From: taylorje@rintintin.Colorado.EDU (TAYLOR JASON EDMOND)
Subject: Re: Looking for info/recommendations
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 19:00:47 GMT

In article <ONEIL.93Jan20134645@husc10.harvard.edu> oneil@husc10.harvard.edu (John O'Neil) writes:
>In article <h!h3--g@rpi.edu> shiell@isaac.its.rpi.edu (Larry Shields) writes:
>
>> I disagree completely and utterly.  From playing in many IFGS style games,
>> I can say that the system very much allows for a 'high level fighter' to beat
>> a 'low level fighter' even if the low level person has had fencing experience.
>
>I'm sorry, but I've *seen* what happens in that case, and it's not
>pretty.  If you want, I can give you names and email addresses of
>fencers who have first-hand experience with the IFGS fighting system.
>The experiment's been done, the results are in, and the answer is
>clear: knowing how to fince is an overwhelming adventage in any
>foam-core combat system, including the IFGS.

   I have never fenced and placed fourth in the *masters* category weapons 
tournament last May (and I beat a couple of fencers in the process). While
fencing is indeed helpful, it is by no means a guarantee that you're going to
walk all over everyone. And BTW, there's no need to send me email lists of
those fencers...I probably know several of them personally.

>
>>  First off, Fencing is not really all that practical in the IFGS sense of 
>> fighting.  Though it can be useful to give you a base of combat knowledge, 
>> what does the fencer do when faced with a Sword & Shield?  Or a Spear?  
>> The Damage & Armor combinations allowed along with damage bonuses that are
>> applied do give an edge to the higher levels, and these do make a big 
>> difference.  
>
>However, no matter how great that adventage is, it is *useless* if the
>higher-level player cannot land a hit on the lower-level player.  If
>the lower-level player is a trained fencer, this is what happens --
>I've seen it.
>

   There is NOBODY (I repeat, _*NOBODY*_) who can't be trained to defend
themselves halfway competently. Period. I don't care if you're facing
an olympic fencer, if you can block a blow, you are going to land at least
an occasional shot on them. And your 10 is going to hurt them a lot more
than their 3 is going to hurt you.
   And you make it sound as if all the good fighters in IFGS take joy in
beating up on newbies. This is simply not the case. It is an unwritten
rule that those of us with fighting talent assist those who are just
learning.

>>  While this is fun, as well, I find I prefer that my personal skills make 
>>  a difference.  I like going into combat knowing how good I am, and my character
>>  is, and see if I can survive based on my talents, not a few random numbers.
>
>If this were *really* true, then you should also believe that
>characters shouldn't go up in 'levels' (which is integral to the IFGS
>system), but rather rely on their so-called real talents.
>
>Obviously, you don't, because you're playing a game, and you want to
>see an increase in your character's abilities without actually
>increasing your own abilities commensurately.  There's nothing wrong
>with this, but it exposes another contradiction of the IFGS paradigm:
>are the talents being used those of the character or of the player,
>and is the improvement of those talents mirrored by the player or by
>the character?

   You are generalizing here. Characters don't gain experience for sitting
around. By being out in the game and gaining experience, you are, at the
same time, improving you fighting skills.
   You are also taking things to extremes. IFGS is not _just_ a combat
system; its a complete fantasy rules system. Characters are not just
characters, nor are they just people with foam sticks. Because characters
are created _by_ the players (and not some guy who wrote a script), how
well they fare depends _totally_ on the player playing them. This is not
limited to swinging sticks by any means; it includes how well a player
plans strategy, how well they solve puzzles, how well they interact with
other players, etc.
   Let me throw this back on you: do characters in SIL have an "intellegence"
score, and they can only solve puzzles if their score is high enough? Do
they have a "charisma" score that they must communicate to other characters
and those other characters must base their reactions off?
   It sounds silly, but then, how is a "combat" score any different?

>
>>	Well, Yes the IFGS does have continuing worlds, but it is possible to
>>  run a game that is very different from the places previous games have taken
>>  place in.  
>
>It simply cannot be *that* different, since you use the same set of
>medieval fantasy rules, which specifies the realities of the game in
>advance.  In a sense, the IFGS *is* the IFGS rules.  The IFGS is a
>heavily centralized organization, with a national set of rules and a
>national system for "approving" games -- which otherwise are not
>'official' IFGS product. If you don't do it their way, you're thrown
>out -- it's happened.  All this serves to constrict the imagination of
>the game designers and the players.

   What you're saying is that by having continuing worlds we're stifling
creativity. This is simply _WRONG_. Do continuing Dungeons and Dragons
campaigns in tabletop RPGs limit the creativity there? They all run under
the same system!
   And the reason there is a SANCTIONING COMMITTEE, which is the system
you alluded to, is because when you have characters that are going to 
interact with each other more than once, there has to be some kind of
common factor. Otherwise, you would get some characters that play in
"high treasure" games from one chapter and get extremely powerful magic
items and oodles of gold, and other characters that play in "low treasure"
games and end up comparatively less well-off. Just because you can't do
EVERYTHING you want to do doesn't mean a system is "limited" or "stifling."

>
>By contrast, in its 12 years of existence the SIL has never made a
>secret of how to design a game, and has freely given away what's
>needed to write a game.  As a result, there are (I think) about 40 or
>so independent game writing groups throughout the United States.
>There no obligatory national organization, and as a result there has
>been an explosion of creativity in the styles of games, the genres of
>games, and the design of games.

   What do you mean by "secret"? I wrote one of the best IFGS games to run
in the Denver-Boulder chapter last year, and that was my SECOND season
playing IFGS. It was not "boring," or "uncreative," as you might contend.
   As for a national organization, people don't join because they are forced
at gunpoint. People join because they WANT to be a part of a national
organization with a common goal. And I would contend that being involved in a
national organization ENCOURAGES creativity, through the sharing of ideas and
communication.

   I feel very strongly about IFGS. I have dedicated a lot of time and effort
for the organization, and I believe in its workings and its cause. There are
other groups out there that do things differently, and that's fine. But they
have no right to claim that there is something inherintly "wrong" with the
way the IFGS works. If you don't like it, don't play it. But don't try to
discourage others from doing so.

>John O'Neil


#*************************************#
#* Jason Taylor -- U of Colorado     *#
#* taylorje@rintintin.colorado.edu   *#
#* taylorje@kinglear.cs.colorado.edu *#
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