What’s the basic “unit” of RPG play? I’d call it this little exchange or interaction: 1. Something – some event, stimulus, something – happens.2. Players weigh the likely consequences of that something, and state how they respond.3. Based on the that interaction, the holy trio (GM, Players, and Game Rules) determine the outcome. And from that little procedure, you build a scene, a session, even a campaign – it just depends on how many times you rinse and repeat. There is in GURPS one small, wacky, but mostly harmless exception to this core unit. Defense rolls. That’s right. Defense rolls, by curious rule fiat, twist that 1-2-3 order to 1-3-2.…
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Notes on natural encumbrance (GULLIVER)
Forum poster P, in reference to GULLIVER’s natural encumbrance rules, included the word “messy” among other (much nicer!) comments. Of course, I had to ask what’s “messy” with them, and P was kind enough to oblige with a response. The below may or may not change anyone’s mind about the rules, but it did lead to the introspection below that natural encumbrance fans may find of interest. (And it’s a shame not to recycle such a long post into all-too-scarce blog content…) Here’s the forum text: Thank you for the kind words, P. Permit me an initial clarification: And, as I said above, I agree that your general approach was…
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T Bone’s rules of dilettante game design, Part I
Friendly site visitor KC sends some all-too-kind words about Games Diner content, and asks an interesting question – that’s hard to answer, too, as the good questions always are. “In your opinion, what aspects of a roleplaying system require special attention in order to avoid major conflicts?” Hmm. KC adds a bit more: “I know this is a broad question, and a lot of the answer requires knowing what the intent of the game engine is. Striving to find the balance between playability and realism is the most difficult part of a game, and I’m certain you are familiar with this. Which is why I ask the question.” Tough one!…
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GLAIVE conversion notes
Simple first steps toward 4e compatibility Here are some comments made in the SJG GURPS forums, on updates required to bring the GLAIVE weapon creation system up to 4e speed: Treat any reference to “Load ST” as “BL/2”. The “unbalance modifier” should probably be changed, in light of the way 4e unbalanced weapons have become faster. Change from x1/x2/x3, to x1/x1.5/x2. Some missile weapons rules may need tweaking, if 4e weapon stats vary much from 3e. The bow rules state that they’d work better under “quad ST” — which 4e now provides. No, no plans yet to actually rewrite GLAIVE.
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Scaling of Move
A visitor writes by email: T.Bone: Cool new site! Now on to the irritating part… 🙂 Once again, I’ve forgotten (or maybe never even learned) part of the power-to-mass argument. Please tell me which of the following is right: ( { power – weight } / mass ) ^ 0.5 ( { power – weight } / mass ) ^ 0.5 * stride_length ( { power – weight } / mass ) ^ 0.5 * stride_length ^ 0.5 Everything here but stride length is based on E=mv^2, so at least that should be correct. I can see how stride length might play a role, but I can’t quite picture the…
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The new GURPS delivers… Or does it?
The 2005 GURPS Diner article, brought into the new Games Diner site. One gamer geek’s look at the new GURPS 4e and how well it satisfied his GURPSy wishes. This is a pretty straightforward HTML paste into the new site. Sorry, don’t expect much of the copious internal links… If you want to see the original article with its links intact, head here. Special thanks to David Nichols for proofreading and commenting on the first draft. You’ve been spared at least a couple of embarassing errors thanks to his attentiveness. 2007.08.23 edits: I added links to a few GURPS Diner articles that have since addressed topics in the article below.…
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Miscellaneous question about Weapon Master damage: GLAIVE
What I did not see in the Weapon Designer rules which I would have like to have seen is some mention of dealing with weapon master bonuses. Currently 1/5 of Skill doesn’t really do anything once you get past size +3 or so. You mean adding Skill/5 to damage? No, it’s not mentioned in the Weapon Design System, but elsewhere in GULLIVER are notes that such absolute damage bonuses only scale properly when replaced with percentage bonuses. So if each Skill/5 added, say, 20% to damage, or if you used GULLIVER’s suggestion for Karate damage bonuses (each skill level over 10 adds 10% damage), that would get the effect I…
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First question about bunny attacks
There’s a first for every question. The Q and my A: I have a question though about a combat action that does not seem to be included in the rules. I have seen official GURPS rules that cover this technique in only one book, GURPS Bunnies & Burrows, in which the maneuver is called “Ripping”.The basic idea is that a bunny (and presumably other similarly built animals) can grapple a foe with its front paws and/or teeth, and then use its hind legs to rip into a foe’s torso. In B&B’s game terms, once a foe is grappled, the rip is done at skill-2, the defender is at 1/2 dodge,…
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Rambling about ST
A recent ramble on rec.games.frp.gurps, responding to this post and referencing this post: infornific@aol.com (DW) wrote: lwcamp@landau.chem.rochester.edu (Luke) wrote: (Rest of message deleted for brevity – please see original message) Excellent points. Your division of strength into grappling/lifting/carrying vs combat/speed sounds a lot like GURPS Gulliver’s Combat ST and Load ST. That might be a simpler way to simulate the differences in ST. So a weightlifter might have Combat ST 12 and Load ST 16 – he doesn’t punch that hard, but he’s formidable in grappling and can fence with a broad sword. Interesting, it sounds like a plausible rationale for split ST. Does anyone know of good scientific evidence on how that kind of strength varies…
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Giant skeleton aerodynamics
A correspondent is building a Size +1 flying giant skeleton, and has questions about its aerodynamics. (And people say we gamers are geeks! Ha!) The discussion refers to rules in GULLIVER (for 3e) for figuring aerodynamics of creatures, for purpose of falling speed and what not. My reply to the question is below, just for the esotericness of it all: Basic body structure is just humanoid… What’s missing? Surface area for tv or ftv, right? It’s a humanoid shape, but the aerodynamics would have to be different. Good question. Let’s think this through… Ignore density for a second, and use a human-sized (13-lb) skeleton. So it’s a humanoid shape,…
