Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 5/3/83; site ukc.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!mcvax!ukc!ncg
From: ncg@ukc.UUCP (N.C.Gale)
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
Subject: Gripe
Message-ID: <4899@ukc.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 19-Feb-85 10:52:02 EST
Article-I.D.: ukc.4899
Posted: Tue Feb 19 10:52:02 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 21-Feb-85 06:05:49 EST
References: <360@snow.UUCP> <3388@alice.UUCP> <155@sdcc13.UUCP>
Reply-To: ncg@ukc.UUCP Nigel Gale
Organization: Computing Laboratory, U of Kent at Canterbury, UK
Lines: 114
Summary: 



Bear in mind that I might have a morbid fear of copyright laws.


Let us imagine, for a moment, that there is a company called
"Tactical Roleplaying and Simulations", or TRS for short.
This company is a grandfather amongst frp companies, largely
upon the strength that the main frp game it produces, which
is called A(D*2), was, in its original form, "Scalemail", the
first on the market.

Please note that my decision to call the game A(D*2) was purely
arbitrary, and based on nothing in real life. It might just as
easily been called NOT( NOT("AD") OR NOT("D") ) or something.

Let's say that this game gradually grew and grew, adding clever
new ideas to the skeleton. It quickly became apparent that
some of the fundamental rules were Bad, and that the entire system
would have to be revised. But the game's creator, Thorax, saw no
faults in his creation, and continued to pump life into its ailing
frame. And lo! The game survived, and went on to dominate its 
field, be it ever so undeservedly.


Here might be some of the downfalls of the game:

*The combat is done by assigning a number of Fatigue Points to
each combatant, which is a measure of how long the combatant can
fight without allowing a telling blow through his defences.
Each time an opponent hits, a number of Fatigue Points are subtracted
from the combatant's total. If he goes below zero, he is incapacitated.
As the player fights more, so he becomes a better fighter, and so he
gets a higher number of Fatigue Points.
Alright so far.
Unfortunately, A(D*2) also bases damage from other sources than combat
on these Fatigue points, as fire, falling, acid. So the Fatigue points
are suddenly treated as Damage Levels, which are an entirely different
concept.
Why, for instance, should it be certain death for a child to fall
30ft, while a seasoned fighter can fall hundreds of feet, and just
get up and brush himself down afterwards? A child is, in fact, more
likely to survive a fall than some hulk wearing lots of spikes and
blades.



*Lots of arbitrary restrictions are made upon player-types in the
interests of balance. Such as: Sorcerers may not wear armour, but
Saints (who also use magic) can. Thieves may not use metal armour, regardless
of whether they are employing their thieving skills, etc etc.
No real reasons are given for many of these restrictions.



*Greater skills are obtained partly by killing things, but mostly by
finding treasure (?). This is so that the Referee can give the
players however much experiance he/she thinks they deserve, but
it instills an unnatural avarice into the players.
The rules for humans being proficient in several different fields
are also strange, and appear without foundation. another arbitrary
restriction.


*The Rules claim to be only guidelines for the referee, but there are
about 8 volumes to them, and ever more are being published. This
inevitably leads to long delays while obscure sections of rules
are tracked down, especially for beginners.


*Sorcerors have a set number of spells that they can cast in one
day.  They cannot repeatedly cast these spells in one day, only once
each. For a long time there was no explanation why this should be,
but eventually someone thought of one. A real howler: every time
the sorceror casts a spell, the knowledge of how to do so is erased
from his memory!




I'm sure there are plenty of other faults you can think of for this
hypothetical game to have.



If such a game existed, and I had known about it six years ago, I
would have spent all the intervening time ironing out all the
mistakes and bad rules. By this time, I would have an almost
playable system which was also quite good.

I would be annoyed then, if I found that such a system was already on
the market, only much better. Better because, instead of repairing
a bad game (as A(D*2)), it had been designed from scratch.
Such a game might be called Dragonfly.


Dragonfly eliminates all the above problems, it only uses one sort
of dice (rather than requiring one dice with each number of sides
from 3 thru 36), and is altogether better thought-out and more
playable. The rules take up one slim volume.

This isn't very good to beginners to frp, but to people
disillusioned with A(D*2), it is perfect.


TRS took over the company that published Dragonfly, and stopped
it from being published, to stop it competing with A(D*2).


I would be most pleased to hear your views on my hypothesis.


-Nigel Gale