Talents from Attributes Other Than IQ

David Bofinger · 03-09-2018, 05:08 AM

IQ has a privileged place among TFT attributes because it's the basis of the talent system. This is a major driver of the Conan the genius problem: the only way to describe a character with lots of manual skills is to make them smart. And it feels odd because a lot of the talents aren't about book learning.

So what if talents weren't necessarily based on IQ? JLV proposed making them things you bought independently but here's another idea: have *all* attributes contribute a different kind of talent point, and different talents require the talent points from different attributes. Ax/Mace is a strength-like talent, it requires two ST worth of talents. Acrobatics requires 1 ST (for the strength moves) and two DX, Alertness requires two IQ. It turns out there's a lot more DX-like and IQ-like talents than ST-like talents.

This has, in principle, some interesting characteristics. A character who has more DX and less IQ will also know a lot of DX-like things and not many IQ-like things. Characters can't learn everything - that might be intentional in TFT, I don't know. But the limits are more likely to be what a player wants than they are in standard TFT. And characters get forced to buy some things they might otherwise not look at.

I grabbed a list of talents and assigned them to attributes. This didn't always go smoothly: what attribute should Sex Appeal have, for instance? But it mostly worked. I had to decide how many talent points everyone should have, I figured it should be a bit more than you have in regular TFT (because you have less choice now, and I'd made a few talents more expensive) so I gave a number of talent points equal to the attribute minus six.

I generated some characters to see how they worked and they kind of did and kind of didn't. A character like the Roman in Melee, who burns a lot of his DX on armour, is going to have lots of DX-like talents which might not make much sense - but then, playing a weak dextrous character so you can wear armour always was one of TFT's odder features. It looked like high ST characters would run out of ST-talents they really wanted, though ST talents are often in demand for starting characters.

Examples: Talents are priced (xyz) where x is ST, y is DX, z is IQ.

Swordsman: ST 13, DX 11, IQ 8: Crossbow (010), Knife (010), Shield (100), Sword (110), Horsemanship (001), Running (200), Sex appeal (101), Unarmed Combat I (200): Talent cost (732) of (752), he could add Fast Draw (020) or save the rest.

Thief: I tried generating a non-starting thief with a good mix of thief-like talents. Knife (010), Acute Hearing (003), Alertness (002), Climbing (100), Detect Traps (002), Recognize Value (001), Silent Movement (020), Acrobatics (120), Remove Traps (010), Thief (020). The total cost is (288) so we're looking at ST 8, DX 14, IQ 14. The last one is a real problem, I think.

I thought I'd try a hunter-gatherer, loosely based on an Australian Aboriginal concept. Knife (010), Pole weapons (110), Boomerang (010), Spear thrower (010), Alertness (002), Silent movement (020), Mimic (011), Naturalist (002), Tracking (001), Woodsman (001) for a total cost (168) so again he has to be IQ 13. It doesn't really work, he's got too many IQ demands and not enough ST demands, but maybe it wouldn't in regular TFT either and maybe it can be fixed and maybe it's just because being a guy like this implies being pretty good at perception rolls.

OK, let's try the big one: Conan the Cimmerian. I'm not an expert on the stories so some of the talents are guesses. Ax/Mace (200), Knife (010), Pole Weapons (110), Shield (100), Sword (110), Quarterstaff (100), Horsemanship (001), Languages (001), Literacy (001), Running (200), Seamanship (100), Sex Appeal (101), Swimming (100), Acute Hearing (003), Alertness (002), Charisma (111), Climbing (100), Detect Traps (002), Recognize Value (001), Silent Movement (020), Warrior (110), Veteran (120), Fencing (021), New Followers (002), Tracking (001), Unarmed Combat I (200), Expert Horseman (002), Tactics(001), Unarmed Combat II (110), Strategist (002), Ambush/Assassination (020), Unarmed Combat III (101), Unarmed Combat IV (011). The price tag is (19 15 26) in other words to buy all this he needs ST 25, DX 21, IQ 32. The IQ aspect is still broken, just not as badly broken as standard TFT. Giving him three languages didn't help, lots of perception and willpower skills like Acute Hearing and Horsemanship.

I don't think this idea works, quite. But it's sort of close. And it's very much in the spirit of TFT, starting from the same basic idea but two paths diverge in a forest. If anyone has any ideas I'm listening.

03-09-2018, 05:08 AM	#1
David Bofinger Join Date: Jan 2018 Location: Sydney, Australia	Talents from Attributes Other Than IQ IQ has a privileged place among TFT attributes because it's the basis of the talent system. This is a major driver of the Conan the genius problem: the only way to describe a character with lots of manual skills is to make them smart. And it feels odd because a lot of the talents aren't about book learning. So what if talents weren't necessarily based on IQ? JLV proposed making them things you bought independently but here's another idea: have all attributes contribute a different kind of talent point, and different talents require the talent points from different attributes. Ax/Mace is a strength-like talent, it requires two ST worth of talents. Acrobatics requires 1 ST (for the strength moves) and two DX, Alertness requires two IQ. It turns out there's a lot more DX-like and IQ-like talents than ST-like talents. This has, in principle, some interesting characteristics. A character who has more DX and less IQ will also know a lot of DX-like things and not many IQ-like things. Characters can't learn everything - that might be intentional in TFT, I don't know. But the limits are more likely to be what a player wants than they are in standard TFT. And characters get forced to buy some things they might otherwise not look at. I grabbed a list of talents and assigned them to attributes. This didn't always go smoothly: what attribute should Sex Appeal have, for instance? But it mostly worked. I had to decide how many talent points everyone should have, I figured it should be a bit more than you have in regular TFT (because you have less choice now, and I'd made a few talents more expensive) so I gave a number of talent points equal to the attribute minus six. I generated some characters to see how they worked and they kind of did and kind of didn't. A character like the Roman in Melee, who burns a lot of his DX on armour, is going to have lots of DX-like talents which might not make much sense - but then, playing a weak dextrous character so you can wear armour always was one of TFT's odder features. It looked like high ST characters would run out of ST-talents they really wanted, though ST talents are often in demand for starting characters. Examples: Talents are priced (xyz) where x is ST, y is DX, z is IQ. Swordsman: ST 13, DX 11, IQ 8: Crossbow (010), Knife (010), Shield (100), Sword (110), Horsemanship (001), Running (200), Sex appeal (101), Unarmed Combat I (200): Talent cost (732) of (752), he could add Fast Draw (020) or save the rest. Thief: I tried generating a non-starting thief with a good mix of thief-like talents. Knife (010), Acute Hearing (003), Alertness (002), Climbing (100), Detect Traps (002), Recognize Value (001), Silent Movement (020), Acrobatics (120), Remove Traps (010), Thief (020). The total cost is (288) so we're looking at ST 8, DX 14, IQ 14. The last one is a real problem, I think. I thought I'd try a hunter-gatherer, loosely based on an Australian Aboriginal concept. Knife (010), Pole weapons (110), Boomerang (010), Spear thrower (010), Alertness (002), Silent movement (020), Mimic (011), Naturalist (002), Tracking (001), Woodsman (001) for a total cost (168) so again he has to be IQ 13. It doesn't really work, he's got too many IQ demands and not enough ST demands, but maybe it wouldn't in regular TFT either and maybe it can be fixed and maybe it's just because being a guy like this implies being pretty good at perception rolls. OK, let's try the big one: Conan the Cimmerian. I'm not an expert on the stories so some of the talents are guesses. Ax/Mace (200), Knife (010), Pole Weapons (110), Shield (100), Sword (110), Quarterstaff (100), Horsemanship (001), Languages (001), Literacy (001), Running (200), Seamanship (100), Sex Appeal (101), Swimming (100), Acute Hearing (003), Alertness (002), Charisma (111), Climbing (100), Detect Traps (002), Recognize Value (001), Silent Movement (020), Warrior (110), Veteran (120), Fencing (021), New Followers (002), Tracking (001), Unarmed Combat I (200), Expert Horseman (002), Tactics(001), Unarmed Combat II (110), Strategist (002), Ambush/Assassination (020), Unarmed Combat III (101), Unarmed Combat IV (011). The price tag is (19 15 26) in other words to buy all this he needs ST 25, DX 21, IQ 32. The IQ aspect is still broken, just not as badly broken as standard TFT. Giving him three languages didn't help, lots of perception and willpower skills like Acute Hearing and Horsemanship. I don't think this idea works, quite. But it's sort of close. And it's very much in the spirit of TFT, starting from the same basic idea but two paths diverge in a forest. If anyone has any ideas I'm listening.