Jobs and critical success/failure

[TippetsTX]

I noticed in the revised ITL these rules have changed a bit. For example, it is no longer possible to boost character stats by rolling a critical success which I can understand to an extent, since it could lead to abuse (that was never my experience when playing, however).

On the the other hand, on a critical failure, the character can still die. So my question is, do the rewards (cash bonus, promotion, etc.) really balance against the risks? I don't think they do.

Also, are there any specific guidelines on what level or types of rewards are appropriate?

[TippetsTX]

No thoughts or guidance on this?

[larsdangly]

This is an open ended issue because the answer will depend a lot on how your group uses the success outcome. It says that something good happens for you, such as a promotion. So what does a promotion mean? That's up to your group. If it means you get knighted and put in charge of a fief its a big deal and well worth the risk of the negative outcome. If it means nothing because your group doesn't really pay attention to jobs then it might not feel worth the risk and you should get a job with little or no chance of failure. Also, remember that the damage isn't automatic; it happens only if you fail a second saving throw against your best unmodified stat, which is something most people will make most of the time.

[Skarg]

It seems to me the job table serves an important purpose but that it should not be too specific in ITL because what the specific special outcomes (both rewards AND risks) should really be quite variable and depend on the situation, and especially if this is a PC we're rolling for, it's vastly more satisfying for the GM to generate on his own some specific situation to describe and play out at some level with the player, rather than saying "something happened - roll to avoid taking a generic amount of damage that may kill you" as the only possibility.

I'd say it's not that a standard reward should be specified (though rough & variable guidelines might not hurt, IF an appropriate thing to suggest can be worded such that people won't mis-apply it...), but that the risk should also be more vague.

And again, above all, both the reward and the risk should usually be turned into an interesting situation unless the players really don't care and really just want to roll through it and get the results with as little effort as possible.

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I think the original rule ran into trouble with the way many players related to it not just because it didn't scale (i.e. it should have said you get 100 experience or 3d x 10 experience or something rather than you get enough experience to go up an attribute). It was also a problem because players tended to relate to it as:
* written-in-stone absolute truth about the rate people can improve from those jobs
* something the designer had run long-term statistics on and approved the results of
* something that made sense to think every NPC was doing, so non-violent professionals are high-level characters after 10-20 years of job rolls
* a description of the only risks working at a job presents - it's always a saving roll or X dice damage

Those are all over-applications that lead to perverse results and conclusions.

[Helborn]

Here is Steve's Official correction of ITL pg 25 :
JOBS. Clarification: Magic items (except Charms) do NOT help on the job-risk roll. Omission (may have resulted from my own error - whatever the source, it's important to play balance): " . . . give him enough experience points to raise one attribute, or 1,000 experience points, whichever is less."

This was originally printed in Space Gamer #29 July 1980. This is also available here:http://thefantasytrip.game/news/2018...rrata-for-tft/

add: In essence, there was never a give-away as a result of Jobs rolls after the first few attribute gains.

[TippetsTX]

Originally Posted by Helborn

Omission (may have resulted from my own error - whatever the source, it's important to play balance): " . . . give him enough experience points to raise one attribute, or 1,000 experience points, whichever is less."

This was originally printed in Space Gamer #29 July 1980.

add: In essence, there was never a give-away as a result of Jobs rolls after the first few attribute gains.

I like that, though the XP number would probably have to be adjusted to fit with the new rules.