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Old 06-10-2019, 07:46 AM   #121
larsdangly
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Default Re: New Xp System: Not a Fan

The new rules permit any rate of progress (because the GM sets the XP rewards), but it definitely leads you down a path of focusing on talents and spells once you have ~38-40 points, max. Even if your GM hands you 1000 XP per hour (why not; it's your campaign), you would be a fool to save up for a ST point when you could get 5 new talents instead.

Personally, I think it is brilliant, and the only thing that keeps the game centered on character power levels that are interesting.

If you don't like it yet want to stick to rules that are official, then I highly recommend the Supers rules in the companion. They provide a basis for letting your PC have one or more extraordinary abilities. And, they are easily adapted by adding further powers modeled over those in the article, and/or by adjusting the budget of points used to buy those powers. Whatever your meta story reason for using these rules (the PC's are demigods; radiation powers acquired while traveling through an 'ancients' city; Mnoren blood; etc.), this is a way to accomplish the goal of having PC's who have reached any desirable power level, without having to make it all up on your own.
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Old 06-10-2019, 10:40 AM   #122
MikMod
 
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Default Re: New Xp System: Not a Fan

ITL p35: "The IQ cost of a talent reflects both its complexity and the time it takes to keep in practice. For example, Running (2) is not an intellectually demanding talent - but getting into that kind of shape, and staying there, requires lots of time."

Which is part of what worries me about the ever growing list of talents that most characters are pretty well forced to acquire. How the heck do they have the time to maintain their talents to such a peak level?

I'm thinking people will simply treat talents like sticky badges, they'll slap them on like an over-enthusiastic boy scout and will do very little if anything to 'maintain' them. Sword/Shield Mastery and UACV will become common because "well you might as well - you're never going to get another point of DX".

Again, the old system enabled/required forgetting talents (I assumed on this 'maintenance' basis) and gave IQ much more meaning. Like ST was your capacity to carry weights, IQ was your capacity to maintain talents. Now it isn't.

I guess maybe I am just a bit scared by this new system, since I'm only familiar with the old one, and never had any problem with it. I kept a lid on magic and fine weapons, and for us, it was never about succeeding by killing the big boss, or making a fantastic roll, the players 'won' through playing in character, wit, cunning, strategy, surprise and sheer audacity.
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Old 06-10-2019, 11:24 AM   #123
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Default Re: New Xp System: Not a Fan

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Which is part of what worries me about the ever growing list of talents that most characters are pretty well forced to acquire. How the heck do they have the time to maintain their talents to such a peak level?

I'm thinking people will simply treat talents like sticky badges, they'll slap them on like an over-enthusiastic boy scout and will do very little if anything to 'maintain' them. Sword/Shield Mastery and UACV will become common because "well you might as well - you're never going to get another point of DX".
If you are concerned about too many talents, just become parsimonious with XP awards. Its simple, and its by-the-book.

All of this power level stuff only becomes important when the focus of your game is to "level up." If your group is more interested by the roleplaying side of the game, gaining talents and increased stats is just not the point. If leveling up is your group's thing, then it might be best to just embrace the PC's becoming powerful, assuming they survive long enough.

The increasing cost of attributes encouraging a shift toward enriching characters with talents and spells comes across to me as a feature of the new system rather than a bug.
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Old 06-10-2019, 11:50 AM   #124
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Default Re: New Xp System: Not a Fan

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If you are concerned about too many talents, just become parsimonious with XP awards. Its simple, and its by-the-book.
And then the players grind to a halt?

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Originally Posted by Shostak View Post
All of this power level stuff only becomes important when the focus of your game is to "level up." If your group is more interested by the roleplaying side of the game, gaining talents and increased stats is just not the point. If leveling up is your group's thing, then it might be best to just embrace the PC's becoming powerful, assuming they survive long enough.
Well, my group is not homogenous enough to make that kind of black and white decision, plus I think everyone 'likes' levelling up, or at least working towards it, whether they are a dyed-in-the-wool role-player or not? In any case, the old system seems to have been more consistent as I have shown. It has its own issues of course, but the new decoupled system and hard edged limit on attributes is looking slightly worse to me and clearly leads to one of two problems, whether you give lots of xp or not.

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The increasing cost of attributes encouraging a shift toward enriching characters with talents and spells comes across to me as a feature of the new system rather than a bug.
Well, this thread is for discussing the downsides, isn't it? Of course you and others love the new system and see nothing wrong at all. That's great! :) Not everyone agrees though, and I thought we could discuss it here without people simply saying 'well you are wrong'?
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Old 06-10-2019, 12:24 PM   #125
Skarg
 
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Default Re: New Xp System: Not a Fan

The main issue I have found with PCs constantly improving, in both TFT & GURPS, is that at some point (which varies by player and GM) the PCs become too good at practically everything. And that, at least, is addressed by the Legacy Edition's new XP system (unless someone really does decide to give out ever-increasing amounts of XP - but I'd say that's just up to them).

There are other issues as well, which too will of course meet different levels of (dis)agreement from different players. For instance, at some point the PCs may have abilities that make them seem very unlike who they were originally. Or their abilities may just seem wrong (e.g. the high-ST halfling). Or they may "run out of good things to improve". Or the GM may be hard-pressed to have his game make sense in the face of the players' fantastic powers. Or logic may dictate that the situation for the PCs may become terribly deadly. Etc.

So I think there is a wise desire for diminishing returns and/or limits to greatness. The tricky part is tuning those just right for your own tastes.
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Old 06-10-2019, 12:51 PM   #126
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Default Re: New Xp System: Not a Fan

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And then the players grind to a halt?
The suggestion to pull back on XP awards is to slow the PCs' rate of improvement, not arrest it. This increases the likelihood that the characters die or choose to retire (graduate to NPC status) before their acquiring too many talents becomes a problem.
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Old 06-10-2019, 12:57 PM   #127
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The suggestion to pull back on XP awards is to slow the PCs' rate of improvement, not arrest it. This increases the likelihood that the characters die or choose to retire (graduate to NPC status) before their acquiring too many talents becomes a problem.
Maybe I just have to try it and see how it works in practise. :)
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Old 06-10-2019, 09:37 PM   #128
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Default Re: New Xp System: Not a Fan

I gotta say that I'm kind of with Shostak on this one. Seems to me the new XP system is generally an improvement over the old one; even though I miss some of the crunch of how the XPs were earned in the old system (though I can easily add that back in).

And I don't think Shostak was saying anyone was "wrong," but rather was expressing his general liking for the new system as a whole. Which is clearly a minority position on this thread...though maybe that's because the folks like us that generally like it mostly are skipping this thread? ;-)
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Old 06-12-2019, 08:07 PM   #129
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Default Re: New Xp System: Not a Fan

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Again, the old system enabled/required forgetting talents (I assumed on this 'maintenance' basis) and gave IQ much more meaning. Like ST was your capacity to carry weights, IQ was your capacity to maintain talents. Now it isn't.
I really like how you put this. It captures well my own reservations with the change, but it also gives me an idea... what if we applied the encumbrance mechanic to limit the number of talents and/or spells that a character can ultimately aquire?

I feel like in long-term play the Legacy rules may be exchanging attribute bloat for talent bloat. Some may not agree, but I would be OK if IQ x2 was the max for learned abilities. Or, perhaps more reasonably, when a character aquires a total 'talent point' value that exceeds twice their IQ, the cost for subsequent talents is doubled (then tripled if they exceed 3x IQ, etc.).
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Old 06-13-2019, 06:03 PM   #130
MikMod
 
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Default Re: New Xp System: Not a Fan

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I feel like in long-term play the Legacy rules may be exchanging attribute bloat for talent bloat. Some may not agree, but I would be OK if IQ x2 was the max for learned abilities.
Yup - that's my feeling, and it is going to be much more apparent for low IQ fighters, who will get EVERY useful talent available to them and then start acquiring spells as that would be the only other option than learning 'fishing'. Plus they might well have the DX to carry it off. :/

IQx2 was my thought. However, I am also working on a more complex XP model which can retain some racial 'shaping' and maybe even the initial character build (so strong PCs find it easier to build ST than suddenly convert to being an intellectual). And I think I will be making talents cost more - no flat fee. The decoupling makes no sense to me. It might be partly because I like to give out XP during play so that the players are clear that being active, imaginative, funny, daring, and playing the heck out of their character will get them XP.
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