uburoi
4th Level Troll
Rarr 'n' stuff.
Posts: 486
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Post by uburoi on Feb 1, 2008 8:54:18 GMT -5
I still remember rolling up (yes, ROLLING ) D&D characters on sheets of notebook paper. Basic D&D - six stats, a 3d6 roll for finances, no "proficencies" or anything like that. Simple enough to do when you had a couple spare minutes, and no books to consult. That's what I aspire to in T&T, really - print up a couple of mini-cheat sheets for weapons and armor and there's no reason you couldn't run an entire game JUST off of a pack of index cards. (Imagine THAT, in a world of $30 hardcover splatbooks and endless "supplements"! ) THAT is T&T to me. (patrotic music in background as Trollworld flags wave (...what IS "patriotic music" for T&T, anyway? ))
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uburoi
4th Level Troll
Rarr 'n' stuff.
Posts: 486
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Post by uburoi on Feb 1, 2008 9:16:29 GMT -5
As far as Thieves go (and don't you know they go FAR ;D ), there seem to be two general schools of thought - either they're a character class a la D&D, or they're a selection of skill choices that's suitable for Thievery such as Stealth, Lockpicking, Subterfuge, Hiding etc. a la GURPS. I suppose in the case of T&T, in spite of the "Thief" classes suggested in Sorcerer's Apprentice and the Hobbit Hole, the glory of the system is that ANYONE can be a "Thief". Nobles have to keep a tight hand on their moneybag lest that hulking Northern barbarian type or that lithe Elf-chick actually prove to have designs on that stash of gold lions. You can't tell - just like real life! (Simplicity = greater realism! God, I love T&T! That said, I'd still keep a close eye on the Hobbit Rogue with a DEX of 30 and set of spells like "Knock Knock" and "Hidey Hole"...
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Fenris
5th Level Troll
Weapon Hand Severed!
Posts: 614
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Post by Fenris on Feb 1, 2008 10:41:33 GMT -5
As far as Thieves go (and don't you know they go FAR ;D ), there seem to be two general schools of thought - either they're a character class a la D&D, or they're a selection of skill choices that's suitable for Thievery such as Stealth, Lockpicking, Subterfuge, Hiding etc. a la GURPS. Hmmm. See, I tend to think of "character class" as just another way of saying "template." A character class, from where I'm standing, is a selection of skill choices, already optimized for the character's primary "occupational role." I mean, if you've spent a great deal of time studying to become proficient in "Stealth, Lockpicking, Subterfuge, Hiding etc.," I assume that you've done so because that is how you plan on spending a great deal of your time in the future. In much the same way, I would expect a person going to college and studying Law or Medicine to be a Lawyer or Doctor. Admittedly, this is an over-simplification, but we are talking about generalizations, after all. You can be religious without being a Priest, and you can steal something without being a Thief. However, if you have going to seminary school or under the tutelage of Henri Ducard*, you are learning a specific group of skills. While nothing in the real world says that you have to use those learned skills in any way, in a roleplaying game I would expect that your training would in some way reflect the choices you intend to make while in-game. (*I am referring specifically the comic-book version of Henri Ducard. I have never seen, and am unfamiliar with, the movie version, but I am given to understand that they are very dissimilar.) As an addendum, I would note that training often modifies thinking; Bruce might have trained under Ducard (see above) to use those skills for good, but most of us, in training, learn our systems of beliefs and values during our training period. Like or not, we tend to ascribe to the "standard" beliefs that are found in our training, regardless of our beliefs pre-training. Whether this is because we "know more about it" after our training, or simple brainwashing from being exposed to a single source for an extended period of time, is a matter of conjecture.
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uburoi
4th Level Troll
Rarr 'n' stuff.
Posts: 486
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Post by uburoi on Feb 1, 2008 14:43:11 GMT -5
Well, let's take the question off of "thieves" and expand to characters in general. In inferior RPGs (ie. non-T&T ), say you want your PC to brew beer. (Why? I dunno, maybe he/she wants to earn some cash between delvings.) "Class" RPGs would likely say no, you can't, 'cause that isn't part of your "class"; that way lies the old Judges Guild thing of inventing new "classes", complete with experience levels, such as Brewer and Shopkeeper and Jester. "Skill" RPGs, on t' other hand, require you to buy the proper skill to brew beer, and if you (say) bought Brewing (Ales) and you tried to brew bock beer, the GM'd smack you down. " Sorry! You bought the WRONG SKILL! Eeeenht, but thank you for playing!" That way lies the madness of uber-specialization and six-page character sheets. T&T? "Blah, I dunno, make a L1 SR against INT to see if you did it right." And that, Dear Freinds, is why I'm a shameless T&T fanboy.
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Fenris
5th Level Troll
Weapon Hand Severed!
Posts: 614
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Post by Fenris on Feb 1, 2008 15:28:00 GMT -5
In inferior RPGs (ie. non-T&T ), say you want your PC to brew beer. (Why? I dunno, maybe he/she wants to earn some cash between delvings.) "Class" RPGs would likely say no, you can't, 'cause that isn't part of your "class"; that way lies the old Judges Guild thing of inventing new "classes", complete with experience levels, such as Brewer and Shopkeeper and Jester. You oughta play OD&D/AD&D2e, I think you'd love it. In D&D, you have your classes, which are your Occupational Specialties, and you have Proficiencies, which are non-occupational hobbies, interests, and abilities. Thus, you could have a Thief (or any game class) that has knowledge of brewing beer... or Animal Handling, or Underwater Basket Weaving, or Cartography, or whatever. Think of Class as a sort of shorthand... when you select a Class, you are, essentially, buying a whole buncha skills all at once, that have been chosen for your in-game occupation. It in no way implies that you can't learn other skills, but those are background skills and are not related to your occupational skills. Or, to put it another way, there's nothing to say that a Brewer can't learn how to fight... but that's not what he does for a living; for a living, he brews beer. A Fighter that knows how to brew beer is not the same as a Brewer who knows how to fight. I'd want the one on my side when I was in a battle, and the other on my side afterwards. But both would be good to know, just in case the one wasn't available when we need him! These background skills can be great in gameplay, because it's a way to really create a character that's different from the "stock" character, without losing focus of what the game's about. The fighter is still a fighter... he just has an interest in Underwater Basket Weaving (which he likes to do after a long day of slaughtering Orcs!).
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Fenris
5th Level Troll
Weapon Hand Severed!
Posts: 614
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Post by Fenris on Feb 1, 2008 15:38:50 GMT -5
"Skill" RPGs, on t' other hand, require you to buy the proper skill to brew beer, and if you (say) bought Brewing (Ales) and you tried to brew bock beer, the GM'd smack you down. " Sorry! You bought the WRONG SKILL! Eeeenht, but thank you for playing!" That way lies the madness of uber-specialization and six-page character sheets. No wonder you don't like RPGs with skills... that would turn me off of them, too. The GM in that example is a first-class jerkwad. My guess is he has a hard time keeping players! I'd allow the player to make Beer using his Ale skill, at a penalty to the roll. Either that, or I wouldn't allow specialization unless it was somehow important to the game. ( EDIT: Or I'd just say, "Okay, you made the beer. Now can we please get back to the game? You only have 6 hours left before the Princess is sacrificed!") As an aside, this is why I don't play Warhammer. There are, like, 147 "Classes," about 10 of which are useful for roleplaying games. These are games about adventure, not about creating a business model! Why, exactly, you'd want to play a Blacksmith or a Glassblower in beyond me. Why you'd play a Warrior who knows how to bend metals or create glass bottles, I can understand. But how much adventure does your average glassblower find himself in, and exactly how will his glassblowing skill help him when he's surrounded by a thousand battle-crazed Orcs?
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uburoi
4th Level Troll
Rarr 'n' stuff.
Posts: 486
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Post by uburoi on Feb 1, 2008 17:44:16 GMT -5
You oughta play OD&D/AD&D2e, I think you'd love it. OD&D da, AD&D 2e nyet! (though 2nd Edition, which I despise, has 'way cool worlds like Planescape, Spelljammer, al-Qadim, and Dark Sun! Odd, eh?) 1st Edition AD&D had the "class" problem up the wazoo - if you look over old Dragons and such, you'll see all kinds of "classes", which grew out of the restrictive nature of D&D classes. The comment about skills refers to GURPS-type games; I'm not on my personal computer at the moment, but I have a joke saved to the effect that GURPS you can die playing a paratrooper PC 'cause you bought the wrong Parachute skill. That's only overstating it a bit. By the by, I'm more and more appreciating the RPG systems where you get to make up names of "stuff my PC is good at", like HoL, Donjon, and RISUS. "Broadsword" skill, to me, is a poor substitute for "Swing A Big Frickin' Edged Weapon" skill. If T&T HAS to have a skill system, that's the direction I want to lean in. Two or three things a PC is good at, with suitably inventive names for them.
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Fenris
5th Level Troll
Weapon Hand Severed!
Posts: 614
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Post by Fenris on Feb 1, 2008 18:56:55 GMT -5
OD&D da, AD&D 2e nyet! 1st Edition AD&D had the "class" problem up the wazoo - if you look over old Dragons and such, you'll see all kinds of "classes", which grew out of the restrictive nature of D&D classes. If ya get a minute, please PM me with your reasons for "despising" AD&D2e... I'm very curious! One problem I always have with roleplaying games is that I never (or very very rarely) go beyond the initial book(s) when getting into a game. This applies to sourcebooks and worldbooks and campaign books and everything else. Generally, all I ever buy is the basic main corebook(s), and nothing else. All the rest of it, I make up myself. The problem is, especially in today's world of forum boards, that puts me out of most of the conversation. I get on a Vampire board and talk about Clans, but if I don't have all the sourcebooks about each Clan, I can't carry on a conversation! I say, "Yeah, in my worlds Nosferatu do this," and the response it, "You moron! Nosferatu don't do that! It states quite clearly in the Nosferatu sourcebook, revised 2nd edition, page 43, that they do this instead." Frankly, I hate that, and it's something that I get concerned about happening to T&T. All of us do T&T our own way, and I want very much for it stay like that.
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Post by apeloverage on Feb 2, 2008 3:14:42 GMT -5
As an aside, this is why I don't play Warhammer. There are, like, 147 "Classes," about 10 of which are useful for roleplaying games. These are games about adventure, not about creating a business model! Why, exactly, you'd want to play a Blacksmith or a Glassblower in beyond me. Why you'd play a Warrior who knows how to bend metals or create glass bottles, I can understand. But how much adventure does your average glassblower find himself in, and exactly how will his glassblowing skill help him when he's surrounded by a thousand battle-crazed Orcs? RuneQuest has an interesting system in that you can choose to have such backgrounds as 'herdsman', 'craftsman' or 'blacksmith' - they manage to turn it into useful skills; for example herdsmen have things like survival, animal lore, and first aid. Also they call them 'backgrounds' - implying that you were those things, but now you're an adventurer. You don't have such encounters as "oh no - a 12th level Shepherd!"
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order99
7th Level Troll
Coffee-fueled Carrion That Walks Like a Man
Posts: 1,039
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Post by order99 on Feb 2, 2008 4:47:06 GMT -5
I will say this about Warhammer-the default there seems to be that your PCs are a bunch of relatively normal folk, but every now and then Adventures just seem to happen to them...hence the Glassblower vs. Orc problem. If the Glassblower survives (and develops a taste for the adventuring lifestyle) he will Exit into a more active Career for the required skills. In essence, a FRPG PC is a Lvl 0 character.
For those of you who dislike Skills in 5th edition, and think Talents in 7th are a bit much, may I suggest stealing Secondary Skills from AD&D 1st? Most PCs wll only have one, so the 3X5 card is in, and the Secondary Skills are really a Background Skill package as Apeloverage posted about Runequest above. That Glassblower from WFRPG would be a LVL 2 Rogue or Warrior with a Background in Glassblowing...
As to Uburoi's question posted above-I have no idea what the "official" Trollworld theme should be, but in MY Trollworld you have to salute whenever you hear Basil Poledouris' 'Anvil of Crom'! ;D
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Fenris
5th Level Troll
Weapon Hand Severed!
Posts: 614
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Post by Fenris on Feb 2, 2008 8:47:10 GMT -5
I will say this about Warhammer-the default there seems to be that your PCs are a bunch of relatively normal folk, but every now and then Adventures just seem to happen to them...hence the Glassblower vs. Orc problem. If the Glassblower survives (and develops a taste for the adventuring lifestyle) he will Exit into a more active Career for the required skills. In essence, a FRPG PC is a Lvl 0 character. Bah. I still think that the only person who needs skill in glassblowing is Mrs. Glass, but whatever. YMMV IMHO ETC ETC ETC ;D (Note: I said "Bah" rather than "Meh" because, of course, Apeloverage's post about 12th-level Shepherds is still fresh in my mind...).
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Fenris
5th Level Troll
Weapon Hand Severed!
Posts: 614
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Post by Fenris on Feb 2, 2008 9:49:50 GMT -5
As to Uburoi's question posted above-I have no idea what the "official" Trollworld theme should be, but in MY Trollworld you have to salute whenever you hear Basil Poledouris' 'Anvil of Crom'! ;D Based on the deep, personal seriousness most folks around here show when talking T&T, my personal vote would probably be "Star Wars Cantina Band Theme."
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order99
7th Level Troll
Coffee-fueled Carrion That Walks Like a Man
Posts: 1,039
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Post by order99 on Feb 2, 2008 18:46:24 GMT -5
I know the feeling-i'm thinking of grabbing the theme from "Get Smart" for my next game...but if I do, well then my Players will feel like they have WON our little contest of wills! They may turn all our campaigns into Sienfeld Does Dungeon all they want-but By Crom they will at last respect my Opening Credits!!!
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Post by lionrampant on Feb 4, 2008 9:09:00 GMT -5
I find the direction this thread has gone to be interesting. I like all sorts of different things in RPGs, which is why I play different types of games. I like T&T for its simplicity and style, while I also like Rolemaster for its deep character development system. Sometimes I want lots of complexity, and other times I just want to whack some monsters and take their stuff. Neither way is inherently wrong or right, it just depends on what mood I'm when when I decide to run a game. That said, I have always wanted to try Warhammer, but could never find a game to play in. And I have always felt like the chase music from Blues Brothers would make sense for the way some of my T&T games end up.
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Fenris
5th Level Troll
Weapon Hand Severed!
Posts: 614
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Post by Fenris on Feb 4, 2008 10:10:45 GMT -5
I find the direction this thread has gone to be interesting. I like all sorts of different things in RPGs, which is why I play different types of games. I like T&T for its simplicity and style, while I also like Rolemaster for its deep character development system. Sometimes I want lots of complexity, and other times I just want to whack some monsters and take their stuff. Neither way is inherently wrong or right, it just depends on what mood I'm when when I decide to run a game. But if you started a new thread: "Do you prefer your games more simple or more complex?" we can probably assume how this board would vote, on average. RE: RM. I used to be quite fond of MERP, and I really do like it's new "younger brother," HARP, but I really don't feel that the level of complexity they bring to the table (pun intended) adds any additional dimension to gameplay. I played Rolemaster in the 80's for about a dozen sessions before I decided that it was way too complex for a group of our size (normally three to four total, including GM), and went back to MERP. (Ah, those were the days, Kiddies! The hobby was at it's very best then... you could try new "flavors" every day and find something new to love!). Certainly, there is more of a feeling of "playing a game" with RM/MERP/HARP with all of the complex mathematical "hoops" you have to jump through following a simple statement of intent, but sometimes it feels a bit like overkill, rather than "just enought kill." ;D I guess, what I'm trying to say is, I too enjoy games of varying level of complexity, but there is a point where you are simply going overboard by any system of measure. Rolemaster epitomizes this, to my mind. (As does Hackmaster, but I tend to think of Hackmaster as more of a "joke" game than a real game, regardless of it's playability). Rolemaster's real strength, IHMO, isn't in it's character development system, but in it's combat and action resolution systems. Because Rolemaster is so mathematically-driven, characters are primarily lists of numbers, generally fairly tightly focused on their abilities. However, the complex nature of the combat and resolution systems allow you to use those numbers in a variety of ways and in a variety of permutations, to effectively optimize your abilities mathematically in any given situation. Yes, I know some players abhore that sort of thing, but RM seems not merely suited to it, but designed for it. And when you feel like sitting around the table, playing a game (rather than telling a story), and throwing some dice (FASA's BattleTech or Star Trek: Tactical Operations Simulator, anyone?), Rolemaster can be immensely satisfying.
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