Talents from Attributes Other Than IQ

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by Melichor

What if at character creation the player selects one of the three Attributes to gain Talent Points from? Once set it stays with the character throughout their life.

A warrior could select ST to gain Talent Points, shifty characters DX and wizards IQ. Increasing their ability in their chosen Attribute increases their ability to gain Talents.

Talents would still have minimum IQ requirements, just as weapons have minimum ST requirements.

What if you wanted to have a not particularly big/strong warrior who was very talented?

[Melichor]

Originally Posted by Skarg

What if you wanted to have a not particularly big/strong warrior who was very talented?

Then choose DX or IQ as the Attribute for Talent Points.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by Melichor

Then choose DX or IQ as the Attribute for Talent Points.

Oh, so you didn't mean different types of talents for different attributes, just that a character's memory points could be based on ST or DX not just IQ... so you could have something like:

ST 16
DX 12
IQ 9
Ax/Mace, Knife, Warrior, Veteran, and instead of having only 1 free memory point left, you'd have 7.

I don't have any problem with an IQ 9 character having that many talents, if there's an EP cost for them, but I don't really get how it makes sense the someone's talents would be limited by their ST, and would need to add ST to learn more talents. It's an original idea and would add variety but I don't get how it makes sense.

...

Well, I could see it sort of kinda making sense if the talents added had something to do with ST (like Warrior and Veteran, except those are also about reflexes)...

[David Bofinger]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

Hi David,
I have not thought about this deeply, but ST-6, DX-6, (IQ-7)x3 is just too complex. The core rules need to be simple, more marginal, (or less often used), rules can be more complex.

These rules are core, but rarely used: maybe once per adventure at most. So the cost of making them a little more complex is modest.

How about, the talent points you get are: ST, DX and IQ. But adjust the costs for the talents so that 32 points of talents (in 3 categories), works?

You've done two things here:

1. You've rescaled the value of IQ talent points vs other talent points: Well, yes, I could do that, and in a production version of the game I probably would do that. The effect is much the same, so it's a matter of technical writing, not of game design. At the moment I've got the talent costs mostly inspired by standard TFT which I think helps a standard TFT player get a feel for what's going on: I think you'd have a much harder time understanding the system and making comments if I'd rescaled every talent cost. Also, you're talking about changing 100+ talents in order not to have to change three formulae, I'm not saying it's wrong but it's a much larger project.
2. You've made talent points depend less strongly on attributes than in my system: That means characters with a low attribute still get a respectable number of talent points, and/or character with a high attribute don't get so many as they otherwise would. This might be a good thing or a bad thing but the formula I had was based on it making it easy to generate the example characters and have them look more or less like you'd expect. If you give half as many attribute points to an IQ 8 character as an IQ 16 character then either the IQ 8 one will have a lot more IQ talents than is suggested by my examples, or the IQ 16 one need a higher IQ to buy everything in my example. What you think of that probably depends on what you thought of my examples. Feel free to suggest a list of talents a character from a story might have, and I'll take a look at what sort of attributes he'd need and we can say if they seem reasonable.

[David Bofinger]

Originally Posted by Skarg

What would a ST Talent be

In the draft I used for the examples the talents requiring ST are Ax/Mace (200), Bow (120), Pole Weapons (110), Shield (100), Sword (110), Blackjack (100), Blowgun (100), Cestus (100), Nunchuks (100), Quarterstaff (100), Boating (100), Farming (100), Running (200), Seamanship (100), Sex Appeal (101), Swimming (100), Thrown Weapons (110), Charisma (111), Climbing (100), Diving (100), Warrior (110), Veteran (120), Acrobatics (120), Armourer (111), Specialization (110), Unarmed Combat I (200), Two Weapons (120), Unarmed Combat II (110), Unarmed Combat III (101) and Unarmed Combat V (111). The first of the three digits is the ST requirement.

and how would it make sense that you get them based on your ST?

I think the best way to look at it is that the ST doesn't give you the talent, the talent gives you the ST. A character who learns to use an axe, for instance, or to swim, inevitably develops some upper body strength. A character who has learnt to do lots of things that require strength is probably quite well-muscled. It's not perfect, but I think it makes as much sense as standard TFT, where IQ tells you whether you can be a distance runner.

[David Bofinger]

Originally Posted by Melichor

What if at character creation the player selects one of the three Attributes to gain Talent Points from? Once set it stays with the character throughout their life.

What's your strategic objective here? What are you trying to achieve with this change?

[Melichor]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

What's your strategic objective here? What are you trying to achieve with this change?

It solves the problem of artificially high IQs for characters whose concept doesn't require a high IQ.

It's simple and doesn't require an arcane formula to figure out how many talents a character can have.

It doesn't require any changes to the Talent list. Costs and IQ requirements remain the same.

It adds a minor step at character creation to select which Attribute decides the character's ability to know and learn Talents. The character's Talent pool comes from the Attribute the player thinks will be most important to the character's concept.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

I think the best way to look at it is that the ST doesn't give you the talent, the talent gives you the ST. A character who learns to use an axe, for instance, or to swim, inevitably develops some upper body strength. A character who has learnt to do lots of things that require strength is probably quite well-muscled. It's not perfect, but I think it makes as much sense as standard TFT, where IQ tells you whether you can be a distance runner.

Interesting! Yeah, it does make "as much" sense, though I don't think either makes as much sense as I'd like. For example, the swimming reasoning makes some sense, but in practice would be backwards (still need to increase ST to get another physical talent) and unless you add levels to the talents, it's about the number of different activities rather than how much you do them (so the extended logic might suggest decatheletes would be stronger than muscle-builders?). There are certainly different types of talents, physical, mental, social, and innate (acute hearing).

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by Melichor

It solves the problem of artificially high IQs for characters whose concept doesn't require a high IQ.

It's simple and doesn't require an arcane formula to figure out how many talents a character can have.

It doesn't require any changes to the Talent list. Costs and IQ requirements remain the same.

It adds a minor step at character creation to select which Attribute decides the character's ability to know and learn Talents. The character's Talent pool comes from the Attribute the player thinks will be most important to the character's concept.

Seems to me all of those would also be solved by simply calling the number of talents you know (or can learn) another stat/attribute (which already exists, but is currently collapsed with IQ), e.g. "Memory", "Learning", or "Talent" (since it's used for some talents which probably aren't really memorized or learned (Alertness, Acute Hearing, Charisma)).

[David Bofinger]

Originally Posted by Skarg

in practice would be backwards (still need to increase ST to get another physical talent)

In principle it could work either way. The attributes to talents path is more familiar, but the system could equally well say experience -> talent points -> talents -> attributes.

unless you add levels to the talents, it's about the number of different activities rather than how much you do them (so the extended logic might suggest decatheletes would be stronger than muscle-builders?).

I think we can reasonably assume there are all sorts of talents out there, like "Clean and Jerk", "Expert Clean and Jerk", "Master Clean and Jerk", etc., which aren't in the talent list because adventurers wouldn't want them, but which are purchased by professional weightlifters.

There are certainly different types of talents, physical, mental, social, and innate (acute hearing).

You can easily make a case for more than three attributes, but it's a different argument. The innate talents like Acute Hearing are just a problem for the game.