Quote from: Weru;958437Is TFT doable if you prefer theatre of the mind or is the battle map essential to how the game plays/feels?

I think TFT is best with a hex map and you lose something if you don't use one.  I use to play Melee and Wizard (ancestors of TFT) as a wargame a lot and it is very tactical, lots of choices.  That tactical trade-off that the game is so good at really needs the map. However, I personally don't like using such maps or minis for RPGs, and I have run many games of TFT and HoW as theater of the mind. It still works very well as an RPG, you just don't get that wargame experience too, without the map.

Quote from: Weru;958437Is TFT doable if you prefer theatre of the mind or is the battle map essential to how the game plays/feels?

TFT is GURPS Lite without all the skills/advantages/disadvantages/traits/perks/quirks/actives/younameit. Both can(not) use hexgrid maps for fight scenes, depending on who's wargaming (or not) at the table.

Quote from: Larsdangly;958395I have strong but mixed feelings about GURPS as the inheritor of TFT's crown. The games are part of the same lineage, and Steve Jackson clearly intended GURPS to be a sort of next-generation TFT. And in most respects it succeeds in just this way. However, I find that the tremendous breadth and complexity found in the character generation rules has two effects I don't like:

1) all trade offs are expressed through a single system - the character point 'economy'. But the properties you buy with those points vary enormously in their effects on play, so it is inevitable that players will game the system to exchange a variety of basically irrelevant weaknesses for one killer strength. TFT also has a trade-off economy in character creation, but the playing field is way, way narrower, so all strengths come with closely balanced, definitely relevant weaknesses. As a result, there are lots of different TFT character types, but is surprisingly hard to design a character who blows everyone's doors off in some narrowly defined playing field. Basically, I wish they had left character design so that you traded ST against DX, not ST against alcoholism, social status or color blindness.

2) the game is just so big that, no matter what setting you choose to play, you have to wade through a lot of stuff that is irrelevant to you. Perhaps this is just an aesthetic point, but I don't like shoveling through 300 pages of rules to play a game that could be expressed in 50 pages.

On the other hand, a lot of the small, mechanical changes to the rules between TFT and GURPS are obviously improvements on their shared 'engine'. The way parries and blocks work in combat; the properties of armor; damage and injury; how skills relate to stats. Perhaps what I really want is a version of GURPS that has been pared down to a simple core.

I partly agree with you on point 1). However as GM I give guidance and intervene when/if the point system seems to be a problem for some PC's creation. A GM can take that as far as they like, even disallowing most/all disadvantages, lowering the max disad points, limiting the list of points spendable on what, etc. But the ability to do that well kind of wants a lot of familiarity with the system, and time/energy etc. Good experienced players also often come up with really fun/cool/appropriate characters rather than munchkin monsters.

I also partly (mostly, if you mean the 4e Basic Set) agree with you on point 2), though I think the 3e Basic Set is a good core book for a lowish-tech campaign. I still find the 4e Basic Set annoyingly full of stuff I never want to use and/or would prefer to have in a special book as in 3e.

I'm sure it helps that on top of liking the type of game, I learned it in historical order of ascending complexity: TFT, Advanced TFT, Man to Man, GURPS 1e, 2e, 3e, 4e. And even so, what I play is part 3e, part 4e, various houserules (and often a TFT context in the back of my head).

I kind of prefer the TFT magic system to vanilla GURPS Magic in several ways, too.

Man to Man is the Melee of GURPS, except they never re-printed it. That is, it's just the medieval combat system and medieval fighter character creation rules (and no Disadvantages!), and was published first before there were any other GURPS products. (IIRC, it has no IQ-based skills, either.) Actually, it's more like Advanced Melee, because it has pretty much the full combat system in one place, which is great for learning, and that combat system didn't change a whole lot up through 3e. I do think the combat system has improved through 3e and partly in 4e, but it's mostly the same combat system and is most of what I love about GURPS, with none of the noise and non-combat stuff mixed in. (I.e. they're probably foolish to not continue to make Man to Man for the later editions, and it's a great way to learn the combat system, though there would be a few things to change/relearn for later editions, mainly somewhat different defense values (mainly shields) and removal of the Stop Thrust rules.)

There is one adventure module for Man to Man (Orcslayer) which I think is a pretty cool focused ready-to-play combat adventure.

As for playing TFT without maps in combat, as others said, you certainly can, but you certainly lose something, unless it's a 1 on 1 toe-to-toe fight in a boring location/situation. I have run simple combats without a map because I thought the map probably didn't matter, and then run a similar one with the map, and been surprised what I was missing. It's not really worse than running another game theater-of-the-mind, except 1) when you do know what you're missing and that bugs you (having enjoyed TFT/GURPS mapped combat is the main reason I am disinterested in playing any RPG without a map), and 2) as the system is designed for a map where positioning makes the difference between life and death, not using a map means whatever you use instead to decide who can attack whom becomes very important to determining who lives or dies. It'll likely be as deadly and arbitrary as classic Traveller but with only one attribute of damage before you're dead (or moreso, as there are effects of injury).

TFT without maps is like chess without a board. It could probably be done in some way, but I wouldn't bother - there are literally hundreds of roleplaying games out there, and if you don't like something fundamental about the one in front of you, you're probably best advised to find another.

And whoever said magic in TFT is special definitely said a mouthful! I've never seen another game that can touch TFT when it comes to the use of magic in combat. For the obvious reason that TFT is the only full roleplaying game I know of that was built on top of a table-top dueling game, so a lot of thought and play testing went into the implementation of magic in close combat.

Quote from: Dumarest;958448Probably someone more expert on the topic could answer better. I just play the games; I don't really theorize about them.

That's what makes you the better person to ask.

Quote from: Ronin;958651That's what makes you the better person to ask.

Ha, I don't know about that, you see some heady discussion on here about mechanics and rules and percentages and probabilities. I just read those threads without commenting as I've never bothered to figure out what the odds of rolling a 7 on 3d6 might be or whether a scimitar is better than a gladius is better than a wakizashi is better than a scimitar.:confused:

Quote from: Dumarest;958404I don't know what an eink reader is, actually; I'll have to look that up. But the only screens I have available at home are a laptop or my phone, neither of which I want to sit and read from while relaxing.

Kindles
Nook

The screen of these devices comprises of thousands of microscopic capsules fill with black and white ink. One color is negatively charged and the other is positively charged. This allows the basic technology to display the written word and b/w pictures. What makes it like paper and ink is the fact that it is reflective of light like ink on a page. The screen of your laptop and phone emit light. For many people starting at what are thousands of fancy colored flashlights is tiring on their eyes. In contrast reading a e-ink work the same way as paper.

The major downside of the technology is that ability of the screen to change what display is a 100 times slows than the screen on your phone or lapstop. Granted we are talking a tenth of a second versus 1 ms for LCD screen however this means that e-ink screen are best at displaying static images.

Today's the best reader have microcapsule density that in the ballpark of printed paper. (typical print is around 300 dots per inch, the best quality like for glossy magazine is 1,000 dots per inch)

So anyway using a e-ink reader is just like reading a book as far the reading the words themselves go. There is a nook for $50, the cheapest Kindle is $80. I personally use a paperwhite kindle that cost me around $120. It great, not only buy off amazon, I went to the free books at Project Gutenberg and download many of the classics to read. They even have some original Conan stories as the copyright of the original publications were not renewed so are in the public domain.

Anyway you seem like you enjoy reading so just passing along the information about the tech.

Quote from: estar;958659Kindles
Nook

The screen of these devices comprises of thousands of microscopic capsules fill with black and white ink. One color is negatively charged and the other is positively charged. This allows the basic technology to display the written word and b/w pictures. What makes it like paper and ink is the fact that it is reflective of light like ink on a page. The screen of your laptop and phone emit light. For many people starting at what are thousands of fancy colored flashlights is tiring on their eyes. In contrast reading a e-ink work the same way as paper.

The major downside of the technology is that ability of the screen to change what display is a 100 times slows than the screen on your phone or lapstop. Granted we are talking a tenth of a second versus 1 ms for LCD screen however this means that e-ink screen are best at displaying static images.

Today's the best reader have microcapsule density that in the ballpark of printed paper. (typical print is around 300 dots per inch, the best quality like for glossy magazine is 1,000 dots per inch)

So anyway using a e-ink reader is just like reading a book as far the reading the words themselves go. There is a nook for $50, the cheapest Kindle is $80. I personally use a paperwhite kindle that cost me around $120. It great, not only buy off amazon, I went to the free books at Project Gutenberg and download many of the classics to read. They even have some original Conan stories as the copyright of the original publications were not renewed so are in the public domain.

Anyway you seem like you enjoy reading so just passing along the information about the tech.

Thanks for the information. I was not aware there was such a gadget out there. All I had seen were the shiny ones that hurt the eyes. By the way, I have one of your Savage Wilderlands books at home, I forget the title but it's sort of digest-sized and I guess you'd call it a campaign setting but I used it more just as an idea mine to plunder. There was some interesting material in it. I should look at it again.

Thanks for the answers about TotM in TFT. I do prefer mapless in RPGs, but maybe if I ever get the chance to run TFT I'll try it with the hexmap. Cheers.

Does anyone know a good source for erasable hex maps you can put on your tabletop and draw on? Inexpensive but good quality is preferred, obviously.

Quote from: Dumarest;958928Does anyone know a good source for erasable hex maps you can put on your tabletop and draw on? Inexpensive but good quality is preferred, obviously.

Inexpensive is relative of course, but...

This is the Chessex battle I got from Amazon.

Chessex makes them in a variety of sizes. Here is a page at Amazon with some of them listed.

Quote from: ChristopherKubasik;958930Inexpensive is relative of course, but...

This is the Chessex battle I got from Amazon.

Chessex makes them in a variety of sizes. Here is a page at Amazon with some of them listed.

Thanks.

Chessex are nice. Remember you can take pics of battle aftermath for later reference before cleaning or erasing.

What I often use though are photocopies of hex grids, usually onto transparent plastic paper (which well-equipped copy shops tend to have). That lets me draw terrain onto blank paper, overlay with hexes, and then keep the paper maps for later re-use.

I also sometimes lay some place out using drawing software (GIMP, Photoshop) and then print them out. This (or printing and using with transparencies) lets you use computer images, of which there are many available online. You could also check out Campaign Cartographer.

Chessex battle mats are awesome, I still have all of mine, must be over 30 years old at this point.  Some key tips...

• If you ever put permanent ink on the mat, rub over it with dry-erase ink and wipe that off, you'll be amazed how good that works.  
• Do not use acetone as a permanent ink cleaner, it will take the lines and color off the mat.
• Dry the mat before rolling it, the back is a type of fabric, if that gets wet because you didn't dry the front side before rolling, it can get moldy/mildewed (that's the one I had to toss).
• With any color other than black, make sure you wipe it off quick, don't leave it for a long time, it will be a bitch to get off.  Red is the worst, but blue and green will become almost permanent if you leave it long enough.