Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;859249...
Running away is sort of interesting as well (if I understand correctly you only ever move one square away when 'engaged', but you automatically go first in initiative next turn?).
...

Yes, so if you can disengage by moving 1 hex, then you can declare you're running away and automatically get initiative as long as you use it to move first and run away. In this way, if you're as fast or faster than your foes, if you can get reasonably free of them, you can run without getting artificially stopped by having them win initiative and getting re-engaged.

(I think rules-as-written your whole party has to flee to auto win initiative, but it works to split the flee-ers into their own "side" and have them move first. In a pandemonium where there were rival groups of flee-ers, you might roll to see which group of flee-ers gets to flee first.)

I agree that Death Test II, Grail Quest, and Security Station are probably the best of the Microquest programed adventures, and play well solo (or even team vs. adventure). They are also perhaps the hardest to survive, even for experienced players and characters. But in TFT, dying is half the fun. ;-) Expect casualties and TPKs. Death Test I and Orb Quest are also pretty good. And I hear the Dark City games games are also good (and deadly) though I haven't tried them yet and they're designed for their own version of the rules - adaptable, but not the best way to learn how TFT plays if you don't have an experienced player around.

Thanks again (and for clarifying on escaping). This has been fairly enlightening as far as how these tactical systems work. I'd be curious as hear about some of the more interesting/ memorable battles you've had with TFT or GURPS maybe, if you like.

Multi-hex monsters look especially interesting with these sort of hex rules (+facing)(I've always been quite taken by some of the aliens in e.g. GURPS Lensmen, with their 'its five hexes hexes long and arms come off in hexes 2 and 4' type setups).
(Big monsters in D&D are nothing new to me, but since they don't use facing they're usually just big squares. 3.5 horses for instance...).

Quote from: Skarg;859288In TFT, initiative rolls are affected by surprise or having leaders with Tactics or Strategy talents (and is trumped by running away), and only determines movement. Order of non-movement actions (e.g. attacks) is in DX order where DX is adjusted by encumbrance (and injury and/or other conditions).

Relatedly, I was quite entertained by the note that the GM can potentially assess an initiative penalty on player groups that are especially undisciplined.
The DEX order is interesting in that while its basically fixed, it seems like there's a lot of situational adjustments going on that could change it up a bit from round to round. I think more engaging that just a random roll.

Thanks again.

Interesting missile combat/multiple attacks rules (I noticed starting to attempt to build a character). Higher DEX = an extra attack with a ranged weapon, and the larger the bow the harder it is to get a second shot. The larger bows also have higher STR required, so since character building means dividing points between STR/DEX, different types of archer should be sort of balanced. Hopefully adding INT doesn't throw off the balance too much.

Its also interesting that this uses the adjusted DEX - so for instance using a crossbow and getting +1 DEX for being prone could make the difference between getting an attack every round, vs. needing a round to reload.

On building a character, I actually have a number of Space Gamer issues (they used to be stored at archive.org) and could've tried building an Overman for a solo attempt (the superhumans from the Lords of Dûs books..which I actually am fond of - statted up in SG-28), but its a bit cheesy, and anyway would probably lead to some tactical laziness, from relying on uber-stats). So probably just human is the way to go.

In In The Labyrinth, the TFT book with the RPG background etc, there are the IQ-based non-magic talents, and those add some talents that can also affect combat in various ways. This does adjust balance compared to characters who aren't using the Talent system, because even at IQ 9 (one point used that could've been put on ST or DX), there are some specialist Talents that are more advantageous (though different) than another  point in ST or DX. IQ level is a prerequisite for certain talents, and your IQ gives the limit on the number of talents your character could learn. A full weapon talent is generally 2 points, but for example there is the Missile Weapons expert talent which is 3 points and gives you +3 adj DX when using a missile weapon you have the talent for. Of course, in a full RPG setting, you're in a more complex world and there are NPCs who will also be using talents, and if you take IQ 9 and say, Bow, Ax/Mace, and Missile Weapons, that's 7 of your 9 IQ points, leaving you 2 points for other useful Talents such as Literacy, Swimming, Horsemanship, Climbing, Charisma, Sex Appeal, Fast Talk, Silent Movement, Thief, Alertness, Recognize Value, Naturalist, Animal Handling, Running, Cooking, Physicker, Leadership, Tactics, etc. Some of which you probably really want at least amongst your friends... a party with IQ 8-9 and few/no non-combat talents may be good at fighting, but, well, wants someone to lead/command it and provide for its other needs.

In my TFT campaign, many NPC fighter types ended up being IQ 8 with only the basic version of weapon talents for what they use (it just lets you use it without a -4 adj DX for being incompetent).

So an average town guard might be:
ST 11 DX 11(10) IQ 8 MA 10 Spear, Large Shield, Dagger (Talents: Spear, Shield, Knife)

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;859321... I'd be curious as hear about some of the more interesting/ memorable battles you've had with TFT or GURPS maybe, if you like.

Sure, but there are decades of memories. Hmm. Some of the most interesting are unusual situations. Like when I was the only one who wasn't locked in a cell, and had to try to sneak up on the cells and free my friends. I got some other people free and tried to arm them with what was available, but then the alarm was sounded and I tried to run with those people, and led the pursuit (who were chasing, so they too didn't have time to fully arm or organize) away from the cells, and up a narrow circling staircase around a pit several stories down. I ran to the top of the stairs, and then, armed with a sling, picked shots against the pursuers to try to get some of them to fall into the pit. The chase had naturally strung out the pursuit by speed / encumbrance, and the narrow stair meant I had a height advantage (I also had a quarterstaff and good skill with it) so when I turned on them, I only had to fight one at a time as they hadn't brought missile weapons, and soon I was chasing them back down the stairs.

A spectacular one that took a few days to play out (using GURPS) involved a raid to rescue some prisoners held in an orcish capital city. There was a barracks not far from the prison, and the party planned a "diversionary" attack that involved taking out sentries and then attacking the barracks full of sleeping guards (maybe two hundred). The group had mercenaries - maybe 20 or 30 total, and oil flasks and gunpowder grenades. The map took up most of my huge desk, with rows of wooden bunks and lots of photocopied counters of orcish guards in various states of undress. So there was a large-scale battle against stunned surprised and sleepy guards (those who'd survived the bombs) trying to grab what weapons they could, amidst rows of bunks, fire and smoke, lots of dead bodies and confused people trying to get away, etc. Then a chase / infiltration and wild goose chase runs, then to the sleighs to escape. Then an overland chase, with a final fight with the pursuit and an attempted barricade, with a memorable moment when a 7-foot-tall gargoyle was shot out of the air (wing injury, still quite alive) and happened to land directly on the party's heaviest tank type, a dwarf in full plate - both figures were very heavy and gargoyle fell from some height ... I had to modify the 12-hex sleigh counter to include a two-hex hole where the dwarf had been, and they proceeded to hand-to-hand combat in the snow under the sleigh...

QuoteMulti-hex monsters look especially interesting with these sort of hex rules (+facing)(I've always been quite taken by some of the aliens in e.g. GURPS Lensmen, with their 'its five hexes hexes long and arms come off in hexes 2 and 4' type setups).
(Big monsters in D&D are nothing new to me, but since they don't use facing they're usually just big squares. 3.5 horses for instance...).

Yes, they can be interesting, though in GURPS often the rules don't go into as much detail as one might want, leaving the GM to come up with some rulings. You need to know the hex shape, and the facing for every adjacent hex, as well as which hexes each other figure's attacks can be used in. Then you also start to realize you could use rules or rulings for "which body parts are located in which hex" if you want to avoid someone attacking the head of a dragon from the tail end, etc. GM rulings can often be adequate for this, but it's nice and interesting to think of such things in advance. You may also want multiple configurations, say so a 7-hex dragon can bend around some corners. It's interesting figuring out the tactics for playing as larger creatures. They're often very powerful and dangerous but also pretty vulnerable unless you play them with tactics and with self-preservation in mind. As GM, you might want to throw some lesser large monsters at your PCs to learn how they die, before trying to roleplay a dragon as smart and self-preservation-interested as it should be. Of course, many PCs have also died immediately from getting hit once by a giant's club.

"Strength lies in numbers" often rings true in TFT. But realizing that can lead to tactics that win the day. One memorable adventure had two characters cut off from their large party in an underground complex, needing to sneak and fight their way past, between and trough many hostile groups. One was well-armored and had a greatsword. The other was sneaky and not so resiliant, but was deadly with his sword. They were able to defeat many larger groups mainly by using terrain and tactics to play to their strengths. They both had high DX, so could generally strike first, the greatsword hacking through armor, and the lighter sword hitting people in the head and limbs to take them out before they could strike. The armored PC would stand to prevent the other from being engaged by more foes than they could handle at once, with the confined spaces and fallen foes being used to keep them from being surrounded and overwhelmed. Eventually they surrendered to a larger group, but when being led away, they were taken up a narrow ladder shaft. At that point, they jumped on their attackers on the ladder, and a vertical combat ensued with what hands and feet weren't needed to hang on. At one point, one of them let go of the ladder in a gambit that didn't work out, and several people ended up knocking each other off and down. Sadly, only one PC made it out.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;859414...
On building a character, I actually have a number of Space Gamer issues (they used to be stored at archive.org) and could've tried building an Overman for a solo attempt (the superhumans from the Lords of Dûs books..which I actually am fond of - statted up in SG-28), but its a bit cheesy, and anyway would probably lead to some tactical laziness, from relying on uber-stats). So probably just human is the way to go.

It's good to start human to learn what things are like, what tactics work and don't, and what normal is like, before trying to be superhuman. Later, when you understand how things work and what normal is like, you'll be in a much better place to appreciate the difference, and to play better with any superhumans you might want to play with.

Just soloing a few duels, then 2 vs 2, then a 3 vs 3, can be a good start.

I'd suggest starting with Death Test 1 if you want to do a solo adventure. Death Test 2 is great but more complex and more deadly and devious. Grail Quest and Security station are also great, but they are both very challenging and what's cool about them is their settings, which is cool but perhaps not needed or distracting when trying to learn what combat is like.

But ya don't get too attached to your first characters, or maybe any characters. I got a bit attached to a character learning the system with Melee combats - decided to try fighting a giant - oops got hit, killed. My dad and I tried to make it through Death Test 1 - TPK's ensued until we levelled up 3 points in the arena and then used very careful tactics. We did develop a tactical system and then were able to survive DT1 and DT2 a few times and Orb Quest without any more losses. But there are people who have been playing TFT for decades who say they still can't reliably get through Death Test 1 with 27-point (no IQ) characters.

Hey, one important note about Security Station: in my printing, there was at least one mistake on a paragraph reference. I corrected it in my copy by going through the whole book and making a map. Hopefully there's an erratum somewhere, maybe on BGG or rpgg or Demian's Gamebooks or web-grognards, etc.

Here's Security Station errata from Joe Hartley on the TFT email list:


According to a slip in my copy, there are 2 paragraphs replaced:

17: You come to a 3-way intersection.  You can go west(184), east(265)
or up the stairs to the north(90).

96: You are in room 303.  Project Coordination (see map below).  Roll
1 die.  On a result of 1-3, go to 339.  On a 4 or 5, go to 318.  On a
6, go to 52.

Bumping to avoid diluting the main archive thread with too many pages of side discussion.

As noted there, tried Death Test 2. Ignoring all current advice, I tried this with one 'overman' character for simplicity.
Maybe surprisingly I survived the first combat, five skeletons, with a whole 3 HP (Str) left. Immediate thought being Wow thats a lol of skeletons...but derp, of course its designed for multiple PCs.
Active learning from this:
*TFT does seem to work best for multiple PCs, since one guy on one guy intrinsically doesn't seem to need minis that much, if it works...people turn to face each other and so on.
*Dex penalties for armour are really harsh (up to -6 I think for full plate). Combined with to-hit being just DEX, and using 3d6, I think there's an issue there that if you still want to hit, you need a high DEX to begin with - to wear armour you need to start out as an agile swashbuckly type. Pros: the 'muscly naked barbarian' archetype is therefore well-supported.
*Still really impressed with how well-balanced different attribute arrays are generally.
*No Str-modifiers for weapons (though it has Str-required instead).

DT2 could be written better as far as rules-referencing goes; a lot of 'and they use a shortsword', needing to flip back to the rulebook to work out what damage that is.
May have to try this again. Maybe with a different solo, have to see what else I have here.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;910987Bumping to avoid diluting the main archive thread with too many pages of side discussion.

...
*Dex penalties for armour are really harsh (up to -6 I think for full plate). Combined with to-hit being just DEX, and using 3d6, I think there's an issue there that if you still want to hit, you need a high DEX to begin with - to wear armour you need to start out as an agile swashbuckly type. Pros: the 'muscly naked barbarian' archetype is therefore well-supported.
*Still really impressed with how well-balanced different attribute arrays are generally.
*No Str-modifiers for weapons (though it has Str-required instead).

...

Yep in TFT you need to buy weapon Talents (basically pluses to hit) to compensate for armor DX penalty or get very high ST.   But note, plate armor stops 5 hits!  That's huge for a system where damage is typically 1 or 2 D6 with a few pluses.
Although better to take those Talents (e.g. Warrior) that just reduce hits and wear lighter armor.  One common house rule I'd seen was to have an armor talent, usually a IQ 9 or 10 talent, that reduces the DX penalty for armor some, but the require a minimum ST, and often in a Light Armor and Heavy Armor variety with Light being a Prerequsite for heavy.  Such as IQ 9 Talent: Light Armor (2) reduce by 1 the DX penalty for Chain, MIN ST 10, Leather and Cloth armor; Heavy Armor (2) requires Light Armor, reduce by 1 the DX penalty for half plate, plate and shields (if have Shield Talent), MIN ST 12.

The only non-magic Talents in the published rules that give a bonus to hit are Thown Weapons and Missile Weapons.

So yes, the armor DX penalties mess up your ability to hit a lot, until/unless you improve your DX, so beginning characters may be advised to stick to light armor or use tactics that support low adjusted DX (i.e. even lower-DX characters may do well in armor if they are supported by others, though in individual duels they might have problems).

Armor though is a major effect, if you can manage to keep your DX reasonable, since it reduces damage from every hit, and enough of it can make you very hard to hurt.

The DX penalties are balanced, however, for a game where one wants any starting 32-point character to be competitive with any other, regardless of armor.

It would be more realistic and still playable to cut down the armor DX penalties and/or add penalty-cutting-talents - it'll just change the balance so that spending money on armor is a big improvement with not so much disadvantage. It can actually tip the balance more in favor of ordinary fighters (who can afford armor) since heavy armor can be efficient for them too.

As noted in the intro to Death Test 2, it is a sequel designed to be much more challenging than Death Test 1, which still is hard for many veteran players, so yeah, I'm not surprised you got thrashed. Of course, if the room with the 5 skeletons had had someplace you managed to stand so you only engaged one per turn, you might have been able to have an uber fighter beat 5 skeletons.

You're right that 1-on-1 fights tend to make the battle map less relevant in TFT (it remains more interesting in GURPS BTW), but it can still matter a bit if the terrain is interesting, especially if one of them has a thrown or missile weapon, and/or there is a campaign situation where the location might matter, or one figure might want to escape, etc.

As for mentioning something like shortsword damage in the instructions, I think there were a few reasons why they would choose that. By the time I was playing Death Test 2, I had memorized almost every weapon stat, and these were trying to cram as much content as they could into a little book, and were I think trying to be efficient with space, and so thought to capitalize on the idea that people had the other book so they didn't need to duplicate that info. I think the microquests were also meant as examples of how the system can be used and what the thinking of a GM can be like (since this was a new thing for many players then). The TFT rules overall feel to me like trying to show people who may never have played an RPG before, how there are systems that allow translating from an imaginary situation into a game, in contrast to wargames they may be used to (like the other Microgames - Ogre, Ice War, etc) which explicitly specify every single thing in explicit detail for specific scenarios, not covering inventing one's own units or maps or much like that at all.

Quote from: Skarg;911223The only non-magic Talents in the published rules that give a bonus to hit are Thown Weapons and Missile Weapons.

....

Not so.  We've always played if you take extra levels in a weapon Talent each is a +1 (besides the ones you mentioned).  What keeps this from getting out of hand is the IQ cost.

Quote from: Xanther;911278Not so.  We've always played if you take extra levels in a weapon Talent each is a +1 (besides the ones you mentioned).  What keeps this from getting out of hand is the IQ cost.

I wrote "in the published rules".