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Old 04-17-2019, 05:19 AM   #21
FireHorse
 
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Default Re: Other than Spellcasting, what ELSE causes Fatigue?

oldwolf:

"Devolved"…? No, but the question has some flawed premises.

One is that I was not describing recent experiences, but games played many years ago. Decades, in fact. So they bear no relation to whatever the current state of RPGs may be — a state with which I am wholly unfamiliar anyway, because I haven't played any RPGs since that time.

It is also wrong to interpret what I described as "adversarial" in the sense you seem to mean it. Superficially, YES, it most certainly was adversarial — and I would argue that's a fundamental part of playing an RPG: the GM tries his best to kill the Players, and the Players try their best to kill everything the GM throws at them and get rich while doing it. That's kind of the whole point, isn't it?

But that was never a hostile experience for me, or for anyone I've ever played with — if anything, it was often a comedic conflict, and we had great fun taking adventurous risks and pushing our luck.

And lastly, you are again wrongly suggesting that providing a few (more) numbers for non-spellcasting Fatigue loss somehow inevitably necessitates its constant and vigilant tracking. I don't know how much more clear it can be that there are only certain specific situations in which it would matter — and even then, probably only briefly. It would absolutely NOT require continual maintenance and attention.

And even if you DO continually get into melees that last for many minutes on end, and DO regularly go long-distance running with all your gear on, and DO often find yourself required to march from sunup to sundown … you still DON'T have to spend all your time tracking Fatigue, because you can very easily just ignore the Rule, and the numbers that go with it.

Which you already do, since the Rule and those numbers already exist, as variables. They just haven't been defined, only described.

If those variables aren't complicating your game now, then defining their values wouldn't either.
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Old 04-17-2019, 05:35 AM   #22
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Default Re: Other than Spellcasting, what ELSE causes Fatigue?

Quote:
Originally Posted by larsdangly View Post
… Imagine you have party lost in the desert trying to find The Haunted Oasis of Thrarjangle; if you are taking a point of fatigue loss every 3 hours in desert without water, it imposes a sense of concrete urgency and consequences on the situation.
Yes. Precisely.

It absolutely does not require continual bookkeeping, because it is not a situation one is continually in.
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Old 04-17-2019, 05:53 AM   #23
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Default Re: Other than Spellcasting, what ELSE causes Fatigue?

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Originally Posted by FireHorse View Post
oldwolf:

the GM tries his best to kill the Players, and the Players try their best to kill everything the GM throws at them and get rich while doing it. That's kind of the whole point, isn't it?

.
There is the difference. My friends and I never played that way. We focused on the story we were developing together. Sometimes player characters died, but that was never anyones goal, especially mine as GM. I always hoped the player characters lived. The players certainly never tried to kill everything I threw at them either. Indeed almost every player vs NPC encounter would start with the players trying to talk with the NPCs. Even when combat happened the players usually called on the NPCs to surrender when the fight started going against them. But, that was just the way we did it. I can see that the more competitive approach you describe would be fun too.
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Old 04-17-2019, 06:05 AM   #24
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Default Re: Other than Spellcasting, what ELSE causes Fatigue?

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Originally Posted by larsdangly View Post
Imagine you have party lost in the desert trying to find The Haunted Oasis of Thrarjangle; if you are taking a point of fatigue loss every 3 hours in desert without water, it imposes a sense of concrete urgency and consequences on the situation.
Rules for this are:

ITL 41: Make 3/IQ roll (against the IQ 17 of your Goblin Sorceress) or lose two fatigue (against her ST 6) a day. So she survives for two months.

ITL 54: She needs to roll 4/IQ to keep from getting lost (84.1% chance of success) and 5/IQ to recover (50% chance of success).

Having suitable talents or spells would make this much easier for her of course. (There really does need to be an Ivory Tower Wizards roll one more die for general real world activities for which they lack talents in rule...)

A Goblin Sorceress is the mistress of all things.
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Old 04-17-2019, 06:21 AM   #25
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Default Re: Other than Spellcasting, what ELSE causes Fatigue?

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Originally Posted by oldwolf View Post
There is the difference. My friends and I never played that way. … Sometimes player characters died, but that was never anyones goal, especially mine as GM. …
It wasn't really our Goal, either. Perhaps it's a bit too bold to say we treated the GM's role as "trying his best to kill the Players" — what I meant was "presenting the Players with dangerous challenges … which may very well kill them if they don't play smart".

I played quite a few games that were more like yours, more focused on story and exploration than on wild action, and those were fun too. But the ones I remember most fondly are the latter.

I might compare it to the difference between reading a novel and reading a series of short stories featuring the same character(s). Your preferred style would be like, say, Lord of the Rings, or Game of Thrones, while mine would be more like the collected adventures of Conan, or Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser.

Oddly enough, although I prefer the latter style on my game table, I prefer the former style in my books.

But I like both in any form, regardless.



In retrospect, Game of Thrones probably isn't a good example, since you suggested there was very little killing in your games. :D

To clarify, the intended nuance was drama-oriented Novel vs. action-oriented Short Story.

Last edited by FireHorse; 04-17-2019 at 06:33 AM. Reason: Clarification
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Old 04-17-2019, 06:30 AM   #26
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Default Re: Other than Spellcasting, what ELSE causes Fatigue?

Quote:
Originally Posted by hcobb View Post
Rules for this are:

ITL 41: Make 3/IQ roll (against the IQ 17 of your Goblin Sorceress) or lose two fatigue (against her ST 6) a day. So she survives for two months.

ITL 54: She needs to roll 4/IQ to keep from getting lost (84.1% chance of success) and 5/IQ to recover (50% chance of success).

Having suitable talents or spells would make this much easier for her of course. (There really does need to be an Ivory Tower Wizards roll one more die for general real world activities for which they lack talents in rule...)

A Goblin Sorceress is the mistress of all things.
It's definitely good to have some smart folks around when you make a career of wandering around dangerous places!
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Old 04-17-2019, 07:42 AM   #27
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Default Re: Other than Spellcasting, what ELSE causes Fatigue?

a couple things occur to me (house rules/ scenario specific type things)

-every hour after the first 24 that one forces oneself to stay awake .. 1 fatigue

-every hour one stays afloat on open ocean

-possibly every hour listening to a tedious public speaker (or every minit for an EXCEPTIONALLY tedious speaker .. some politicians would count as super powered in this regard, extra xp if you 'defeat them in battle' aka 'saving the day')

lacking water strikes me as something that lowers the ST stat (until you get water) rather than gives you fatigue, so youd be weak in battle for instance, and maybe dumping gear to keep moving .. still kills ya obviously
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Old 04-17-2019, 08:25 AM   #28
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Default Re: Other than Spellcasting, what ELSE causes Fatigue?

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… listening to a tedious public speaker …
That would be a separate stat, Boredom, which TFT does not track. And I am totally okay with that. :)

But if it did track Boredom, you'd do it inversely (counting up instead of down), and perhaps when your character's Boredom exceeds their IQ (Will to Live), they are compelled to end it all in protest.
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Old 04-17-2019, 08:42 AM   #29
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Default Re: Other than Spellcasting, what ELSE causes Fatigue?

samurai and roman PCs have a penalty .. they get double boredom points
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Old 04-17-2019, 02:27 PM   #30
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Default Re: Other than Spellcasting, what ELSE causes Fatigue?

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Originally Posted by FireHorse View Post
That would be a separate stat, Boredom, which TFT does not track... But if it did track Boredom,... when your character's Boredom exceeds their IQ (Will to Live), they are compelled to end it all in protest.
Tracking Boredom costs +1 Boredom per real-time hour of play.

This drives the need for adventurers to periodically carouse in taverns to reset their Boredom attribute.
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