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#1 | |
Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: New England
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Disadvantages, found in The Fantasy Trip Companion, present a way for characters to start with higher stats than they otherwise could. But, as is pointed out in a separate thread on the main forum, the benefit from taking a disadvantage is quickly lost.
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#2 |
Join Date: Dec 2017
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That's certainly true (and might even be consistent with the intent of those old articles; they aren't very clear on that point). But given the constraints on stat increases in Legacy Edition, this would make high-value disadvantages almost required for any PC. That might be kind of fun, but would distort the playing field quite a bit and I suspect people would quickly tire of it.
This is related to one of the things that turned me away from GURPS and back to TFT: the integrated 'economy' of stats, skills, advantages and disadvantages in GURPS basically force you to take maximum quirks and disadvantages, and steer you towards choosing a subset of disadvantages that let you harvest the points without suffering substantial consequences. I greatly prefer the way ITL has always worked, where you have a fixed economy of stat points, and then your choices of those constrain your economy of talents, spells, etc. I.e., you can't 'trade' talent choices off against stats (not directly anyway). If you could, the same kind of gamesmanship would take hold in TFT. One suggestion I might make is that you could introduce an element of randomness by having people roll on a table of disadvantages (and perhaps a similar set of advantages) to give you some random chance of starting play with these various unusual qualities. You might even give some rare chance of a super power (also in the Companion) if that is the kind of campaign you want to run! Then you could compensate or penalize the PC's starting stat total and/or rise through experience so that the range of character abilities doesn't explode. Or not; anyone who has played old-school Gamma World knows that wildly variable PC power is fine. |
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#4 |
Join Date: Dec 2017
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That's a pretty good idea! We should certainly feel empowered to tinker with some dusty 40 year old house rules from a zine.
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#5 | |
Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: New England
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Or, you could let the disadvantage allow you to buy talents that have stat prerequites above yours (so you might get Master Physicker or 7-hex Fire at a lower IQ).
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If your group likes that kind of randomness, why not? But the lack of randomness is one of the major reasons I gravitated away from D&D and toward TFT. Last edited by Shostak; 08-13-2020 at 05:59 PM. |
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#6 | |
Join Date: Dec 2017
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#7 |
Join Date: Dec 2017
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The point is that if your XP gains follow RAW (you pay based on your stat total at that moment) then a character with a disadvantage begins closer to the 40-stat-point 'wall' than a character without a disadvantage, and they effectively skip those first few points that are very cheap. The only way the disadvantaged character stays ahead of the pack is if you don't count their initial stat point bonus when you calculate XP requirements for advancement.
However you think this should work, one great thing about hcobb's suggestion is that it just takes the whole problem off the table. You get a flat pay-out, worth 500 xp per point of disadvantage, and that's the end of it. What I like about this is that packages disadvantages as sort of like 'anti-talents'. Which is not so different from their role in the game. Last edited by larsdangly; 08-13-2020 at 04:35 PM. |
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#8 | |
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Luxembourg
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The disadvantages make that "if" a certainty. Short term advantage against long term max potential... seem legit for me. That said, Hcobb suggestion is a nice alternative, I quite like it. |
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#9 |
Join Date: Dec 2017
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Yes, I've already inked it into my table's house rules document!
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#10 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Pacheco, California
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What I would like are advantages that you can only get by paying with disadvantages at start, at least for social status.
For example one character really wanted to start with a warhorse, and he mostly has one. (Along with a formidable adversary who is getting more ammo all the time.)
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-HJC |
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advancement, attributes, characters |
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