Non-D&D books for D&D gamers - GURPS Space

This article is part of a series of reviews of non-D&D game books which might nevertheless be of interest to D&D gamers.


Steve Jackson Games have always been good at publishing "genre sourcebooks" for their GURPS line - books that cover a specific role-playing genre in exhaustive detail. They have a deservedly excellent reputation for research, accuracy, and playtesting, and given that the rules information in many of their books is either light or easily convertible, many people - including those who absolutely loathe the GURPS gaming system as a whole - nevertheless buy it for the systemless information. They are that good.

And their latest edition of GURPS Space is no exception.

GURPS Space exists as a world and campaign-building tool for science fiction campaigns - to be specific, science fiction campaigns that take place among the vast reaches of space. It doesn't have any equipment lists (for that, see the equally excellent GURPS Ultra-Tech, which should satisfy the wet dreams of any gearhead, as well as the GURPS Spaceship line for spaceships) - instead, it gives the game master of science fiction campaigns a huge list of ideas, suggestions, and advice he will find useful when building his own SF universe.

But how is this book of any use for D&D campaigns, you might ask? After all, D&D is fantasy, not science fiction!

And truthfully, many of the chapters won't be useful for you unless you are playing one of those weird hybrids like Spelljammer or Dragonstar. The possible types of stardrives and their implications for settlement patterns and adventures is irrelevant for fantasy campaigns, as is the chapter on technological assumptions and how they will shape future societies. The lengthy chapters on rolling up entire star systems (or even star sectors...), while impressive, are all throughly grounded in real world astronomical knowledge. The chapters on future and alien societies as well as adventures and campaign styles are more useful - it's possible to get some inspiration for fantasy cultures from them.

However, the single best reason to buy this book is the chapter on creating and rolling up alien creatures. This will allow you to come up with entire ecosystems with a little bit of patience - and certainly with the major predators in it (i.e. the critters that will try to munch on your PCs). And there is plenty of discussion of ecosystems in this chapter, so that you will easily be able to figure out how it all ties together - a welcome relief for game masters who crave verisimilitude but feel let down by the all too brief descriptions in the 4E Monster Manual. This chapter is so completely awesome that the only way I can show just how awesome it is is by rolling up an example creature.

Let's say we want to create some sort of native creature for an "Elemental Plane of Air". We'll go through all the random tables in this chapter.

Alien Creation I: Since this is for a fantasy setting, and not a SF one, we skip the "chemical basis" for our life form and just assume that it has a water-based metabolism like terrestrial life, though we can always come up with a more exotic explanation later on. Though "Plasma Life" or "Silicon/Liquid Rock" life forms might be interesting for creatures from other elemental planes...

Alien Creation II: Since we plan to make the Plane of Air a fairly uniform expanse of air, we don't need to roll for specific habitats. If we wanted to put in some more work, we could conceivably come up with more complex habitats (for example, a vast expanse of floating plants could be the equivalent of a terrestrial woodlands and jungle environment) and use that for later tables, but right now that's too much work.

Now we have to roll up how and on what our creature feeds - and we also have to choose whether we want to create an "ordinary" animal or a sapient creature. Let's roll up something intelligent. I came up with a "Pouncing Carnivore", which implies that it preys on others through swift attacks, often through ambushes.

Alien Creation III: Now we determine its locomotion. The table lists numerous options for specific environments. "Endless Expanse of Air" is not listed, but "Gas Giant Planet" seems like a close fit. We get "buoyant flight".

Alien Creation IV: Next up is the creature's size and mass. The only appropriate modifier for the Size table seems to be a +2 for "gravity of 0.4G or less" - it seems appropriate that creatures get bigger in a plane without gravity (of course, we could ignore that modifier - this is fantasy, after all - but let's see what happens). We end up with a size of approximately 7 yards (and that's actually not all that large for this environment - creatures in low gravity can get huge) and a mass of 4 tons. In GURPS terms, it would end up with a Strength of 40.

Alien Creation V: Now we determine the general build of its body. We get a radial build with four sides, one arm per side with full manual dexterity, no tail, and a combination of an internal skeleton with a hydrostatic skeleton (i.e. parts of its body are supported by bones, while others are supported by a system similar to the limbs of an octopus or the trunk of an elephant).

Alien Creation VI: Some more details: It is covered by scales and has cold-blooded temperature regulation. Presumably, the temperature in the Plane of Air is uniformly warm, but this creature might be especially to cold-based attacks, which would likely slow it down. Furthermore, it grows continually during its life instead of molting or going through a metamorphosis.

Alien Creation VII: Now for its propagation strategy: It has two sexes, has a spawning/pollinating method of gestation, and has about 10 offspring per litter, none of which receive any care.

Alien Creation VIII: Next up are its senses: It's primary sense is hearing, complete with ultrasonic hearing and sonar (like bats), but it also has fairly decent vision complete with heat detection ability, a normal sense of touch, and an excellent sense of smell (similar to bloodhounds). It primarily communicates per sound.

Alien Creation IX: Now we tackle its intelligence and social organization. It ends up with a GURPS IQ of 7 (fairly dumb), and any members of the species which mate don't form any pair bonds. The species is solitary.

Alien Creation X: The last table is for determining the creature's overall personality traits (as typical for its species). We end up with:
- Chauvinism -3 (Undiscriminating - it doesn't really see its own species as anything special)
- Concentration -2 (Short Attention Span - it's easily distractible)
- Curiosity -2 (Incurious - it isn't very interested in new things)
- Egoism -1 (Humble - it doesn't have a strong sense of self-importance)
- Empathy +1 (Responsive - it can care about the feelings of others both within and without its species. It probably tries to make quick kills and might help out non-prey creatures on rare occasions)
Gregariousness
- Gregariousness -3 (Loner - it strongly prefers to live on its own)
- Imagination -3 (Hidebound - it's bad at coming up with new ideas or strategies)
- Suspicion -1 (it doesn't easily get afraid or startled)
- Playfulness -1 (Serious - it doesn't play around much)



All this information, derived from purely random tables, already gives a good overview of a new creature, and the more in-depth explanation in GURPS Space of what these values means make it very easy to flesh out the creature. This should be enough to give a good overview of the system, but if there is enough interest, I might expand on this creature and write up a complete Monster Manual-style entry, complete with a "fluff" description of its (I would have to finish reading the D&D 4e rules before that, of course). But in the meantime, it should be obvious what this book has to offer to anyone who wants to come up with new monsters for their own campaign settings.