What is GURPS?

[pawsplay]

As I said: at the 'moderate' level they're only supposed to inform roleplaying. Above that then yeah, they're serious disads. I'd argue that any Psych Lim. set at Very Strong implies a character in need of regular counselling.

Hero's psychological limitations have always bothered me. Superman's vow not to kill is apparently moderate, since he has on numerous occasions made exceptions. You can either take a holistic approach, and hope the GM is lenient when you decide to roleplay the character in what you see as a realistic fashion, or you can downgrade the Psych Lims of any character who is basically sane. I would hope that a GM would intepret Superman's Code Versus Killing as Total... unless we are talking about saving a billion lives versus the life of one entity personally responsble for the impending death. But strictly by the rules, Superman gets, at best, an EGO roll at -5 to overcome his Code, if the GM decides to allow it.

 

[LoneWolf23]

I think the reasons were mainly:

- Economy of scale: GURPS is a niche RPG when compared to D&D, and wouldn't nearly get as many third party producers through the OGL.

- Quality control: SJG pride themselves on the high quality of the editing, playtesting, and research, and GURPS has indeed a good reputation with those. But if others were to produce crappy supplements for GURPS, that reputation might suffer.

Though it should be pointed out that it is possible for other companies to license GURPS. This has been done for Conspiracy X and Starfleet Battles, among others.

Of course, it could be argued that, the way GURPS is designed, just about anybody can create their own material using those rules, and do so rather easily. Go ahead, make your own "Class" templates, and you can be sure everything will be balanced out for the point total by the time you're done.

Just one advantage of point-based vs level-based design.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

As others have already countered the rest of Dai Blackthorn being less realizable in HERO than in GURPS, I'll go for the one left as yet unanswered.

Honest Face is probably not a Hero trait.

There are a variety of ways to handle this in HERO- a PRE or COM bonus (possibly with limits like "Only with _______ skills), extra points spent in particular skills, skill levels with the limitation "only usable with PRE & COM based skills," a limited PRE or COM based attack or even a very small and limited Elemental Control.

As for:

In HERO terms, he's already bursting at the seams in terms of PsychLims.

...HERO doesn't limit the number of PsychLims a PC can have, just the number from which he can gain build points at any one time. And that limitation on them is a suggested rule- if a GM wants to let his players play utter basket cases, he's free to do so. There is no hard and fast limit- whatever limit on build points from a given disad is defined by the GM (HERO 5th, Rev., p 326). He can even vary that number between disad types.

Hero's psychological limitations have always bothered me. Superman's vow not to kill is apparently moderate, since he has on numerous occasions made exceptions.

AFAIK, he has only intentionally killed 4-5 people in the history of the comic books- Doomsday (possibly more than once) and the 3 worst inmates of the Phantom Zone- General Zod, Faora and Quex-Ul (albeit versions from the Time Trapper's pocket universe). And he only did that after they escaped after that universe's Superboy died, and they were able to kill everyone on (that) Earth. He killed them by first exposing them to (that universe's) Gold Kryptonite, then to (that universe's) Green Kryptonite.

His battles with Doomsday are arguably all self-defense.

The only other occurrence may have happened early in the Golden Era when dealing with a thug with a gun.

Others have died because he couldn't save them.

So I'd put Comic Book Kal-El's PsychLim against killing pretty high.

As for other media, I understand he took an action in Superman Returns that resulted in the deaths of 3 of Lex Luthor's henchmen, but since I didn't see the film, I can't say if that was the desired result or an unavoidable side effect.

So again, a pretty high code against killing.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

PsychLim Addendum...because I'm watching Monk right now.

If I talked to my GM and was persuasive, I'm sure I could justify designing a superheroic character whose psyche is much like Adrian Monk's (who is nuttier than a Pecan grove) with something like:

2 Undefined Very Common Total, 2 Undefined Common Strong and 2 Uncommon Moderate PsychLims for 90 total points. These get defined through roleplay in a given adventure ("Am I afraid of elephants? Let me check...hmmm...yes, just above Clowns and right below Spoiled Milk.") and the PC can NEVER buy them off.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I have no idea about Superman's history specifically. But in HERO terms a Code vs. Killing with an ego roll -5 is pretty hard to get around. Don't take it unless you're pretty certain that's what you want. As a GM I'd say it equates to the the great inner turmoil that the character feels at having to do something they feel is so fundamentally wrong. I would certainly allow the player to continue making Ego Rolls every action until they achieved the desired result. It would be at worst a delay. If there was no time for hesitation I'd allow the character to act right away regardless. But in either case I'd expect the player to role play the self-loathing, etc that would result.

So in the hypothetical 1 life vs. billions: I wouldn't expect Superman to hesitate if Doomsday were about to press the button. But I would expect him to question his actions afterwards. Keep saying to himself: 'Maybe I could have done it differently. Maybe he didn't have to die. Maybe I'm as bad as Doomsday.' Then I'd give the player a dream sequence of the most hackneyed variety, possibly even bring back the dead person's ghost. As you can guess I'm a ROLEplayer.

Of course as a GM I'd not generally put a player in the position of 'go against your severe pscyh lim or get get screwed by the bad guy.' I'd generally try to discourage psych lims taken to Very Strong level in any case. Disads, in my book, are things to hang plot hooks on; encourage role playing and exploit in combat. Very rarely, for reasons of drama, you do put the players in direct confrontation with their disads. But that is a staple of the Supers genre (and literature in general) in any case and by no means limited to HERO.

Before anyone gets up in arms about the latter and accuses me of being a confrontational GM: players get to choose if they want a specific weakness and get points based on how likely they are to encounter it. It's understood that if someone takes Susceptabilty: Kryptonite then they're going to encounter kryptonite despite the extremely low chances that fragments from an exploding planet millions of light years away would ever reach earth (at speeds of less than light speed at that!) in any case. Let alone in the sort of amounts it seems to have.

BTW: re. 'quirks' in the GURPS specific sense: I've actually used them in HERO. Told the players 'pick 5 x 1pt quirks, just like in GURPS.' It's certainly not a difficult mechanic to import.

Mmm. Would also like to say I don't dislike GURPS. I've said, on this forum somewhere, that I love the source books. They are the cats meow. In actual play I find that it leaves me a bit flat. Really not sure why. On paper it works for me. <shrugs>

PPPS: I remember Dai Blackthorn when he was just a poor lad in a fantasy faux-mediaeval city with nought but a cheap knife to his name. Now he's got a psychic knife and hot job with the psicops. He's all growed up.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I wouldn't expect Superman to hesitate if Doomsday were about to press the button.

Just to clarify- the rogue Kryptonians were the mass murderers. Doomsday just wanted to kill Supes, and basically bee-lined for him across the stars, killing and maiming anyone who got in his path. Kal-El was essentially in a kill-or-be-killed situation...and died (the first time, at least).

Would also like to say I don't dislike GURPS. I've said, on this forum somewhere, that I love the source books. They are the cats meow.

Again, to be clear- while I hate GURPS, I can't find any fault with their source books. Meowing cats indeed.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Historically shields broke a lot. With the players experiencing this do they consider this fun at all? I like to pour on the realism but I will pull back if the rule is overaly picky.

They seemed to like it, all in all - it added some nice tension to fights. Mind you, I wouldn't introduce all the complex but realistic stuff (including hit locations) right at the start of the campaign, but after the players have gotten familiar with the basics, put it all in.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Historically shields broke a lot. With the players experiencing this do they consider this fun at all?

Dude...who wouldn't like to have at least a chance to reinact the Viking duel scene from The Thirteenth Warrior? Or reinact jousts done "to the first break" and the like?

Breaking stuff in game can be KEWL if handled properly!

 

[pawsplay]

AFAIK, he has only intentionally killed 4-5 people in the history of the comic books- Doomsday (possibly more than once) and the 3 worst inmates of the Phantom Zone- General Zod, Faora and Quex-Ul (albeit versions from the Time Trapper's pocket universe). And he only did that after they escaped after that universe's Superboy died, and they were able to kill everyone on (that) Earth. He killed them by first exposing them to (that universe's) Gold Kryptonite, then to (that universe's) Green Kryptonite.

Prior to the Crisis on Infinite Earths, he helped defend Earth during the invasion from the Vegan system, during which he destroyed a number of manned spaceships. He also killed the Anti-Monitor during the Crisis. He killed Bizarro post-crisis. He has attempted to kill Darkseid. He also pulled out Metallo's heart, although Metallo was an AI, not a natural biological creature. That's off the top of my head.

He kills in both Superman III and IV.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Prior to the Crisis on Infinite Earths, he helped defend Earth during the invasion from the Vegan system, during which he destroyed a number of manned spaceships. He also killed the Anti-Monitor during the Crisis. He killed Bizarro post-crisis. He has attempted to kill Darkseid. He also pulled out Metallo's heart, although Metallo was an AI, not a natural biological creature. That's off the top of my head.

He kills in both Superman III and IV.

Off the top of my head I'd rate that at:
Code vs. Killing: only to save other lives.

Although an argument could be made that Code vs. Killing means Supes doesn't like anyone to be killed, either by himself or others, and will do what he has to to prevent that. Even if that means killing. How he deals with this conflict is another issue.

Lets face it: nothing as complex as a real moral code is ever really going to be well modelled in an RPG.

I wouldn't expect Superman to hesitate if Doomsday were about to press the button.

Just to clarify- the rogue Kryptonians were the mass murderers. Doomsday just wanted to kill Supes, and basically bee-lined for him across the stars, killing and maiming anyone who got in his path. Kal-El was essentially in a kill-or-be-killed situation...and died (the first time, at least).

Oops, my bad. I really don't know much about old Supes except his vulnerability to kryptonite and polo accidents.