Talislanta: The Savage Lands

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I have not had a griefer here, yet. Had one that seemed to me to be a P.I.T.A. at TBP but he failed to get his desired outcome and left.
Well, all rules have the occasional and (sometimes) welcome exception:smile:!
 
I love all the editions for different reasons. They're *extremely* similar in play, with the following exceptions: Magic>Chargen/>Skills. The rest is largely the same. Core mechanics and task resolution have largely been unchanged.

Basic differences

1e-2e : Very straight forward. Chargen is pick a race template. Change a few stats. You get all the skills from your template plus anything you pick up from your stat bonuses. Magic consists of "spells-as-skills". When you level up - all your primary skills get +1 to their ratings. Task resolution is the same for everything on the Universal table.

3e - Codifed magic into schools. So if your Template had a school of magic as part of its template you got a whole host of effects from that school and scale based on the level of effect you're trying to cast. You could still learn individual effects that effectively worked like a skill. But this differentiated dedicated casters from dabblers and "hybrids". Skills get slightly expanded and codified in terms of progression. It's a very clean edition you can pick up and play.

4e- Big Blue. Chargen is the same - pick a template, make a few modifications. Magic is a complete overhaul. Now the system is purely effects based. You have Schools of Magic. And Modes within those schools. Each school has bonuses/penalties to the Modes. It's quite a nice system, and more involved than previous editions. Damage values are now static. There is no "leveling" any longer, and you raise your skills purely through XP. This also mean health becomes largely static, as without leveling your template, once your character starts there are no additional HP to be accrued. Most people didn't mind this.

5e - Chargen is totally different. It's now like a Lifepath from Warhammer. You pick your choices and add them together - this establishes all of you starting skills, abilities and modifiers to your derived stats. Magic is slightly tweaked - but compatible with 4e.

Task resolution has remained the same between all editions. Stat values have remained largely unchanged. The only things that have fundamentally changed between editions that affect play - is Magic. But because of all the other consistencies within the system that have remained unchanged, magic is largely modular. You could pretty easily port any of the Magic systems from the previous editions into any edition.

You just need to adjust for Damage being static/dynamic. And progression. Once you know those this... it's pretty straightforward. Savage Lands is very close to 2e. Which actually is an advantage and kinda obvious since it's post-apocalypse, a lot of skills simply aren't necessary. But if you want to get wild and say one of your PC's discovers an Archaen "knowledge sphere" or whatever, and you want to add hardcore magic, or knowledge of a new skill... you can simply pull it from another editions and plug it in.

Pound for Pound - I like 3e. It's snugly between the mean-and-lean of 2e and slightly crunchier (magic) of 4e. But it's splitting hairs since I love all three. It's a testament to the core-task resolution system that this game is so sturdy. I maintain it's still one of the best systems around.
 
What no love for TalislantaD20?!?!?

3e D&D + Talislanta = Overkill.

I thought it was too much, too late. I get the marketing needs (even with the 5e edition of Talislanta: The Savage Lands), but I felt the D&D 3e system didn't do Talislanta a lot of favors. I don't feel the mechanics of d20 quite fit. You could make it work, sure. But there was always a bulge somewhere. Where people would scream about "imbalance". When the point of Talislanta was not to worry about the mechanics (because the Task resolution system was pretty slim as it was) - but just to play. d20 has a lot more moving pieces.

5e Savage Lands - is interesting and "better" because it strips out those things and brings the system closer to the Talislanta aesthetic.
 
Not trying to hijack this TSL thread, but what's the deal with Cyclopedia Talislanta, vols. II-VI? Thet haven't been put online, like the other stuff. I have read that is due to rights issues, anybody j=know how accurate that is?
 
FIRST! If you're talking about Talislanta any edition, it's not a threadjack for me. Without the previous editions there wouldn't be Savage Lands. And frankly, I look at the earlier editions as different ways to approach the same setting. Some being lighter than the others. Savage Lands is a complimentary edition.

As for the Cyclopedia Talislanta II-VI - not sure. I've heard the same things as you. It *could* be that there simply aren't good copies available for conversion. And/or it can't be covered by creative commons?
 
Here's the best response I could find on the mailing list.

"

I don't recall the legalese behind the scenes (SMS can fill us in if
it's really important), but the upshot is that:

1) The books weren't authorized properly, so the original authors
still own the rights to them
2) The authors were writing more about their own vision of Talislanta,
rather than the official version from SMS, so there is a lot of stuff
in there that goes against the official Talislanta background. For
example, in the Seven Kingdoms book it refers to Thralls and their
"True Swords", a special weapon that has strong emotional significance
for the Thrall who bears it. The problem is, Thralls in Talislanta are
entirely pragmatic about the tools of their trade. They don't develop
emotional attachments to their weapons. When it comes to warfare,
Thralls are cold, precise machines. Thralls are most certainly NOT
Conan with tattoos."
 
It's a shame that there wasn't a GURPS version of The Savage Land. Especially since there is already an (aborted) GURPS Talislanta, the completed manuscript for which has been floating around online for years. I mean, while they were doing different versions, it probably wouldn't have been hard to update the existing manuscript for TSL. And it might have exposed Talislanta to an even wider audience.
 
It's a shame that there wasn't a GURPS version of The Savage Land. Especially since there is already an (aborted) GURPS Talislanta, the completed manuscript for which has been floating around online for years. I mean, while they were doing different versions, it probably wouldn't have been hard to update the existing manuscript for TSL. And it might have exposed Talislanta to an even wider audience.
I wouldn't mind seeing that.
 
I wouldn't mind seeing that.


I heard that if you Google "gurptal.doc", it's in the first result.

It's complete, but lacks art. It's just a finished manuscript. It's cool, though.

When asked if he had the original, an rpgnet poster who worked on it had the following to say:

Teflon Billy said:
Somewhere. But seriously, it's just no good.

The original bit we did was--to my mind anyway--pretty good stuff. It nicely modelled Talislanta using GURPs mechanics.

But after that draft, they asked us to make it compatible with all existing Talislanta material...and have a conversion process.

We were utterly baffled. Our "Conversion" process at that point was that Fraser and I both knew GURPS and Talistanta backwards and forwards (I could, at that point anyway, actually just write GURPS Code in my head at will).

So our conversion process was just "OK, Zandir Sworsmage's should have about an (X) for Strength, and so-and-so Advantages, etc...

It wasn't exactly something you could put into a book: "Hey Kids! Just learn GURPS really well and go convert".

So we had to re-do it all...and come up with an actual conversion process.

We absolutely, unquestonably failed to do either of those things in any satisfactory fashion.

Peter Adkison was nice enough pay us out a decent kill fee...and offered to pay us double our kill fee in company stock if we'd rather. Seems they had al little product coming up that they had high hopes for...silly-ass little thing called Magic: The Gathering.

I took the kill fee in cash, as I was going on a trip to New Orleans.

I still sometimes cry over it.
 
I heard that if you Google "gurptal.doc", it's in the first result.

It's complete, but lacks art. It's just a finished manuscript. It's cool, though.

When asked if he had the original, an rpgnet poster who worked on it had the following to say:
SOme games shouldn't have a conversion process. Or at least not more than a basic guide to adapt your favourite critters to the new system. A la GURPS Cthulhupunk.
 
I heard that if you Google "gurptal.doc", it's in the first result.

It's complete, but lacks art. It's just a finished manuscript. It's cool, though.

When asked if he had the original, an rpgnet poster who worked on it had the following to say:
I knew a masseuse who worked at Google and took part of her pay in pre IPO stock. She's not crying about it.
 
With Tal's system being ridiculously light. Conversion TO Talislanta is pretty straightforward. As a pet project I've been considering converting Savage Lands over to Savage Worlds...
 
I'm kinda tempted...maybe for the next batch of POD!
 
yeah wish it was premium. The art is superb. On premium edition it's gorgeous
 
Pick up TSL when it was available. Really happy with it and I'm house ruling the stat adjustment from TSL and 1st ed to 4th. And for the record, would love to have regular Talislanta updated to the TSL version of the rules.
 
I'd have to look at them side-by-side, as I'm sure they're pretty easy to eyeball with little effort as far as stat-adjustments. In terms of updating the rules... That would be fairly easy. The only thing that would take some consideration is which magic-system you want - and just plug it in.

Obviously the skill-system would need to be blown out, but that's pretty straightforward. It would take a little bit of elbow-grease, but nothing too onerous.

And as has been intimated in other threads - any update to Talislanta would require more than a simple rules update. The core fluff needs to be updated because it largely hasn't been touched meaningfully despite *five* editions of the same material.
 
Thank you for pointing this out! I don't know what he's up to, but I suspect I'm gonna like it.
 
So it looks like it's going to be Talislanta for 5e. I'll be honest, this more than a little breaks my heart. I will of course buy it anyway because 1) that artwork looks really amazing and, 2) I'll buy to support Talislanta living on. I just think that the original system is superior in every way to the D20 system (in any edition), and I want more.
 
So it looks like it's going to be Talislanta for 5e. I'll be honest, this more than a little breaks my heart. I will of course buy it anyway because 1) that artwork looks really amazing and, 2) I'll buy to support Talislanta living on. I just think that the original system is superior in every way to the D20 system (in any edition), and I want more.
I mean, Savage Land had a 5e version too.
 
I mean, Savage Land had a 5e version too.

The difference is this is primarily and explicitly being done for 5e. Not as a parallel project to a new Tal edition (which TSL effectively was), and not as some kind of stretch goal.
 
The difference is this is primarily and explicitly being done for 5e. Not as a parallel project to a new Tal edition (which TSL effectively was), and not as some kind of stretch goal.
My feelings as well.
 
Random online encounter but I just found out Tal Savage Lands had been in the works since at least 2014.
 
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