/gurpsgen/ GURPS General - All Tomorrows Edition

Gimmicks aren't a bad thing. Try a half-flooded water dungeon, where many rooms are 3' deep water and things leap out of it at them. Or a classic tower, with 10~ floors that have to be fought though to get to the top.

GURPS sages...help!

Over the course of three turns, my prospective guard expended all of the ammunition in his revolver's cylinder without managing to land a solid hit. Some shots "came close"...but that obviously was not good enough. Skill level is 13, which I am told is a cut above most.

All six shots ended up missing (two Rate of Fire 2 barrages with the Fanning technique and two separate Attack maneuvers). The range was, according to the GM, "about eighteen feet, give or take" during the diagonal shootout between the second stories of two buildings on opposite sides of the same street.

The baddie fired three times. Thankfully, the first and third attacks were dodged while the second bullet was a clear miss.

So...what do I have to do? Is more Skill the answer or do I have to suck it up and start taking Aim maneuvers during the middle of a battle where my foe can clearly see me?

Aiming will help. More skill will help. It's not an either/or situation here.

Firstly, understand the GURPS engine. Each number in a stat, isn't linear, it's cumulative and will improve by large amounts at first, and then the higher you get in a skill the less that improvement helps.

This graph might help. Note that you only have ~11% chance of rolling a 13 exactly, but you have an 80% chance of rolling that or lower.

A 13 is plenty, and aiming will help. In my experience, someone with a 16 in a skill will almost never miss.

>So...what do I have to do? Is more Skill the answer or do I have to suck it up and start taking Aim maneuvers during the middle of a battle where my foe can clearly see me?

More skill would obviously help, but I think your tactics are sound. Ideally, you want to use firearms from a position where you aren't taking fire, giving you the luxury of Aim and All-Out Attacks, but if you can't manage that then basic attacks every turn tend to be optimal. If there was no cover in play then you were pretty unlucky to miss with all those shots; it should have been -3 skill for the range, giving you a 50/50 chance of hitting every time. Aim bonuses go away if you make an active defence, so it isn't much use if your opponent can realistically hit you before you make your shot.

A laser or reflex sight would give you +1 skill, which would help a lot at your skill level, but if you're using a revolver I guess your Tech Level might not include them.

Better firearms give you more options; a shotgun can use buckshot for a skill bonus while a rifle has enough Acc that you can take aim at long ranges where anyone who doesn't have a rifle will have difficulty engaging you. If you do find yourself in a situation where you have to make aimed shots with a pistol, remember that you can add a second hand to count as braced and consider if an All-Out Attack might be worth it.

Generally though, what you did is what I would have done. Just fucking blast away and hope to get lucky. Something like 90% of shots in real gunfights don't hit anybody and it's pretty much the same in GURPS. As soon as you think the odds of hitting are better than about 20%, shoot.

Only other thing I would recommend is carrying more guns. Reloading generally sucks, especially with revolvers, even more so with early ones. A backup pistol is a massive benefit, even if it's only a derringer.

On top of that, 18 feet/6yd is -3 to hit, and fanning without the technique is another -4.

>reloading
Or just use a speedloader, you can go down to 5~6 seconds reload time IIRC. Not too bad.

What in the fuck is that picture

Ranged attacks are also a place where the normal meaning of skill levels doesn't really hold. Ranged skills *always* have penalties. Sometimes quite high penalties. In your example, shooting something about 18 feet away the penalty *started* at -3 for every shot before maneuvers or techniques or anything else. Aiming helps a lot, as does tactics, but there are analogs for melee that help as much or more there and there aren't the built-in penalties.

So to be like skill 13 for a brawler while you're at 18' with your pistol you need to start at skill 16. Higher as that range goes up.

It would be fun to use a modified version of that setting. I'd personally remove the Qu, account for their being no FTL communication & radio waves taking too long for reasonable communication, and place machine intelligence as something that occurred in Earth's solar system while seeding the galaxy with humanity was being conducted.

Those in the "home" solar system would eventually all become machine intelligences. The grand majority of them would eventually prefer experiencing life in hyper-life-like virtual reality. Two main minorities are split between the machine embodied and a few others becoming bioroids with computer-like-brains.

The player characters will be such posthuman machine sapients, exploring what has become of humanity. This could be done via non-FTL travel where a player plays copies of his character--each being in a "sleep state" until an automated system triggers him to awaken upon that speific Von Numen Probe's arrival. Conversely, a form of worm hole travel (either really tiny, so nanomachines have to build PC & gear copies, or as space ship jump drives) could be added to speed things up. I'd personally go with the non-FTL option.

As for the biological posthumans, they will still get VERY weird via natural selection on their unique biospheres and some applied genetic engineering. Additionally, other machine "races" may also be encountered.

One of the Machines.

Yeah, I agree about modifying the setting. I would keep the history right up until the machine annihilation.

As far as having everyone play a machine, part of the fun for me was trying to imagine what being one of these things was like to be one of the new human races.

Sufficiently Advanced would also make for an interesting setting to play in GURPS.

suffadv.wikidot.com

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What do you guys think about Orion's Arm, how well can it be run in GURPS?

orionsarm.com

Completely new to GURPS. How is its mass combat stuff? Does it play fast or it is as complex and slow as I've heard memes of?

Anyone else have any good art that could be used for Reich-5?

Mass combat like the specific Mass Combat rules or mass combat like lots of dudes in the normal combat grid?

For the former, the MC rules are "okay"; not terrible but nothing to write home about. There's some number crunching to slow things down but each round of MC boils down to "select a strategy; roll Quick Contest of modified Strategy." The big issue I have with those rules is that they're boring. Tactical Mass Combat helps with this a bit.

For regular combat... Well the main benefit of system mastery is fast combat. GURPS combat tends to be slow not due to any innate complexity but simply due to decision paralysis (what Maribeth, what technique if any, use extra effort of not, most efficient use of deceptive attack, etc.). Once you know what options their are and what works best for the situation/character, combat speeds by. Before that point though, combat can be slow. I come from PF, though, so no price is too great to let fighters do something other than Full Attack ad nauseum.

What do you mean by mass combat? Tens, hundreds, or thousands of individuals all running around doing something every turn? An abstract army vs. army battle? Something else?

Assuming you meant the first, GURPS does every bit as well as every other system I've played. The more familiar you are with the system the more detail you can keep track of and handle before things become too much.

When my group was just learning GURPS 6-on-6 or 4-on-8 was about as much as they could handle (and about as much as I could). Now 5-on-30 is about our limit. I don't know if this is what you mean by mass combat though.

For option #2, the books also give TONS of advice on keeping combat speedy both for the players and the GM. I'm sure someone can post the text box from Martial Arts about handling mooks in combat.

/gurpsgen/, I'm about confused about skills costs and defaults.

The book says that when a skill defaults to another skill I know (the book uses Broadsword and Shortsword as examples), if I know the first skill at a level that would make my default on the second skill higher than paying one point for it, I can raise up that skill from the default and end up paying less. I understand that part well enough.

My question is about skills that default to two attributes, for example Stealth is a DX/A kill that defaults to DX-5 and IQ-5.

Now, if I have a character that has IQ way higher than stealth, say DX at 9 and IQ at 16, which would mean my default Stealth is at 11. Since Stealth is DX/A, normally I'd have to pay 8 points to have Stealth-11 with a DX of 9.

Now, my question is, can I raise up my Stealth from it's IQ default, like I would with Broadsword and Shortsword? In other words, if I put 8 points into Stealth on a character with DX of 9 and IQ of 16, would I get Stealth-11 or Stealth-13?

Quick question GURPSgen. I want to use Vehicles in 4e, specifically focusing on vehicle weapons for the time being. What do I need to worry about for converting 3e weapon design to 4e?

I honestly have no clue; that's a really good question. You may have to ask the actual forums (it's okay, they're actually quite good in my experience with no noticeable godmodding/cult of personality bullshit).

IIRC, 4e got rid of the snapshot modifier and this necessitates... I believe halving the weapon's final ACC modifier. Other than that (and obviously replacing 3e's cr bullets with 4e pi-/pi/pi+/pi++ bullets for the appropriate caliber), you should be good to go.

New Machines., They're basically stupid shoggoths.

Is GURPS Halo really a thing? That setting could be fun to play in, if given major tweaks.

>if given major tweaks
I'm curious about what you mean by this.

One could argue that the machines, being based on brain emulation, counts as the decents of Mankind. This is far easier, however, to be defended in the case of my setting twist's bioroids that are still being based on star people DNA.

Mostly just a combination of changes to make the setting more interesting for me and my players and other slight changes to avoid the bad writing that piped up later on the series.

An example of the former is to have mind uploads (which these AGIs effectively are) undergo rampancy within a human lifespan (no longer than living a 103 for outliers), be limited to what a neurally augmented human can do, be legally declared people possessing right, and be the legal heir of the person he or she is based on. I'd also have human enhancement be a far more common and accepted occurance. Player characters can be baseliners, genetically modified, cybernetically augmented, or mind uploads.

The game would take place earlier on in the Human-Covenant War and iqnore the Grand majority of the lore added after the first games; save for world building for humans at said point.

Seems interesting enough. Have any more details? If nothing else, the thread is a tad dry. I suspect the Discord is to blame.

I know that GURPS can theoretically be used to run anything but what is it especially good at? What would you experienced players recommend I use it to for to get a decent to good first impression before experimenting with other settings and genres?

I'm running a TL1 fantasy game and I think GURPS works very well for it.

I think GURPS is really good at getting that fantasy feeling for your campaign that you would get from fantasy books that have more down to earth and realistic style of fantasy, while still having fantastic elements, for example like the Black Company series.

I particularly like the feeling that GURPS combat gives for this sort of setting, the high lethality and variety really works for me and my group.

This is kind of a meme at this point, but it does a really good job where "every day" humans are the base line. There's a ton of granularity with regards to the power scale, which is why you hear "GURPS can't do supers!" all the time.

To put it another way, in D&D an ogre is basically a speed bump for the PCs, if even that. But consider it from the perspective of the commoners. If an ogre rocks into town one day and starts fucking with everyone's shit, that's THE MOST TERRIFYING THINGS EVER. There's basically nothing that an entire village can do, let alone one villager with your 1d8 hit dice.

This even extends to animals. Animals in D&D are complete pussies. A 1st level PC can 1v1 a puma, probably without dropping below half health. But that puma would rapidly fuck a commoner's shit up, without even breaking a sweat.

GURPS takes this scale as its baseline, and fills in the details. There's lots of interesting stuff in between 'icompetent' and 'walking demigod', and GURPS gives you the tools to explore that.

Detailed gunplay. Check out Tactical Shooting.

One thing I really like about GURPS is that there are no levels.

In D&D, there's levels where you face vampires, werewolves, ogres, giants, orcs or bears. Once you pass those levels, you hardly hesitate to fight them even in large numbers. Before those levels, they are impossible challenges. A level 1 PC vs a vampire, even a vampire that isn't really supposed to be a warrior vs someone that trained their whole life as a knight, is an impossible fight.

In GURPS a knight that is strong and clever has a solid chance to defeat a vampire that isn't a brawler. They certainly won't lose just because the vampire has five times the HP and can stand there soaking up blows while beating someone down with a waffle iron.

Low TL GURPS is great for close combat. There's lots of meaningful options and a huge amount of risk-reward to consider. You can lose fast if you make a mistake but you really feel where you've spent your points.

Would TL1-2 with a fewTL12 gubbins lying about be a good way of going about with a Numenera/Book of the New Sun style campaign?

Sure. You can just treat high TL gear as artifacts, from electric lamps and antibiotics to death rays and dole them out as rewards.

How can I best replicate a Fable 2 (I love it's mix of fantasy and TL 4) Will user's "willpower" (magic) in GURPS 4E?

Are sjgames forums down right now?

They are.

Hey gurpsgen
how would you stat a sword that mindcontrols its weilder
a player wants to become one and i thought it would be fun/retarded enough to do

You start with how Transhuman Space stats being a non-moving computer as a starting point.

GURPS: Thaumatology has an example of a magic sword built as an advantage in the Material Magic chapter. A sword built as a character would have a similar advantage, Compartmentalized Mind (Dedicated Controls), No Legs (Sessile), and other traits (there's an example character that's a magical harp; use that as a base for building items-as-characters).

From there, add Mind Control, possibly with the Melee/Aura and Onset limitations.

Maybe Sorcery? There's only 8 spells, but each one has 2 variants, area and targeted. Some of them are different enough to count as two different spells.

Raise Dead is a short term set of summonable allies. It's stronger if you've got recently dead foes to work with. Targeted it does the same thing, but summons the allies over where you aimed rather then around you.

Time Control is defiantly two different powers. Area temporary gives Extra Attack and Bonus Speed or maybe even Altered Time Rate. Targeted is Warp to behind whoever you aimed at.

Inferno, Force Push, Shock and Blades are pretty much innate attacks that do Burn, Crush with double knock-back, Burn (Surge), and Cut damage either as an emmanation around you or targeted at a single foe.

Chaos is an affliction that gives a random debilitating effect.

Vortex summons a tornado that deals damage and throws people around. No idea how to do that one.

Well, that won't end well.

I believe you only get the reduced point cost if it's defaulted *specifically from a skill*. The idea is that being trained in one skill means you've picked up enough basic/transferable knowledge that can be applied to the defaulted skill.

To use the example of the Broadsword to Shortsword from Basic: the skill of swinging a sword which is 1-1.5ft is *close enough* to swinging a sword which is 2-3ft. So when you've trained enough in one, the other gets a better default because it's (more or less) just a case of working out where the difference in the balance differs with blade length**.

**HEMAfags, reenactors, etc - I know this isn't perfect, on a technical level, and there's probably a million little factors of difference between broadswords and shortswords. Please refrain from dragging this into pedantry.

Honestly, I think it's just part of the cycle. GURPS doesn't have a lot of shit to stir up controversy; we have a few rules contentions, but nothing to inspire the level of shitposting that keeps other general afloat. Instead, our general requires a near-constant influx of new players to keep discussion happening. When that slows down, we slow down. Hell, it wasn't that long ago that GURPS General were a once-a-month thing and having them be back-to-back was unthinkable. We used to rely on trolls posting old memes to keep us afloat but even that has died off (at least in the general thread).

I'm guessing discussion will spike up in a couple months after the DF standalone released, but until then I'm forecasting slow to ded general filled with "oh shit we're on page 10 here's a question-bump."

>I suspect the Discord is to blame.

It's more likely the month-long uninterrupted chain of generals. This happens; when there's been a general for so long everyone's all questioned- and discussioned-out. After a bit of a rest everyone comes back with more to say and discuss.

So it would be best to treat it as "magic as advantags"? How can I best stat those 'will lines' on the character's skin?

Makes sense. I'm new to GURPS and came here from both the /40krpg/ and /swg/, where discussion is rampant (in /swg/'s case, because there are so many different games in Star Wars and they also discuss the films and shows and other lore).

I made the assumption that because GURPS could be used for anything, people discussed everything.

I suppose to act as one of the question bumps: stat me.

What civilization would be a good example for tech level 12?

You can't stat 40k shit because it isn't consistent. Better off making your own /consistent/ Not!BlueSpaceCatholics.

If you're okay with robots only? The Total Annihilation and Planetary Annihilation ones. The socieities from Supreme Commander might also fit, since they have access to the same level of technology. Though the societies in all three of these games aren't using just TL12 stuff.

It was more just to get gears cranking. I'm not prepping a not!Imperium for a game of Infinite Worlds or anything like that.

Ian McDonald: "Verthandi's Ring"

What the posthumans in Greg Egan's "Diaspora" eventually became like later on in said novel. They were also described in Ultratech as being a good example of TL 11 at the novel's beginning stage.

suffadv.wikidot.com/civs

Any pointers to making a Transhuman Space version of Motoko Kusanagi, besides her being a Ghost Mind Emulation running in an infiltrator type custom Cyberdoll cynershell?

Conversely, what are the best advantages to use in replicating her prosthetic body (total cyborg template) from the manga?

Both Concrete and Virtual Endless factions in Endless Space are good examples.

Whether Major is a total-body cyborg or a ghost-mind emulation is up for debate. IIRC, canonically ghost-mind emulations aren't a thing in GitS. Hell, that's where the title comes from -- ghosts are unique to organic humans and cannot be digitally created, replicated, or restored, and anything that suggests otherwise is a huge fucking deal. I think it's stated that Major is only 1% organic or something like that after having a full-body prosthetic and a whole suite of cyberbrain modifications.

At the same time, though, I think it's also canon in the SAC timeline that she deep-dives in to the net and maintains her ghost at the end of the Laughing Man incident to avoid being assassinated. Whatever she returned to afterwards would obviously not have been her real brain. Between confusion over the ending and SAC being only one out of... I want to say at least four timelines, though, I don't know if this is a significant argument.

Still, multiple bodies and backups is a bitch to handle as a GM. I'd have Kusanagi be a total-body cyborg for simplicity's sake. Also 16 points in Erotic Art if going by the manga. Beyond that, anything that shows up on the Military, Law Enforcement, Intelligence, or Security lenses from Action as she could apply for any of those background lenses.

The idea of her being a Ghost only pertains to an alternate version of her existing in the setting of Transhuman Space. As there are no Total-Cyborgs in THS, the THS Motoko would necessarily be a Ghost.

I agree about the multiple bodies issue and will therefore restrain this THS permutation of her to a Cyberdoll body.

Ant thoughts on how this new permutation's psychology and overall outlook & demeanor would contrast with her cyborg counter part(s)? My personal starting point would be her AGI "daughter" who was the protagonist from the second manga.

P.S. THS Motoko will be working for the Genetic Regulatory Agency, hunting down potential world threatening illegal bio-tech developments and uses.

>Now, my question is, can I raise up my Stealth from it's IQ default, like I would with Broadsword and Shortsword?
I know no official ruling, but it seems only fair to me to be able to improve your skill from the IQ default. So Stealth-13 in your example, and if you'd raise your IQ, Stealth raises with it.
My gut feeling aside, notice how RAW only mentions defaulting from skill in the example only. The rule itself says:
> If your default level in a skill is high enough that you would normally have to pay points for that level, you may improve the skill past its default level by paying only the difference in point costs between your new level and your default level.
This means any Default to me.

>There are no Total-Cyborgs in THS
Wow really? Color me surprised. I guess that makes sense though, seeing as how digital uploading in THS is seen as safe.

My experience with GitS is limited to the first film, SAC one and two, and the first two Arise films, so I have no clue where your starting point is. From the first film's Kusanagi, I'd say ramp up the introspection/angst as there's even less of a connection between her and any sense of her original humanity. This, combined with a lack of easy permadeath (I think; little foggy on how backups work in THS) would probably make her even more of a hedonistic show-off.

Clanking replicators are TL12?

Not sure about Planetary Annihilation and SupCom, but the Arm and the Core are definitely TL12. You have to remember that Total Annihilation is set at the very end of their war, which "all but exhausted the resource of a galaxy" and both sides are "crippled beyond repair," and even in that state, the Core was able to make a weapon that could end the universe and start a new one.

The various factions of all three games have the ability to great matter from power and have the ability to harness and/or create an infinite amount of energy. Not all of their stuff is TL12, but I'd sure as hell say that is.

All three games also claim their building time is REAL time. See pic related for SupCom in particular. That's very TL12 to me. A few other examples:

Total Annihilation, as () can create a weapon that ends the universe and starts a new one. They also had the ability to strip-mine entire planets in literal days, and their conflict centered on whether or not people wanted to be cloned or "patterned," (the brains-in-computers-styled Singularity). Their armor works on some sort of "quantum armor," model, where they can focus ALL of their existing armor into a single space (where the damage is coming), and they are only destroyed when there is literally no more armor to use up. This was an explanation for the in-game mechanics of how units worked on the "the only hit point that matters is your last one," principle.

Supreme Commander's campaign shows that all three factions had the ability to create a super-weapon that used all the setting's quantum gates as its "barrel," though what was fired depending on the faction:
>UEF's weapon just blew up planets and destroyed Gates, ME3-style
>Cybran's weapon shot a signal that freed all brainwashed cyborgs everywhere (or just brought the cyborgs to their way of thinking, depending on who you ask)
>Aeon's weapon fired magical-girl beams that basically made everyone friends

Planetary Annihilation works on the real-time construction and energy of the others, but at a much faster pace (it's basically the twitch-shooter of RTS's--no calm and careful play here), and can create Death Stars and "Halley Engines," that turn planetoids into weaponized missiles.

If none of that sounds like TL12, I don't really know what to tell you.

Sorry, this is the pic I was related to in regards to the real-time construction.

Looking to run a modern magic game and been thinking about using gurps but I've heard the 4th ed magic book fell a little flat. Does anyone have any experience running a setting like this?

So what's the prefered weapon for these ghoul style zombies?

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kf4zlkbOg1SO94Ms6CcRnNfVwbs9rFzRyOsgWZ9Gy5c/edit?usp=sharing

A.) Winchester Model 1886 in .45-70
B.) Winchester Model 1876 in .45-75 Winchester
C.) Winchester Model 1873 in .44-40 Winchester

Oh and all three guns can be found in high-tech Adventure guns btw.

GURPS Magic isn't *bad*, it's just a good fit for the rest of the system tone-wise as one relies on a strict list of predetermined static abilities and the other revels in its "build what you want attitude." If you like large spell lists, Magic is pretty good.

If you don't like large spell lists and seeing one gives you flashbacks to playing D&D 3.PF, look at GURPS Thaumatology; it's Alternate Magic Systems: The Book. Pick one out of there (or out of the two Thaumatology expansions, Ritual Path Magic and Sorcery) and run that instead. Check the OP for a quick comparison of the main magic systems.

As for general advice with modern magic settings, obviously a lot relies on the specifics of the setting with "is magic secret or not" bring the big one. However one near-universal thing to note is that guns are very very good at dealing lots of damage very quickly and reliably and at a distance; blaster mages are going to be fighting an uphill battle, so make sure any Mage PC knows to focus on buff/debuff/utility magic and just pack a pistol.

The future.

This is how I want to run it anyway, i like the idea of modern mages being more utility than fireball slingers. As long as I can get it through my players heads that bullets will still splatter mages that is.

How well could this system run a science fiction military game where a great deal of vehicles--including aerospace fighters--are used? What oddities and intricacies/oddities would I need to look for?

What would be the HT and HP of chickens? I plan on my RPM mage to use them for magic.

LTC3:14

Question; Could magitech Von Neumann machines from ~100k years in the past be a pretty cool threat for a magic-as-utility TL1 fantasy game based in the worlds equivalent of the Eastern Mediterranean?

NPCs set up as better than the PCs are great sacrificial goats for this; a badass mage working as someone else's muscle shows off his magic might but still gets gunned down unceremoniously to teach the players that a bit of well-place lead is still a force to be reckoned with.

The Spaceships series is pretty decent after you work out a few kinks (missile are still stupidly damaging post errata but point-defense is a cheap hard counter, anemic lasers, etc.). "So You Want to Build a Spaceship" is a very good article from issue #3/94 of Pyramid as it covers what rules to use, what ship components to allow, and what changes to make to go for a certain tone of space battle (e.g. Star Wars dogfights vs. LoGH warship broadsides vs. whatever). Spaceships 3: Warships and Pirates introduces a tactical map for space fights as opposes to the more abstract combat system found in Spaceships 1, and Spaceships 7: Divergent and Paranormal Tech goes whole-hog in on ariel dogfights IN SPAAAAAAAAAACE.

I feel like they wouldn't use guns. If they did.. Maybe the Winchester 1886 in the Trench Gun fittings, with a sword bayonet, staging forward in the ruins of their uniforms? A lever action feels too coordinated, and the rifles won't hit much unless they aim, something that seems too clever and patient for them. Birdshot out of a 12 gauge can hit as they blaze away mindlessly.

I acutely like the basic Magic pretty well, especially at lower TL. Every spell requires an investment in time and effort to learn and more to master, and a mage that calls up enough power to wreck someone is going to exhaust themselves quickly. If you are a swordsman that knows Explosive Fireball, for example, there will be a lot of situations where you draw the sword, not blow shit up.

What does that mean?

Low-Tech Companion 3, pg. 14.

...

Yes, though it would probably work better if you had larger civilisations and better travel than TL1 implies, so that the scale of the ever-increasing threat and gradual failure to contain it can be felt better.

Codex Alera had something similar - where it was basically Zerg/Borg versus Magic Romans.

Magic-as-utility doesn't help much - it's like saying "technology as utility".