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Old 01-12-2018, 09:43 AM   #271
larsdangly
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Default Re: The Fantasy Trip

TFT is only TFT is an experienced player can take one deep breath and then create a new character from scratch, using just their memory, written out on one side of a 3x5 card, before having to exhale.
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Old 01-12-2018, 12:27 PM   #272
JLV
 
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Default Re: The Fantasy Trip

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Originally Posted by larsdangly View Post
TFT is only TFT is an experienced player can take one deep breath and then create a new character from scratch, using just their memory, written out on one side of a 3x5 card, before having to exhale.
Which is why I hope we'll keep it that way! ;-) I'm getting too old to remember all the footnotes on page 327 of the second GM manual...
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Old 01-12-2018, 12:41 PM   #273
Oneiros
 
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Default Re: The Fantasy Trip

Late posting on this, but been following the thread since the news was announced.

I had several Microgames back in the day, as well as the AM, AW and ITL books but unfortunately the only thing to survive was the original Wizard and some of the pre-programmed adventures. (Along with Car Wars and Chitin: 1, which I was really enamored with for some reason. Probably the Jaquays art.)

I started playing Melee and Wizard in high school, and then TFT in college. I ran a pretty much "as is" TFT campaign, another which incorporated the Space Gamer article on Superpowers into a medieval fantasy setting, and finally a modern Cthulhu-esque campaign. The latter was a fun but mixed bag. It would have benefited greatly from things that came out later in systems like GURPS (making earth a low-mana world and introducing ritual magic, specifically).

Eventually GURPS became my system of choice for several years, and I attribute that having started with TFT. Nowdays, however, my current group finds it a bit to crunchy, so D&D and Savage Worlds are what we play.

(I kinda think Savage Worlds and TFT share a little of the same "feel", which might help with it's adoption in the modern gaming age, but that's probably another topic.)

But, I'm really excited to hear new versions of the TFT books are going to see the light of day, with ongoing support (as well as an online community the like of which I couldn't even comprehend back in 1980.)

So, in short, congrats on re-acquiring the rights, Steve! Looking forward to whatever comes with this new iteration.
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Old 01-12-2018, 01:19 PM   #274
Melichor
 
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Default Re: Melichor's new weapon talents.

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Originally Posted by Rick_Smith View Post
Hi Melichor,
I rather like your talents except for one thing. The biggest problem in TFT is that long term characters gain lots of attributes and all start to feel the same. (High in all three attributes.) Also everyone soon gets a really high DX and hits almost all the time.

So these talents that give you a higher DX on attacking, just makes that evil day come sooner. I would be much more interested in using such talents in my campaign, if they did NOT give the DX bonus on offence.

Warm regards, Rick.
We wanted to be able to make slightly more "realistic" characters and make it possible to to have highly skilled fighters that weren't just overall good because of high DX.

A way to limit the talents some would be to make them specific to a single weapon like a broadsword rather than the whole weapon group.

A lot of the talents we added to the game were attempting to deal with the attribute bloat by funneling increases into IQ. Everyone was a super genius but very few were overall super human heroes. Other talents provided extra FT for wizards without the need for ludicrous ST numbers.
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Old 01-12-2018, 05:16 PM   #275
Bayarea
 
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Default Re: The Fantasy Trip

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Originally Posted by JLV View Post
Not a "misconception" at all. Just because you disagree with the observation doesn't invalidate it. Obviously, "43" was an exaggeration for effect (though I have seen a character with that general level of ST), but even a ST of 25 or so is a huge disconnect with what is specifically stated to be the Human norm in the rule books (9-11, depending on sex of the character). And while we can all agree that characters are obviously a cut above the norm, that's already partially addressed at character creation by allowing 32 points for beginning characters vice the 30 that a "normal" person would be worth (again, according to ITL). Nor am I the only one who has experienced this over the past four decades. So it's not as if I'm bringing up something that isn't already known to be an issue. Finally, even Steve conceded that Attribute Bloat was a problem. Also, I note that you rely solely on the XP for killing things for your numbers. In my games, characters gained XP for a wide variety of acts, precisely as suggested in ITL.
Ok so S 25 D 15 and I 15 is 55 for your character to get to 56 pts he needs 10,000 exp, no job roll will do it, wishes would bump the DX and IQ but that's beside the point. So for that one point you have to kill on your own 137 7 hex dragons that takes more than one game session. DT, DT2 or Orb quest usually got 250 to 300 Ep per character if you went through it all. So 40 DT2's to get a point somebody is going to roll triple damage and that is the end of that character.

We had this discussion over on Brainiac Joe Hartley's site (thanks for keeping TFT alive Joe) and most people never got a character over 65 without some fudging. Rick Smith who is on this forum and has written more house rules that the original published rules (thanks by the way Rick) has had a campaign going for years and has stated that there just aren't a bunch of 80-90 point PC's running around. For every Conan there are a thousand corpses that didn't make it or took one chance to many.

TFT at least the way we always played it was much more lethal, one of the reasons I hated D and D was after a certain level you just couldn't get killed. Even a St 43 guy can be killed by a hoard of people, unless your GM is allowing so much armor a great sword can't damage him. In that case it is a style issue not a game issue.
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Old 01-12-2018, 05:32 PM   #276
Bayarea
 
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Default Re: The Fantasy Trip

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Originally Posted by Rick_Smith View Post
Hi all,




Normally, a fight against a bunch of mooks results in the PC's getting a wound or two and the mooks dying. (Or some die and the rest run away.)

In TFT, a PC swings and hits, the enemy swings and hits, the PC swings and hits and the combat is over. Nice and quick.

In GURPS, the PC swings and hits, but enemy parries. Enemy swings and hits, and PC parries. PC swings and hits and Enemy parries. Enemy misses. PC swings and hits and enemy misses his parry! Enemy swings and hits and PC parries. PC swings and hits and enemy parries. Enemy swings and hits, but PC parries. PC hits, enemy misses parry and combat is over.

Exactly the same result, but the GURPS fight takes 3 times longer than TFT to play out.

After that, we went back to TFT and stayed there.

---

I game mastered a pbem game in Dave Seagraves Thail campaign, and - foolishly - I used his rules, rather than my own. He had an auto parry rule, and for the characters with a high DX, well, they were not hit much. Fighting NPC's with high DX was slow and frustrating.

I STRONGLY recommend against any sort of parrying as a free action in TFT. If you want complex and realistic cut and thrust, then play GURPS.

If you want to be harder to hit, get a Blur ring, or add some talents where anyone attacking you thru your front hexes gets a -3 adj DX to hit you. I have made such talents and they work. I really like the roll to hit, then roll for damage mechanic in TFT.

If you just like the idea of cut and thrust, clashes of swords, then fine. But don't make parrying a free action, which comes into play on EVERY attack.

Warm regards, Rick.
Hi Rick,

I have used this talent in game it requires 8 IQ sword, Fencing and adv Fencing also you can only defend against one attack so it shouldn't slow down the normal melee. It will make duels against high level character last a little longer, our GM limited its availability so not everyone has it just the best of the best.

Longer training time and limited teachers might make a quest of just getting this talent. It is comparable to UC 1-5 which requires 11 IQ points vs 8 and it isn't quite as good.

I thought it was a nice compromise so Cyrano could go duel 100 men, or Scarmouche and Grey Mouser could become realistic characters.
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Old 01-12-2018, 08:07 PM   #277
JLV
 
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Default Re: The Fantasy Trip

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Originally Posted by Bayarea View Post
Ok so S 25 D 15 and I 15 is 55 for your character to get to 56 pts he needs 10,000 exp, no job roll will do it, wishes would bump the DX and IQ but that's beside the point. So for that one point you have to kill on your own 137 7 hex dragons that takes more than one game session. DT, DT2 or Orb quest usually got 250 to 300 Ep per character if you went through it all. So 40 DT2's to get a point somebody is going to roll triple damage and that is the end of that character.
You really need to re-read the Experience section of the rules -- it's on pages 10 and 11 of ITL, and discusses the many ways that XP can be earned. Last time I checked, XP were cumulative, so sure, "no job roll" will earn you 10,000 XP, but every little point counts, and over time you can accumulate a lot of XP. Still, you're entitled to your opinion...as am I. More importantly, I think you're forgetting, or ignoring, the ways in which attribute bloat, even at mild levels, tends to skew the underlying systems, but sure, whatever. Finally, who cares if it takes more than one game session? If you play long enough, it can still happen, and "time" isn't the issue here. I note in passing that you still seem to be focusing on XP for kills, almost exclusively, though.

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Originally Posted by Bayarea View Post
We had this discussion over on Brainiac Joe Hartley's site (thanks for keeping TFT alive Joe) and most people never got a character over 65 without some fudging. Rick Smith who is on this forum and has written more house rules that the original published rules (thanks by the way Rick) has had a campaign going for years and has stated that there just aren't a bunch of 80-90 point PC's running around. For every Conan there are a thousand corpses that didn't make it or took one chance to many.
Yes, I was there for those discussions. And I still disagree. So there's that. There's also the the fact that you just tacitly conceded that there HAVE been a few 80-90 point characters running around, and that the occasional Conan the Wizard DOES come into play...

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Originally Posted by Bayarea View Post
TFT at least the way we always played it was much more lethal, one of the reasons I hated D and D was after a certain level you just couldn't get killed. Even a St 43 guy can be killed by a hoard of people, unless your GM is allowing so much armor a great sword can't damage him. In that case it is a style issue not a game issue.
I think we can all agree that it's quite lethal. I think we can also all agree that some people get lucky and move their characters forward without dying, occasionally. Especially when, as noted earlier in this thread, they are running multiple characters at the same time (which TFT lends itself to doing). The bottom line is that while my experience may be "anecdotal," so is yours. And my experience has indicated that it IS possible to "break" the system through attribute bloat. And that it really only takes one character to do it. So everything you say can be quite true, and still not change the issue of attribute bloat being a potential game breaker. I'm sorry you feel that I'm exaggerating a minor or even non-existant problem for some reason, but that doesn't actually persuade me that I'm wrong or inaccurate in my concern.

Last edited by JLV; 01-12-2018 at 08:18 PM.
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Old 01-13-2018, 07:46 AM   #278
Rick_Smith
 
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Default Attribute levels in Rick's Campaign.

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Originally Posted by Bayarea View Post
...

We had this discussion over on Brainiac Joe Hartley's site (thanks for keeping TFT alive Joe) and most people never got a character over 65 without some fudging. Rick Smith who is on this forum and has written more house rules that the original published rules (thanks by the way Rick) has had a campaign going for years and has stated that there just aren't a bunch of 80-90 point PC's running around. For every Conan there are a thousand corpses that didn't make it or took one chance to many.
Hi Bayarea,
Thanks for the kind words! However, the longest playing characters in my campaign got up to the high 60's attributes. I don't remember anyone getting to 70, let alone 80 or 90 attributes.

It could have happened, I guess, but after a few years, I get bored with my current campaign and reboot things with a new world. So everyone has to start over. ;-p
Warm regards, Rick.
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Old 01-13-2018, 10:39 AM   #279
tbeard1999
 
Join Date: May 2013
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Default Re: Attribute levels in Rick's Campaign.

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Originally Posted by Rick_Smith View Post
Hi Bayarea,
Thanks for the kind words! However, the longest playing characters in my campaign got up to the high 60's attributes. I don't remember anyone getting to 70, let alone 80 or 90 attributes.

It could have happened, I guess, but after a few years, I get bored with my current campaign and reboot things with a new world. So everyone has to start over. ;-p
Warm regards, Rick.
Man you guys were ambitious. I ran several multi-year campaigns and no one reached 50 points even. Of course, I did not allow job rolls.
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Old 01-13-2018, 12:01 PM   #280
JLV
 
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Default Re: Attribute levels in Rick's Campaign.

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Man you guys were ambitious. I ran several multi-year campaigns and no one reached 50 points even. Of course, I did not allow job rolls.
My campaigns always allowed job rolls; plus I added in a bunch of "extra" off-time things players could do (reworked versions of the Down With The King prestige tables) which could also result in XP awards -- not solely from rolling on the tables, but also from the consequences of some of those rolls -- things such as duels, trials, escapes from prison, etc., etc. All of which meant that off-time could lead to some nice extra XP, as well as providing numerous plot hooks for "on-time" that led to fast and furious engagements and adventures. While "on-time" still gave more XP, off-time was no longer a dull job roll (unless that's all the player wanted) with minimal additional XP. It's amazing how fast XP can pile up in such a situation, even with a guy (like me) that was somewhat grudging with XP awards for things other than magic use or fighting. On average then, the player character loss:survival ratio was about 3:1, and even so, I routinely had player characters reach the 50s and 60s after a year or two of play, with some managing considerably more if they managed to survive all the way to the end of the campaign.

My campaigns generally ended for two reasons; usually both together. One, my players finally got their characters to the point where there simply wasn't anything to really challenge them with (and they were nearly impossible to kill), and two, like Rick, we got bored with the ongoing premise and wanted to try something new. My most successful campaigns, perhaps somewhat oddly, were ones not based on campaign arcs, but rather what are now termed "sandbox" campaigns, usually set in Judges Guild's Wilderlands of High Fantasy, where the players had more control over how the adventure went.

Last edited by JLV; 01-13-2018 at 12:05 PM.
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