/gurpsgen/ GURPS General

>Get off Discord you bastards, Edition

Are there any settings or timelines that you're fond of putting in your Infinite Worlds games? Is there any of the established lore of Homeline that you disagree with or change?

Maybe they would, if you stopped obsessing over Infinite Worlds, lol

Bringing back a question from last thread:

>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?

was rather helpful, but I'm wondering whether or not there's any other advice in terms of rules quirks I need to beware of.

Bumping

Is /gurpsgen/ die?

Seems so, at least for now. A shame. Probably have Discord to blame for this; at least the way people sounded a few threads ago.

Spaceships is a really weird book, and one that has a lot of problems, but you seem to know that. Once you've got that, there's a whole lot of 'depends on what you want to do' sort of thing. Just be aware you will have to ajust a lot of stuff based on your desires for how the things will work.

Any advice on running the setting of EVE Online in GURPS? Players will be pod pilots of the Holy Amarrian empire.

Nothing to do with discord. There just hasn't been much new stuff. No releases, no new questions, no advice needed that takes discussion. gurpsgen is pretty good at not just padding the signal with noise. That makes it harder to keep the thread alive. Especially when the Americans are sleeping.

I still visit every single one but usually there's nothing I can contribute and my game is on hiatus so there's nothing for me to ask.

has it right.

>Get off Discord you bastards
someone explain this meme.

...

Has anyone tried running a Terminator future style game where the role of Skynet is taken up by a nation of Mind Emulations, "living" in virtual reality while using drone style robots to fight; with the players being Mind Emulations?

Is there any GURPs book exploring that kind of setting?

Anyone got a PDF of the 'chinese elemental powers' extension for Thaumatology?

Organize the sourcebooks thus:

> Must Have
> Recommended
> Mediocre
> Avoid At All Costs

What is "Discord"?

Does GURPS have a "respawn," mechanic? I'm considering running a Destiny game (as the videogames suck, but their lore is pretty primo), and 's Capsuleer request is a neat one.

A type of voice chat.

>There just hasn't been much new stuff.
Are Discworld RPG and Mars Attacks not available in PDF yet?

A cross between TeamSpeak and IRC.

I think that is Unkillable and Extra life.

Half of the fun of EVE is the utter insanity that is what happens when the playerbase is left unattended. Huge peaks of boredom with peaks of fun. Maybe try to really play up the isolation of deep space/wspace and the alien vistas?

That's a good idea. Perhaps the PCs could instead be rouge surviving "immortal" mercenaries who now work in salvaging within Capsuleer controled space. Having them all on the same ship would also make things easier.

Just Unkillable 2 or 3 can do it. With 2 you regenerate where you are, so you can be imprisoned, with 3 you regenerate at a safe place and can't be imprisoned when ded.

If they're capsuleers, put them against something more terrifying. Dump them in a new galaxy found on the arse-end of W-space, or get them involved with the Enhed/Jovian bitchfight, for example. If they're not, working for one is a good way to keep them moving. Or having one at their disposal later on as a 'transport'.

What has been the weirdest setting and/or plot you guys have used Ultra-tech with?

Mook made a discord and the link was posted here. Many are now on the discord as well as in the thread. However, that has little effect on the GURPS general (see ). The most we lose is small questions that can usually be immediately answered on the discord.

My current game, which amalgamates a bunch of different timelines and quantum into a patchwork superworld.

It's basically modern day with the subtle colorings of every other TL and genre you can think of, with plenty of Ultra-Tech toys lying around alongside religious icons and magic/mythic artifacys. Like massive supersolar dishes of sunsilk with ultrablack backing provided by a gravity blackmetal made inside a machine-hell city powered by a machine demon heart.

>> Must Have
>Basic Set
As much as it gets memed, Basic Set really is all you need for many games. If I were going to put other books here, though, it'd be the entire *Tech series, Martial Arts, Powers, and Action 2, since they just add so much to Basic Set and make running so much easier.

>> Recommended
Everything that isn't above or below this tier.

>> Mediocre
>Magic
Magic systems aren't generic or universal, so I should be putting the other magic systems here as well. However, Magic is really hard on the GM because it's so dense, poorly edited, and takes material from known unbalanced grimoires of previous editions. It requires GMs to comb through spell lists and selectively allow which spells to use.
>Supers
Focuses too much on four color. Good otherwise, it's just not as generic as it should be.
>Ultra-Tech
Suffers from being dense and poorly edited. Like Magic, it was released after a single month of work being put into it, back in the early days of 4e. I'd still make it a must-have, though, because there isn't really a book to replace it yet. It also requires a comb-through reading, although it makes it easier by having pre-built technology paths in the first chapter.

>> Avoid At All Costs
None? I can't think of a single 4e book to avoid outright.

>None? I can't think of a single 4e book to avoid outright.

I feel that category should actually just state "There Will Be Some Books You Personally Don't Like"

I'd love to help. I've never played EVE Online.

And I'm not sure "how would you do X setting" is a new question. "How would you do this particular thing" gets more and better conversation, provides better and more directed answers, and sometimes even allows those without particular setting knowledge to help.

That particular question was exactly what I meant what I said
>no advice needed that takes discussion.

Something like Reign of Steel for 3e?

Guys, quick question? Can I make a Feint to grapple next turn? Right now we're fighting enemies with a high dodge score. I have no trouble hitting my grapples, but they always manage to dodge.

What would I roll my Feint with? Wrestling or my final Grapple to-hit score?

What about deceptive attack with grapple?

I don't see why you couldn't Feint a distracting attack while your other hand reaches out to snag them, forcing a penalized Dodge.

Feint can be used to lower Active Defenses against a grapple, yes.

If you are going to attempt to "hit" with Wrestling you'd make a Feint with your Wrestling Skill beforehand.

You can indeed lower your grappling Skill with a Deceptive Attack to make the actual grab harder to avoid.

You can feint with any melee combat skill. You can use deceptive attack with any melee combat skill.

You can't fent or deceptive attack on non-attack rolls, however. Of course, there's no reason you would, given most of those are opposed by ST contest, not Active Defenses.

I can think of parts of books to avoid.. Weapons and Armor in Ultratech, and the damage/combat rules in Spaceships, are badly written and you can drop them without losing anything, though you will have to do a fair amount of work to kitbash something for spaceship combat if it comes up. What you come up with will almost certainly work better, though.

If you check OP's image, you'll find a link hidden inside. Chinese Elemental Powers can be found within.

GURPS noob reading over the basic pdf.

There are a few mechanics which reference "characters attracted to your sex" like attractiveness and sex appeal, but no mechanic for determining who is attracted to what sex. Am I missing something or does the game just expect everyone to play fair I.E. no spontaneous "I'M GAY" to negate the attempt (or "I'm/they're asexual for the optimizers)

NPCs sexuality is decided by the GM

Don't be degenerate, only around 2% of the population is gay, only around 2% of your NPCs should be gay, less should be bisexual, unless you're specifically playing in some sort of

""""Queer"""

Campaign.

Basically. If you're in an intolerant setting, being gay might be worth a quirk, or a full on Social Stigma or Secret.

If you're in a setting full of succubi and sex fairies, "I'm asexual" is probably worth at least a perk, or even Resistance (Seduction, Common).

Otherwise, call it a 0-point feature and move on with your life.

...

or you could just roll it, if you want to fudge the statistics to make it more likely.

Roll 16 or less to be straight would give you 15% gay NPCs.

> Must Have
Basic Set, Powers, Thaumatology.
> Recommended
Martial Arts, Low-Tech, High-Tech, Action, Space, Ritual Path Magic, Sorcery
> Mediocre
Ultra-Tech, Magic.

If a character genuinely has a neurological condition that renders them incapable of experiencing sexual attraction (as opposed to being a special snowflake who thinks that "not a slut" needs to be considered its own sexual orientation), you might actually be able to get points BACK for that. Killjoy (Sex only, -80%) is worth [-3].

There any really solid '4 elements' magic frameworks listed anywhere? I suppose I could just do a restricted Gramarye, but prefer something printed if I can find it.

Check the OP

I miss the storytelling.

Hey Anons, new to gurps here, what kinds of dice do you need to play?

At least one six-sided die.
Three would be much better since 3d6 is a good 90% of the rolls.

Any other kinds?, or is it just 6-sided ones?

Nope, only d6. There's not even "3d6" or such anywhere, it's always "3d" because there's no other die involved but the d6.

Thank you, i know i probably could have learned this by reading the Basic Set book but i haven't had time yet to read it.

There's a few things wrong with this.

One, the 2% number is too low for anything except self-reported homosexuals in a population that heavily stigmatizes them or a very narrow definition of gay.

Second is that gay populations are stigmatizes and drawn together by mutual sexual attraction. They aren't randomly distributed though an area, they cluster.

So if your story takes you into the upscale condo market in a dangerous neighborhood in NY, Chicago or Seattle it's going to be 40-70% gay.

If you are in the Firehouse nightclub on a Sunday night, it's going to be 90% gay.

Likewise, you might be down to 0-2% if at a strip club that caters to men sexually attracted to women.

If a PC is gay it's likely several of their friends are gay and all of their ex.

To be fair if you skip the introductory "this is what an RPG is" section, it's easy to miss. They never explain what 3d means anywhere else.

I guess I'll find out, lol

Does anyone know where I can get the 3e vehicle software? I found one called GURPS Vehicle Designer but it can't save unless you pay. I think there was another one? GVB?

Sexual orientation of NPCs is determined by the game master, while the sexual orientation of the PCs is determined by the players; however the game master should enforce a strict "you only pick your sexual orientation once" rule to prevent gaming the system, unless a character changes their orientation due to the a spell, potion, mental trauma, etc.

"should be"

Since when did statistical representation become so important when it came to homosexuality/bisexuality? I see these strangely defensive arguments crops up regarding television/films...but I never thought i'd see them appear in a tabletop gaming community.

Did someone already played a high-level Supers campaign with GURPS? I am talking about something more to the Superman side than the Batman one. Could you describe your experience? What would you say are the advantages of using GURPS instead of let's say Mutants&Masterminds or other systems?

My understanding is that supers (at least anything approaching flash or superman's level) aren't that great to play in gurps since the system tends to run on heroic realism where things are modeled fairly realistically. A character like flash would have a ridiculous amount of character points upping his speed and quite frankly it would break the game. Now thats not saying it can't be done just not at the level of the flash as gurps has trouble at huge amounts of character points. Recommendations, characters with superhuman basic stats have a cap on their defaults related to those stats. I.E. if I have 25 dex all defaults for dex skills I haven't trained in can't rise above a certain level.(I believe the rule for this is in the basic set).

I'd say the advantage would only exist under two circumstances. Either you would want to preserve granularity even at higher power-levels (e.g. differentiate between Superman's knee and his fist in an unarmed attack), or you would want a system that can run the gamut from mortal vigilantes to gods (e.g. PCs start at action-movie 250-point characters and have exponential point gain to end the campaign at 1000+ points) AND you really really want those power levels to feel hugely different.

Beyond those two niche circumstances, I'd use M&M. Like GURPS, M&M is a solid, flexible system that allows both players and GMs to build what they want piecemeal; the big difference between the two is focus -- one is all about dat detail and heroic realism and the other cant get enough of fast-paced high-power comicbook emulation.

I'm about to play as one of three PC's in a 100/-50 TL3 fantasyish game, other PC's are a murder machine (less than 5 points in non-combat stuff), a "knight" (mix of combat and social stuff).

I'm looking to be all non-combat skills (healing and wilderness stuff), as I can't scrape more than 20ish points together for combat stuff. This is fine in GURPS, right? I just basically AFK during combat hiding under a log, yeah?

In TL3 low fantasy, there is no cheap way to add combat functionality, is there? I thought about a Malediction Affliction but that seems expensive.

Any suggestions or advice from more seasoned GURPS character builders?

You should be able to defend yourself; you won't be taking on enemy lieutenants, but you can not die against mooks. Invest a good deal of those points in to Staff; it's cheap, got great reach, deals sizable damage, and on top of that gives a whopping +2 to Parry rolls. Plus staves and quarterstaffs are de rigur for more heally/supporty types. Put whatever is left over in to FP (Extra Effort in combat is da bomb and may help power any supernatural abilities you might have) or the Sweep technique.

>This is fine in GURPS, right? I just basically AFK during combat hiding under a log, yeah?
Really depends on your GM. Would be fine in my campaign. I'd encourage it, even, seeing how my entire party is murder-machines.

Would do you good to put points into Evade and Stealth, though, just in case.

That aside, Staff is a good and cheap way to not be completely useless in combat.

I'm trying to learn Ritual Path Magic, and I'm having trouble understanding some stuff.

So, Thaumaturgy is a prerequisite for all paths, but what is the limit for that prerequisite? Could you have like IQ-3 Thaumatology and then start buying whatever path you want?

Basically, what I am asking is, is there any benefit to having a higher thaumatology skill, or should you just get the minimum and then dump points into a specific path?

"Trained casters, however, want to raise their core skill as high as possible because it limits their Path skills. No Path skill can ever exceed the lower of the core skill or (12 + Magery level). For example, a caster with Thaumatology-15 could not learn any Path higher than 15, even if he had Magery 10."

Thank you so much dude.

The more points you have in that skill, as just one benifit I still remember, will result in more spells you can hold/stock up. Remember that it is best to make a lot of conditional spells, be they held in your mind, transcribed into physical charms, or brewed into elixirs, in PRM than not.

Also, if you want to ump up the "feeling" of doing magic (opposed to something more akin to superpowers) and to give more of a challenge & balance I suggest forbidding the "Ritual Adept" advantage.

Was hoping for something more interesting that staff, but you're quite right, it is probably the easiest points-to-effect for defense.

Is there a way to do a "summon monster" type thing? Ally with summon would arguably under GM control still?

My GM is very literal, and would rather take on the extra effort of controlling our Allies in combat than risk the chance we may "abuse" it by controlling them ourselves.

How well does GURPS do the lower or higher you down down or up the Tech Level tree? Are there certain TLs that you think the game is just better at? Why?

If you also make it a minion you'll some controll instead of practically none.

Allies are loyal, even though they are under GM control. Add the Minion and Conjurable enhancements and you will have a loyal (and semi-disposable) creature that will enforce your will to the best of its abilities.

GURPS works fine at every TL up to about 11 to 12^ where things start to get weird due to anti-matter-tipped assault rifle rounds. I wouldn't say GURPS handles any of the other TLs way better than another; it works equally fine at TL 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, etc.

I hope the "Lets GURPS!" blog user is still lurking around.

Regarding session recaps: personally, it's just not that interesting for me in general. Your posts on mechanics or reviews or pokemon writeups are damn great. Session recaps I tend to ignore for all blogs, unless they use some mechanic that I am interested in (case in point: hexcrawl blogs, solo GURPS blog, Last Gasp recaps, etc.)

I am always a bit disappointed when I see a new post at something like Dungeon Fantastic or Gaming Ballistic and it's a fucking session recap.

Your more recent and much simpler post on the
swashbuckling template was like a breath of fresh air. However, it must have been pretty tiresome to keep up the daily mechanics posts for a whole year, so main advice - rather post what you want than burn out.

Well take a look, that may cost more than I'd like, maybe just put some points into Staff. Having One-Eye probably doesn't help here.

I'm making a character that gets five points of extra strength from a magical sword that he has. How do I price that?

Enchanted Attribute (ST) (Gadget Limitation, likely Breakable, Can Be Stolen, Unique)

What is "Enchanted Attribute"

thanks btw

It's the same as buying up ST, but written as an Advantage that can then have enhancements and limitations placed on it.

>Melee fighting with One Eye
Don't do it nigga!

Alright! Thanks dude.

I don't want to, the whole idea was not fighting, I even have a 9 ST. May stick to hiding behind trees/furniture.

Wouldn't the Accessibility limitation work better? like "Only works when holding Sword of Strength?"

You could do it either way, but doing it with accessibility makes it seem like the power comes from within you, rather then the sword.

What is gurpsgen opinion on furry pcs?

Hi David Gater. We are fine with them, if it's in a suitable game. Fantasy setting with wolfmen? That's just fine by me. Geneticly engineered catgirls in a future setting? Sure, why not?

Just a guy that is a fox, for some reason, in Regency era England as a sly thief?

Okay, I'd be okay with that last one, but most people would say no.

Define furry, because I define a furry as a bright neon speshul snowflake who uses a reverse blade reverse grip katana.

Beast folk are fine, as long as it fits the setting like said, and also the genetically engineered catgirl thing, which would fit in a future setting in Japan quite nicely.

Cyberpunk catgirls is the only acceptable type of catgirls.
I generally don't mind beastfolks in fantasy, or all-furry settings like in many kids cartoons.

TL 4 is my favorite. It's a great place for adventure and has a lot of interesting stuff.

I'd say that weapons damage gets out of hand at TL 7+. It's a known issue, but not a crippling one, and there are plenty of optional rules to adjust things for realism and less 'rocket tag' game-play.

Low TL games tend to offer brutal combat that can move pretty fast you can't easily get elsewhere.

>Just a guy that is a fox, for some reason, in Regency era England as a sly thief?

Don't be silly. Everyone loves Mister Renard.

Almost everyone gives furry a much wider definition.

Beastfolk are usually not considered furry though, most traditional ones like gnolls, bugbears and the like are too monstrous I guess.

One Eye doesn't affect aimed ranged attacks; you may want to look at getting a crossbow and sniping from your hiding spot at critical times. I'd still put a few points into Staff, though, if only because its +2 to Parry is insane.

Unusual question: I'm creating a character who is a slave. Low Status and Social Stigma are obvious givens, but I'm stumbling over Wealth.

Obviously, he has next to no personal Wealth, but the Masters are obviously covering his living expenses, and now and then, a little extra.

How should I represent this? Patron? I would think that would only be for particularly valued slaves. The average soldier does not have the military as a Patron, only as a Duty, but he is in a similar situation where he gets a good deal of supplies and services 'for free'.

Thoughts?

The slave would still be Dead Broke. That little extra now and then is incredibly small, requiring scrimping and saving to purchase anything of significance; a homeless person that finds discarded dollar bills on the street with some degree of regularity is still Dead Broke, not Poor.

You're right that Patron is inappropriate for this case; the slave's owner would be an "employer" that covers CoL instead of giving regular payments. I'm tempted to say Duty (Constant, Involuntary, Nonhazardous) would be appropriate however, as unlike normal employer/employee relationships, the slave by definition cannot just quit and look for work elsewhere.

bump

Holy balls; I'm in the middle of a house move and relocation in city and haven't games all month, since before Christmas. I feel that incredible sense of semiguilt and not quite failure, even though it's totally unreasonable to run a game right now... Two games entirely on hold until I get my shit sorted.

Thanks gurpsgen for helping me scratch a small part of that massive itch.

I'm trying to figure out how to use The Last Gasp Action Point rules from Alternate GURPS II. Using the Step = 1AP rule variant, could someone give me an example on how much AP it would cost for a dude with 5 move to run for one second, and then start sprinting?

The way I'm calculating it, it would cost 10AP to even start sprinting, which for a guy that has 10 HT would be all his AP so he would have to expend an FP to even start sprinting. Is that correct?

You said one Step = 1 AP is a variant; does this variant maintain the original rule's handling of acceleration/deceleration? If it did, the character would spend 5 AP on round one (accelerating from Move 0 to Move 5), 0 AP on round two (maintaining speed, neither accelerating or decelerating), and 1 AP on round three (sprinting rules come into affect and let him accelerate from Move 5 to Move 6).

I didn't know there were original rules for acceleration. The pic is all this variant says.