Introduction Ogres. Hulking Trolls. Tree-sized giants. Mountain-sized Jotun. If they’re defined by a size bigger than us, then for this article, they’re all giants. Because whatever the specifics, they all share one thing in common: “TARG SMASH PUNY HUMAN!” I’m liberating the Big Games notes on gaming giants from my old GULLIVER rules for GURPS, to give them a proper new home within the Diner (with a little freshening-up too, including a pinch or two of content from other sections). Although I’ve got some GURPS 4e-specific notes at the end, the general overview is useful with any game system. Yet it’s all pretty brief; sorry, I haven’t witten The Complete…
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Rules Bit (GURPS): Die, monster, die!
Intro: “Whaddya mean, the Colossal Amoeba passed out?” A fierce dragon finally meets its match: Conrad the Bavarian, who takes the dragon down from 120 to 0 HP and goes to administer final rites. Good job, but one question: how long will it take to deliver another 120 points to kill the unconscious wyrm? Or 240 points if the beast makes its HT roll? Up to 600 more points if those HT rolls keep succeeding? (Dragon HT can be pretty high!) Won’t the magic-user, the thief, and the cleric have nabbed all the gold pieces by the time Conrad finishes hacking away? Well, if your character managed to chalk up 120…
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Rules Bit (GURPS): Distance, time, and speed in falls
Intro: Easy as falling off a log BS 431 offers a nice table for putting falling distance together with velocity. But did you know you’ve already got a tool for generating those numbers? You guessed it: that ever-handy Size and Speed/Range Table. It’ll even tell you how long it takes your PC to plummet off a cliff. The below is a fine example of the tricks you can do with such a spiffy logarithmic tool. Turn to BS 550 and follow along: Distance, Time, or Speed: Pick one Given just one of those three values, you can quickly estimate the other two. The procedure: 1. Take the Linear Measurement column,…
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Rules Bit (GURPS): What’s a miss?
Intro: “Missed me by that much!” There are two ways in GURPS to “miss” a target with your attack: either fail your TH roll, or have your successful TH roll thwarted by the target’s successful defense roll. The latter case is easy to understand: the attack was “on target”, but the target avoided it. This article will look at only the former case, the failed TH roll. I’ve always played this as an off-target attack, plain and simple: the bullet whizzed past the target, the sword thrust stopped short, and so on. But other interpretations float about: namely, the idea that a “miss” might actually represent the attacker hesitating –…
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Rules Bit (D&D): Real Hit Points for real people
Intro: “Can I have some real hit points, please?” As we all know, D&D has that “hit point thing” going on. I’m not here to put it down or even debate it. In fact, I’m fine with D&D hit points as some opaque, totally unrealistic luck-plus-heroics-plus-partial-defense cinematic furball, as long as the game presents it as such, and players accept it as such. I wouldn’t design a new game, even a cinematic fantasy one, using hit points in the same way, true – but still, where’s the harm? It’s hard, though, to like the tremendous disparity in hit points, especially at first or second Level. Any “normal” human, even a…
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DECIDE implementation notes
DECIDE has racked up many comments on this site, as well as in a related SJG forum thread. http://www.gamesdiner.com/decidehttp://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?p=458795 While the idea behind DECIDE is solid, any specific implementation is a throwaway item: there are plenty of possible implementations, and you can easily drop one you don’t like and replace with another, all without tossing out the core idea. So I’m not too interested in debating implementations; any will generally fall under “yeah, whatever works for you”. But in the spirit of designer’s notes, here are thoughts on why I use the implementation I do, with commentary on objections to it: On melee My implementation allows any defender a choice:…
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What is a roleplaying game?
“What’s a roleplaying game?” Who among us hasn’t responded to that question posed by the uninitiated, or enjoyed a good reply put forth by other gamers? Actually, I don’t know how many versions of the latter I’ve heard or read. “An RPG is a form of collaborative storytelling…” “It’s a kind of play-acting…” “Remember back when you played Cowboys and Indians…” And so on – a hundred ways to start out explaining. RPG gaming is nothing overly complex, as we know, yet it’s one of those things that’s easy to demonstrate in person, hard to describe otherwise. (My gaming group started its RPG career playing D&D profoundly wrong, as the text’s…
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DECIDE: Drop Excess Combat Info from Defense Evaluation (GURPS 4e/3e)
In a combat, GURPS has us ask defenders this question: “The attack will hit you. What do you do?” What if, instead, we asked this: “The attack might hit you. What do you do?” From will to might: that single-word change is arguably a much more realistic representation of the knowledge a defender would have – in many cases, the knowledge that a defender possibly could have – in battle. It suggests interesting implications and tactics, for no extra complexity in play. I’ve been a vocal (if not quite proselytizing) proponent of the proposal below; I’ll daringly call it “the biggest pro-realism, pro-roleplaying bang you can get from a zero-bookkeeping, zero-extra-rolls,…
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ESCARGO: Exponential Skill Costs: A Radical GURPS Option (GURPS 4e/3e)
ESCARGO is an experimental look at an unusual option for GURPS: skill and attribute costs that just go up, up, up. It looks odd, but offers a surprising number of nifty benefits. Put on your game engine-hacking cap and read on… History v1.0: Creation date forgotten. v1.1 update (2003/01/24): With help from reader feedback, have clarified conditions that do and don’t work for setting skill cross-defaults. Added PDF skill cost table. Made other small improvements. Some reader feedback comments are noted in dark red text. Special thanks to J. Schipper, P. McCurry, D. Weber, and D. Cole. v1.2: Moved to main Games Diner site. v1.3 (2008/11/26): Cleaned up. v1.4 (2009/08/16):…
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GLAIVE: GURPS Light Arms Invention Expansion (GURPS 3e)
GLAIVE is an expansion for creating your own low-tech melee or ranged weapon for GURPS 3e, with detail like nothing ever built for the game (or any RPG??). Arm yourself with GLAIVE! Note: This is the original, detailed GLAIVE system designed for 3e. For a simpler, shorter, 4e-ready system, see GLAIVE Mini. Got some d20 gaming in mind instead? Head straight to this nifty reader-contributed conversion: GLAIVE Weapon Design System for the d20 System. History v1.0: Created 03/03/14 v1.4 update (2003/07/14): Dropped COSH from GLAIVE and gave it its own page at the Diner. v2.0 update (2004/04/12): Excised the Weapon Design System from GULLIVER and brought it to GLAIVE. Only…
