Loot-O-Matic: A Couple Of Tweaks, And More To Come

Loot-O-Matic: Try new Magic Zero

With all of my recent work on Talents within Tunnels and Trolls it seems that I
"may" have got a little distracted and, put the Loot-O-Matic on the back burner. I've not forgotten it though. In fact I have had a few more thoughts on it and, how I'd like to tweak it even further.

My first thought is to create two standard initial tables. Both set to the silver standard, one offering magical treasure, one not. The reasoning behind this is that whilst a solitaire player may want the opportunity to loot the occasional magical item from fallen foes, a GM using a random generator probably doesn't want to distribute magical objects willy-nilly. Of course the GM could just ignore any magical treasure rolled up but, that tips the balance of the table as I have written it. It just wouldn't be fair.

So, the idea that I am working with at the moment will increase the general value of non-magical treasure rolled (on the non-magical table), whilst maintaining balance if magical treasure is a possibility. It's still a work in progress but I should have something to post up soon enough.

Secondly I have been giving some consideration to the coins used in the game world. More accurately who mints them? There are guidelines in the original treasure generator as to who uses what but, I am thinking more along the lines of the real world issues surrounding currency. I mean, you can't spend Dollars in the UK anymore than you can spend GBP's in the US. Now when dealing with valuable metals this is less of a concern but it's unlikely that Elves will be all that interested in a handful of Iron coins when the standard that they deal in is Silver pieces.

To this ends I am generating a series of mint tables (one for each type of coin) that you can roll on optionally to determine the coins origin. When spending the coin with the Kindred that minted it, say Iron coins with Orcs, it is worth it's face value. When spending the same coin with a Kindred that didn't mint it but do use it, say Goblins, it is worth 3/4 it's face value. If you try to spend that same coin with a Kindred that neither minted it or generally uses it, it'll only be worth half it's face value.

This is all still very much at the drawing board stage however, but updated tables for the type of treasure being generated (replacements for the 7.5 initial treasure table) shouldn't be too far away, replacing the the replacement that I originally posted here.

We also now have a Loot-O-Matic tag that'll make finding posts on this subject much easier.. Which I should have done a lot sooner.

Thrift Store Score: Stargate SG-1

I really love my local thrift stores. Not only do you get to help someone out but, you also get something shiny into the deal. Last time for example, you may recall that I won big, picking up a copy of Ticket to Ride: Europe for a fraction of it's retail price.

Today was pretty good too.

It's been a while since any new stock hit the shelves as times are pretty tight in the UK and everyone's feeling it, but given what I picked up, I'm going to say it was worth the wait.

But what did I find that was so great?

Well as you've probably already guessed from the pictures and the title of this post, it was the Stargate SG-1 Board game, which funnily enough was the program that I happened to be watching before heading out to the thrift store.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not an uber-fan of the show. I do enjoy it, if it's on and I'm home I'll usually switch over to it but, I don't go out of my way to make sure I never miss an episode. I guess you could say that I'm a casual viewer. The game did peak my interest though, as looking on the back of the box I could see there was an absolute wealth of Risk scale components. I like Risk. I collect Risk, so for me that was reason enough to buy it.

As it turns out the game itself has a lot in common with Risk too. Hell, it's not much more than glorified Risk, so in that respect it was a double score, a treble score if you account for the fact that all of the components where in mint condition. The cards hadn't even had the shrink wrap removed!

So a great find, even better when you consider the price:

Approximate Value: £16
I Paid: £3.99

When it comes to gaming without blowing your fortune, thrift stores definitely seem key. Why not give your local store a go, they could sure use your support.

Saving Throws AS Combat, Not Just In Combat

It came to me in a dream (quite literally a T&T themed dream that I had last
night / this morning). In the dream I played Tunnels and Trolls but, the combat mechanic that I happened to be using was the SR.

The dream itself was also prophetic as I can remember how the system worked, which means I can make it happen, thus play it and fulfill the prophecy.. A person can go mad thinking of such things though, so without a further ado, down to business.

The system was quite simple. Every combat round consisted of two phases, which could be likened to the "to hit" and, "roll for damage" steps in D&D. The to hit roll was a SR with the target number being the monsters MR, followed by a roll for damage (Weapon dice + Adds) if you were successful.

Looking at this system objectively in the cold light of day, I really do think it has legs but, I know it's going to need work before it's ready for practical usage. For one, I think that Combat Adds would have to serve a dual purpose with this system. They could either be used to increase the chance of a hit (before rolling), maybe on a 1:1 basis. So you drop 1 point of potential damage and in return you gain +1 to your SR, or you simply take your Combat Adds as a bonus on the "damage roll".

Other matters that need consideration are whether or not to reinstate the "death spiral" effect that was removed with 7.x, and the viability of this system outside of 7.x (the AP increase granted by more frequent SR's offsets the generally high nature of MR rated monsters but, 5.x requires a lot more AP to increase attributes).

It's on these matters that I could really use some input and some feedback. What do you think to the idea guys? How might you tweak it to make it work for you and your group?

Shipslam #1: Hobbit Hole #24

Shipslam? What is a "Shipslam"?

Cover art by Jeff Freels

Well as many of you in the Tunnels & Trolls fraternity will know, one of the biggest problems that your average troll faces isn't a maddened Dwarf with a bright orange mohawk, it's a mad hobbit. James Shipman (hence Shipslam) to put a name to the shame.

Not content with pirating the work of hard-working creatives, he also pillages the web for anything he can find of a Trollish nature to fill the pages of his now widely defunct magazine, The Hobbit Hole. No self respecting Troll would ever buy it but, respect has never really been a consideration of the party in question, so he pointlessly persists. Personally, we think it's just because he likes seeing his name in print.

So what is a Shipslam already!?

Shipslam is a new feature that is going to show you just where he has lifted "his" new material from. He wants you to pay for it, we want you to have it for free, just as the original author had intended. We also want all of his Internet traffic too, but one thing at a time. ;0). So without further ado, here it is, his original advert for The Hobbit Hole #24, with hyper-links directing you to all the original content, gratis. Enjoy!

T&T NEWS -- (NOW IN STOCK) The Hobbit Hole #24 (T&T Magazine). This huge 120+ page, 8-by-11 sized magazine is packed full of T&T goodies we know you will love. How could you not? This is the only full-sized T&T paper magazine being published today! REGULAR FEATURES: Of Hairy Feet and Taters... Editorial. T&T ARTICLES: The Creating Wizard – By Ken St. Andre, Writing T&T GM Adventures, Magic Items and Enchantments, A Monkey Throwing Stones at Monsters, Novels that remind you of T&T, New T&T Character Types:Barbarian / Marksman / Huntmaster / Starwatcher / Storyteller &Minstrel, New T&T Spells To Rule Them All – By Ken St. Andre, Dragon Parts, I Live In Geekdom, Solo Gaming Record Sheet, The Trollish Tribune – By Ken St. Andre, Shippy's Interview, Writing Solo Adventures – By Ken St. Andre, Miscellaneous House Rules. SOLO / GAMING: Shipy's Cheap Ass Old School ASCII Solo, The Great Forest [A T&T GM Adventure], Zombie Apocalypse [A T&T Solo], Rock Monster Mayhem and Roll [GM/Solo]. FICTION: Reborn From Ashes [A T&T Short Story]. COMICS / OTHER: Trollwood, Sprite Chaos, Misunderstanding, Lonely Walk, Limericks, C&C Ash the Rogue, New T&T Character Sheets. This new brand new magazine is now selling for-- PRICE: $13.00

Swordplay You Say? The Debate Continues

Following up on my recent post, the debate continues over at the Tunnels and Trolls Google+ group with much division on the subject.

Check out the latest update below or, if you've only just come across this blog you can catch up with the debate to date here, along with the original question, here:

Mat Fowler: My game is all about story telling, and anything that helps nudge that along is a bonus. Talents are meant to be ambiguous to give your imagination wiggle room to use them. Some talent examples from my players are 'breaking things', 'magical detective', 'golden tongue', 'annoying', 'distraction' and 'nine lives'. They have been used for a wide variety of situations, all requiring some skill to convince me that they would work. They havebeen used in combat but normally as a way to create a situation or escape route rather than to kill. I try not have sessions become long periods of hit damage attrition, but find it more fun to solve interactions in a fresh way each time - when possible. If it sounds good I go with it. If you want balance then T&T may make that difficult as people 10 times stronger than others is common place - how do you explain that other than 'its a magical world'? That works for me. Scrawny young farm hands can become muscle bound heros, given enough Adventure Points.

Geoff Sears: I feel that Talents offer a few avenues for exploration. I am ambivalent about improving combat since the example provided to me violates that notion, and in the long run the +1-6 benefit does not equate to a huge benefit, especially combined with a 1 in 12 change of a talent test coming up "3" and automatically failing, with I would assume some significant downside for the attempting PC.

I think the main intention of talents is to provide for some backstory, and a way to distinguish one Warrior, Rogue, Wizard from another. When I asked one of my kids what did they want their "Vampire Wizard" to be talented at doing, she surprisingly said something which got boiled down into Carpentry. She wanted him to be able to make boxes I think was the gist. When she and her sister started talking about Vampires turning into mist, it dawned on me that talents were a way to capture special abilities as well, so... "Turns to Mist" came up as a Talent based in her case on WIZ.

The other imagined utility of Talents was to make sense of the Saving roll mechanic which was left intentionally ambiguous from previous editions. Everyone I have read seems to use SR's differently in combat, and by having specified Talents, you are in effect predefining those mechanics for your character, and throwing a benny their way. Is your trademark move tumbling behind your opponent to strike from behind, then Tumbing (Dex) is your friend, and if I was running it, I would give them a one turn bonus based on how much they made the test by on their Hit Point Total for that round. I'd set the difficulty based on either the level of their opponent, or perceived difficulty in getting past them, etc...

I am hot/cold on the changes made in 7th edition. When I flirt with running a T&T game again, I waver between the streamlined effectiveness of 5th edition, and the more pragmatic advancement scheme of 7th edition. I think the original rules through 5th edition were responding to a different set of expectations on the part of players, than 7th edition is. While I can relate to those expectations, I think there is some benefit to changes like Talents. 

Me: I think that works quite well in group play but my view point is more that of a solitaire player. I do like the idea that a Talent can be just about anything you like but, I would like to see them become more functional in respect of their application when it comes to the lone player.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think that combat is the begin all and, end all of solitaire play (or play in general) but, it is certainly a BIG part of the game (just look how much of the rulebook contains rules on combat, weapons, armor, combat magic etc). Instead of just looking at +X adds in combat though, maybe some spell-like abilities as Talents would help.

Nothing beyond low-level magic, and nothing that causes direct-damage (so no TTYF!).

So as well as Talents within combat, how do we feel about spell-like abilities as Talents?

Mat Fowler: For no other reason other than I worked out our in my session yesterday, i want to mention that the chance of getting a 1 and a 2 on two d6 is 1:18, or just over 5 percent.

Geoff Sears: stand corrected. I had transposed numbers in my head incorrectly. They point is that the change of fumble is there, and for something used with great regularity, there is a consequent chance of "bad things" happening such as not contributing at all to rounds HPT, (just like the chance a spell doesn't get off)

Chris Palmer: On the topic of solo adventures, I do wonder if having a list of 'standard' talents would help with some of this.  I know that one author has done this (used the same list of talents for a couple of solo's and provided that list at the front) and I liked it a lot.  Unfortunately I just flipped through a bunch of solo adventures and can't remember or locate that author.

Talents are so free-form right now that's unlikely you'll see the same one used in two different solo adventures so they end up mostly being background narrative for solo gamers.  It's not uncommon for solo authors to add in combat stunts to their games, and I could see talents coming into play pretty well there.

I could put together another page and let authors collaborate on common talents there, I suppose.  But my experience has been that not many authors would use it.

Me: I believe that the author you are referring to is Stuart Lloyd, and I have to agree that having a standard list of solos at the  beginning of an adventure does help you. It gives your character more of a sporting chance. There is of course the downfall that as not all solos are using the same list, some of the Talents you pick may not be the most useful later in play.. That could be said of any Talent though.

Chris Palmer: Yes!  You're right, it's Lloyd.  I do think a more standard list of some core talents would help alleviate their uselessness in solos and make their lack of direct combat influence less of an issue.  But I also don't have an issue with someone taking Archery as a talent and having that be applicable to their to-hit SR's.  That seems perfectly reasonable, especially if missile adds aren't being used.

Me: I got to thinking about standardised Talents last night after reading your post Chris and remembered that someone had done just what you proposed. Well sort of. Thinking about the matter at hand I recalled a pre 7.x web page that converted the MS&PE Skill list for Tunnels & Trolls use. It's pretty good and, can be found here:

http://aramis.hostman.us/tandt/tandt_whr5.html

However in Googling for that page I also came across these two which set out to much of the same but, look as if they have been written since the advent of 7.x:

http://www.geocities.com/~athorne/trolls/talents.htm
http://www.angelfire.com/co3/talonfire/docs/T_TSkills.htm

Toxic Talents

Continuing on with my current theme of Talents within Tunnels & Trolls, I've
had another brainwave that I thought was worth sharing partially inspired by the Dungeons & Dragons supplement, Complete Scoundrel and, partially by the fact that I have never (ever EVER) like the poison rules as they are written for Tunnels & Trolls.

As presented in the rules all poisons are pretty much instantaneous in producing their effects and, most of the effects only cause additional damage.. Which is pretty dull, not to mention inaccurate. Most poisons take time to take effect and the actual effects of poisons, venoms and, toxins varies greatly.

How does this tie into our Talents theme though?

Well inspired by Complete Scoundrel, a Talent that I thought might be fun to play with would be Poison Master. Which is the same name as a Feat in the supplement but, my implementation is quite different. In the original supplement the Feat simply makes the poisons that you brew more deadly, where I envision the Talent being much more wide-reaching. Allowing you to both create your own toxins, and affording you a degree of resistance against poisoning due to your extended exposure to hazardous materials.

So for me, Poison Master looks something like this: Poison Master (CON / INT). To really work though, I need to change the nature of how poisons are handled. Given that I have never been too happy with poisons as is though, this really isn't an issue.

So what's the plan for poisons?

It'll take sometime to re-write all of the various toxins present in the 7.5 rulebook, but the plan is that every poison will be statted out something like this:

Name: The name of the item in question.
Type: Venom (generally naturally occurring and delivered through injection or contact), Toxin (venoms can be considered toxins by definition but this classification will be used to cover ailments such as diseases that can be delivered through open wounds or by ingestion), and Poisons (Almost exclusively consumed to be effective).
Cost: The cost of the materials needed to prepare one unit (one dose) of this poison.
Craft: The level of the INT SR required to manufacture one unit of this poison safely.
Save: The level of the CON SR that needs to be made by someone exposed to this poison to resist it's effects.
Failure: If you fail to safely manufacture the poison you suffer this effect unless you make a CON SR at the poisons level (the "Save" value of the poison).
Critical Failure: If you roll a fumble when preparing the poison or trying to resist it's effects you suffer this effect with no further SR allowed.
Effect: This is the effect of the poison when successfully delivered.

I'm also hoping to create more diverse poisons too, moving away from the purely vanilla nature of poisons causing a few more hits in combat. Effects such as nausea, hallucinations etc. Before I get too involved though I really do need to playtest the idea to see how well in pans out under scrutiny.

Swordplay You Say?: The Feedback So Far

When I threw this question out there yesterday, it wasn't just here that I Tunnels & Trolls Google+ group that I joined a few months ago. I haven't been too active in the group since joining but, wanting to get more involved I have been posting there more frequently and, the more viewpoints that I can get regarding the question at hand, the better.

decided to ask. I also shared the exact same post over at the

So here's the feedback from the group. It's not vast but there are some good points raised, both for and against Talents having a direct bearing on combat:

Tiefling Swashbuckler by D MAC

Andreas Davour: I think that there are problems, bigger and smaller, with most of the rules introduced as new in 7th ed. I have some hopes that Liz can iron out those oddities with her significant skills latest shown in 5th ed. Talents have potential, but like you write, some questions marks are left.

I actually let it be said in my game that Talents were all different from magic and combat, since we already had rules for that, and Talents were everything else.

If that feels like a cop out, which I can see why you would feel, maybe use the character level for something? Add that much as a bonus to one roll per adventure/session or something along those lines? Then it could get applied to combat/magic if you wanted.

Me: That's an interesting take. As you can guess, I had considered using Talents for combat and, more recently, even Talents as spell-like abilities (with limitations) but, I hadn't considered working level into it, which is an interesting idea.

The only problem that I can see there is that a Talent gained later will get bigger bonus instantly if I allow character level to be added instantly to certain Talents. So less experience but being just as good seems a little wonky. As I say though, I still think it's a good idea.

I think maybe that I'd say upon every level increase you add +1 to all Talents you already have in addition to aquiring a new one. It'd also offer an incentive for players not to hold back on their Talents.

Joshua Macy: I like Talents as a catch-all for things that aren't relevant to combat; there are enough ways to get combat adds, I don't see anything gained by having an arms-race of Talents... and I do foresee pressure not to "waste" Talents on things that can't help in combat. 

Andreas Davour: I'll confess that I'm mostly channelling Ken here, throwing odd ideas out there and see what happens. :)

That being said, I think levels, as far as they should be there in the first place, should be used for something. I have never had any problem with getting a big bonus from the get go if you pick up a Talent at high level. But, your suggestion +Tom Grimshaw with the +1 sounds workable. 

Me: I am inclined to agree that I wouldn't want to see all Talents going into combat abilities but, by the same token I don't think that they should be excluded. Being a predominantly a solitaire player and, with most solos being geared towards Warriors, it seems a little off that Warriors wouldn't have at least one or two combat abilities. Especially when you see the arsenal of spells Wizards get with 7.x.

Andreas Davour: Good points all. The question as I see it, is how to make it something more than just a +2 extra adds, which feels kind of bland an effect.

Naturally, special effects like disarms and suchlike (which feels like something you do a SR for, and a Talent could help with) are notoriously hard to handle in a solitaire situation. I'll have to think a bit, for once.