GURPS General /GURPSgen/

Some people suffer from reading disorders that make it very diffcult to notice transcription errors or selecting a correct homophone.

Oddly, in this case there is no mistake despite your implication. "before it is ready to go.." is a perfectly valid form.

Quirk: Grammar Nazi

Is Weapon master (Bow) not that good if you can't afford the Heroic archer advantage? 20 points for +1 or +2 per die isn't much for bows that has 1 die, is it better to ignore it and increase strength instead?

>Dehydrate (+190%): Fatigue Attack 2d-1 (Based on HT, +20%; Dehydration, +20%; Malediction 2, +150%) [50]. Notes: Lets the attacker drive moisture from the victim’s body by winning a Quick Contest of Will vs. HT. Also dries out wet equipment. 50 points.
Boy, this thing could help a survivalist so much. Make some "Hydrate" advantage as AA and you could spend ages in the wild.

It gives reduced penalty for dual weapon attack (bow), which shoots two arrows at the same time.
For as little as +5 points you can add some melee weapon to pair with it.

+ST is generally better for bows then Weapon Master, as it gives you better HP and lift and other damage.

>Dual Weapon Attack (Bow)

Note that this is pretty far into cinematic territory. Two arrows on one bowstring should cut the energy of each arrow by half, ignoring all the other reasons it's a bad idea.

WM does nothing for Dual Weapon Attack. You are thinking of rapid strike.

True that, only HA halves DWA(Bow) penalty. On the other hand you don't rapid strike with a bow but you do quick shoot and WM(Bow) definitely helps here.
Sure, but we're most likely talking about Fantasy here and not realistic setting with Deadly Spring.

Anyway I still think the biggest advantage of WM (Bow) is that it already paid the hefty overhead of the trait and you can significantly improve it very cheaply (at least in the chargen). For +5 you could have WM () as well in case you need to go melee. for +10 you could have a small arsenal, say boy, sword, shield, knife.

Between the warrior-witch chicks in black leather and hogwarts-like school shenanigans Abydos seemes actually like an interesting place to live.
Until I got to the Flesh Scrolls bit of it.
Curia should seriously do more to erase this foul place from the face of Yrth.

So I dropped Weapon master (Bow), got Strongbow for that +2 ST long bow, what else can I do and what disadvantages I can safely take?

what a qt3.14!!

How stupid is this idea: a variant of Body Hits where the penetrating damage is capped at HP *before* wounding multipliers. Thus, a HP 12 soldier can suffer a max of 6, 12, 18, or 24 injury from a pi-/pi/pi+/pi++ round.

I'm not sure if Combat Reflexes is super-necessary. I know it's an old standby that bundles a BUNCH of very nice features, but it also eats up over 12% of your points budget, and if you're a dedicated archer, the main benefit of +1 to all active defenses shouldn't be coming up all that much. As for disadvantages, that's a very personal question, both in terms of what fits your character's personality and the personal anecdotal experiences of the various Anons that'll say disadvantage [x] or [y] are the best disadvantages in existence.

Slow Riser is typically safe, and could reflect you being a night owl that typically stays up late. -1 to IQ and -2 to Self Control for an hour when you wake up is rarely going to come up.

You've got a wilderness loner thing going, so Shyness is likely safe. You don't have any skills it effects. Beyond that, you've got plenty of options.

Abydos is the worst, but Pulver did a good job on that book. It's also his only one without catgirls.

...

Okay, so I'll drop Combat Reflexes and boost some skills, I need to do something about dodging since there's not much going on in terms of blocking nor parrying.
About disadvantages, I wasn't aware of the full complications that come with bloodlust, some disadvantages is a straight up kill switch, even curiosity so I'm trying to be more careful.

Slow riser doesn't sound bad, How do I represent hating races that don't look that much like humans?

This'd be amazing for a Northern tundra campaign or something similar

Just wondering where exactly you'd have a game that would mix something like an innate attack and realistic survival

How long sea trade routes should be?
Couple of months on average is fine?

Depends on the TL. What have you set your game around, and is there any sort of magic to ease things along?

Quirk level Dislikes (Nonhumans) or the Intolerance disadvantage on B140 at the Total[10] level (own species only) or Limited[5] (humanoid only).

It makes 5.56mm AP, sort of the most common modern military small arms round, really, really bad at putting people down without vitals hits. That's sort of realistic, if you look at it right, but it really shifts the vitals/non-vitals hit balance even more then it already is.

On Earth trade routs range from..

Dover (England) to Calais (France) at 25 miles, something a sloop at 10 knots could make in just over two hours (2.5 was average in 1800).

Portsmouth (England) to Hong Kong (China) at 13,350 nautical miles via transit past the Horn of Africa. A fast ship, averaging 14 knots per hour (realistically only possible by taking advantage of the monsoon season in the Indian ocean) could make the transit in 40 days, but to do so would be quite remarkable. Most ships would take 50 to 90 days.

Only REALLY profitable routs should be months long. 2 to 6 weeks per leg is reasonable, and fits routs like carrying cotton to London and manufactured goods to North Carolina, or sugarcane to Boston, then rum to London, then tools to the Jamaica.

Why is GURPS so hated?

It doesn't present itself very well. The basic set has a shit ton in it and most people don't know most of it is optional. This causes GMs diving in the deep end on their first game and doing really poorly as a result. This means the players get a bad experience, the GM get a bad experience and they just assume the system is bad because they went about they're first time playing in a sub optimal manner.
t. Someone who did exactly this and made many of my friends think the system is bad.

Perfect!

Bump

Depends on TL, distance, regional conditions...

>Only REALLY profitable routs should be months long
Danzig to Amsterdam was 5 days.
One of the most profitable routes ever created, despite literally just sending grain from A to B and metalwork and cash from B to A.

>I'm not sure if Combat Reflexes is super-necessary. I know it's an old standby that bundles a BUNCH of very nice features, but it also eats up over 12% of your points budget
If you fight, you take Combat Reflexes. It's not even a question, it's a must. The main benefit is not freezing in combat.

Never, ever drop Combat Reflexes. Drop a skill, ignore a stat, do whatever, but never ignore CR when making combat-oriented character. It's pretty much a must have and a first sign that your PC is competent in active military duty.

Ever considered an option that not everyone using English is a native speaker and thus viable to make some glaring mistakes?

>The main benefit is not freezing in combat.
When +1 for all defences is not main benefit?

>Just wondering where exactly you'd have a game that would mix something like an innate attack and realistic survival
Maybe fantasy new world? TL3+2 or so, ocean-going sailing ships becomes a thing, some diviners spits about a land over the horizon lush with treasure, not!colombus happens and he returns with plenty of gold artifact and less bodies. Something akin to gold rush happens, every adventurer and their animal ally wants to go there for the riches and thrill, nobles backs them in exchange for a part of their loot.
Players are one of those adventurers already on the not!america, there's a few coastal hub cities to go back while they're low level but the real dough is far from those and if you want to get any real loot, you will need significant survival skill in addition to the combat skills to fend off the scary natives.
Call the native's nation Teclá.

Ah, that's a very good point, and one that I was totally misstating.

The profitability of a trade rout is based on the cost to move goods along it and the difference in value between goods at one point and the other.

Bulk grain carrying ships take advantage of relativity small differences in the value in grain between two nearby ports, but the short distances, low risk, steady demand and economy of scale makes them absurdly profitable.

Long, high cost trade routs require something that is cheap at one point and very expensive at the other, like silk, tea, spices, opium or fine china, but can have a worse return on investment then carrying cheese and beef to France then taking wine and different cheese back to England.

Going to be starting my first gurps campaign. Players have been wanting something scifi/cyber punk, quoting one "blade runner-esque".

My question is what resources would i need fo cover this? I have the basic set on hand and understand all is optional. Tinkering on what to use and what not to use but other materials that i could use to help would be cool.

I decided on fleshing out the world first and then setting them up from there. Not using multiple cities or anything. I want the game to take place in like one megacity.

Thanks in advance guys.

Basic Set can handle a bladerunner style game well enough. Create a Replican/Enhanced Human template with some modest bonuses and drawbacks and you are right there.

More options: High Tech covers modern firearms, body armor and medicine. This is a great book.

Biotech. It's good, but optional. Likewise UltraTech seems like something you don't really need for a Bladerunner type game.

Read Lite first.
Don't mind about Basic Set until you read Lite.
Adding something outside of Lite into game only piece by piece.
Try introducing no more than one or two new rules per week/game session.
And try something that not so hard as scifi/ultratech for noob GM, better start with medieval things like vikingr, knights and merchants and like.

These are some very useful advice. Thats for taking the time to reply and helping a guy out!

Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

One thing I learned the hard way as a new GURPS GM is to scale back the power level to as close to standard human as your players and you are willing to tolerate, at least at the start.

For example, if you're set on running cyberpunk, start off as regular unaugmented or barely augmented humans, maybe some civilians, IT help desk techs and low level guards caught in the wrong place at the wrong time or something like that, don't start them off as a barely-human mega-corp cyber-commando black ops squad on a high-risk infiltration mission. You'll run into balance issues and your players will drown in the options.

What are the essential adventuring gears for your average fantasy setting? I can't even dress my character...

Striking ST would cost you 15 or 20 points to get +2 damage (I think bows use striking, not lifting ST, not 100% on that...) and WM reduces rapid strike penalties and unlocks cinematic skills and techniques, some of which are good.

A Schrodinger's Backpack.

Check out dungeon fantasy loadouts.

Post your favorite Sorcery spells. I like Reverse Missiles from Protection & Warning Spells. I think it's an interesting way of using the All-or-Nothing limitation.

No smell

You'd have to go the entire +10 route, there are no weapons typically used alongside bow, typically one always gets rid of the bow while drawing the sword or what have you. Sword & buckler was a pretty common setup to switch to

Is there any beginners adventure that I can run? You suggested some ideas but maybe an already published adventure would be ideal.

Weapon Master is pretty damn cinematic too, so it's not really an issue

Clothing:
Travelling clothes. Usually wool, cotton in hot climates, leather is good for abrasion resistance and waterproof, but makes temperature management difficult. Sturdy shoes or boots.
Spare clothes. Something nicer to wear when you don't want to look like a murderhobo. Carefully wrapped in a waterproof package. Several pairs of spare socks or foot wrappings, also carefully waterproofed. A big wool cloak.

Shelter and sleeping stuff. A wool blanket or sleeping fur. Ideally, a tarp big enough to make a shelter and poles and cord to hold it, but you can make do with branches and your cloak. Medieval people did sometimes sleep outside with just their cloaks for protection.

A tinderbox. Holds a fire-maker (flint and steel, fire bow, etc.) and enough kindling to get a fire going. Obviously needs to be waterproof, sturdy, etc.

Cordage. Rope is a cliche bit of adventuring kit, but a useful one. Also, some 'small stuff'; string and bits of thin rope.

Tools. Something to chop wood (machete or hatchet, big knife in a pinch), cut rope (any knife), dig a hole (shovel, helmet or shield in a pinch) and pry open stuff (crowbar or pick, do not use a sword). A staff or pole (or spear) is useful for climbing, prodding, carrying and shelter.

Load bearing gear. Backpack or carrying frame. Possibly a handcart or travois. Ideally a draft animal and saddlebags, or better yet, servants. Sacks and bags for gathering items. Pouches and a knapsack.

Food and drink. Waterskin and some dried meat and nuts. Some salt. A few snares might get you a little food overnight and you can gather fruit, hunt animals, etc. as you go. Make sure you have a knife and some kind of cooking pot.

Maintenance gear. Sewing kit, pot of grease, whetstone.

Medical supplies. Bandages. Garlic and honey are natural antiseptics which can also be eaten.

Charcoal. Can be used to treat wounds, as fuel, to make marks, eaten to reduce the effects of ingested poison and as camouflage.

>Bulk grain carrying ships take advantage of relativity small differences in the value in grain
I'm sorry, since when 400+% of profit is "small difference in value"? And before you go into another assumption - grain wasn't cheap either with "base" price.

Light source. Magical is probably best, but candles are good too. Can function on their own, but better in a lantern. Oil lamps can be decent if well designed. Torches suck, but are usable as weapons and a well made one (cloth soaked with tar inside a metal cage) is hard to put out.

Spoon. Essential for eating stew, also a bare minimum tool if you lose everything else.

Navigation tools. A compass is very useful if available. Graduated candles and looking at the sky are about as good as you can hope for to measure time. Maps in fantasy worlds are often much better than historical ones, so get one if you can. Other navigational equipment is probably too much effort to use when travelling overland in a small group.

Money and trade goods. At some point you are going to have to rely on the kindness of strangers. Having something to offer helps a lot.

Kind of repeating after other people, but you should seriously consider a TL4 (so early-modern) campaign with no magic running on Lite as your first contact with GURPS. Dunno, a pirate one-shot or something like that.
The "problem" with GURPS is that even just Basic Set is this fuck-huge box of unsorted LEGO. Unless you clearly know what you want to do with them and have a blueprint for specific model, your experience is going to consist of lenghthy search for right bits and parts for a theoretical model you've got in your head.
Lite cuts that off, because you only have a handful of bricks and most of things boil down to very simple, yet effective designs. Then you can slowly add new bricks, until you build something unique and fitting for your desires.

tl;dr start with Lite. Just giving players Basic Set often leads to half of the team instantly dropping, because it's simply scary to start pushing through 600+ pages of "basic" stuff.

Compass or similar.
Clothes fitting for the climate.
Solid rucksack.
Camping gear.
Bundle of rope.
Crowbar.
Shovel.
Week of rations.

Thanks for the advice. Its there any sort of published module i could use as a test run? If im fling to run with lite i might want to go with something already made rather than making one from scratch.

How did that level of profit not get out-competed by other merchants selling cheaper? Was there some kind of monopoly on the route?

The only published adventures I know of are fantasy ones, two in the Dungeon Fantasy line and Caravan to Ein Arris.

I'm sure there are lots in Pyramid, but finding them is a real pain. We need to do some kind of index of the articles.

Will do.

That was pretty detailed and helpful, thanks!

Thsnk you. I'll look into that caravan one

>Selling cheaper
You clearly don't get it. It was already selling cheapest possible. The thing about European grain trade was the fact that:
- European agriculture of that period was shit
- there was constantly growing demand for grain in Western Europe due to ever-increasing urbanisation
- there was just not enough supply to lower the price further
- the simple fact that you have a single harvest once a year and that's it also helps
Ergo, whatever grain could be hauled from Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, was instantly sold in Amsterdam, with fuck-huge profit made on it. The whole thing only started to collapse when both PLC got into shit in mid-17th century, by essentially being invaded by everyone and burned to the ground (but most importantly, losing 25-30% of population, which meant sharp decline of manpower to work on fields), while grain from Spanish colonies started to get to Europe and soon after, the Columbian exchange finally started to take effect, further supplemented by new techniques and machines.

Also, why would anyone want to sell cheaper, you imbecile? The demand greatly outpaced supply, there was literally no point lowering the price.

No official adventures.
Get fav movie and work it into your game.

Pick 13th Warrior, run it as TL3 low fantasy and you are golden. The funny part about this movie is - despite being THE Veeky Forumsst thing ever filmed, most of people don't know it anymore, because it's 18 years old.

True, though having a 1-in-6 chance of hitting the vitals anyway goes a long way to rectifying that. Still, you're right that it's dumb that a shot to the stomach with a 5mm will only temporarily stun at worst. Actually, as-is, a pi- round can't even inflict a major wound if the target has an even HP value, so that definitely needs fixing.

Ah fuck it. Regular Body Shots rules work well enough.

Thinking to use grav guns from UT as basic guns in High Enchant Magic setting
Halve Acc, bumping Rcl to 2-3, worse bulk and extra weight (heavier frame coz materials), reduce shots to 20-30 per magic crystal

What to do with armor?
Adding hardening to armor as part of crafting base with +0.5 CF per level?

List of Pyramid adventures:

5 - A Very Cold War - '40s Horror / Espionage
8 - Air Devils of the South Seas - Pulp
8 - Into the Temple of the Hungry Star - Pulp
14 - Hardcore - Modern
14 - The Groom of the Spider Princess - Wuxia
21 - The Treasure of Joni Monorail
23 - Night of the Megacarp - Monster Hunter-ish
23 - Operation Sun Dog - Modern Military
26 - The Wreck of the Savoy - Modern Horror
26 - The Future of the U-42 - Modern Weirdness
30 - Hunter-Gatherer - Space
31 - Last Stand on Mason Drive - Monster Hunters
31 - The Horror out of Dreams - Monster Hunters
32 - Creatures from the Pit - 50s Horror
32 - The Typewriters of Terror - Pulp Horror
38 - The Golden Geniza of Ezkali - Dungeon Fantasy
45 - Half Alive - Fantasy
50 - The Caverns of Willowdeep - Dungeon Fantasy
52 - Return to Ein Arris - Fantasy
54 - The Palais du Monde - Low-Tech Espionage
56 - Caverns of the Chronomancer - Dungeon Fantasy
80 - Gog and Magog - Dungeon Fantasy
81 - Iraqi Irruptor Blues - Madness Dossier
84 - The Disappearance of Father Cohen - Modern Horror
89 - The Titan's House - Dungeon Fantasy
92 - Not Your Average Grave Robbing - Monster Hunters
98 - You All Meet at an Inn - Dungeon Fantasy
98 - Grave of the Pirate Queen
101 - The House of 10,000 Sock Monkeys - Modern Comedy
106 - Secrets of the Living Tomb - Dungeon Fantasy
108 - Hydra Island - Dungeon Fantasy

That... doesn't make any fucking sense. If the demand was high and supply was tapped out, then prices from the suppliers should have risen. That's pretty basic economics.

There's just no way an easy trade route with a massive customer base at either end could have been that profitable (400% in five weeks!) for long without something weird going on. That kind of profit would draw in every ship in Europe and then the Poles would just ratchet up the price of grain until the profit was barely enough to keep the shipping going.

At that point, you've basically dialled grav-guns back to being conventional guns. Wouldn't it be easier to just the stats for those and fluff them as magic technology?

I have a question about the Disciplines of Faith disadvantage. For the versions that require 1d6 hours per day, is there a perk/advantage/change in price to have that always be at its minimum? I remember reading a post like that on the official GURPS forums some time ago, but my search-fu is weak today, and I can't find it.

How would you stat out an ability to create swords/weapons? Presumably it would be as expensive as the biggest one you could make.

I was considering an innate attack, but that doesn't really give you a sword other than when you're actively trying to hit someone with it, so it wouldn't give you the option to parry with it or whatever else. Thoughts?

Natural Weapon if you can make/use A sword, or Snatcher with Creation and Accessibility, Swords Only of you can make MANY swords. The former can summon their one and only sword while the latter can keep drawing new ones and can draw forth multiple ones at a time a’la Gate of Babylon.

Innate attack.
With gadget limitations.

>One harvest a year

You clearly don't know what you are talking about.

There's a quirk called 'Daily Ritual' which knocks it down to 30 minutes, but notes that it isn't suitable for switching off powers.

Thanks, user. That wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but I appreciate the effort.

Man, that's pricy for what I had in mind. Especially if you want to be able to draw them instantly or without fatigue.

Here's an attempt at doing the numbers:
Ice Blades: Snatcher (Elemental: -10%, Specialized: Edged melee weapons made of ice -30%, Nuisance effect: Burst of frost and cold -5%, Reduced time x5 +100%, Reduced fatigue cost +40%) [156]

There has to be a better way to do that. Some sort of create/control ability?

forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=14306

I'd just go with Natural Weapon with some alternative abilities. Might take a while to stat up every possible type of sword you would want, but will do the job at a semi-reasonable cost.

If you want to be able to hand out ice swords to everyone... maybe Affliction giving people a gadget advantage?

Innate Attack allows you to parry, check Powers under Power Parry. There's a pyramid article with exactly what you want, pretty sure the title was "Mystic Power Ups".
Natural Weapon tries to be an advantage specific for this kind of situation but honestly there's so many oddities (why making it decently heavy is so hard and expensive?) and there's such a lack of support it's not really attractive. I asked a few questions regarding it a thread ago yet no one were able to answer it.

Is there a way of getting around "IQ+Magery=17" requirement when playing a mage? It's so strange every adventurer mage is a genius with IQ 14 and incredibly talented with magery 3.

Divorce IQ from Magery. Have magic ability be goverened by 10+Magery. There's a Kromm quote where he says that it's something he'd change if he could do it over. Looking for it now.

I'm sorry, did you just in your full stupidity declared that there is more than one harvest season in fucking Cental and Eastern Europe, while calling anyone on lack of knowledge about the subject?

>Single harvest in a year
>A landlord might or might not have surplus to sell
>A local trader might or might not negotiate a deal to get the surplus grain to Danzig
>In total, a finite amount of grain is in circulation, because even in best case scenario, there is only this much land under PLC and only this much of it has access to river trade
>PLC's grain is relatively cheap, but only when compared with other sources
Makes perfect sense

>That kind of profit would draw in every ship in Europe and then the Poles would just ratchet up the price of grain until the profit was barely enough to keep the shipping going.
Which is more or less something that happend. The 400% profit was the rate that was the final go. It literally couldn't be any more expensive, because nobody would buy, as their local supply would be cheaper.
It's like you never been in any sort of comodity trading. It's all about the relationship between supply, demand and local prices combined with local wealth. The whole thing lasted for about 150-170 years, so I guess it was more than viable. Probably would keep going if PLC didn't get into shitload of trouble and eventually created a situation similar to cotton from US South - even if local economy eventually recovered and then even outpaced previous production, world in the meantime managed to live without that grain.

Thanks, user! I haven't looked through Powers too much yet, but I'll give it a gander.

Um... grain has single harvest, user, when it comes to mild climate. And that's the climate of Europe. Even trying really, really hard, you are not going to get more, because germination period is too long and there is also a thing called winter.
Oh, and if you are thinking about winter cereal - that's just something you plant a year ahead, before winter, not to harvest in winter. And you plant it only after you already collected the regular, single season crops, while then using the field as pasture for another year to regain nutrients.
So sorry, but only one harvest per year.

Besides, I can't think of a single plant - other than those used for fodder, which again brings use back to the use of field for pasture after collecting winter cereals - that can grow fast enough to be planted in June, grow over summer and be collected by mid-September. Technically you can do that with potatoes, but assuming we are talking about Eastern European grain trade, then potatoes didn't show up until mid 18th century. And infrastructure and machines that would made such fast planting feasible didn't show up until interwar period.

Would GURPS be a good system for running a system shock style game?

Some anons over at seem to be saying it really wouldn't but doesn't it specifically have a cyberpunk book?

>Easy to die combat
>Plethora of skills to learn
>Lots of high tech, ultra tech and cyberpunk rules and rulings
What are those people smoking to say GURPS is bad for SS?!

There's a cthulupunk 3e book that you can adapt to 4e and drop the cthulu part of it, but really all you need is the basic set and high/ultra tech, maybe psionics, tactical shooting if you want crunchier shooting.

Does anyone know rules for "resource drain" combats for overland travel ? Just a few rolls to give feeling of travel being dangerous, maybe a little damage for failures?

Eric Hoffman from Stormlord publishing ran a wargame/rpg based off it, and damn was it fun.
based off of this game;
sites.google.com/view/dndgeek/home?authuser=0

After the End? It has simplified rules for travel that I myself find more useful than any other rules for travel from any suplement to GURPS.
It's a mix of supplies, rest, accessable shelter and size of the group calculated together.

I couldn't find the Kromm quote too but I've seem many other posts talking about it, thanks. It seems there's a GCA file for it, I'll have to check when I get home.

Meanwhile, I found this other rule suggestion by Kromm: forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?p=1151692

By the way, I need to read more about GURPS Magic, at the moment I'm rather confused how it "works". As in I understood you're not supposed to be damage dealer but while the "debuff" spells like Tanglefeet is super powerful, it also seems rather too easy to avoid.
Are GURPS mages supposed to pick some save-or-die spell and spam it until it works?

There are two harvest a year for wheat in central and eastern Europe, though many Polish farms would instead grow rye over winter.

>Poland wheat exports

Aren't as simple as supply and demand, with a complex web of protectionism, taxes and the political situation in the rest of Europe and internally.

>Would have kept going

English demand wasn't reliable enough. People that got rich on the boom did so by taking heavy risk and mostly were ruined when English wheat imports dropped.