GURPS has long toyed with ways to reduce the cost of high levels in its Strength attribute, creating odd schemes under 3e and, in 4e, cutting the cost of ST across the board and simply requiring less ST to achieve satisfactory power (thanks to the new Basic Lift calculation). Yet there’s still a wish out there for cheaper levels of über-ST, even within 4e rules (as seen in its special ST cost discount for large critters). That’s where Rules Bit (GURPS): A Better Cost for ST and HP comes in, offering an optional cost progression (the brainchild of D. Weber) that makes the cost of a massive ST (or its components)…
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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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Game design musing: Point-cost scale for stats
A post on the SJG forums: Originally Posted by DouglasCole The value of that extra level of stat/skill very much depends on what kind of challenges the PC will be facing. I don’t have any comment on attribute cost vs skill cost (not here and now, anyway), but on flat vs rising costs, DC’s wise remark above inspires the following note: Point and counterpoint I have an oddball article online that asks what would happen if skills and attributes (stats below) both used perpetually-rising costs: ESCARGO. Doing so offers all kinds of potential benefits. Yet as noted somewhere in the text, it’s only a theoretical “what if” discussion, and I’ve…
