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 05-19-2018, 12:47 AM   #21
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: Skarg's Experience Point house rule

Quote:
Originally Posted by JLV View Post
Hmm, that's strange...we never passed out XP until everyone was back safe in their staging base (whatever that was). In rare cases, if the camping location was "safe" enough that they didn't have to still be on edge all the time, we might pass them out then, but those were pretty rare cases.

I guess generally we "assumed" that if you were still on alert, you didn't have the leisure to "internalize" the lessons learned during the adventure; so you couldn't get XP until you were someplace where you could think hard and absorb the lessons from your adventures without distraction. So the GM mostly just made notes on what was killed, by whom, and any special circumstances or XP-worthy events, and then we hashed it out in the safe house.

Oddly enough, I don't think it was because D&D did it that way, but because most of us had some military experience and were used to the "hot wash" ("After Action", or "Lessons Learned") meetings that happen after every exercise or combat operation, where you study what happened and how you could do it better next time. For example, after DESERT STORM, there was almost a year's worth of "hot washes" where everyone, Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines tried to capture what went right, what didn't go the way it was planned, and how to make sure we "institutionalized" the lessons learned from the war. It led to a lot of changes in the way we did business the next time around. You don't do that in the middle of the exercise or combat operation, because no one has time to think about it then; you go with what you know and how you trained, and then fix the errors, and praise the successes later.
TFT says that too. At least, ITL page 10 "Increasing Your Attributes" says you tell the players about earned EP right away, but don't get to spend them to increase attributes until after an adventure is over and they are back safe at some sort of home base.
Skarg is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-19-2018, 12:53 AM   #22
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: Skarg's Experience Point house rule

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kirk View Post
This discussion is interesting in that it seems our group is a *little* less "accurate", in general, when it comes to dishing out EP.

We don't like to slow play with too many gonculations so the GM awards EP, usually on the fly, with guesstimates, such as "that's 9 points for the damage" or "5 points for seeing that hidden door" or "everyone did something to kill that dragon so divide up 40 points amongst yourselves" or "critical miss on that spell to freeze the other wizard, -10 points" etc.

If a player wants to make a good case for some EP, they can do so later, sometimes the GM is busy keeping the game moving along. And the problem with the "final" blow that takes someone out always starts arguments if someone spent turns whittling down the giant, and some EP vulture swoops in to take out the last point for the DX EP. So the GM when we play has the final say on EP, in general, that isn't always super accurate calculations strictly by the rules.
Sure. I think that's fine as long as you're happy with how your GM does it. And a GM who likes the idea of a system like I posted but finds it too goncular for them to want to do during play, can just guesstimate with such ideas in mind.

I find myself that having a detailed mathematical system is a good basis for which to then estimate appropriate fuzzy numbers anyway. But without having done some math around it, I don't feel as well-equipped to do that.

Perhaps the main point of making this system was to address the severe issues with the existing system and establish a new way to think about what general amounts of EP make sense, rather than to be a super-perfect system for exactly the right amount of EP.
Skarg is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-19-2018, 03:38 AM   #23
Jim Kane
Banned
 
Join Date: Mar 2018
Default Re: Skarg's Experience Point house rule

Quote:
Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
Just because my ideal now would not be to match the ITL EP system, I'm still interested in systems that do.
That's great SKARG as I think you have some "good meat" in the philosophy in-back of your old system, and I would like to work to see if we can't take some "filet" out of there, and mix it in our perspectives on TFT as we view it today, and see if we see how close we can get it to retro-fit in the 1980 rules-set; retaining that all-important: TFT Form, Feel, Flow, Flavor, and Function I am forever on about.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
It seems to me that the system I posted at the top (which I still quite like and is what I'd choose to use for TFT unless/until I invent something else) is very much a "restoration" effort. It's basically just some adjustments on top of the ITL EP system.
It is good, to be sure; I would just like to buck for something which mirrors the actual system a bit more closely - but you know, perspectives change through dialog too.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
I'm willing to agree to talk about what sort of EP system you want to work on, as long as we can define what what that is, and I can relate to it enough to be interesting to me.
Fair enough my friend; I will be pleased to work on this one with you, until we meet our goal, or you say: quit.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
It sounds to me from the above and other examples you've written, that you would like to build an EP system with what I might call a broader "scope" than TFT usually uses.
And I would say that your statement and your explanation is a very accurate assessment.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
Looking at ITL (page 10) Experience Points rules, we see experience is "do[ing] something "well"" and for actions, each point of damage done in combat, killing foes, using fatigue casting spells under pressure, making 4-die or harder saving rolls against danger or when putting talents "to good use" ... So far, all of those are for specific actions so small/narrow in scope, and what you called Actual. Then there's also time spent in play (which we very rarely used because it seemed OOC and could instead fall under GM discretion) and GM Discretion.
Spot-on, and an excellent analysis. However, you and I seem mostly to agree that this concept of THREAT is, or should, also be accounted for in defining a figure when calculating more precisely for the inequity between combatants - and the current system does not account for this.

So, we both know what we want an enhanced Combat EP Award system to do; it seems we just need to agree on WHAT goes into that AND what does not, and then, it is down to the processes of HOW to balance the thing, and HOW we are going to state it as a simple formula.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
I'm curious whether you'd agree, but it seems to me that what you're talking about with giving more EP for beating someone with more Potential threat, is what I'd call a higher-scope perspective.
Correct. I am talking about accounting for BOTH, not being of equal-value, but BOTH, the POTENTIAL and the ACTUAL. I do agree that the potential should not be worth the same as the actual; but i do not feel we should wholly dismiss it either, as the rules do now.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
...If that's what you mean, then I might be more inclined to agree with the idea that a wide range of combat talents might be thought to all be relevant to the difficulty of defeating someone. Because you're talking about the difficulty of defeating an opponent who lives a day away, and the whole adventure of being in the same world as that foe and all the circumstances that lead up to you defeating them or not. With that broader scope, sure in a sense the foe is more dangerous if they have multiple weapon skills, because you might in theory be more likely to meet them in situations where there is a weapon they know how to use nearby.
Yes, THAT is the idea. When you defeat a man in combat, you just don't beat his Strength, Dexterity, and Weapon, you must defeat the totality of his being.

Bruce Lee had a saying: "The enemy has only images and illusions, behind which he hides his true motives, destroy the image (POTENTIAL THREAT), and you will break the enemy (ACTUAL THREAT).

Quote:
Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
But I'm afraid I'm still going to complain about just adding up memory points, because when you do face someone, they generally can only use one weapon at a time against you,,,
Yes, and I would complain about that also! LOL! That is not the sole factor, and as said in my last post about the "two brothers" in combat, the potential of the brother with more combat talents - expressed as total internalized combat knowledge - needs to be accounted for because it is omni-present; however, what talents and weapons you ACTUALLY use in combat, should have a greater value - but BOTH make up the TOTALITY of your enemy.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
I'd like to ask not just what the formula or desired sort of EP amount you'd want, but literally what I asked, i.e. "what you think you'd (ideally, or practically) like the amount of EP for a fight to represent." By "represent", I mean, what in the way things work in the game universe is it that has the victor gain an amount of useful experience by defeating someone?

(For example, I might say that there is the experience of being in deadly combat, and the experience of fighting someone trying to kill you using various strength, abilities, and equipment, and the more formidable that is, the more you learn what it is like to fight someone at that level and what you can do about it and details of techniques they use and so on. It trains your muscle memory, reflexes/reactions, and how you do what you do when you fight, and the more capable the opponent relative to your own ability, the more you're liable to learn and improve if you survive.)

I'm interested in how you'd answer that, if materially different from what I wrote?
I think I understand what you are looking for here SKARG, but I want to take some time to sleep on the question, so I feel confident in what you are asking me, and that I can provide you a quality answer. So, more to follow tomorrow night my friend,

JK

Last edited by Jim Kane; 05-19-2018 at 12:55 PM. Reason: Typo
Jim Kane is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-19-2018, 08:49 PM   #24
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: Skarg's Experience Point house rule

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim Kane View Post
Spot-on, and an excellent analysis. However, you and I seem mostly to agree that this concept of THREAT is, or should, also be accounted for in defining a figure when calculating more precisely for the inequity between combatants - and the current system does not account for this.
Right, and that's the main thing the above system was designed to add.

(There IS one TFT EP system that somewhat takes that into account at least somewhat, in Melee.)

I'd mention (though it's getting ahead of the discussion you want to have) that the system I posted above is not entirely how I would actually assess threat value if I wanted to be as accurate as possible. In particular, it's missing (except in allowing for GM discretion) taking into direct account how much or a chance a figure has of injuring the other! Unless you Pin or use Critical Hits and knock someone out with a Head hit or something, in TFT you defeat someone by doing them damage, so a more accurate TV would really be a function of how much damage they can take, divided by how much damage you are actually liable to do to them (taking into account armor and misses), compared to the same thing for you - that would give you an actual number for how many turns on average it takes for each figure to kill the other in a slugfest, though still it wouldn't be perfect due to ignoring various circumstances, including effects of injury.

But whatever EP system you use, there is the principle in ITL that the GM should shut down player tricks to attempt to farm EP, and mentions in multiple places that EP only be given out for actual danger/combat/problems. And, it seems to me, a fight against someone whose best attack has little or no chance of injuring someone, while the reverse is not true, is much more like a practice exercise than a dangerous fight, and so probably shouldn't be worth any EP. (My formula can indicate as much, but doesn't always.)


Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim Kane View Post
So, we both know what we want an enhanced Combat EP Award system to do; it seems we just need to agree on WHAT goes into that AND what does not, and then, it is down to the processes of HOW to balance the thing, and HOW we are going to state it as a simple formula.
I'm curious if we can do better than what I see as the two best alternatives I know of so far, which are the system I posted, and the GM Discretion version when run by a GM who knows the system really well and has a good sense for appropriate numbers.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim Kane View Post
Mostly correct. I am talking about accounting for BOTH, not being of equal-value, but BOTH, the POTENTIAL and the ACTUAL. I do agree that the potential should not be worth the same as the actual; but i do not feel we should wholly dismiss it either, as the rules do now.

Yes, THAT is the idea. When you defeat a man in combat, you just don't beat his Strength, Dexterity, and Weapon Skill, you must defeat the totality of his being.

Bruce Lee had a saying: "The enemy has only images and illusions, behind which he hides his true motives, destroy the image (POTENTIAL THREAT), and you will break the enemy (ACTUAL THREAT).
I'm also curious what you think about what you'd want the limits to be for an EP system to consider potential threat value?

Because, it seems to me that there are all sorts of potential threats if you widen the scope to the whole situation around a foe. If it's worth consideration and given value that someone could use a sword OR an axe (and I'm still not really convinced that's significant unless one's actually better, in which case it seems a bit like a disadvantage they might use the weaker one), and you really mean "you must defeat the totality of his being.", it seems to me that could include many vastly more significant factors, and many I don't know how to quantify.

What a foe does before combat can be a huge factor, brining in endless potential circumstances, or not.

For example, can they be lured into fighting alone or do they always have dangerous friends/guards around? Will they meet you in a dark alley or will they stay where you'll become a known criminal if you try to kill them? Do they wear armor all day every day? Do they post adequate guards at night? On and on.

What they do during combat is also a potentially massive multiplier or divisor of their threat level.

For example, I one wiped out about ten foes with one character of 33-35 points or so, by finding a good spot in the jungle, placing a torch at night, setting up prone in the bushes and making noise, which resulted in them showing up one or two at a time to investigate, at which point I shot them and took most of them out before they even spotted where I was. I was also sort of using abilities that weren't on my sheet, as the character was IQ 9 and didn't have Tactics (but he did have Missile Weapons).

IQ would then actually start to matter, as the totality includes how smart their decisions are, whether they notice threats or other things they could use against you. Things that improve how others think of them could increase the odds that others will come to their aid if you attack them...

So, do you have a clear idea where it would make sense to you to draw the line?
Skarg is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-19-2018, 09:22 PM   #25
Kirk
 
Join Date: Feb 2018
Default Re: Skarg's Experience Point house rule

Quote:
Originally Posted by Skarg View Post

For example, I one wiped out about ten foes with one character of 33-35 points or so, by finding a good spot in the jungle, placing a torch at night, setting up prone in the bushes and making noise, which resulted in them showing up one or two at a time to investigate, at which point I shot them and took most of them out before they even spotted where I was. I was also sort of using abilities that weren't on my sheet, as the character was IQ 9 and didn't have Tactics (but he did have Missile Weapons).
I haven't tried to follow the details of this EP discussion because for us we use an engineering guesstimate instead of a more refined value of Threat or Perceived Value of a foe, but one thing did come to mind after reading your example of a clever ambusher with IQ 9 is how do you keep a character from acting more clever because of a smarter player who plays him, and of course the converse could be true, a less smart player using a brilliant character and underperforming?

If there is nothing to be had about this, then don't most characters actually, at least for their actions, have the "IQ" of their Player? ;)
Kirk is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-19-2018, 10:02 PM   #26
JLV
 
JLV's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Arizona
Default Re: Skarg's Experience Point house rule

Kirk's question takes us a bit astray from the primary topic, but it's a very worth-while question to ask at this point.

I always figured that non-weapon Talents were a crutch you used when you couldn't actually think of something clever to do on your own. Let's put it another way; your character is in a sticky situation, militarily speaking, but you, as a player, can't come up with any clever ideas on how to address the situation. But, your character has TACTICS!!! "Ah-hah," you tell the GM; "I have TACTICS!" So the GM tells you to roll some dice versus your IQ, and if you make it, he helps you figure out a clever tactical response to the situation.

But if the player himself comes up with a brilliant idea, there's no problem with it in my book. Too often, in the real world, I've seen all the tactical geniuses sitting around a map stumped as hell, when some clown who barely knows how to wear the uniform shows up and says; "Well, what about THIS?" and his idea is just stone-cold stupid enough to work. ANYBODY can have a flash of genius once in a while, and shouldn't be "prevented" by some arbitrary interpretation of Talents or IQ ratings. Besides, easily half the best war-stories I have from my decades of gaming are from people who did something that was either totally stupid, or totally genius, and got lucky on the dice roll, thus making it genius... And isn't that pretty much really the way it is in real life? You're either Einstein, or a candidate for a Darwin Award, and a lot of the time it all depends on the luck of the draw.
JLV is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-20-2018, 02:21 AM   #27
Jim Kane
Banned
 
Join Date: Mar 2018
Default Re: Skarg's Experience Point house rule

Quote:
Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
...in TFT you defeat someone by doing them damage, so a more accurate TV would really be a function of how much damage they can take, divided by how much damage you are actually liable to do to them (taking into account armor and misses), compared to the same thing for you
Agreed; and there may even be many more things we want to examine beyond those - we simply can't know that yet. I am feeling as though, we really need to first answer the the age-old philosophical question: "What is a man?"; or for practical purposes in TFT: "What constitutes a man's value in combat when weighed against another?"

I believe we already agree on the inclusion of:
  • Strength
  • Dexterity
  • Combat Talents Used in Melee
  • Primary Ready Weapon

    And, we are trying to evaluate:
  • All Combat Talents as sum, reflecting Total Combat Knowledge

    And, we still need to explore in detail the contributions of:
  • Armour
  • Shields
  • Things like: Veteran, Warrior, Stone-Flesh, etc
  • Indirect Combat Talents like Strategy, Tactics, etc.
  • Ability or Likelihood to inflict damage
  • Ability or Likelihood to sustain damage

    And, whatever else occurs to us through our examination of the problem.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
But whatever EP system you use, there is the principle in ITL that the GM should shut down player tricks to attempt to farm EP, and mentions in multiple places that EP only be given out for actual danger/combat/problems. And, it seems to me, a fight against someone whose best attack has little or no chance of injuring someone, while the reverse is not true, is much more like a practice exercise than a dangerous fight, and so probably shouldn't be worth any EP. (My formula can indicate as much, but doesn't always.)
Right, and I am hoping by eventually stating a simple formulaic prose rule-set - after we boil all this "behind the scenes brain-work and pre-calculations" down - we will automatically by-pass a lot of that type of player non-sense.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
I'm curious if we can do better than what I see as the two best alternatives I know of so far, which are the system I posted, and the GM Discretion version when run by a GM who knows the system really well and has a good sense for appropriate numbers.
As am I SKARG, which is why I thought we were undertaking this exercise in the first-place; I would like to find out with you. I have no idea what we will discover at the end, but the journey itself so far has been excellent - and I would like to continue down the road with you - I have traveled with worse in the past LOL!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
I'm also curious what you think about what you'd want the limits to be for an EP system to consider potential threat value?
As I say, until we answer that question of how to accurately and properly measure a man. that is impossible to answer at this time; BUT, I can tell you, as a limit, in the end, the rules, as perceived from the players-perspective should read east, clear, and intuitive - with no complicated tables, charts, matrices, or messy-math which interrupts the flow of the game. So, if THAT is a "limit", I will state that as a desired limit.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
Because, it seems to me that there are all sorts of potential threats if you widen the scope to the whole situation around a foe. If it's worth consideration and given value that someone could use a sword OR an axe (and I'm still not really convinced that's significant unless one's actually better, in which case it seems a bit like a disadvantage they might use the weaker one), and you really mean "you must defeat the totality of his being.", it seems to me that could include many vastly more significant factors, and many I don't know how to quantify.
How do you feel if you instead think about all the Combat Talents a figure has, NOT as what he may or may not do, but rather as the simply stating the sum of all his Combat Knowledge?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
What a foe does before combat can be a huge factor, brining in endless potential circumstances, or not.
Correct, but we can really only account for what the rules already inform (Listed talents, weapons, Att values, etc) as already provided by the existing TFT rules. In other words, we cannot give a figure credit for Reputation, as the TFT rules make no reference to this; and in order to do so, we would have to bring in Alien Content, which I am HIGHLY OPPOSED to.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
For example, I one wiped out about ten foes with one character of 33-35 points or so, by finding a good spot in the jungle, placing a torch at night, setting up prone in the bushes and making noise, which resulted in them showing up one or two at a time to investigate, at which point I shot them and took most of them out before they even spotted where I was. I was also sort of using abilities that weren't on my sheet, as the character was IQ 9 and didn't have Tactics (but he did have Missile Weapons).
An excellent example, but the level of detail is such that it would either be wholly unplayable to the point that the game would need to come to a crashing halt, as everyone got out their slide-rules and reference manuals to factor all these details, and that is certainly NOT how TFT lays or is refereed.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
So, do you have a clear idea where it would make sense to you to draw the line?
Again, it is too soon to say, as like a sculptor, I think we need to first throw a huge blob of clay on the table, pick out the clay which is not the correct color or density first, and then begin removing "everything that isn't a horse", or whatever it is we want to sculpt as "rule".

JK

Last edited by Jim Kane; 05-20-2018 at 12:35 PM. Reason: Clairity
Jim Kane is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-20-2018, 10:02 PM   #28
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: Skarg's Experience Point house rule

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kirk View Post
I haven't tried to follow the details of this EP discussion because for us we use an engineering guesstimate instead of a more refined value of Threat or Perceived Value of a foe, but one thing did come to mind after reading your example of a clever ambusher with IQ 9 is how do you keep a character from acting more clever because of a smarter player who plays him, and of course the converse could be true, a less smart player using a brilliant character and underperforming?

If there is nothing to be had about this, then don't most characters actually, at least for their actions, have the "IQ" of their Player? ;)
That's an interesting question! There are several ways to handle it.

In TFT, with such a strong incentive for fighters to not put points in IQ at least to start with (since it directly means less fighting ability), and considering how common the IQ 8-9 fighter is, I tend to think of it that it's not so much that they're all dumb, but they may be inexperienced, under-developed and/or naive (after all, so many of them get themselves killed in fairly pointless fights... ;) ).

I tend to think of TFT characters as having an unlisted level of innate smartness that doesn't particularly change with experience, as part of their character concept, which generally isn't explicitly on their sheet, and may or may not correspond to their IQ attribute. After all, many players like to be able to play as someone clever and not to have to act dumber than they are, but there are only 32 points to start with, and that would tend to mean a problematic dilemma for such players who wanted to be a non-wizard. Imagine if everyone who started a fighter at IQ 8-9 had to play them as lackwits... and besides, even smart players tend to do amble stupid things, too. (It also doesn't seem plausible to have dumb people becoming clever, per se, through experience.)

So to my mind, it's not really OOC for a player to do some smart/clever things as a low-IQ starting fighter who's not thought to be dumb. To me it makes sense to have a starting character with IQ 9 or even 8 who may be a clever person, but is inexperienced. If the PC adds several attribute levels through experience though and is still IQ 9 or less, though, then I may tend to think they're probably not that sharp.

When my IQ 9 character racked up all that EP (enough to go up a couple of attribute points, at least if/when he ever made it out of the adventure to "home") from cleverly shooting a bunch of confused people, I remember feeling slightly embarrassed and asking the GM if he really thought I should get that much EP, and then me deciding I should probably use at least some of it to increase my IQ, as it would seem wrong to me to suddenly develop notably more muscles or agility for having done something clever and shot straight for quite a short period of time.

I can think of several potential answers to "how do you keep a character from acting more clever because of a smarter player who plays him?", but mine is probably that you don't, unless you think it violates the character's concept or life experience so far. If someone did seem to be mis-roleplaying their character concept, I'd probably remind them of the character concept and see wha sort of adjustment were needed.

However, the PC's IQ is still what it is, and rolls may be wanted to see how well the character manages to pull of the player's clever idea. Not that they can't think of a good idea, but if the character is clever but rates IQ 8-9, to me that means they probably lack experience pulling off plans, and in any case a clever plan may have some potential gotchas if not executed quite well. In the case of my PC laying an ambush, does he manage to find and light a torch and set it up properly so it stays lit and lights the right area? Do I manage to find a good hiding spot with a good view of the lit area, without leaving obvious tracks to find and get to me? Do I manage to stay alert and unobserved while setting it up? Do I avoid disturbing a snake or something in the jungle? Of course, there's a balance between considering logical things that might go wrong, and sabotaging a player's plan that might actually work when they're already at terrible odds of survival. Maybe just roll vs. IQ to see in general whether there are any hitches in pulling it off or not.

As for players playing foolishly with characters who are supposedly smart, again I think there's a difference between high IQ and someone who's clever at everything (and the use of IQ to become a powerful wizard I think should not always mean they're super-smart and observant in every way - part of the "attribute bloat" issue), there are also various approaches. In general though, if I think a player's being more foolish than their PC, I tend to (rule or possibly roll IQ for the PC and on success) give the player some and/or "are you sure?" or "your character has the thought that that probably wouldn't work because..." types of clues/prodding and second-chances.


Quote:
Originally Posted by JLV View Post
But if the player himself comes up with a brilliant idea, there's no problem with it in my book. Too often, in the real world, I've seen all the tactical geniuses sitting around a map stumped as hell, when some clown who barely knows how to wear the uniform shows up and says; "Well, what about THIS?" and his idea is just stone-cold stupid enough to work. ANYBODY can have a flash of genius once in a while, and shouldn't be "prevented" by some arbitrary interpretation of Talents or IQ ratings. Besides, easily half the best war-stories I have from my decades of gaming are from people who did something that was either totally stupid, or totally genius, and got lucky on the dice roll, thus making it genius... And isn't that pretty much really the way it is in real life? You're either Einstein, or a candidate for a Darwin Award, and a lot of the time it all depends on the luck of the draw.
Yeah. Also, my PC's story could have ended up being about how I tried my plan but set fire to the jungle and the foes came and found me stuck in some quicksand or one of them noticed my trail into the bushes and came and caught me from behind.
Skarg is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-28-2018, 11:47 PM   #29
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: Skarg's Experience Point house rule

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim Kane View Post
... How do you feel if you instead think about all the Combat Talents a figure has, NOT as what he may or may not do, but rather as the simply stating the sum of all his Combat Knowledge?
I feel like simply adding those is not always going to give a very meaningful number, but we can go ahead and list it if you like, and we'll always be able to see where it breaks down.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim Kane View Post
Correct, but we can really only account for what the rules already inform (Listed talents, weapons, Att values, etc) as already provided by the existing TFT rules. In other words, we cannot give a figure credit for Reputation, as the TFT rules make no reference to this; and in order to do so, we would have to bring in Alien Content, which I am HIGHLY OPPOSED to.
I'm not sure it's so impossible and alien. One possible theoretical EP system that'd be closer to the GM discretion method could take such things into account and provide numeric guidelines for the EP value of certain situations at a higher level, like an fleshed-out version of the Melee EP system where you get X EP for an easy win, Y EP for a fair win, Z EP for a difficult win, etc.

But I was mainly mentioning those other situations because if we do want a system to assess EP for how challenging the entire situation is of facing an opponent before you even meet them, then things like their habits of being armed or wearing armor or falling for ambushes or setting ambushes or going for friends seem more significant than the (to me, almost insignificant) factor of whether he has both Sword and Ax/Mace talents.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim Kane View Post
An excellent example, but the level of detail is such that it would either be wholly unplayable to the point that the game would need to come to a crashing halt, as everyone got out their slide-rules and reference manuals to factor all these details, and that is certainly NOT how TFT lays or is refereed.
Seems to me that it can be and is, sometimes, sometimes not. It's just done with GM discretion and reference to principles in ITL.
Skarg is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

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 02:12 PM.


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