GURPS Fantasy / Dungeon Fantasy (and beyond)

[Staffan]

GURPS has so many skills because it can be about anything. If I wanted to play a game about scientists and knowing which branches of science they are skilled in is important then GURPS has all the tools I need for that.

If I was remaking GURPS and keeping more-or-less the same structure, I'd start by combining a lot of skills. For one thing, any skill that's almost always used alongside another skill should just be the same skill – e.g. Electronics Operation (Medical) should just be part of rolls for Physician at the appropriate TL. I'd also default to broader skills – perhaps not to the point of having a "Science" skill like in Savage Worlds, but I could definitely live with having a single Economics that eats Accounting, Current Affairs (Business), Finance, Market Analysis, and Merchant. For broader skills, I'd include the option of subskills that would be significantly cheaper for use in a game that focuses on that particular thing. So, for most games Physician would be enough for a doctor/medic kind of character. But if you're doing, I don't know, House MD the RPG, then different medical specialties become much more relevant as a way to distinguish one doctor from another.

I'd also incorporate binary-type skills that cost like a point or two to get basic professional competency, and another point or two to become expert. In some cases, this would be used to expand one skill into something related – for example, letting you use your Musical Instrument (piano) skill to play the clarinet as well. But in many cases, it would just be "You know this stuff". This would cover things like profession-type skills, e.g. Seaman or Soldier, but expanded to other areas of the game. An IQ 10 guy driving a moving truck shouldn't need to spend 8 points to get Freight Handling up to even a measly 12 in order to know how best to tetris someone's stuff into the truck. Oh and that reminds me: who thought having skills max at 4 points per point was a good idea? Earlier editions had them max at 2 points for mental and 8 points for physical skills. 2 points for all skills seems more reasonable.

Another thing I'd do would be to make familiarity an explicitly optional rule, and perhaps only used in games that focus on that particular aspect. I'd also be much more generous with defaults, halving the current defaulting penalties as a starting point (so assuming Sleight of Hand and Filch remains separate skills, they'd default to one another at -2 instead of -5).

 

[Thomas Shey]

GURPS has separate skills for Artillery, Beam Weapons, Guns, Gunner, and Liquid Projector (flame throwers, sprayers, and such), with numerous mandatory specialties within each of these skills (e.g. Guns (Pistol), Guns (Rifle), Guns (SMG), and Guns (Shotgun) are all separate skills defaulting to one another at -2, and then you add familiarity penalties to that which can get you up to -6 in addition to tech level penalties). They do lump all the Guns under "Guns", because the skills work similarly, but the different types are separate skills.

They do the same with melee weapons – there's a single "Melee weapon" entry, but it contains 22+ different skills separated into six different categories plus "others".

Is that new as of 4e (because I ran two campaigns of it with 3e years ago and don't recall the manditory specialties at all; I might have forgotten the Beam Weapons distinction (though I don't think so) and the other four would have been irrelevant in any of the games I ran, and I was referring to things such as the handguns/rifles/shotguns distinction)?

(This is mostly a check to see if my memory has gotten quite that bad.)

 

[dbm]

From 3e Core revised, p51, on Guns:
“This is the ability to use any type of 20th-century cartridge-type gunpowder weapon. Add 1 to your skill for an IQ of 10 or 11, and 2 for an IQ of 12 or better. Modifiers: See Familiarity, p. 43. -2 for an unfamiliar weapon of a known type (e.g., .22-cal when you are used to .38s); -4 or more for a weapon in bad repair; -4 or more for a weapon of unfamiliar type (e.g., a rifle when you are used to firing pistols). All normal modifiers for missile-weapon fire also apply.”

So, while the wording is more vague than in 4e (naturally, since a key aim of 4e was more precision in the rules), familiarity applied in 3e including up to -4 for shooting a pistol when you normally shoot rifles etc.

 

[dbm]

If I was remaking GURPS and keeping more-or-less the same structure, I'd start by combining a lot of skills.

Power Ups 10 basically offers a system for doing that, and Kromm is currently working on Power Ups 11 which will offer even more options for changing the skills system.

 

[Argyle King]

If I was remaking GURPS and keeping more-or-less the same structure, I'd start by combining a lot of skills. For one thing, any skill that's almost always used alongside another skill should just be the same skill – e.g. Electronics Operation (Medical) should just be part of rolls for Physician at the appropriate TL. I'd also default to broader skills – perhaps not to the point of having a "Science" skill like in Savage Worlds, but I could definitely live with having a single Economics that eats Accounting, Current Affairs (Business), Finance, Market Analysis, and Merchant. For broader skills, I'd include the option of subskills that would be significantly cheaper for use in a game that focuses on that particular thing. So, for most games Physician would be enough for a doctor/medic kind of character. But if you're doing, I don't know, House MD the RPG, then different medical specialties become much more relevant as a way to distinguish one doctor from another.

I'd also incorporate binary-type skills that cost like a point or two to get basic professional competency, and another point or two to become expert. In some cases, this would be used to expand one skill into something related – for example, letting you use your Musical Instrument (piano) skill to play the clarinet as well. But in many cases, it would just be "You know this stuff". This would cover things like profession-type skills, e.g. Seaman or Soldier, but expanded to other areas of the game. An IQ 10 guy driving a moving truck shouldn't need to spend 8 points to get Freight Handling up to even a measly 12 in order to know how best to tetris someone's stuff into the truck. Oh and that reminds me: who thought having skills max at 4 points per point was a good idea? Earlier editions had them max at 2 points for mental and 8 points for physical skills. 2 points for all skills seems more reasonable.

Another thing I'd do would be to make familiarity an explicitly optional rule, and perhaps only used in games that focus on that particular aspect. I'd also be much more generous with defaults, halving the current defaulting penalties as a starting point (so assuming Sleight of Hand and Filch remains separate skills, they'd default to one another at -2 instead of -5).

From my understanding, the upcoming GURPS Kickstarter (Mission X) does some of what you suggest here.

Dungeon Fantasy already trims things down a little.

Mission X takes a few more steps in that direction. (again, from my understanding... not much info is yet available) It's still meant to be a toolkit, but a toolkit that is more focused on certain genres.

Mission X: Coming in 2025 - Gaming Ballistic https://share.google/GeWZ7baye2xNALhWN

 

[thullgrim]

Power Ups 10 basically offers a system for doing that, and Kromm is currently working on Power Ups 11 which will offer even more options for changing the skills system.

I’ve got PU10 and glanced through it but have not given it the thorough read I need to.

I’ve always thought about using the Talent rules to group skills together price them but it’s always been a back of my head idea. Not something I’ve ever actually looked at. Kind of a half-way measure between the granular skills default and the absurdly broad Bang! Skills.

 

[Spellslinging Sellsword]

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