Introduce Action Points

[jaz0nj4ckal]

Folks:
The other night, a group of friends and I were toying with the idea of introducing an Action Point system into GURPS. The idea is to make it play more as a tactical SIM, which would play like Fallout 1 and/or Fallout 2; however, we are not sure where to start.

Has anyone done something similar to GURPS? We have Snap-Shot for Traveller; however, we wanted something a little more dynamic or fluid, which resembled Fallout.

Looking for suggestions or pointers

Thanks
JJ

 

[Argyle King]

There's actually a set of optional rules at the back of Campaigns which talks about players being able to spend points to influence the game.

Also, there's a pdf which deals with exactly that concept: http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/power-ups/power-ups5/

Thirdly, I've toyed with the idea of blatantly stealing the destiny pool from Star Wars Edge of The Empire and using it during GURPS sessions; it works perfectly fine largely because the way those points work in SWs closely mirrors what the optional rules in Campaigns are.

 

[jaz0nj4ckal]

There's actually a set of optional rules at the back of Campaigns which talks about players being able to spend points to influence the game.

Also, there's a pdf which deals with exactly that concept: http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/power-ups/power-ups5/

Thirdly, I've toyed with the idea of blatantly stealing the destiny pool from Star Wars Edge of The Empire and using it during GURPS sessions; it works perfectly fine largely because the way those points work in SWs closely mirrors what the optional rules in Campaigns are.

These rules seem pretty interesting and thank you for brining them to my attention; however, we are thinking more along the lines of Action Points, which are used for action during turns. For example - a character would get a base number of Action Points, which is based on his speed. Each action during their turn takes a value/number of Action Points to perform. For example - to fire a pistol might be 3 action points, so this number would be subtracted from their Action Point pool. Next turn, their action points would be reset to their base value and the processes is started over again.

This would enable the system to be used like Chess on Steroids, and thought and planing would have to go into moves and actions.

 

[Argyle King]

I think one of the optional rules in Impulse Buys allows "bullet time" style effects. While that's not exactly the same as D&D style action points, it plays out in a similar manner. At 6 bucks, the pdf is reasonably enough priced that picking it up to browse through and see if it helps isn't out of the question.

You could give everyone the effect of Extra Attack (or similar advantages) with the limitation that they need to spend a CP to activate it.

One of the reasons I like the SWs system is because it has some give and take between players and the GM. A player could spend a lot of destiny (light side) points for something good (like maybe an extra action in your system if that's what you want,) but then that generates dark side points which the GM can then use for the enemy to be able to do the same thing.

 

[Mailanka]

These rules seem pretty interesting and thank you for brining them to my attention; however, we are thinking more along the lines of Action Points, which are used for action during turns. For example - a character would get a base number of Action Points, which is based on his speed. Each action during their turn takes a value/number of Action Points to perform. For example - to fire a pistol might be 3 action points, so this number would be subtracted from their Action Point pool. Next turn, their action points would be reset to their base value and the processes is started over again.

This would enable the system to be used like Chess on Steroids, and thought and planing would have to go into moves and actions.

GURPS already uses one-second actions and penalizes things like rapid strikes, which makes an action-point system as you describe it less useful. However, if you'd like to have some resource management in the blow-by-blow of combat, I use the Last Gasp in my GURPS samurai game. The Last Gasp offers "action points" that represent a finer grain of fatigue, and thus every attack and every defense costs a few action points, and regaining them requires taking a moment to catch your breath, or spending Fatigue, which represents a serious and lasting drain to your system.

You can find them in Pyramid 3 #44 Alternate GURPS II

 

[jaz0nj4ckal]

GURPS already uses one-second actions and penalizes things like rapid strikes, which makes an action-point system as you describe it less useful. However, if you'd like to have some resource management in the blow-by-blow of combat, I use the Last Gasp in my GURPS samurai game. The Last Gasp offers "action points" that represent a finer grain of fatigue, and thus every attack and every defense costs a few action points, and regaining them requires taking a moment to catch your breath, or spending Fatigue, which represents a serious and lasting drain to your system.

You can find them in Pyramid 3 #44 Alternate GURPS II

This Last Gasp is a neat idea, and will have to take a look at it, so thanks for mentioning it. I forgot that GURPS uses one-second actions - I suspect the culprit was the fact that my group has been playing a great deal of Car Wars and MechWarrior recently, and we thought it would be cool to have the same concept with GURPS, since the system is very dynamic.

Thanks.

 

[Rune]

You might also look at Hackmaster (the current version) and its count-up initiative system. Just treat each second that an action takes as an action point that it costs, instead. And increase your rounds from one second (the GURPS standard) to something like ten seconds each.