Four Perilous Journeys: Four new adventures for The Fantasy Trip

[philreed]

Originally Posted by larsdangly

My understanding is that there is no plausible way to create such a powerful humanoid character through XP.

GMs and adventure-crafters are not bound to the rules that govern player characters. One of the greatest things of a fantasy roleplaying game: The only limit is the imagination of the person creating the adventure.

Trying to "build" NPCs and creatures using the same guidelines that allow for the creation of player characters is an unnecessary limitation on the imagination of the GM and the authors.

[zot]

I submitted a FAQ question for this but I'll ask here too...

What are the recommended PC XP amounts and number of PCs for the adventures?

We played through the Chaos Triads a while back with 3 high-XP PCs and (what I thought was) a reasonable budget for magic items and it was a complete walk-through -- and it gave me a real gut-level experience of why so many people are counseling limitations on Stone Flesh and Iron Flesh items...

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by zot

I submitted a FAQ question for this but I'll ask here too...

What are the recommended PC XP amounts and number of PCs for the adventures?

We played through the Chaos Triads a while back with 3 high-XP PCs and (what I thought was) a reasonable budget for magic items and it was a complete walk-through -- and it gave me a real gut-level experience of why so many people are counseling limitations on Stone Flesh and Iron Flesh items...

I believe the authors intent is something like 34-36 point characters, but I will make sure that each adventure's point total is clearly labeled . . . both on the interior and on the cover.

[larsdangly]

Originally Posted by philreed

GMs and adventure-crafters are not bound to the rules that govern player characters. One of the greatest things of a fantasy roleplaying game: The only limit is the imagination of the person creating the adventure.

Trying to "build" NPCs and creatures using the same guidelines that allow for the creation of player characters is an unnecessary limitation on the imagination of the GM and the authors.

There can be a more mundane answer for this particular NPC; her individual stats and stat total can be reached by a PC without stretching credulity if that character got access to a couple of Greater Wishes at the right time in her career.

But it is an opportunity for a broader discussion. How you approach this issue is a judgement call, and obviously the judgement of the folks making the product is what will end up in the books. And, the position you articulate is line with 'business as usual' in some games (e.g., Tunnels and Trolls products always felt free to populate the universe with any NPC power that struck the GM's fancy). But I feel it violates an unstated but important core concept behind TFT's design: it is basically fair.

My 'meta' interpretation is that this arose, intentionally or unintentionally, from the fact that TFT's origin story is as a competitive board game, and no one wants to play a competitive board game that is rigged for one side. Whatever the thought process was, the end result is that the balance of powers among many different character types, and between the basic properties of PC's and NPC's, is balanced. It all feels pretty fair. The new edition makes the game even more like this, by leveling the playing field for the various humanoid races (i.e., a starting reptile man and goblin used to be radically different stats; now they are the same).

There are things in the game that live outside of that level playing field: Trolls and dragons and wraiths and so forth all have attribute scores and special abilities that can't be reached by PCs. But my opinion is that it breaks an implicit contract in TFT's design when NPCs who are basically mundane humanoid beings get powers that no PC could ever achieve. Anyway, I would not do it, and when I encounter it I modify them to be part of the same 'universe' in which the PC's live.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

I believe the authors intent is something like 34-36 point characters, but I will make sure that each adventure's point total is clearly labeled . . . both on the interior and on the cover.

This is true for my two.

[Chris Rice]

I've never cared much for experience point systems in RPGs, so I didn't pay much attention to the original TFT system nor am I much interested in the Legacy Edition XP system.

Having said that, if a human Player Character can attain a 20 in one attribute, then I see no reason why they can't potentially attain a 20 in all three attributes.

That means the most powerful characters would have 60 Attribute points (or maybe even more.)

Now, how easily you want this to be achieved is up to you. I'll certainly allow 60+ point characters in my games, but they will likely be NPCs as I'd make it incredibly difficult for a PC to reach that level.

But maybe not impossible.

That's a convulated way of saying that I agree that NPCs should have any Attributes required by the GM or Scenario designers.

[DouglasCole]

There's two factors at play here, I think. The one I want to talk about, though, is the many-on-one problem.

That is: you're going to show up with three to six characters played by three to six players in all likelihood. The GM gets to play the bad guy and ALL the other guys.

If you play even-steven, and make the Big Bad Nemesis mostly play by the same rules and point totals as the Good Guys (or at least Team Us), then BBEG invariably gets curb-stomped.

Sure, you can try and load up on henchmen, but the kind of combined arms, every move carefully planned, clever exploits are go! play that the players usually can bring is frequently lost in "the GM is running 15 guys."

So in order to make and keep the bad guy a threat in the face of four-on-one odds, they get up-gunned.

And even when the GM does up-gun them, outrageously so, the many-on-one thing still is the trump card. Christopher Rice just GM'd a GURPS supers game where he "cheated" outrageously. His bad guy was designed to probably kill half of us (and my guy is a 2,000 point super). PLUS a team of high-skill super-commandoes and then even more mookish guys with firearms.

We steam-rollered them. Wasn't even really much of a contest. We came up with a plan, executed the plan, and it worked. Many-on-one for the win.

So . . . my experience is that unless you up-gun your bad guys, there's not much of a game there. I think that TFT does better at this than many other games, but I also suspect that it's still prone to it.

[larsdangly]

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

I've never cared much for experience point systems in RPGs, so I didn't pay much attention to the original TFT system nor am I much interested in the Legacy Edition XP system.

...

I follow your sentiment but am not sure what you are suggesting in practical terms. Presumably you do use some sort of XP system for player characters, don't you? Whatever its details might be, when it comes time to actually play a campaign you must have some answer to the question of how PC's advance in ability over time. Is that handled by GM decision, or through the mechanism of concrete rules?

[revshafer]

Whatever causes fun is the rule for me.

[zot]

Originally Posted by larsdangly

I follow your sentiment but am not sure what you are suggesting in practical terms. Presumably you do use some sort of XP system for player characters, don't you? Whatever its details might be, when it comes time to actually play a campaign you must have some answer to the question of how PC's advance in ability over time. Is that handled by GM decision, or through the mechanism of concrete rules?

When we were playing TFT in the 80s, eventually it got down to the GM just saying, "Ok, everyone take an attribute point." Of course back then that was the only thing you could but with XP. Now there are a lot more options so the analog now might be something like awarding a block of XP at the end of a story.