The Fantasy Trip

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by Skarg

Hi Rick,
... I just think [a figure with staff spell & quarterstaff talent] becomes about 2 points more powerful than the typical 32-point fighter, at least in an unmodified game ... I know you have quite a few house rules including a reworked weapon table that gives more damage to two-handed weapons, and other weapon talents, and I see if even low-level people had 3-5 points of armor that 1d + 1d+2 would not be so good as 2d+2. I'm curious whether your house-rule armor lowers the DX penalty for armor?

Hi Skarg, everyone.
My version of TFT is clearly oriented towards long term campaigns, and not arena combat.

That said, no I've not lowered the DX penalties of armor. But I have allowed the Advantages of Great ST to apply to all sorts of armor, and start the earliest bonuses for Great ST at ST 14. So if the figure was quite strong, his armor penalty might well be one less.

Warm regards, Rick

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

In TFT terms a cantrip is a spell with zero ST cost. You could add those to the game very easily, without changing the system at all. In fact we already have a spell like that: Disbelieve.

It might be fun to have wizards using magic to light their pipes, or putting out candles, or making lights flicker up and down their fingers, without thinking about it. And if they had sufficient IQ, without needing words or gestures. ...

Hi David, everyone.
As I wrote before, I'm likely not going to include cantrips, but if I WAS going to add them, I would want them to be more than 0 fST underpowered spells.

How could cantrips be used to significantly increase the variety of a TFT campaign? How could cantrips increase the drama of a campaign? Some (perhaps mutually exclusive) thoughts...

-- A game where there are 12 cantrips, one for each sign of the zodiac. Everyone of that star sign gets their cantrip, hero or wizard.

-- Cantrip break the spell casting rules some how. Say that they are magic that you cast ahead of time which hangs around until they are triggered.

-- In GURPS Discworld (2nd Edition) they do not use the GURPS magic system but some base spells which are modified to fit the current situation. (Oversimplifying here.) Cantrips could be simple magic 'verbs' which are combined in various ways. The spells are not highly optimized, but they are cheap and flexible.

-- All cantrips are low powered blessings or curses, which would make a rare magical effect in TFT common. The trick would be to have an interesting variety of these, and fun ways of modifying or turning them off.

-- Make sprits more common and more powerful. All cantrips bribe, intimidate, question or banish spirits in some way.

-- Make one or more cantrips for each major type of character (e.g. thief, ranger, fighter, cleric, etc.) You must have the proper talent before you can learn the cantrip (so cantrips are talent based). If you cast a cantrip then the talent becomes magical in some way. (So a climbing cantrip would allow a thief to climb a wall of glass for a short time.)

... and out of ideas. But TFT already has cheap, low powered spells. Rather than making a few spells even more so (and would they be worth a mIQ slot?), tweak them some way to allow TFT to do something it can't do now. Or at least can't do well.

Warm regards, Rick.

[JLV]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

Either I've misunderstood, or when I generate my 32 point character, if I have 800 XP to spend, I have a choice between an IQ 8 talent and 5 attribute points, and nobody sane is going to choose the first.

What? This doesn't apply when you generate your character. Do you use some other system for generating characters than what is given in ITL? If so, that might explain why we keep having these disconnects...

Perhaps you mean "after I generate my 32 point character?" Of note, I was only throwing out a round figure number to illustrate how the process would work, not suggesting that it would BE the number...

So, I think I owe you an apology for not once again clarifying that this is a proposal, not a hard and fast rule already worked out.

[JLV]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

I do not think that this is clear since I've seen different TFT GM's do it different ways. I started thinking that it did damage to you, but have since come around to thinking that going berserk makes you exhausted.

Rick

Well, if you've actually seen it happen, it's a problem, and clearly needs to be straightened out. My comment was directed at the actual wording of the rule, as taken with the wording of all the other rules. To ME it seems quite clear what the intent was, but if others are having difficulty, then it should definitely be clarified in the new edition.

[JLV]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

Hi JLV,
You say: "memory is not an issue"... I DO think it is an very serious issue.

If you check my previous posts, I have argued that talents cost too much memory. I did indeed suggest that the cost of talents be reduced by about half, and that talents that cost 0.5 memory should be introduced.

I gave this a strong recommendation (and I think I've only made 2 or 3 strong recommendations to Steve).

Please read my previous posts as for why I've written this.

Warm regards, Rick.

*sigh* I meant "mIQ as an attribute is not an issue in TFT", because it doesn't EXIST in TFT. Sorry for not being clear. And yes, I do remember you making that suggestion now. I thought someone else had when I wrote the original comment.

[JLV]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

Let us say that I have a character with IQ 12 who has bought 14 spells with that 12 mIQ. Or let's say that a different character also has IQ 12 and has bought 5 talents with that 12 mIQ.

If that figure wants to get more talents, his or her attribute total will increase. It has always worked that way in TFT. It also works that way in my campaign and in every variation of TFT I've seen over the years.

What is gained by making the petty distinction that the attribute is bought before the talent is gained? If I'm going to add more talents, the attribute total WILL increase.

Rick

This is a totally confusing rebuttal since you have yet to explain how mIQ actually works. As an example it fails on multiple accounts because you make across the board statements about mIQ without actually describing how you got there. You need to take a deep breath and write that summary explanation of your system for those of us who have never been exposed to it. Until that happens, all this appears to be to me is a "strident put-down" on my comment.

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by JLV

What? This doesn't apply when you generate your character. Do you use some other system for generating characters than what is given in ITL? If so, that might explain why we keep having these disconnects...

I was looking at it like this, "I have a new character, and have the decision: does my new character buy a bunch of attributes or Running?"

At 1,600 experience for Running, most people would opt to get several attributes.

Rick

[JLV]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

Hi JLV,
Before replying to this post, I spent the time to go back thru the last 8 or so pages of this forum and re-read everything that has been written, to refresh my memory.

These are the reasons:

-- 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.

Ah, there's part of the problem right there; I was assuming we were trying to keep as much as possible to the original TFT design, and what you seemed to be saying is that it needed a major redesign. Also, you assumed a lot of knowledge on all our parts throughout; by referring to mIQ, etc. as if they were a clearly understood and accepted thing. Since they weren't (at least on my part), I was forced to ask questions. Apparently I did so in a "rough" manner, and for that I apologize.

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

My rules were published and discussed on Brainiac's site for years now, and you referred to these rules by name so I assumed that you were familiar with them. You referred to the 'DX variant' which was never discussed on this forum, and mentioned my system 'added 3 attributes' (which again was never mentioned on this forum). Also you were quick to simplify / summarize them and I assumed that you would not do so unless you knew them. So when I replied, I had thought you knew of these rules.

I didn't think you were an expert, but it seemed obvious that you had a passing familiarity with them.

This turns out not to be the case. While I'm on Brainiac, my participation there is not a constant, nor am I one of the major contributors there. Given the enormous number of e-mails and comments on there, reading through the backlog is a fairly low priority for me. As a result, something written years ago has not been something I've pursued. If you re-read my comments, you will see that I've made every single one of them based on the internal evidence and assumptions you made in your posts. And the "DX variant" comment was a total shot in the dark, since if you've gone to the trouble of creating mIQ and fST, then you probably also created something similar for DX (what's it called, btw?). The assumption of "adding three attributes" followed logically from that shot in the dark, which you never replied to.

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

The rules linked to below is my way of fixing the TFT system. I thought carefully about suggesting these rules, but I decided that Steve Jackson is unlikely to want to make a major change to TFT. If not, then they didn't belong in the 'what we would like to see in the new TFT thread', so I didn't suggest them.

So here are the rules if anyone is curious. (Including examples they are under a page long.) I am NOT suggesting that these rules are used in the new TFT.

https://tft.brainiac.com/RicksTFT/Ch...rtVersion.html

THANK YOU! This will go a long way to help me understand what you're really proposing on these threads. Again, I think we've both been making assumptions about what the other knows and thinks, and this should help pierce the fog...at least for me. I hope, that you will ask me questions for clarification on my suggestions (where they are apparently confusing) in the future as well.

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

Fair enough.

My apologies. I had assumed that you were familiar with my work and your several posts where you were saying 'why do this' and 'this is just adding more attributes' seemed less like a question and more like a rhetorical device.

After a while I got impatient. And as I said, if you are going to sum up my rules in a pithy little saying, at least have the courtesy to do so accurately.

Regards, Rick

It was and is my intention to do so. Maybe now I can. "Pithy little sayings" do work both ways though, so if you're going to sum up my often extensive posts that way, then I sincerely hope you'll apply the same standards to your own comments in the future. And maybe we can avoid this sort of thing from now on...

[JLV]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

I was looking at it like this, "I have a new character, and have the decision: does my new character buy a bunch of attributes or Running?"

At 1,600 experience for Running, most people would opt to get several attributes.

Rick

My question was written before I saw your link to your rules. I have yet to read them, so please bear with me until I can figure out what the example really was. Then maybe I can offer some meaningful comment...

[JLV]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

Hi David, everyone.
If the IQ 8 talent was Running (which costs 2 mIQ), then the experience price would double to something like 7 or 8 attributes. (Assuming attributes get more expensive as you go up.)

Obviously the numbers need to be adjusted; I was just throwing out something in round numbers to give an idea of how the system might work. Whatever those numbers turn out to be, it's quite obvious, I think, that attributes will be your best bang for the buck for a while, until the cost of an attribute exceeds whatever the cost for a talent/spell is. At that point, suddenly the talents/spells will be the best bang for the buck. Which should discourage increasing attributes to outrageous levels once a certain break-even point is reached. That's the entire intent of the idea.

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

I think that JLV has not playtested these rules, he was giving an example of how they might work, off the top of his head.

This is true. This is an idea, not a finished product (which is why I kept trying to put the word "system" in quotes in my earlier posts). In fact, if you remember, I first launched my part of this discussion with a "why not do something like this" comment, not a "this is a set of rules I've used for decades and have thoroughly worked out all the ramifications on" comment.

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

If we reduced the price for learning an IQ 8 talent to 80 exp, then Running would cost 160 experience, which seems a bit low, but is obviously more reasonable.

Certainly. And if it seems a bit low, then let's do it this way; let's say that a talent or spell costs 15 times it's IQ level, and is multiplied by the number of "slots" it takes up in the original rule (we can even keep the "slots" in the talent description and simply change the name to "XP multiplier"). Then the running talent becomes 240 (still not terribly attractive for a character just starting out, but rapidly becoming much more attractive as the character begins to build attributes). A "one-slot" talent at IQ 8 would then cost 120 XP points -- which is competitive with attributes even for characters just beginning their careers...

Under the existing rules, that same talent would cost a Wizard 240 points (which means he'll generally delay taking it until it becomes cost effective to do so) and a spell which would cost a Wizard 120 XP to learn would cost a non-Wizard 360 XP to learn (which means he'll generally delay taking it until it's cost effective for HIM). Note that while generally players will follow the logic of the XP costs, there is no rule that requires them to do so, so if they want to save up enough XP for that new talent or spell, even though that might not be the best possible use of their XPs in game theory, they can certainly do so.

The bottom line is that if we can just establish a relatively reasonable cost for talents/spells in terms of XP, we can completely do away with the slots limitation while still ensuring that it takes a while to gain new skills/spells. That's all I'm trying to do here, with the added goal of eliminating an annoying restriction that virtually drives players towards Einstein the Barbarian. (Note: I've said it before, but it probably bears repeating here: IQ levels would still govern WHAT spells/talents a character can learn, but would no longer serve as a restriction on HOW MANY they can learn. That is, if you have an IQ of 9, you can learn any spell/talent of IQ 9 or below, but you are no longer restricted to having only 9 "slots" in which you can put something. However, if you want to learn an IQ 10 spell or talent, you'll need to increase your IQ attribute to 10 before you can.)

Note that a positive side-effect of the proposal is to drastically slow attribute bloat in general, since players now not only can, but practically must spend XP points on something besides new attributes if they want to be effective in the game.