GURPS General

>If you have a basic attribute over 20, treat it as 20 for default purposes. For instance, if you have IQ 25, your default Lockpicking skill (IQ-5) is 15 – not 20. No such limit applies to defaults to other skills.

What did they mean with the "No such limit applies to defaults to other skills"? is that that some skills default with a cap of 20 and others don't? or all skills default with that cap unless you put skill points in it?

Skills that default to other skills (Rather than base stats) are not penalised in such ways. So if you default to one sword skill from another sword skill and it's over 20, you are not capped at 20.

So any skill with multiple defaults gets a pass? thanks.

I think staff and spear should be the same skill, but I agree that the parry bonus for staff is excessive, and would be more appropriately covered by Defensive Grip or something similar.

Staves are the only long balanced weapon you can grab and slide with your hand anywhere through its length, "abusing" this is how you get +2 parry. Other weapons can do similar thing and this is why they get +1 parry from Defensive Grip but you can't slide your grip through a greatswords blade or easily maneuver an unbalanced polearm.
In the end, though, we could argue it to death without reaching a conclusion. Many people consider rapiers the ultimate dueling sword but ask someone like George Silver about it and you will get an entire book about why rapiers are stupid.

Make an entire chapter dedicated to waifu's

Not sure that'll work. They might just spend the whole game comparing it to D&D and how it does everything "better." I wish you luck, though.

Time to start on this S&S thing.

I appreciate Bucket of Points optional rules because combined with Talents and some custom made templates -- actually closer to lens -- provides a good guideline so even new players can build a balanced and efficient character that can be both fun to play and useful to the party.

>HURRPSgen
>2k18
>We need GURPS lite version of DF RPG cuz it too complex to play Sword&Sorcery
>SHEEEEEEIIIT

you sound like an alien that is trying to study humans for the first time. you must not be the right age or have a wide enough circle of friends. let me tell you, when everyone around you is getting married and pumping out kids you will wish they would talk about something other than their marriage/family life for once.

A mini encounter to test the character and tweak it is always appreciated

Dresden files, Montreal 1988
>In a lonely doctor's office off the St.Lawrence, a few strangers meet under stranger circumstances. The frozen night brings chills, not from the cold, but from the terror of the VAMPIRE
A kind of session zero concept test I ran for my regulars; I probed using wildcard skills on a three-days-from-retirement detective, a tough guy medic sailor on leave, and a coquettish young woman. They ran afoul of a drug ring/vampire hunters in the dead of night, and the Red Court vampiress threw down with them. It of course, ended in a thermite fuelled inferno.

In the future, I think I still want to work with detailed skills; wildcard for combat felt very dull/option lite. Otherwise, the world would be a fun TL7 romp with RPM or quite possibly Sorcery.

I want my chracter to be an unique snowflake. How do I add flair to him?

Mechanically, with perks and (especially) quirks, which allow for a decent amount of snowflakiness even if your advantages and disadvantages are all fairly pedestrian.

>Wildcards for combat
>Dull and option-lite
Yes, because having a bunch of techniques and unique options at your fingertips, that you're actually good at without having to waste points, or pump your skill to ungodly levels, is so boring.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.

Is dungeon fantasy also good for not dungeon crawler stuff?

Yeah, although obviously it has limits and a lot of it is focused on hack & slash, it does have a lot of generally useful things too.

At least some of the monsters are usable in any pretty much fantasy genre.
Racial templates are generally good for a wide range of fantasy.
Class templates range from rather good for a variety of stuff to pretty much just dungeon crawlers.
Power-Ups are usually good for any combat heavy game.
Allies is pretty useful as a bestiary.
Artefacts and Epic Treasures kind of assume a certain power level, but could work in other games.
Treasure Tables is just generally good.
Wilderness Adventures is generally useful.
Guilds is actually an interesting read, although it would need modifying a bit for many genres.
Power Items work for any high-magic game.
Incantation Magic is just a generally useful magic system in my opinion. Slightly more restrictive than RPM and maybe a bit less 'flavour' but more balanced and better suited to high fantasy.
The DFRPG is less good outside it's box, because it restricts access to social traits.

How do I divvy out character points? I've read the section on giving out points, but I want some opinions. I feel just giving 2 - 3 points per session feels like too little, I think giving out more points over prolonged periods would feel rewarding, something like 10 points every 3 sessions, more if they've done something amazing or defeated a major enemy

How about you guyses? How do you give out points?

So what happens if you afflict a disadvantages on a character with the opposite advantage? for example, afflicting combat paralysis on somebody with combat reflexes, do they negate each other or the negative overrides the positive?

Isn't 10 points every 3 session is basically 3 points per session? either way it's still a lot if the campaign takes a year or more irl, I rather give 1 point per session + bonus points per achievement

Not him, but I hate that shit. Let people have points to play with, and branch out, instead of waiting 3 months to save up for one advantage.

Can I use Nioh to visualize attack types?
>High stance + strong attack = All-Out Attack
>High stance + weak attack = middle stance + strong attack = Committed Attack
>Middle stance + weak attack = low stance + strong attack = Attack
>Low stance + weak attack = Defensive Attack

Not trying to continue the argument at all, but holding it with both hands (in a balanced way, not clear at one end) sounds a lot like Defensive Grip. And if you sharpened one or both ends and changed the thrust damage to impaling, does it stop being balanced? Maybe polearms that don't have a "U" parry should get +2 from Defensive Grip.

I'd venture to say that vanilla DF is at least as good for not dungeon crawler stuff as D&D/Pathfinder is. That's without taking into account its compatibility with the other GURPS books outside of DF that have the missing social elements for doing things besides killing and looting.

>he doesn't force his players to use Back to School for any and all character-point gain

How do I stat out something that just works

So how many points would you give out on average?

Cosmic functionality.

It just works.

Strongly depends on campaigns, but I'll usually give a big packet at milestones(Exact amount depends on campaign, but usually enough to get an advantage, or raise a stat), along with giving 1 or 2 points per session that can only be spent on skills, perks, and etc, to encourage people to branch out, and be more well-rounded.

Then again, I also tend to expect players to make well-rounded and complete characters, rather than purpose-built murder/social/magic/whatever machines,
so my point values start pretty high to begin with.

I still need a concrete example though

Give me an example of points from a:

Swords and sorcery fantasy game

A modern day / near future action game

I've been waiting for years now to run a mad max style game as soon as vehicles 4e came out and I'm on the verge of giving up on my dream.

How good are the spaceships-based ground vehicle customisation rules, and how well would they do for a game with lots of customised vehicles?

Well, for my current high fantasy game, kinda Elder Scrolls inspired in a few ways, I usually give about 20-25 or so points for the "Every few sessions" packet. Let's the Mage increase his Magery, or save up for Compartmentalized Mind, let's the Monk upgrade their strength, or their Style Wildcard, etc.

For a more low powered modern game that's meant to be "realistic", I'd do 5-10 point packets, let someone get Fit, or upgrade a Talent, or the like. For something more cinematic, but not full on "Metal Gear", I'd probably err towards 15 or so points.

And both of these are supplemented by 1 or 2 points on normal sessions, to let the PCs improve their "workhorse" skills, or branch out into getting better at more secondary stuff, like the monk improving his intimidation, or the thief buying up Barter to help him fence his stolen goods.

Not him but the genre isn't as important as the campaign duration, if you're willing to have +40 sessions then 3 points per session would net the PCs at least 120 poins, if they start with 150 points then that's a lot of improvements for them, the real question is does your campaign supports PCs with 300 points.
Of course if you're having 6 session average per campaign then you may be generous enough to give 10 points or more per session, but those PCs will have to work for it hard thou.

I give my players jack shit for CP after sessions because it's not D&D with muh levels and XP

Anyone ever tried to make something from E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy with GURPS? I feel like if there is a system that could pull it off, is this.
Especially since it has Psionics in the very core.

I think genre can heavily influence how much the characters are expected to grow, however. In a gritty military game, they might only gain ~50 points tops, enough to pick up a couple of new tricks over the campaign.

Comparatively, in a campaign about being fledgling superheros, they might go from 150 point street level guys who mostly stop muggings and bank robberies, to 900 point Justice League members teaming up to take on world-shaking threats and alien invasions.

Not him, but I think it's unironically a good idea to have combat skills as wildcards as well.

My personal issue with the combat skill is that they are extremely narrow (even when taking default rolls into account), which will pidgeonhole most combatants into one or two weapons.

I personally find this boring, since I like to mix things up and improvise just for the heck of it. In that case, just making players proficient with a ton of stuff at once does allow that.

Though as a GM I don't like wildcard skills in general, so I would like another alternative (personally I've always wanted to try out packets of weapon skills as talents).

Do people use the full tactical combat rules? I like hex map but caring about facing would bog the combat to a crawl

I'd say a 10 point "Versatile Fighter" Talent would be fair, costs the same as Magery, and anyone would be crazy to argue that having a bunch of weapon skills(Which are usually redundant, for obvious reasons), is as powerful or as versatile as +1 to every spell.

That's what I've been trying to tell my players.

I agree with combat skills being to narrow, but I don't like mixing wildcard skills with non-wildcard skills, so I compact them down a bit, so you have something like Sword which covers shortsword, broadsword and two-handed swords.

Natural Weapons (Py #65) and Sorcery question, does the following advantage correctly represent a spell that summons a magic thrusting greatsword with indefinite duration?

Impaling Natural Weapon (Extra Damage Type, Cutting, +20%; Swing-Capable, Cutting, +20%; Increased Damage, +3, +90%; Extra Reach 1,2, +50%; Resilient, Unbreakable, +40%; Single, -20%; Two-Handed, -30%; Sorcery, -15%) [21]

Also, do I really need Weapon Adaptation perk to use this with Two-Handed Sword skill? Why Heavy enhancement is so expensive compared to Resilient?

"Indefinitely" in that it costs 1 FP to activate, and 1 FP per minute to maintain. That's an implicit part of the -15% Sorcery.

You don't need Two-Handed Sword skill, just add something like "Uses 2h-sword instead of DX/Brawling, +0%", switching from one skill to a harder skill based on the same attribute is a +0%, but I can't for the life of me remember where it's written.

>"Indefinitely" in that it costs 1 FP to activate, and 1 FP per minute to maintain. That's an implicit part of the -15% Sorcery.
Exactly that.

>You don't need Two-Handed Sword skill, just add something like "Uses 2h-sword instead of DX/Brawling, +0%", switching from one skill to a harder skill based on the same attribute is a +0%, but I can't for the life of me remember where it's written.
Good to know that, thanks.

Follow up question: Is it possible to model Katana with Natural Weapon? There's two problems I found:
1) Katana has Swing reach 1,2 while Thrust has only 1, Natural Weapon Extra Reach enhancement applies to both.
2) Katana can be used with Broadsword skill or Two-Handed Sword skill, whereas the later skill gives +1 damage to swing. Again, Natural Weapons doesn't seem to be able to handle that kind of change.

Sword and Sorcery protagonists tend to get most of their advancement in the form of social traits. I'd say that arguably most S&S characters would be best done with actual learning rules and getting what you get in terms of status, etc. For example, Conan starts off a horrific killing machine and pretty much doesn't change that for his entire career. He learns new languages and cultural familiarities by spending time with foreign people and rises in status by leading people and overthrowing the Aquilonian throne.

On the other hand, action-movie heroes tend to get quite a bit more awesome as the film goes on and then have a significant boost for the sequel. I'd call that something like 3-5 points per session and probably 10-30 points for finishing an adventure or reaching a training montage.

In my experience, combat without a hex grid is much slower because there's always some confusion as to who is where or how many enemies their are or whatever. Facing isn't really an issue because it's pretty obvious if someone is attacking form the back/flank or not (at least with IRL tabletop; webgames that use tokens may have more difficulty setting token facing).

1) No clue. Maybe make "only affects one damage type" worth -10% less?
2) Seeing as how Two-Handed is -30% and Extra Damage (+1) is +30%, I would treat being able to switch between to two as a simple +10% to cover the added flexibility. It may be worth noting that Swing Capable also adds +10% for flexibility's sake: swing-only is +20% and being able to switch between swing and thrust is +30% for a net of +10%.

As for Heavy vs. Resilient, I would assume it's because Resilient only makes your weapon less likely to break while Heavy makes it less likely to break AND more likely to break your opponent's weapon (or at least sweep aside his Parry).

Better Fantasy Armor's Cheap modifier removes -2 penalty for targeting chinks in return of making the armor cheaper. Flexible armors like Mail has no chinks. Does it mean a cheap mail has no downsides?

Sounds consistent with the rest of modifiers:
Impaling Natural Weapon (Extra Damage Type, Cutting, +20%; Swing-Capable, Cutting, +20%; Increased Damage, +1, +30%; Extra Reach (Swing Only) 1,2, +40%; Resilient, Unbreakable, +40%; Single, -20%; Two-Handed (Switchable, +1 Damage), 10%; Sorcery, -15%) [18]
Seems a little expensive compared to the Thrusting Greatsword...

Why not Signature Gear with summonable?

The RAW way of doing that looks a little awkward.
forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=40920
forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?p=1863150#post1863150
SG 2 [2] + Payload 2 (Cosmic) [3] = [5] but where do I put the Sorcery power modifier?

It also doesn't really fit well the fluff I have in my mind, though I'm not dead set on it. The character owns sword hilt with an embedded "powerstone" that serves as focus item for his sorcery (probably aspected: swords), the spell would create the blade, not unlike a light saber.

Just another useful post:
forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?p=1053891#post1053891
Not very fit for my character but useful knowledge anyway. Maybe a little hard to justify in a setting without some serious high magic going on.

Sure. Sort of a mix of high tech and powers set in the future solar system, though I'd admit it's not as weird or french as EYE.

You have gained Brouzouf

A sawed off shotgun from high tech has Rcl 1/5. What does that mean, recoil 1 normally, recoil 5 at 1/2D range?

How difficult would it be to craft your own HE grenades for an M79? Is it even possible?

Rcl 1 when using shotshells like normal for shotguns, Rcl 5 when using slugs.

1 with shot
5 with slug

Read the whole chapter

So how do you guys typically handle building NPCs and getting set up for sessions?

I ran a Reign of Steel campaign a few years ago, and I'm not gonna lie, building the necessary robots drove me nuts. Sometimes they were worth it, but still.

With a modern machine shop?

You could easily fabricate low pressure rounds and casings. They can be lit with primers from rifle ammunition. Normal rifle propellants are used.

The explosive grenade itself is the tricky part. You need to create an impact fuse and fit it to a charge. For safety reasons, you should also design the fuse to only arm after launch. The normal rounds for the grenade do this with a centrifugal fuse that only arms after enough rotations, allowing the weapon to detonate after it's traveled about 30 yards. It's a bit of clockwork.

If you can get the high explosives and fabricate the fuse, you are done. It's not a very complicated item, mechanically.

How is combat with theater of mind? I feel like it would be much worse than with a grid

How do I stat out a cute girls farts

Surprisingly fine, if you keep enemies down to a limited number and are okay with abstracting things (IE: People in 'close' distance can be engaged in melee in one round and have -1 to hit for distance, people at 'medium' distance take 2 rounds to reach and have -4 for distance, people beyond that take 4+ rounds to reach and have -6 or more to hit for distance).

innate attack (toxic) with Area affect (2 yards) Persistent, Drifting, Emanating, and Uncontrollable.

You forget Sense Based

What happens if you are shot in a cybernetic limb? Does the prosthesis take damage or you? Does a cyberlimb have Injury Tolerance (Unliveing)?

>What happens if you are shot in a cybernetic limb?
What cybernetic limb?

UT limbs, I guess. Or just a prosthetic limb in general.

If the shield can take damage and has health so I guess a prosthetic limb has it's own HP.
Doing some research it can be tricky, unless the character has the one arm disadvantage and the cybernetic arm is counted as a gadget, then it's counted as a normal arm, which makes sense if the TL is advanced enough the arm is linked to the nerves like a normal one.

Mail has a minimum level of quality for the metal to even be drawn into wire and then bent into rings and the only real way to cut corners assembling it is to go with butted mail. So cheap mail might not be possible.

Cheap cloth and hide armour would probably actually have armour gaps in the form of weak points at joints to keep flexibility there despite bulk or being made of modular sections laced together, no overlap where pieces meet and so on. So I would say that instead of giving -2 to target gaps, the cheap modifier makes targeting gaps possible at all on flexible armour.

Of course, cheap also gives +25% to weight, which is pretty significant.

Depends on the setting. Some settings have cyberlimbs that are just machines you glue on the stump—I’d say those have their own HP, HT, etc. In others, the cyberlimb is surgically reconnected to the user’s circulatory as well as nervous systems with the blood bringing sugars the machine can catalyze for energy—in this case, I’d treat damage to the cyberlimb as damage to the user and take injury off of their HP total. In the second case, I’d give cyberlimbs Innate DR but no form of Injury Tollerance because they’ve still got blood flowing through them.

Does compartmentalized mind allow you to use/concentrate on multiple spells at once, like in other magic systems, or does its nature as alternate abilities prevent that unless you're doing the "pay for the two most expensive abilities" thing?

I forgot to include "With Sorcery". That question is referring to Sorcery.

Yeah, because they’re AAs, best case scenario is you can have multiple instances of the same spell up using Compartmentalized Mind, I think.

From the "Simultaneous Spells" sidebar (Sorcery p.8):
>This upgrade does not let the sorcerer cast multiple spells on the same turn; he needs Compartmentalized Mind (p. B43) for that, which also lets him cast new spells more quickly by giving him extra Concentrate maneuvers each turn. Conversely, Compartmentalized Mind does not let the sorcerer maintain multiple different spells; he needs the rules above for that. “Limited, Sorcery” is a -10% limitation on Compartmentalized Mind.

Thank you, that's what I thought. Sorcery is neat, but I feel like it is a lot weaker than other magic systems, especially in versatility and "Scaling" potential. Not that that's necessarily a "bad" thing, since it has different goals in mind.

How can you legally make a videogame out of GURPS without copyrights bullshit?

Obfuscate the fuck out of it, don't take any terms directly from it, modify it a bit if you want. Can't copyright game mechanics etc. etc.

Also, of course, you could just try to get some contracts going with Steve Jackson Games. It won't be easy, though, and you'll need a good body of work to convince them. The big AAA companies might pull it off, but an indie dev would probably find themselves out of luck unless they're on of the bigger ones.

Wasn't Fallout supposed to be GURPS before they failed to get permission or something along those lines?

>Wasn't Fallout supposed to be GURPS before they failed to get permission or something along those lines?
Yes that was exactly the case and the reason why I asked, Fallout ended up using (not)GURPS so I was wondering how did they manage to do it.

I don't have a lot of knowledge in TRPGs so I don't know which mechanics belongs to GURPS exclusively.

>Yes that was exactly the case and the reason why I asked, Fallout ended up using (not)GURPS so I was wondering how did they manage to do it.
They chucked the whole thing out the window and made their own system, mostly, with percentiles and levels and stuff. Perks kind of look like advantages if you squint a bit, I guess, but they steered clear of copyright infringement.

forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?p=2141315
Why ST-based Innate Attacks broken? Link says it outclass claws and teeth but isn't it like comparing apples with oranges?

I have ST 18.
I take Burning Attack 0 (ST based, AD infinite, No Defense Allowed, Side Effect, Symptom, etc etc.)[0]

Is that valid tho, I doubt any GM would let that happen

It's valid, and it outclasses teeth and claws. If a GM lets it happen it's broken.

Innate Attack 0 is not legal. The least damage it can do is 1 and it costs .25 dice and because advantage costs always rounds up, it costs 5*.25=1.25=[2]. AD(100) per MyGURPs is +300%, Cosmic: No Defense Allowed is another +300%, ST-Bases is +100%, ignoring all the other modifiers that's at least +700% = [16].
Anyway, it will probably go against Rule 0.

You'll probably want to start with tox [4] or pi- [3].

That's how you get stuff like that galaxy-purging 50-point ability - +5,000% is daunting for expensive abilities, but when you start with a 1-point ability it's less so.

But what about the fact it's from a cute girl and makes my pee pee feel weird

also how do I show that it heals

Affliction (Disadvantage, Lecherous (12), +15%; Advantage: Fast Regeneration, +50%) [75]

So it's broken as long as you work to break it and you GM allows it? Eh, good enough for me. Natural Weapons feels really weird anyway with how it determines weight and DR.

U forgot sense-based aura
>Fast Regeneration, +500%