/gurpsgen/ GURPS General: Happy Holidays Edition

How to use Tactical Shooting to run a Christmas adventure.

Question #1: Who is Santa going to kill this year?

Question #2: What is your favorite Sourcebook (official or unofficial), and why?

Question #3: What is your most disliked race in any given genre?

Answer or not it's Christmas after all!

Old Thread:

Other urls found in this thread:

discord.gg/pez8U4s
pseudoboo.blogspot.com/search/label/Silly Romperoo
mega.nz/#F!yxFxlD4I!CGTYsnTE_8XAmcJxdMehAQ!m1VxiLZZ
youtube.com/watch?v=0si6wsZWn6g
docs.google.com/document/d/1r2BH-CH1Ek5J_AQu9jhb0x7di1rFBnywmgXV3JRY7D8/edit?usp=sharing
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

#2. Martial Arts. It seems like it could be a very fun read even to non-RPG people. I learned many new things about martial arts reading it.

Things applicable in RL?

>#1
Santa who?
>#2
Unofficial, fanmade handbook collecting a LOT of data from low tech, explaining how farming output without machines works, how each tool can affect it and how much manpower it will take depending on TL and weather. Great stuff and was super-helpful for few of my campaigns
>#3
The "smart guy" race. Either a bunch of loosers potrayed as turbo-nerds or bunch of insufferable geniuses that are just impossible to stand. Either way, I've got a serious beef about gameplay mechanics relating mental capabilities with specific race. Not due to some stupid SJW shit, but because I'm a keen user of "Born X, rised among culture Y" characters, so it's kind of stupid, when you suddenly need to overcome some game balancing feature that already doesn't come into play due to the WHAT the character is, not what race it represents on biological level.
God, this really sounds like SJW crap... Imagine you have an orc rised as an experiment by bunch of anthropologists. How he can gain an Int penalty, if he was highly educated since early childhood? How can he gain the strength bonus, if he never was busy whacking anyone's head. That kind of deal

Robot Santa, from Futurama, wanted to be a bit sly, I guess.

that sounds interesting, do you know if it's in the trove in the pdf?

It does sound vaguely SJW, I'd try to veto that int bonus unless there was a good reason not to, but I'd specify a character of any race raised among that culture would gain half the int bonus, but lose half of one of their stat bonuses, sound like a fair compromise?

I don't know. But it was a fun read.

I'm currently visiting family, so I'm not on my PC. Got a copy on my hard drive.

And about the Int - I just don't like the concept of Int being race/culture related. But that comes from the fact that for me Int = education you receive. Besides, having a race with high Int makes it a min-maxing pick for people who want to play specific "class" of characters, rather than using the whole race as something interesting.

Friend of mine was an admin in (now closed) text-based RPG. The entire thing was run by bunch of sociology student and I think they were intentionally dicking with everyone in the game. It was great at getting data how people make their choices for what their character should be and how minor tweaks in crunch meant trendemous changes in patterns of what people were picking. Case the point - they've introduced at certain point a race with stats tailored for being a good mage, but the race had not a single word mentioning magic in 8 pages long description. Until it was tweaked again, suddenly every single new mage PC was from that specific race.

It's been years since I played gurps and reading the last /gurpsgen/ thread got my nostalgia boiling something fierce.

Are there any pick up games online that someone like me could get into?

For me, it means capacity to understand alongside education aka knowledge leaned, so kind of cu+ke and it seems to fluctuate too much genetically among us to be a species-wide thing unless that species had much less genetic diversity than we do.

That's certainly interesting, and did it go on to be use in a Doctoral thesis or the like or just a fun thing to do?
Well I'll definitely read it, thanks for the recommendation.

I do not know user, do roll20 and the like have the ability to play GURPS?

Yeah ok this is what I'm talking about. I didn't even know roll20 was a thing, but now I do. Thanks.

No problem, you might want to ask around on other generals to see what range of systems any of the ttrpg playing websites have, I only know about that one and haven't visited it yet.

There is an official unofficial Discord for the GURPS forum: discord.gg/pez8U4s
I am *trying* to develop a pickup style Dungeon Fantasy Game that uses Roll20 and Gurpscalculator.com, but my target audience is beginners, just letting you know in case that's an instant turn-off.

Roll 20 supports movement on hexagonal grids and you can use any map images you like, Roll20's GURPS character sheets are awful.

GURPSCalculator, on the other hand, is mostly just a character sheet wrangling website that allows end users to import from GCA (the Official GURPS Character sheet app) and GCS (a competitive free alternative.)

I'm logging my experiences on my blog so far.
pseudoboo.blogspot.com/search/label/Silly Romperoo

>#2
Low Tech would probably be my favorite book simply because it has saved my a ton of hours of research and planning by providing ready made answers for questions I had while worldbuilding my setting. It's also a very fun read on it's own.

Martial Arts is a close second for the reasons already mentioned in this thread.

I'm definitely interested in your game. Even if there are some fresh noobs.
I'd even be happy to help them out, even though I may not be as familiar with the game as I used to be (and even then it was heavily modded with all sorts of weird house rules).

I love looking at the old GURPS artwork. So imaginative and tells a thousand stories without saying a word

What's your setting like /gurpsgen/? I need some inspiration

I agree. The art is phenomenal.

I love Dungeon Fantasy #8 Treasure Tables.

I always have fun and interesting loot to put in dungeons now

Guys, help me here. Which book has rules for plasma torchs/melee plasma weapons?

Ultra-Tech?

Basic Set has energy swords. You scan scale them up with the rules in Low Tech Companion 2.

Lee Majors must save Santa from terrorist at the north pole..

Or Hans Gruber has taken over Nakatomi Plaza

What is a better Christmas adventure?

...

Are there any rules for a grinding chainsaw? i'm trying to make a chainsword.

I'd guess GURPS horror has a chainsaw statistic. Or high tech. Look in those two.

Well, still nothing until now, i'm looking by hand on a physical copy. How i wish i was home now

Zombies has chainsaw rules (and lawnmowers).

I don't have that one, could you please copypast them? i'm on my phone and i'm like, 2 hours from the game with my nephew/nieces

mega.nz/#F!yxFxlD4I!CGTYsnTE_8XAmcJxdMehAQ!m1VxiLZZ

...

thanks

>i'm on my phone
nokia lumia 1520, there isn't a single pdf app for windows phone which i could get to work

And GURPS Horror has chainsaw on page 49 and 51, same stats as in Zombies

Murry mosse-chris GURPSday!

youtube.com/watch?v=0si6wsZWn6g

...

Everybody having Fun today?

If I were to post templates for a bunch of races I'm doing for a Warcraft game, would people be opposed to giving them a once over to see if everything is sound?

I have everything important done for the region the game will take place in.

Sure, send them our way.

How you like it Gurps gen? I'm just screwing around making characters

Age feels a bit off. Also you have Alcohol Tolerance twice, is that on purpose?

whoops no it wasn't. And ya i'll change the age. Him being bald/shaved kinda makes it hard to tell his age though.

It's something me and a friend are working on. We aren't done with everything yet. Gnome is a joke because they're not done yet so the other guy doing it just decided to put shit in.

docs.google.com/document/d/1r2BH-CH1Ek5J_AQu9jhb0x7di1rFBnywmgXV3JRY7D8/edit?usp=sharing

GURPS art is like the programmer art of the RPG world.

GURPS art provided my and my group hours of entertainment.

A few notes, purely from an optimization perspective

You have 11 points dedicated to Brawling techniques; Feint, Disarming, and Kicking all appear to be 2 points each for a measly +1 over the technique's default, or 6 points for a situational +1 to skill. Get rid of those techniques, put four of those six points into Brawling directly, and then put the two remaining points wherever you want. That way, Feint/Disarming/Kicking are at the same skill level, Brawling and every other technique is at +1, and you have more discretionary points.

On a related note, five points in Ground Fighting (Brawling) is a very large investment; 5% of you points simply for the ability to not take a penalty punching someone else on the ground does not seem especially worth it. It's probably a better idea to put two points into Wrestling and two points into Ground Fighting (Wrestling); if you find yourself on you back in a tussle and getting whaled on, focus on getting your opponent on *their* back and then beat them to a pulp with unpenalized Brawling. Wrestling (or Judo) is just straight up a good skill for any knuckleduster to have.

You character is pretty realistic for a mundane person, HT 13 notwithstanding. However, if this was built to be a PC and not an NPC, it should be a little more focused. Maybe buy HT down to 12, and with the points form that (plus the few scraped by messing with Techniques), you should be able to build a dedicated socialite (Diplomacy and Fast-Talk) or back-alley muscle (more combat skills, ST, or HP), or keep the current split you seem to be going with and just be better in both areas.

We have mars attacks yet?

What do you mean?

New thread when

fuck wrong thread I meant to post this on /swg/

Haha shit i'm there too just make it man.

This guy had some solid advice. Techniques are mostly useful for things where you plan to use a skill that way most of the time. For other things, just up the skill.

You likely don't need Fit. HT 13 is enough to be safe-ish from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, and this guy won't need to run too many marathons.

He's got personality and the sheet is relatively well organized.

I'd drop the HT and keep the fit personally. Fit covers pretty much everything you do with HT anyway and it's five points cheaper.

Not him, but Fit is worth own price, regardless of anything.

Mars Attacks (along with a new issue of Pyramid) was released with little fanfare here, so I'm guessing they weren't added to the trove.

Mars Attacks and Discworld don't have PDFs, but they are apparently both out, going to my FLGS for Discworld later today; they told me they have my pre-order... they laughed at me when making the reservation in the summer when I said, "It's coming out for sure this year."

>It's fucking out
Whelp I know what I'M spending my santa-bux on.

thanks

retarded question for you beautiful people;
is it possible to use hex grids for combat only? i don't feel like using them all the time, just for fights

I don't even use grids for combat desu senpai.

but aren't hex grids required for advanced combat?
is basic combat better?

It's a matter of taste. I've had a lot of fun playing basic combat, but some people like to get really detailed.

I play with plenty details, just not hex grids, m8.

gotcha. thanks for the help, guys

Fit is much like a point of HT, but does not come with +1 to HT skills (meh) or .25 Basic Speed.

Given the example's odd Basic Speed you could make a case that he should drop FIT and take .25 Basic Speed instead to snag +1 Move and Dodge.

There aren't many that won't find some use of Fit, though. It's a damn nice advantage.

Grids aren't required for anything, not even combat but some things in combat can only be done without a lot of wasted time with a grid. In any way; you don't go dungeoncrawling when just rping

>The gm says pretty plump "Humans are the true monster and we should feel bad because we killed monsters (vampires, werewolves etc)".
>However, most monsters were portrayed as racist and bloodthirsty beasts.

he was probably an undertalefag. don't let it get to you.

why is that game at all popular?

It never even occurred to me that people would use hex grids when not in combat.

Very good music and different gameplay drew in a good number of actual gamers, but hamfisted morality play drew in a bunch of tumblrites. Honestly, though, it's a fun game; I legitimately liked Flowey, Toriel, and vengeful Sans, and the breaking of the fourth wall was fun when it was a surprise. I'd put good money that the most obnoxious of "fans" didn't even beat the game.

>tl;dr a decent-to-good game with some clever idea and bitchin' tunes is ruined by a horrible fanbase that latched onto only a tiny aspect of it.

Bringing the subject back to GURPS, I was considering stealing Undertale's core traits for an all-encompassing monster race: extreme innate magical power and an infinite number of body types (ranging from goatperson to living flame) but incredibly fragile physical forms regardless of how imposing they look. Considering the wide variety of attacks and abilities shown by UT's various monsters, I'd figure Sorcery would work as a base. Fragile (Unnatural) [-50] and a racial -5 ST [-50] leaves a *boatload* of points free for both Sorcerous Empowerment, a level or two of Talent, and a solid number of Learned Spells while keeping it as a +0 point racial template.

Oh I had never played it, so it's rather like like WH40k in a way with all the Grimdark loving fans who came in and fucked it all up?

That sounds interesting to do, every day it seems like I learn more about how GURPS can literally play any kind of fiction, why is this not more popular?

Essentially yes, except that the issue with 40k is that the fans that didn't "get it" are now running the show. As far as I know, there're no plans for Undertale 2: Genderspecial Boogaloo where all of the most toxic parts of Undertale's fanbase team up to make a sequel that all but ignores what made the original good.

>why is this not more popular?
What, GURPS itself, or the fact that you can play all sort of off-the-walls weird shit with it? For the former, I'd say >memes and a higher investment of time+effort required for GMs due to the number of options. I hope both issues are dealt with by the new DF redbox. For the latter, I'd guess it comes down to people a) being comfortable with more standard games, b) the fact that everyone has their own criteria for "weird but good" and it's rare that an out-there game will be enjoyable by a whole group, or c) the game's incredibly small userbase exacerbating issue b.

One-hundred points just for magical abilities is way too much for damn near any system, not to mentions that those 100 points are *just* racial points and that a character could take personal disadvantages and spend even more on magic.

I'd set aside 50 points for "innate monstrous gifts" (IMG) and 50 for actual magic. IMGs would be Sans's and Papyrus's Ageless, Doesn't Breathe, and other advantages that come with being a skeleton; Grillby's Body of Flame metatrait; and similar things. I'd also give monsters a Taboo Trait (Cannot increase HP).

Haha, yeah, thats true. it seems $0k in particular was more interesting early on, then it took a huge turn for the dark and has so much hate for anything but humans it's no longer interesting.

GURPS Itself, you can do normal mainstream things absurdly well with it and add little twists that enhance the game or weird off the wall shit, from gritty to Tastes like diabetes you can do anything and that's what makes it seem to me like it should be much more popular than say D&D.

I'm really really REALLY hoping that the Dungeon Fantasy standalone makes the system more popular and approachable.

Oh, I thought Dungeon Fantasy was already part of the Sourcebooks, or is this gonna be like GURPS but you don't need the basic set?

There will be standalone DF rpg, so you won't need any other books to play it

Oh, and that's hopefully gonna bridge to the D&D crowd, I see.

What kind of point values do you consider to be the basic ranges of GURPS? What's low point total for you? What's the cutoff point for high? And what point total do you personally think the system shines best at?

Depends on setting, GM goals and just about so many factors there is no universal answer.
And I know I can design the exact same character using 100 and 1000 points, the main difference being amount of details.

Or just the "I don't want to sift through options irrelevant to my campaign/character" crowd. But yeah, selling it as D&D with more detail is a hell of a start.

Hook 'em with the compact genre-specific ruleset then introduce the generic base.

That makes sense to do, although sifting through it all can be fun.

Low: 75
High: 500
Favored: 100 OR 250

The system operates fine from a mechanical standpoint for basically all point-values, but I feel that outside of the 75-500 range requires an experienced group to work smoothly. Tailoring a campaign to an exceptionally low point total is harder than it looks unless the GM is planning on running a SoL of "Day in the Life Off Mooks" game, and huge point totals are hard for GMs to check and hard for players to spend. So really not a cutoff point, but a bellcurve that quickly drops off outside of 75-500 where Y = "% of groups that can fun at this point total."

I normally love lower-point games because I'm a masochist with a stiffy for dark+low fantasy, but I've fallen in love recently with more cinematic games, and two cinematic lines -- Action and Dungeon Fantasy -- start at 250.

There are too many variables in play to give you an answer you want for a "basic range". As a GM, I build a character that's as capable as I want the PCs to be, then assign a point value close to it as the campaign point value.

Personally, a low point total for me is 25~50, which is the average human. High point totals for me is 300+, which is moving past the upper bounds of realism. I enjoy GURPS the most around a skill level of 16, which is enough to take penalties and still be competent.

Good point. I'd add that in GURPS you should keep an eye on the total point budget, so basic point allow + allowed disadvantages.

IE: If you are doing 100 points and allow 30 points of drawbacks the total allowance is 130.

That in mind, I'd say 50+25 disadvantage is a very solid place for low powered games. These characters can be interesting, but those games can be brutal. You simply don't have the points to make a character as tough as you might want.

Action and Dungeon Fantasy are interesting points, along with Monster Hunters, because of their heavy use of templates that makes playing these lines easier for new players.

Which books would you use for Dishonored/ Dishonored 2 type games?

but has anyone in this thread tried GURPS?

Considering it's Called GURPS general i'd assume most of the people who visit it have or would like to.

GURPS Thaumatology: Sorcery to cover powers, Martial Arts for some sword fighting and assassination goodness and of course the basic set.

Refluffing if the powers aren't exactly right?

Basic Set, Powers, Martial Arts, Social Engineering if you don't want to run a Naruto meets French Revolution campaign. Don't use Thaumatology: Sorcery unless you want people to be able to improvise supernatural abilities, which may or may not be in the Dishonored series. I've only played the first, and didn't pay much attention to the setting or world.

A few example abilities:
>Blink I: Warp (Cosmic, No Roll Required, +100%; Costs 1 FP/ER, -5%; Power Modifier, -10%; Range Limit, 10 yards, -50%) [135]. Blink II changes Range Limit to 20 yards, -45%.

Devouring Swarm can be built as a summonable group of allies, an innate attack, or mind control. I'm sure you can think of more.

>Possession I: Possession (Cosmic, No Roll Required, +100%; Cosmic, Victim may be any size modifier, +50%; Costs 1 FP/ER, -5%; Maximum Duration, Up to 1 minute, -65%; No Memory Access, -10%; Parasitic, -60%; Power Modifier, -10%; Specialized, Animals Only, -25%) [75] + Permeation (Flesh; Accessibility, Only while using Possession, -10%; Can Carry Objects, Light, +20%; Power Modifier, -10%;) [5]. Total: [80].
Possession II changes Specialized, Animals Only to Specialized, All Earthly Life, -20%.

>Windblast I: Innate Attack 4 (Crushing; Costs 1 FP/ER, -5%; Double Knockback, +20%; Jet, +0%; No Wounding, -50%) [13].
This should knock the average ST 10 person back 3 yards 50%~ of the time. Windblast II is very, very expensive, so I suggest just doubling the level of Windblast I. Or you could try making it do more than double knockback.

Ah, knew I was forgetting something. Possession needs to have some sort of ranged enhancement tacked on, and some sort of delayed follow-up affliction for nausea after you exit your host. Don't feel like statting it up. Shouldn't be hard, though, you've got the base.

Wait are those actually in the book?

No, I made them just for . 'Tis the season and all that.

Both of those are me so thank you I'll screen cap them for later use, if I ever find group that wants to play it.

Does Extended Lifespan cause much confusion if it is part of a Gadget (See "Limitations" in GURPS Characters if the term confuses you) that a *normal* human puts on later in life?

There's this chosen of a god of travel who was gifted with a necklace that grants *very* long life. Assuming they are twenty-eight years old before donning the Extended Lifespan 7/Longevity artifact and then wander the worlds for one hundred and fifty years, how do you determine the time "spent" towards their actual aging (that is to say, the decreased rate)? Also, am I correct in assuming they begin to age normally from their new accrued age once the necklace is taken off?

It seems simple to me, but you are right, this could be confuseing.

Simply work backwards from the normal effect. Take your lifespan, then take out the years you spent with Extended Lifespan and half them for every level of the advantage.

In your example, your age would be 178 years. Your effective age would be 28 (pre-artifact) +1.17 years (150/128) for an effective age of 29.17 years. In 2,687.83 years you'd be effectively 50 and start to feel the effects of ageing.

You'd lose the effect of the advantage, but you would not crumble to dust or anything. You'd age normally and new years would count at 1 for 1 rather then 1 for 2 or, at the upper end, 1 for 128.

Not him, but thanks a bunch, finally I have some support to how properly use items granting extended lifespan. Had a nasty argument about it last game with my GM and it seems he intentionally fucked our party by killing a very important NPC travelling with us due to "removed effect". The guy was around 400 and the bracelet came with lvl 5 effect, so he should gain 12,5 years TOP, not 125 and crumble to dust.

That's a fucking dumb thing to start arguing about with your GM you know.

Especially considering that the GM is well within his bounds if he adds modifiers or drawbacks such as "large backlash: instant aging" or something like that when he creates a NPC advantage.

Only that he didn't. We were given the sheet with the NPC loooong time ago and the whole fucking point of the game for past 6 months or so was escorting said character.
Suddenly GM killed him on a whim, which pissed off everyone, making our entire game so far literally pointless. And as the excuse the "should have aged 125 years" was used.