Wading through _D_T&T, part 2

Reading up to page 89, how the game is played and works is delved into. Delve isn't the right word, many things are clarified. Ironically many of the simpler points of the rules system strike me as overly wordy. A couple of the subjects, namely a couple dozen charts on armor wear and tear and Talents just strike me as wholly unnecessary to be included in the rules. Stuff that could handled by the GM and her players is dictated here so now flexibility in these situations is practically no longer a factor-- I don't want to hear "The GM is allowed to change any rules he wants." I am talking about the tone of the game itself.

The Saving Roll page 62, after the two six-diced dice mechanic and SR levels on page 10 or 11, there is mostly verbiage. This includes a sidebar that explains why the 7th edition rule of where a player can add his character's level to a failed SR has been removed. As the side bar doesn't actually explain why the rule was dropped and explicitly states that the rule can be added as a house rule, I'll stick to my statement that there is a lot of verbiage here. The result of "3," a "2 and "1" on 2d6, is still an automatic failure. The authors have decided that the term DARO (Doubles Always Roll On) is avoided so that the a new reader can bother to fully read the text, #6 of the seven points of how to make a save using two dice in T&T.  The Savings Roll chart, is repeated the following page, to help more fully explain experience value of the convention.

Talents (oh why). Even the authors knew that this is really not playing T&T. "...While many of T&T’s rules can be loose and situational, talents in particular can be very subjective..." After this statement, which is beyond me in relaying any information, there are plenty of rule mechanics to more fully explain the convention. How the players need to work closely with the GM. How experience rewards and difficulty levels ought to handled, to name a couple. To top things off there is a listing of talents that are suggested for use. Great, I can go write my BRP "Tunnels and Trolls" campaign now.

The combat gets into specifics that has bothered a lot of table-toppers for decades. This highly detailed section gets to the problem of a lot of issues and handles them with authoritative answers. To most of the folks with problems with the combat system, the sad truth is that the system is still T&T. I also a saw lot of norms worked in that we tabletop GMs of T&T have been using to handle combat since about 2004. Missile combat is back to being explained in depth, as in pre-7th edition volumes. While, I might find the "Hand-to-Hand" section wrong, it is still handled like the game should be handled without mimicking other game systems. That is a plus.