05-02-2022, 07:58 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Sydney, Australia
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Environmental Talents
I'd like opinions on this:
Philosophy One of the decisions a game designer has to make is how character abilities will be split from each other. In TFT there's a set of talents related to spotting things or getting along in an environment, which I'll call environmental talents - Alertness, Detect Traps, Naturalist, Seamanship, Swimming, Tracking, etc. TFT chooses to split these talents up by output, i.e. by what they do. Even a talent like Woodsman, which sounds like it relates to a specific environment, on close examination can be used in many environments and is actually defined by what it does. Another way to split these talents up would be by when they are used, which in this case means the environment in which they are used. This is more or less how advanced combat talents like Weapon Expert work: there's a different talent for each kind of weapon, but each one has the same benefits. We could instead choose to use an output-oriented approach for advanced combat talents, where the talent doesn't care what the weapon is, but each talent provides a different advantage: a bonus to damage, an improved defence, benefits in HTH, benefits against multi-hex opponents, etc. Or we could have an input-oriented approach to environment talents, where the talents are used in different environments but have similar effects. I actually believe both these changes would be a good thing for TFT. In the case of environment talents that's mostly driven by my experience of watching players generate characters. It is really common for a character to be partially built around an environment: "She grew up in the forest and she knows every animal and plant as a personal friend," or "Six years a fisherman before I was captured, five years a galley slave of pirates, and four years with the navy that rescued me, I may not know the land but by God I know the sea," or "I was raised by desert foxes and learnt all its ways." Conversely the choice of RAW talents is more commonly a matter of practicality: someone has to take Alertness, someone should probably have Woodsman so we don't starve, etc. When the forest expert who doesn't have Tracking goes into the forest and can't follow the enemy tracks, it feels kind of sad - I have Naturalist, you said that made me expert on the local animals, doesn't that help me track? When that forest expert does buy tracking to fix the problem, and goes into a desert and discovers they can track just as well there as they can in a forest, it feels gamey, really that shouldn't happen. I want to promote the input-based environmental talents, which I think are superior for most purposes. On the other hand there might be characters who want e.g. to play the equivalent of an ex-olympic swimmer who just swims in pools and doesn't know rivers or the sea. So some output-oriented talents should perhaps exist. This is a proposal for making environment talents defined by input. These could either replace or be used in parallel with output-oriented talents. Since it is the less radical proposal I'm assuming here they are used in parallel. A character in possession of both Swimming and Sea would then be particularly expert at swimming in the sea. Rules
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05-02-2022, 10:24 AM | #2 |
Join Date: May 2015
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Re: Environmental Talents
I like breaking up Woodsman and Naturalist into knowledge of specific environments and not others.
I don't think including talents like Climbing, Swimming, Boating, and Alertness into talents about environmental knowledge, makes sense. I think they need to be separate, because clearly some people have lots of knowledge and survival ability in forest or riparian or urban or other areas without actually climbing trees or buildings or swimming or crewing boats. There are also scholar-types who may have useful knowledge but no physical abilities. And there are certainly people who can climb and swim or be alert but don't have any other outdoor survival expertise I don't see a value in removing those sorts of talents. If someone does see a value in having a package talent that includes all related physical abilities for an environment, that could be added without the ability to only learn the knowledge, or to learn Swimming. If the goal is to make character sheets short as possible (?), you could note it as Desert +, or something. |
05-02-2022, 10:30 AM | #3 |
Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: New England
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Re: Environmental Talents
It's an interesting idea, David, especially how a character can't have encyclopedic knowledge of flora and fauna without also knowing about the environment in which it lives.
Some skills will be transferable across environments, though. For instance, climbing involves being able to spot and use toeholds and fingerholds, which can just as easily be on a labyrinth wall as they can on a tree. And knowing how to purify water isn't going to change much whether you are in arid uplands or a swamp. I can see Alertness remaining a distinct talent that could give a bonus to spotting spoor, loose pavers, etc. Similarly, I'd recommend against rolling Silent Movement and Stealth into an environmental talent. Also, increasingly I'm of the opinion that IQ prerequisites for nearly all talents should be abandoned. Why should Desert be IQ 9 but Forest is 11? |
05-02-2022, 06:52 PM | #5 |
Join Date: Sep 2018
Location: North Texas
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Re: Environmental Talents
I'm not sure I understand the varying IQ levels for the talents. Why would FOREST require two more points than DESERT?
If the baseline 'output' is the same, shouldn't they require the same IQ? (Plus, if the IQ prerequisites are core to the concept, it seems to me that learning the DESERT talent would be the harder option. Finding resources in a desert would be much harder than the same task in a forest.) P.S. Just noticed Shostak asked the same question. ;)
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“No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style.” -Vladimir Taltos Last edited by TippetsTX; 05-02-2022 at 07:31 PM. |
05-02-2022, 10:06 PM | #6 |
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Sydney, Australia
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Re: Environmental Talents
They're very much draft numbers. I made Forest cost more partly because forests are more complex places and ecosystems than deserts and there's more to learn, partly because a lot more adventures happen in forests than in deserts (not many deserts in the southern Elyntia map :-)) and so Forest is a much more useful talent. I gave Forest a high IQ requirement because I wanted to match the IQ requirements of talents like Woodsman. But they could all change.
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05-02-2022, 10:50 PM | #7 | |||||
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Sydney, Australia
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Re: Environmental Talents
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05-02-2022, 10:53 PM | #8 |
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Sydney, Australia
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Re: Environmental Talents
A much more radical proposal which I don't want to touch in this one. I like the idea of, wherever possible, eliminating prerequisites and making the talent require a roll instead.
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05-03-2022, 06:26 AM | #9 | |
Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: New England
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Re: Environmental Talents
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05-03-2022, 10:31 AM | #10 | |
Join Date: Sep 2018
Location: North Texas
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Re: Environmental Talents
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For example, keep ALERTNESS but the roll is +2 IQ when made in the forest where they grew up.
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“No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style.” -Vladimir Taltos |
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environment, split, talents |
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