The rules and art may be shit, but the supplements are gold for world building

I plan on using the Spaceships rules for running a WWII tank-crew game because that already has rules for vehicle-to-vehicle combat and crew actions, but I'm curious how to handle the loader role. I'm considering treating the main gun as slow-firing TL5 gun (Spaceships 7) even though it's TL6 due to it lacking a mechanical autoloader. Based on what I read in High Tech, the loader would make ST-based Gunner rolls to double the main gun's rate of fire.

Does this sound about right? I'm worried dropping a TL6 cannon to a slow RoF might be an overcorrection, dropping the tank's output to unrealistically low levels.

>be new dm
>group's first time playing rpgs
>listen to advice and make their characters
>trust my players and ignore the disadvantage limit with a PC because it would make it more fun
>make a killing machine that rapes bosses
>It's not as bad as it sounds, at least they are having fun
>they bitch about not having enough money
>Oh, okay then. Having better equipment for everyone might give them a sense of growth. Right?
>They... they put ALL the money into the Ork that lifts trees
>Increase boss difficulty
>Ork can still kill them with one hand
>Players bitch about my campaign being too easy
>They say it's my fault that there's no balance
>They didn't even buy food

Wat do

Why is weapon ST listed in such a confusing way?
>Listed ST is X with no dagger: You need at least ST X for 1H use
>Listed ST is X with single dagger: You need at least ST X for 2H use, ST 1.5X for 1.5H use, or ST 2X for 1H use
>Listed ST is X with double dagger: You need at least ST X for 2.5H use, ST 1.5X for 2H use, or ST 3X for 1H use

It would be a lot simpler if each weapon just listed the ST required for one-handed use.
>For any weapon listed as ST X, you need at least ST X for 1H use, ST 2X/3 for 1.5H use, ST X/2 for 2H use, or ST X/3 for 2.5H use.

(Obviously, "1.5H" means "1H, but becomes unready after an attack". Ditto for "2.5H".)

So, for example, a halberd, formerly listed as ST 13‡, now is simply ST 26, with no double dagger.

Probably a couple parts to it. One is that the system by default expects but does not require average human characters, so everything is framed into those terms. It is easier to communicate "this weapon only needs ST 11, but you need both hands" than "this weapon needs ST 22 to use with one hand, do the math on using two hands."

It helps them communicate how unwieldy a weapon is. The mass at the end of a halberd might be the same as the mass at the end of a lucerne hammer, but one is much longer, requiring both a slightly different skill and grip to use.

The last part is something you see a lot of in GURPS, which is stealing from software design. This is DRY, Don't Repeat Yourself. Using the daggers and double-daggers and an attached footnote is a very DRY practice. It also puts the information close at hand, instead of being an arcane combination of using two hands to grip a ST 22 weapon to bring the ST requirement down, and oh, it's a polearm, so it is unwieldy in this way... You just have an easily referenced footnote that applies the same way to all weapons to which it is attached.

>...bitch about campaign being too easy.

Action economy. If they can gang up on one big dude and the combat is over in one turn because their bruiser is that huge, make their single-target damage mean less. Swarm them with goblins or kobolds or something bigger and meaner. The more there are that can surround them, the more they'll have to defend. The more there are, the less the single target damage means. Sure, the Ork can oneshot a kobold just as easily as the boss, but now doing the same amount of damage requires several shots spread over several enemies.

Sometimes, you just have to brute-force the numbers.

>2X/3
Whoops, should be 3X/4

Planning on introducing a new group to RPGS using gurps. Thinking of using Dungeon fantasy to streamline character creation, what advice do you have?
Players have 0 experience with tabletop RPGS and I was planning on running them through a nice dungeon crawl with a bit of wilderness adventure inbetween the dungeon and the town.

I also want to streamline things as much as possible so that I don't go "hey guys want to try this cool thing" and then hit them with a wall of dense rules.

How much work do you want to do and how familiar with the rules are you?

Here's what I'd do:
> Rewrite the DF templates to use Wildcard skills.
> Use the Ham Clause (Action 1, p. 20). In fact I'd print it in big letters and stick it on the outside of my GM screen.
> Don't let the players make characters. Give them pregens and tell them they can customize if they want.
> Use Simplified Range from the Range Band Table (Action 2, p. 31)
> Don't use any rules that aren't specifically requested. Hit Locations for example should be ignored until a player asks to target a specific location.

There are a ton of other simplifications and alternate options but these are the ones that are coming to me right off the top of my head.

Don't offer complex cool things! Some players will eventually want those (and some will want them before they can handle them). Once they are asked for trot out the specifically demanded rule. If you don't think they are ready for it deflect by saying "those are detailed, sort of complex advanced rules we'll add later once everyone has the basics down."

I would like to minimize the work on my end. Would rather not use pre-gens as I would rather the players make their own characters and get invested in them instead.
I want to avoid front loading things as much as possible.
At the moment my biggest concern is spell selection, 20-30 spells at character gen is quite a large amount and differs greatly from the 1-6 spells you get in D&D.

Should I just give up on gurps and run a game of traveller instead, character gen seems a bit easier to explain in that system.

In Traveller, you're doing character generation with dice against a flowchart. In GURPS, you're shifting character points around. Neither is particularly complicated. That said, character generation is the biggest barrier to entry for any game system. If these guys are newbs, it will be much to your benefit to get them playing as quickly as possible, and that means either using pregens, or using some kind of fast-and-loose character generation.

GURPS is very front-loaded, but it hypothetically makes play much faster. Consider that. If you aren't willing to make some simple pregens or to use fast-and-loose chargen, you shouldn't be teaching the game to people. There is nothing wrong with giving them some canned heroes; get them in the game, run an adventure, and let them either keep the character or make a new one. If they decide as a group to ditch the old characters, that's a great opportunity to have another party of adventurers they can bump into. Also, their canned heroes can die and not totally hate your guts for killing their characters they worked on for an hour or more.

There are ways to minimize the work on your end that will save you loads of time over the course of a campaign. See the Lazy DM's Guide for ideas. Skimping on the work on the first game is not a good way to minimize work, because if you skimp in the wrong way, which is more likely than not with new players, they will have a distaste for the game.

If you insist on character generation, I suggest reading some articles from Mook. themook.net/gamegeekery/gurps-grab-and-go/ and themook.net/gamegeekery/gurps-quick-start-character-creation/

Well, I was hoping that using the templates from dungeon fantasy would speed up the process of Char-Gen. Should I just use pre-set spell lists for if they make a spell-casting character?

I am more familiar with fantasy and have a great deal of experience running D&D and WFRP, but I want to use gurps because it is a lot more versatile and when I introduced another new group using D&D 5e, I found myself wishing I were running gurps.

The players mostly seem to have a greater preference for sci-fi media, which is why I am considering traveller, also the life path system is goo at immediately giving a player a sense of who their character is and is less finicky than moving points around.

Should I just use preset spell lists or should I use a copy of gurps lite hand a copy of of it to the players, have them make characters in the first session and then start playing?

Why doesn't high Per or Acute Vision reduce penalties for combat in the dark?

If two characters with Per 10, one of which has Dark Vision and the other has Acute Vision 10, are in a dimly lit (-5) room, the latter will have better Vision rolls, but the former will take fewer skill penalties to actually do anything, despite not being able to see as well.

Personally, I would suggest not creating characters and doing a typical adventure. Character creation takes a good deal of time (especially for new people), and if something goes wrong (it likely will) and a character dies you either have to wait until a new character is made, sit out the rest of the adventure, or just ignore the death entirely.

What I intend to eventually do is run a sort of introductory scenario – a castle siege. Pregenerated generic characters, and it doesn't matter what side the players are on (as long as they are on the same side). If a player dies, there would be another faceless soldier to replace him. The actions of the bigger battle don't matter, it is just background scenery. Part 1 would involved generic infantry, armed with typical melee weapons. It would focus on movement and the basics of combat.

After the players are comfortable with that, in Part 2 the focus switches to a group of archers, introducing ranged combat, actions taking multiple rounds, and cover. After that, Part 3 introduces mages and the basics of magic. Part 4 would be the final situation – ending the siege somehow. Give them free choice of the 3 types of soldiers (melee, ranged, magic). Maybe introduce “hero” characters – more powerful versions of the basic type more inline with typical player point totals.

Character creation isn't the focus of the game. Leave it until later. You can't teach them to make a character without also teaching them how the game works, but you can teach how the game works without learning how to create characters. After the players know how to play and if they are interested in playing, then teach character creation.

If you choose Traveller instead, I would still suggest doing something similar. Attacking/defending a rebel camp. Character types could be rifleman, heavy weapons (grenade launcher, rocket launcher, whatever), then finally heavy troopers (powered armor). Possibly add in some psychic stuff (if that is going to be available). Then switch to a small spaceship battle.

After they learn the system, then get to rolling characters. If they don't have fun actually playing the game, then it doesn't matter if they learn how to make characters or not.

Going 3 o 4 to one in GURPS means you have to use tactics or someone will get into that always vulnerable Back hex and fuck you up. Multiple attackers or attackers with ATR can also burn up all the 'good' defenses a character has.

Keep the pressure on. The bad-ass might be fine getting 3 to 1, but the rest of the party being engaged may have to hold out and suffer trying to stay safe fighting those kind of numbers.

If you don't want to use pregens then check out Pointless Slaying and Looting from Pyramid 3-72.

That should do it, thanks for helping me fuck my players

In my (, ) experience this doesn't work well unless the new players have a background in something wargame related. Nameless tokens being replaced upon death puts new players in mind of board games and limits their roleplaying as a result. Combat in games is significantly different in play from how it works in reality (a single action including positioning takes a second at most in movies or matches, it takes a big chunk of a minute or more in game).

Start with something social. Preferably investigative. Everybody has a common framework there from movies, books, tv, and their own personal interactions. It allows the GM to fill in the 'how to do it with rules' when presented with 'what I want to do is. . .' Combat has become more and more the center of gaming in recent decades because it is time consuming, easy on players used to click-happy CRPGs, and easy on the GM but there's little to no roleplaying involved.

If you, , want them to learn roleplaying stay away from combat for the first few sessions at least.

The point isn't roleplaying to start with. It is to learn the game mechanics. Faceless characters are fine for that. Social interaction teaches some of the rules, yes. But combat scenarios would cover not only the same general thing (how to resolve a dice roll), but also the combat specific things (cover, damage, armor, etc.).

Unless you are only ever going to do social things with no combat at all, you will need to teach the combat stuff. It just so happens you can usually cover how pretty much everything is done by running a combat scenario. Social scenarios leave a lot out.

The point is to learn the mechanics. Roleplaying isn't mechanics.

I'd say they would count as improved TL5 slow loading guns for effective TL6 and double RoF. This would gives them a RoF of roughly one shot/ten seconds, which is about right seeing as tank cannons have a listed reload time of 4 seconds and Spaceships assumed multiple Aims before firing.

In this case, maybe let the loader boost this by +50% on a successful roll, keep RoF the same on a failure or if there is no roll by the loader, or halve the improved RoF on a critical failure. If there's no dedicated loader, then someone's pulling double duty, meaning multitasking penalties will start rearing their ugly heads.

Fair enough. I agree what you propose is a great way to teach a system to those already familiar with RPGs. I just haven't had as much success with it teaching those completely unfamiliar. Since had a group with no experience at all and you "intend to eventually do" I only meant to share what I had successfully done and what has worked best for scores of new players across several systems. Roleplaying may not be mechanics but a skill roll is a skill roll. Decrementing HPs and adjusting for DR are the simplest things to grasp for new players. Skill and attribute rolls are enough mechanics to play and mechanics are the least important and most off putting part of RPGs for the majority of new players.

You don't need mechanics at all. Some of my favorite sessions have been those where the dice weren't even touched.

Why is GURPS the best system?

Because it isn't a system. Its a toolbox, so anyone who learns how to use it suddenly finds they are able to run anything they ever wanted to run. Also, it has remarkably balanced combat, that treads the line well between strategy and personal skill.

Because the sexy, evocative yet mysterious name.

Talk GURPS-y to me, baby!

Because it fits my needs, preferences and desires better than any other single system I have yet come across and run/played. Which is a lot of other games.

>So, for example, a halberd, formerly listed as ST 13‡, now is simply ST 26, with no double dagger.
Correction: It's now ST 39. Double-dagger required ST gets tripled, single-dagger required ST gets doubled, and no-dagger required ST obviously remains unchanged.

Weren't some people talking about converting Dark Souls to GURPS a thread or two ago? Some stats from DS2:
>Halberd: Strength 20, ST 39
>Hand Axe/Hatchet: Strength 9, ST 8
>(Large) Falchion: Strength 9, ST 11
>Scimitar/Shortsword: Strength 7, ST 8
>Dagger: Strength 2, ST 5
>Long/Bandit's Knife: Strength 3, ST 7
>Greataxe/Great Axe: Strength 32, ST 36
>Pickaxe/Pick: Strength 22, ST 10
>Scythe: Strength 20, ST 33
>Bastard sword: Strength 20, ST 11
>Mace: Strength 12, ST 12
It seems kind of all over the place.

Hmm...
Vigor → HP
Endurance → HT, FP, AP
Vitality → Lifting ST
Attunement → ?
Strength → Striking ST
Dexterity → DX
Adaptability → Fast-Draw (Potion)(?), Acrobatics
Intelligence → IQ + Magery
Faith → IQ + Power Investiture

Because Dark/Night Vision lets your vision actually make out what the fuck is happening in low-light? Being able to make out the pores on someone's face from 10 paces doesn't help you much in the dark.

Because its rules are elegant and feel good, I can do anything with it, and it is designed to be modular. The core resolution mechanic makes my character feel more consistent. It has all sorts of ways the developers recommend to change it up. The list goes on, but those are my highlights.

I don't see how it would be possible to be able to see the pores in someone's face but not be able to throw a punch at their face without penalties.

I see your point. I'd rather just simplify things more and break down weapons to light, medium and heavy and extra heavy.

It's a good thing that the resolution of your vision has nothing to do with hit location penalty, then. Otherwise there might be an inconsistency with the rules.

Check out Douglas Cole's article "Dodge This." It talks about (among other things) calling for Per rolls before making active defenses, and it's easy enough to extrapolate to attack rolls. This roll is waived in 90% of situations, but if there's any question if one party can see the other (extreme distance penalties, cover, darkness/smoke, etc.), that roll replaces all modifiers for visibility (if any).

user is complaining about acute vision/good perception not giving the bonuses they think it should in low-light, not specifically hit-locations.

I re-read the rules on vision... so, akthually, yes, perception and acute vision, etc, are baked into the vision roll. You get a flat bonus for acute vision in all conditions, which is why it costs 2/lvl, and night vision only in low-light costs only 1/lvl. Darkvision, meanwhile, costs 25 because it is the only thing that lets you see in total darkness without extra aid/items/magic/whatever.

TL;DR: You get bonuses from Acute Vision even in low-light conditions before you calculate the penalty of the darkness, but only Darkvision or something outside your character can save you when there's no light at all.

Also, I made a dumb assumption that user was right based on user's complaint instead of first checking the rules. Ignore it.

tfw want to run GURPS but I know my usual group will be too lazy to make characters save for two

See

Start a game where they are each in a cell, then reveal they are all clones. They each get to vote on traits and build the skills attributes they all share, then shit hits the fan in the lab and they all have to escape together.

You only have to run though one bit of no-points character building.. "Do you want to be hulking and strong, or agile and lithe?"

"Your purpose, the reason they created you was combat, technical work or psionic power?"

Then everyone gets a copy of the sheet they built together. Any questions about their character can also be answered by any of the other players, and they don't have to worry about coming up with a name, as they are just 3, 4 and 7.

Which GURPS sourcebook has Bronze Age Mesopotamia?

Low Tech is vital here, their bronze age treatment really is heavily fertile-crescent focused and has a huge amount of detail. Beyond that the Basic Set has some core stuff.

Martial Arts has some stuff on combat, but it's more Greek then Mesopotamian. GURPS Greece is, likewise, quite Grecian focused.

There's also GURPS Egypt, might have something related.

Has anyone bothered making a better GM screen than the default one, or should I just bite the bullet and make one myself with what I think I'll need?

I would have liked something more focused on history, geography, etc rather than a gear list, but it's a start

Working on running a game in 1941 specifically during Operation Mercury/Invasion of Crete with the players as Fallschirmjaeger assaulting the island.
Trying to work out the stats for the general soldiers they will be facing, how does this look as far as skills/attributes/equipment goes?

Why don't you just use the templates and stuff from WWII/All the King's Men/Their Finest Hour converted to 4e?

How do you think the Technomancer setting would be different in the modern day?

Looks good the basic bitch fresh out of Hallfaix.

Read the book before passing judgement anom

You can move the sections around the page?!?!?

How would you convert to 4e?

It has a funny name that make people look at your weirdly

A new patch came out that reorganized bits. I think Rich, the guy who makes GCS, also has a crude stopgap configuration in source control to make custom reorganizations since some people backlashed over the new layout.

Make pregens

Or make the lazy ones use templates

Low Tech is heavily Fertile Crescent based.
Make sure to also look at the companions

Sadly as far as I know there's no specific Mesopotamian books, though there is a Egypt book.

Otherwise you're going to have to look at an actual history book and convert from there

Some dude made one with some houserules:
rpglair.weebly.com/uploads/7/6/8/2/7682058/gm_screen_4.pdf

TheMook has a simplified version, along with player handouts and other useful shit:
themook.net/gamegeekery/downloads/

Those are the only two I really know of, though if you do decide to make your own, Mook has a pretty good setup for his that you could copy:

themook.net/gamegeekery/my-gurps-gm-screen/

Good luck my dude

He is dangerous any time he can find cover and aim. Don't dismiss how powerful that rifle is.

He has 12 skill with the gun, the rifle has 5 acc. Assumeing he can Brace it on cover and takes one second to aim, he's looking at 18 SL

At 15 yards he is rolling vs a very respectable 13 to hit. At 50 yards it's just a hair better then a coin toss with him rolling vs 10.

6d+2 PI is nothing to sneeze at. It's 23 damage, enough to put most any human down with a center body mass hit.

It sounds really easy to kill player characters. How do you stop games from being a player slaughter instead of an actual game?

23 damage will drop a man, but it might not kill him. Assumeing he catches it in the torso or face and he has human-average 10 HP he will be at -13 HP and have to make a HT roll.

If he passes the roll he's down, but alive. If he fails the roll by 1 or 2 he's down and has a mortal wound, but can be stabilized and evacuated to a hospital for treatment.

So yeah, it's very bad to be shot, but not instantly lethal. A lot of people point out that this isn't all that fun and isn't really realistic (unlike other games, guns in GURPS are MORE lethal then IRL rather then less..)

So there are optional rules. Survivable Firearms would make the rifle deal 12-13 damage with a hit. The player that caught that would still risk being knocked down and out, but would not be in any danger of death.

In combat, encourage players to stand behind cover. You can shoot with your vitals and torso behind a wall that means damage from the gunshot might be reduced by 20, meaning those bullets won't cause nearly so much fuss. They also get a Dodge roll, a chance to duck down/away out of the line of fire at the last second and avoid being shot.

How does Gurps handle OSR stuff and classic dungeon crawling? My group has been using D20 based games to run this stuff for the longest time, but I'm just curious.

We really enjoy the classic "loot a dungeon of treasure and kill monsters" style of game, can Gurps run this well?

...

>Survivable Firearms
Where do I find that? Is it a splatbook or a pyramid article or something?

Use alternate rules that make guns less stupidly lethal. High Tech's optional wounding rules are good.

Dungeon Fantasy was explicitly made for OSR games, so extremely well.

Pyramid #3/44 - Alternate GURPS II

This is a good one in general.

>...MORE lethal than in real life.
Depends on the gun, user. 23 damage is outside the range of a 3D pi damage handgun, but squarely average for a 7D pi bolt-action rifle. A .44 3D pi+ handgun is still gonna lay a dude out, on average, as will a rifle from even greater range. There is some amount of rocket-tag going on with the damage, but it is plausibly dangerous.

>OSR stuff and classic dungeon crawling
Dungeon Fantasy is literally this.If you want the physical books, I'd order the box set from your flgs. Heroic realism is at play, here, neither a cartoony power fantasy nor too gritty to enjoy. GURPS Dungeon Fantasy avoids many of the tropes which plague newer DnD, including HP bloat and quadratic wizards

Yes, GURPS does OSR very well.

Ha! Saving that one.

GURPS Update and replacing equipment stat blocks with the 4e equivalent.

DF is a bit brutal. A barbarian will have limbs flying everywhere if they fight people without armor.

Yeah, the GURPS rules are pretty shitty to be honest.

C'mon, at least change up your example once in a while. Why not tell us how a character with 80 points in Brawling can throw punches unrealistically quickly, or how 80 points in Acute Vision can let you see really small things from really far away?

...

Shut your fucking mouth. For real. Spending 80 points in guns in UNREALISTIC. Sure, you can do it, but the 3rd point in the general pdf is coming from the perspective of a normal, "realistic" character. As in: not spending 80 points in Guns. If your game is not intended to be realistic, that's fine. But don't come around posting when you clearly have not played a single game and have no idea what you're talking about.

Is this the state of Veeky Forums?

GURPS skills are supposed to be capped dumbass

youtube.com/watch?v=zxt3FBVq8Jg

What uses would there be for a dog in GURPS? How would I best stat a dog as an ally (I guess that is what you would do) in a modern military setting?

Basic Set's got a dog statted out, but it's not meant to be used for ally usage. GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 5's got a dog ally statted out. You can dial it back to make it more realistic.

Yep.
That's your fault.
You said yes too much and they lose that fun which you think you gave them by allowing crazy shit and lotsatreasures .

You can't stat an ally
In gurps gm should do it
And for military campaigns doggos is gear, mostly

is right. You should treat the doggo as gear, so you buy it using Signature Gear

Ally can work just fine, depends on your game.

Uses: (Realistic)
Ordinance and hostile detection, patrol assistance, catching fleeing people, tracking.

Uses (Cinimatic):
Attacking and neutralizing armed enemies, detection of non-humans, marking enemies so you can see where they are though walls, looking goddamn awesome in an eye patch.

If it's generic dog you don't carry much about, just buy it for money.
If it's good boy Spot the dog, buy it with Signature Gear.
If it's somewhat cinematic Lassie-tier doggo, which can operate on its own and understand complex commands, buy it as Ally and ask GM to give it extra IQ.

How shadows/dskkness can vary for environmental limitation?
By intensity and by size?

Is there a list of all the random-generation procedures in GURPS?
>Alien species (Space)
>Star system (Space)
>Treasure stash (DF Treasure Tables)
>History of a country (Turning Points of History, Pyramid 3-41)
What am I missing?

Also, has anyone compiled a better chronological list of all 4e publications than the one on these pages? sjgames.com/newproducts/nrshipped.html?y=2004

>Attunement → ?
In-game Attunement works out to basically being a Modular Ability - it's very Vancian in some respects, especially in DS1 and DS2. Dark Souls 3 moves to a variant where you prepare specific spells at a bonfire and then cast from your MP, though.

But yes, it's basically a modular ability with a bunch of limitations on it and some stacking mechanics (strong spells take more slots or have less uses within each slot). The question is how to implement that, and whether or not it's worth bothering.

>Alternate-history setting (Infinite Earths)

Easiest would be a version of MA that requires a source material like Super Memorization where you cannot improvise abilities, only temporarily obtain them from books/scrolls/etc. After that, it's a mater of making the spells with Limited Use either with Fast Reload if we're keeping bonfires or without further making riders if we're ditching them in favor of traditional resting that was abstracted by the bonfires.

>making riders
Modifiers, sorry. Filthy phoneposter here.

>not disabling autocorrect
English (Native/Accented) (Mitigator, Autocorrect)

Pyramid #3/109, Pagoda of Worlds, Fantasy-Tech 2 pdf when reeeeee

>not just buying them yourself

The issue is ok, pagoda of worlds is ok, and fantasy tech 2 is pretty good.