GURPS General /GURPSGEN/

>Ripped the heart out of a fiery salamander.
>Fed it to familiars and elves

Got to say, I'm much happier with a spirit ally then bothering to learn about magic. Damn thing comes in handy often.

You can always get a better shell later.

I could, but my only other option for a shell is the standard body, which is like 30 points and not too good at all. It's hard, being in a 400 point game and trying to get everything right. Do you think I really should focus on getting more skills and utility, and save a good body for later? The character isn't combat focused at all, but having a nice body as a primary living space would be cool.

I'd become airship pirate and nope the fuck out of these lands if I were you, to be honest.

Can someone please explain me how Status works? I'm trying to put nobility (few "stages" of it) in the game, along with serfs, freemen and alike, but I'm absolutely incapable of decipher how the Status should work. Is there any article describing it in detail, or only the short bit in Basic Set?
And can you combine Status with Rank, when doing said nobility (so it would be Ranks of Status 3, rather than bloating the amount of Status tiers)?

Hit up Social Engineering for a general overview, Fantasy for specific mention of knights, and Dungeon Fantasy: Guilds for a gamey approach.

Feudal nobility is hard because despite the formal titles everything was really established by a network of alliances, oaths, bloodlines and intermarriage, and coercions that really isn't easy to abstract into a hierarchal Status or Rank system on its own. There's also the issue that feudalism lasted a long while, so two people can be arguing about what better represents feudalism and they'll both be right because they're talking about different eras (IIRC, the rise of the merchant class signaled a big change in how the authority of the nobility worked).

if only there were airships! The setting is darker and more mythic magic. Very real power tends to attract very big threats, so magic engines havent really caught on.

Demon infused elven cultists of the doomsday however, those have caught on in droves

This is neither fantasy nor dungeon fantasy - it's TL5 Russian frontier. But I guess the rules will be generic enough to apply anyway, even if written with completely different games in mind.
Social Engineering - where to look it up?

Even in one time period status was confusing and varied from place to place.

The holy roman empire was a place where a count could outrank a prince, knight had 3 different meanings and if you wanted to hire someone to manage an estate for you the way to do it was to adopt him into your family as a foster son, even if he was older then you.

>Social Engineering - where to look it up?
OP 'image'

The horror.

The horror.

If you want to keep it simple..

Status -2 is Prisoners, Slaves, ect. These are people that have very limited legal rights. Russian serfs, in some areas.

Status -1 are most serfs, house servants, ect. These people don't own property and might have limited rights, but they are considered people.

Status 0 are freemen. Common soldiers, tradesmen, freehold farmers, sailors, poor merchants, ect.

Status 1 are respected tradesmen, minor local government, Squires, Sergeants, Yomen, ect. Men of Quality, if not nobility.

Status 2 is the lowest levels of nobility, and the warrior class. Landless knights, the untitled sons of nobility, the most respected professionals like master craftsmen and guild leaders, and the richest merchants.

Status 3 is landed knights and the first people that can honestly be called Lords. In many cases, these guys don't answer to any law but their peers. A village leader or city councle, or their representatives, can't arrest, detain or put them on trial, for example.

I think this is all I need. Thanks a bunch!

...

How much would it unbalance things to treat melee rapid strikes the same way as firing multiple shots from a ranged weapon?

They just can't work that way and you know it.

youtube.com/watch?v=6UmEch1eRXo

Pyramid #61 has a power that does just that.

Hello, could someone please help me, i'm trying to calculate how much 1 point of damage that works just like normal ST damage roll is worth in character points, i want to know how many character points would take to deal a no damage roll required punch, i want the damage to be always the same but i'm having trouble.

Try that again in English, please

What, with one attack roll and multiple hits based on MoS? I'd have to look at it more closely, but my gut reaction is less "unbalanced" and more "not as good as RAW." If we keep the -6 penalty but condense it to a single roll, I *think* you'll see an overall drop in number of hits scored. There's also the issue that two different strikes can have a multitude of options--you can throw out a slash to a sword arm followed by a deceptive strike to the vitals, or a grapple to the skull that assists a knee to the face--and abstracting it into MoS just doesn't allow that level of planning or detail

Either an ability as pointed out, or someone with Trained By a Master and Karate-32 that can throw out 6 rapid strikes/second with a final skill of 14 (possibly more if using the rules for Combinations from Martial Arts; assuming the GM doesn't shoot the idea down and the character has enough points, you *could* buy arbitrarily-high levels of the Combination techniques).

Not sure if I understand what you're asking, but maybe check "Partial Dice" on page 62 of Basic Set: Characters?

Sorry, i will try again. just wait a bit.

Idle thought, anons, sparked by something a few threads back.

If you were to take GURPS lite, and expand it to say 64 pages (this is a soft number, but that's the entirety of D&D B/X, my metric for a 'complete' game in length), what would you add?

I'd go for basic combat maneuvers as suggested in How To Be a GURPS GM, a brief magic system, the probability chart, and... I dunno what else.

Yeah, that's it. it is in page 62, many thanks user.

The user above already helped me find what i was looking for, thanks for replying.

2d is considering to be equivalent to 7 points of damage.
Alternatively, Innate Attack costs x0.3 of per point of damage.
Both of those are based on the fact that average result of d6 roll is 3.5.

>a brief magic system
Which one though? Regardless of anyones feelings on the system, the default magic rules do not lend themselves to efficient usage of space. I'd say a quick blurb on Sorcery (a textbox saying "Use Modular Abilities + Alternate Abilities!" is easy to fit in anywhere) and less than six pages on a flexible system like symbol/syntactic.

Definitely expand on combat options. Maybe a bit more gear too?
In general, stick in as much of Action 2 as you can fit.

>and less than six pages on a flexible system like symbol/syntactic

I'm down for that, was essentially what I was envisioning.

At least half-a-dozen pages dedicated to Wildcard! skills in both theory and practice. Wildcard! skills a basically a must for people coming from other systems that don't want to handle up to two dozen individual skills and would rather pain with broad strokes.

So.

I received an interesting argument from a player. The session was over, and it was time to loot the fuck out of everything. The player had the Greedy disadvantage.

I proposed that they had to roll to avoid taking as much loot as they possibly could. This would be at the expense of the rest of the party, if he got to the best loot first. But the player argued they did not need to roll to not do this.

When asked why, they proposed that their character is greedy, but not stupid. He didn't think his character could get away with taking all the best loot from the rest of the party, and if the party got pissed off at him, that would effect his ability to get more wealth in the future.

At the time, this seemed like a rational enough argument, but the more I thought about it, the stupider it seemed. It's a NEGATIVE quality, and a 15 point one at that. It's supposed to make you do things that inconvinience your character and put you into bad situations. The quality doesn't say to make exceptions to your greed in the face of long-term consequences. It says you have to roll against urges to acquire money.

I'm posting this here to get a second opinion. Am I being overly harsh, or is this player being a faggot?

The latter. "Rational greed" would be just a quirk.

The point of self-control rolls for disadvantages is that if you fail you do shit that a reasonable person wouldn't do. Your disadvantage overrides any rational thought. The character just can't help themselves.

Just like an alcoholic knows rationally that drinking is bad for them, but doesn't have the willpower to avoid drinking, same with a greedy character.

The whole point of a disadvantage is that it puts the player at a disadvantage in some situations. It's not much a disadvantage if they can just ignore it when they want to.

Now, that doesn't mean you have to disregard his argument. At -15 points, self-control rolls are under 12, which are already good odds, but if his argument is sound enough, you could give him a +2 or +3 to the self-control roll.

On the other hand, if the loot is a lot of money and the character is poor, self-control should get harder (Basic Set suggests -5).

Still, the takeaways is that if he has Greed in the situation involving potential income for him, he doesn't get to ignore the roll, the best he can hope for is a bonus to the roll.

So basically, the player was being a faggot.

I'd give him a roll, with a bonus if he makes a good argument for why in this case his character would think that it's a bad time to be greedy.

+2 if being observed by companions that insist on fair shares, +1 if simply considering the feelings of companions ( he's free to feel guilty about it, of course, if he fails the roll), -2 if there's something small and highly valuable he could snag without others seeing.

Rational Greed is for when he passes his Self Control roll and can choose not to act on his personality flaw.

Doesn't Greedy explicitly mention that you will eventually do something illegal/stupid in the pursuit of money simply due to the always being tempted? You were in the right. His argument was justification *if he succeed his self-control roll* but that doesn't mean he shouldn't roll in the first place; if he failed, he either didn't think of the consequences 'cuz MONEY or he did think he could get away with it.

Greed says to "do whatever it takes to get the payoff." I would say that rather than rolling to TAKE the loot without talking to the rest of the party, which is a specific action, it should be a roll to see whether or not he his compelled to get it in some capacity - which could include arguing in-character as to why he should have more, or whatever course he deems necessary.

I would also imagine that looting bodies after an individual fight probably isn't very big, and Greed rolls are supposed to be easier to make if the sum is small compared to the wealth he currently has.

Greed is also meant to be compulsive in a way, so the argument that it might harm his long-term profits isn't really relevant. He's GREEDY - that's not the same as being a cutthroat businessman. The disadvantage, to me, IS geared to short term success, even at the cost of long-term success.

Disadvantages aren't necessarily meant to hamstring a character - when it comes to personality traits, these are things that the player agrees to roleplay at every given opportunity, essentially committing to certain decision before the game starts in exchange for character points. They should always been looked at as an opportunity for roleplay and character development - a source of narrative conflict and not just an obstacle to overcome.

>They should always been looked at as an opportunity for roleplay and character development
Unfortunately, more often than not, people tend to pick disadvantages that seem like free points at the time, so it ends up being up to the GM to force the player to make certain choices.

Some people think that this takes agency away from the player, but I don't really mind it that much, particularly because the player gets to choose a disadvantage, and if he didn't consider the consequences, that's his fault.

Meant to reply to this:

Damn, dude, yeah. Player was wrong.
WTF, who plays likethat

>Some people think that this takes agency away from the player, but I don't really mind it that much, particularly because the player gets to choose a disadvantage

And that's really the heart of the matter. Yes, you don't get to make the decision in the moment (though you do in a way - you can roll to resist the compulsion)...

But the "in the moment" decision isn't really taken away, it's supplanted by a previous decision made - by the player - during character creation.

And you're right, players often take an advantage worth a healthy chunk of points thinking they can just minimize the chance of ever having to roll against it - then when they find themselves in such a situation, they try to post-hoc rationalize away having to make good on the decision they already made.

A fine idea.

Didn't think about bonuses/maluses to rolls, good idea, can't believe I forgot that.

It says it's 'almost a forgone conclusion that you will do something illegal', and that was mostly in reference to the trait being combined with Honesty. But yeah, the text does imply that it's difficult to make it work with not being a dick.

I like your solution best, good thinking.

Thanks for the help, y'all.

> then when they find themselves in such a situation, they try to post-hoc rationalize away having to make good on the decision they already made.

This shit's happened to me more than once, honestly. But I've always wondered if I was just being a dick GM, and the players actually had a point. Sometimes they do. But I want to be less forgiving of this in the future.

Just remember - it's not a PUNISHMENT, it's an opportunity to roleplay (read as: have fun).

One player stealing the most valuable loot can just easily lead to comedic moments as it does heated moments. Characters doing things to hinder each other doesn't need to end in violence and death - I notice a lot of groups will rapidly go from insulting each other to trying to murder each other. That's completely irrational and comes out of frustration rather than good roleplaying, and the frustration comes from seeing these things as punishment - from seeing conflict as a "bad force" to overcome rather then the impetus for all of storytelling.

Are there any cinematic rules for knocking people out with blows to the head without inflicting massive HP damage?

Sure. A blow to the face, eyes or skull that deals enough damage to cause a shock penalty (1 damage, unless you have 20+ HP) can stun and knock down a person. (Page 420, Basic Set).

If the person fails the HT roll by 5 or more, they are knocked out rather then stunned. Note that a Major Wound to the head gives -5 to the HT roll.

So a good shot to the face or skull can stun or knock out without dealing massive HP damage (just 1 point can do it). Repeated blows to the head will, unless the target has very high HT, generally knock someone out before they hit their full HP in negative and risk death.

Realistically, hitting someone in the head to knock them out because you don't want to hurt them is a Bad Idea. This can cause serious brain damage, or kill.

>cinematic

>anything your gm approved.

Just making it clear that it's an area where the default rules err a little on the side of action-movie logic rather then realism. That's not a bad thing. Nobody wants to get new points in disadvantages because of a TBI.

They're not, actually. Cranium area not only gives bonus to stun and knockdown, but also a x4 damage multiplier. So if you hit someone on head with hard object, there is serious risk that you kill them, just like in real life.

But the face gets X0 damage from most types and uses the same rules.

>same rules
>Any face hit or skull hit triggers HT check for knockdown, but Face have HT-5 on major wound, and Skull HT-10. And to fall unconscious, you need to fail this check by 5 or more.
Are you sure plain punching faces good choice?
Anyway everyone if he doesn't murderhobo willing to negotiate after get solid hit in the head, even if this don't lights out him

If a disadvantage fails to achieve it's namesake it should not be worth points.
I am of the philosophy of pick things that link to who the character is, so I rarely make self control rolls, because my characters tend to just give into the compulsion, unless it is obvious that giving into the quality that calls for it is a bad idea.

>> "or is this player being a faggot?"

How does sexuality factor into the equation at all?

In a way, they do err on the side of cinematic conventions. By the RAW/Core rules, *if* the character survives the attack, they won't ever suffer from any sort of potential neurological disorder that results from getting their brain banged around. You need "GURPS Martial Arts" for those sort of rules.

Martial Arts. A game where your point value can get lower every session.

This is Veeky Forums. Everyone here is a faggot.

Don't you have to pay points for your most expensive body?

Action 3. As long as you're sneaking up on someone and using a crushing weapon, any attack that penetrates DR to the skull is an immediate and safe KO.

Not him, but what about non-cinematic rules?

Fish for a failed KD&S with blows to the groin, vitals, face, or skull like the user earlier was talking about. Really though, if you're in melee with someone you need to KO rather than kill, grapple them; strikes for unconsciousness aren't reliable, safe, or fast in GURPS or real life, so go for a sleeper hold instead.

Hey newfag here. How do you guys go about tryna get gurps material? I'm looking for Warriors (3rd ed) and Middle Ages 1, for the record

same poster: also, they're not on the mega :(

What program should I use to make a character?

GCS is by far the most useful and handy of all char-gen softs.

I like GCS personally, but if I'm doing something weird/custom, I just use notepad.

I can check my personal collection, but some stuff just doesn't exist as a PDF because no one has scanned the books for one reason or another.

That would be super nice user, cheers :D

Related question: so the idea is to make a vaguely For-Honor inspired campaign: an 1100 AD crusaders' war tent outside occupied Acre is inexplicably teleported to an Australia-sized landmass with scarce resources, along with a grab-bag of warrior-cultures (mostly from around 600 AD) who obviously don't speak the language. Shenanegans ensue.

Here's a question: How would you deal with injury and recovery in a low-tech no-magic campaign? I'm all for realism but it doesn't sound like a fun time to tell the PCs their character has to take 3 months' recovery time every time they take a solid hit and cross their fingers that nothing gets infected. I'm thinking of introducing some magic handwavery literally just to deal with this, but I'm interested in getting some opinions here

I can think of a few solutions.

Everyone has a backup character. Squires, vassals, and similar NPCs are bought as allies and can be used temporarily while the main character is out of commission. This is also an opportunity for players to try out different character styles; the straightforward honorable warrior might have a brutally pragmatic sneak as a servant.

Use templates to make chargen fast and easy and make new characters as necessary. If Sir Bauldric get his sword arm pulped, he retires, shows up as an NPC every now and then, and the player brings a new character into play. This isn't the best option if you want to get deep into roleplaying though, as the players probably won't have time to get attached to their characters; on the flip side, they might have an X-COM experience and get *super* attached to any character that manages to survive more than a few engagements.

High point values so you don't get crippled in the first place. 400-point gods of the battlefield should be able to overcome and overpower even trained veterans en masse. This probably isn't what you're looking for, but it's an option. If Champions from Monster Hunters can take on a pack of werewolves or cadre of vampires, someone at their point value can probably go full Dynasty Warriors on an army of mooks.

Do nothing. Low-tech warriors have high HT, Fit, and Rapid Healing/Very Rapid Healing for a reason. This approach also makes straightforward combat not be the end-all-be-all of the campaign; diplomacy may surface, tactics may be employed, and stealth and deceit utilized if every combat has a chance to lay even the might warriors low. Realistically, downtime would also be a thing, and good TL-appropriate medical care plus high HT and Rapid Healing/Very Rapid Healing will bring anyone that wasn't thoroughly curbstomped back into the fight relatively soon. Lastly, solid armor against human-level ST and weapons is fucking great; warriors would invest in their iconic armors.

I'm uploading them both to the trove, check a few minutes after my post.
Middle Ages is pretty gud, desu.
You can also check out 4e Crusades, and Loadouts - Low-tech Armors if you haven't already.

Those are actually pretty good ideas. You're right that 400-point is a little high-power for what I have in mind, but you're also right that it's probably worthwhile to see what kind of mileage I can get out of TL-appropriate measures. Thinking about it, you're thirdly right that without some magical support network, any sort of armed combat is going to be ass-clenchingly terrifying, even if the PC's are in chainmail vs. some rando peasant with a spear - and not the sort of thing to be entered lightly. Which is a nice dynamic.

Got 'em! Thanks user :D

Best part is that you can always change it later is lack of magical healing is making the game unfun; weird lights in the night sky and a few trippy dreams later, magic is now a thing. Starting with magic and taking it away if you don't like it is a big no-no in most groups (especially if any of them invested even a single point into magical skills), but introducing it after the fact is okay because it adds another tool to your players' (and you NPCs') toolbox.

>3rd ed

Because third edition books, much like fourth edition books, have a lot of useful information in them beside mechanics.

I got a trial pass to this brazilian download site for 10 free downloads (I already used 5).

I can take requests if anyone is interested and its not in the Mega already (pls check there first so I'm not wasting downloads)

Theres some old autoduel stuff I want to get actually, thats not in the mega, but Ill still take requests

This.

A lot of people think disads are totally and solely about trading something that handicaps the character for additional points--a punishment.

But the points are also a reward. Every disad is a "character hook," to distinguish the character from everyone else's. Every disad is an opportunity for roleplaying and storytelling.

This isn't to say that excessive disads don't make the game unplayable ("I wanted a character with IQ 25 so I made him quadriplegic, Hunted by the FBI and the Mafia on a 14 or less, terminally ill, with Overconfident, Bloodlust, Berserk, Bad Temper, Alcoholic, Paranoia, Pyromania, a phobia of the number 13, Manic Depression, Oblivious, and an Odious Personal Habit of making constant fart jokes that causes a -3 reaction")--but a good GM always keeps in mind that there are two sides to disads.

>A lot of people think disads are totally and solely about trading something that handicaps the character for additional points--a punishment.
They think like that because of their GMs allowed this. Its a circle. And when someone try to break it, it starts to confronting with their comfort zone "Disadvantages=free points".
And on the other side
>Like wft duude, why i need all those Disadvantages to let me being able to ROLEPLAY facts from backstory like this is my character and he is SJW, or Alcoholic, or he do c-c-cocaine and lolis or whatewer, duuude wft is this, duuude?

>my character is an SJW
so... Odious Personal Habit (makes everything about his politics), -2 reaction? plus Oblivious (can't take a hint, doesn't know when to shut up)?

I kid, I kid.

Actually, that's pretty spot on

In GCS How do I add a template to a character?
Just drag and drop the advantages/disadvantages?

Yep. Everything should be collected into two packages (advantages/disadvantages and skills) you can drag n' drop.

Drag and drop, and you need to hit the area it fits in. Takes some getting used to, but you'll see the cursor icon change

Is there a splat or Pyramid issue that helps GMs flesh out settlements and cities besides City Stats?

Besides the Grimwyrd folks that we know already, what sorts of games are you guys playing/getting into?

I'm trying to homebrew for the first time in GURPS.

I'm trying to understand powers.

Anything in particular you're having trouble getting?

I'm the guy that posted about the Samurai/Western game a few threads ago.

How does it work exactly?
I'm used to anima where when I want to make a custom thing I have a table with the price and modifiers, but I can't seem to find the power actual price.

Is to say; I want to make a character able to create updrafts:
I would go "Environmental Control-Control and create (Air)->Create (Updraft)" But I have no modifiers so I'm confused, but I go on.
Now I have no idea how to cost the power or do anything at all to go on so I'm lost again since none of what I have done so far seems to actually matter (the cost on itself doesn't increase or decrease) and I can just discern the manual going "make it up".

In short: I have no fucking idea how to do this, I'm used to autistic tables.

Control (Powers, page 90 (P90)) at an appropriate price for air. That advantage has a price based on the rarity of the thing you're controlling. You then use limitations and enhancements to modify the price by multiplying the base price by the percentage modifier (B100~102 covers this). You should read Basic Set first before delving into Powers so you understand what you're doing.

Anybody...??

It's barely been an hour, no need to re-ask. GURPS generals are slow. Afraid I don't have anything, though- I've just used City Stats in the past.

The problem is finding the base price and modifiers, I do understand the % modifiers.

Although thanks, I was looking at the start of the book.

The base price is immediately after the bold heading for every advantage. Control has Variable as its price, and within the text it states the cost (Common is 20/level, Occasional is 15/level, etc.)

For starters, Powers =/= Abilities. Powers are just thematic descriptors like "Fire Control" or "Telepathy" while Abilities are specific things you can do within that power such as Burning Attack or Mind Reading. Grouping Abilities as part of a broader Power has a few advantages, namely that they all benefit from a Talent that gives +1/level to all relevant rolls.

Build the things you want to do with advantages and relevant enhancements and limitations, then group them under a Power.

As for your specific example, like said you can use Control (Air), but that might not be the best bet. If the ability is just meant to shove people around, a Crushing Attack (No Wounding; Double Knockback) would be better. If you control wind to blow yourself around, Flight is more appropriate. Regardless of what you end up choosing though, the entire suite of abilities would go under the Power of "Air."