Current Play: Portland Debacle

[Sinanju]

So my regular bi-weekly Saturday game of Champions was canceled on Friday. I emailed a fellow player and suggested getting together to give TFT a try, as I'd talked about to him a couple of times. After some emails back and forth, he eventually roped in most of the rest of our Champions group to give it a try.

They seemed to be under the impression I was going to run a full-on fantasy campaign session, not the "getting your feet wet" test combats I intended.

In any case, we got together and everyone made characters. Two elven wizards, a dwarven fighter with a war axe, a human fighter with a bastard sword, an orc fencer, and a thief. With only one copy of the book (mine) and some handouts I hastily produced the night before with lists of talents and spells and combat options, we had at it.

I had the players fight 3-on-3. The results were...disappointing. Partly, I think, because they were all unfamiliar with the system. More to the point, I think they didn't like how the combat system limited them compared to other games.

They were all 32 point characters, and most wore heavy armor, so their adjDEX scores were pretty low, leading to a lot of turns where nobody hit his opponent, which also frustrated them.

One player found himself engaged by two opponents (briefly by three when a summoned bear joined the combat), and was clearly frustrated by the limits on his ability to disengage. A limitation that I, personally, find perfectly plausible and realistic. In a real fight, your opponent is NOT going to let you get away easily (unless he, too, thinks breaking off is a good idea for HIM), and unless you're lucky, trying to escape combat leaves you vulnerable.

Of the two wizard players, one seemed to enjoy it. He was unclear on a lot of details of course, being a complete newbie to the system, but he seemed to "get" it and made good use of "Summon Bear" to to maul one of his enemies.

The other player concluded that wizards were "useless" and it was pointless to play one, that spending ST to power your spells was an idiot's game, and he created a new fighter character after the first combat. (The existence of the higher-level Staff spells intrigued him, and it also frustrated him that I didn't let him start with a fully charged Mana Staff.)

Overall, they found the combat system "clunky" and didn't particularly enjoy the game. We might have played out a short scenario where they tracked down and fought some bandits, but I was feeling a bit demoralized myself and didn't particularly push to run it.

I think part of the issue is that they're all long-time Champions players (as am I, for that matter), and they're used to a system where hitting your opponent is usually pretty easy and mostly just knocks them out of action without any serious injury, as opposed to the lethality of TFT. Nonetheless, I don't think any of them are likely to be interested in playing the game with me in the future. Which is disappointing.

[larsdangly]

Sounds like a bummer. A good thing to keep in mind when introducing the game is that the combat system was designed to be competitive; i.e., both sides have a serious chance of victory. You can't have a competitive game in which one side generally delivers knock out blows with high chances of success every turn. And, the character design is based on the idea of trade offs, so if you want something cool, you generally have to accept there are other things you don't get. And if you want something really cool, it's going to come with big sacrifices in other areas. If people don't like that, then they don't like it. But people who like the game consider them key features.

[Chris Rice]

For a first play, I'd always give the players pre-generated characters. For a start off it saves time, but it also means they wont design characters that aren't going to work well (like the low adj DX characters you mention). The pre-gens from the Legacy Edition are mostly good for that if you have them.

[JLV]

I also generally find that for introductory games, it's better to put your players into an arena with NPC enemies instead of each other as enemies. Think in terms of the big arena fight in Gladiator, where the "Romans" fought the "Carthaginians." This is particularly true if they are used to playing as a team. I also probably wouldn't do magic for the first playthrough -- let 'em have fun gutting the bad guys first and then consider introducing the Wizards later.

[Chris Rice]

Originally Posted by JLV

I also generally find that for introductory games, it's better to put your players into an arena with NPC enemies instead of each other as enemies. Think in terms of the big arena fight in Gladiator, where the "Romans" fought the "Carthaginians." This is particularly true if they are used to playing as a team. I also probably wouldn't do magic for the first playthrough -- let 'em have fun gutting the bad guys first and then consider introducing the Wizards later.

Good points. I'd agree better to play as a team first time round and I'd definitely leave Wizards till later. The learning route is: Melee, then add Wizard, then add ITL Talents etc.

[larsdangly]

I have the opposite view of the best first experience; I think a competitive match between two or more well matched sides is a more interesting and effective way to learn the rules.

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

For a first play, I'd always give the players pre-generated characters. For a start off it saves time, but it also means they wont design characters that aren't going to work well (like the low adj DX characters you mention).

This is true of most games.

The further the game from the player's prior experience, the more likely, unless character generation is totally random. And TFT is decidedly NOT random.

[larsdangly]

Word to the wise: One way to manage PC risk with the desire to do dangerous seeming stuff on adventures is to pack your dungeons (temples, whatever) with a diverse pallet of obstacles and threats that mostly consists of things other than balanced fights with armed monsters. Examples include: natural obstacles and traps (the risk of which can be closely managed by the GM, while presenting interesting puzzles to the players), nuisance creatures, bugs, plants and other weird things that only threaten you in specific ways, and non-combat encounters. Think Indiana Jones rather than Temple of Elemental Evil.

[Chris Rice]

Originally Posted by larsdangly

Word to the wise: One way to manage PC risk with the desire to do dangerous seeming stuff on adventures is to pack your dungeons (temples, whatever) with a diverse pallet of obstacles and threats that mostly consists of things other than balanced fights with armed monsters. Examples include: natural obstacles and traps (the risk of which can be closely managed by the GM, while presenting interesting puzzles to the players), nuisance creatures, bugs, plants and other weird things that only threaten you in specific ways, and non-combat encounters. Think Indiana Jones rather than Temple of Elemental Evil.

Exactly. If every encounter in your dungeons is a well matched challenge for the party (a la Death Test), then the characters won't last very long in this game. Tough battles should be a highlight rather than the norm if you want any chance of longevity.