Got a game character with a nice fluffy tail? Those things can be good for more than just Furry decor, you know. At a recent TED conference, biologist Robert Full presented research into the wonders of the wall-crawling gecko. (The video, embedded below, is worth a view; you’ll see both people and robots mimicking the gecko’s Spidey-like climbs.) But while uncovering the secrets of the lizard’s famous feet, scientists found the creature’s tail enabled some amazing acrobatic feats of its own, all with nice character-design potential. As the biologists point out, a passive tail – a simple dead weight – hampers maneuverability. But an active tail does quite the opposite. Here what’s…
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Game design musing: Pricing breadth in skills
If fluency in a foreign tongue costs your character 5 points, how much should fluency in ten languages cost? In the midst of recent email correspondence about ESCARGO, I’ve dredged up a game design topic long of interest to me: a decreasing cost scale for multiple instances of traits. Wait – is there some reason why ten 5-point languages should cost the PC less than 50 points? And isn’t ESCARGO all about increasing the cost for more stuff? Let me explain: Depth vs breadth Many a game designer (or just dedicated hacker) has pondered the topic of breadth vs depth in character skills. (Some of the below could be adapted…
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GURPS Banestorm idea: Enclaves
In my review of GURPS Banestorm, I briefly mention one of the points that intrigues me about its gameworld: Unexplored pockets of diverse Earth cultures tucked among Yrth’s dominant European-, Middle Eastern-, and Asian-descended cultures. From page 9: … African, Chinese, German, Indian, and Slavic groups popped up across the continent. Dominant local cultures quickly absorbed most of these smaller ones, but even today travelers can find isolated villages where almost all the inhabitants have black skin, worship Krishna and Vishnu, or speak undiluted German. This is an opportunity for the GM to create any sort of interesting micro-culture that he can envision, as long as it is well off…
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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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COSH: Combat Skill Hack (GURPS 3e)
COSH is a fun, easy, GURPS-like way to build most any fighting skill, or modify existing fighting skills, in GURPS 3e. Any GM can drop COSH into a GURPS game and be designing unique new combat skills within minutes. History v1.0: Created 03/03/14 v1.1b update (03/03/15): Simplified COSH construction of missile skills, thanks to J. Schipper. v1.2 update (03/04/23): Dropped the beta designation. Clarified use of limits on Dodge Bonus and ST Bonus enhancements. Added example of using COSH to morph a skill into a different skill during play. Added lots of maneuverless “classic” combat skills, a bunch of new skills, and new “Large/Small ST Bonus (single use)” enhancements. Thanks,…
