Jeff Dee, RPG author and awesome gaming artist (T Bone makes Will roll, squelches further fan gushing), is also a host of The Non Prophets podcast (together with none other than fellow gaming art god Denis Loubet!) and a past semi-regular host of The Atheist Experience broadcast and podcast. Episode #616 of the latter (embedded below), titled nothing less than “The Argument from Game Design”, let Jeff put his game-design cred to work in discussing certain arcane religious arguments that compare existence to “a game”. Straying a bit from that purely religious discussion, he also made some comments of broader relevance to gaming itself, including thoughts on what makes for a…
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Dice pools vs dice plus mods
Following up on my post about The Riddle of Steel RPG, here’s a broad question for readers at large, touching on many games: What, exactly, is the appeal of the “dice pool” method of generating outcomes? I know it has a two-dimensional aspect to it, in that you can modify checks in two ways: you can both modify the “target number” that determines whether a die counts as a success, and you can modify the number of dice rolled. That sounds like it offers something richer than the classic one-dimensional, dice-roll-plus-summed-modifiers method, and I don’t yet see anything wrong with the dice pool method. But I’m curious: Do dice-pool systems establish a clear, easily-followed…
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An interesting look at The Riddle of Steel
A friendly correspondent and I were recently discussing some finer points of my Edge Protection rules for armor in GURPS, which led to a tangent about combat rules in general under another system, The Riddle of Steel. Unfortunately, I’ve only looked at that system’s “Quickstart Rules” overview and glanced through its core rule book; I haven’t played it or read it in detail, though I’ve heard many good things about it, especially the realistic feel of its signature combat system. My correspondent, Christian Rosenkjaer Andersen, was good enough to give me a sense of its flavor via a detailed description, which I thought readers in general might find interesting. With his permission, here’s one…
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RPG science: Designing dinosaurs just got easier?
23Dinosaurs may not have been as heavy as previously thought. Those are the words of scientists who found flaws in the models used to estimate weight: “Palaeontologists have for 25 years used a statistical model to estimate the body weight of giant dinosaurs and other extraordinarily large extinct animals,” said Gary Packard, from Colorado State University, whose research will appear in the Zoological Society of London’s Journal of Zoology this week. “We have found that the statistical model is seriously flawed and the giant dinosaurs probably were only about half as heavy as is generally believed.” In other words, dinosaurs are just as big – long and tall, that is…
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Rules Bit (GURPS): Grazes
Intro: “It’s just a scrape!” In action fiction, an endless succession of lucky nicks, scrapes, and bullet scratches keep heroes cinematically bloodied but not inconveniently dead. (Glancing, “just a scratch” injuries happen in real life, too, of course!) At the gaming table, the same effect is interesting and easily handled. The content below goes way back to the GURPS 3e days, was updated for 4e around 2009, and now gets a 2023 update for simplification and clarification. The rule Definition of a graze A graze is a glancing blow or any off-center, fleeting, or otherwise unimpressive touch that doesn’t strike squarely – including the lessened blow that results from a defender partially…
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Rules Bit (GURPS): Shields and cover
Intro: Under Cover This rule looks at the matter of letting shields provide cover instead of a DB bonus. That option offers some interesting benefits, from a nicely restored (in 4e) ability for shields to protect passively, to detailed protection by body location, to shield walls and other defensive tricks. It all meshes nicely with existing game rules for cover, too. The rule In general, treat shields as offering only their DB, per written rules. But whenever the GM thinks it sensible, treat shields as cover (p. B407) instead: Defending Cover provides powerful protection, but there’s a trade-off: a shield protects with either its cover or its DB, not both…
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Rules Bit (GURPS): Shields and size
Intro: “Is that a Frisbee?” “Sir! We demand that you halt this tea party right now, and give us back our shields!” “Er, begging your pardon, brave Knights of the Shire, but we haven’t seen any shields . . .” “Those . . . things you’re using as tea saucers! Give them back!” Hmm, just how big is a Halfling’s shield? And what happens if the little chap picks up a human’s shield? GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 3 p. 8 offers some nice rules for Pixie weapons and other “tiny tools” – not generic, physics-friendly stuff, but quick’n’dirty guidelines for easy play. While shields got left out of that discussion, handling them…
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Magical languages for GURPS
This old (originally 3e-era) article sought to drop a bit of spice into the standard GURPS magic system. The addition of distinct languages for spellcasting lets you create as many unique magical traditions as you like, distinguishing Druids from witches from court wizards in strengths, weaknesses, and special effects. Side benefits including new paths of useful study for mages and prevention of “Johnny One-Spell” over-specialization. Go magically multilingual! History v1.0: 1997 v1.1: 2001 v2.0: 09/04/14 v2.1: 10/03/27: Fixed broken link to additional magical languages by Yuath. The tongues of magic What if, instead of one “language of magic” used by all mages, the tongues used to cast spells were…
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Crazy combination weapons
You’d never point a gun at your own face, right? Well, with some guns, you have to. I was perusing some of the fun stuff over at MyArmoury, and found this nifty page of wacky historical combined weapons. Guns with axe heads. Daggers with spring-loaded blade-catchers. Weapons that sprout… more weapons. And pictured here: fancy-schmancy eating utensils with built-in flintlock pistols. Critical miss on your dinner roll. Take 3d damage. (Unless, that is, the barrels point away from the eating end; it’s hard to tell from the pic. If that’s the case, your dinner date eats the damage instead. It’s the Quicker Breaker-Upper! [tm]) It looks like James Bond and…
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Illuminati: New World Order: An unearthed review
Hey, look what I found on an external drive! It’s an old review of Steve Jackson Games’ Illuminati: New World Order trading card game. I don’t even know when this dates back to; I picked up the game some years after it was released in ’94. I wrote the review for a site or ‘zine, but it wasn’t published. While my memory of this article is hazy, I recall some great games with a good handful of mutually-backstabbing players. Ah, INWO. Good times… Illuminati: New World Order: An unearthed review “Betray your friends. Crush your enemies. Control the world. Drink some coffee.” That pretty much says it for me, folks.…
