the "outrageous attribute" problem

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by tbeard1999

... So...if characters average (say) 100 EP per game session, and if the game sessions are weekly, it will take 5 weeks to get to 36 points, 15 weeks to get to 40 points, 65 weeks to get to 45 points and 215 weeks (!) to get to 50 points.

Now, I don't really know when "attribute bloat" becomes a problem. But if it happens at (say) 45 points, then I'm not overly concerned. How many campaigns (a) meet weekly for 16 months; and (b) have such low attrition that characters routinely survive that long?

And if attribute bloat happens at 50 points, then I am utterly unconcerned. Assuming that the GM doesn't hand EP out like candy, you'd need to play every week for 4 YEARS (and survive) to get to that level.

EP gain varies by what happens to the PCs, but your estimates aren't far off what I saw, or are actually faster. The longest campaigns I ran and was in went for maybe 80 to 150 sessions (?), and the two whole-thing-surviving PCs reached 42 and 46 points.

However, we did start to feel what I'd call attribute bloat issues, where the PCs, their NPC allies, and the foes who were on par, were expected to make most/all of their DX rolls, largely removing missing as a major element of play unless there were circumstances such as darkness, Aimed Shots, fighting on mountains of dead bodies, the Blur spell, etc. (but even then, those factors were largely overcome by high attributes). Sure, a trap expert is great for detecting traps, but so is the wizard with IQ 20+. Etc.

1) Unless your GM fudges his world so the players are always the best characters on hand, a self-consistent world should have highly-experienced characters in it from the start of the campaign. And as players gain experience and take on more challenging opponents and find more competent allies, some of those characters should naturally be better than the PCs, so you start to get other high-level characters in play with high point totals before the PCs get there.

2) Even worse than attribute bloat were magic items, especially strong self-powered ones that give major battle advantages. If those things exist in your world, it's natural for some of the tougher opponents to be the ones with them, and for players to want to get and hoard them and never take them off. Reverse Missiles and Stone/Iron Flesh, as well as Weapon/Armor Enchantment, are obvious ones that are the equivalent of (or better than) adding several attribute points. The ones that raise armor, particularly stacked with actual armor/shield and/or Warrior/Veteran Talents, and worn by a fighter character with good attributes (37+ - enough to do good damage, wear armor and hit reliably) starts to give characters that totally dominate most characters without magic and 36 points and under. That can either be met with magic, or bloated attributes... or else it will tend to slaughter lower characters very easily. And THAT starts to really make the straight combat game less and less interesting, because (much like in D&D) most people are suddenly almost zero threat to such characters (unless they do something not so satisfying, like abuse the HTH rules, or the peculiar weapon rules, or cast a spell like Freeze). i.e. The problem is the fun weapon combat game that exists for lower-powered characters starts to get removed by high-attributes and magic equipment.

3) But if all you want is a game that is great for a few years until the above elements start to detract from it, TFT certainly does that without need for modification. (For us it was a perfect setup to then want to play GURPS after TFT started to break down for us.)

4) Having seen what players who stuck with TFT have come up with for house rules, and having played a bit with them, I think there are some things that can be done to make it so TFT doesn't break down in those ways. I think there's an exciting possibility there for a game that is as great at high levels as it is at lower levels, which would be something I'd want to regularly play. I think the issues in the way are mainly attribute bloat, the no-defense/miss issue, and stacking armor from magic items that don't require powering, oh and the broken EP system - see point 5) below:

5) One of the things we did that helped extend our campaigns' lifespans (and probably why our point totals were lower than you projected) was we revised the EP system. Flat rewards such as the ITL system are severely bad measures how how difficult a fight is. 36 fighters tend to trump 32 point fighters, and 40 point fighters tend to trump 36 point fighters. And armor and fine weapons and strong talents all make a difference, too. When the EP rewards don't take that into account, PCs get massively more EP by trivially slaughtering weak foes than they do by fighting something challenging. We fixed that by assigning EP based on relative combat value of the opponent, but that took math, so no doubt it would be unpopular...

Originally Posted by tbeard1999

And in my opinion, allowing massive attribute increases from job rolls is indistinguishable from Monty Haul style gaming. And if job rolls are the reason for attribute bloat, then the obvious (and ridiculously simple) solution is to eliminate the +1 attribute for a successful job roll. It is completely unnecessary to rewire the entire TFT system.

That's just an easily-fixed detail to correct in the job rules, and not a core issue.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by larsdangly

One reason why I don't agree with a lot of the analysis on this is that for many years I've played with a house rule that allows combatants to exchange 1 die penalties to combat rolls for 1 extra action in melee combat (an attack, parry, dodge, etc.), and this really changes the flow of play when combatants have high DX scores.

This house rule doesn't mean anything for most combatants because no one will be willing to roll 4d when they have an adj.DX of 11 or something. But when your adjDX rises above 13 you start getting more and more willing to exchange a reduced chance of success for more things you can do per turn. My experience is that most players ignore this complexity when their odds get driven below 50-60 %, and always take advantage of it when they have 'saturated' their odds with an adjDX of 15 or more. The end result is that, even though players have the option of an automatic success, they rarely take it because they would prefer to do two things that each have a 60 % chance of success.

Yep. This is one of the types of popular house rules that long-time players tend to introduce, which can greatly extend the interestingness of play at higher levels.

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by JLV

A lot of this discussion seems to focus on 55 point characters. I maintain that even just ONE attribute at the 18+ level shows the effects by derailing that particular piece of the pie.
... Problems due to Attribute Bloat are not conditional on ALL of the attributes becoming bloated, you know.

Hi JLV, everyone.
I totally agree. Even at 14 DX the players hit too often. I counter this by lavishly giving out DX negatives for the environment, etc. But by 18 DX, I just expect them to hit, pretty much of the time.

Rick

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by tbeard1999

...

So it seems to me that the "outrageous attribute" problem may be more an issue of GMs handing EP out like candy, rather than a true defect in the system. Or, allowing the characters to abuse the jobs table to add attribute points through good die rolls and not actual roleplaying. If the latter, the fix is simple and obvious - change the job rules. No need to re-wire the entire system.
...

Hi Everyone, Ty.
I agree with this, but also think that the lethality of the game is another major contributor.

For years, I was known as a killer GM. People died, and died. Over the years, I've gradually toned it down, and now PC's get more warning if they are overmatched, and unless they are really pushing it, they are pretty unlikely to die.

I ALWAYS was pretty stingy with experience points. But I only really started to notice attribute bloat when I stopped killing PC's a lot.

But I've seen TFT campaigns where the GM gives the same experience for killing easy opponents as tough ones, and those campaigns always have attribute bloat problems.

Rick.

[tbeard1999]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

Hi Everyone, Ty.
I agree with this, but also think that the lethality of the game is another major contributor.

For years, I was known as a killer GM. People died, and died. Over the years, I've gradually toned it down, and now PC's get more warning if they are overmatched, and unless they are really pushing it, they are pretty unlikely to die.

I ALWAYS was pretty stingy with experience points. But I only really started to notice attribute bloat when I stopped killing PC's a lot.

But I've seen TFT campaigns where the GM gives the same experience for killing easy opponents as tough ones, and those campaigns always have attribute bloat problems.

Rick.

The lethality in TFT can be dramatically reduced if you use some version of the “dead at negative whatever, but you can bleed out” rule. Otherwise, you’re dead at ST 0 and that’s harsh. Even so, my games were pretty tough. I did allow resurrection, but at a lower cost in attribute points. I didn’t really like killing PC’s but I eventually concluded that the drama of knowing that your character could die made for much better games. I suspect we averaged 1 death per 2 games in a 6 player group. But sometimes, the deaths would be concentrated. Anyhow, the battles were tough but I always gave the PCs every reasonable benefit of the doubt. I also gave them the option to avoid combats with the big nasties most of the time. So they had considerable input in their characters’ fates. And my dungeons did have plenty of loot - high risk, high reward was the mantra. But I just didn’t have the extremely high attribute levels others describe and I ran several campaigns for about 2 years and several more for about a year.

[Kirk]

Don't forget about *negative* experience points. I hand these out when supposed heroes take actions that don't match their characters, actions that they purport to rely on at other times, to intimidate or coerce NPCs. You can't have it both ways, and that sometimes keeps the points down.

When I saw too much pre-game coordination for a big adventure I planned I put in wolves, *armoured* wolves. I got no lack of complaints as the party's
pre-planned assault came apart at the seams, and after 30 years it is still a standard tale told of having to face chainmail armoured pet wolves!

[Jim Kane]

Originally Posted by Kirk

Don't forget about *negative* experience points. I hand these out when supposed heroes take actions that don't match their characters, actions that they purport to rely on at other times, to intimidate or coerce NPCs. You can't have it both ways, and that sometimes keeps the points down.

THIS is an excellent point KIRK.

It's true, and it really is tough to do well. Part of running a successful campaign is the GM's ability to control the EP-economy and inflation-rate; and routinely penalizing players by taking away EP is oft-overlooked tool to that end.

The Chairman of the Federal Reserve attempts to control our economy, by raising and lowering interest rates - same thing really.

It's not one of the sexier parts of the game, like designing new beasties, but it can make or break a gaming group's campaign in the long-run, if not handled well.

JK

[ecz]

Originally Posted by Skarg

5) One of the things we did that helped extend our campaigns' lifespans (and probably why our point totals were lower than you projected) was we revised the EP system. Flat rewards such as the ITL system are severely bad measures how how difficult a fight is. 36 fighters tend to trump 32 point fighters, and 40 point fighters tend to trump 36 point fighters. And armor and fine weapons and strong talents all make a difference, too. When the EP rewards don't take that into account, PCs get massively more EP by trivially slaughtering weak foes than they do by fighting something challenging. We fixed that by assigning EP based on relative combat value of the opponent, but that took math, so no doubt it would be unpopular...

it's amazing to see how different can be the gaming approach with different players and different GMs.
Sure the players could get massively more EP fighting hordes of lame hobgoblins and avoiding accurately more dangerous foes... if the GM allows this.

In my games adventures are weighted on the strenght of the party, so in any case the players have a challenging task. They cannot simply amass EP at low risk, not in my games.

The players cannot really reach critical attribute levels unless they play for years of real time every week and have a perfect gaming style (no errors, no poor choices, always focus on what can keep them alive) and also no terrific bad luck.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by ecz

it's amazing to see how different can be the gaming approach with different players and different GMs.

Yes...

Originally Posted by ecz

Sure the players could get massively more EP fighting hordes of lame hobgoblins and avoiding accurately more dangerous foes... if the GM allows this.

In my games adventures are weighted on the strenght of the party, so in any case the players have a challenging task. They cannot simply amass EP at low risk, not in my games. ...

Though this is a different technical method, it's a similar effect to solve a similar problem with using the EP system as written. We used a house rule involving math. You used GM discretion. Both of us noticed the formula in ITL for EP for defeating opponents gives really skewed results especially for stronger characters wiping out easy opponents.

[tbeard1999]

Originally Posted by Skarg

Yes...



Though this is a different technical method, it's a similar effect to solve a similar problem with using the EP system as written. We used a house rule involving math. You used GM discretion. Both of us noticed the formula in ITL for EP for defeating opponents gives really skewed results especially for stronger characters wiping out easy opponents.

And GMs who constantly allow their players to face such weak opposition are indistinguishable from other Monty Haul GMs who hand out rewards like candy. <shrug> I can’t hide a certain contempt for that style of play, though I concede it may be attractive to some. But TFT, like most 1st gen RPGs, was simply not designed for such a style of play. So it seems dubious to criticize it for failing to enable that playing style.