Character Cards

[Chris Rice]

Originally Posted by Skarg

I and the other TFT GMs I played with maintained a supply of pre-made opponents and other NPCs at various levels of detail, as well as pre-thought-of-names lists and character/situation ideas that might be applied to different unplaced NPCs as made sense in the game situation.

However we didn't like re-using NPC stat blocks for people who were already used, especially not ones whose details were already known to the players. (I still have the folders with most of the characters & NPCs (including roadside thugs) who ever died in the campaign. Kind of fun to glance at and see who died and sometimes how (I often note in shorthand wounds with things like location, type, whether an arrow is stuck in the body, e.g. "-3 L arm A").

It's so easy to make a TFT character and only requires a few inches of paper space.

ST 11 Spear 1d
DX 11(10) Lg Shld 2 -1DX
IQ 9 Dagger 1-1
MA 10 11sp 32cp in bp, bag w. 3 dys rtns
PlWpns Shld Knf Swm Farm Alert

I can still make that stuff up about as quickly as I can type or write it down.

It's easy to make up characters on any old scrap of paper, that's true. But if we're trying to attract a new generation to TFT; a generation who are used to high quality graphics and top notch physical game components, I believe these cards will be a major boon. These will make it much easier for me to attract new players to a pick-up game; they don't even have to generate a character - just pick a card and off we go.

I'm coming to the conclusion that these might not be absolutely essential, but could be very important.

[Skarg]

Yeah, I wasn't intending to argue against them. (Except maybe that I probably wouldn't use dry-erase myself, as I like having a paper-trail of doom.)

They do seem handy for various things such as new players, random warrior selection outside detailed campaigns, etc.

I would likely use blank ones, and a program and/or a program and/or web site that generated them to print out.

I agree though that it should list base DX followed by Adj DX, not just Adj DX.

[KevinJ]

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

It's easy to make up characters on any old scrap of paper, that's true. But if we're trying to attract a new generation to TFT; a generation who are used to high quality graphics and top notch physical game components, I believe these cards will be a major boon. These will make it much easier for me to attract new players to a pick-up game; they don't even have to generate a character - just pick a card and off we go.

I'm coming to the conclusion that these might not be absolutely essential, but could be very important.

This is the exact argument for a set of Combat Cards with the movement and combat options on them with brief tactical information and a page # for further research when it's NOT YOUR TURN.

Any nice looking, dry erase, easy to use game parts would only be a plus for the game when teaching new players.