apn
5th Level Troll
Posts: 578
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Post by apn on Nov 17, 2010 12:23:52 GMT -5
Just about to hit the sack for work, so I'll have to be quick on this: Fatigue and Book Keeping - admittedly it's something else to keep track of, as the number goes up and down in fights, but with the fast combat system it's unlikely fights will drag on for ages anyway. That said, with multiple foes battering away at each other, it might need a bit of book keeping. I just wanted a method that meant someone couldn't pound away at each other all day without limit and give the player the option of controlling how hard they try at something. Dice - the extra dice thing came up again because if you roll a 6, then add +3 as a bonus, you've rolled a 9 in actual fact, so for me it was a bit iffy. If you roll a few d6, it's easy enough to add the numbers, separate the 6s and 1s, and roll a number of bonus dice based on number of 6s - number of 1s. Also that way, if you roll really crazy lucky, you can pull something off you wouldn't normally be able to do, and that's hero games all over . I'll have a think on this and see if I can suggest another way to use the 6 as bonus, but for me, I think the bonus die on a 6, lose a bonus die on a 1 is easy enough. We'll agree to disagree on that As for activating bonus powers or stunts, that was a rough and ready way of doing things so I'm open to suggestions on how it would work. You already have the difficulty number so rolling a bunch of 6s would help you achieve that with the extra dice. How about adding to the difficulty number to achieve a certain stunt? e.g. Webbing Use webbing as concussive weapon (+20) Use webbing to make a parachute (+25) Use webbing to make a gas mask (+10) Use webbing to make a baseball bat (I'm sure Spiderman has done this, probably in the swinging 60s or early 70s ) (+30) Something like that? Again, off the top of my head. Also remember with the book keeping - I want to aim the game at play by post for selfish reasons. With PbP the pace is slower so you need to up the speed in other ways, hence the T&T style combat. However, you also have time for more book keeping that won't slow the game down. I like the suggestions for Hero points, especially with the Expand the story. That could really throw a spanner in the works by rolling on a table and having, say, another bad guy show up who dislikes the hero AND the villain he's fighting, that sort of thing - you may end up teaming up with the new guy and the story goes on from there. I think if we can find some middle ground on the mechanics - some way to speed the rolling process up (use another die type instead of d6, say D10) to get the big numbers and reduce the chance of getting extra dice to roll (1 in 10 instead of 1 in 6) but that takes it furtehr away from T&T. Which might not be a bad thing in some respects... Would have to change the difficulty numbers though, and normal people would have a stat of 1. Which isn't a game breaker, admittedly. Right, time for bed (then work) but more food for thought to chew on, cheers.
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kwll
3rd Level Troll
Posts: 248
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Post by kwll on Nov 18, 2010 2:10:13 GMT -5
Hey, you know what? Concerning this Fatigue thing, you are right: we should probably agree to disagree. I totally don't see the issue you are trying to solve with this rule as big enough to necessitate the bookkeeping. All the more that you say at the same time that combat should be short, and you want to avoid it being too draggy... So this entire rule really seems to be for the odd cases. You probably could derive a figure from CON or STR, and check that a character does not spend that much time (or "pages" or "panels") without resting. This could easily be adjudicated by the GM without the complication. Anyway, that is not very important: you can leave the rule there, it is always easier to remove something than to add it in. Consider the above as the first house rule! Concerning spite: As for activating bonus powers or stunts, that was a rough and ready way of doing things so I'm open to suggestions on how it would work. You already have the difficulty number so rolling a bunch of 6s would help you achieve that with the extra dice. How about adding to the difficulty number to achieve a certain stunt? e.g. Webbing Use webbing as concussive weapon (+20) Use webbing to make a parachute (+25) Use webbing to make a gas mask (+10) Use webbing to make a baseball bat (I'm sure Spiderman has done this, probably in the swinging 60s or early 70s ) (+30) Something like that? Again, off the top of my head. What if the spite could allow to obtain a higher rank of success? Say you are targeting an Excellent result, and you succeed with say, in addition, 3 spites, so you are upgraded to a Remarkable success. This would allow to describe the stunts by level of success, remove the necessity of re-rolls and streamline the rules, I think. We should shake the numbers to check if we need to only consider 6s (I still favor d6s), or see if 1s also need to be taken into account. More rank in the scale and the exact number of spites to obtain to upgrade to a higher level should also be factored in. Also, the rules could be expanded the other way, where if you fail and roll one or more 1s (without 6s), this could trigger critical failures. In combat, spite could also be used as in T&T. The more I think of it, the more I like it. What do you think?
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apn
5th Level Troll
Posts: 578
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Post by apn on Nov 18, 2010 5:58:23 GMT -5
So, if I understand this right... When you roll your D6, however much they be (depending on your ability AND your fatigue ) the number of 6s you obtain can bump up your success a rank or more, yeah? e.g. Night Shrike considers a crime scene. With the required ( excellent) success he deduces that the diamond was stolen at around 11pm, they came in through the skylight and the alarm had been disabled. With spite bumping that up he gets a remarkable success. He also deduces that the alarm was disabled sometime around 10.15, he knows the curator left at 10.17 thanks to the dry patch where his car had been in the car park and when it started to rain, because Night Shrike himself got wet. Therefore it's likely to be an inside job. With even more bumps to an incredible success, he figures out the curator is the loner type and susceptible to a womans advances, and that three criminals he knows fit the profile of burglar and seductress, one of whom is in jail, another out of the country and the third... the third is staying in town right now supposedly to watch a high society fashion show. And what better decoration to wear to a show than a very expensive diamond? Further success may reveal the curator has booked two first class tickets to Bora Bora and that the burglar has contacted local hoodlums to waylay the man on the way to the airport, plant enough evidence to implicate him, and fake a car crash. Have I got the right end of the stick? Also, tweaking the numbers. How about: - Poor 3
- Typical 6 (1)
- Good 12 (2)
- Excellent 18 (3)
- Remarkable 30 (4)
- Incredible 42 (5)
- Amazing 60 (6)
- Monstrous 78 (7)
- Unearthly 102 (8)
Numbers in brackets represent the number of spite dice needed to obtain a certain level above what was required. So If you need an incredible (42) result and got 7 sixes in there, you get a monstrous result? In Night Shrikes case he needed an excellent result and got five 6s along the way, he obtains instead an Incredible result. That sort of thing? I think I have the wrong end of the stick there. If you want to write it up, as you'd see it in the rules (assume I'm a slack jawed half wit when you write it,so I have a better chance of understanding ) I'll have a better understanding. I think the original (roll extra dice with a 6, but a 1 takes away an extra die) is quicker than figuring this out, but as mentioned, I think I've got it wrong somewhere. With the 'old' method: In the above example, Night Shrike would need an excellent result for success. He rolls his 6D6 (3 from intelligence, 3 free dice from Detective) and gets 3,4,1,6,6,6. Three sixes add 3 extra dice. 1 takes away an extra die. His bonus die come up with 6 and 3. He rolls another extra die, getting 5. His total is 26 (original roll) + 9 (1st bonus die) + 5 (last bonus die) for a total of 40, just short of an incredible result (unless the difficulty numbers stay the same, in which case 40 is bang on), but enough for a remarkable one. With the same dice roll he'd get three 6s for the spite result, and a 1 (how would that affect things?). How far would those spite dice bump him up the scale *scratching head* I think we'll come up with something - common ground, or a rule that satisfies everyone, if we keep nibbling away at it.
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kwll
3rd Level Troll
Posts: 248
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Post by kwll on Nov 18, 2010 7:34:23 GMT -5
No, I think you got it wrong. With your example roll (3+4+1+6+6+6=26), you end up with a score of 26. If I take into account your new scale, that's an Excellent result: that's a given, you will not do lower than that. Now, since you got 3 spites, that might be enough to claim a Remarkable success. If we decide that 1s cancel 6s, that's only 2 spites, and might not be enough -- it depends on what threshold we put. Basically, if we go with this rule, we need to figure out: - the number of spites necessary to upgrade to a higher success level
- if 1s are taken into account to cancel the 6s
- if it is possible to upgrade a success of more than one level
- if the upgrade obtained with spites is relative to the rolled success level or the target success level
To illustrate the last point, and still considering your example, you target an Excellent success with 6d6. The result is all 6s (very unlikely, I concede), so that's 36, a Remarkable result. If we say that 3 spites are enough to upgrade to a higher level, that makes an upgrade of 2 levels possible. So will the actual success be Incredible (2 upgrades from the target Excellent level) or Amazing (2 upgrades from the actually rolled Remarkable result)? And are more than one upgrades even possible? I was also going further in my thinking, by saying that what we do with 6s for successes, we could do with 1s for failures, introducing the notion of downgrading results. Do I make more sense?
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apn
5th Level Troll
Posts: 578
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Post by apn on Nov 18, 2010 9:22:32 GMT -5
Even after reading that, (which is clearer now) the idea of a target number should be that you equal or succeed it for a success. In the example given, if you roll and fall short of Remarkable (30) by 4 points, that should be it, you fail. After all, if Spiderman wants to lift a bus, he needs a roll of 42 (Incredible) or more. Lower than that means he staggers away, muttering something about his back. If he gets higher than that, it won't matter because the objective was to lift the bus and he succeeds. That's where the bonus die mechanic will help - giving extra rolls and helping equal or exceed the target number. Using your system, he's more likely to get 6s and his strength will step up, bypassing target numbers and no matter how well he rolls, Spiderman can't lift a battle tank (50 tons, Amazing rank) or passenger plane (70 tons or so for a 737 fully laden, Monstrous). He's more likely to be able to do that with the stepping up from spite dice because you are jumping 18 points to Amazing, then another 28 points to Monstrous with the system I proposed. With yours, he'd just need 3 (or however many) 6s in his total to heft a weight he's never lifted before in the comics. I think the spite mechanic as you list it could be used for those things you see in the comics all the time - the stunts, trick shots, special moves, pulling the fat out of the fire and so on. How about in that case, roll the dice and only count 6s. Have a set value for a stunt (rather than a target number) and you need that many 6s to pull it off. e.g. Captain America bounces his shield about and makes it come back to him. He has a combined Dexterity (4) and Shield Throwing skill (6) so gets to roll 10 dice, and pays 4 fatigue (for the use of Dex, because his skill use is free). The GM rules he needs a 6 for every wall he bounces it from, so he goes with 3 walls. He needs three 6s, job done. As for Fatigue, the reason it's in there is to equalise or give some chance for non powered guys against powered ones. Skills are free to use (no fatigue cost) but Powers give more dice to play with, the flipside being only if you have the fatigue left to use them. Gadgets should be somewhere in the middle - they have their own fatigue score. Iron Man would run around blasting everyone on full power without limit (as he can in the Marvel Superheroes game) if he could. Even in the comics though, he runs out of energy at crucial times, has to plug into a wall socket or nuclear reactor and so on. Spiderman runs out of webs, they should have a fatigue score. It doesn't cost points from his fatigue score to use his webbing: 10, but if he keeps zapping that stuff out he's gonna have to swap a cartridge or two, knowing him when he most needs it. If your main objection to the bonus die thing is having to roll mountains of dice (I don't think that will happen with the 1s cancelling out extra dice, but it might) then I'd suggest swapping to D10s to make it a 1 in 10 chance rather than 1 in 6 of getting an extra die. Or 1D8. How many other games out there use 1d8 as their core die? Or the much maligned and never used D12? Anyway, just wanna say, am enjoying this back and forth with someone who can put forth a strong case for this or that mechanic, so don't consider it a 'stumbling block' I think once we find our middle ground, we can get into the nitty gritty of things like powers, skills, stunts, character creation, ins and out of combat and so on. Looking at it like that, there really is a long way to go before this is playable...
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kwll
3rd Level Troll
Posts: 248
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Post by kwll on Nov 18, 2010 10:50:05 GMT -5
Well, I hear (read) your objections, and I think they are valid, but I don't think they cannot be mitigated or answered... There are a lot of parameters we could play on to make both methods reach the same result, from a probability point of view: - the number of spites necessary: if they are high enough, if 1s cancel 6s, etc. an upgrade would be as likely or less to happen with my method than with re-rolls -- 3 is not a definitive, set in stone number
- the number of upgrades possible: we could rule that only one level upgrades are possible, whatever the number of spites
- the "upgrade ceiling": we could rule that whatever the dice result, the maximum achievable rank is one (or two) level(s) above the normal hero rank. So Man-Spider, if he has an Excellent strength, cannot go higher than Remarkable or Incredible, for example.
Besides, I am not comfortable with having several game mechanics interweave together -- that is unnecessary confusion to me. Maybe the way out, again, is to give options. If you read the appendix of BASH! UE, you will see that completely alternative dice mechanics are proposed, in substitution to the main one presented in the game. That would fit me well. As for Fatigue as a way to even the odds, why not use hero points? If you have more powers, or more powerful powers, you get less hero points per game. In reverse, if you have few and less powerful powers, you get more hero points, and can make things go your way more easily (incidently, that is the approach of ICONS, for example). Especially if you can use Hero points to get more dice or bonuses to your rolls. Now nobody forbids anyone to keep track of energy and web fluid cartridges if one wants to, but it is more a question of common sense vs. rules crunchiness in my mind. And it might not be very well suited to a rules light game: if one wants the details, there is still the HERO system... (As an aside, I never could read more than one page of this game. The first time I thought the whole game was a joke, so I might be biased! ;D ) I agree with you: there is a lot more to do once the mechanics are nailed down. But I sincerely think that if we nail them down well, it will be a breeze to fill in the rest. And it well probably be easier to reach a consensus either! But are we only 2 to be interested in contributing to this?
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Post by ProfGremlin on Nov 18, 2010 13:13:35 GMT -5
But are we only 2 to be interested in contributing to this? At this point, considering that you're essentially writing a new game rather than a T&T setting, I've ceased to follow the discussion.
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apn
5th Level Troll
Posts: 578
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Post by apn on Nov 18, 2010 13:21:46 GMT -5
Well, T&T doesn't directly translate into a supers game as far as I can tell. I'm willing to concede to the spite mechanic if we can get the numbers sorted out and it working right. I think for me 'T&T like' should be the goal, so as not to tread on Kens toes. As for setting, pointless having a supers setting without rules and characters to populate it with (seeing as though most supers games are set in cities) but it is more like a new game, unless we scratch everything and take T&T as the base, sticking more closely to the mechanics *looks around uncomfortably at that wondering if he'll get a message to cease and desist*
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kwll
3rd Level Troll
Posts: 248
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Post by kwll on Nov 19, 2010 2:21:58 GMT -5
Well, to be perfectly honest, the first few days when I started to think about it, that was the direction in which I was heading. It revolved around a table, like the one of APN, based on SR levels from 1 to 10, which led to limit attributes to approximately 60. For combat, I would compute the adds, as usual, but translate the result in dice+adds as with MR. To the base number, you could have added dice for weapons, powers, etc. Add to this hero points and levels (which could be added to the SR roll), and you have a rough idea on what I had in mind.
That said, from my point of view, the result was not so much adapted to supers. It felt like T&T, a lot, and had that old school feel to it, but the set of rules we are currently discussing with APN seems a lot more sound to me. It is just an opinion, though: maybe someone can expand on the canvas presented above, or go in an entirely different direction, and show me that it could be made better (which would not surprise me!).
I even went further, and started to think about a setting. If you will allow me to describe it (not so) briefly, say you have a big empire controlling a big part of the civilized lands, in a medieval world. Think the Lunar empire in Glorantha, or the Empire in WHFRP. This empire is at peace, and even though intrigues of all sorts are going in the king's court, pretty stable. Wizards are controlled by the Wizard's Guild hierarchy, and at the service of the king.
At one point in time, a string of strange messengers appear in the empire, all wearing strange clothes and having their eyes banded. They look humanoid, but with a slight difference to humans (think bajorans in Star Trek for example). They go to the different city councils in the empire, and warn of a big threat coming from the sky, and how they should prepare. They display strange psionic powers to try to convince their audience. They are of course not trusted, being feared by the wizards, chased and cast away. So they retreat in the mountains or in the savage border countries.
A few years later, giant space ships enter the planet and attack without warning the main places of power: the king's palace and the main cities. The biggest strongholds are destroyed in a few hours, and a strange army of armored winged lizard like aliens spread around, asking for immediate and unconditional surrender. The king and lords are killed, and the wizards are fleeing. Very little resistance is put up by the army, vastly out-powered by the invaders. When all hope seems to be lost, a small party of alien messengers, helped by barbarian tribesmen, attack one ship which was stationed near the border of the empire. In one swift strike, they take control of a shuttle craft, reach an invading vessel, and from there use a transporter to be beamed into the main invading cruiser (think Star Wars imperial cruiser). From there, they are able to trigger the destruction of all invading vessels.
All vessels collapse in huge explosions, creating vast waste areas around where they crash, as their energy source pollute the atmosphere and soil. The reptile invaders are overthrown through time, lacking support to face even the primitive army they are facing. The Wizard's guild takes control, using their power to help defeat the invaders. The messengers are nowhere to be seen, and aside from the barbaric tribes in which they settled, no one knows really that they were the main actors in the invader's defeat. Everybody thinks of it as some kind of act of God (or the particular deity they worship), or as a direct result of the actions of the Wizard's guild -- which they don't deny at all!
The action takes place 20 years after these events. The population around the no man's lands created by the crashing vessels has seen strange things happen: some people started to demonstrate new powers and capabilities, not triggered by magic. Some say this might have been the result of the radiations coming from the waste lands. Some technological devices appear here and there, used as weapons or enhancing people's abilities. Little by little, coming from the borders of the empire are entering people looking very much like the messengers, and showing the same powers, but they are not aliens. No new invasion has happened since the first one, but the reptoid prisoners who are still alive keep talking about being rescued.
There, you have it all: medieval fantasy, magic, aliens, giant vessels, science-fiction, super powers, and even a Jedi-like psi powered order! I understand this is not your average Supers setting, but since Prof Gremlin was more interested by a new T&T setting, the 2 things clicked together in my mind, and here is the result. I'm sure this is not what one would expect as a supers setting, but maybe it will appeal to someone?
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Post by mahrundl on Nov 20, 2010 20:36:50 GMT -5
I have to agree with the Prof here. While the stuff that you're writing is somewhat interesting, it's moved too far from T & T 'feel' for me to really want to use it as a T & T ruleset. But keep posting, by all means, even if it's just the two of you! You never know who might drift past, and see something that fires their imagination, which ultimately is one of the main reasons that we're here.
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apn
5th Level Troll
Posts: 578
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Post by apn on Nov 20, 2010 21:04:09 GMT -5
I like the game world/setting idea - a real mish mash of clashing ideas and themes - easy to Picture mounted knights charging against a robot army with jedi style warriors and cthulu type aliens clashing and spaceships overhead with that description, but I guess we'd be getting ahead of ourselves with a setting when the game itself needs writing.
I suppose to gather more interest and involve more people we'd need to stick to the mechanics which make T&T what it is:
Combat Adds and rolling loads of dice vs another pile of dice + combat adds (I think maybe the thing I wrote drifted too far away from T&T because it idn't use a Monster rating style mechanic for bad guys, which would've been ideal for thugs and henchmen)
Saving Rolls
Silly names for spells (at least in the UK version anyway) - translate into silly name for powers, maybe?
I'll have another go at directly translating the T&T game into a supers game but take what I wrote before off board and play with it/tweak it even if it's just for my own use. I have doubts that T&T will effectively do Supers without rule changing, but maybe that's the real challenge - adapting a fantasy game to another setting without changing much.
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kwll
3rd Level Troll
Posts: 248
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Post by kwll on Nov 21, 2010 3:46:15 GMT -5
A few things: - If you are still interested in what we have so far, maybe we can pursue the discussion via other venues. I think we are heading in a good direction, and the future game has some potential. By the way, it might be somewhat easy to adapt the concept of MR to this new system (especially if we use my spite rules ).
- If the setting interests you and others, maybe I can put the description somewhere else on this board. I agree that it is not the priority in our project, but you cannot stop the imagination running! Besides, it might help us picture how to implement this or that rule system-wise.
- As for a new set of rules closer to T&T, well, why not start by discussing the few ideas I expressed at the beginning of my previous post? The main hindrance I see is that going from a medieval fantasy to a supers game, you usually go through a change of scale in terms of how you model the game world. Maybe we should start by having a look at GURPS supers, BRP or... Fantasy Hero (for those who have the courage! ;D ) to see how they handled this?
In any case, I am still keen to exchange ideas on the subject.
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apn
5th Level Troll
Posts: 578
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Post by apn on Nov 21, 2010 10:57:19 GMT -5
If we can get the spite/rolling 6s thing sorted out to our mutual satisfaction, I think we have a viable set of mechanics (if you can live with the fatigue stat) I don't think book keeping will be an issue in play by post as you can simply state:
Night Shrike Health: 30/30 Fatigue: 5/9 recover 3/round Hero Points: 4 Powers In effect: None Skills in Effect: Move Silently (28), Hide In Shadows (32)
(Where the numbers in brackets would be the result of the skill rolls and be the target number for anyone else to hear or see Night Shrike)
Bookkeeping could be done in post.
Anyway, as for keeping it on the board, I agree - we'll move it away and stick to T&T stuff. I'm going to have a look at the corgi (UK) version of T&T and come up with some rough n ready direct interpretations of the rules into supers, but I'm not sure if it'll work. Worth a try.
I'm thinking powers add dice to roll against an SR number, Skills reduce SR level to aim for, combat adds derived from stats as usual, powers as weapons (so a level 3 energy blast would be a 9D missile weapon, level 2 strength would be a 6D weapon and so on) and otherwise rules as per T&T, with powers written out like spell descriptions, no fatigue score and the emphasis on speed and playability. Skills like Martial arts would increase adds in combat, stuff like that.
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Post by feldrik on Nov 21, 2010 11:49:41 GMT -5
I am a late comer to the thread so I apologize if I reiterate what others have already stated. My two copper, a setting using the established rules with setting specific changes always seems the better way to go. The reason for the 'old school revival' and T&T's popularity is that we don't want to learn a new game every time a GM runs their session.
Plus, let's promote T&T. We all have our own rules set, it is what gamers do, but for any sort of distribution a setting book appeals more to a person that has their favorite system than a new system altogether.
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Post by skathros on Nov 22, 2010 6:21:18 GMT -5
But are we only 2 to be interested in contributing to this? it's gone a little beyond the realm of T&T which is too bad. I mean honestly, superhero RPGs are a dime a dozen (I like Savage Worlds NE, myself, with VV a close second). although there are a bunch of superhero games to choose from, your would have been the only T&T inpired superhero game ( which would have been neat). At this point, considering that you're essentially writing a new game rather than a T&T setting, I've ceased to follow the discussion.
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