Tinkering for “Realism”

I’ve noticed a lot of posts over the concept of tinkering with TROS rules in order to correct perceived faults. I’m not after anyone in particular, just the fact that TROS seems to get a huge amount of “tweeking.” Anytime someone realizes an aspect of TROS is deadly they think they have somehow “broken” the game and now it needs to be “fixed.” The post usually goes like this, “Holy shit, I just realized that with X, you can kill everybody! My friend’s character Z has X and he’s unstoppable!” Usually complaints are based on two broad categories: weapons and attributes.

First, every weapon in the game is deadly! TROS was written by a western marital arts senior practitioner, it is endorsed by an expert organization, it is written accurately. The fact that some weapons do certain things better than others is completely intentional. Yes, warhammers punch through plate, that’s why late medieval knights used them. Yes rapiers are wicked, that’s why they came to dominate dueling. If one weapon/armor combo is dominating your game, you are doing something wrong. Keep in mind that armor is not appropriate in all situations, and there is always more than one way to skin a cat!

Second, SCA fighting, fencing, stage fighting, pillow fighting, watching Highlander and playing D&D are not an accurate experience base from which to determine what a properly made and wielded Medieval or Renaissance weapon can do. There are a lot of posters here that have real solid historical knowledge and there are a lot of posters who have honest questions about the true functionality of such tools, I’m not talking about those people.

Third, there is no single attribute that makes one unstoppable, period. Yes, superhuman attribute levels are not “fair”, that’s why they are called SUPER-human. Would you fight a 7ft tall 350lb battled scarred Viking wielding a pole-axe? Combat in TROS is supposed to be accurate, and while a sixteen year old girl beating up groups of Tartars is fun in D&D, it is ridiculous in TROS. Strength, toughness and speed matter in a fight, not as much as skill or heart, but they do matter. Anyone who tells you different is selling something.

I’m all for playing a game the way it works for your game group. However, this modification trend seems to be based not on customization but on correction. TROS is not broken; it does exactly what it is supposed to do. TROS is not even about weapons or physical attributes. It’s about mind and heart. SA’s and tactics are the biggest unfair advantages in the game, use them if you want to win consistently.

Hey Brendan,

Well, speaking as somebody who loves to tinker, I can definitely appreciate the spirit of your post. I'd like to make a couple of observations in response.

Firstly, I tinker primarily simply because... I can. I'm an amateur game designer myself (I wrote the QS version of TROS), and nothing beats practice and experimentation for seeing how changing a rule changes the game. This doesn't necessarily mean that we think the original is "broken", merely that we're interested in seeing how it would operate if altered.

Also, I'm not sure where you get the idea that most of the posited changes are based on a "correction" model of thought. I certainly see plenty of arguments about X weapon vs. Y armour, but in almost all cases that tends to be thinking of a weapon or armour type not covered in the basic rulebook -- additions rather than corrections. Likewise magic: as there is no "correct" magical system, all alternate magic rules are house rules, and I've never seen someone claim their suggestion was better than the official rules, merely that it might be more interesting or useful for a particular group or campaign.

This same subjectivity applies to other house rules. We don't make changes because we think it's broken, we make changes because some aspect of it may not be personally aesthetically or operationally pleasing to us. That latter is a key point: one can certainly credit the official wounding rules of TROS with realism and deadliness while at the same time complaining they take too long (for your group) to use. And I myself have worked out an alternate skill system which I like better than the official one -- it's not "better" objectively, but it's better for me.

Since it first got published D&D amassed an enormous amount of house rules (I actually played AD&D for years before realizing that the commonly accepted "double damage on natural 20" convention wasn't actually anywhere in the original rulebooks!). Popular games will inevitably get tweaked to suit their users' tastes; I think this is a mark in favour of the users' creativity and the game's inspirational quality, not an indicator of nit-picking persnicketiness or a bad product.

Hey Stephan, thanks for the response. I enjoy to tinker myself and I'm glad somebody added to my very ranty post. My main thrust, which I think you picked up on, was not directed agains tinkering for the sake of creativity but to try to "fix" the game. That bugs me because 1) it's not broken and 2) the "problems" are usually based on incorrect assumptions either about the game or it's historical basis.

I actually would like to try out the Midnight port of this game and maybe a game or two with a point based character creation system that I worked up. Broadening the scope of the game is all good with me. I fully support your taking the Passion: Tinker SA ;)

It was actually the Midnight port that made me aware of TRoS. Paka started his Midnight campaign in D&D and then swapped to TRoS for the mechanics. The story that resulted was much improved!

Well, since his D&D story hour is what got me to buy Midnight, seems appropriate his port is what got me to eventually buy TRoS.

That's funny! I had planned to make my first TROS game a Midnight port but Wyerth grew on me :)

I approve of Stephen's counter to the initial post, and of his effort to support the legitimate art of tweaking. It's a perfectly valid argument. And I agree wholeheartedly.

But I still believe BPetroff93 raises an altogether more valid point, or maybe more valid when considering my own sensibilities to a certain culture of posting. And in his great benevolence, his argument also allows for your brand of tweaking :)

It's that emphasis on declaring a game broken and then righteously going on about ways it might be fixed, as opposed to tailoring the rules to reflect a prefered style of play, which kinda annoys me.

First of all, the game ain't broke.

Ok, well, there isnt a second of all. But without jumping on the fanatical 'TROS must be worshipped' bandwagon, I do honestly believe TROS pretty much achieves what it set out to do. It's a superb gritty Adventure-Fantasy RPG.

As BPetroff93 stated, the rules can be exploited. And there is an inherent infairness in the merits of certain manouvers/weapons over others. But that kinda reflects the reality of it. The agressive dude with the claymore generally takes down the shy orphan boy with penknife. There's also always gonna be a little flaw regarding the rules as well. TROS is after all a game, a simulation. But I think that, overall, it does a great job of not becoming a 'Dragon Punch - Low Kick - Haryuken' Combo game.

It is an RPG, not a 2D beat 'em up. You can always avoid just straight-out comparing stats. It took a whole sodding Sarlacc to finish off Boba Fett. Luke or Han never could have pulled it off otherwise.

Always remember that chandelier, people. 'Cos the evil henchman never will.

Take care

I'd just like to say that I don't feel TRoS is broken by any stretch, but I do feel some of its rules either need a bit of clarification or fail to really reflect what I think they were going for.

A perfect example is the one I was asking about previously: how the heck can you run a rapier through a peice of plate? Realistically, you can't. But the rules say you can, so we either have to say "screw the realisim" or say "screw the rules" and do some tweaking.

Obviously I'm not the only one who feels that way, we're getting a whole book full of tweaks later this summer :)

BPetroff93 wrote: Tinkering for “Realism”

First, every weapon in the game is deadly! TROS was written by a western marital arts senior practitioner, it is endorsed by an expert organization, it is written accurately.

Not sure I agree with you, BPetoff. Most tweaks I have seen discussed here are not to make the game less lethal, but to increase verisimilitude (to avoid the dreaded word "realism"). Examples:

BPetroff93 wrote: Yes, warhammers punch through plate, that’s why late medieval knights used them. Yes rapiers are wicked, that’s why they came to dominate dueling.

Third, there is no single attribute that makes one unstoppable, period.

nsruf wrote: Since TO and ST use the same scale, there is an "equal" opponent for everyone. But again, most complaints I have read were about the perceived "unrealism" with high TO, not the game-breaking aspect.

It seeems to be that if something about TROS is critisized, then whomever is doing the critisism must be looking at things from a D&D outlook.

This is incorrect in many cases. I for one have played the Harmaster system for years, which in many ways is more realistic than TROS IMO. What it cannot match is the Player involvement with the combat of a character, giving you more of a "feel" of really being there.

But to critisize other systems when using SA's (not saying a bad idea for a game - although I am not entirely comfortable with them at this point) - Well SA's for the most part are not based on realism, but upon game mechanics and perhaps novels/film. Not that I don't see a merit in doing this, but it is not realistic.

I love much of TROS's combat system, but the strength/toughness issues are not addressed realisticaly IMO. You can have an 8 in toughness and strength - meaning you will cause a level 5 wound whereas someone else of normal strength will only cause a flesh wound (level 1). This is to much of a variance given human size variance, given a 7'0, 300 lb is about the largest you would see and this would be extremely rare, if basing the average size on 5'10" 155.


Given the differences in shock and pain caused by wounds of 1 level difference, I would think a human should differ from the norm of 4 by no more than 1 for strength and toughness. This thought is based on the premise than toughness relates to the size of someone causing the blow to be less effective. Other premises, such as toughness being willpower, fitness, or just an "innate ability to avoid being hit solid" would not be accurate either. Willpower is already covered in pain, fitness would function more similar to will but perhaps also effecting resistance to bloodloss. The "innate ability to avoid being hit solid" would best be covered by a high score in agility, or increasing the CP.

My only problem with the lethality of TROS (Even though the level of death is probably pretty realistic)is as follows -
1) PC's by nature will often be in life or death situations.
2) RPG's are helped by at least some continuity of characters
3) RPG's are not novels - a bad roll will kill a character in an RPG - in a novel, the character never makes a bad roll until it is their time to die
4) By tailoring opponents, you are hurting the suspension of disbelief - there is no reason why a castle guard for some beginning PC's should have a lot smaller CP than the same castle guard confronting more advanced PC's.
5) I don't want my PC's to always win, but I would like them to have a resonable chance of surviving a loss.

To summarize, I want my PC's running through the Fantasy world of their own will - they may know some areas/situations mught be extremely hazardous unless they are very skilled, but their average "encounters" will not be tailor made to their skill level. That being said, losing an encounter will happen from time to time. I would rather them not die too often if this happens, but have a chance to be captured, left unconsious/believed to be dead etc. Sure some fatalities will occur, but not on an extremely frequent basis. They may get their butts kicked, but will still survive with some frequency. I don't mind my PC's being better at living through wounds than the average Joe - They are the focal point of the story, and I would like them to have a "knack" for living. Not as in toughness, which is a combat advantage to make them harder to defeat, but just an ability to live after receiving wounds. I play a game where somone although living through combat could die of bloodloss, infection, or even never recover from shock and die that way. Lethal and realistic, a far cry from D&D.

There are many things that are great about TROS. However, tinkering with the rules to help one's suspension of disbelief or make more accurate in your own opinion is a good idea. Saying TROS is perfect and any alterations to the game are forbidden is not a good way to allow creative thought or improvements. Heck, if there were no "houserules" allowances in RPG's, or independent thought allowed we would all still be playing D&D 1st edition.

Turin wrote: There are many things that are great about TROS. However, tinkering with the rules to help one's suspension of disbelief or make more accurate in your own opinion is a good idea. Saying TROS is perfect and any alterations to the game are forbidden is not a good way to allow creative thought or improvements. Heck, if there were no "houserules" allowances in RPG's, or independent thought allowed we would all still be playing D&D 1st edition.

Le me swiftly add that no one in this post has either condoned tweaking or stated that TROS is perfect.

What was originally being argued was an irritation certain individuals felt towards others' need to claim that TROS could be proved as broken. 'Because manouver X and weapon X are effectively unbeatable when you look at it on paper, the system is defunct.'

That is irritating. And certain people do righteously wallow in doing that.

But neither is anyone revelling in the extreme opposite view that a certain other camp love to demonstrate towards the lethality of TROS - Those who relish the brutality of a system that can so humiliate and demonise the D&D veteran. 'Ahahaha! What did you expect? The evil Baron u've been pursuing all these years and who killed your pet didn't put any dice in defence. He knew his plate could take your blow. You're dead. Aahaha!'

My personal way around having every session suffering from the inevitable anticlimax is one I imagine every DM has used, irregardless of system, the one which avoids an arbitrary series of dice rolls ruining the fun. You play your monsters dumb, or clever, as is appropriate.

Just because you may intimately know every manouver in the book doesn't mean your drunken bandit will be so comfortable. Though not tactically sound, he may well end up doing something illogical, or perhaps just delaying the inevitable and, in his panic, rely on compulsive defence 'till you can spear the bugger good.

The game may end up felling a tad contrived at times, but it makes for more dramatic a session, and more enjoyable a one as well. And your PCs might end up lasting more than the one adventure.

Take care

The Toughness case that is perceived as breaking TROS illustrates its imperfection in calculating damage. To preface, TROS is great at categorizing attack types according to their damage effects. (i.e. Cutting is the baseline, thrusting features bloodloss, bashing features shock.) However, a scale of bone, wood, stone and steel is missing.

I don't have a pat answer for how to reflect this dynamic elegantly. Perhaps a table of defense-material-to-attack-material would be required.

Also, the damage tables are an agony/ecstacy kind of thing. Pro: players love the gore; con: handling time! (Many have commented on the facility of creating a separate booklet.) But I would appreciate having a more highly abstracted, rules-light alternative. I assume it could be reduced to one variable-dense table and one or two differentiated, supporting tables.

The descriptions would be calculated along with the damage. It's not the detail, honestly, that's so irksome -- it's the page-turning. I believe my proposed format could be captured on one or two pages.


Edited to augment my material scale.

I just spent 30 minutes typing something, but a powersurge ate it. And I blame that on the severe weather/thunderstorms/tornadic activity.

Anyways.. It's 130.. I've worked 11 hours or so today.. I'm tired, cranky, sore as fucking hell from carrying stone for 4 hours..and now I'm pissed off at the damned world for allowing my very very long rant to be eaten like so many ghosts in a game of Pac-Man.

Grrrrr.
At least I have beer, and an indoor spa.
-Ingenious
'Save meee Jeebus!!'

Sometimes, from personal experience, computer glitches are your best friend when they keep you from submitting a rant. I've gone on a rampage or two where I found myself wishing later that the computer had eaten my first post.

Whether or not that's true in this case.. I know how ya feel.

Sometimes, from personal experience, computer glitches are your best friend when they keep you from submitting a rant. I've gone on a rampage or two where I found myself wishing later that the computer had eaten my first post.

Whether or not that's true in this case.. I know how ya feel.

Almost as frustrating as accidentaly double posting! (wish I could put a smiley here)

Dah!

After I hit post the first time, I refreshed the page and it didn't show up, so I reposted, refreshed, and only one of them was there.

How annoying.