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Old 01-07-2018, 07:01 PM   #171
JLV
 
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Originally Posted by Charles G. View Post
Hey! I rather liked simple, monocolor cardboard counters in the original Metagaming releases, especially those drawn by Hidy! And I would suggest that having standard counters works better for TFT, given how the HTH rules work. But, yes, I should like better maps and similar materials.
I for one, welcome our higher-quality-component masters! ;-) Thicker cardboard alone would be a huge plus, even if you just reprinted the original counter art on them. And I REALLY liked the updated Cardboard Heroes included with Dungeon Fantasy. And maps for arenas, outdoor areas, buildings, tunnels, caves, ship decks, zeppelins/air ships, oh my, yes, I want them all!
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Old 01-07-2018, 07:08 PM   #172
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I for one, welcome our higher-quality-component masters! ;-) Thicker cardboard alone would be a huge plus, even if you just reprinted the original counter art on them. And I REALLY liked the updated Cardboard Heroes included with Dungeon Fantasy. And maps for arenas, outdoor areas, buildings, tunnels, caves, ship decks, zeppelins/air ships, oh my, yes, I want them all!
I welcome them as well and offer my services in selecting slaves to toil in their component mines. And I didn’t realize that they updated the Cardboard Heroes; I’ll have to check em out. Definitely agree on the thicker cardboard.

Last edited by tbeard1999; 01-07-2018 at 07:45 PM.
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Old 01-07-2018, 07:52 PM   #173
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I welcome them as well and offer my services in selecting slaves to toil in their component mines. And I didn’t realize that they updated the Cardboard Heroes; I’ll have to check em out. Definitely agree on the thicker cardboard.
You may have to buy Dungeon Fantasy to do so -- I have yet to see them anywhere else (and I've looked in Warehouse 23, because my old CH went the way of all mortal flesh long ago, and I was hoping to pick up an extra copy or two for bigger fights -- and to use with my old copies of TFT!)
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Old 01-08-2018, 05:51 AM   #174
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Michael Friend wrote up a very detailed two part article in his Fanzine "Vindicator" that both provides the basic rule and then catalogs all of the changes that need to be made throughout TFT to implement it.
Wow, I have a gamer friend named Michael Friend. I wonder if he is the same? Other than SFB, we've never really talked 'old school games' before, so I'm going to have to ask him.
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Old 01-08-2018, 06:58 AM   #175
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Oh, and in one of these threads someone made a comment along the lines of "no one plays it as written anymore." Fwiw, that's WHY I play it. I know I can sit down and make a couple characters and be playing in a fraction of the time it takes to create characters for any other system.
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Old 01-08-2018, 08:15 AM   #176
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TFT never really took off as an RPG for me or the groups I played with. A buddy had a copy of ITL, but otherwise it was Melee, Wizard, and a couple of the solos. Mostly we played them as arena fight time filler games. So we never ran into the problems of high attributes etc. Characters just didn't live long enough or were retired as being too good.

It is my sincere hope that a republished TFT continues to provide for the experience of quickly drawing up characteres and setting to while we wait for the rest of teh group to show up for the main game.
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Old 01-08-2018, 09:15 AM   #177
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I think there are two sides to TFT, reflecting two stages in its development when the design goals were aimed at different things. And in my experience both worked.

The board game comprising Melee, Wizard and the first Death Test, is almost perfectly engineered for a string of short sessions of play with less set up time than a chess board. Me and my best friend in 6th grade played these games obsessively every lunch hour at school, and even figured out how to run fights in English class by using pencils as dice (they have 6 sides...). The expansion of M and W into AM and AW didn't really change this: New equipment and spells; some new things for wizards to do between fights; a more detailed explanation of how combat worked in exceptional circumstances. But these are really the same games.

The addition in ITL of talents, jobs a mapping system, Cidri and the various campaign structure advice is what turned this into a fully fleshed roleplaying game, and I feel like the system made this transition successfully. It benefited from the fact that D+D, Tunnels and Trolls and Runequest were well developed and widely played at this point, so most people came to ITL with a pretty deep understanding of how it should be used to create detailed settings, adventures and long lasting campaigns. ITL is special in this context BECAUSE it retains its roots as a fast preparation, fast playing, basically competitive game - highly tactical, very deadly. This changes the sorts of characters and adventures you can have, but this actually makes it better suited to many fiction settings where high fantasy power and PC invulnerability clash with the setting's tone.

I've used ITL for long running campaigns in: Cidri (using official materials and home cooked), Middle Earth (a remarkably successful pairing, though it might surprise some), the Hyborian age (i.e., Conan), a quasi historical/horror campaign set in the 16th century Scottish borderlands, and a Renaissance Italy inspired setting. I would say all were among the most successful campaigns I've run in any game system, and all lasted many years (though with a fair number of PC deaths...)
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Old 01-08-2018, 11:43 AM   #178
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I think there are two sides to TFT, reflecting two stages in its development when the design goals were aimed at different things. And in my experience both worked.

The addition in ITL of talents, jobs a mapping system, Cidri and the various campaign structure advice is what turned this into a fully fleshed roleplaying game, and I feel like the system made this transition successfully.

I've used ITL for long running campaigns in: Cidri (using official materials and home cooked), Middle Earth (a remarkably successful pairing, though it might surprise some), the Hyborian age (i.e., Conan), a quasi historical/horror campaign set in the 16th century Scottish borderlands, and a Renaissance Italy inspired setting. I would say all were among the most successful campaigns I've run in any game system, and all lasted many years (though with a fair number of PC deaths...)
This. It started out as a replacement for the hinky D&D combat system, according to what Steve said about it years ago, and it worked like a charm. And then he started thinking about magic, and came up with an "Arena Combat Magic Game," which had been tried a couple of times before, but never successfully (in my opinion). And it worked like a charm. And from there, he apparently realized he had a good basis to turn it into an RPG. I suspect that bridge was a lot harder to cross for him than he expected it to be (thus, two years to take it there, and even then, according to his designer's notes, he didn't feel like he'd had enough time to really "finish" the job), but there it was. And, as a couple of other people have said, it remains the fastest, smoothest, easiest to learn RPG out there, with modular systems that can be played as stand-alone games; really it sets the standard for what complex games should be, and always has, in terms of modularity, portability, and effectiveness both separately and as a whole.

And, like larsdangly, I've run a lot of campaigns over the years, many have lasted for several years, most of them were weird mash-ups (after about 1987 anyway), and every one of them worked and was a hoot for both me and the players. I literally can't say that about any other RPG system I've ever run. (I'm a huge Call of Cthulhu fan, an have been since the 1st Edition came out in 1981, but all my campaigns have been either 1920's or Gaslight, and none of them have really tried to mix other genres -- somehow it just doesn't seem like CoC if you try a mash-up. I've never been as experimental with CoC as I have been with TFT, and one key reason is that the system lacks the easy flexibility of TFT -- changing things up there takes some major effort (especially with magic), whereas it's easy to layer another genre onto TFT with minimal time and effort.)
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Old 01-08-2018, 12:07 PM   #179
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This is a quote from the other thread:

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That's probably true, especially if you follow the rules as written and allow the high DX low ST character to wear any armour they want to. This allows them to compensate to an extent for their low strength in terms of damage resistance. To be realistic, you'd need to be above average in strength (12+) to wear heavy armour effectively, as anyone who's tried it will tell you. I'd penalise weak characters for wearing such armour just as very strong characters get an advantage (Adv Melee). That would bring back the balance a bit more.
And this really makes me wonder if there shouldn't be a new Talent added: ARMOR. Anyone without the talent would suffer an additional DX penalty for wearing any armor except Cloth (Cloth is enough like everyday winter clothing, and flexible enough, that it wouldn't interfere more than indicated on the Armor Table). But, if you have the ARMOR talent, you can wear Armor in accordance with the penalties on the Armor Table (which could be updated to show penalties with and without the ARMOR talent for ease of use).

While admittedly ST would be an issue for some armors (especially the ones made of metal), I think that it might complicate the game too much to go into that in detail. You could make up a standard ST for heavier armors ("if your ST is less than 12, you suffer an additional -1DX penalty for wearing metal armor" or something), but overall, the need to keep it simple would probably be better answered via a talent...

As a side note, no, I've never had such a talent -- in fact it never occurred to me until recently (the last couple of years) when I read a discussion somewhere in one of the online Fantasy RPG blogs (alas, I can't remember where) discussing the fact that wearing armor in combat entails a LOT more than simply putting it on -- that it completely changes your tactical fighting style and that the armor can be USED as part of that fighting style instead of just sitting there and passively lessening damage. In short, at least according to that article (which definitely passed the common sense test for me), wearing armor is actually a trainable skill set -- much like fighting with a sword is.

(Edited to add: Oh, I would probably make it an IQ 7 talent worth one point, like most of the other basic weapon talents; but that's subject to debate too.)

Any opinions or thoughts on this, anyone?

Last edited by JLV; 01-08-2018 at 12:21 PM.
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Old 01-08-2018, 12:33 PM   #180
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This is a quote from the other thread:



And this really makes me wonder if there shouldn't be a new Talent added: ARMOR. Anyone without the talent would suffer an additional DX penalty for wearing any armor except Cloth (Cloth is enough like everyday winter clothing, and flexible enough, that it wouldn't interfere more than indicated on the Armor Table). But, if you have the ARMOR talent, you can wear Armor in accordance with the penalties on the Armor Table (which could be updated to show penalties with and without the ARMOR talent for ease of use).

While admittedly ST would be an issue for some armors (especially the ones made of metal), I think that it might complicate the game too much to go into that in detail. You could make up a standard ST for heavier armors ("if your ST is less than 12, you suffer an additional -1DX penalty for wearing metal armor" or something), but overall, the need to keep it simple would probably be better answered via a talent...

As a side note, no, I've never had such a talent -- in fact it never occurred to me until recently (the last couple of years) when I read a discussion somewhere in one of the online Fantasy RPG blogs (alas, I can't remember where) discussing the fact that wearing armor in combat entails a LOT more than simply putting it on -- that it completely changes your tactical fighting style and that the armor can be USED as part of that fighting style instead of just sitting there and passively lessening damage. In short, at least according to that article (which definitely passed the common sense test for me), wearing armor is actually a trainable skill set -- much like fighting with a sword is.

(Edited to add: Oh, I would probably make it an IQ 7 talent worth one point, like most of the other basic weapon talents; but that's subject to debate too.)

Any opinions or thoughts on this, anyone?
I think that is an excellent, and simple, means of dealing with the problem. If Shields is a talent, Armour should be too 😊
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