One FRPG besides D&D
- Thread starter Theuderic
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Tratyn Runewind
First Post
Hi again!
There are rules in place, right in the Basic Set, to take care of this sort of thing. They are optional, since realistic lethality is the default mode of GURPS, but they are there. The "Flesh Wounds" rule is the main one, allowing characters to expend an unspent experience point after combat to eliminate all damage - "It was just a flesh wound!". The highly-cinematic version of the rule allows this to be done during combat. And then there are the cinematic rules from the supplements...
And as for the single-roll odds...hm, typical starting fighter, Shield-14, for Block 7, 3 PD for large shield, 2 for heavy leather armor, +1 for Combat Reflexes, +2 for a retreating defense - that's 15 or less defense on 3d6, or better than a 90% chance of avoiding attacks that do manage to hit. All this without using the exotic defense options from GURPS Martial Arts or GURPS Swashbucklers, or taking the All-Out Defense action, or even counting the attacks that will "hit" but bounce off armor DR. Compare this to D&D: lvl-1 Orc Warrior, BAB +1, STR 12 for +1, Weapon Focus in his weapon for +1, total attack bonus +3. Lvl-1 Human Fighter, Chainmail for Armor Bonus +5, large shield for +2, DEX 14 for +2, give him Dodge Feat for another +1 - effective AC 20. The Orc will hit him on a 17 or better, or 20% of the time. And at low level, D&D hit points aren't quite so abstract - such a blow will hurt. So GURPS doesn't really seem any worse off in survivability terms there.
Well, flavor is going to come from integration with a particular game world, or the actual game mechanics of the magic system, or from the details of individual spells. GURPS strives to avoid close integration in its generic magic rules (and, to be fair, GURPS Fantasy did absolutely nothing to spice them up for GURPS' default fantasy game world). The game mechanics follow typical literary conceptions, with magic as a set of skills usable by specially gifted "mages" (or by anyone in certain places of magical power), fatiguing the user when it is cast. And the spell selection had to move to fine print just to cram a generic roster of typical fantasy spells into the book, leaving little room for the more exotic or unique stuff. Perhaps some of the more interesting spells in GURPS Grimoire would stimulate some interest in the more magically jaded...
My own problems with the GURPS magic system are more mechanical - flavor is something I have fun working on myself. The "hard-coded" limits on Magery and spell effectiveness, set at typical realistic-fantasy levels, are unseemly at best in a "Generic" system. The use of physical Fatigue to power spells is problematical and breaks down completely with high-STR non-human spellcasters, resulting in one of the ugliest kludges I've seen in an RPG. And the magical college system could use some tweaking - I'd love to see the colleges done the way they did the Paths in the Ritual Magic system (in GURPS Voodoo and GURPS Spirits) - with skill bought in the college itself, and individual spells treated as applications of the college skill, with varying difficulty modifiers, and capable of being individually improved from their defaults with character points. Maybe in the much-discussed 4th Edition of GURPS, if we're lucky...
Well, since you asked...
High basic skill in a spell will still reduce the amount of gestures, incantations, time, and Fatigue needed to cast it. Fatigue reduction is minimal, and requires phenomenal skill to reduce any but the cheapest spells to no-Fatigue casting or maintenance. Time reduction is also minimal and requires high skill (20+), but most spells take only 1 second to cast, and thus will be reduced to 0 casting time at the first increment of time reduction (not as big an advantage as it sounds, since you can still only cast 1 non-Blocking spell per second, anyway). "Missile" spells, the ranged combat spells like Fireball and Lightning, are never reduced in casting time for skill. No amount of skill will reduce specific modifiers, such as those for repeated use of Divination or Healing, though high skill will of course help in overcoming those modifiers.
And yes, I suspected that you had been away from GURPS for a bit by your use of "GURPS Fantasy" in reference to the magic rules. The full Magic rules are now in GURPS Magic (and are summarized, with an abbreviated spell list, in the Basic Set), and GURPS Fantasy is now a worldbook for their default fantasy world, Yrth, with no magic rules. This is actually slated to change in the future, with GURPS Fantasy planned to be turned into a fantasy campaign primer with no specific setting info (much like GURPS Space), and the Yrth stuff to be moved into GURPS Yrth. I would guess you remember the old GURPS Fantasy, for 2nd Edition GURPS, staple-bound, with the reddish cover of a demon-summoning, and containing the magic rules plus a short introduction to Yrth at the end.
Again, hope this helps!
There are rules in place, right in the Basic Set, to take care of this sort of thing. They are optional, since realistic lethality is the default mode of GURPS, but they are there. The "Flesh Wounds" rule is the main one, allowing characters to expend an unspent experience point after combat to eliminate all damage - "It was just a flesh wound!". The highly-cinematic version of the rule allows this to be done during combat. And then there are the cinematic rules from the supplements...
And as for the single-roll odds...hm, typical starting fighter, Shield-14, for Block 7, 3 PD for large shield, 2 for heavy leather armor, +1 for Combat Reflexes, +2 for a retreating defense - that's 15 or less defense on 3d6, or better than a 90% chance of avoiding attacks that do manage to hit. All this without using the exotic defense options from GURPS Martial Arts or GURPS Swashbucklers, or taking the All-Out Defense action, or even counting the attacks that will "hit" but bounce off armor DR. Compare this to D&D: lvl-1 Orc Warrior, BAB +1, STR 12 for +1, Weapon Focus in his weapon for +1, total attack bonus +3. Lvl-1 Human Fighter, Chainmail for Armor Bonus +5, large shield for +2, DEX 14 for +2, give him Dodge Feat for another +1 - effective AC 20. The Orc will hit him on a 17 or better, or 20% of the time. And at low level, D&D hit points aren't quite so abstract - such a blow will hurt. So GURPS doesn't really seem any worse off in survivability terms there.
Well, flavor is going to come from integration with a particular game world, or the actual game mechanics of the magic system, or from the details of individual spells. GURPS strives to avoid close integration in its generic magic rules (and, to be fair, GURPS Fantasy did absolutely nothing to spice them up for GURPS' default fantasy game world). The game mechanics follow typical literary conceptions, with magic as a set of skills usable by specially gifted "mages" (or by anyone in certain places of magical power), fatiguing the user when it is cast. And the spell selection had to move to fine print just to cram a generic roster of typical fantasy spells into the book, leaving little room for the more exotic or unique stuff. Perhaps some of the more interesting spells in GURPS Grimoire would stimulate some interest in the more magically jaded...
My own problems with the GURPS magic system are more mechanical - flavor is something I have fun working on myself. The "hard-coded" limits on Magery and spell effectiveness, set at typical realistic-fantasy levels, are unseemly at best in a "Generic" system. The use of physical Fatigue to power spells is problematical and breaks down completely with high-STR non-human spellcasters, resulting in one of the ugliest kludges I've seen in an RPG. And the magical college system could use some tweaking - I'd love to see the colleges done the way they did the Paths in the Ritual Magic system (in GURPS Voodoo and GURPS Spirits) - with skill bought in the college itself, and individual spells treated as applications of the college skill, with varying difficulty modifiers, and capable of being individually improved from their defaults with character points. Maybe in the much-discussed 4th Edition of GURPS, if we're lucky...
Well, since you asked...
High basic skill in a spell will still reduce the amount of gestures, incantations, time, and Fatigue needed to cast it. Fatigue reduction is minimal, and requires phenomenal skill to reduce any but the cheapest spells to no-Fatigue casting or maintenance. Time reduction is also minimal and requires high skill (20+), but most spells take only 1 second to cast, and thus will be reduced to 0 casting time at the first increment of time reduction (not as big an advantage as it sounds, since you can still only cast 1 non-Blocking spell per second, anyway). "Missile" spells, the ranged combat spells like Fireball and Lightning, are never reduced in casting time for skill. No amount of skill will reduce specific modifiers, such as those for repeated use of Divination or Healing, though high skill will of course help in overcoming those modifiers.
And yes, I suspected that you had been away from GURPS for a bit by your use of "GURPS Fantasy" in reference to the magic rules. The full Magic rules are now in GURPS Magic (and are summarized, with an abbreviated spell list, in the Basic Set), and GURPS Fantasy is now a worldbook for their default fantasy world, Yrth, with no magic rules. This is actually slated to change in the future, with GURPS Fantasy planned to be turned into a fantasy campaign primer with no specific setting info (much like GURPS Space), and the Yrth stuff to be moved into GURPS Yrth. I would guess you remember the old GURPS Fantasy, for 2nd Edition GURPS, staple-bound, with the reddish cover of a demon-summoning, and containing the magic rules plus a short introduction to Yrth at the end.
Again, hope this helps!
Inez Hull
First Post
Rolemaster. In all it's clunky finery, none of this streamlined RMSS nonsense. RM2 with all the companions and gazillion professions and options. I want - no demand - the option of playing a crystal mage, delver, houri or farmer. In what other game can you kill a 6th level character with a fumble? Have a TPK because the Mage ESF'ed at a crucial moment? ...... blech, sod Rolemaster.
We used to kill a few hours by playing "make rolemaster characters" You're obviously a man with too much of a life.
You did rather well then. I once spent one - two hours making a character only to die within ten minutes of the game starting, from a single unlucky attack.
We recently starting playing Rolemaster again after about a 12 month break and I'm loving it. Although this could have something to do with the break from GM duties.
As if Rolemaster isn't deadly enough, our RBDM has set the game in Warhammer's Old World - as justification for a few character killoffs I suspect.
I was thinking our GM has a sadistic streak but on checking my post I think us Rolemaster players must have a masochistic streak too.
We used to kill a few hours by playing "make rolemaster characters" You're obviously a man with too much of a life.
You did rather well then. I once spent one - two hours making a character only to die within ten minutes of the game starting, from a single unlucky attack.
We recently starting playing Rolemaster again after about a 12 month break and I'm loving it. Although this could have something to do with the break from GM duties.
As if Rolemaster isn't deadly enough, our RBDM has set the game in Warhammer's Old World - as justification for a few character killoffs I suspect.
I was thinking our GM has a sadistic streak but on checking my post I think us Rolemaster players must have a masochistic streak too.
Tratyn Runewind said:
The flesh wounds rule was one of the things I was alluding to when I mentioned "tacked-on as some sort of bastardization of the core rules". Instead of having a core mechanic for wound recovery, your character gets a second wind by selling off his XP. Exchanging the long-term benefit of improving a character for the short-term benefit of healing some damage seems to be about as good an idea as cashing in your 401k to invest in a product called "I Can't Believe It's Not Ipecac!"
The GURPS approach to incorporating cinematic elements isn't exactly elegant. Like I said, it usually involves layering a bunch of outrageously expensive advantages, perks, and skills. Like the GURPS Martials Arts book (big yin-yang symbol on the cover) my group tried to incorporate into our fantasy campain. IIRC, it allows characters in cinemetic campaigns to pay 40, 60, or 80 points for advantages like "Trained by a Master", and all of the insanely pricey Super Martial Arts skills. Of course, they do HAVE to be expensive, to reflect the fact that they're more powerful than the regular stuff available to characters. Now, if the GM decides to hand out more points to starting characters, does that solve everything? Sounds like an easy solution, but in practice it was very problematic for my group, because it knocked the point cost of all the core skills, advantages, and perks out-of-whack. For instance, say we have two martial artists. One guy spends a big chunk of his points to get trained by a master, and another doesn't. The former has a few neat larger-than-life rules that apply (like multiple parry attempts per round) to him but only mediocre levels of skill in Karate and Judo, while the latter dumps mondo points into buying up raw skill, which winds up being about 8-10 points higher than the cinematic fighter. Do you see the non sequitor there?
IMO, the obsession with realism is too much a part of GURPS' foundation to be fixed by slapping on a coat of cinematic paint. Take the skills system for example. The cost of raising a skill is dependent upon whether the skill is physical or mental, and how"easy" or "hard" the skill is to learn. An incredbly puissant weapon skill winds up costing peanuts relative to a marginally useful academic skill (e.g. Mathematics). That skill cost system is suitable for games with a high level of realism, because they don't need to be carefully balanced. After all, life's not fair. In a modern setting a guy who's skilled with small arms can blow away a karate expert, despite any discrepency in how many points were spent on their respective Physical/Easy and Physical/Hard skills, and it's not considered unfair. Nor is it considered "min-maxing" when more people in the real world start using guns instead of martial artists because it's a "better buy". All of that has to change when you start trying to emulate the level of action from a comic book or a wild martial arts flick. Once you take the focus away from realism, making "Incredibly Puissant Weapon" a cheaper skill than Mathematics stops making sense. If you're designing a universal role-playing system, point costs should reflect game balance, not realism (or rather, some game designer's notions of what constitutes realism).
That's a pretty good analysis--enough to motivate me to dig out my GURPS book and give it a second look--but I still stand by what I said before; it's still not that difficult for our GURPS warrior to wind up in a situation where that shield doesn't keep him from getting gacked, and when that happens he'll regret not tanking up. At least the D&D character's AC is a relatively constant thing and he probably won't even be 1st-level for longer than a couple of sessions. I don't really like to make comparisons to D&D combat, because, well, I have issues with D&D's combat system as well. It's just at the other end of the spectrum.
Thank for the re-primer. When I was playing GURPS Fantasy, magic skills of 20-22 were dirt common, thanks to IQ's of 16+ and the Magery advantages. As you point out though, that was a while back.
I would guess you remember the old GURPS Fantasy, for 2nd Edition GURPS, staple-bound, with the reddish cover of a demon-summoning, and containing the magic rules plus a short introduction to Yrth at the end.
Again, hope this helps!
Helps much, thanks. And yes, you pegged it, we used the 2nd Edition fantasy book (although we also made use of the 3rd edition book, with all the different archetypical characters floating in bubbles).
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Thorvald Kviksverd
First Post
I haven't tried it yet--in fact, it hasn't been released yet--but the English version of das Schwarze Auge looks promising. Fast Forward Games is going to be publishing it. Speaking of Fast Forward Games, they're also going to be publishing 1492: Conquista del Magico--another game I'm really looking forward to.
There is a nice English language site for The Dark Eye (the English title for DSA) HERE.
There is a nice English language site for The Dark Eye (the English title for DSA) HERE.
Inez Hull said:As if Rolemaster isn't deadly enough, our RBDM has set the game in Warhammer's Old World - as justification for a few character killoffs I suspect.
At DragonCon this year I saw my first Rolemaster book in years. A Million Ways to Die. An entire book of critical failure effects. So wrong on so many levels....
Tratyn Runewind
First Post
Hello again!
There is indeed a core mechanic for wound recovery - it involves Health rolls, the campaign-setting Tech Level, and preferably lots of bed rest and medical care. The First Aid skill handles hasty battlefield medicine, and magic, psionics, super-powered Regeneration, or wonder technology may also be available for healing, depending on the campaign. All like most other RPG's, so far - the "Flesh Wounds" thing is just an additional, cinematic emergency option.
Well, I do tend to view "staying alive" as being to a character's long-term benefit (depending on availability of returning-from-the-dead magics
), and a slight slowing of his advancement rate as being worth the expenditure. Remember, it's not something a cinematic character should be doing often, given cinematically high defenses - it's an emergency measure, to save your character during those times when the dice are being cruel (and don't forget, the really cinematic character will have insane amounts of the Luck advantage to help with that, too).
The pricing of abilities is a deep issue with any point-based character creation system, and GURPS does have more trouble than some here because of its divided approach to the matter - it has wanted point costs to reflect both the utility of an ability, and the rarity of that ability. Thus players in GURPS are sometimes hit with a double-whammy - as higher abilities become less and less useful (what economists call "diminishing marginal utility", and players call "overkill"), their point value often actually increases. Somewhat kludgy steps have been taken to try to remedy the worst of this in the rules compendia, but a well-integrated, coherent resolution will probably have to wait until the next edition. Also, the multitude of authors who have added bits and pieces to the system over the years, some with cavalier attitudes towards balancing their material with stuff outside the genre they're writing on at the moment, have not always helped matters, either.
With that said, though, it's still not hard to build decent cinematic characters for most genres, given appropriate point totals. The key to staying alive here is cranking up the character's Dodge by any means the GM allows (and these should be generous in a cinematic campaign), and, like the heroes of movies and books, trusting in Luck to save you when the going gets rough (like when an opponent critical-hits). The highest level of Luck (admittedly, not found in the Basic Set, though it is part of the GURPS "core rules" by its presence in GURPS Rules Compendium I) lets the player force a (retroactive) re-roll every 15 minutes of real time, or 16 times in a 4-hour gaming session. If opponents are surprising, critical-hitting or otherwise besting a character enough to get past that with any regularity and force significant expenditure of CP on "Flesh Wounds", I'd have to question how cinematic the character really is.
First off, just as a baseline, 100 points is the recommended starting level for novice realistic characters, and 200-250 is the ballpark for beginning cinematic characters. Intense training, such as that for soldiers in GURPS Special Ops, can allow starting characters even in highly realistic campaigns to begin with 200 or more character points. As to your martial arts example - well, I don't see anything wrong with the idea that the guy studying ch'i flow theory and deep meditation to gain the esoteric martial arts skills has less raw combat skill than the one who spends the same time actually sparring with the unenlightened roughnecks on the dojo floor. The actual point differentials may be debatable, for the reasons I went into above, but the general concept seems OK to me. To use a cinematic example (that will probably date me), I would estimate that Bruce Leroy of The Last Dragon had lower raw combat skill but higher cinematic skills than Sho'nuff, on similar point totals...
I think you have this backwards. All Physical Skills wind up costing 8 points per Skill Point to increase past the DEX+3 level (at most), while most Mental skills top out at 2 points per Skill Point, with even the Very Hard only going to 4. So for the IQ 16 guy to get (Mental/Hard) Math-20 is 12 points, while for the DEX 16 guy to get (Physical/Hard) Karate-20 is 32 points, or to get (Physical/Average) Fencing-20 (the most cinematic of the Basic Set Combat/Weapon skills) is 24 points. Guns and Beam Weapons skills are easier, and get small bonuses for above-average IQ, to boot, but even hordes of low-rent mooks with guns will have problems hitting a character with a cinematic-level Dodge defense and good Luck, before he takes them down with grenades, or his front bumper, or called-in orbital fire support.
You're right, it's certainly possible, and not even unlikely, for ill luck or questionable decisions to put a GURPS character in a hard spot. And "tanking up" cavalier-style in GURPS is indeed highly advantageous in open battle; certainly enough to justify the massive expense of heavy armor and a warhorse. My point was, the same thing can be said of D&D characters, and really, all role-playing characters, especially those just starting their careers. And GURPS characters improve too - usually in smaller but more frequent increments, though cinematic campaigns tend to be more generous in this regard.
Believe me, I know the feeling - I have my own reservations about GURPS, some of which I've mentioned both here and in previous posts, in this and other threads. Still, the system seems to be doing a bit more for my interest than for yours, so hopefully these posts will help you squeeze a little more fun out of your GURPS books - that's what they're there for, after all!
There is indeed a core mechanic for wound recovery - it involves Health rolls, the campaign-setting Tech Level, and preferably lots of bed rest and medical care. The First Aid skill handles hasty battlefield medicine, and magic, psionics, super-powered Regeneration, or wonder technology may also be available for healing, depending on the campaign. All like most other RPG's, so far - the "Flesh Wounds" thing is just an additional, cinematic emergency option.
Posted by Felon:
Exchanging the long-term benefit of improving a character for the short-term benefit of healing some damage seems to be about as good an idea as cashing in your 401k to invest in a product called "I Can't Believe It's Not Ipecac!"
Well, I do tend to view "staying alive" as being to a character's long-term benefit (depending on availability of returning-from-the-dead magics
), and a slight slowing of his advancement rate as being worth the expenditure. Remember, it's not something a cinematic character should be doing often, given cinematically high defenses - it's an emergency measure, to save your character during those times when the dice are being cruel (and don't forget, the really cinematic character will have insane amounts of the Luck advantage to help with that, too).The pricing of abilities is a deep issue with any point-based character creation system, and GURPS does have more trouble than some here because of its divided approach to the matter - it has wanted point costs to reflect both the utility of an ability, and the rarity of that ability. Thus players in GURPS are sometimes hit with a double-whammy - as higher abilities become less and less useful (what economists call "diminishing marginal utility", and players call "overkill"), their point value often actually increases. Somewhat kludgy steps have been taken to try to remedy the worst of this in the rules compendia, but a well-integrated, coherent resolution will probably have to wait until the next edition. Also, the multitude of authors who have added bits and pieces to the system over the years, some with cavalier attitudes towards balancing their material with stuff outside the genre they're writing on at the moment, have not always helped matters, either.
With that said, though, it's still not hard to build decent cinematic characters for most genres, given appropriate point totals. The key to staying alive here is cranking up the character's Dodge by any means the GM allows (and these should be generous in a cinematic campaign), and, like the heroes of movies and books, trusting in Luck to save you when the going gets rough (like when an opponent critical-hits). The highest level of Luck (admittedly, not found in the Basic Set, though it is part of the GURPS "core rules" by its presence in GURPS Rules Compendium I) lets the player force a (retroactive) re-roll every 15 minutes of real time, or 16 times in a 4-hour gaming session. If opponents are surprising, critical-hitting or otherwise besting a character enough to get past that with any regularity and force significant expenditure of CP on "Flesh Wounds", I'd have to question how cinematic the character really is.
First off, just as a baseline, 100 points is the recommended starting level for novice realistic characters, and 200-250 is the ballpark for beginning cinematic characters. Intense training, such as that for soldiers in GURPS Special Ops, can allow starting characters even in highly realistic campaigns to begin with 200 or more character points. As to your martial arts example - well, I don't see anything wrong with the idea that the guy studying ch'i flow theory and deep meditation to gain the esoteric martial arts skills has less raw combat skill than the one who spends the same time actually sparring with the unenlightened roughnecks on the dojo floor. The actual point differentials may be debatable, for the reasons I went into above, but the general concept seems OK to me. To use a cinematic example (that will probably date me
), I would estimate that Bruce Leroy of The Last Dragon had lower raw combat skill but higher cinematic skills than Sho'nuff, on similar point totals...I think you have this backwards. All Physical Skills wind up costing 8 points per Skill Point to increase past the DEX+3 level (at most), while most Mental skills top out at 2 points per Skill Point, with even the Very Hard only going to 4. So for the IQ 16 guy to get (Mental/Hard) Math-20 is 12 points, while for the DEX 16 guy to get (Physical/Hard) Karate-20 is 32 points, or to get (Physical/Average) Fencing-20 (the most cinematic of the Basic Set Combat/Weapon skills) is 24 points. Guns and Beam Weapons skills are easier, and get small bonuses for above-average IQ, to boot, but even hordes of low-rent mooks with guns will have problems hitting a character with a cinematic-level Dodge defense and good Luck, before he takes them down with grenades, or his front bumper, or called-in orbital fire support.
You're right, it's certainly possible, and not even unlikely, for ill luck or questionable decisions to put a GURPS character in a hard spot. And "tanking up" cavalier-style in GURPS is indeed highly advantageous in open battle; certainly enough to justify the massive expense of heavy armor and a warhorse. My point was, the same thing can be said of D&D characters, and really, all role-playing characters, especially those just starting their careers. And GURPS characters improve too - usually in smaller but more frequent increments, though cinematic campaigns tend to be more generous in this regard.
Believe me, I know the feeling
- I have my own reservations about GURPS, some of which I've mentioned both here and in previous posts, in this and other threads. Still, the system seems to be doing a bit more for my interest than for yours, so hopefully these posts will help you squeeze a little more fun out of your GURPS books - that's what they're there for, after all! Similar Threads
