Quote from: Voros;958334Gotta give you big props for the E.C. Tubb avatar and name. Just discovered his books recently. His muscular and literate space opera adventures come close to scratching my Leigh Brackett itch.

I just wish the 32nd and 33rd books were easily obtained. I've seen them for sale in eBay and Amazon Marketplace for crazy prices. I think there may be electronic versions but the last thing I want do after work is read on a screen. Still, I may have to succumb and figure out this e-book thing as I'm reading the 30th book in the Dumarest series right now and it won't be long until I hit that unsatisfying lack of a conclusion in the 31st book.

TFT is easily my favorite game; I think its the best system published for action-oriented fantasy roleplaying. There are several official, in-print resources out there; in addition to Dark City games, there is Heroes and Other Worlds, which has an astonishingly large catalogue of spells, monsters and setting materials. But, much as I like the love these folks show for the system, I find them all problematic enough that I tend to just fall back on the originals (± my house rule additions, which I've distributed by pdf a couple of times).

Dark City's modules are relatively compatible to TFT, though in detail the treatment of talents and spell lists is a lot narrower, so you may find yourself wanting to adapt them. Nevertheless, they can be played pretty much as you would play Death Test, Grail Quest, etc. Their core rule books are not worth the effort; anyone who wants to play TFT should just get a copy of the original game (by hook or by crook...).

Heroes and Other Worlds is a more complicated case. The core rules are very nicely written and presented and contain some well thought out changes to the way attack and defense is resolved in combat. Unfortunately, the system of movement and maneuver is not carried over from Melee, meaning they removed the meat from the only really fast, playable tactical combat system anyone has ever published! I think anyone playing TFT should use the map board combat system, meaning you need to somehow hybridize HoW with melee. More problematically, HoW introduces a fourth stat that acts as a kind of hit point/spell point reservoir. In general, only player characters are allowed to have points in this stat, though a small and quite confusing list of monsters also gets points in it. Moreover, the campaign materials present NPC's with very low stats (particularly DX). The end result is a huge shift in the power balance of the game in favor of the PC's. This is not an improvement. In fact, I think it breaks a game that grew organically from a system for table-top play of more or less balanced gladiatorial fights. Also, the weapon damage scores are totally irrational - as are the fixes to them suggested in a supplement (i.e., damage is not regularly related to minimum ST). All in all, it is a noble effort that is fun to read, but I don't actually play it using its rules or even NPC stats.

In the end, I'd say TFT is simply an old game that should still be played in its original form, mostly using setting materials you write yourself. Which is awesome, because that was always the whole point of table top roleplaying games! You could say much the same for Classic Traveller, but that's a post for another morning...

I feel as Larsdangly does about TFT and DCG and HOW, though after 5-7 years playing TFT, we were ready for more complexity and we desired some adjustments to the combat system, which GURPS filled in very nicely by being published at the time we were starting to write our own (even more complex) set of rules.

As for your (OP/Dumarest's) issue with GURPS disadvantages, I think (like most of the rest of GURPS) it becomes a non-problem if you have a good GM involved in new character creation. Yes, crazy characters can be made, and with no sanity applied, it seems like there's a weird situation where you could take handicaps in exchange of super-skills, but a good experienced GM will not approve that, and even the published guidelines don't really lead to that. That is, if you have (3e) 100-point starting characters with a maximum of 40 points in disads and you notice the guidelines about appropriate skills and a starting limit of about 2 points per year of age, there is no way to use disads to give yourself uber skills (because of the age limit and the 3e curved skill progression). Also when you look at the choices for spending 40 points in disads, you'll notice that you can get 40 points with disads that don't make you a freak at all, and may actually just be in character (sense of duty, enemies, reputation, dependents, social status, miserliness, code of honor, honesty, overconfidence, bad habits, short-sightedness, unattractive, short attention span, etc etc), and the freaky and crippling disads are not worth the points and even if you try something like taking One Arm or One Eye and dumping the points into combat skills or advantages, you end up with a weaker fighter than if you kept an intact body. And that's not even involving GM guidance. If 40 points seems like a bit too many disads, you can also just specify a lower maximum disads (even zero, if you really don't want any).

Quote from: Dumarest;958361I just wish the 32nd and 33rd books were easily obtained. I've seen them for sale in eBay and Amazon Marketplace for crazy prices. I think there may be electronic versions but the last thing I want do after work is read on a screen. Still, I may have to succumb and figure out this e-book thing as I'm reading the 30th book in the Dumarest series right now and it won't be long until I hit that unsatisfying lack of a conclusion in the 31st book.

So you know reading on a eink reader is nothing like a LCD screen. It pretty much like paper.

Quote from: Skarg;958382I feel as Larsdangly does about TFT and DCG and HOW, though after 5-7 years playing TFT, we were ready for more complexity and we desired some adjustments to the combat system, which GURPS filled in very nicely by being published at the time we were starting to write our own (even more complex) set of rules.

...

I 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.

Quote from: Skarg;958382I feel as Larsdangly does about TFT and DCG and HOW, though after 5-7 years playing TFT, we were ready for more complexity and we desired some adjustments to the combat system, which GURPS filled in very nicely by being published at the time we were starting to write our own (even more complex) set of rules.

As for your (OP/Dumarest's) issue with GURPS disadvantages, I think (like most of the rest of GURPS) it becomes a non-problem if you have a good GM involved in new character creation. Yes, crazy characters can be made, and with no sanity applied, it seems like there's a weird situation where you could take handicaps in exchange of super-skills, but a good experienced GM will not approve that, and even the published guidelines don't really lead to that. That is, if you have (3e) 100-point starting characters with a maximum of 40 points in disads and you notice the guidelines about appropriate skills and a starting limit of about 2 points per year of age, there is no way to use disads to give yourself uber skills (because of the age limit and the 3e curved skill progression). Also when you look at the choices for spending 40 points in disads, you'll notice that you can get 40 points with disads that don't make you a freak at all, and may actually just be in character (sense of duty, enemies, reputation, dependents, social status, miserliness, code of honor, honesty, overconfidence, bad habits, short-sightedness, unattractive, short attention span, etc etc), and the freaky and crippling disads are not worth the points and even if you try something like taking One Arm or One Eye and dumping the points into combat skills or advantages, you end up with a weaker fighter than if you kept an intact body. And that's not even involving GM guidance. If 40 points seems like a bit too many disads, you can also just specify a lower maximum disads (even zero, if you really don't want any).

If I were to use GURPS I'd just say "here's your points, make your guy" and if you want him to be alcoholic or a coward or a kleptomaniac you're not getting any extra skills or attribute points for that. To me that's just the roleplaying part of RPGs and shouldn't require an incentive. I've had players in plenty of different games give themselves handicaps and disadvantages just for the fun of it so I don't really see the need to gain something else by doing it.

Quote from: estar;958385So you know reading on a eink reader is nothing like a LCD screen. It pretty much like paper.

I 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.

Quote from: Larsdangly;958373TFT is easily my favorite game; I think its the best system published for action-oriented fantasy roleplaying. There are several official, in-print resources out there; in addition to Dark City games, there is Heroes and Other Worlds, which has an astonishingly large catalogue of spells, monsters and setting materials. But, much as I like the love these folks show for the system, I find them all problematic enough that I tend to just fall back on the originals (± my house rule additions, which I've distributed by pdf a couple of times).

Dark City's modules are relatively compatible to TFT, though in detail the treatment of talents and spell lists is a lot narrower, so you may find yourself wanting to adapt them. Nevertheless, they can be played pretty much as you would play Death Test, Grail Quest, etc. Their core rule books are not worth the effort; anyone who wants to play TFT should just get a copy of the original game (by hook or by crook...).

Heroes and Other Worlds is a more complicated case. The core rules are very nicely written and presented and contain some well thought out changes to the way attack and defense is resolved in combat. Unfortunately, the system of movement and maneuver is not carried over from Melee, meaning they removed the meat from the only really fast, playable tactical combat system anyone has ever published! I think anyone playing TFT should use the map board combat system, meaning you need to somehow hybridize HoW with melee. More problematically, HoW introduces a fourth stat that acts as a kind of hit point/spell point reservoir. In general, only player characters are allowed to have points in this stat, though a small and quite confusing list of monsters also gets points in it. Moreover, the campaign materials present NPC's with very low stats (particularly DX). The end result is a huge shift in the power balance of the game in favor of the PC's. This is not an improvement. In fact, I think it breaks a game that grew organically from a system for table-top play of more or less balanced gladiatorial fights. Also, the weapon damage scores are totally irrational - as are the fixes to them suggested in a supplement (i.e., damage is not regularly related to minimum ST). All in all, it is a noble effort that is fun to read, but I don't actually play it using its rules or even NPC stats.

In the end, I'd say TFT is simply an old game that should still be played in its original form, mostly using setting materials you write yourself. Which is awesome, because that was always the whole point of table top roleplaying games! You could say much the same for Classic Traveller, but that's a post for another morning...

My plan is to steal whatever I can from those free adventures and use them with the rules I already have. I don't really need another version of a game I already have. (I can't really wrap my head around all the D&D "clones" for the same reason, except maybe if we're talking about clarifying some of the more impenetrable passages in 1974 D&D or the original DMG and PHB.)

Besides, I know where free PDFs of The Fantasy Trip can be obtained and have them at home in addition to my actual books. I would be reluctant to spread them around since I'm pretty sure the web site where I saw them has no right to the intellectual property as last I read those rights were still with Howard Thompson (Metagaming), which is kind of a shame since he's just been sitting on them for 35 years. On the other hand, since I paid for and own actual copies I don't feel I'm doing anything wrong by having an electronic backup if I'm not spreading it around to people.

Quote from: jeff37923;958194Damnit! I see this thread just as I have to go to work!

Tell me, have you done a comparison between Traveller 1977 and Traveller 1981?

More later....

I have a detailed comparison here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jsH-EgKvaR0mdbtJMj_Xj7X3TcYyZTqQGf-Gwu58PX0/edit?usp=sharing

Quote from: jeff37923;958194Damnit! I see this thread just as I have to go to work!

Tell me, have you done a comparison between Traveller 1977 and Traveller 1981?

More later....

Quote from: Dumarest;958253Not sure how much detail you are I interested in, so if you want more just say so...

I start by rolling up a subsector at random. I take the random results and then alter anything that I think could work better but not until I think about various planet/star system results and what the could mean on their own and also in conjunction with each other. I try to make sure there are reasonable opportunities and means to travel from one system to another, as well as reasons you might want or need to. I try to see if there are any relationships or ties, trade or otherwise, that might make sense between the various planets. I prefer to have pretty much no central government at all, so it's more like E.C. Tubb's Dumarest stories. Basically independent planets with their own governments and cultures. It makes for good episodic gaming and ways to pick up new and different PCs if anyone dies or needs a backup. Yes, I steal institutions from Tubb as well, although it may not be the Cyclan or the Universal Brotherhood there will be nefarious and religious sects. I also think up and steal and randomly generate rumors the PCs may hear at various locations. I try to have at least three per locale, plus possible (and possibly competing) patrons or employers. Then we roll up characters and extrapolate backgrounds based on their scores and skills and ages, of course taking the setting into account. That is, there is no Galactic Navy, so maybe you were in the Navy of Planet X while this PC was a merchant working trade routes between Planets X, Y, and Z. I like to establish that they've either retired or been fired and have them tell me why they are out here in the fringes of civilization. Sometimes I give them some information or rumors about the subsector to spur the whys and how-comes of their characters being there. If someone scored a ship in character generation, I'll get that written up and named and figure out who they owe money to (bank? guild? mafioso? etc.) and see how that affects what the PCs will do. I steal a page from the West End Games Star Wars game and ask the players to come up with their connections to each other, and again the scores and skills and backgrounds help with that. Two guys both in the Scouts? Maybe they know each other from that. Maybe that Merchant is your cousin or former brother-in-law. I don't know, you tell me.  Then I usually plop them down on whichever planet seems a good starting point and away we go. I don't worry about much else until it comes up in play or looks likely to do so. If there's something the PCs would know about a person or place or thing, I just tell them. Otherwise they find out about as soon as I do. I don't set up encounters or scenarios as set pieces; instead I roll up random stuff and try to make it coherent (as in it makes sense whether the PCs know it or not, as stuff happens in the background whether they are aware or not) and let the players choose what they want to do. One nice thing about Traveller is you can always go somewhere else if where you are isn't fun or interesting. I don't think I've ever needed more than one or two subsectors so I've never had to generate a galaxy or empire or any of that stuff. It's more like the Wild West and boomtowns and mining operations and pony express and cattle barons in space, at least that's what I like. I just wish I got to be a PC more often; I have the misfortune of being the reliable person who is willing to put in the work and read books so I nearly always end being the ref. Which is fun too.

Cool to see another Classic Traveller guy out there...

Frank

Quote from: Dumarest;958171Long time listener, first time caller...playing Traveller (the 1977 boxed set) and The Fantasy Trip (In the Labyrinth, Advanced Wizard, and Advanced Melee).

I played TFT when I thought I was going towards simulation mechanics for my games. It became more so when Man To Man was released.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;958416I played TFT when I thought I was going towards simulation mechanics for my games. It became more so when Man To Man was released.

Saw a copy of Man to Man once but never have read it or played it. My impression was it was some sort of gladiatorial fighting game.

Quote from: jeff37923;958194Damnit! I see this thread just as I have to go to work!

Tell me, have you done a comparison between Traveller 1977 and Traveller 1981?

More later....

Quote from: Dumarest;958427Saw a copy of Man to Man once but never have read it or played it. My impression was it was some sort of gladiatorial fighting game.

I did also, long enough to photocopy the battle map... I've always thought of it as "Man to Man is to GURPS and Melee is to The Fantasy Trip"

Is TFT doable if you prefer theatre of the mind or is the battle map essential to how the game plays/feels?

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'm no authority but I think you'd lose a lot of what makes then game exciting and fun. The combat choices you make depend a lot on your position in relation to your opponent. I'd rather use a hex grid and some sort of figure or token when combat arises. I guess you could do it all in your mind but I don't know if that would be playing to the strength of the game.

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