Fighting The Power Creep: Part 1

My most recent Tunnels & Trolls post looking at different ways of handling
Personal Adds and Talents has given me food for thought. Primarily about Talents in general and, how they are handled in-game but, also how far can I "push" my new way of handling Personal Adds? How much of the game can it re-write?

Progressive Talents

In my original post, I wrote: 

My solution is to open up the option of weapon Talents, something that was also discussed in during the Talents conversation over at the Google+ group. Instead of rolling a dice for the bonus though, I would simply set the value of the bonus granted by the Talent to the number of character levels that the weapon has been continually wielded for plus one.

Example: Bobby the Barbarian takes a Weapon Talent in "Clubs" as he loves to bash things over the head and take their stuff. As Bobby is new to adventuring his bonus is +1, meaning that he'll roll an extra dice when wielding any sort of club in combat. The bonus only applies to one weapon, so even if he were wielding two clubs, he'd still only roll one extra dice.

For every level of his career that Bobby from the previous example uses a club predominantly as a weapon, he can boost his Clubs Talent by one as he increases in level (going from 2 to 3, 3 to 4 etc), in addition he still gets to pick a new Talent.

After further deliberation, I have come to think of this as an example of what I have termed a "Progressive Talent". Talents that only initially give a small bonus but, can improve with time and practice. Which made me think, isn't that EVERY talent?

People don't get better at something without practice, so why should characters? So my new take on Talents is that they should all be considered progressive, granting the delver an initial bonus of +1, which goes up as the character goes up in level, IF they effectively used the Talent at that level.

Example: Bobby the Barbarian has been adventuring for a while now, and as much as he loves his club, he has found that the two-handed sword that he recovered from the body of a fallen foe is much more effective in hacking and slashing his way to fame and glory. In fact, Bobby who is not far from advancing to level 3 has little else in combat of late.

Bobby's player realises this, and also that as he doesn't have a Talent relating to the two-handed sword. So when he advances in level shortly he will receive no bonus to his Clubs Talent and even if he took a Two-Handed Sword Talent it would only begin at +1.

As you can imagine, this massively down plays the power of Talents, which now all begin at the lowest possible result of a D6 roll (but do increase over time). I have given this thought though, and balanced it out with two other house rules.

Professionals

Calling back upon my previous idea of professionals within Tunnels & Trolls, it is my thought that they could be introduced here to help offset the power drain created by the introduction of Progressive Talents.

Instead of the +1 bonus normally granted by a Progressive Talent, Professionals begin with that same Talent at +2 but, only if it is a Talent that is within their stable. This represents foreknowledge of the skill at hand before actually bringing it into practice, so even if a Talent from that Professions stable is selected later on in the delvers career, it still begins at +2.

Knowledge

Also in my previous post looking at combat, I created a new system for handling Personal Adds.. Well, doing away with them completely, and replacing them with something that I felt better represented the effects of various attributes on combat:

Strength Adds: Each point of STR beyond 12 adds +1 to your combat total.
Dexterity Adds: Roll 1 extra dice in combat for every point of DEX you have beyond 12, and then drop that many.
Speed Adds: Each point of SPD beyond 12 grants you one hit of "natural armor".
Luck Adds: Re-roll up to 1 dice for every point of LK you have beyond 12, once per combat round. You must accept the second result.

Applying a similar logic to Intelligence, I have decided that the number of Talents a character begins with should be equal to their INT bonus (1 for every point of Intelligence beyond 12) plus their level, and that languages should be considered Talents (because being a skilled linguist certainly is a Talent). So a new 1st level character with an INT of 14 would begin with 3 Talents.

The big issue (problem) that I can see arising from the relation between Intelligence and Talents is that Kindreds with significant modifiers in that area could begin the game as walking, talking, encyclopedias. Which really isn't what I set out to achieve.. So I've had to house rule on this one too in my efforts to fight back the power curve.

More to follow...

The Bard's Tale

Last night / early this morning I finally got to completing The Bard's Tale,  a video game that has taken me the better part of a few months to best. Not because it was difficult (although it certainly had it's moments), not even because it was all that long. No, thew reason it took so long to complete was because the second-hand disc that I had bought let you play 80-85% of the way through the game before crashing...

This was suffice to say infuriating as by this point you've probably contributed about 10 hours of play-time. So, it sat there incomplete, which also deeply annoyed me, but as you say no cloud is without a silver lining and, mine came in the form of a friend kindly lending me his copy when I raised the problem I'd had in passing conversation. Cheers Phil. :0).

So, being a little concerned that I was too rusty just to jump in where I left off, I started over and about 10 hours later I again reached the problem area, this time powering through without incident.

None of this is the point of the post though!

It's all just back-story before I discuss point at hand, and we're still not quite there but bear with me.

The plot of The Bard's Tale is a mix and match of your standard clichés. Save the damsel in distress, wizards in towers, darkness sweeping the land.. Yada yada yada. The game makes good use of this though to subvert player expectations before delivering the twist in the tale.

You've battled your way through three remote towers, slain their guardians at the summits and, upon confronting the final wizard who holds the Princess Caleigh captive, he tries to reason with you..

That's right, reason with you. Up until this point Caleigh through her magic and followers has been feeding you information to the effect that she is being held captive and that should you rescue her, you'll be rewarded with wealth beyond your wildest dreams. By and large, the story adds up and, Fionnaoch, the head of the druidic order that has been hounding you since you found your way to the first tower, with a clear view to see you dead.

He however, tells quite a different story. Caleigh, he claims is a demon queen whom he and three other wizards bound after her attempt to throw the land into darkness 1000 years ago. There is also plenty of evidence to support this case. From the point that the first guardian fell, undead have been sweeping the land in their droves, getting worse as each subsequent guardian fell. There is also the fact that the magical transport Caleigh sent to rescue The Bard was a giant flaming stingray with the power of flight. Even before Fionnaoch's plea this had me suspicious.

This is where the game throws you a curve ball however, you can CHOOSE who to side with!

Which brings me to the whole point of this post, who would you choose to side with? On one hand you could remain loyal to Caleigh. Fionnaoch's tale does have a ring of truth about it but he has spent the better part of your journey plotting your demise. His pet killed your pet and, his moves have been calculated if not successful. Even if Caleigh is a demon queen, responsible for the undead legions, they've not been attacking you directly.. They've just been plaguing the land in general.

On the other hand, if Fionnaoch is telling the truth it doesn't seem unreasonable that he would do everything in his power to stop the towers falling to Caleigh and her followers, even to the point of killing a hapless adventurer. Siding with him however does make financial reward unlikely, and death at the hands of a demon queen in battle highly likely. Fionnaoch is by no means the combatant a demon would likely prove to be.

The game also offers a third choice.. Walk away. Yup, after all you have been through, you can decide it's really not your problem, call it a day and head to the nearest tavern instead.

Caleigh, Fionnaoch, The Bar. Which gets your vote?

So my question is simply, what would you do? Side with Caleigh, Fionnaoch or, head down the pub instead?

Geeks Do It Better #6: Papers And Paychecks

What better way to follow-up on my favorite Will McLean piece than with Jerry's. So who's up for a game of Papers and Paychecks? ;0).

Tim Strikes Again!

Tim Shorts of Gothridge Manor has put up another great post for the aspiring GM, this time focusing on building a small campaign.

Having never actually run a game that's ever lasted beyond a one-shot, Tim's advice both in his new post and the one before it have given me plenty of ideas to work with, helping me bring form to ideas I already had and, all being well, allowing me to put together a campaign of my very own.

Now if I can only get beyond the root of all my GMing based headaches, mapping.

Knightmare Re-Run #2: Bad Hair Day

Part 1

Part 2

 

Part 3

Further Thoughts On Combat

Recently I looked into an alternative way of handling combat in Tunnels and
Trolls, which involved using saving rolls as the combat mechanic and, not just as a mechanic within combat.

Since then Dan over at The Lone Delver has really taken the idea (which was inspired by an earlier post of his) and, run with it. It's looking great too. So setting my original idea to one side (as too many cooks spoil the broth) I have been thinking about what else I can do with combat system to take it to new and interesting places, and I have a couple of ideas.

The first has sprung from the Talents conversation that I sparked over at the Tunnels and Trolls Google+ group, and seeks to address what I consider the dual-wield issue, where it is almost mandatory for a starting character to take two daggers as their initial weaponry.

It kind of bugs me if I'm honest but I can't deny the logic of it. On average two daggers are cheaper to buy and, more effective in combat than nearly any other weapon that a new character can realistically afford. Tunnels and Trolls doesn't penalise you for fighting with an off-hand weapon either, so why wouldn't you invest in a pair of daggers?

Maybe if there was an incentive not to. Notice I say incentive and not penalty, as the easy option would be simply cut down the dice and adds granted by your off-hand weapon.

My solution is to open up the option of weapon Talents, something that was also discussed in during the Talents conversation over at the Google+ group. Instead of rolling a dice for the bonus though, I would simply set the value of the bonus granted by the Talent to the number of character levels that the weapon has been continually wielded for plus one.

Example: Bobby the Barbarian takes a Weapon Talent in "Clubs" as he loves to bash things over the head and take their stuff. As Bobby is new to adventuring his bonus is +1, meaning that he'll roll an extra dice when wielding any sort of club in combat. The bonus only applies to one weapon, so even if he were wielding two clubs, he'd still only roll one extra dice.

For every level of his career that Bobby from the previous example uses a club predominantly as a weapon, he can boost his Clubs Talent by one as he increases in level (going from 2 to 3, 3 to 4 etc), in addition he still gets to pick a new Talent.

Whilst this may not seem to do a lot to offset the benefits of duel-wielding daggers from the word go, it does open up an interesting alternative. Now if a character instead chooses to invest in say your average Short Sword and a Short Sword Talent to go with it, they could be wielding the four dice normally granted by duel-daggers whilst leaving a hand free to take a shield into combat with them. Given that Warriors get to double the hits absorbed by armor that they are wearing, and a shield counts as armor, this is a good deal!

My second idea does away with Combat Adds completely (but not Missile Adds as of yet), replacing them with a more tangible alternative.

Whilst I like the simplicity of the Tunnels and Trolls combat system as it stands, I feel that Personal Adds could be so much more if you break them down, or as I have replace them completely with the following:

Strength Adds: Each point of STR beyond 12 adds +1 to your combat total.
Dexterity Adds: Roll 1 extra dice in combat for every point of DEX you have beyond 12, and then drop that many.
Speed Adds: Each point of SPD beyond 12 grants you one hit of "natural armor".
Luck Adds: Re-roll up to 1 dice for every point of LK you have beyond 12, once per combat round. You must accept the second result.

Personally I feel that this better represents the effects of the various attributes than the catch all, Personal Adds. Strength inflicts greater wounds, Dexterity allows you aim your blows with greater accuracy, Speed lets you dodge out of the way and, if you're going to rely on Luck, you'd better be lucky!

Both are just works in progress at the moment but I do think they show promise, if I do say so myself.

First Look: Mag Blast

As I mentioned only two post ago, Mag Blast, which I purchased less than 24
hours ago has already seen table time, and poor pun wholly intended we've had a blast with it.

It's light, fast-paced and, win or lose highly enjoyable. It's a perfect filler game, with only one major drawback that we have found so far. Your initial draw can make or break your game, with two of the three that we played yesterday lasting all of five minutes from start to finish.

So we've house ruled our way around this by introducing a mulligan style mechanic:

House Rule

If you are not happy with your initial draw of 6 Fleet cards you may shuffle them into the Fleet deck and draw 5 replacements, of which

you must choose 4 for your initial set-up.

If this still doesn't work out for you, you could theoretically drop down to 4 cards using the same method but, no more than that and even then you are really pushing your luck. That really does seem to be the name of the game though, luck.

You have to be lucky with the initial fleet that you draw, you have to be lucky with the action cards that you draw and, if you want to cause catastrophic damage, you have to be REALLY lucky! This isn't such a bad thing though (particularly in the case of the latter).

When I initially looked over the cards prior to the rules I was a little concerned just how easy it seemed to blow a ship out of the sky instantly, which can end a game just like that.

This was however an error as it's actually very difficult to achieve a "critical hit" along those lines as you need at least three cards to pull it off and, you only draw up to five every turn (unless you draw something that lets you draw more) at the most. There are still plenty of devastating attacks that you can throw out there though, for example the name-sake Mag Blast, which will happily take out the majority of fleet ships.

Overall, play is of the fast and furious variety, so if a fast-paced space skirmish sounds up your street you can't go far wrong with Mag Blast. If you're looking for deep strategy though, this really isn't going to be the game for you.