFT and GURPS - where is the line between them?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Goodwin View Post
From a philosophical standpoint, where does TFT end and GURPS begin? I suggested starting a thread to talk about this, so I'm going to do so.

If I have any authority to set ground rules in this thread: speak positively about both games. TFT is a fine game; so is GURPS. We wouldn't all be here if at least one of those weren't true. I'm not trying to knock GURPS or pump TFT at its expense, and I don't want anyone else to either.

I've seen lots of house rules for TFT that make it more like GURPS: separating fatigue from damage. Adding a HT attribute. Spending points on talents (or spells) separately from those provided by IQ.

So... what is TFT that GURPS is not? What is GURPS that TFT is not?
For me, the distinction is in how skill is represented.

TFT, skills (properly, Talents) adjust the dice thrown
GURPS, skills increase effective attributes
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Old 02-10-2018, 01:28 PM   #8
larsdangly
 
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Default Re: TFT and GURPS - where is the line between them?

Quote:
Originally Posted by ak_aramis View Post
For me, the distinction is in how skill is represented.

TFT, skills (properly, Talents) adjust the dice thrown
GURPS, skills increase effective attributes
Many talent related modifiers adjust the attribute. E.g., Thrown Weapons, Missile Weapons, or the penalty for not having a weapon talent.
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Old 02-10-2018, 04:11 PM   #9
Skarg
 
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Default Re: TFT and GURPS - where is the line between them?

I have always related to GURPS as a more advanced and detailed version of TFT that also now has tons of toolkit rules and content available for it.

TFT is also a much faster-to-learn and clearly ready-to-play system, where GURPS (especially 4e) daunts many players and can seem like a massive task to choose/design a setting and even make characters because of the huge number of options. I can run either system for a non-gamer right away as the GM, but a person can more or less learn Melee in under an hour.

I also relate to GURPS as solving many issues that eventually had TFT (after 6 or so years of heavy play) become unsatisfying to us (see below for details).

However since then, I've also seen that house rules can also make TFT work well enough for me, and occasionally I've still played TFT (even without house rules) for fun/nostalgia/curiosity.

I think the main difference is in the complexity of the character sheets (especially the potential length of the skill list) and character generation process.



Background story, if interested:

It also was our answer to having burned out playing TFT. We played TFT from 1980 to 1986, but about 1985, particularly with the first character still going from 1980 (a 46-point fighter), most of the combat seemed extremely predictable and not challenging unless excessive opponents were involved. Fine chainmail, fine greatsword, Veteran, Fencing, self-powered Stone Flesh ring. Does sweeping blows for fun, stops 10 hits per attack (if anyone ever survives long enough to attack) and has friends. Sure he could die to one powerful lightning bolt or a thrown spell or poison or something, but the interest in combat was not really there. Even for less-powerful characters, we'd done so many TFT combats that the action felt really predictable.

So we started house-ruling and then largely stopped playing and were designing new systems to make combat more interesting and unpredictable and to work more like we thought it should (defensive moves, more interesting representations of high skill level, differences between how different hand weapons and armor types work, more options for actions, more maneuvering)...

And then GURPS Man To Man appeared, and it did about 95% of what our redesign was trying to do, but elegantly, well-written, and playtested.
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Old 03-04-2018, 06:44 PM   #10
Jim Kane
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Default Re: TFT and GURPS - where is the line between them?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
... And then GURPS Man To Man appeared...
Skarg - I am glad you had a better reaction to Man-to-Man, than I did.

For myself, I have never had my gaming-hopes lifted so high, and then so quickly dashed in all my years of gaming. Granted, SJ had stated: "MtM is not TFT all over again."

No it is not, MtM is a totally different animal.

For me, Man-to-Man signaled the first resounding peal of the death knell for:

1) The singularly most appealing thing to me about TFT over ALL OTHER FRPG systems,

and,

2) Eliminated the only core-rule in the TFT-system which INDIRECTLY simulated the psychological FEEL of the danger/relief of physical confrontation with another being.

On the first-point:

When I read the words: "Yes, you need amour"; I basically lost 99% interest in the MtM design right then and there. - See MtM p. 15, sidebar

Why?

Mechanically, MtM, with the weapon damage bonuses added-in for cutting and impaling, reflected the true effect of weapon damage REALISTICALLY, but that also instantly killed-off the FUN and COLOR of sustaining multiple hits in a Melee and surviving as an unarmored, bare-chested wild-man who swings a Frazetta-style weapon while surrounded by Ogres with sharply gnarled clubs and bone axes.

In MtM, my TFT-style characters would die by the second blow, or the first good one - more often than not.

So why was this change in the scale of weapon damage and "forced into armor" dynamic so devastating to my TFT game-world, so-much-so that MtM was wholly unrelatable in game-world terms?

Simply because MY take on Cidri, was - strike, correct - IS, and always has been, an extremely dark, mysterious, oppressively brutal, unforgiving, and sinister world. A savage world, populated with sweaty, bare-chested and aggressive (i.e. barely armored) Low-Fantasy Barbaric-types with large, exotic, and deadly weapons; battling bizarre and esoteric wizards and monster-sized natural predator-beasts - classic Robert E. Howard "Swords & Sorcery" set and setting - and certainly not the world of Prince Valiant, nor Gandalf and the trapping of Tolkienesque High-Fantasy - nor the world where:

"Yes, you need amour." is a defacto-mantra for survival in that game-world.

The characters of MY Cidri, both PC and NPC - being totally and wonderfully Non-PC in every way - ONLY survive and flourish on: cunning, savagery, brutality, force of will, while dominating their environment and each other - or die.

Remember THE PROMISE printed on page 3 of IN THE LABYRINTH: "Each player creates a character - whatever type he wishes.";

TFT fulfilled that promise beautifully in game-world terms.

However, MtM's "Yes, you need armor.", and the Cutting/Impaling Damage Bonuses, instantly revoked TFT's above promise upon publication. Sure, you COULD go without armor, after all, it's not a RULE, but I hope you enjoy playing a character who will die really fast.

Therefore - and sadly for me - as you can see, the idea of Mad-Maxian Iron-Age Fantasy Characters, being forced to wear layers of amour and a pot-helm, just to avoid dying from a pin-prick from a clumsy Halfling-tailor while mending a torn loin-cloth, did not work at all for me - at all.

Again, SJ did warn us: "MtM is not TFT."

On the 2nd Point:

The other Klaxon-of-Doom resounded with the reading of the words about ["eliminating the concept of figures being 'Engaged', as there is no invisible magical force-field which glues you to another character while in combat"] - or something along those lines; I paraphrase.

While in point-of-fact there is no magical force-field that binds you to another while in combat, true enough; however, there is a psychological mind-set that occurs at three distinct stages of real combat: 1) At the moment you have to decide to actually engage a combatant within striking range - it can often feel like putting a bet down in a Casino, no matter how (over/under)confident your are; 2) The unspoken psychological/emotional communication-cross-chatter that occurs - it's a "sensed" thing between you and the enemy combatants you are embroiled with, even at-range; and 3) the feeling of the "release" from the psychological/emotional embroilment when the combat has finally been resolved.

To me, as a secondary by-product, the "invisible force-field of Engagement", indirectly simulated the FEEL of the head-trip of being in a direct confrontation; either as the engaging aggressor, or as the target-of-opportunity - who suddenly finds themselves "glued" into a combat situation.

I suppose it has something to do with the oft-weighty decision to commit to an engagement, evaluation of the opposition for strength and weaknesses, before making the decision to execute and thereby becoming committed to to the mission, etc.; and that's what the TFT rule of willfully entering that "invisible force-field of engagement" made come alive in play.

I think it is one of the best parts of the combat rules-set, even if it was not designed with that feature in mind.

I also get that a LOT of people feel the "engaged" rule is limiting and unrealistic from a purely mechanical point-of-view.

Well, from a purely mechanical point-of-view, the rules must somehow consistently bar players from doing the two things they want to do most, and that is: a) Attack and then Move out of range of retaliation, or, b) Attack while on-the-move, and hence, out of range of retaliation.

You really can't have that in a two-tier, sequentially-based, Movement/Action mechanical system, and also avoid having those who move first consistently overrun those who move second.

In sum: There is a beautiful "Chess-Like" feeling that is almost unique to the TFT combat-system, with it's "Option Menu/Scripted Action/Outcome, where no two attacks happens simultaneously" frame-work.
Add to this the limited list of movement/action options, and to me, in someways TFT characters of different types and weaponry, behave very much like the wonderful difference between various Chessmen.

Like Chess, it is simple and elegant.

I would hate to see any of that beautiful uniqueness, flavor, and FEEL lost;
as it was in MtM.

So, to directly answer the OP's Question: For me and my game-world, it is not a line that separates MtM from TFT; but a gulf.

Last edited by Jim Kane; 03-05-2018 at 05:46 AM.
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