The Fantasy Trip

[Chris Rice]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

Hi JLV, everyone.
As far as my preferences go, I would rather NOT have miniatures. Flat counters are fine for me, I would rather the money is put into more rules, etc.

My feeling is, that if you are into miniatures there are tens of thousands of them out there and you can buy what ever you want. If New TFT has miniatures, they will likely include a few generic heroes - do people who collect miniatures need more of those?

If you do include miniatures make them the standard 25-28 mm size, not the tiny 15 mm ones from before.

Warm regards, Rick.

Much as I love miniatures, I think the new game would be better with a great hex map/maps and larger full colour counters. That way the game could come complete with effectively hundreds of minis all on the correct base sizes. Like you say, I already have plenty of minis and don't really need more, especially generic heroes.

[GlennDoren]

Another vote here for high quality super deluxe map and counters. I'd rather have a ton of great counters as opposed to a few more miniatures I'm never gonna paint :-/ As long as the quality and design of the map and counters are deluxe, I'll be happy. But... I still love the classic bell-bottom iconic melee design :)

[marctabyanan]

Maps and counters. Still has the feel of the original game, plus, like Rick said—put the money elsewhere.

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by larsdangly

...

1) The boomerang damage is too high, both by physical intuition and in a game-balance sense. ...

5) HTH damage scales pretty smoothly with ST, but resistance to injury (hits taken for a certain penalty) is super coarse. These should be normalized. The easiest way to do it is just make a unified table, where every time you jump up in HTH damage bracket it takes more damage to impose a penalty.

6) There are something like 3-4 separate hit location specific damage effects rules in the game: The optional one for a special success on a to hit roll; the one for aimed shots with daggers, and the ones for use of the bola, lasso and net. This should be pulled together into one place in the book and addressed with a single parsimonious set of rules.

Hi Larsdangly, everyone.
Your post was from some time ago, but I would like to add some comments.

1) I agree about the boomerangs. I made them do club damage. (Basically they are a flying club right?) Being able to throw a club at missile weapon ranges balances the cost of the talent.

5) I agree, altho jumping up every 3 or 4 ST seems a bit much. Maybe every 10 ST? (Say from 0 to 4 ST is one damage bracket, 5 to 14 ST, 15 to 24 ST, etc.) Tho I agree with Larsdangly, I would not mind if the rule stayed the same. Those that care can easily tweak it.

However, remembering the table entries for super high ST monsters was too much mental effort. I now use:

1/3 of monster's base ST in one turn: -2 DX for that turn and next one.
1/2 of monster's base ST in one turn: Falls down.
1/5 of monsters base ST left: permanent negatives.
1/10 of monster's base ST left: Save or fall unconscious.

So a King Basilisk with a 90 ST would be stunned after taking 30 hits (in one turn), be knocked down after taking 45, would be at -3 DX when it has 18 or fewer hits left, and must roll to stay conscious after reaching 9 or less hits left.

This rule is FAR easier to remember than the tables. I use if for creatures with 30 ST or more.

6) I totally agree with having all special damage locations in one place. I've done this in my campaign, but having it so organized in the books would be wonderful. (I also allow people to aim for critical area (for an automatic x2 damage hit) at -10 DX and aim for the vitals (for an automatic x3 damage) at -16 DX.

Warm regards, Rick.

[JLV]

I presume that a couple of things we can probably expect in the new version is a better organized set of rules (similar topics grouped together), and perhaps a booklet of charts and tables (and/or a GM screen that does the same thing). I KNOW we'll get a decent ToC and an Index this time around...

(I would like to suggest a booklet of charts and tables though -- separate, so that it can be passed around among the players; wargames do this all the time, and it's a tremendous help to not have to be flipping through a 200-page book to find the one table you want!)

[Rick_Smith]

Hi all,
The master world builders at the Chaosium made the Ducks. This was a race of humans who were god cursed or something, and looked like, well, ducks. They were ordinary folk with a touchy pride and there was a bunch of light hearted humour in these silly looking figures involved in serious swords and sorcery. A number of artists had fun with the race, making grim realistic artwork with Ducks. (I remember an Elric of Melnibone' carrying Stormbringer pastiche as a Duck.)

A number of other roleplaying games came out with other silly races, none of which were done as well. TFT had Prootwaddles.

I HATED Prootwaddles. They felt like a bad joke in poor taste.

I could not imagine anyone using them for anything better than making fun of retarded people jokes. I cringed everytime a friend was reading the rules and reached the Prootwaddles.


Then my friend Glenn ran a TFT campaign. He made the Prootwaddles smarter than the TFT books (so if they made a promise they would remember it for a fairly long time). He wrote an adventure where we were hired by a politician to guard him in a nasty, dangerous political fight.

The thing was, it was a Democracy and the Prootwaddles had been given the vote. There was a large Prootwaddle reservation outside of town and both of the major politicians were bending over backwards to get the Proot vote!

That adventure was a GAS. It was an absolutely wicked satire on the Democratic process. It had so much dark humour that it blew me away. I'll always remember that adventure.

That said, I still hate Prootwaddles and hope they quietly vanish from new TFT.

Warm regards, Rick.

[JLV]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

Hi all,
-snip-

That said, I still hate Prootwaddles and hope they quietly vanish from new TFT.

Warm regards, Rick.

I have to admit, I never liked or used the Prootwaddles. But I think, if done right (as in your example) they could add something to the game. However, having said that, I think I don't actually care if they remain or go. As I said, I never used them -- in fact, ignored them completely -- so if they take up a couple of paragraphs in the book, it's no real skin off my nose; especially if someone who's a better GM than I am can use them as well as your GM apparently did! On the other hand, if they're not there in the second edition, I won't lose any sleep over that either! ;-)

[Chris Rice]

Originally Posted by JLV

I have to admit, I never liked or used the Prootwaddles. But I think, if done right (as in your example) they could add something to the game. However, having said that, I think I don't actually care if they remain or go. As I said, I never used them -- in fact, ignored them completely -- so if they take up a couple of paragraphs in the book, it's no real skin off my nose; especially if someone who's a better GM than I am can use them as well as your GM apparently did! On the other hand, if they're not there in the second edition, I won't lose any sleep over that either! ;-)

Yes I ignored them as well. Humour in RPGs doesn't come from deliberate attempts to inject it, such as with Ducks and Prootwaddles, but from the daft things that players do, or bad dice rolls at the wrong time, the unexpected; that sort of thing.

[Rick_Smith]

Hi everyone.
I have argued before against any sort of parry as a free action. But what about the Defend option? I feel it is not powerful enough.

Against characters with low to moderate attributes it is fine. But when you are fighting against experienced figures it is a waste of time.

Some people argue that DX above 16 to 18 are useless. However, in my campaign, people are often fighting at DX negatives, so higher DX is useful. (You are hitting someone with a height advantage and they have a Haze ring for a total of -4 adj DX on your roll. If you change facing you are at an extra -2 DX for rough ground, etc.)

So experienced characters do not think that DX 16 is a stopping point.

But let us look at a Selina, a DX 16 figure. You are in a fight with her and need to buy a few turns so your friends can help you. If you defend, she has a 76.08% chance of hitting you. Usually it is better to just take the hit and strike back.

My first crack at improving the Defend option was to allow you to "Defend And Aim". Each turn defending (up to two turns) gave you a +1 DX when you eventually tried to hit the opponent. (If you were defending against several opponents, you got the +1 DX against whichever you decided to eventually hit.)

I also allowed "Defend And Edge Away". If you took this option twice, you got a free 1 hex retreat at the end of two turns, after all second shot missiles and other retreats.

These improved defend options helped but they still were not enough vs. Selina and other high DX figures. I was thinking that when you defend, and the opponent hits you with a total that is evenly divisible by 3, then they auto-miss.

(On 4d6 this would result in an automatic 33.33% chance of a miss, rounded off to two digits. On 3d6 this is a 33.20% chance of a miss, rounded.)

So against weak opponents a Defend is a great option, that vastly reduces your chance of being hit. Against strong opponents, you get at least a 33% chance of blocking their blows.

*****

I've used the two options: "Defend And Aim" and "Defend And Edge Away" for a long time and quite like them. The idea of 1/3 of the time is an auto-miss, is new and I've not playtested it. It is an extra rule designed to help reign in the problem with attribute bloat.

I welcome comments!

Warm regards, Rick.

[tbone]

Originally Posted by JLV

I have to admit, I never liked or used the Prootwaddles... -- in fact, ignored them completely

Same here. They came across as some inside joke that I wasn't privy to, so I just never paid attention to 'em.

That said, if a new TFT wants to offer an updated version, who knows, maybe it'll be something interesting.