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,…
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From the newsgroup files: Doing collisions right
A recent online post gave me the chance to blather on and on about how to handle collisions in a RPG. Regarding the huge damage that GURPS Vehicles would dish out for a 5 mph collision with a car: Erm, am I missing something here? Because 5MPH is slower than walking pace and should NOT take you to death’s door! Me to said poster: You are correct to sense something funny here. The Vehicles rule does have a big flaw. Others have made helpful suggestions, but if I can wax pedantic here, allow me to dig to the heart of the problem and set things right. You can quickly check…
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From the mail files: ESCARGO question
ESCARGO question. A message from a correspondent, re ESCARGO: ———- Instead of Ease:-1, Ease:+2, why not invert the sign and call it Difficulty. Excellent question! Very slow response! Sorry! So, a simple Ease +2 skill would become a Difficulty -2 skill. A difficult Ease -2 skill would become Difficulty +2. It’s much more understandable then! Well, I believe that your usage was the initial plan; “Difficulty” is, I agree, more natural as a label. But after some mental juggling, I thought the math was more intuitive with Ease. The reason: an easy skill will *raise* your final level, so “+2” is intuitive; “-2” is arguably counterintuitive. And since we’re talking…
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Game design musing: ST schemes
Log ST. You know, ST schemes under which every +X points of ST equate to some multiple of lifting power. This might be x2 lifting power per +5 ST, per HERO System, in which case ST 15 lifts twice as much as ST 10, and ST 105 lifts twice as much as ST 100. Log ST was the choice for the original superhero game that became HERO, and is often suggested as a great fix for GURPS‘ (sometimes alleged) troubles with four-color action. But could it work in GURPS? Here are some recent emails and forum postings on the topic follow. (My text is in black.) An email You state…
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Ingredients for a better GURPS
The 2002 GURPS Diner article, brought into the new Games Diner site. One gamer geek’s wish list for a new GURPS 4e. This is a pretty straightforward HTML paste into the new site. Sorry, don’t expect much from the copious internal links. If you want to see the original article with its links intact, head to www.gamesdiner.com/gurps/old/improvements.htm . And if you want to see how well 4e fulfilled the wish list, read the follow-up to this article: The New GURPS Delivers… Or Does It?. One Fanboy’s 4e Wishlist I’ve worked long on GULLIVER and other house rules, suggesting dozens of options and rules tweaks for gamers with the inclination to…
