Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Author Topic: Skill levels from talislanta RPG?  (Read 1612 times)

Nil Eyeglazed

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Skill levels from talislanta RPG?
« on: September 04, 2009, 01:56:59 am »

So I recently got bored and, after probably ~1 year vacation, made another dwarf fortress.

But playing DF kind of stirred around a lot of old ideas I had about pen & paper RPGs, ones with lots of flavor, and there's torrents now, right?  So even the old stuff is available, sometimes.

So I found an old torrent of the Talislanta RPG, which was probably one of the most interesting worlds I ever read about, and I'm reading the PDF, just for fun, when I come across this table, summarizing skill levels:

Skill Rating            Description
0                            Novice
3                            Apprentice
5                            Competent
7                            Adept
10                          Professional
15                          Expert
20                          Master
30                          Grandmaster
40                          Legendary

Now, I know, it can just be coincidence, but the specific names and order are kinda interesting :)  Like I said, it was a pretty cool RPG, really indie (can you get street cred from RPGs?) so it'd be cool to hear that it had been an influence :)
Logged
He he he.  Yeah, it almost looks done...  alas...  those who are in your teens, hold on until your twenties...  those in your twenties, your thirties...  others, cling to life as you are able...<P>It should be pretty fun though.

Ampersand

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Skill levels from talislanta RPG?
« Reply #1 on: September 04, 2009, 07:48:33 am »

Toady has played and experimented with so many RPGs I doubt he recalls where exactly it came from.
Logged
!!&!!

chaoticag

  • Bay Watcher
  • All Natural Pengbean
    • View Profile
Re: Skill levels from talislanta RPG?
« Reply #2 on: September 04, 2009, 10:58:52 am »

With the way skills are handled, I am suprised I never noticed that journeyman never was on there. Apprentice and novice are from the guild system, and so is master, although strictly speaking you become a master after you complete a masterpiece, which has to be judged by other masters.

The order here isn't that shocking, because putting them in any other order simply doesn't work. The names may be, but then again what other words can be used?
Logged

eerr

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Skill levels from talislanta RPG?
« Reply #3 on: September 04, 2009, 02:48:19 pm »

its probably from dungeons and dragons,  or even older.
Logged

Sunday

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Skill levels from talislanta RPG?
« Reply #4 on: September 04, 2009, 03:07:38 pm »

I bought the big blue book 4-5 years ago.  Talislanta rocks.

I always wondered if it would be possible to port the Tal 4th ed. (I think the BBB is 4th, though I could be mistaken) magic system to DF - having 'schools' of magic and 'modes' of magic, with varying special effects (and by special effects I mean specialized - a fire damage side effect if you're using fire magic to move things, not just cool explosions and such) and randomized (at least in DF they'd probably be randomized) spell names.

It would be awesome if in 5 years or so you could gen a Tal-like world.  Randomized, odd races; multiple possible 'genres' (swashbuckling piracy, merchant trains, bandit bands, etc.), and all sorts of crazy monsters and different landscapes.
Logged