Reading T&T 7.5 - Talents p.31-35

Welcome back to Tunnels & Trolls Friday! Today I will focus on a new feature of 7th ed, namely Talents. Skill systems have been grafted onto Tunnels & Trolls since way back. Michael Stackpole wrote one that's included in the 5.5 printing, I've been told (my 5th ed is from 1979), and many lesser know designers have done so for their home campaigns. Talents is a idea in that vein, but by Ken St. Andre.

Back when I was a strong critic of all class based game systems, I used to think that since every character of a specific class at a specific level were basically all the same, and that it was boring. The system of Feats which were introduced in D&D 3rd ed. was to me a boon. Now you could finally differentiate your hero from everyone else! It turned out to be much more complicated than that, unfortunately. The Talents of T&T, though, have a similar function to make your imaginary persona a bit special. Lucky for us, the mechanics are way simpler. Even elegant.

Our designer mentions on page 31 how you can use Saving Rolls to make anything happen in a T&T session. Not until page 99 will we get a description how to make those rolls (SR for short) but here in this section Ken manages to descrive their general utility better than the section where they are the subject of discussion! So, since you can roll a SR for anything, why do you need Talents? Well, it isn't really argued in the rule text why. Well, there is that suggestion to the player to imagine what skill there are that defines who or what your character are, and to use that as a Talent. I'd say that their main utility is to make you special. It's chrome, really. Anything you can do with a SR can be a Talent. I like the idea.

When we get to the meat of the rules, we encounter some oddities. In the example we have a Rogue who takes Thievery as his Talent. Looking to see what it says in the description for the Rogue Type, we see that a newly created Rogue has to take Roguery as the first Talent! The example is thus breaking the rules. It makes you wonder if that rule was written later, and the example not modified. While we are talking about rules, I am wondering if the concept can't be taken further. Since your rating in a Talen will be determined randomly at creation and never changed, you might end up with a 1 or a 6. With a higher and higher attributes as you gain levels it will be less and less of an issue, but it feels like an itch I'd like to scratch.

In Mercenaries, Spies & Private Eyes by Michael Stackpole (still for sale from Flying Buffalo, and there's a solo written by Dave Arneson available! What are you waiting for? Go grab it, and tell Rick I sent you.),  you can level up your skills. It would probably be possible to do the same for Talents. How about this? One way would be to put a tick mark beside the Talent when used, and when you have used it as many times as you have ranks in it, pay 100 AP and raise it by one. Possibly 100 x Rank. Well. Let me know if you try it out.

Another cool House Rule would be to not base Talents on a specific ability, but letting the situation dictate. Thanks Dalton for that one!

What I really likes about Talents, and I do like them, is things like page 33 where Ken really shows us how to take a trait and do a cool stunt, even in combat where the use of Talents wont work to just boost your combat ability. More examples like this in the chapter about SRs and people might take notice why we T&T junkies harp on about how cool the SR mechanic is.

So a Talent will set you apart, but will also boost your ability to be extra good at once special thing. Take not that when asked about their Talents, my players managed to be creative (mind you, you can make up anything, there's no list!) and one of them took Cooking! Belive it or not, it can be used both in combat, business and interacting with monsters. Talents are pure roleplaying opportunity in a box.

Let me finish off with a quote from the rules about Talents. Ken writes: "Saving Rolls against a Talent may be called for by either the GM or the player." Maybe it should not be necessary to put that in the rules, but it's still good to see it. You have a cool idea? Go for it! Say Yes or roll the dice. Heck, roll some dice anyway.

Next week: Levels!