Whoah!
All of a sudden the MT `task system' is God's gift to gaming (a 10 on a 1-10
scale?). Come on, give me a break. This system is the think I absolutely hate
about MT most of all. It won't work for combat --- the 4-point step range
bands are silly at best, and the gradations for stats (based on a reading of
the rules, for an unskilled task average task, a person with learning
disorders (IQ5) has a 72% chance of success, while a genius-level character
has a 83\% chance -- big deal, and it gest worse at higher skill levels).
The time value is okay, but requires an extra roll, takes task difficulty
into account not at all, and isn't even very instinctive. I say scrap the
whole thing. If skills were 1-10, you could say time was 5(base)/SL just
as easily. The task system won't do weapon damage, has no success gradations
(oh... I forgot, the exceptional success rules... how silly of me) worth
mentioning, and simply dresses up overly large modifiers (+4, +8, -4) in
cute little named categories.
The t2k2 system has stupid rules for exceptional success (why not use the
ones in the first version -- that a 1 is rerolled, with another success
meaning exceptional, and the same way with a 10), the autofire rules are
suspect (a goat has the same chance to hit as an elite commando with a
machine-gun), damage needs some work (I think a man can punch through 20mm
of armor and do damage), but half skill/double skill are no less instinctive
than the MT tasks. Skills are way too low in t2k2 (but this is not very hard
to fix), but that's not intrinsic to the task system.
Finally, has anyone tried playing MT ships using the personal combat rules?
Will the new version have one rule set for ships/men/tanks in combat? I sure
hope so, since I simply cannot stand the abstract nature of the current rules.
Why is this so? If the ship rules were simple, then hey, I could understand.
But they're not, and you get wierd results where the task system isn't used
at all (now you have to roll low instead of in every other game part), armor
becomes this weird abstract thing (as do weapons, btw), etc. Why? Why? Why?!?
I for one am glad to see the MT task system go. Save the universe, I say
(though I too think that the rebellion stinks and would like to assume it never
happened), but kill the system. It adds nothing but confusion and bizarre
abstraction that neither first-time players or experience RPGes from other
systems have any desire to see or learn.
-H