Post originally by tetsujin28 at 2004-03-20 14:27:48
Converted from Phorums BB System

Whilst I like Ron Edwards' work a lot, his comments on the TROS website regarding SAs tells me about. There's too much of "This is a Brand New Thing!" Well, it's not. As Ron mentioned, the origin of this sort of 'simulationist' combat game was RQ. Which, as Ron also pointed out, should have had a mechanic to incorporate all the passionate Gloranthan yummyness that you knew was there, somewhere. All agreements with Ron, there.

But it didn't take 'till 2001 and TROS to figure this out. Pendragon, Chaosium's simplified version of RQ, had already done it in '84 (? Maybe '85. It really had its origins in an article about dragonewt behaviour.) Pendragon's system of Traits and Passions is the base for all games which use them (Ars Magica really comes to mind, but there are others). Passions in Pendragon combat work just like they do in TROS. Fighting a Saxon with Axe 24, and you only have Axe 15? Well, you're screwed...unless you have Hate Saxons. Then, if you make your Passion roll, you get to add 10, making your skill 25. Eat that, Saxon scum.

So, are SAs in TROS cool? Quite possibly. TROS doesn't seem like my cup of tea, but hey, that's why there's loads of rpgs. But SAs being unique? Maybe it's just taken nearly 20 years for the industry to catch up with Greg Stafford ;-)