New Skills

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by zot

The old TFT would require IQ 32 for a character like that. I've never seen a character get to IQ 32 in TFT.

Hi Zot,
You are totally right. The Mouser was impossible in the old TFT, but most TFT campaigns which have lasted 40 years, have ways to give more memory.

I've seen, education attributes, memory = 2x IQ, "Elves get Naturalist, Woodsman, Tracking and Bow for free, only makes sense", everyone gets certain talents for free. I've seen David Seagraves in this Thail campaign give people the ability to buy memory like a sub attribute, On this forum, people have said that they use the rule that every talent fits in one memory slot. If I remember correctly JLV has said that talents in his campaign require zero memory slots, and are bought with experience. I've reduced the price of talents by 1/2 in many cases, and allow 1/2 memory point talents & languages.

I'm not saying EVERY campaign has founds cheats, big or small. But most do.

The number and variety of ways different GM's have found to get more memory suggest that 40 years of play testing indicates that this is a real problem.

***

The new TFT will have this problem worse. In the old TFT, you could keep getting attributes, and buy more IQ. Sure, you have a dumb fighter, but to get the talents he wants, you end up with IQ 18. But with a maximum attribute limit of 40, people can customize their characters with only 8 attributes. If you want a 15 DX and a 12+ ST, getting an IQ 18 for all those talents won't be in the cards.

***
I want to write up a Monk detective like Brother Cadfael. He started out as a successful noble military leader but grew sick at the violence and greed, and retired to become a Benedictine monk. With a surprisingly modern view of evidence and criminology, he solves murders. His talents include:

Sword, Fencing, Knife, Shield, Alertness, Priest, Theologian, Language Latin, Language French, Literacy, Gardener, Physicker, Master Physicker, Tracking, Naturalist, Woodsman, Detection of Lies, Scholar (Criminology, Healing/Poisoning Herbs), Chemist.

(I could give him more based on the novels. UC 1, Courtly Graces, & Diplomacy would likely fit.)

Playing a Monk/Detective like this would be fun. I can do it in Matt's TFT campaign, but it is not in the cards for new TFT.

Warm regards, Rick.

[pyratejohn]

Where is the balance point between too few skill points and too many?
Are we going for an old school “few skills” feeling? Where skill means your character is REALLY good at that thing? Or do we want the everybody has a bunch of skills situation? Where sometimes characters begin to feel a little “samey” because they all pick a bunch of like skills?

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by pyratejohn

Where is the balance point between too few skill points and too many?
Are we going for an old school “few skills” feeling? Where skill means your character is REALLY good at that thing? Or do we want the everybody has a bunch of skills situation? Where sometimes characters begin to feel a little “samey” because they all pick a bunch of like skills?

Hi PyrateJohn, everyone.
I've added a lot of new talents, and I assure you that characters in my campaign don't feel 'samey'. But in new TFT, you can't be a pirate AND a thief. Someone with IQ 12 is crazy if they take Horsemanship, that is 1/12 of everything they can ever learn.

That suggests that the sweet spot is on the side of more memory needed.

Warm regards, Rick.

[Chris Rice]

I know I've mentioned this before, but there was a simple fix for this in an old Space Gamer article.

Split attributes into their components:

ST splits into: Strength and Constitution.
DX splits into: Dexterity and Agility.
IQ splits into: Intelligence and Knowledge.

With IQ split this way it's simple to have as many Talents as you want as long as you put XP into Knowledge and you can do this without boosting IQ.

This way, Rick's "Cadfael" character is easily possible without any other rule changes.

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

I know I've mentioned this before, but there was a simple fix for this in an old Space Gamer article.

Split attributes into their components: ...

This way, Rick's "Cadfael" character is easily possible without any other rule changes.

Hi Chris, everyone.
I have almost every issue of The Space Gamer (TSG), and I have no memory of that article. Do you happen to know which issue it is in? (If it is too much trouble to find, don't worry about it.) I would love to reread it.

Warm regards, Rick.

[Chris Rice]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

Hi Chris, everyone.
I have almost every issue of The Space Gamer (TSG), and I have no memory of that article. Do you happen to know which issue it is in? (If it is too much trouble to find, don't worry about it.) I would love to reread it.

Warm regards, Rick.

Ok, having spent a couple of hours going through on-line indexes for the Space Gamer, I came up blank. That's because it was actually in issue 15 of Different Worlds, "A Modest Proposal for The Fantasy Trip" by David R. Durham. In my defence, I will say it was a long time ago!

[larsdangly]

I would say the correct number of talents, the number that makes the game feel richer than when originally published but still TFT, is a ~50 % increase. Much more than that and the whole thing starts to get pretty complicated. Fewer and we'll be left wondering what could have been done with a more ambitious new edition. But, I'm not terribly worried about 'bloat'. The fundamental rule that prevents TFT from getting to complex is the limit on how many talents each character can have, not the total number of talents in the game. TFT feels simple because each character typically only has 5 or 6 talents. Increasing the number of talents in the game just increases the diversity of character types, not the complexity of any one character.

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

Ok, having spent a couple of hours going through on-line indexes for the Space Gamer, I came up blank. That's because it was actually in issue 15 of Different Worlds, "A Modest Proposal for The Fantasy Trip" by David R. Durham. In my defence, I will say it was a long time ago!

Hi Chris,
Thank you very much for taking the time to look this up. I've read and reread the TFT articles in TSG, and couldn't imagine having missed something like that! (Am I going crazy???)

Warm regards, and thanks! Rick.

[tbeard1999]

I’m very opposed to turning TFT into a game where you can create characters who effectively can do everything (or almost everything) well. The fact that this *might* describe certain fantasy characters doesn’t matter to me for several reasons.

First, TFT is not attempting to explicitly model those milieus.

Second, these characters may be “one-in-a-million” characters; designing the rules to allow such characters anytime turns the game into a parody of Monty Haul campaigning.

Third, this type of approach is bad (very bad in my opinion) for gameplay. I’ve found that campaigns tend to work best when each PC can do at least one important thing significantly better than anyone else in the party. Allowing characters who can effectively do everything eliminates this and makes everyone more or less the same. BOOORING. It also robs us of what I consider to be a real TFT strength - players have to make serious tradeoffs.

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by tbeard1999

I’m very opposed to turning TFT into a game where you can create characters who effectively can do everything (or almost everything) well. The fact that this *might* describe certain fantasy characters doesn’t matter to me for several reasons. ...

Hi Ty,
I sat down and added up how much memory you would need to get all talents in the old TFT, and got 196 memory points. (I may be off by a bit, I didn't double check. On the other hand, that didn't include any languages.) If you doubled the memory of heroes, you would still be a LONG, LONG way from knowing everything, or even almost everything.

Originally Posted by tbeard1999

Second, these characters may be “one-in-a-million” characters; designing the rules to allow such characters anytime turns the game into a parody of Monty Haul campaigning.

I completely disagree. Cadfael, my Master Merchant, my duel class character who is a Pirate AND a Thief, the Bandit Lord who is also a Ranger, are hardly one in a million characters. And I can pull out biographies of interesting people from history who should clearly be given 20+ memory of talents.

The Grey Mouser is perhaps a 1/1,000,000 character, but TFT does not map well to him, as it does not even BEGIN to model his skill at the sword.

Originally Posted by tbeard1999

Third, this type of approach is bad (very bad in my opinion) for gameplay. I’ve found that campaigns tend to work best when each PC can do at least one important thing significantly better than anyone else in the party. Allowing characters who can effectively do everything eliminates this and makes everyone more or less the same. BOOORING. It also robs us of what I consider to be a real TFT strength - players have to make serious tradeoffs.

As I showed above, an IQ 15 character with 30 memory is a LONG, LONG way from being able to do everything.

I would like to play competent characters and I suspect I am not alone in this desire. Playing a competent pirate who also is a thief, is not boring, in my opinion.

But I think we will have to agree to disagree. The fact that there are so many house rules to allow people to cheat in large or small ways on memory, is strong evidence that I'm not alone in this desire.

Warm regards, Rick.