I won’t be able to post things next week, so here’s some recycled material for approaching visitors. While searching through old email, I found the following post I’d made to the Gurpsnet mailing list. The response below to an inquiry may be of interest to fans of COSH, a fun tool for modifying and creating combat skills. How does COSH handle defaults? Nothing special included, or needed, in COSH’s handling of defaults — other than the question, how do you set defaults for new skills? Just as existing GURPS defaults were set (AFAIK) by SJG writers’ sense of what works, and not by formulae, I can only say that you’d…
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Game design musing: Can “too high” defenses be a good thing?
In a Gurpsnet thread on armored GURPS 3e fighters having much-too-high defenses, I responded to one poster below. 4e greatly alleviates the problem by eliminating PD, but high scores may still be an issue for some players. Yet the below does summarize what is to me an important point: the game should accommodate “too high” defenses when those are warranted! Imagine, if you will, a warrior with Plate Armour (PD 4) with Deflect +3, a skill of 22 with a broadsword, and Combat Reflexes. His total defense? A parry of 19. Now, the rules as written state that Sir Unhittable will be struck only if he rolls a 17 or…
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Recycled content: Gaming giants in combat
In a Gurpsnet thread on how to deal with giant foes in combat, I commented on a GM’s concern about overwhelming the PCs. The discussion is for 3e GURPS; as 4e has pretty much solved 3e‘s problem with what ST to give a giant, it’s not too interesting a discussion any more. Still, there may be some fodder there for giant-slayer PCs or their evil GMs. My comments in that thread are as follows: Lots of people have offered good advice on how PCs should (and shouldn’t!) tackle a huge giant in 3e. There are some very useful lessons in there for the PCs in any game. I think one…
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GLAIVE weapon design system for the d20 System
d20 version and article by Tail Kinker ( http://tailkinker.batcave.net ) Based on GLAIVE, by Tbone. Call me a traitor. I don’t care. I’ve grown to really like the d20 system. Doesn’t mean I’ve given up on GURPS. Far from it; my GURPS library remains central to my gaming needs. Not just for running, but as a bridge to other systems – like d20. But the weapon system for Dungeons and Dragons is just plain dreadful. So here I go, trying to update it. This system will not faithfully reproduce the weapons from Dungeons and Dragons, but if used consistently, will give a good play-balance while fixing some of the more…
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Further clarifying DECIDE!
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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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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Martial arts in games
Interesting news bit: In preparation for the World Cup games, police in Japan have developed a gun that shoots a 25-m square net over fans who bring just a bit too much enthusiasm to the proceedings. Specifically, the police are worried that their standard method to rein in rowdiness – judo-based restraining moves – may prove difficult against hyped-up, beefy European hooligans. (Like the police, we’ll politely refrain from specifying British. Oops, just did.) A comment from the World Cup security division, Sapporo HQ, Hokkaido Prefectural Police: “Of course, martial arts form an important part of our training, but if you take the size and power factor into consideration, (the…
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Game design musing: combat pacing
Know what’s one of the hardest development tasks for a GURPS add-on — heck, for just about any RPG? A slick system for variable action times. That is, rules to allow one character to perform certain actions (typically attacks) twice as fast as another, or five times for every four of a foe’s, etc. HERO‘s Speed stat doesn’t quite have it. It’s great that Speed 10 lets you have an action rate a little slower than Speed 11, which is a little slower than Speed 12. . . but what about a creature a little slower than the human norm of Speed 2? The only level allowed below that is…
