Future support for TFT

[Jim Kane]

Originally Posted by philreed

New game rules are not a part of the planned license. We do not plan to allow anyone to create new rules; new adventures, spells, monsters, treasure all cool.

I endorse and support the position of the company on this matter 100%.

JK

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by DarkPumpkin

At the risk of fanboyism, I'll just say that I have of confidence that SJG has A) genuine love for TFT, B) good business sense, and C) tend to make good aesthetic and game design choices. I think future support will be excellent, limited only by a potential lack of market size.

A and B can be objectively observed,only C is subject to interpretation and individual taste. So that is the only one of those where you risk being called a fanboy.

Originally Posted by Tenex

I think GURPS suffers from poor editing or management oversight or something. Take a look at all the conflicting ways skills and rules have evolved in the splatbooks. I'm assuming this isn't on purpose, but maybe SJG is erring on the side of free flow creativity rather than consistency. Perhaps this "flaw" is the reason for GURPS success. Maybe lots of splatbooks is more important than consistency.

Third Edition suffered from some of this as rules and powers bloat but I dont think of it as a problem in Fourth Edition where they tightened up what authors could produce. For example in Fourth vs. Third new advantages and skills were created in setting books in Third but Fourth requires specific editor permission and is strongly discouraged.
Skills may be tweaked, and powers are expected to be RAW builds with existing rules, though perhaps new modifiers.

Originally Posted by philreed

New game rules are not a part of the planned license. We do not plan to allow anyone to create new rules; new adventures, spells, monsters, treasure all cool.

New spells could be game breaking but easily forbidden in individual campaigns, so this sounds good.

[Tenex]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Third Edition suffered from some of this as rules and powers bloat but I dont think of it as a problem in Fourth Edition where they tightened up what authors could produce. For example in Fourth vs. Third new advantages and skills were created in setting books in Third but Fourth requires specific editor permission and is strongly discouraged.
Skills may be tweaked, and powers are expected to be RAW builds with existing rules, though perhaps new modifiers.

That may well be the case. I probably was speaking of 3rd edition. That seemed to be where the tons of conflicting splatbooks with conflicting skills came out. I don't think I bought anything after about 1995 because I had all the books I needed to run what I was interested in.

I should have been more specific.

[Andrew Hackard]

Please take the GURPS discussion to that forum. Thanks.

[philreed]

Originally Posted by Refplace

New spells could be game breaking but easily forbidden in individual campaigns, so this sounds good.

That was our thinking. A GM can easily point at a specific spell, monster, or treasure, and say "no." Completely new rules are not as easy for someone to decide "no" about, and we don't want to overload the game with unnecessary complications.

[DarkPumpkin]

Is anyone else seeing the potential for an entirely new, 2010s style of playing TFT, with the megahexes, something like Phil's Dungeon Challenge cards, and some rules for on-the-fly/random dungeons? Plus the character cards we saw at GenCon. I think better design heads than me could make something boardgamey and casual, yet compatible with the traditional RPG way of playing. And I suspect (hope) they may already be doing just that...

[zot]

Originally Posted by philreed

New game rules are not a part of the planned license. We do not plan to allow anyone to create new rules; new adventures, spells, monsters, treasure all cool.

Originally Posted by philreed

We want to avoid rules bloat and over-complication.

Originally Posted by philreed

That was our thinking. A GM can easily point at a specific spell, monster, or treasure, and say "no." Completely new rules are not as easy for someone to decide "no" about, and we don't want to overload the game with unnecessary complications.

It seems to me that "rules toolkits" are just as easy to say "no" to. Historically there have been plenty of D&D DMs who excluded psionics from their tables, so it was perfectly "safe" for psionics rules to exist.

[philreed]

Originally Posted by zot

It seems to me that "rules toolkits" are just as easy to say "no" to. Historically there have been plenty of D&D DMs who excluded psionics from their tables, so it was perfectly "safe" for psionics rules to exist.

We are not planning to allow for new rules under the license.

[zot]

Originally Posted by philreed

We are not planning to allow for new rules under the license.

I hope you guys will provide a way for people to publish expansions. I'd rather give a cut to SJG than to Drive-Thru RPG...

[philreed]

Originally Posted by zot

I hope you guys will provide a way for people to publish expansions. I'd rather give a cut to SJG than to Drive-Thru RPG...

The license is only for publishing on Warehouse 23. The license is not an open license; this is a limited agreement that has restrictions on product type and sales channel.

We will have more info when the license is released.