GURPS Is Broken
Peter F. Delaney
Steve Jackson's incredible research skills, his bunch still seems to
be unable to balance points. The biggest problem, of course, is the
overvaluing of IQ and DX relative to skills. Almost all GURPS
characters have high IQ and DX, even when the player professes not to
be a "munchkin" - simply because buying low IQ and DX is not cost
effective. You can't compete with people who can put 1/2 point into
their attack skills and have more skill than when you feed in 16
points to the same skill.
While we're talking about IQ and DX, not only are they the most
frequent base for skills, they are also the best attributes overall!
In general, GURPS damage is high enough that a high HT doesn't really
save you that often, and high ST, while pretty decent, is completely
useless in a higher tech game world. You want to move rocks, you get
a forklift. You want to kill people, you get a laser rifle.
One quick fix is to split off Will and Perception from IQ. We've been
using these two "extra" stats for a while now, and they seem to make
IQ quite a bit less obscene. Now the nuclear physicist need not be
the guy who spots everything and makes all his magical resistance
rolls, too.
Next, stats which are used less cost half as much. We count among
these HT, PR, WL, and ST. DX and IQ are still their usual high point
costs. A few skills are now based off of WL, such as Intimidation,
but it's kind of like HT for that - almost never. Half-costing a few
of the attributes has the nice bonus feature of keeping 100 points as
the ballpark for character creation, despite adding more stats. It
does make Move and Dodge slightly cheaper (since you can get them from
HT, which is a half-price stat). When using the skill rule
modification, you might consider not splitting off WL and PR from IQ.
And in low-tech worlds, high ST might still be a full cost stat.
Now we move to skills. We reasoned that the real problem with the
skill-attribute trade-off lies in the fact that it is easy to buy new
skills, but raising a skill you already have is expensive. We
reversed this. Getting a new skill costs quite a few points, raising
a skill you already have is pretty cheap. Both of these costs depend
on the type of skill (physical/mental) and its difficulty
(easy/avg/hard/v. hard). The cost to raise a skill depends on the
ACTUAL skill level, not the skill level relative to your statistics.
So, for example for easy skills it costs 1/2 point up through 10, 1
point through 15, 2 points through 20, etc. Although it will cost a
low IQ person more points than a high IQ person to get skills, the
difference is much smaller than under regular GURPS. You are unlikely
to be able to get an advantage in skill purchasing by getting very
high IQ. We haven't actually done this in any games yet, so we're not
sure how well it will work. I have a feeling you will still want
above average intelligence, but higher IQ becomes a (donut) rather
than a D*O*N*U*T!!! It's still great for defaults, though.
Now, I'm sure someone will call me on the "real world" issue here, so
I'll just say, trust me, either skill learning scheme makes about as
much real world sense as the other. Which set of mechanics you want
depends on how you interpret the IQ stat. If it includes motivation
and a little bit of intellect, the GURPS interpretation makes sense.
If you make it intelligence, general education, and a little bit of
motivation, our mechanics make sense. (Well, sort of; none of these
mechanics really have much to do with real world learning.)
Anyway, that doesn't fix all of GURPS. As usual, mages and psionics
are overpowered for their point costs, eidetic memory is broken, extra
hit points cost a fortune, etc., etc. On the whole, though, that gets
the biggest bugs that can be fixed without pitching the system (one of
these years I'll decide to post Unsystem and its affiliated world
backgrounds, which is pretty much the only other system we use
anymore).
Reminder to Myself: Try to restrain yourself from replying to the
inevitable "you are missing the spirit of GURPS" posts.
pd...@andrew.cmu.edu (best!) *or* 73750...@compuserve.com
Up above the world I fly, like a tea-tray in the sky.
Michael Hetteix
all the attributes into smaller catigories. Lemme see if I can remeber
them.....
IQ was broken up into IQ, Will, Creativity(for artistic skills), and
perception. ST was broken up into fatigue, arm power, leg power and
overall power or something like that. DX was broken up into leg spped,
manual dexterity and reflexes. HT was broken up into Health and Hit
Points. Each of these mini attributes are all averaged into a basic
attribute. Each mini attribute also costs a certaint fraction of how much
the attribute would normaly cost (ex- Hit Points and Health each are at
1/2 cost). Also, some attributes are made from average some attributes.
Psionic SKills are averaged between Will and Creativity. Does this sound
resonable? -toad
David Summers
<Ui0m9D600WB7EO=p...@andrew.cmu.edu>) with editing;
>Reminder to Myself: Try to restrain yourself from replying to the
>inevitable "you are missing the spirit of GURPS" posts.
A suggestion... If you are interested in a calm discussion, then an
inflamitory title like "GURPS is broken" is probably a bad idea.
In fact, that is my main objection, you have taken what I consider
minor problems (primarily, in my experience, with powermongers)
or no problem at all, and exaggerated them and provided cures that
are potentially worse, IMO, than the disease. Also, I think some of
your "problems" are a matter of philosophy. If you think the attributes
aren't price right, then it is a simple matter to change them. It sounds
to me that making HT and ST 1/2 price would do the trick. I personally
think leaving them alone is better. More on this later.
Regarding ST...
This is, _in some genres_, too expensive. However, in medieval genres,
it is essential to some characters. Even in a GURPS Shadow run campaign
I played a Troll who was able to use his ST to wear a ton of armor and
wield a 60 Lb machine gun (the kind they mount on patrol craft). To
reduce the cost of ST runs the risk of pushing it over to where some
claim Hero is, with ST being too cheap and bricks running around
everywhere.
Regarding HT... I don't agree at all here. It is used less constantly
than the others but it's application if more critical. I had several
fighters, at different tech levels, who would have died relatively
early had they not had high HT's. I had a TL 8 timid thief with a HT
of 10 (not all that low) and I had a problem with the fact that when
almost anything happened to her, she would go right down.
>One quick fix is to split off Will and Perception from IQ. We've been
>using these two "extra" stats for a while now, and they seem to make
>IQ quite a bit less obscene. Now the nuclear physicist need not be
>the guy who spots everything and makes all his magical resistance
>rolls, too.
If IQ is underpriced just raise the price. You don't need to start making new
stats to solve the postulated problem.
>Next, stats which are used less cost half as much.
I think, for reasons outlined above, this is a mistake.
>Getting a new skill costs quite a few points, raising
>a skill you already have is pretty cheap. Both of these costs depend
>on the type of skill (physical/mental) and its difficulty
>(easy/avg/hard/v. hard). The cost to raise a skill depends on the
>ACTUAL skill level, not the skill level relative to your statistics.
>So, for example for easy skills it costs 1/2 point up through 10, 1
>point through 15, 2 points through 20, etc. Although it will cost a
>low IQ person more points than a high IQ person to get skills, the
>difference is much smaller than under regular GURPS. You are unlikely
>to be able to get an advantage in skill purchasing by getting very
>high IQ. We haven't actually done this in any games yet, so we're not
>sure how well it will work. I have a feeling you will still want
>above average intelligence, but higher IQ becomes a (donut) rather
>than a D*O*N*U*T!!! It's still great for defaults, though.
>
>Now, I'm sure someone will call me on the "real world" issue here, so
>I'll just say, trust me, either skill learning scheme makes about as
>much real world sense as the other.
I must disagree. It is both my personal experience and what I've gotten
from people who are in a position to teach (which I have also done) is
that it is relatively easy to get to an initial level of "partial competence"
but move beyond that becomes increasingly difficult. The first little
bit goes a fair way.
However, the main thrust here is to partially decouple skill levels from
attributes. This is a fundamental game philosophy that I don't want to get into
(it's an argument all by itself) but I prefer game where smarter, or better
athletes, learn some things faster .
The rest a few miscelaneous responses to miscelaneous comments...
>Anyway, that doesn't fix all of GURPS. As usual, mages and psionics
>are overpowered for their point costs
I haven't used Psionics enough to say, but I don't find magic overpowered.
>eidetic memory is broken
I would scrap eidetic memory. I don't think they needed to introduce
a point mechanism to provide characters that didn't forget anything.
If someone wants a PC that doesn't forget anything then they should
pay 10 or 20 (or whatever) points and get to be reminded of everything
they may have forgotten.
--
________________________
(Disclaimer: If NASA had any postion on any of this do you think they
would have ME give it?)
David Summers - DPSu...@Ames.ARC.NASA.Gov
Joseph E. Beck
sum...@max.arc.nasa.gov (David Summers) writes:
> "Peter F. Delaney" <pd...@andrew.cmu.edu> writes (in article
> <Ui0m9D600WB7EO=p...@andrew.cmu.edu>) with editing;
> >Reminder to Myself: Try to restrain yourself from replying to the
> >inevitable "you are missing the spirit of GURPS" posts.
> A suggestion... If you are interested in a calm discussion, then an
> inflamitory title like "GURPS is broken" is probably a bad idea.
title). Of course, I was talking to him when he posted it ;-)
> In fact, that is my main objection, you have taken what I consider
> minor problems (primarily, in my experience, with powermongers)
No. Which of the following descriptions defines a top notch scientist
in gurps:
"Well, I spent 4 years at MIT doing undergrad work in physics and
chemistry. Then went on to spend 5 years at Cal Tech getting my Ph.D.
Spent 6 years studying under Feynmann (sp?) before spending the next
20 years as faculty at MIT"
Or:
"Well, I'm really really really smart. Spent a few semester taking
pysics, chemistry, and mathematics."
Also, when said Dr. Physics can spot a needle in a haystack (almost
certainly better than noticing things than his lower IQ news reporter
and martial artist friends...), AND is almost impossible to
interrogate (it works off of *IQ*), I begin to wonder just what the
designers of the system were thinking. I would not define a "minor
problem" as one that occurs almost every other roll (perception, will,
IQ, and the #$%#$% defaults).
> your "problems" are a matter of philosophy. If you think the attributes
> aren't price right, then it is a simple matter to change them. It sounds
Isn't that what was suggested? Do you have a simple method to not
correlate IQ with perception and will?
> Regarding ST...
> This is, _in some genres_, too expensive. However, in medieval genres,
Most modern ones.
> it is essential to some characters. Even in a GURPS Shadow run campaign
> I played a Troll who was able to use his ST to wear a ton of armor and
> wield a 60 Lb machine gun (the kind they mount on patrol craft). To
Hmm...did the same thing with the original Shadowrun system ;-) Then
use almost all your humanity to buy computer memory in your head and
you have a rock stupid troll who knows everything. But I digress...
> reduce the cost of ST runs the risk of pushing it over to where some
> claim Hero is, with ST being too cheap and bricks running around
> everywhere.
In most modern games I've seen, ST isn't that useful. If you're not
fighting, most modern puzzles I've seen are usually solved by brains,
or if strength is needed more than 1 person can help out. The case
where 1 person having extra ST being a big gain hasn't come up much.
And if you are fighting, well, I won't even start the DX vs ST
"debate", it seems pointless given that few modern weapons even have a
ST component to damage
> Regarding HT... I don't agree at all here. It is used less constantly
> than the others but it's application if more critical. I had several
> fighters, at different tech levels, who would have died relatively
> early had they not had high HT's. I had a TL 8 timid thief with a HT
> of 10 (not all that low) and I had a problem with the fact that when
> almost anything happened to her, she would go right down.
If you had spent 30 points and moved your HT to 13 would it have made
a difference? At higher TL's your physical hit points become more and
more pitiful. Unless your GM is going through contortions to try to
have damage that will have vastly different effects on the HT 8 to 15
range (i.e., the damage is quite low, and is carefully set) there is
nil difference.
> If IQ is underpriced just raise the price. You don't need to start making new
> stats to solve the postulated problem.
Ok, raise the price of IQ and you STILL have the nuclear physicists
who see everything and never crack under pressure. This lowers
everyone's IQ, so the smart characters are still best at the tasks
they "shouldn't" be good at.
> I think, for reasons outlined above, this is a mistake.
Are you really claiming that ST or HT is anywhere near as useful
(using Gurps Classic rules) as IQ? If not, I don't see why it should
cost the same. If I'm going to go through the accounting and juggling
to make sure my characters "points" add up to some arbitrary number
I'd like there to be some underlying reason.
> >Now, I'm sure someone will call me on the "real world" issue here, so
> >I'll just say, trust me, either skill learning scheme makes about as
> >much real world sense as the other.
> I must disagree. It is both my personal experience and what I've gotten
> from people who are in a position to teach (which I have also done) is
> that it is relatively easy to get to an initial level of "partial competence"
I think there is a fair startup cost when learning a new skill. It
does depend on what you are doing though. But, let me use a game
example:
Brian is a very bright (IQ 13) UPenn student, who has spent a semester
(according to the rules this is 1 character point) studying physics.
He has a skill of 11.
Bob goes to the same school and has an average IQ of 10, he takes the
same intro course as Brian. Afterwards he takes a course in optics, 1
in thermo, and 1 in e&m (I'm not a physics guy, so stop laughing ;-).
So, who would YOU ask about physics? Brian who has taken 1 semester
and has a skill of 11, or Bob who has taken 4 semesters and has a
skill 10.
I won't even bother to play cute games with physical skills (whose
point costs increase at even more staggering rates for buying skills
much above your DX), but I trust the point is made.
> but move beyond that becomes increasingly difficult. The first little
> bit goes a fair way.
For the sake of argument, I'll grant this. But in GURPS it goes too
far. As you put it, a small amount of effort makes you "semi
competent", but this level of competence is defined relative to your
stat.
> (it's an argument all by itself) but I prefer game where smarter, or better
> athletes, learn some things faster .
"some things". A smarter character has all of the stupid effects
(per, will, etc) mentioned above, and learns MUCH faster because of
the very low initial cost to purchase a skill that is relative to your
stat. And the large cost to increase a skill beyond the initial .5 or
1 pt level. The proposed system simply reduces the differential.
> >Anyway, that doesn't fix all of GURPS. As usual, mages and psionics
> >are overpowered for their point costs
> I haven't used Psionics enough to say, but I don't find magic overpowered.
Don't find magic overpowered compared to what? Supers?
Perhaps this is a bit personal for me, but I've gotten a bit tired of
"Dr. Salk, the aging, half senile, brilliant writer saves the party yet
again by detect the invisible man's scent from 40 yards away. Lucky
for the special forces agent that Salk was around to spot him".
or:
"Well, after 20 intense hours of interrogation, said special forces
agent cracked, but somehow Salk managed to maintain his composure and
they got nothing"
or:
"Damn! Neither of us can pick this lock!? Here Salk, you give it a
shot, your default is 11, mine's only 5."
But, maybe everyone in your campaigns buys ST and HT...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
jb...@andrew.cmu.edu -- If I have not seen further it is because giants
were standing on my shoulders.
"I was embarassed by how many of my species considered this book to be
a contribution." -- Marvin Minsky on "The Emperor's New Mind"
GCS/M/SS d- p- c++ l u+ e- m+(--) s/++ n-@ h f+ g+ w++ t+ r y?
David Summers
<Mi19BVe00...@andrew.cmu.edu>);
>I took this little note at the end as sort of a joke (as I did the
>title). Of course, I was talking to him when he posted it ;-)
I realized it probably wasn't to be taken seriously. I also realized
that people would take it seriously anyway. My rule of thumb is
that, unless there is a ":-)" then 40% of all people will take things
said in jest seriously (remember they can't hear the tone of your
voice or see your body language). Even with a smilie if figure
10% will still take it the wrong way. Tell you what, I'll add both
a smilie and a "?" to the title :-).
>"Well, I spent 4 years at MIT doing undergrad work in physics and
>chemistry. Then went on to spend 5 years at Cal Tech getting my Ph.D.
>Spent 6 years studying under Feynmann (sp?) before spending the next
>20 years as faculty at MIT"
>Or:
>"Well, I'm really really really smart. Spent a few semester taking
>pysics, chemistry, and mathematics."
We aren't talking expertice. We are talking the effect of the first
bit of training. A few courses in computer science can teach a
person to do a significant thing, write a program. A graduate
student will spend a months, or more, fine tuning some technique
or ability. There is a diminishing return and the first little bit
goes a long way (since after all, when you start, you learn the
things that are easiest and provide the most benefit first).
>
>Also, when said Dr. Physics can spot a needle in a haystack (almost
>certainly better than noticing things than his lower IQ news reporter
>and martial artist friends...), AND is almost impossible to
>interrogate (it works off of *IQ*), I begin to wonder just what the
>designers of the system were thinking. I would not define a "minor
>problem" as one that occurs almost every other roll (perception, will,
>IQ, and the #$%#$% defaults).
Your are comparing a scientist (with their reputations for absent
mindedness) to a reporter who is trained to spot things. This overshadows
anything to do with IQ. A better comparison is to say why is it
unreasonble to expect that Thomas, one of the best legal minds of
the century, would be better at spotting things than bubba the
construction worker?
More generally, how can you label something that a "problem" when there isn't
even a consensus on whether or not it's being done the right way? There has
been several threads on this matter and I think it's fair to say that the matter
is open to considerable debate. It seems to me that it's more of a case of your
having a different philosophy than GURPS having a problem.
>> your "problems" are a matter of philosophy. If you think the attributes
>> aren't price right, then it is a simple matter to change them. It sounds
>Isn't that what was suggested? Do you have a simple method to not
>correlate IQ with perception and will?
The postulated problem, and to which supporting arguements were directed, was
that IQ was too cheap. The proposed solution of seperating will and perception
into new stats was clearly unessecary to address the question. If the question
was how IQ correlates to will and perception then that has to be justified
seperately.
>In most modern games I've seen, ST isn't that useful. If you're not
>fighting, most modern puzzles I've seen are usually solved by brains,
>or if strength is needed more than 1 person can help out. The case
>where 1 person having extra ST being a big gain hasn't come up much.
>And if you are fighting, well, I won't even start the DX vs ST
>"debate", it seems pointless given that few modern weapons even have a
>ST component to damage
ST is _sometimes_ of limited usefulness in modern games. However,
given that there are cases where ST is of significant usefulness (the
example I gave, martial arts characters, etc all being examples) and
given that reducing the cost significantly will probably make it too
cheap for medeval genres I feel that such a reduction would be a mistake.
You could make the cost of ST genre independent but I feel the problem
is way too minor to justify complicating the system.
>
>> Regarding HT... I don't agree at all here. It is used less constantly
>> than the others but it's application if more critical. I had several
>> fighters, at different tech levels, who would have died relatively
>> early had they not had high HT's. I had a TL 8 timid thief with a HT
>> of 10 (not all that low) and I had a problem with the fact that when
>> almost anything happened to her, she would go right down.
>If you had spent 30 points and moved your HT to 13 would it have made
>a difference? At higher TL's your physical hit points become more and
>more pitiful. Unless your GM is going through contortions to try to
>have damage that will have vastly different effects on the HT 8 to 15
>range (i.e., the damage is quite low, and is carefully set) there is
>nil difference.
It's not the hitpoints, it's the HT rolls. Aside from the fact that the
character in my example kept running into problems with poisons and
disease, if you have a low health you are out of the battle almost
immediately while a high HT character will have chance to do
significant things. Additionaly, when you take a lot of damage, a
low HT character will often just die (and loosing a character out
right is the ultimate limitation) while a high HT character will survive
to get to the hospital.
>Are you really claiming that ST or HT is anywhere near as useful
>(using Gurps Classic rules) as IQ?
Yes, I am. For many character types they are _more_ important.
On average I would say that ST _can_ be a bit less usefull in
_some_ genres (but not enough so to justify some of the "solutions"
proposed) and I would say that HT is as useful (which becomes clearer
when you've had a few characters die and almost die on you).
Even if I didn't feel that way I would say that the solution is to
change the cost rather than introducing a number of unrelated
changes.
>I think there is a fair startup cost when learning a new skill. It
>does depend on what you are doing though. But, let me use a game
>example:
>Brian is a very bright (IQ 13) UPenn student, who has spent a semester
>(according to the rules this is 1 character point) studying physics.
>He has a skill of 11.
>
>Bob goes to the same school and has an average IQ of 10, he takes the
>same intro course as Brian. Afterwards he takes a course in optics, 1
>in thermo, and 1 in e&m (I'm not a physics guy, so stop laughing ;-).
>
>So, who would YOU ask about physics? Brian who has taken 1 semester
>and has a skill of 11, or Bob who has taken 4 semesters and has a
>skill 10.
OK, your example addresses whether skills should be based on stats
or not, and not the question of how a learning curve progresses.
Regarding that question, I've seen people get precious little from a
course. It is quite possible, perhap even likely, that Brian will know
more physics than Bob. I have, in fact, met freshman chemistry
majors who have more on the ball than sophmore majors.
You have the implicit complication that Bob managed to pick up a
fact that Brian hasn't been exposed to (ie Bob may know less but
he know _different_ stuff). This is one reason to roll. If you need
to know something about Physics and Bob rolls a 9 and Brian rolls
a 12 then one reason is that Bob managed to retain something from
one of those courses.
>Don't find magic overpowered compared to what? Supers?
Compared to otherways of doing things. Just today, when my "paladin"
(not accurate description but it will do) saw an undead headed toward
a campanion it turned out the fastest way of stopping it wasn't to
turn it but to pull out his sword and hack at it.
>Perhaps this is a bit personal for me, but I've gotten a bit tired of
>"Dr. Salk, the aging, half senile, brilliant writer saves the party yet
>again by detect the invisible man's scent from 40 yards away. Lucky
>for the special forces agent that Salk was around to spot him".
There is a problem in that the disad of "unalert" is implied but not
specifically stated. By the character description that character
should have that disad.
>"Damn! Neither of us can pick this lock!? Here Salk, you give it a
>shot, your default is 11, mine's only 5."
I know some really bright people, and if I had to bet whether they
would have a significantly better chance of picking a lock than
bubba the construction worker I would say definately. Now there
can be a question whether any one should have a better than even
chance at a default (I'm not sure on that one) but that is a differnt
question (it might be claimed that there should be some limit, say
9 or 10, to how high a default can be but I would have to think about
that one).
>But, maybe everyone in your campaigns buys ST and HT...
Some do, some don't, which is as it should be. ST does tend to get
a bit neglected for modern campaigns (but even then there a significant number
people go for ST) and I don't see a major problem.
Bruce Baugh
>Perhaps this is a bit personal for me, but I've gotten a bit tired of
>"Dr. Salk, the aging, half senile, brilliant writer saves the party yet
>again by detect the invisible man's scent from 40 yards away. Lucky
>for the special forces agent that Salk was around to spot him".
I remember thinking some years ago (just after SHADOWRUN came out, in fact)
that GURPS would benefit from a skill web. Defaults would cascade off your
character's relevant skills. But after a few levels of association, this would
start dropping pretty low. Dr. Salk would end up not being as good at
lockpicking as Flavius Fingers, the stupid but nimble lad who is Dr. Salk's
boon companion and who has experience in tinkering with cars.
Unfortunately, the skill web would have to be campaign-dependent, and I can't
imagine really doing it for the kind of game I like to run.
11265-Graham Wills
>Your are comparing a scientist (with their reputations for absent
>mindedness) to a reporter who is trained to spot things. This overshadows
>anything to do with IQ. A better comparison is to say why is it
>unreasonble to expect that Thomas, one of the best legal minds of
>the century, would be better at spotting things than bubba the
>construction worker?
This is exactly the problem. I was playing in a SF GURPS game with a medical
scientist with 16 IQ. Another player had a sleuth with high HT and ST and
IQ of 12. But the rules make it much much easier for me to spot things than
him.
>>Isn't that what was suggested? Do you have a simple method to not
>>correlate IQ with perception and will?
The correct question is: Why are they correlated at all? Does anyone seriously
believe intelligent people have better perception? Better will?
In Rolemaster, as an example, Perception is based on intuition, which is
different from intelligence (Memory and Reasoning) and Will is a combination
of stats, with IQ being one of three.
>ST is _sometimes_ of limited usefulness in modern games. However,
>given that there are cases where ST is of significant usefulness (the
>example I gave, martial arts characters, etc all being examples) and
>given that reducing the cost significantly will probably make it too
>cheap for medeval genres I feel that such a reduction would be a mistake.
>You could make the cost of ST genre independent but I feel the problem
>is way too minor to justify complicating the system.
If you feel it's a minor problem, you clearly don't play many high tech level
games. In SF HT and ST are more "an occasionally useful skill". Making
a good character means you look at IQ and DX, adding HT and ST for flavor
only.
For a low tech world, I'll agree the stats are reasobnably balanced, but
in high tech - no way. If anyone disagrees with this, I'd like to hear about
their standard rules GURPS game in which players were as eager to buy HT
and ST as IQ for a high tech campaign.
>It's not the hitpoints, it's the HT rolls. Aside from the fact that the
>character in my example kept running into problems with poisons and
>disease, if you have a low health you are out of the battle almost
>immediately while a high HT character will have chance to do
>significant things. Additionaly, when you take a lot of damage, a
>low HT character will often just die (and loosing a character out
>right is the ultimate limitation) while a high HT character will survive
>to get to the hospital.
Poisons and diseases are reasonably rare in SF - esp. diseases. And
hitpoints are kind of irrelevant when being shot at by a 15 dice laser
rifle. Higher DX is better to shoot him first, or higher IQ so you can
do any of the thousands of useful tech skills to get the hell out of
there.
>>Are you really claiming that ST or HT is anywhere near as useful
>>(using Gurps Classic rules) as IQ?
>Yes, I am. For many character types they are _more_ important.
>On average I would say that ST _can_ be a bit less usefull in
>_some_ genres (but not enough so to justify some of the "solutions"
>proposed) and I would say that HT is as useful (which becomes clearer
>when you've had a few characters die and almost die on you).
In high tech games characters die completely and finally, in a six
month campaign we had no losses due to hits being insufficient. People
were vaporized, died in open space, explosions and so on. I got very tired
of my elderly doctor character having to do anything techy. Eventually
I made him more and more paranoid just so the game could be vaguely
playable.
>Even if I didn't feel that way I would say that the solution is to
>change the cost rather than introducing a number of unrelated
>changes.
Four stats just isn't enough. In a high tech world where HT and ST are
more or less irrelevant, two stats to describe your intrinsic ability is
a real problem - especially when *every* character has bought it at between
12 and 16. That gives a total of 16 starting characters. And this is
supposed to be generic?
-Graham Wills
--
Graham Wills Data Visualization / Software Research (11265)
gwi...@research.att.com AT&T Bell Laboratories, Indian Hill, Naperville IL
Joseph E. Beck
> I remember thinking some years ago (just after SHADOWRUN came out, in fact)
> that GURPS would benefit from a skill web. Defaults would cascade off your
> character's relevant skills.
skill web and see what a very high level of millitary theory is good
for...
> start dropping pretty low. Dr. Salk would end up not being as good at
> lockpicking as Flavius Fingers, the stupid but nimble lad who is Dr. Salk's
Sure he would! Lockpicking would be near a bunch of mental skills,
really ;-)
Kromm
>There are a number of annoying problems with the GURPS system
In fact, with all systems. Actually, GURPS' problems are relatively few
and far between by comparison to many systems. (Pre-emptive strike: I
would say the same for Hero - this is not a rap against Hero!)
>The biggest problem, of course, is the
>overvaluing of IQ and DX relative to skills
I personally feel that you are ignoring the value of ST and HT. Skills,
while definitely the core of the GURPS system (and bully for that, IMO),
are not everything. Sure, you do not need to roll against ST and HT as
often as against DX, IQ and the related skills - but hey, HT keeps you
alive, and ST is virtually indispensible in campaigns of TL 5 or less,
in campaigns with unusual talents which burn Fatigue and in any kind of
superheroic or larger-than-life action hero game. All I know is that
after 8 years of GMing virtually every genre in GURPS, it is the high-
HT characters who have the longest and most fruitful careers, not the
high-DX/high-IQ ones.
>Almost all GURPS
>characters have high IQ and DX, even when the player professes not to
>be a "munchkin" - simply because buying low IQ and DX is not cost
>effective
Well, yes. GURPS may not be a "cinematic" rules system, but it is a
"heroic" one, in the sense that the "default" 100-point PC is supposed
to be markedly better than Joe Average; and a >100 point PC even more
so. Given this point of design philosophy and the fact that GURPS is,
as I have stated, skill-centred, it stands to reason that "heroic" PCs
will have high DX and IQ by definition. This is no more a sign of
GURPS being "broken" than is the fact that Hero players take "magic
values" of CON and so forth, or the fact that most AD&Ders rolls lots
more than just 3d6 six times. All systems have "minimal heroic stat
levels", even if they do not state as much. You are free to change
any number in GURPS, including stat costs - but do not then turn
around and grouse about how "overly realistic" GURPS is and how
badly it handles "heroic" and "cinematic" characters.
>While we're talking about IQ and DX, not only are they the most
>frequent base for skills, they are also the best attributes overall!
>In general, GURPS damage is high enough that a high HT doesn't really
>save you that often
Whoa, whoa, whoa and WHOA! "HT doesn't really save you that often"? I
think that you must be playing by some strange, new house rules, then.
You make HT rolls to come out of stun, avoid unconsciousness, avoid
knock-down, keep from dying, stave off poison, disease, cold, heat and
dehydration, resist a lot of psi and magic, recover lost HT, check to
see if crippling injuries are permanent, etc, etc, etc. Plus, your
HT score determines how much damage is needed to stun, cripple or KO
you and how much you can take before going to half move and dodge.
All that, and it helps determine basic speed too. I would be willing
to argue that HT is the single *most* important GURPS stat.
>and high ST, while pretty decent, is completely
>useless in a higher tech game world. You want to move rocks, you get
>a forklift. You want to kill people, you get a laser rifle.
Here is a little article I wrote in response to this kind of thing. I
think it summarizes my views on ST:
-----
I have noted that some people feel that the ST attribute in GURPS is
perhaps not very useful, since it neither directly affects a large
number of skills (like DX or IQ) nor the character's chance of long-
term survival (like HT).
As someone who runs a rather eclectic GURPS campaign, using almost the
whole system, I would just like to point out that I am not too certain
that ST is nearly as useless as some people feel. I *will* make the
admission that in a game with *little or no combat*, ST will not be
all that useful - but then neither will DX or HT, really. Given that
some combat will occur, ST is not just important in low-tech/magical/
fantasy/hand-to-hand combat.
First, if you examine the GURPS system, you will find a number
of ways to sap a target of his or her ST - there are psionic attacks
(Mental Blow, advanced techniques of Telekinetic attack), magical
attacks (Fatigue spell, Steal ST), super powers "limited" with the
"Fatigue Damage Only" limitation, many rays and toxins from _GURPS
Ultratech_ etc. The nasty thing is that once ST goes to 0, the target
falls in a heap, neutralized - unlike when HT goes to 0 due to injury,
where the character can make a HT roll to stay conscious each turn.
Moreover, DR does not generally help against these "fatiguing" attacks
at all. As a result, a really tough character with lots of armour and
a high HT - who could fight at -HT by making a HT roll each turn -
can be dropped quickly by, say, a few Mental Blows. So ST is certainly
useful to at least somewhat offset the effects of such attacks.
Second, most weapons from _High Tech_ and many from _Ultratech_
have a Minimum ST. This means that in a game where combat occurs and
heavy weapons will be needed, a high ST is *required* to avoid huge
combat penalties. As well, in this style of game, the martial arts
and the occasional close-range punch-up are de rigeur - and there,
too, ST is essential. In addition, a GM running any kind of realistic
military campaign should require an above average ST from the PCs, if
they are meant to be line soldiers who have been through physical
training, and not officers with desk jobs.
Next, a high ST can be very useful - even in a high-TL game - for
getting certain basic tasks done. Rarely do you see a game of any TL
where no one ever has to move an I-beam off of a friend trapped by an
explosion, or kick a door down, or pull someone to safety, or throw a
grenade FAR away. These are things where certain DX and IQ based skills
can help a little, but high ST helps a LOT. A group with no high-ST
characters may find itself trapped by a door with a chair under the
knob, where Lockpicking and Guns(Pistol) really will not help much.
Also, ST helps a great deal with encumbrance. High DX and so on
might give a great Basic Speed, but without ST, that Speed gets eaten
away by any serious load - and unless the PCs are always in a modern
city, they will be carrying loads more often than not. That goes for
space marines and modern commandoes as much as it does for knights
and mages in a fantasy game. Keep in mind that many skills are affected
by encumbrance level, too (Stealth and Swimming, for example), and so
while high ST may not affect those skills like DX, it lets you use them
in realistic situations without huge penalties.
Plus, ST has any number of very useful effects that many do not
think of when they think of ST. It can replace HT when you are being
choked, if it is better than HT (see _Supers_). It gives a decent
default on many skills (e.g. - Climbing, Intimidation, Leadership,
Swimming) useful at any TL. It enhances your ability to perform most
physical feats (digging, jumping, throwing, shoving things) that are
necessary at all TL's, as any soldier in the last 6000 years can tell
you. ST is great in that it enhances many abilities for which there
exist NO skills to improve said abilities, or where the existing skills
give only a slight edge.
Finally, having run a multi-TL GURPS game with characters of high
ST, I can tell you that no single attribute produces such obvious and
cinematic effects at high levels as does high ST. When the PCs were at
TL 7, for example, the ST 13 to 15 guys who could fire M-60's from the
hip, kick down heavy doors, manage 1200cc Harleys and so forth were the
envy of the skill-optimized high-DX and high-IQ types, because they
realized that while subtlety has its uses, overt, blustering mayhem
can be a great deal of fun, too - and fun is what it is all about!
In the final analysis, ST is only NOT useful when the GM fails to
present that PCs with challenges where ST *is* useful. Yes, if the GM
makes everything rely upon skill rolls, of course the high-DX-and-IQ
characters will be overly useful. So throw the occasional obstacle in
the players' path that really *does* require a brute-force solution.
That door with the chair under the handle. The Hell's Angel who will
only talk if you can out-arm-wrestle him. Firing the sawed-off 12-
gauge one-handed. Lifting the neutronium reactor shielding before it's
too late. Many obstacles in life are blatantly physical ones, and ST
is the solution.
-----
>Next, stats which are used less cost half as much. We count among
>these HT, PR, WL, and ST.
You certainly roll against ST and HT less often than the sum total of
all your DX and IQ-based skills, I will admit; but this is not the same
as the stat being used less. ST and HT do their job while just sitting
there.
>Now we move to skills. We reasoned that the real problem with the
>skill-attribute trade-off lies in the fact that it is easy to buy new
>skills, but raising a skill you already have is expensive
This is the issue of the GURPS learning curve. I may be a physicist by
trade, but I also have to teach as part of my job. Moreover, my father
has been an educator all his life. Let me just say that I have thought
long and hard about education and learning - long before GURPS came
along. Personally, I agree with the steep learning curve in GURPS. I
have seen it in action in real-life. If you are out to preserve game
balance, than I will agree that this learning curve will not help much,
but if you are interested in realistic characters - points be damned -
then the GURPS learning curve is ideal. As for the role of natural
"talent" (high stats) in GURPS, you are free to disagree, as I suppose
it is a philosophical point more than anything else. I happen to know
of people who have "talent" in the GURPS sense, and ones who do not.
I would say that the GURPS DX-IQ-Skill triad works fine for those with
talent, but there should perhaps be an alternative (not *replacement*)
system for people who have low DX and IQ to buy high skills in narrow
areas. I think that an extended system of "aptitudes" like Musical
Ability and Language Talent would be good.
>Getting a new skill costs quite a few points, raising
>a skill you already have is pretty cheap
Hurm. So you essentially install a threshold in your learning curve,
then reduce the slope of the curve higher-up? This represents the
real-life learning curve of very few skills. Certainly not "hard
science" skills, in any event.
>So, for example for easy skills it costs 1/2 point up through 10, 1
>point through 15, 2 points through 20, etc.
This downplays natural talent too much. You are effectively saying that
if I have IQ 15 and want to buy +1 with a skill it will cost me more
than if I have IQ 10 and want to buy the same +1. Skill levels are not
just raw performance. They reflect your ability to personally innovate
and use the information you have. IQ 15 characters have more of this,
and should not be penalized. After all, DX and IQ are costed on the
assumption that characters will base skills off of them. That is why
IQ and DX cost points. If you do not plan to have high skills or many
skills, take a low IQ or DX. Would you take high ST if you planned to
play an unadventurous, sedentary character? No. So why take high IQ
or DX if you plan to play an unskilled character? Just as the cost for
HT reflects more Hit Points, better HT rolls and higher basic speed,
so, too, does the cost for DX and IQ reflect higher skill levels.
>Which set of mechanics you want
>depends on how you interpret the IQ stat. If it includes motivation
>and a little bit of intellect, the GURPS interpretation makes sense.
>If you make it intelligence, general education, and a little bit of
>motivation, our mechanics make sense
Hurm. Problem is, GURPS IQ is meant to reflect the sum-total experience,
intellect, perception and reasoning ability of an individual. Back when
GURPS first came out, I recall an article where someone was explaining
IQ. They stated that a high-IQ GURPS character might be intelligent, or
well-educated, or creative or have immense conviction and force of will.
The whole point was to simplify the system by keeping it as one stat.
Those who like messy character sheets are free to break IQ up as much
as possible. Just remember - your *defaults* for mental skills are all
IQ based. In other words, what you can guess at or figure out about a
skill without formal training is 100% IQ-based. Do you suddenly lose
this intuitive understanding when you study? I say no.
>Anyway, that doesn't fix all of GURPS. As usual, mages and psionics
>are overpowered for their point costs
Not so, IMO. I have run GURPS for years; in fact, I am presently running
a cross-genre, "anything goes", high-powered campaign. In my experience,
magic, psi and other "weird talents" are *not* overpowered or costed too
low. IMHO, the real problem is that real-life GMs have no real-life
experience with working psi, magic, etc., and so they cannot "reality-
check" weird talents. This means that players of PCs with such talents
can get away with bloody murder unless the GM does a lot of "preemptive
abuse checking". Played by the strictist letter of the GURPS rules, the
"weird powers" in GURPS are quite balanced indeed.
>eidetic memory is broken
Perhaps. I have known *one* person in real-life with this "advantage".
It worked just like in GURPS - the guy picked up everything after one
reading or lesson. It is incredibly rare, however, and should probably
be costed higher (50 & 100) to avoid abuse.
>extra
>hit points cost a fortune
This is because they represent a very cinematic and unusual power. I am
not sure they "cost a fortune", though, as they are only 5 points each.
In campaigns where extra hit points make sense (cinematic, high-powered
ones), characters ought to have 250+ points, and if a character wants
HT 15/20, it will cost only 90. A bargain. Keep in mind that GURPS Hit
Points are *NOTHING* like AD&D Hit Points, and do not and should not
rack up as characters get more powerful. The idea of active defenses
is to keep more experienced characters from getting hurt, and a high
HT (not Hit Points) can greatly improve life expectancy. GURPS is a
rather realistic system - a single bullet or sword thrust is *meant*
to kill even the mightiest human, if well-placed. If you want characters
who can stand up to machine gun fire and take on 10:1 odds, then GURPS
probably is not the system for you, unless you play _GURPS Supers_.
>Reminder to Myself: Try to restrain yourself from replying to the
>inevitable "you are missing the spirit of GURPS" posts.
Heh. Every game has a design philosophy. Games *have* to have design
philosophies, even if they are meant to be "generic" and "universal"
like GURPS. No game makes sense to or "works" for someone who cannot
agree with the basic philosophical choices made by the game's designers.
You clearly disagree with many of the fundamental assumptions that were
made by SJG when they put GURPS together, and in that sense you *are*
missing the spirit of GURPS. Some very picky, realism-oriented players
such as myself like the design philosophy behind GURPS, and disagree
with claims that the system is "broken" just because someone out there
does not like said philosophy. *Shrug* It sounds to me like you want
to play a style (*not* genre - I mean *style*) of game that GURPS is
not aimed at. Perhaps switching systems would be easier than overhaul-
ing an extensive, established one?
-Kromm
______________________________________________________________________
| cx...@musica.mcgill.ca <- Peasant Mail
Dr Manfred Dieter Kromm |pu...@hep.physics.mcgill.ca <-
(aka Sean M. Punch) |pu...@chopin.physics.mcgill.ca <- NeXT Mail
McGill University |--------------------------------------------
High Energy Physics | "Why did you bore a hole in your head?"
Montreal, Quebec, Canada|"To let the people out." "You mean voices?"
| "No. People. Arms, legs - everything."
Lewis Beard
> No. Which of the following descriptions defines a top notch scientist
> in gurps:
> "Well, I spent 4 years at MIT doing undergrad work in physics and
> chemistry. Then went on to spend 5 years at Cal Tech getting my Ph.D.
> Spent 6 years studying under Feynmann (sp?) before spending the next
> 20 years as faculty at MIT"
> Or:
> "Well, I'm really really really smart. Spent a few semester taking
> pysics, chemistry, and mathematics."
Well keep in mind that for any non-PCs, the guy who spent 35 years studying
physics and chemistry would gave obtained 1 character point for every
200 hours of study and/or skill use. It may even be a little faster for
non-job use. Anyway, that translates into every 5 weeks is 1 character
point, or about 10 a year. Assuming some overhead, lets be conservative
and drop this to 8 points a year. That's ... 280 CHARACTER POINTS the
character can add to any of the skills he was studying. Even a M/VH skill,
that would let him up his skill by 70 points. Having physics at 80- on 3d6
is pretty good. :) And even if he spent all that time on 8 or 10 related skills
(research, teaching, physics, math, advanced physics, engineering, etc),
he could STILL split that up into 280/4perskilllevel/10skills or +7 to
whatever his diminishing returns skill was. Having all those skills at
say, 12- plus 7 more points, is 19-, so I'd ask the MIT guy in both real
life and gurps.
The problem is when you create a PC who is supposed to have all that education
as a background, one can't afford to buy IQ 10 or IQ 11 and then give him a
physics of 19- as well as 8 other skills or so. HOWEVER, since IQ represents
education and intelligence and experience all as one, buying a high(er) IQ
and putting less points in the individual skills is the best way to represent
this. Whether an assumed intellectual background should make you so adept
at picking up unrelated skills, i dont know. BUT, Steve Jackson in the 1st
pages of the basic book says NO WAY can you really model yourself or what
some people are, because it would cost too many points (a paraphrase).
BUT, grow into your character; its more fun.
> Also, when said Dr. Physics can spot a needle in a haystack (almost
> certainly better than noticing things than his lower IQ news reporter
> and martial artist friends...), AND is almost impossible to
> interrogate (it works off of *IQ*), I begin to wonder just what the
> designers of the system were thinking. I would not define a "minor
> problem" as one that occurs almost every other roll (perception, will,
> IQ, and the #$%#$% defaults).
IQ is a lot more than intelligence. Just buy some disadvantages to make the
character less perceptive. If the PC doesnt want to, well so he is DOC
SAVAGE, who would make an excellent GURPS PC. :) If he does take disads and
is therefore not too observant or has weak will or needs glasses, great.
Dont let your PCs pretend to be bumbling old codgers unless a) they really
are or b) the bought disguise. :)
> If you had spent 30 points and moved your HT to 13 would it have made
> a difference? At higher TL's your physical hit points become more and
> more pitiful. Unless your GM is going through contortions to try to
> have damage that will have vastly different effects on the HT 8 to 15
> range (i.e., the damage is quite low, and is carefully set) there is
> nil difference.
Are you suggesting that when I pick up a high tech energy disintegrator, that
your hit points should increase cause its not fair for me to shoot you?
Well I hope not. In the advent of lasers and high tech, the human body
IS a frail thing indeed. Unless you have some kind of high tech armor.
So whats the problem?
And with a HT of 10, if i knock you to -10 HT, you have a 50% chance to die.
If your HT is 13, you have a 16.2% chance to die. With HT 14, its only around
9.9% chance to die. I think the high HT is critical. We dont let players start
with HT over 12 or 13, in fact, due to HT being ridiculously useful for
avoiding unconsciousness and death. With HT 15, you can make your roll every
second, and unless someone brings you to -5 X HT, you will likely stay awake
enough to exact vengeance before you die, and in any game where magical, psi
or high tech healing is available, you might live anyway.
Also, if you fall below 0 HT, you are 50% likely to pass out .. at which time
a foe stabs you while down. With HT 13+ you'd not be likely to have that
happen for a few seconds up to almost a minute. Useful in a fight, to be sure.
> Ok, raise the price of IQ and you STILL have the nuclear physicists
> who see everything and never crack under pressure. This lowers
> everyone's IQ, so the smart characters are still best at the tasks
> they "shouldn't" be good at.
I think the disads are there to simulate characters who arent particularly
using (in terms of their character and what it "should" do) perception or
will power. And if you dont like defaults, then dont allow any defaults to
IQ; only allow defaults to other skills. That way, the professor cant
pick locks just cause he is smart. ALSO, the rules say the GM doesnt have
to allow defaults. Finally keep in mind that the quality of a default is
nothing compared to a learned skill. A default to botany for an IQ 17
character is, what, 12 or less? So he will make it 73% of the time. BUT,
what kind of information can he get from that? Most likely, it'd be
no more than some useful fact learned in high school, like "Hey, this
tree is in the evergreen family". Someone with the skill would, likely
as not, not even need to roll to know that. The roll would only come
into play for things that challenged the character's knowledge, like "What
is the cycle for pollenation for such and such a plant, and where does it
grow, and how does that relate to the temperature in this room,
and so therefore, is it odd to find this kind of leaf on Mr. Samuel's
boots?" .. then the plant/botany guy who learned it as a skill could
have a chance (his skill roll) to guess correctly or rather figure it out.
Mr. amazing IQ would at most know perhaps whether it grew all year round
or not; or maybe whether it was healthy or not (MAYBE), or perhaps whether
or not it'd taste good in a salad.
> > I think, for reasons outlined above, this is a mistake.
> Are you really claiming that ST or HT is anywhere near as useful
> (using Gurps Classic rules) as IQ? If not, I don't see why it should
HT is MORE useful than IQ or DX, regardless of genre.
ST is as useful in any circumstances where the character wont need
to carry much and where he wont need to lift anything by himself,
but that's not common. I mean, if a pillar pins you, maybe you and your
buddies together cant move it anyway; dont you wish your ST had been
14 instead of 11? Maybe it would work. Oh gee, you now must carry 100
lbs of weapons, modern armor, equipment and other stuff in a trench war.
BUT you cant cut it; you are weak and cant do forced march with a lot of gear.
I can think of lots of other way ST is useful. Anything with PSI or
magic will find ST useful, both as a power battery and as a way to resist.
PLUS, leadership defaults to ST .. a useful thing for a grunt type who
wants to lead.
Finally, tailor your game to your players; if your players buy ST, provide
situations where ST is required or useful, despite the # of players. Have
NPCs react more favorably to ST high characters (i.e. leadership). Those
who spend the points can be provided with opportunity. Lots of times, esp
in the modern worlds where you claim ST is useless, weapons can't be carried
around. SO, unless every character is a martial arts death god, having
ST in a fight is gonna be useful.
Oh yeah, if your players abuse the rules (in your opinion) and NO ONE buys ST,
let it haunt them. Its easy enough to throw in a situation or 2 where,
maybe ST isnt required, but if they had it it would have saved them hours
at a time, or allowed them some opportunity. I.E. Snake, leader of the
Black Tie gang, will tell you what you wanted to know, but only if you
can out wrestle his best man .. and no funny stuff, or yas gets it.
Otherwise, its lumps and/or no dice.
> I think there is a fair startup cost when learning a new skill. It
> does depend on what you are doing though. But, let me use a game
> example:
> Brian is a very bright (IQ 13) UPenn student, who has spent a semester
> (according to the rules this is 1 character point) studying physics.
> He has a skill of 11.
> Bob goes to the same school and has an average IQ of 10, he takes the
> same intro course as Brian. Afterwards he takes a course in optics, 1
> in thermo, and 1 in e&m (I'm not a physics guy, so stop laughing ;-).
> So, who would YOU ask about physics? Brian who has taken 1 semester
> and has a skill of 11, or Bob who has taken 4 semesters and has a
> skill 10.
Those extra semesters either give Bob 3 more character points to spend
on physics, or else he can get new skills such as optics, thermo, and
others. These can default to physics (well, at least where it makes sense :)),
thereby allowing him to exceed ole 1-semester Brian.
IF this is character creation, then specialize with Brian if it is a skill
that one can specialize in. AND, to be honest, i've met the 4-semester student
who knew less about a subject than I knew after I had only 1 semester, so its
not like it can't happen. OR, you can buy your IQ higher, and claim its
a reflection of longer term learning and experience, even tho your
iq test results in the game world may be lower.
> > >Anyway, that doesn't fix all of GURPS. As usual, mages and psionics
> > >are overpowered for their point costs
> > I haven't used Psionics enough to say, but I don't find magic overpowered.
> Don't find magic overpowered compared to what? Supers?
The only thing overpowering about magic is that those who dont have it
are at a disadvantage relative to those who do. Same can be said for
wealth, social status, owning and knowing how to use a missile launcher,
or being a linguist. Or is your game all combat? :)
Seriously, damage in Magic is limited to 3d as far as I remember ... which
isnt a lot compared to some of the weapons out there. AND, otherwise,
only NOT having access to magic makes another guy seem weaker. Besides,
if you ciew magic as being weaker, lower the mana level. That's what its for.
But really, magic doesnt make one powerful particularly at standard levels
if you follow all the rules ... except for versatility. Low mana levels
can vurb this, if that's what ya need.
> Perhaps this is a bit personal for me, but I've gotten a bit tired of
> "Dr. Salk, the aging, half senile, brilliant writer saves the party yet
> again by detect the invisible man's scent from 40 yards away. Lucky
> for the special forces agent that Salk was around to spot him".
Then require the PC to buy disads on his will, perception, etc
if he isnt supposed to be able to do it. A character cant be DOC savage
and then claim to be a bumbling professor. If he really wants to be a
bumbling professor, make him buy absent mindedness, poor eyesight,
1 level of weak will. Heck, then he may still even have high
perception, but with that absent mindedness, no one will ever know.
That's what these advantages and disads are for.
Lewis
--
Lewis W. Beard le...@damops.wes.army.mil Jackson, Mississippi, U.S.A.
"Inner Worlds IS the Mahavishnu Orchestra's Love Beach." - Lewis W. Beard
"Where's My Backstage Pass? Outrageous Costume!" - various members of QUEEN
"Looking at the sun for fifteen years made us CRAZY!" - Captain Jim & Pedro
"You been listenin' to those Stevie Wonder records .. hunh?" - Glenn Hughes
Lewis Beard
> The correct question is: Why are they correlated at all? Does anyone seriously
> believe intelligent people have better perception? Better will?
Does anyone realy think that GURPS IQ only reflects modern iq tests,
or even strictly intelligence? If you dont want the PC having
perception or will or experience then make him lower his IQ and buy up his
skills or else require the guy wth the IQ to buy disads to reflect the
fact that his IQ ONLY represented (in terms of reflecting what he had
in mind for his character archetype) iq as we know it. Otherwise, let
him buy IQ, and make it clear that he is more like DOC SAVAGE than
Professor Perrywinkle; but so be it.
If you want your dumb jock to notice things quite often, buy levels of
perception.
> For a low tech world, I'll agree the stats are reasobnably balanced, but
> in high tech - no way. If anyone disagrees with this, I'd like to hear about
> their standard rules GURPS game in which players were as eager to buy HT
> and ST as IQ for a high tech campaign.
Well, me and you are both shot and I have HT 14 and you have HT 10.
We are both at -17 HT. I have a 9% chance to die; you have a 50% chance.
If you are playing with medical technology so high that death doesnt matter,
then none of the stats matter as characters could then take the top level
of wealth and buy a better body.
As for ST, well, unless you are in TL 16 or something, ya gotta lug all that
high tech gear around ... it gets tiring. Also, unless you play in some
weird world where players can carry weapons anywhere, they may get
into brawls .. ST can help. What about a poison that was resisted by HT?
You can create situations needing HT.
> In high tech games characters die completely and finally, in a six
> month campaign we had no losses due to hits being insufficient. People
> were vaporized, died in open space, explosions and so on. I got very tired
> of my elderly doctor character having to do anything techy. Eventually
> I made him more and more paranoid just so the game could be vaguely
> playable.
The only thing wrong with this evidence is that your IQ and DX didnt
save your butt either, so since this argumenmt compares relative usefulness,
i think you need another argument. After all, your characters were
presumably DX high and IQ high since you are complaining...yet they are still
dead. :)
David P. Summers
(11265-Graham Wills) wrote:
> This is exactly the problem. I was playing in a SF GURPS game with a medical
> scientist with 16 IQ. Another player had a sleuth with high HT and ST and
> IQ of 12. But the rules make it much much easier for me to spot things than
> him.
If he is a sleuth who is trained to spot things, it seems to me he should
have alertness to reflect this fact.
> The correct question is: Why are they correlated at all? Does anyone seriously
> believe intelligent people have better perception? Better will?
A number of people, including myself (as witnessed by several
extensive threads on the subject).
> If you feel it's a minor problem, you clearly don't play many high tech level
> games. In SF HT and ST are more "an occasionally useful skill". Making
> a good character means you look at IQ and DX, adding HT and ST for flavor
> only.
Isn't it a little arrogant to feel that anyone who doesn't see the
problems you do hasn't played many high tech level games. I've played
a fair number of them and I assure you that my disagreement doesn't
stem "inexperience".
> For a low tech world, I'll agree the stats are reasobnably balanced, but
> in high tech - no way. If anyone disagrees with this, I'd like to hear about
> their standard rules GURPS game in which players were as eager to buy HT
> and ST as IQ for a high tech campaign.
You are saying that if someone doesn't feel there is a major problem
then you challenge them to prove there is _no_ problem. Yes, ST
is a _bit_ overpriced in high tech genres but, unless every player
is a munchkin out to squeeze every possible advantage out of the
system (in which case I would argue that no system is safe) then
its a minor problem. In the high tech games players I've seen players
who have high ST as part of their concepts take it, and find it useful.
I think that cutting ST in 1/2 (even without the other proposals designed
to make ST more valuable with respect to IQ) would create significant
problems by undervalueing it with respect to medeval games. (far
more problem than is would solve)
> Poisons and diseases are reasonably rare in SF - esp. diseases. And
> hitpoints are kind of irrelevant when being shot at by a 15 dice laser
> rifle. Higher DX is better to shoot him first, or higher IQ so you can
> do any of the thousands of useful tech skills to get the hell out of
> there.
High tech books are repleat with gas grenades, poison needlers, and
the like. I would hardly say that they are rare. Hit points tend
to be a lot less important (though not as much so as you indicate,
I've always found a handful more to be useful).
> In high tech games characters die completely and finally, in a six
> month campaign we had no losses due to hits being insufficient. People
> were vaporized, died in open space, explosions and so on.
Even blasters and the like won't voporize people. It may be that in
_your_ games you happen to have a situation where ST and HT are less
useful but it seems to me that to change the whole system just to take
care of a special case is a mistake (after all, in a combat intensive,
medeval game IQ can be of limited usefulness).
> Four stats just isn't enough. In a high tech world where HT and ST are
> more or less irrelevant, two stats to describe your intrinsic ability is
> a real problem - especially when *every* character has bought it at between
> 12 and 16. That gives a total of 16 starting characters. And this is
> supposed to be generic?
First of all, changing the number of stats isn't going to do anything
about ST (or anything else) being more or less useful as you go from
one genre to another. Second, if two characters have the same IQ and
DX they are the same character? I find that more a little absurd.
Aside from the fact that I hardly consider HT and ST to be irrelevant,
there are advantages and disadvantes. Heck, I've _played_ more than
16 characters and I assure you they weren't all the same. I've also
seen characters with identical IQ and DX and they most certainly weren't
the same either.
Also, I find more stats as a solution to be an illusion. First of all,
it just shifts the problem down one level. If you split off perception
then someone else will point out that it is even more unreasonable to
assume that just because someone has good eye sight then they have good
hearing or a good sense of smell. Not you have 3 new stats and you still
aren't done because someone else points out that just because some
sees well in good lighting doesn't mean they see well in bad lighting
(and then you get similar arguements for the other sense).
Additionally, I've seen a number of games and there are a lot of
different ways of subdividing stats, not all of which are compatable.
All of them have decent arguement on their behalf. You are either
going to have arbitrarily accept one way of doing it or try and
do them all (which is impossible).
It's better to have the stats seperated into just a few unique areas
and then let people modify them with ads and disads to suit their
specific characters.
Rockerboy
: Heh. Every game has a design philosophy. Games *have* to have design
: philosophies, even if they are meant to be "generic" and "universal"
: like GURPS. No game makes sense to or "works" for someone who cannot
: agree with the basic philosophical choices made by the game's designers.
: You clearly disagree with many of the fundamental assumptions that were
: made by SJG when they put GURPS together, and in that sense you *are*
: missing the spirit of GURPS. Some very picky, realism-oriented players
: such as myself like the design philosophy behind GURPS, and disagree
: with claims that the system is "broken" just because someone out there
: does not like said philosophy. *Shrug* It sounds to me like you want
: to play a style (*not* genre - I mean *style*) of game that GURPS is
: not aimed at. Perhaps switching systems would be easier than overhaul-
: ing an extensive, established one?
I think Kromm is right on the money here. Kromm told me I was probably
not going to be able to retain the flavor of my AD&D campaign when I
changed it over to gurps, and as much as a bitched about it then (i took
his comments a differently from the way he meant them, and we had a
really nasty flame war for a few days), it's absolutely correct. In the
end, I did not like GURPS's essential design philosophy. Because of the
tying of stats to skills, the characters could not be accurately
reflected in GURPS. ST was a classic example. We had characters who
were supposed to be able to our arm wrestle a gorilla, and they simply
could not be done properly within the GURPS paradigm. It was far too
expensive to create a character of a race that has strength in excess of
human maximums. A character who had, say, an AD&D 19 strength translated
to astronomical values in GURPS if he wanted to have anything other than
strength. In the respect of the campaign flavor I wanted to run, GURPS
_was_ broken. It was inherently incapable of doing what I wanted to do
without basically changing it beyond anything resembling GURPS.
--
'Sometimes what you have to say is going to get right in the faces
of the powerful people who really run this world. But you don't
care....It's your place to challenge authority...'
roc...@netcom.com (Rockerboy)
Lewis Beard
> end, I did not like GURPS's essential design philosophy. Because of the
> tying of stats to skills, the characters could not be accurately
> reflected in GURPS. ST was a classic example. We had characters who
> were supposed to be able to our arm wrestle a gorilla, and they simply
I agree. GURPS can reflect a genre, but dont expect it to reproduce
a game mechanic. There are ways to have PCs with high ST fairly cheaply..
though that ST and a few weapon skills might be all they have. If you have
ever seen gurps FANTASY FOLK, one can build affordable ogres, half-ogres,
half-giants, etc, on a 100 point base, and man when they hit something...
ouch! Having A ST of 20+ or even 30 can be cool .... but you wont be doing
much else initially. :)
Anyway, AD&D doesnt value stats relative to one another or make
it hard to have high stats. AND, in AD&D, you can easily destroy entire
armies with a smell or 3 and a hgigh level fighter alone can kill
awesome creatures easily. If you want this in GURPS, go for the
"Cinematic" options and more character points. STILL, this just
adds a more steroid level to the genre; it still wont give you the
game mechanic you want, so maybe GURPS isnt for you.
David Summers
>Because of the tying of stats to skills, the characters could not be >accurately reflected in GURPS.
First, I feel the need to point out that your example has nothing to
do tying stats to skills.
>ST was a classic example. We had characters who
>were supposed to be able to our arm wrestle a gorilla, and they simply
>could not be done properly within the GURPS paradigm. It was far too
>expensive to create a character of a race that has strength in excess of
>human maximums.
Even if you don't use Fantasy Folk, it potentially costs as little as
120 points. Certainly reachable even with just 100 point characters.
>A character who had, say, an AD&D 19 strength translated
>to astronomical values in GURPS if he wanted to have anything other than
>strength.
When I converted my campaign from AD&D to GURPS I converted 19 Str (which
AD&D initialy considered too high too, until "powergamers" force people
to start pushing stats higher) would translate to ST 15 or 16. Certainly
reachable though a bit expensive for a 100 point character.
>In the respect of the campaign flavor I wanted to run, GURPS
>_was_ broken. It was inherently incapable of doing what I wanted to do
>without basically changing it beyond anything resembling GURPS.
Well, it seems doable to me (though a bit tough on 100 points). My
guess is that your real problem is that you want cinematic on 100 points
when you should be using higher point totals.
(Disclaimer, in case you couldn't guess, NASA couldn't give a plug
nickle about any of this).
--
Kromm
>In article <rockerCr...@netcom.com> roc...@netcom.com (Rockerboy) writes:
>>Because of the tying of stats to skills, the characters could not be >accurately reflected in GURPS.
>First, I feel the need to point out that your example has nothing to
>do tying stats to skills.
Actually, Dave, I see his point. In AD&D (and in many other systems),
stats are apples, all other skills/talents are oranges and never the
twain shall meet. For example, you can have DEX 20 in AD&D but this
does not affect your THAC0, or non-proficiency penalty or anything
else. Likewise, you can have INT 18 and WIS 18 in AD&D, but unless
you take the right NWP's, you have no chance at all of succeeding at
even some very simple tasks - *despite* your awesome mental power.
OTOH, in GURPS almost all stats determine at least some skills, and
in the case of DX or IQ *most* skills. As well, your basic stats are
a good measure of your overall competence, and each level means a
great deal. Do not forget defaults, either.
Fundamentally, games like AD&D simply use exceptionally high
and exceptionally low stats to modify certain quantities (e.g., high
DEX gives a limited bonus to hit with a missile, high STR gives a
limited bonus to hit with a hand weapon, damage is based on the weapon
and modified for high STR, etc.). Very little is actually *based*
off of stats directly in AD&D. GURPS, OTOH, *bases* most quantities
directly off of stats as opposed to merely *modifying* them (e.g.,
high DX gives high combat skills, modified by points in the skill).
When it comes time to convert AD&D --> GURPS, this difference in
philosophy becomes a major stumbling block. On one hand, you can just
translate stats. Then a low-level, high-stat AD&D character suddenly
becomes ultra-competant in GURPS, even more so that his high-level but
low-stat comrades. OTOH, you can convert AD&D proficiencies, NWPs,
THAC0, spells, class-related skills, languages etc. all to GURPS terms
and retain the level of competence of the original character, and
*then* determine an appropriate set of stats for such a character in
GURPS; but then the character may not have the stats that made it so
interesting as an AD&D character. AD&D --> GURPS has to be done by
feel, not formula, and this requires a GM and players who know both
systems very well, and who are all willing to make concessions.
One just has to accept the fact that GURPS is a skill-driven
system with a strong stat dependence while AD&D is an inherent talent-
and character class- driven system with a very weak stat dependence.
>>ST was a classic example. We had characters who
>>were supposed to be able to our arm wrestle a gorilla, and they simply
>>could not be done properly within the GURPS paradigm. It was far too
>>expensive to create a character of a race that has strength in excess of
>>human maximums.
>Even if you don't use Fantasy Folk, it potentially costs as little as
>120 points. Certainly reachable even with just 100 point characters.
Hm. From what I understand, AD&D "18/00" STR is the strength of the
average Ogre. The average GURPS Ogre is ST 20. If we decide that Ogres
are a good constant between fantasy worlds (I like to think so), then
a human who has STR 18/00 in AD&D should get ST 20 in GURPS. That will
cost 175 points on top of all the character's other stats and skills
(and there will be some, after all). AD&D runs in what GURPS would call
a "cinematic" mode. To do the AD&D --> GURPS thing you have to resign
yourself to a 250 to 400 points GURPS game. This is not the best power
level for newbie GURPS players to start out at - and most people making
the translation AD&D --> GURPS will be old hands at AD&D but newbies at
GURPS. I can see where this would be a problem.
>When I converted my campaign from AD&D to GURPS I converted 19 Str (which
>AD&D initialy considered too high too, until "powergamers" force people
>to start pushing stats higher) would translate to ST 15 or 16. Certainly
>reachable though a bit expensive for a 100 point character.
Well, Dave, I would have to disagree that AD&D STR 19 would go to GURPS
ST 15 or 16. The way I see it:
AD&D | GURPS
3-5 | 7
6-8 | 8
9 | 9
10-11| 10 <----- Average Humans in either system
12 | 11
13-14| 12 <----- Average Dwarves in either system
15 | 13
16 | 14
17 | 15
18 | 16
18/01-33 | 17
18/34-66 | 18
18/67-99 | 19
18/00 | 20 <----- Average Ogre or Vampire in either system
>Well, it seems doable to me (though a bit tough on 100 points). My
>guess is that your real problem is that you want cinematic on 100 points
>when you should be using higher point totals.
This is true.
Here is a little letter I wrote to someone who wanted to go from AD&D
to GURPS. The guidelines are very general (and may even conflict with
what I have said above), but perhaps someone will be glad to get this.
-----
My personal view on the issue at hand is a (long-winded) one-liner:
"Do not try to convert from AD&D characters to GURPS ones stat-
by-stat, spell-by-spell and hit point-by-hit point; instead, decide on
what *qualitatively* makes a given character who (s)he is and simply
translate that "feel" into GURPS."
Easier said than done, I know, but I say this simply because you cannot
truly "convert" between systems. Consider magic. AD&D spells are quite
strategic in scope (e.g. - Fireball is the archetypical battlefield
"artillery" spell; GURPS has nothing like this), AD&D spells come with
no prior study of related magic (e.g. - a mage who has never even seen
the Fireball spell can learn Explosive Fireball) and AD&D spells use a
Vancian "fire-and-forget" system. GURPS spells are tactical, logically
arrayed into colleges and are just other skills, better compared to the
"Thieving Skills" of AD&D than spells in that system. Therefore, M-Us
simply do not convert well into GURPS, nor do most other spell-users.
As well, GURPS is a point-based system where what you can and cannot
do is a function of points, not class, race and alignment limitations.
The absurdity of weapon limitations by class, of level limitations by
race, and of class limitations by alignment & race becomes intolerable
when you switch over to a system that essentially says "anything goes".
While the characters can initially be converted by "feel", it is a rare
PC who looks anything like his AD&D ancestor after the first few bonus
character points are awarded.
Finally, GURPS espouses continual improvement, and emphasizes both
the importance of stats ("attributes") and skills, while making inherent
talents of many AD&D classes (e.g. - Druidic shape-changing) difficult
to simulate. Suddenly, levels, hit points and THAC0 mean very little,
while all those little perks, like the Ranger's tracking ability, become
major skills. Characters are no longer assured advancement in all areas,
because it becomes a gradual and player-driven process.
As for campaign setting, AD&D makes certain assumptions about magic
items, monsters and classes that pervade the average AD&D campaign to
the extent where true conversion is impossible. Simply put, GURPS magic
items are neither as powerful nor as important as AD&D ones. Monsters
are not as scary, yet even the lowliest humanoid foe becomes a potential
threat. GURPS combat is realistic, and so a party used to wading through
hordes of foes will suddenly find that even a fight with an equal number
of inferior foes like Orcs becomes an even match where someone is almost
guaranteed to get hurt or killed.
All-in-all, use your judgement to convert, but remember that what
you will end up doing is not converting per se, but transferring the
names of old PCs to new ones and having those PCs live in a world with
the same geography and politics but radically different laws of nature.
A few general guidelines if you wish to convert AD&D to GURPS characters
using numbers. These are not absolute conversions, but guidelines to
apply evenly to all PCs so that party power balance stays relatively
intact:
*AD&D STR, DEX and CON should be converted to GURPS ST, DX and HT. I
would not recommend a 1-1 conversion. Instead, use a chart like the one
presented above.
*The average of AD&D INT and WIS should be converted to GURPS IQ at
the same rate as physical stats. Then, for every two levels by which
WIS exceeds or lags INT, hand out a level of GURPS Strong/Weak Will.
*CHR and COM should not get converted. Give characters with exceptional
values the option of taking GURPS Appearance, Charisma, etc., or else
disads like Hideous or Odious Personal Habit - depending on which way
the ball bounces.
*AD&D weapons proficiencies give the PC the GURPS weapons skills of the
nearest type.
*The actual value of the GURPS weapon skills should be based on THAC0.
I would recommed converting THAC0 to skill by the following formula:
GURPS SKILL = Max{(27 - AD&D THAC0), GURPS DX}
Thus, a fighter with AD&D DEX 15 and THAC0 12 becomes DX 13 and
skill 15 with his proficient weapons; while an AD&D M-U with a DEX 15
and THAC0 16 becomes DX 13, skill 13. Figure on giving a +2 to a GURPS
skill for which a fighter has a specialization in AD&D.
*Give all AD&D spellcasters Magery (for M-Us) or Power Investiture (for
Clerics). The exact level is up to you. I would convert the PC's spell
list to GURPS first, then assign all prerequisites. Then I would look at
the highest degree of Magery required as a prerequisite along the way,
and give the PC that.
*Convert AD&D spells to their nearest GURPS equivalent. Make the base
skill level equal to the cleric's or mage's GURPS IQ, plus Magery or
Power Investiture (as calculated above). You may or may not want to
give a +1 to skill for every 3 AD&D levels - that is a personal
decision. How powerful do you want spellcasters to be? When converting
spell, be creative. Perhaps Cure Light, Serious and Critical Wounds
become Lend HT, Minor Healing and Major Healing in GURPS. Perhaps
Protection from Normal Missiles becomes Missile Shield in GURPS.
*Convert AD&D class-based fuctions and NWPs to the nearest GURPS skill
at DX or IQ level. Give a +1 skill per 3 AD&D levels for class based
skills, but not NWPs. So the Thief skill "Move Silently" for a level 6,
DEX 17 AD&D Thief might become Stealth-17 for the converted DX 15 GURPS
character.
*Use the appropriate GURPS disads to represent the AD&D characters' old
racial, alignment and class prejudices and limitations. Perhaps a LG
Paladin gets Honesty, Truthfulness, Code of Honour and Sense of Duty,
while an NE Drow M-U might get Megalomania, bad Reputation etc. Be
creative.
At the end of the day, add up all the points. Let the PCs cost what they
cost - do not shave or adjust. I would recommend taking the point total
of the most powerful converted character and allowing the other players
spend enough points to become equal in power (regardless of AD&D level).
Require that these points be spent on appropriate Advantages and Skills
that the original character could believably have had. So if your most
powerful converted character is 243 points, and Joe Fighter converts
over at a mere 97 points, let Joe spend 146 points on things like the
Combat Reflexes, Toughness and High Pain Threshold advantages and skills
like Brawling and Tactics.
You are effectively starting a new game, remember, so I think that
it is only fair to start the PCs off equal. You may choose not to, but
I think the imbalance will soon be quite evidently more severe in GURPS
than it was in AD&D.
-----
s...@uno.edu
[deletia]
>
>Anyway, AD&D doesnt value stats relative to one another or make
>it hard to have high stats. AND, in AD&D, you can easily destroy entire
>armies with a smell or 3 and a hgigh level fighter alone can kill
I didn't think "Stinking Cloud" was that powerful ;-)
>awesome creatures easily. If you want this in GURPS, go for the
>"Cinematic" options and more character points. STILL, this just
>adds a more steroid level to the genre; it still wont give you the
>game mechanic you want, so maybe GURPS isnt for you.
>--
>Lewis W. Beard le...@damops.wes.army.mil Jackson, Mississippi, U.S.A.
>"Inner Worlds IS the Mahavishnu Orchestra's Love Beach." - Lewis W. Beard
>"Where's My Backstage Pass? Outrageous Costume!" - various members of QUEEN
>"Looking at the sun for fifteen years made us CRAZY!" - Captain Jim & Pedro
>"You been listenin' to those Stevie Wonder records .. hunh?" - Glenn Hughes
Best,
-* Stephen *-
Stephen Posey
S...@uno.edu
University of New Orleans
ElMundo
<CX6...@MUSICA.MCGILL.CA> writes:
"Actually, Dave, I see his point. In AD&D (and in many other
systems),
stats are apples, all other skills/talents are oranges and never the
twain shall meet. For example, you can have DEX 20 in AD&D but this
does not affect your THAC0, or non-proficiency penalty or anything
else. Likewise, you can have INT 18 and WIS 18 in AD&D, but unless
you take the right NWP's, you have no chance at all of succeeding at
even some very simple tasks - *despite* your awesome mental power."
Ahh the sheer loonacy (SP?) of AD&D comes forth! :) Just why
doesn't a DEX of 20 not affect THAC0? :) One of the great mysteries
of the world I guess. :)
ElMundo
David P. Summers
going to try and be very sparing in quoting, all references are
to article <21JUN94.12...@VM1.MCGILL.CA>, Kromm
<CX6...@MUSICA.MCGILL.CA>)
Regarding the translation of AD&D --> GURPS, I agree that the games
are so different that you can't mechanically equate AD&D stuff to
GURPS without thinking. The idea has to be to have a character
who can do pretty much the same things. I do think it is generally
possible, except possibly for magic, to get a character that can
do pretty much the same things in GURPS as in AD&D (one can balance
skill vs attribute points to produce a character that is both similarly
strong, or bright, etc with the same general level of cometance). It's
true that a character will then grow differently, but this is the whole
point. The character is not longer restricted by class, level
restrictions and various other limitations of AD&D.
It sounded to me that the original posters problems weren't in
the conversion, but in the fact that he wanted the PC's to be able
to do more stuff than 100 point characters could. I think that what
he needed was a higher point total.
(Regarding conversion of AD&D stats to GURPS.....)
I use a different conversion scheme. I take the value in GURPS that
gives the same chance of success with 3d6 as the AD&D value did with a d20.
This generally gives lower value than your system. This does,
of course, come back to the point you made about there being no
"right" way of doing it and one can only choose the method that gives
the kind of characters one wants.
It is generally difficult to convert AD&D characters to 100 point
characters. (I had a low powered AD&D campaign and, after
converting ep's to character points, I only had to convert ~4 or 5th
level characters to ~130-150 point characters). In general I would
say that for people that want to retain the cinematic level of ability
in AD&D, they should be generous with points (among other things,
like generosity with equipment and using the quick contest rules
for battles). I think your suggestion of 250-400 points is reasonable
(definately at least 200). I don't know that I agree with higher point
totals being more difficult for newbie.
I do have my own guidelines for converting from AD&D to GURPS (I made up
sort of a "core" character and let the PC's flesh them out by spending
there
allotment of character points). I won't burden the net with them, if
people
are interested they can mail me. The one thing I did like from your method
was the formula for weapon skill levels. I just gave the PC's a 0.5 point
in any weapon they had been proficient at and then let them raise it to
a level they felt confortable with.
Regading one comment in it...
>I think the imbalance will soon be quite evidently more severe in GURPS
>than it was in AD&D.
This may, or may not, be what you meant, but I found that balance was
less of a problem in GURPS. If you introduce a starting 1st level AD&D
character in a party with 6th (or worse 12th) level characters they
are pretty much useless and just tag along like a little kid with his big
brother. In GURPS, 100 point characters a less effective than 200 point
characters but by no means useless.
Great Cthulhu
>IQ was broken up into IQ, Will, Creativity(for artistic skills), and
>perception. ST was broken up into fatigue, arm power, leg power and
>overall power or something like that. DX was broken up into leg spped,
>manual dexterity and reflexes. HT was broken up into Health and Hit
>Points. Each of these mini attributes are all averaged into a basic
>attribute. Each mini attribute also costs a certaint fraction of how much
>the attribute would normaly cost (ex- Hit Points and Health each are at
>1/2 cost). Also, some attributes are made from average some attributes.
>Psionic SKills are averaged between Will and Creativity. Does this sound
>resonable? -toad
No, it sounds like Dangerous Journeys.
Sorry, I couldn't resist. B^)
--
-Doug Gibson d...@wiffin.chem.ucla.edu
"I didn't like the way he was bleeding, so I made him stop."
-from Mutant League Football
GS d-(+) p-@ c++ !l u++ e+++ m+(-) s+/+ n- h---(*) f+ !g w+ t+ r++ y+
Great Cthulhu
>sum...@max.arc.nasa.gov (David Summers) writes:
>> In fact, that is my main objection, you have taken what I consider
>> minor problems (primarily, in my experience, with powermongers)
>No. Which of the following descriptions defines a top notch scientist
>in gurps:
>"Well, I spent 4 years at MIT doing undergrad work in physics and
>chemistry. Then went on to spend 5 years at Cal Tech getting my Ph.D.
>Spent 6 years studying under Feynmann (sp?) before spending the next
>20 years as faculty at MIT"
>Or:
>"Well, I'm really really really smart. Spent a few semester taking
>pysics, chemistry, and mathematics."
The first does, of course. If he got his Ph.D. at CalTech, he's obviously
fairly smart, and SIX YEARS of study at grad student/postdoc type schedules
plus any previous study, which is certainly not small, probably amounts to ~16
points. That 16 points gives a skill of IQ+6 in a Mental/Hard skill.
On the other hand, the second guy spent "a few semester" on three subjects,
accumulating 1 or 2 points each. That amounts to IQ-2 or IQ-1 on a
Mental/Hard skill. It takes 7 or 8 points of IQ to make up the difference,
which just isn't going to happen.
>Also, when said Dr. Physics can spot a needle in a haystack (almost
>certainly better than noticing things than his lower IQ news reporter
>and martial artist friends...), AND is almost impossible to
>interrogate (it works off of *IQ*), I begin to wonder just what the
>designers of the system were thinking. I would not define a "minor
>problem" as one that occurs almost every other roll (perception, will,
>IQ, and the #$%#$% defaults).
This is a real problem. Part of this problem is that perception itself isn't
well represented as a single stat, even if you just consider one aspect of it,
like vision. I'll use myself as an example. My vision is about 20/13 (on
really good days, if the room isn't too brightly lit, I can make out the 20/10
line, but not without a lot of effort), which is easily better than that of
anyone I know. This gives me a tremendous advantage when it comes to reading
street signs at a distance, but when it comes to spotting the pen on a messy
desk I'm no better than anyone else. I have yet to see the system that can
handle this, and we haven't even STARTED to talk about the correlation with
IQ! I maintain that part of my ability to read, say, something like the eye
chart easily is because of a conscious effort to resolve blurred letters and
words into recognized patterns, which is, IMHO, IQ related. However, this
sort of IQ relationship only holds for SOME perception-type activities. I
agree, your example seems wrong. In my experience, though, most of these
real-world "Dr. Physics" types are Absent-Minded in GURPS terms, though, so
they won't be spotting that needle in the haystack but will instead marvel at
the structural integrity of a haystack built with such flimsy materials. B^)
It isn't the fault of the system that the PLAYERS aren't taking that
disadvantage, nor is it the fault of the system that the players aren't taking
Weak Will (though here I think there is a good reason to split Will from IQ,
and I might even go so far as to suggest basing it on HT).
>> Regarding HT... I don't agree at all here. It is used less constantly
>> than the others but it's application if more critical. I had several
>> fighters, at different tech levels, who would have died relatively
>> early had they not had high HT's. I had a TL 8 timid thief with a HT
>> of 10 (not all that low) and I had a problem with the fact that when
>> almost anything happened to her, she would go right down.
>If you had spent 30 points and moved your HT to 13 would it have made
>a difference? At higher TL's your physical hit points become more and
>more pitiful. Unless your GM is going through contortions to try to
>have damage that will have vastly different effects on the HT 8 to 15
>range (i.e., the damage is quite low, and is carefully set) there is
>nil difference.
That's just not true. If you're nickel-and-diming characters one or two
points of damage at a time, it makes a big difference. If you're doing 4d, it
STILL makes a big difference what your HT is. If you're doing 10d, your HT
makes a TREMENDOUS difference in survival potential.
>So, who would YOU ask about physics? Brian who has taken 1 semester
>and has a skill of 11, or Bob who has taken 4 semesters and has a
>skill 10.
Neither one, since I know more about physics than both of them. B^) B^)
Seriously, though, I've taught science classes. Bob's response if I ask him
about physics is going to be "I dunno... let me look in this book here."
Brian's response is probably just going to be "I dunno." I don't see the
effective difference.
>For the sake of argument, I'll grant this. But in GURPS it goes too
>far. As you put it, a small amount of effort makes you "semi
>competent", but this level of competence is defined relative to your
>stat.
Yes, but for a different reason than you think. In your example above, the
smarter character, Brian, didn't have to do as much work in his first semester
as Bob did. Since he spent less time on it, he has fewer character points
invested in Physics. Sure, you can add up the amount of time Mr. Genius
theoretically spent on his physics classes, but I guarantee that until he
reached a certain point, he spent MUCH less time on it (and thus fewer points)
than a student of more average intelligence. Mr. Genius will take in MORE
classes in the course of getting the same number of POINTS in a skill, in
general, because he will find the early ones very easy.
>Don't find magic overpowered compared to what? Supers?
I don't find magic overpowered compared to mundane humans built on the same
number of points, but that's just me.
>But, maybe everyone in your campaigns buys ST and HT...
If they're not mages, yes, they do. And they LIKE not having to worry nearly
as much about dying, and being able to do decent damage with a weapon.
Great Cthulhu
>sum...@max.arc.nasa.gov (David Summers) writes:
> This is exactly the problem. I was playing in a SF GURPS game with a medical
> scientist with 16 IQ. Another player had a sleuth with high HT and ST and
> IQ of 12. But the rules make it much much easier for me to spot things than
> him.
Wrong. HE made it harder for himself to spot things by not buying a good deal
of Alertness or Acute Vision. No self-respecting detective should be without
some sort of acute senses, and it is not the system's fault that the player
didn't buy them.
> The correct question is: Why are they correlated at all? Does anyone seriously
> believe intelligent people have better perception? Better will?
As I said in a previous post, I maintain that my excellent vision is in part
due to better image processing than average. Since this occurs at the level
of the brain, I figure there's a good chance it's IQ correlated.
> If you feel it's a minor problem, you clearly don't play many high tech level
> games. In SF HT and ST are more "an occasionally useful skill". Making
> a good character means you look at IQ and DX, adding HT and ST for flavor
> only.
No, making a "good character" means that you take your conception and
translate it into the system.
> For a low tech world, I'll agree the stats are reasobnably balanced, but
> in high tech - no way. If anyone disagrees with this, I'd like to hear about
> their standard rules GURPS game in which players were as eager to buy HT
> and ST as IQ for a high tech campaign.
I disagree with it, though more for HT than ST (because of HT rolls being
still reasonably common). ST, however, is quite useful, mostly because nobody
EXPECTS a physical fighter in a world of high-tech toys.
> Poisons and diseases are reasonably rare in SF - esp. diseases. And
> hitpoints are kind of irrelevant when being shot at by a 15 dice laser
> rifle. Higher DX is better to shoot him first, or higher IQ so you can
> do any of the thousands of useful tech skills to get the hell out of
> there.
You're kidding me, right? Go to a new world (a staple of SF). Find out that
you're allergic to the local fauna/flora. Make your HT rolls. What? You
didn't buy any HT? Them's the breaks, bud. If you want to survive a 15d
laser rifle shot (though this seems VERY high), you should be wearing armor of
comparable tech level.
Bill Seurer
|> Four stats just isn't enough. In a high tech world where HT and ST are
|> more or less irrelevant, two stats to describe your intrinsic ability is
|> a real problem - especially when *every* character has bought it at between
|> 12 and 16. That gives a total of 16 starting characters. And this is
|> supposed to be generic?
No, YOU don't think four stats is enough. I and OTHER GURPS refs DO think
it is enough. Now that we have that bit of semantics out of the way...
Only 16 characters? Your players don't take skills? Quirks?
Advantages? Heck, I've seen two characters that had nearly IDENTICAL
all of the above but the characters were extremely different when played
because of the players good roleplaying.
--
- Bill Seurer Language and Compiler Development IBM Rochester, MN
Business: BillS...@vnet.ibm.com Home: BillS...@aol.com
Bill Seurer
|> >Almost all GURPS
|> >characters have high IQ and DX, even when the player professes not to
|> >be a "munchkin" - simply because buying low IQ and DX is not cost
|> >effective
I utterly deny this is true. I kept statistics * on the characters my players
created over several years (including a campaign where they each made 3,
3 chars * 9 players = 27 characters). I did this because of an ongoing
argument I was having with some jerk who claimed all characters have
13 in at least 2 attributes. The characters were mostly around 145 points.
Not only did I prove him wrong but I also disproved this myth. The average
IQ, DX, ST, and HT were all within 0.5 of each other clustered around 12.
ST varied more than the others (from 7 to 18) while HT varied the least (11
to 15, mostly 11 to 13). IQ was 9 to 16 and DX was in the range 10 to 16.
The most common number for all of them was 11 followed by 14, 13, 10, and
12 roughly in that order. And yes, I adjusted the numbers for racial
factors.
This was mostly for fantasy campaigns but included some swashbucklers
too.
Anyway, the guy accused me of having an "elite" group of players which
gave them quite a chuckle. They agreed, though :-).
Now then, I have also seen groups where everyone DID have a high IQ and
DX and all the mages were halfelves and many of the attributes were 13.
I've also seen Hero games where everyone had 14 die KA's. All this
proves is that some people are wont to abuse any system.
(and no, I don't have the raw data any more. I recycled all that old
paper years ago)
* actually what I did was pull out the old GM control sheets.
Bill Seurer
number and convert directly.
What you want to do is convert the character NOT the numbers. The
character in the new system should have the same flavor as in the old.
Unfortunately, the only way this works is when the person converting
is familiar with both systems. And even then you usually have to
cut some things out and pad some other things out because different
system emphasize different things. Magic systems are usually very
difficult to convert.
I have successfully converted character between TFT and GURPS (it's
a LOT harder than you might think!) and between Rolemaster and GURPS
usuing the "go for the flavor not the numbers" philosophy. It worked
exceedingly well as best evidenced by that most memorable warrior, SAF,
who was one tough dude in any system.
Rockerboy
: >ST was a classic example. We had characters who
: >were supposed to be able to our arm wrestle a gorilla, and they simply
: >could not be done properly within the GURPS paradigm. It was far too
: >expensive to create a character of a race that has strength in excess of
: >human maximums.
: Even if you don't use Fantasy Folk, it potentially costs as little as
: 120 points. Certainly reachable even with just 100 point characters.
The problem came about that the characters, who had been the same level
in AD&D, were wildly disparate when converted true to form. As it turned
out, I _could_ have done my character by simply taking a lot of disads
that were in fact part of his personality. (He was a lout in AD&D, but
he didn't get any points for it.) The thief, for instance, was capable
of the same type of thieving things within the 150 points we allocated.
However, the Ork fighter was not. (By GURPS terms, his strength would
have been around 35, it seems.)
: When I converted my campaign from AD&D to GURPS I converted 19 Str (which
: AD&D initialy considered too high too, until "powergamers" force people
: to start pushing stats higher) would translate to ST 15 or 16. Certainly
: reachable though a bit expensive for a 100 point character.
Yes, that's what it wound up as. (The character in question had a 19,
and I believe we actually had it as 17 in GURPS.) This provided him with
_enormous_ damage capability (frankly, he did more damage in GURPS), and
yet drastically reduced his overall strength in terms of lifting things,
etc.
: Well, it seems doable to me (though a bit tough on 100 points). My
: guess is that your real problem is that you want cinematic on 100 points
: when you should be using higher point totals.
Oh, come on. Not the old 'if you did it the right way, it would have
worked' line, okay? Why can't you just accept that some things in GURPS
simply don't work the way some of us would prefer? The proof is in the
stats. In AD&D, a character with 19 strength can press 640 lbs.,
approximately 25-26 in GURPS. With GURPS, you can't make a 'young
Hercules' type character, who is really strong and coordinated, but has
only begun learning to fight. It has to do with the essential design
philosophy of the game, a philosphy that makes stats much more valuable
than in AD&D.
Rockerboy
: It's better to have the stats seperated into just a few unique areas
: and then let people modify them with ads and disads to suit their
: specific characters.
I cannot agree with this, David. One of my chief complaints was the lack
of distinction in areas because of only 4 stats. However, I do agree
that over or underpricing the stats is a problem area, too. We tried for
a while splitting IQ into several stats and dividing the normal price of
IQ by the number of areas. What it did was allow players to make
characters who were more intelligent without also buying the perception,
etc., that's rolled into it. The disadvantages are not a solution to the
problem, because they are linear per point shift, whereas the stat itself
increases in price per point as it goes higher.Using disadvantages to get
around the glomming together of stats which are often preferred divided
is a kludge, and it isn't balanced, either. If you want an absent minded
but brilliant professor, you get cheated of some points, because you have
to buy a high IQ and pay incrmentally higher points for the higher levels
of IQ. Likewise, you can grok the system by making a low IQ character
who you want to be perceptive and buying Alertness at the cheaper,
lienear level.
scott david orr
>"Peter F. Delaney" <pd...@andrew.cmu.edu> writes (in article
><Ui0m9D600WB7EO=p...@andrew.cmu.edu>) with editing;
>
>
>I would scrap eidetic memory. I don't think they needed to introduce
>a point mechanism to provide characters that didn't forget anything.
>If someone wants a PC that doesn't forget anything then they should
>pay 10 or 20 (or whatever) points and get to be reminded of everything
>they may have forgotten.
>--
As a person with RL eidetic memory, I'd like to take issue with this:
eidetic memory radically changes the way you deal with the world. You
remember a little bit of EVERYTHING, you've an unlimited supply or useful
(or useless) facts at your disposal, and you learn A LOT quicker than most
people do. Personally, I can learn the outlines of practically any discip-
line with very minimal effort, and it's also fairly easy to bring in in-
formation from other disciplines, to an extent that most people can't.
On the other hand, if the way GURPS represents it bothers you, you can
make some changes in eidetic memory: first off, it should be restricted
to characters with above-average intelligence--aside from any relationship
between IQ and memory, having a really good memory lets you call up all the
trivia necessary to use the defaults and other elements of general knowledge
that are represented by GURPS intelligence. Second, you might want to
discourage players from using eidetic memory to buy up high levels in a few
skills. Although a good memory would certianly make this possible, in my
experinence (limited of course to a sample of 1) learning things quickly also
makes getting good at any one thing rather boring--people with eidetic memory
should be generalists for the most part, not specialists (although there are
few skills, like writing or research that tend to get used in practically
any endeavor)--to this end, a character would be more realistic with 1/4
point put in a lot of skills (I don't know if this is legal but it should be
) and a 3 or 4 points put in several critical skills, rather than having
super-high levels (20+) in a couple of areas. IMHO, of course....
Scott D. Orr
David Summers
>in AD&D, were wildly disparate when converted true to form. As it turned
>out, I _could_ have done my character by simply taking a lot of disads
>that were in fact part of his personality. (He was a lout in AD&D, but
>he didn't get any points for it.) The thief, for instance, was capable
>of the same type of thieving things within the 150 points we allocated.
>However, the Ork fighter was not. (By GURPS terms, his strength would
>have been around 35, it seems.)
I'm not sure I follow. You are saying that you had two characters and
one could be done in 150 points while the other couldn't? (all nth level
AD&D PC aren't created equal and this will show up in different point
totals in GURPS characters.) Also, so you talk below about converting
a Str 19 to ST 17 and then about 25-26, are you saying he was converted to ST 17
when you think he should have been 15? (BTW, 35 ST seems _awfully_ high. Even
my _big_ Trolls aren't quite that strong)
>Yes, that's what it wound up as. (The character in question had a 19,
>and I believe we actually had it as 17 in GURPS.) This provided him with
>_enormous_ damage capability (frankly, he did more damage in GURPS), and
>yet drastically reduced his overall strength in terms of lifting things,
>etc.
Perhaps things are different in AD&D 2nd edition, but in my handbook
a character can lift 10xStr (in pounds). In GURPS a character can lift
25xST. By my calculations your AD&D character could lift (if you assume
AD&D Str 19 really means 190 pounds while your GURPS could lift 425. Now
the AD&D number maybe low based on how you interpret all the exceptional
strength junk (and you can't use carrying because in AD&D what you _lift_
increases linearly while what you can _carry_ doesn't) but it seems
to me the GURPS character can carry as much.
>Oh, come on. Not the old 'if you did it the right way, it would have
>worked' line, okay? Why can't you just accept that some things in GURPS
>simply don't work the way some of us would prefer? The proof is in the
>stats.
From what I've seen (aside from where you lost me) what you want was, and
is, doable in GURPS. This is not to say that there are things that work
one way in AD&D and differently in GURPS (which are probably the sort of things
I switched to get away from). If everything was the same there
wouldn't be a reason to switch. For example, if you want a system where
players get randomly assigned significant parts of their charcters, how
they change is spelled out by their class, and where some are significantly
more powerful than others (some do, I'm not one of them), then a
point/skill based system may not be the best choice for you.
>In AD&D, a character with 19 strength can press 640 lbs.,
>approximately 25-26 in GURPS
Again I don't know where you come up with 640 Lbs (though, perhaps as you go
through "exceptional strength", AD&D carring rules are crocked, but that is the
sort of thing I switched to get away from).
>With GURPS, you can't make a 'young
>Hercules' type character, who is really strong and coordinated, but has
>only begun learning to fight.
If the point totals for one character are a lot higher than for another then it
is telling you that you are talking about a significantly more powerful. If you
want to allow that sort of thing you can. I wouldn't, but that is my decision,
not the systems.
> It has to do with the essential design
>philosophy of the game, a philosophy that makes stats much more valuable
>than in AD&D.
Part of the problem here is an 'apples and oranges' one. How can one say
that things are more valuable in one game than the other when one chooses
them randomly and the other has you buy them?
David Summers
>: It's better to have the stats seperated into just a few unique areas
>: and then let people modify them with ads and disads to suit their
>: specific characters.
>
>I cannot agree with this, David. One of my chief complaints was the lack
>of distinction in areas because of only 4 stats. However, I do agree
>that over or underpricing the stats is a problem area, too. We tried for
>a while splitting IQ into several stats and dividing the normal price of
>IQ by the number of areas.
(I don't feel that stats are over/underpriced significantly, I was just
trying to seperate that issue from the issue of splitting stats since
I felt that the arguements for first were being used incorrectly to
try and advance the second.)
>What it did was allow players to make
>characters who were more intelligent without also buying the perception,
>etc., that's rolled into it. The disadvantages are not a solution to the
>problem, because they are linear per point shift, whereas the stat itself
>increases in price per point as it goes higher.Using disadvantages to get
>around the glomming together of stats which are often preferred divided
>is a kludge, and it isn't balanced, either.If you want an absent minded
>but brilliant professor, you get cheated of some points, because you have
>to buy a high IQ and pay incrmentally higher points for the higher levels
>of IQ. Likewise, you can grok the system by making a low IQ character
>who you want to be perceptive and buying Alertness at the cheaper,
>lienear level.
Two points. One, it seems to me that what are your talking about is
more how the disadvantages should be applied to the stat rather than
how the stats should be divided. If you don't want the disad costs
to be linear then you could just make a fraction of the stat they
are modifying (while still being able to modify them as you please).
Second, you talk about grouping stats which are "preferred divided".
One problem is that there is more than one rational way of dividing
so that you end up with one division when someone prefers another.
--
Nils Weinander,7430,000446
(I have the basic rule book, but I have never played it). A
character with a weapon skill of 14 (or was it 15?) has about a
90% chance of hitting his opponent in combat, which is a very
good chance, right? However, when he tries to defend (parry) his
skill is halved, and because the 3d6 result resolution
mechanism produces a non-linear probability progression, the
actual chance isn't just halved, but drops to about 15%. I just
can't find this reasonable. I mean an experienced fighter who
almost always hits has almost no chance to defend himself from
the attacks of his opponents?
Could Kromm or one of you others who play GURPS a lot explain
the thinking behind this rule?
/Nils W
Pierce Nichols
: There is one thing I have always wondered about GURPS combat rules.
I'm pretty experienced with GURPS, and also with hand to hand
combat. The chance you cited for hitting does not take into account other
factors - such as PD. In this case, even a PD of 2 or 3 (not to uncommon
for medieval armor), lower's the player's chance drastically.
As for parrying seeming unbalanced, go get into a fistfight with
someone. Blocking/dodging/parrying is very difficult, so the system is
balanced.
Hurricane
Brett Slocum
Eidetic Memory):
Prerequisite: IQ 12+.
Multiplier affects the first 2 points put into a skill. Any further
increase in skill must be bought at full price.
I think this is very workable. I don't think you'd need to change
the cost of Eidetic Memory either. I bet you could even
convince SJ that at least the Multiplier part deserves being put
into the Basic rules.
--
Brett Slocum "These eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfill,
slo...@io.com An it harm none, do what ye will."
Brett Slocum
being sent to the .advocacy group. Please add a Followup-To: rec.games.frp.advocacy
to your messages.
Brett Slocum
In article <rockerCr...@netcom.com>, Rockerboy <roc...@netcom.com> wrote:
>Kromm (CX6...@MUSICA.MCGILL.CA) wrote:
>I think Kromm is right on the money here. Kromm told me I was probably
>not going to be able to retain the flavor of my AD&D campaign when I
>changed it over to gurps, and as much as a bitched about it then (i took
>his comments a differently from the way he meant them, and we had a
>really nasty flame war for a few days), it's absolutely correct. In the
>end, I did not like GURPS's essential design philosophy. Because of the
>tying of stats to skills, the characters could not be accurately
>reflected in GURPS. ST was a classic example. We had characters who
>were supposed to be able to our arm wrestle a gorilla, and they simply
>could not be done properly within the GURPS paradigm. It was far too
>expensive to create a character of a race that has strength in excess of
>human maximums. A character who had, say, an AD&D 19 strength translated
>to astronomical values in GURPS if he wanted to have anything other than
>strength. In the respect of the campaign flavor I wanted to run, GURPS
>_was_ broken. It was inherently incapable of doing what I wanted to do
>without basically changing it beyond anything resembling GURPS.
If translating a AD&D campaign to GURPS I would add the Superhuman ST
rules from Supers. This gives cheaper ST at the high levels, and
AD&D has those superhuman Strengths. And your examples do not reflect
that 'these characters could not be accurately reflected in GURPS'.
Your examples say that a high Str AD&D character could not be built
with the same number of points as another character with lower Str.
You couldn't create them in 100 or 200 points. Big deal. GURPS could
still give you the character you wanted, if you were willing to
have characters with differnt point totals. To do so would not
have changed the game 'beyond anything resembling GURPS'.
11265-Graham Wills
>Does anyone realy think that GURPS IQ only reflects modern iq tests,
>or even strictly intelligence? If you dont want the PC having
>perception or will or experience then make him lower his IQ and buy up his
>skills or else require the guy wth the IQ to buy disads to reflect the
>fact that his IQ ONLY represented (in terms of reflecting what he had
>in mind for his character archetype) iq as we know it. Otherwise, let
>him buy IQ, and make it clear that he is more like DOC SAVAGE than
>Professor Perrywinkle; but so be it.
I just feel that the core rules stating that you can have one stat which
measures your ability to solve mathematical problems, distinguish smells
and resist torture is too coarse. Adding disadvantages to make it reasonable
is an annoying mechanism to fix it. It's like saying you have to buy every
option on a car, but they'll break some of them for you and charge you less.
>If you want your dumb jock to notice things quite often, buy levels of
>perception.
I *have* played the system. I undesrtand that you *can* fix the problem.
What I am stating is that there *is* a problem.
>> For a low tech world, I'll agree the stats are reasobnably balanced, but
>> in high tech - no way. If anyone disagrees with this, I'd like to hear about
>> their standard rules GURPS game in which players were as eager to buy HT
>> and ST as IQ for a high tech campaign.
>As for ST, well, unless you are in TL 16 or something, ya gotta lug all that
>high tech gear around ... it gets tiring. Also, unless you play in some
>weird world where players can carry weapons anywhere, they may get
>into brawls .. ST can help. What about a poison that was resisted by HT?
Lugging stuff around does seem to be the most useful use of ST. Doesn't
that seem a little sad?
>You can create situations needing HT.
Sure. You have to. They don't come often naturally.
>> In high tech games characters die completely and finally, in a six
>> month campaign we had no losses due to hits being insufficient. People
>> were vaporized, died in open space, explosions and so on. I got very tired
>> of my elderly doctor character having to do anything techy. Eventually
>> I made him more and more paranoid just so the game could be vaguely
>> playable.
>The only thing wrong with this evidence is that your IQ and DX didnt
>save your butt either, so since this argumenmt compares relative usefulness,
>i think you need another argument. After all, your characters were
>presumably DX high and IQ high since you are complaining...yet they are still
>dead. :)
No objects to dying - It'll always happen. It's just that better IQ and DX
are big helps to guard against it and ST and HT are only minor.
As I've stated repeatedly, for low tech worlds GURPS stats are fine. That's
what they're balanced for. Bunnies and Burrows is an excellent example -
when we ran BnB campaigns people picked big ranges of stats and were happy
with them. But in Hi-Tech, a high ST and HT character just has less to
do with his good skills than a high IQ or DX character.
In summary: I don't think the GURPS stats work well for high tech games.
Something needs fixing.
-Graham Wills
--
Graham Wills Data Visualization / Software Research (11265)
gwi...@research.att.com AT&T Bell Laboratories, Indian Hill, Naperville IL
Bill Seurer
It does! But only if you use a bow. Obviously being strong has more to
do with determining whether you hit something than if you are nimble.
NOT!
Bruce Baugh
Bill Seurer <BillS...@vnet.ibm.com> wrote:
>
>No, YOU don't think four stats is enough. I and OTHER GURPS refs DO think
>it is enough. Now that we have that bit of semantics out of the way...
>
>Only 16 characters? Your players don't take skills? Quirks?
>Advantages? Heck, I've seen two characters that had nearly IDENTICAL
>all of the above but the characters were extremely different when played
>because of the players good roleplaying.
Likewise. I think four stats is a very good number. If I were going to
modify, it would be in the direction of down, abolishing stats and replacing
them by ads/disads of different kinds. IQ would be the first to go, its
functions served by dis/ads that deal with willpower, learning of different
kinds, memory, and so forth.
As for the high-stat problem, I remember thinking just after SHADOWRUN came
out that GURPS would really benefit from a skill web; rather than having
every single skill reap the benefits of a high stat, one's ability to take a
wild stab at an unfamiliar skill would be affected by how much one knows
that might be relevant. But I know that _I_ sure wouldn't want to try to
work up a comprehensive skill web, and suspect that it might need to be
campaign-specific.
--
bru...@teleport.com
"It looked like only a few of the bears knew how to use fire, and were
carrying the others along. But isn't that how it is with everything?"
-- Terry Bisson, "Bears Discover Fire"
Kromm
>character with a weapon skill of 14 (or was it 15?) has about a
>90% chance of hitting his opponent in combat, which is a very
>good chance, right?
He has about that chance of hitting the foe's torso, all other things
being equal. In my experience, between Hit Location modifiers, Position
modifiers, Close-Combat modifiers, Shock modifiers, Footing modifiers
and Lighting modifiers, most rolls are made against weapon skill minus
a fair bit. I am personally quite leery about the interpretation of the
straight probability (on 3d6) of rolling less than or equal to your
weapon skill as your "chance of hitting".
>However, when he tries to defend (parry) his
>skill is halved, and because the 3d6 result resolution
>mechanism produces a non-linear probability progression, the
>actual chance isn't just halved, but drops to about 15%
Well, GURPS makes absolutely no assumption like, "Defending is twice
as hard as attacking, so your chances of defending should be half your
chances of attacking."; nor were the designers of GURPS naive enough
to think that "Half the skill equals half the chance," on a non-linear
probability distribution. In the instance of Defense rolls, one has to
make the conceptual leap that Defense rolls in GURPS use a fundamental-
ly *different* mechanic from attack rolls. One's *real* Defense roll is
one's Active Defense (based on skill, or on Speed in the case of Dodge);
plus a modifier - PD - that reflects the amplifying effect of armour on
your Defense, since it allows a "nick" to equate to a miss; plus the
modifiers for reflexes and special training (e.g., Combat Reflexes, Body
Language, etc.); plus tactical modifiers such as Retreating. In other
words, while skill is the primary factor involved in hitting a target,
it is only a small part of deflecting a blow and so its importance is
reduced there.
Setting aside game mechanics, I would also like to point out that
outside of fencing and the bare-handed martial arts, where defense is
emphasized as being an equal part of the fighting style (this is where
fencing *gets* its name from "deFENSE", "FENCing" -- see it now?) and
where GURPS *does* make Defense rolls higher (2/3 versus 1/2 skill),
the act of stopping a blow is not trivial and is not always an equal
part of learning to use a weapon. Let us face it, halberds were never
really meant to be used to parry sword blows, nor were greatswords the
greatest parrying weapons. In reality, armour and shield stopped far
more blows than did any broadsword for the average knight. This is why
GURPS emphasizes PD (such as is provided by armour and shield) as a big
part of the Defense roll. A skill 15 person with PD 4 plate mail and a
PD 3 medium shield has a Parry of 14, which compares to the raw attack
skill of 15 quite fairly.
In the final analysis, if you want characters to avoid blows as
skilfully as they deliver them, then do not have them use fighting
styles that were meant to be used while armoured and equipped with a
shield unless they are so equipped. If they are equipped this way, they
*can* take as good as they give; if not, then perhaps they should use
a fighting style that emphasizes defense and which is meant to be used
while lightly-equipped (usually, these two criteria are one and the
same).
Fencing, Karate, Main-Gauche, Short Staff, Staff and Tonfa, for
example, are good skills for lightly-equippped, unarmoured fighters.
All emphasize the importance of turning a blow before it strikes, as
opposed to relying on armour or a shield. Accordingly, most of these
skills have Encumbrance limits in GURPS (no greater than Light), limits
on what shields can be used (no larger than Small), but also give a
2/3 skill Parry, not a 1/2. If the character is played intelligently
and does what real-life humans do when attacked while nearly naked
(flinch, or in GURPS terms Retreat), then their Defense rolls will be
fine. For example, if your skill 15 fighter is a fencer, then his
Parry is 10, and if he retreats (+3) will become 13. Not bad - and
certainly better than his 12 or less to stab to the Vitals (-3), the
usual target of a rapier thrust in real-life.
As an aside, this emphasizes an important point about GURPS in
general: make sure you have considered the actual *use* of a rule in
a situation, with all of the attendant modifiers, before discussing
the rule. "Rapier thrust to Vitals versus foe with rapier flinching
from the steel" is worth discussing, and the rules give a believable
answer. "Standing toe-to-toe, unmoving, and jabbing rapiers at each
other's bellies" is *not* a realistic situation, and the rules will
naturally produce silly results.
>can't find this reasonable. I mean an experienced fighter who
>almost always hits has almost no chance to defend himself from
>the attacks of his opponents?
Real-life fights usually have very few blocks, dodges and parries in
them. In your dojo you might learn all kinds of technically effective
techniques for stopping blows, but against an agressive, toe-to-toe
onslaught of punches, kicks and knife thrusts, they will not be nearly
as good an option as running away. The classic cinematic scene with
swordsmen clad it loincloths or simple tunics-and-hose having it out
with broadswords and catching most of the blows with parries and dodging
the rest is just that - cinematic. When two actors have practiced a
scene forever and it is choreographed to boot, it is easy to parry the
blow, as you are expecting it and it is rather wooden - the other actor
being out to entertain, not kill you. However, in a real fight, someone
would be disemboweled by the first or second blow of the fight.
Essentially, games where defending is as easy as attacking are not
terribly reflective of real-life fights except for the rare few that
take place between true masters of highly defensive styles under ideal
conditions (e.g., Olympic fencing matches). GURPS chooses realism over
character survival, simply because it *is* realistic that fights should
be deadly. There are cinematic options in GURPS that double defense
rolls (effectively making Parry = skill) for use by those who prefer
cinematic "reality".
Ismo Peltonen
Rockerboy (roc...@netcom.com) wrote:
> I think Kromm is right on the money here. Kromm told me I was probably
> not going to be able to retain the flavor of my AD&D campaign when I
> changed it over to gurps, and as much as a bitched about it then (i took
> his comments a differently from the way he meant them, and we had a
> really nasty flame war for a few days), it's absolutely correct. In the
> end, I did not like GURPS's essential design philosophy. Because of the
> tying of stats to skills, the characters could not be accurately
> reflected in GURPS. ST was a classic example. We had characters who
> were supposed to be able to our arm wrestle a gorilla, and they simply
> could not be done properly within the GURPS paradigm. It was far too
> expensive to create a character of a race that has strength in excess of
> human maximums. A character who had, say, an AD&D 19 strength translated
> to astronomical values in GURPS if he wanted to have anything other than
> strength. In the respect of the campaign flavor I wanted to run, GURPS
> _was_ broken. It was inherently incapable of doing what I wanted to do
> without basically changing it beyond anything resembling GURPS.
Isn't STR of 19 astronomical even in AD&D? I have a character with DEX
19 in AD&D (18 and +1 for being an elf), and that's total absolute
maximum attainable without good explanations. The DM requires that my
character practices every day to retain his high DEX score (and the
skills in acrobatics and whatever), we even roleplay some of the
practicing when it suits us.
Now, the stats in AD&D _are_ different in meaning than the stats in
GURPS. If I tried to re-create the character with DEX 19 in GURPS, I'd
give him DX of perhaps 17 (which is absolutely amazing) and levels in
Acrobatics etc. It'd cost points, but what the heck, the points are just
a tool so we don't care the totals so very much.
AD&D STR of 19 is the strength of a hill giant? Ogres have 18/00? OK,
small giants (hill is the smallest, I think?) have ST of 26 base (rf.
GURPS Fantasy Folk), so the character would have to be superhuman (both
in GURPS and AD&D) to be able to do that. ST of 26 would cost 118 points
using GURPS Supers 1st edition, so it's totally out of range for 100pt
characters. But then again, it's OK for a 300pt character if the GM
allowed such superhuman stats in the first place.
Still, stats in AD&D have very different effects. STR of 19 will put the
character totally and wholly above others in that respect, and thus he
should cost a lot more to create in GURPS if that was the only thing
considered. If he had totally awesome stats in AD&D, he's very lucky and
will have to get more points in GURPS to get those stats. It'll show
clearly that people aren't built with same ability, and if one wants to
create characters of different ability, point totals will differ.
> roc...@netcom.com (Rockerboy)
--
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Home (UUCP) Ismo.P...@tower.nullnet.fi ## mail 00420 Helsinki
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ЖДЕжде <- Is Your link 8bit clean?
Ismo Peltonen
Lewis Beard (le...@damops.wes.army.mil) wrote:
> Well keep in mind that for any non-PCs, the guy who spent 35 years studying
> physics and chemistry would gave obtained 1 character point for every
> 200 hours of study and/or skill use. It may even be a little faster for
> non-job use. Anyway, that translates into every 5 weeks is 1 character
> point, or about 10 a year. Assuming some overhead, lets be conservative
> and drop this to 8 points a year. That's ... 280 CHARACTER POINTS the
> character can add to any of the skills he was studying. Even a M/VH skill,
> that would let him up his skill by 70 points. Having physics at 80- on 3d6
> is pretty good. :) And even if he spent all that time on 8 or 10 related skills
> (research, teaching, physics, math, advanced physics, engineering, etc),
> he could STILL split that up into 280/4perskilllevel/10skills or +7 to
> whatever his diminishing returns skill was. Having all those skills at
> say, 12- plus 7 more points, is 19-, so I'd ask the MIT guy in both real
> life and gurps.
Let's get this straight: a character hasn't been STUDYING the subject 35
years. He's been studying more like 10 years, and WORKING on the subject
for the rest of the time.
For studying he gains points for rate of 100h/pt to 400h/pt (depending
on quality of teachers, material, and so on, and intensity of studying),
for working he gets 400h/pt to 1600h/pt depending on several things, but
the norm would be 800h/pt.
800h is about five months. That equals to 2 points a year. Points may be
gained more, but they're likely to be for hobby skills (goes fishing
every weekend to relax) and other unrelated skills. Of course, if he'd
be working very hard, it might be up to four points a year.
So, lets assume first five years are qualitatively very good and the
subject studies intensly (sp?). Counting hobbies, holidays, breaks,
whatever, we might get some 8 points a year or even more. At that rate,
it's likely that he's got 40 points spread over several (5-10 at least)
skills during that time. After that he can't any more just try to
understand the works already done, but has to create new theories and
get more practical experience. Now, 4 points a year for the next five
years, ie. total of 20 points. And the following years (25) will be at 2
points a year, ie. 50 points total. Still, that's 110 points, of which a
lot will be in Research and Teaching (aren't most scientists working for
Universities etc. required to teach quite a lot?), and the rest will be
in a few a little more general science skills (eg. physics, chemistry,
electronics operation (sensors? communications? computers?), computer
operation, computer programming (?), etc), and then some skills of his
specific field.
I doubt any skill will have more than 20 points in it, whatever he's
done. So, a M/H skill would be at IQ+8, ie. a LOT. But then, he's a
serious scientist, having studied ten years and then worked on the field
for 25 years. Also, he's got skills in very narrow fields at very high
levels (eg. Physics (fiberoptics) @23 (dunno about physics so much, this
is an example only) with IQ of 15 which is very high in itself) and thus
is likely to have done a lot in the field and will be able to answer
nearly any question conserning that field of study (optional
specialization gives +5 to skill, so 23 would count as 28).
If someone will still try to insist on that 200h/pt in all cases, I'd
like to hear how can it be justified. (rf. GURPS Basic Set, 3rd edition,
pp. 82-83 sidebars `Improvement Through Study' and I think Ultra Tech,
possibly Special Ops, perhaps Martial Arts... Don't remember which ones
talked about this).
> Lewis W. Beard le...@damops.wes.army.mil Jackson, Mississippi, U.S.A.
> "Inner Worlds IS the Mahavishnu Orchestra's Love Beach." - Lewis W. Beard
> "Where's My Backstage Pass? Outrageous Costume!" - various members of QUEEN
> "Looking at the sun for fifteen years made us CRAZY!" - Captain Jim & Pedro
> "You been listenin' to those Stevie Wonder records .. hunh?" - Glenn Hughes
--
Kromm
>In article <2u7nne$9...@search01.news.aol.com>, elm...@aol.com (ElMundo) writes:
>|> Ahh the sheer loonacy (SP?) of AD&D comes forth! :) Just why
>|> doesn't a DEX of 20 not affect THAC0? :) One of the great mysteries
>|> of the world I guess. :)
>It does! But only if you use a bow. Obviously being strong has more to
>do with determining whether you hit something than if you are nimble.
>NOT!
In the spirit of all this "Go from AD&D to GURPS now and get 50% off of
free advice!" stuff, I would like to point out that - though intended
jokingly - the comment above is pretty important for those who really
are trying to go from AD&D to GURPS. One of the biggest difficulties
many AD&Ders have when switching to GURPS is the change in the relative
importance of DEX/DX and STR/ST for warriors going from one system to
the other. While an AD&D Fighter is characterized by his STR (indeed,
it is the class's prime requisite) and can get by with a fairly low
DEX, the GURPS fighter is characterized by his DX and can get by with
a low ST. In fact, the "standard" GURPS fighter in my campaigns is
usually ST 10 to 13 but DX 14 to 16. To the AD&D-raised gamer, this
seems topsy-turvy. It certainly makes the relative combat effectiveness
of Fighters and Thieves change radically when converting AD&D -> GURPS.
I recall a gamer who had played nothing but AD&D for the six years
previous to joining my old GURPS fantasy campaign (the one before the
present one). He always maintained that ST was more important than DX
for a warrior, since this was true in AD&D. Despite my tutoring, he
made a ST 15/DX 12 character in my GURPS game - apparently based upon
an old AD&D character of his. Well, he was sorely disappointed after
fight number 3 or 4 because his PC consistently ended up swiping
ineffectually at the torsos of his foes, while the ST 12/DX 15 and
ST 11/DX 16 warriors in the party were striking the Vitals and Brain,
and using Feints to bypass defenses with great effect. He moaned that
his character was supposed to be a mighty warrior, with the ST to
prove it - and to this day I think he probably *still* feels he was
ripped-off.
David P. Summers
<CX6...@MUSICA.MCGILL.CA> wrote:
> In the spirit of all this "Go from AD&D to GURPS now and get 50% off of
> free advice!"
Alright, I'll undercut you! I'll offer _75%_ off my free advice. :-)
> the GURPS fighter is characterized by his DX and can get by with
> a low ST. In fact, the "standard" GURPS fighter in my campaigns is
> usually ST 10 to 13 but DX 14 to 16.
I would put it that ST and DX are more equal in value. The fighters
I've seen rarely have DX more than 1 level higher than ST. (and
a few have high ST's).
This is a bit off the subject, but on interesting strategy I saw was
a character who has DX 10 and put all his points into ST and just
all-out-attacked (of course his HT was OK too). It actually worked
OK. The character has survived and gone from 100 points to over
200 points (and, of course, no longer needs to all-out-attack :-).
11265-Graham Wills
>gwi...@graceland.att.com (11265-Graham Wills) writes:
>> This is exactly the problem. I was playing in a SF GURPS game with a medical
>> scientist with 16 IQ. Another player had a sleuth with high HT and ST and
>> IQ of 12. But the rules make it much much easier for me to spot things than
>> him.
>Wrong. HE made it harder for himself to spot things by not buying a good deal
>of Alertness or Acute Vision. No self-respecting detective should be without
>some sort of acute senses, and it is not the system's fault that the player
>didn't buy them.
If we both put the same number of points into Acute Vision I do better than
him simply because I've good IQ. This is silly. If he has to put 5 points
into Acute Vision just to be as good as a bozo scientist at spotting things
he's paying for stuff I get for free.
>> For a low tech world, I'll agree the stats are reasobnably balanced, but
>> in high tech - no way. If anyone disagrees with this, I'd like to hear about
>> their standard rules GURPS game in which players were as eager to buy HT
>> and ST as IQ for a high tech campaign.
>I disagree with it, though more for HT than ST (because of HT rolls being
>still reasonably common). ST, however, is quite useful, mostly because nobody
>EXPECTS a physical fighter in a world of high-tech toys.
Oh, you meet enough bodyguards and so on in urbane settings. But when
out exploring an unknown planet, do you want to punch a giant cat or
shoot him with a 15 dice laser? If you're breaking into a military base
sure, nobody expects to be hit over the head with a crossbar. But they'd
prefer it to being shot.
>You're kidding me, right? Go to a new world (a staple of SF). Find out that
>you're allergic to the local fauna/flora.
By using your IQ based science skills to work out they're bad for you and
avoiding them. Or maybe the IQ based computer skills. Or the IQ based
perception to remember the illustration in the threedees.
>Make your HT rolls. What? You
>didn't buy any HT?
Nope, no need. The high IQ character took 1/2 point of exobio and says they're
dangerous. We'll wear suits. Time for the GM to get the suits ripped somehow
so he characters who took high HT feel like they got some value for it. How
about dropping a tree on someone so the high ST guy feels he can do something
too? No that won't work, they'll just use the pneumatic jacks or three of
thme will lift the tree together. Well, let's contrive something else...
>Them's the breaks, bud. If you want to survive a 15d
>laser rifle shot (though this seems VERY high), you should be wearing armor of
>comparable tech level.
Yep, I completely agree. And HT makes no difference in either case.
douglas craig holland
Brett Slocum <slo...@illuminati.io.com> wrote:
>House rule for Eidetic Memory (based on Scott Orr's discussion of
>Eidetic Memory):
>
>Prerequisite: IQ 12+.
>Multiplier affects the first 2 points put into a skill. Any further
>increase in skill must be bought at full price.
>
>I think this is very workable. I don't think you'd need to change
>the cost of Eidetic Memory either. I bet you could even
>convince SJ that at least the Multiplier part deserves being put
>into the Basic rules.
Works pretty well. I'd drop the IQ prerequisite, at least in more cinematic
campaigns. You've seen Rainman? Definitely.
Doug Holland
--
| Doug Holland | Proud member of:
| hol...@beethoven.cs.colostate.edu | Mathematicians Against Drunk Deriving
| Finger for PGP 2.2 key |
Jason Packer
David P. Summers <DPSu...@Ames.arc.nasa.gov> wrote:
>This is a bit off the subject, but on interesting strategy I saw was
>a character who has DX 10 and put all his points into ST and just
>all-out-attacked (of course his HT was OK too). It actually worked
>OK. The character has survived and gone from 100 points to over
>200 points (and, of course, no longer needs to all-out-attack :-).
To go off the topic of your going off topic, in the last Fantasy game of
GURPS I was in, my character was named Bog. He was enormous and had the
strength to prove it. To allow for character concept (the gamers around
here are much cooler on concept and roleplay than stats and figures), I
was allowed to take the racial "doubled strength" advantage. Thus my
relatively low DX fighter had a 26 strength. When I first took him into
combat, I tried to fight like I used to with "normal" characters, you
know, dodging, defending...I almost lost! Then I started using
all-out-attacks to attack twice per turn, and my opponents either fled
back in retreat or were crushed utterly by the spectacular damage I could
manage with my club.
I can see it working with a more normal character too...especially if
those around him are more normal (I joined the campaign late, thus was a
250 point character)
Jas
Great Cthulhu
>Oh, come on. Not the old 'if you did it the right way, it would have
>worked' line, okay? Why can't you just accept that some things in GURPS
>simply don't work the way some of us would prefer? The proof is in the
>stats. In AD&D, a character with 19 strength can press 640 lbs.,
>approximately 25-26 in GURPS. With GURPS, you can't make a 'young
>Hercules' type character, who is really strong and coordinated, but has
>only begun learning to fight. It has to do with the essential design
>philosophy of the game, a philosphy that makes stats much more valuable
>than in AD&D.
Hold on there... in GURPS, you're allowed to lift up to 30 times your ST with
the expenditure of Extra Effort (and a point of Fatigue). This lets someone
with ST 20 lift 600 pounds, which is darn near what you want.
And, as someone else has pointed out, a 19 ST GURPS character has a
significantly MORE frightening ability to deal out damage than a 19 STR AD&D
character.
Great Cthulhu
>d...@chem.ucla.edu (Great Cthulhu) writes:
>>Wrong. HE made it harder for himself to spot things by not buying a good deal
>>of Alertness or Acute Vision. No self-respecting detective should be without
>>some sort of acute senses, and it is not the system's fault that the player
>>didn't buy them.
> If we both put the same number of points into Acute Vision I do better than
> him simply because I've good IQ. This is silly. If he has to put 5 points
> into Acute Vision just to be as good as a bozo scientist at spotting things
> he's paying for stuff I get for free.
Wrong again. You paid for that as part of your IQ score; you didn't get it
"for free."
> Oh, you meet enough bodyguards and so on in urbane settings. But when
> out exploring an unknown planet, do you want to punch a giant cat or
> shoot him with a 15 dice laser? If you're breaking into a military base
> sure, nobody expects to be hit over the head with a crossbar. But they'd
> prefer it to being shot.
What if that cat gets the jump on you before you can shoot it? THEN you'll be
wishing for ST, not an XXX dice laser.
>>Them's the breaks, bud. If you want to survive a 15d
>>laser rifle shot (though this seems VERY high), you should be wearing armor of
>>comparable tech level.
> Yep, I completely agree. And HT makes no difference in either case.
This is also just not true. If the laser ends up doing some damage after
armor, but not enough to vaporize you, HT makes a huge difference.
The thing is, high-tech toys break and can be taken away from the characters.
It's a lot harder to remove someone's ST and HT.
Bill Seurer
|> House rule for Eidetic Memory (based on Scott Orr's discussion of
|> Eidetic Memory):
|>
|> Prerequisite: IQ 12+.
|> Multiplier affects the first 2 points put into a skill. Any further
|> increase in skill must be bought at full price.
|>
|> I think this is very workable. I don't think you'd need to change
|> the cost of Eidetic Memory either. I bet you could even
|> convince SJ that at least the Multiplier part deserves being put
|> into the Basic rules.
I like that. But what about the effects on spells? Right now it is
+1/+2 to all spell skill levels.
scott david orr
be (for most players) the sole determinant of sensory talent (do I see it or
don't I?). If you agree do this: create a skill called "Recon". Recon is
a mental/easy skill, but instead of being based on IQ, it's based on a con-
stant "attribute" of 14 for everyone (thus, the default for Recon is 10).
Characters with Alertness, or the proper Acute sense, get a bonus. Charac-
ters with IQ 12+ get a 1+ bonus (smart people DO make better scouts), those
with IQ 14+ get a +2; likewise IQ 8- gives a -1, IQ 7- a -2 (anyone with
and IQ less than 7 is profoundly retarded and probably has bigger problems
to worry about). This skill is used ONLY for noticing things--actually
seeing, smelling, tasting, something in particular. For noticing the
signifcance of something (not that the picture is askew, but that that might
mean there's a safe behind the picture) still requires a straight IQ roll
(the grey areas will probably be large--this is what GM's are for). If
characters get levels of this skill that are too high, simlply make it
average or hard (or reduce the level of the atribute from which it defaults--
either way has exactly the same effect). Maybe you could do something similar
for will rolls? I dunno.
Scott D. Orr
scott david orr
soon notice that it's MUCH easier to hit a target with the stick than to block
another stick. What's more, in RL, the practictioners of weapons skills,
realizing this, tend to train their students to attack rather than defend
(except in fencing, quarterstaff, and many Asian martial arts). And in ad-
dition, the things that make a good offensive weapons (heavy so it does lots
of damage) make a poor defensive weapon (heavy weapons are slow), though the
sword, for example, is a compromise in this respect (heavy to do damage but
balanced to make parrying easier--but also to make it easier to re-attack after
a missed swing).
Scott D. Orr
scott david orr
>House rule for Eidetic Memory (based on Scott Orr's discussion of
>Eidetic Memory):
>
>Prerequisite: IQ 12+.
>Multiplier affects the first 2 points put into a skill. Any further
>increase in skill must be bought at full price.
>
>I think this is very workable. I don't think you'd need to change
>the cost of Eidetic Memory either. I bet you could even
>convince SJ that at least the Multiplier part deserves being put
>into the Basic rules.
Hmmm.....good idea, but I'm not sure. For skills that require knowing a lot
of facts (esp. the scientific skills), it's still helpful even at higher
levels (I suspect it even helps in learning social skills--where catolouging
others' behavior is of value). I think the best fix is to encourage players
with Eidetic Memory to (1) avoid concentrating in one or a few skills (by GM
fiat if necessary) and (2) possibly take disadvantages, such as Laziness or
Absent-mindedness, that reflect the personality of a person who doesn't have
to put any effort into things.
Oh, BTW, I have it on good authority (a memory researcher) that there's no
such thing as a "photographic memory" (actually, it would be theoretically
impossible--you can't possibly perceive all the data your senses deliver to
your head)--so the 60-pt. version might better be mixed (but then, it could
just be another level of eidetic memory).
Scott D. Orr
scott david orr
writes:
>In article <2u7p1o$1u...@locutus.rchland.ibm.com>,
>
>Likewise. I think four stats is a very good number. If I were going to
>modify, it would be in the direction of down, abolishing stats and replacing
>them by ads/disads of different kinds. IQ would be the first to go, its
>functions served by dis/ads that deal with willpower, learning of different
>kinds, memory, and so forth.
>
is about the best-documented "attribute" in the real world. It sounds weird,
but decades of attempts to tease out different factors in "intelligence" have
found that (for stuff like academic subjects and other non-creative mental
endeavors) most of the variance in performance among individuals can be
explained (if you remove the differences for training) by two factors:
"verbal" and "reasoning" abilities (under various names). Of course, this
doesn't apply (necessarily) to things like willpower, but it does apply to a
LOT.
Scott D. Orr
scott david orr
>
>Works pretty well. I'd drop the IQ prerequisite, at least in more cinematic
>campaigns. You've seen Rainman? Definitely.
An interesting example, but (though I'm not expert) I don't think you'll find
anyone with average IQ and eidetic memory--the example you use is of an
autistic (and "idiot savant") who has a great memory for facts precisely be-
casause his brain doesn't function properly (and remembers facts rather than
doing the things it's supposed to do.
Scott D. Orr
Rockerboy
: Ahh the sheer loonacy (SP?) of AD&D comes forth! :) Just why
: doesn't a DEX of 20 not affect THAC0? :) One of the great mysteries
: of the world I guess. :)
It 'lunacy', El. And the concept isn't as stupid as it seems at first.
Remember, GURPS combat is blow-by=blow, one second rounds, whereas in
AD&D, each round is a full minute, and represents a series of attacks
that never really get all that well specified. Dex modifies your armor
class rather than your to hit in melee.
--
'Sometimes what you have to say is going to get right in the faces
of the powerful people who really run this world. But you don't
care....It's your place to challenge authority...'
roc...@netcom.com (Rockerboy)
Anthony Ragan
roc...@netcom.com (Rockerboy) writes:
>It 'lunacy', El. And the concept isn't as stupid as it seems at first.
>Remember, GURPS combat is blow-by=blow, one second rounds, whereas in
>AD&D, each round is a full minute, and represents a series of attacks
>that never really get all that well specified. Dex modifies your armor
>class rather than your to hit in melee.
Which is why I stopped playing or running AD&D except at cons. The
idea that armor affects your chance to be hit bugs the heck out of me.
I prefer chaosium's take on armor, which has it reduce damage.
Yes, I know Gurps does something similar, where and armor's PD will
affect the chance to be hit, but for some reason (wholly irrational,
I sure. :) ), it just doesn't bother me there.
--Anthony
ecz...@mvs.oac.ucla.edu -OR- Iris...@aol.com
Rune Chia Pet of Ernalda, Snotling in Chief
John H Kim
Doug Gibson <d...@chem.ucla.edu> wrote:
>roc...@netcom.com (Rockerboy) writes:
>>The proof is in the stats. In AD&D, a character with 19 strength can
>>press 640 lbs., approximately 25-26 in GURPS.
>
>Hold on there... in GURPS, you're allowed to lift up to 30 times your ST with
>the expenditure of Extra Effort (and a point of Fatigue). This lets someone
>with ST 20 lift 600 pounds, which is darn near what you want.
Errrh? So the average person (ST10) can lift 300 pounds? Isn't
that a little overboard?
This is a rule from 2nd Ed _GURPS Supers_, no? Perhaps it should
remain in that genre.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Kim | "Whatever else is true, you - trust your little finger.
jh...@columbia.edu | Just a single little finger can... change the world."
Columbia University | - Stephen Sondheim, _Assassins_
Rockerboy
: Isn't STR of 19 astronomical even in AD&D? I have a character with DEX
: 19 in AD&D (18 and +1 for being an elf), and that's total absolute
: maximum attainable without good explanations. The DM requires that my
: character practices every day to retain his high DEX score (and the
: skills in acrobatics and whatever), we even roleplay some of the
: practicing when it suits us.
First, I would probably tell you DM to pack sand. ;) Secondly, it's only
astronomical if you _care_. I don't care what stats players have, which
is why I tell them simply to assign them as they want. I'm not
interested in someone having to play a character he doesn't really like
because he didn't roll some hunk of plastic a certain way. I'm
interested in character, not luck in dice rolling.
: Now, the stats in AD&D _are_ different in meaning than the stats in
: GURPS. If I tried to re-create the character with DEX 19 in GURPS, I'd
: give him DX of perhaps 17 (which is absolutely amazing) and levels in
: Acrobatics etc. It'd cost points, but what the heck, the points are just
: a tool so we don't care the totals so very much.
I disagree. 17 Dex in GURPS is quite good, probably more benificial than
a 19 dex in in AD&D. The point being that the comparison's don't
equate. A Dex 19 in AD&D is superhuman. A dex of 17 in GURPS isn't.
The point being, to place your character in comparison with others
requires you to have a Dex in GURPS that makes you a god in Dex based
skills.
: AD&D STR of 19 is the strength of a hill giant? Ogres have 18/00? OK,
: small giants (hill is the smallest, I think?) have ST of 26 base (rf.
: GURPS Fantasy Folk), so the character would have to be superhuman (both
: in GURPS and AD&D) to be able to do that. ST of 26 would cost 118 points
: using GURPS Supers 1st edition, so it's totally out of range for 100pt
: characters. But then again, it's OK for a 300pt character if the GM
: allowed such superhuman stats in the first place.
I believe I mentioned that the character is _supposed_ to have superhuman
strength precisely _because_ he isn't human in the first place. The
point here is that superhuman strength in AD&D means you're really strong
and can lift really heavy things, and do a little more damage in an
attack, and that's all. In GURPS, it does a great deal more, and to give
the character the same kind of heroic strength, you spend monstrous
amounts of points, and the effects are much more pronounced.
: Still, stats in AD&D have very different effects. STR of 19 will put the
: character totally and wholly above others in that respect, and thus he
: should cost a lot more to create in GURPS if that was the only thing
: considered. If he had totally awesome stats in AD&D, he's very lucky and
: will have to get more points in GURPS to get those stats. It'll show
: clearly that people aren't built with same ability, and if one wants to
: create characters of different ability, point totals will differ.
This is precisely my point. A strength of 19 _doesn't_ put you
monstrously ahead in AD&D, and as characters advance, the difference
becomes even less of a factor. In GURPS, the reverse is true.
Rockerboy
: I'm not sure I follow. You are saying that you had two characters and
: one could be done in 150 points while the other couldn't? (all nth level
: AD&D PC aren't created equal and this will show up in different point
: totals in GURPS characters.) Also, so you talk below about converting
: a Str 19 to ST 17 and then about 25-26, are you saying he was converted to ST 17
: when you think he should have been 15? (BTW, 35 ST seems _awfully_ high. Even
: my _big_ Trolls aren't quite that strong)
Re: All AD&D PC's dont convert across to the same point values
Uh huh. Exactly. That's the whole _point_. The characters who were
more or less equal in AD&D were not so in GURPS.
re: 35
A Typo. Should have been 25.
The character was converted to 17, and I think he really should have been
a 25. Not by damage dealing capability, but by _lifting_ capability.
: Perhaps things are different in AD&D 2nd edition, but in my handbook
: a character can lift 10xStr (in pounds). In GURPS a character can lift
: 25xST. By my calculations your AD&D character could lift (if you assume
: AD&D Str 19 really means 190 pounds while your GURPS could lift 425. Now
: the AD&D number maybe low based on how you interpret all the exceptional
: strength junk (and you can't use carrying because in AD&D what you _lift_
: increases linearly while what you can _carry_ doesn't) but it seems
: to me the GURPS character can carry as much.
You're mistaken. The 0 lbs per point only applies up to 18, after which
is changes. !st Edition never really gave precise lifting capabilities
(that I know of) over 18(00), which was somewhere around 500 lbs. The
2nd edition very clearly denotes each category's maximum press, that is,
the maximum the character can lift over head. For 18(00), human maximum,
this is 480 lbs, and for 19, it is 640 lbs. We're not discussing
carrying. We are discussing what you can, with two hands, lift _over
your head_, like on barbells.
: From what I've seen (aside from where you lost me) what you want was, and
: is, doable in GURPS.
I am open to your demonstration that it can be resolved, David.
: This is not to say that there are things that work
: one way in AD&D and differently in GURPS (which are probably the sort of things
: I switched to get away from). If everything was the same there
: wouldn't be a reason to switch. For example, if you want a system where
: players get randomly assigned significant parts of their charcters, how
: they change is spelled out by their class, and where some are significantly
: more powerful than others (some do, I'm not one of them), then a
: point/skill based system may not be the best choice for you.
I don't randomly assign skills in AD&D. I have my players assign them
according to the character they want to play.
: Again I don't know where you come up with 640 Lbs (though, perhaps as you go
: through "exceptional strength", AD&D carring rules are crocked, but that is the
: sort of thing I switched to get away from).
Exceptional strength is a kludge. But please don't pretend that GURPS
doesn't suffer from kludge-itis as well. The fix of disadvantages to
counter affect the glomminging together of too many stats into a few is
just as bad.
: >With GURPS, you can't make a 'young
: >Hercules' type character, who is really strong and coordinated, but has
: >only begun learning to fight.
: If the point totals for one character are a lot higher than for another then it
: is telling you that you are talking about a significantly more powerful. If you
: want to allow that sort of thing you can. I wouldn't, but that is my decision,
: not the systems.
_No_, David. You're being deliberately obtuse, here. I am saying that
characters who were equals in AD&D, when translated into GURPS, _became_
significantly more or less powerful because of the way GURPS works. And
I _don't_ want to allow it. That's why (among other reasons) I switched
back to AD&D.
: Part of the problem here is an 'apples and oranges' one. How can one say
: that things are more valuable in one game than the other when one chooses
: them randomly and the other has you buy them?
: --
You're turning on yourself, here, David. I have maintained that GURPS
and AD&D _are_ apples and oranges, and you are trying to tell me that
GURPS can be an apple _or_ an orange, which it clearly can't. And again,
I don't randomly assign stats. I _deliberately_ assign them.
Rockerboy
: In the spirit of all this "Go from AD&D to GURPS now and get 50% off of
: free advice!" stuff, I would like to point out that - though intended
: jokingly - the comment above is pretty important for those who really
: are trying to go from AD&D to GURPS. One of the biggest difficulties
: many AD&Ders have when switching to GURPS is the change in the relative
: importance of DEX/DX and STR/ST for warriors going from one system to
: the other. While an AD&D Fighter is characterized by his STR (indeed,
: it is the class's prime requisite) and can get by with a fairly low
: DEX, the GURPS fighter is characterized by his DX and can get by with
: a low ST. In fact, the "standard" GURPS fighter in my campaigns is
: usually ST 10 to 13 but DX 14 to 16. To the AD&D-raised gamer, this
: seems topsy-turvy. It certainly makes the relative combat effectiveness
: of Fighters and Thieves change radically when converting AD&D -> GURPS.
This isn't just AD&D, Kromm. It's a concept commonly held in mythology,
literature, etc. Look at Hercules, or Samson. (Of course, David _did_
kill Goliath, but there are those who would argue it was intelligence
that was the key issue there. ;) ) Warriors are generally held to be
strong and hearty, not lean and fast. (They can be fast, too, but
they have huge muscles.) So when someone wants to create a classic
fantasy warrior, they don't see a balet dancer, the see Arnie
Shwartzeneggar. AD&D catered to this, and it isn't all that unreasonable
to do so. GURPS seems to have a problem with some things that people
like but we all know aren't feasable (the Mecha question comes to mind
here.) Which is all fine, because not everyone likes the same kind of
game.
Rockerboy
: Two points. One, it seems to me that what are your talking about is
: more how the disadvantages should be applied to the stat rather than
: how the stats should be divided. If you don't want the disad costs
: to be linear then you could just make a fraction of the stat they
: are modifying (while still being able to modify them as you please).
It's still basically a kludge, and requires you to calculate things when
you do it that way. Basically, the point here is that you are using a
disadvantage to modify a single stat, when it would be easier simply to
have seperated them in the first place.
: Second, you talk about grouping stats which are "preferred divided".
: One problem is that there is more than one rational way of dividing
: so that you end up with one division when someone prefers another.
When it requires a seperate die roll that isn't based on some skill etc.,
that it should be a stat, wouldn't you agree? I don't think that
everyone _will_ wan to divide them up the same way, but there are several
areas that are _consistantly_ pointed to, and Perception and Willpower
definitely fall into this category. When you can easily come up with
some pretty ordinary examples that need seperation of the ideas, it is
fair evidence that there is a problem. The clever professor is one
example. Another easy one is the obstinate brick, who might be a really
dim fellow, but is plainly unmovavble unless he wants to be moved. How
about the artist who notices everything, but can barely stop chewing his
fingernails and can't add without a calculator? This is not the trivial
matter that you would have us believe.
David Summers
>When it requires a seperate die roll that isn't based on some skill etc.,
>that it should be a stat, wouldn't you agree?
I don't see it that way, you are saying if a die roll isn't a skill it has
to be against some unmodified stat?
>I don't think that
>everyone _will_ wan to divide them up the same way, but there are several
>areas that are _consistantly_ pointed to, and Perception and Willpower
>definitely fall into this category. When you can easily come up with
>some pretty ordinary examples that need seperation of the ideas, it is
>fair evidence that there is a problem.
It true that people are bringing this up. There are also people who
consistantly disagree with them. The situation is clearly in dispute. I find
it hard to swallow that something that people don't even agree on whether it 's
being done write should be labeled a "problem". It seems clear to me that it is
a matter of philosophy.
After all, does that fact that those of use who disagree with a lot
of stats are consistantly bringing up our point of view mean that all the games
that do it that way have a problem (which of course would mean that _every_ game
has a problem). Also, I see people constantly proposing that GURPS reduces is
stats to 3. Does this mean that GURPS simultaneously has a problem with both
too many and too few stats? All that people bring the issue up proves is that
there are differently views on the subject. Not that the game "has problems" or
is "broken" or "wrong".
--
David Summers
(Rockerboy);
OK, from what I understand. From what a understand you had a character
who was lot stronger than the others but wasn't unbalanced because he
didn't do that much more damage. But you had problems when you
converted to GURPS because he need a lot of points to be able to
lift the same amount (which also allowed him to do a lot more
damage)?
In that case I guess you are, in a sense, right. You can't make a character
in GURPS that works just like in AD&D. Every system has to judge
who much a person of a given ST can lift, do damage, jump, etc. These
are, given the nature of the problem. It just so happens that in this case
GURPS and AD&D differ a fair bit.
Now to editorialize my view... I personally feel that the reason they differ
so much is because of the sort of thing I left AD&D to get away from.
D&D had 18 as it's max stat. To please people they stuck exceptional
strength on top of that in AD&D. Apparently, in second edition, they
stuck Str 19 on top of that. The result of all these kludges is that,
for me at least, you have think (like damage vs lifting) that don't make
sense. However, since you apparently don't see it that way I will
agree that it is perhaps better that you went back to AD&D.
(miscellaneous responses)
>Exceptional strength is a kludge. But please don't pretend that GURPS
>doesn't suffer from kludge-itis as well. The fix of disadvantages to
>counter affect the glomminging together of too many stats into a few is
>just as bad.
Well, I suppose that GURPS, like any system, might have a few kludges
here or there but I find GURPS definitely one of the least "kludgy" out
there. I definitely find it better in this regard than AD&D. Regarding
disads. From where I stand, this isn't kludge but a well thought out
and flexible game mechanic that I wouldn't change. However, I guess
we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one.
Nils Weinander,7430,000446
The long post by Kromm was very informative. I get the thinking behind it.
I may disagree on details, but on the large I buy it.
Two minor points:
* I would make shield block a 2/3 of skill level, not 1/2,
since shields are meant solely for blocking blows.
* I don't agree that defending is _that_ much harder than attacking. In the
real world there were examples of knights, vikings, samurai etc who
actually managed to live through a _lot_ of fights, so I don't think a
fight where one combatant is disemboweled by the second blow is any
more 'realistic' than one where the fighters beat on each others for
say a minute or two. On the other hand, realism is not the prime issue
in a RPG, playability is, and I can see justification for wanting to
cut down on the length of combats.
/Nils W
Lewis Beard
> > Yep, I completely agree. And HT makes no difference in either case.
Also, I'd like to point out that HT may or may not be important when
being faced with a laser. But it isnt any more important than any other
stat in a high tech game. Starting around TL 8, it is quite cheap to
merely take the highest level of wealth or better yet the x10 wealth levels
that have been added on top of those, and have 10 in all your stats.
Simply buy no HT or ST since you feel its not needed. THEN, dont buy IQ or
DX either ... buy one of the many available implant devices and give
yourself a laser, an arm with computer guided sighting and effective dex
of 15+ and a brain implant with sockets that let you plug in any skills
you need.
My point is that the high tech that makes ST and HT unnecessary also makes
IQ and DX unnecessary. And heaven forbid you should ever end up somewhere
on a planet where you arent allowed to bring your equipment. Or heaven
forbid you crashland on a planet or get stranded somewhere where your
equi[ment doesnt work. Or heaven forbid that someone from a heavy gravity
world challenges you to a wrestling match or else they nuke your ship.
Also, look at our own world. ST isnt really needed anymore for at least 2/3 of
the population. And yet we idolize it, worship it, and people with high
ST and/or big muscles get lots of the glam and social status. Every non-
core world has extensions to its rule base. Every campaign world has
social modifiers. Make ST idolized, give +1 to social status for anyone
with ST 13+, and +2 to anyone with ST 16+. Anyway, there isnt any need to
do this.
On a related note, are there any Sci Fi games where ST is important?
Also, ST is useful for avoiding getting tired after fighting or running.
AND HT is useful for movement rates. This affects your dodge. I think its
worth the cost for these alone, regardless of setting.
Lewis
--
Lewis Beard
> There is one thing I have always wondered about GURPS combat rules.
> (I have the basic rule book, but I have never played it). A
> character with a weapon skill of 14 (or was it 15?) has about a
> 90% chance of hitting his opponent in combat, which is a very
> good chance, right? However, when he tries to defend (parry) his
> skill is halved, and because the 3d6 result resolution
> mechanism produces a non-linear probability progression, the
> actual chance isn't just halved, but drops to about 15%. I just
> can't find this reasonable. I mean an experienced fighter who
> almost always hits has almost no chance to defend himself from
> the attacks of his opponents?
> Could Kromm or one of you others who play GURPS a lot explain
> the thinking behind this rule?
You must remember that this very fighter has a parry of 7-. However,
with a large shield with passive defense 3, and wearing heavy leather
armor with PD 2, your parry becomes 12-. Finally, if you had
combat reflexes as an advantage for +1 on active defenses, you would have
parry 13-. Just imagine if you had plate mail or some armor with an
even higher PD? So, if you want your characters to run around with no armor,
then maybe they are in trouble. And sure in classic fantasy, most of the
heroes do. But it really IS a lot harder to avoid getting hit in a fight
without armor. Combat IS deadly. And the 14- to hit is based on the idea
that, if your foe were a tree just sitting there, or maybe just
bobbing a bit, you'd hit on 14-. So its not like a 14- means you are awesome.
Also, its VERY easy to shoot those active defenses WAY high, with the right
equipment, and it get boring if every PC fighter in the game (with equipment)
parries one blow a round at 13- or better, and they can dodge every
other blow in a combat round. On average, your dodge is one less than your
parry, so 12- is still good. Combat can take a long time. Sometimes I
wish armor had less an effect. :) Fortunately, shields only cover
certain regions; at least vs called shots.
That's another thing. Called shots suck if your players have skill 16- or
better. "I all out attack the brain!!!" can get old fast. :) Sure, that
means the player is at -9 or so, but with 2 tries, any hit is an almost
sure kill. Or all out attacking the stomach with an impaling attack ....
thats -3 i think, so 13- twice. :) So then your foes have to have either
sheer numbers, missile weapons, or super high dodges. So then its
like an hour of dodging, but when someone is hit, that someone is dead. :)
Well, we solved that by not allowing called shots to the head or brain.
But that was disappointing. :) So, we thought about it and realized that
in starting with 150 point characters, we were over doing it. We scrapped
our characters, started over at the 100 point level, set an initial stat cap
of 14, and an initial skill cap of 15-. Paying double for any further stat
improvements (as per rules) really keeps things calm, and we were strict
about which advantages could be obtained after play started, and so things
worked out a lot better. We grew into our characters, characters had a tendency
to put points into skills over stats until a certain point (due to the x2
cost on increasing stats), and they bought the advantages they really
wanted up front. Even by the time we made it to the 200 point range (almost)
as PCs, we were less ridic and maybe less powerful than our minmax PCs at
150 points, but we were a lot more versatile, and we had somehow gotten away
from hack-n-slash games. We learned combat can be deadly after we started
doing things right. AND, we got to keep those called shots to the
brain, for the truly desperate circumstances.
Well, that had nothing to do with your post, really. :) Sorry.
> /Nils W
Kromm
>In article <22JUN94.15...@VM1.MCGILL.CA>, Kromm
><CX6...@MUSICA.MCGILL.CA> wrote:
>Alright, I'll undercut you! I'll offer _75%_ off my free advice. :-)
Fine, Dave, fine! Then I will sell my free advice *AT COST*! Yes - that
is 100% (one-hundred percent) off! Free! Whoo hoo hoo hoo! @-)
Re: GURPS ST & DX as they pertain to career warriors before gunpowder
>I would put it that ST and DX are more equal in value. The fighters
>I've seen rarely have DX more than 1 level higher than ST. (and
>a few have high ST's).
In my experience, fighter types tend to put DX before ST every time. In
my present (admittedly high-powered) campaign, *all* of the PCs are
expected to be able to handle themselves in a scrap. The (ST,DX)-tuples
are (3,15), (10,13), (10,13), (21,15), (11,13), (9,14), (13,14) and
(11,13). This averages out to (11,13.75). (If you agree that the ST 3
Cat is balanced by the ST 21 Wraith - most people would.) In other
words, DX is almost 3 points higher than ST. This is reflective of the
general trends I have observed in GURPS.
>This is a bit off the subject, but on interesting strategy I saw was
>a character who has DX 10 and put all his points into ST and just
>all-out-attacked (of course his HT was OK too). It actually worked
>OK. The character has survived and gone from 100 points to over
>200 points (and, of course, no longer needs to all-out-attack :-).
This depends on your style of GMing - i.e., on how you play NPC foes.
In my game, the foes usually fall into one of the following classes:
(1) much more numerous than the PCs, inferior to the PCs in power
(2) about equal to the PCs in number, about equal to the PCs in power
(3) single foe, incredibly powerful w.r.t. PCs
In case (1), I give the NPCs a good deal of tactical cohesion. They
will gang up on the "big guy" to get better odds, and will take any
and all openings to get the advantage over him and his pals. The last
PC who tried the "high-ST/low-DX, All-Out Attack with a heavy weapon"
philosophy was once beset by quicker, lightly-armed foes who had two or
three defense rolls of 12 to 16. They used Parries and Dodge & Retreats
to avoid the two blows and when he was defenseless (All-Out Attack),
about two or three of them nipped-in, dumped a net over him and poked
him to a bloody pulp a few hits at a time. IMHO, All-Out Attack is
desperate at best, and should *never* be used while outflanked.
In case (2), things have this tendency to break up into 1-on-1's, since
ganging-up tends to have mutually destructive results for both sides.
In this case, the foes are probably hand-picked to deal with the PCs
(guess why there are conveniently the same number :) and are usually
their equals. Since the PCs typically have at least two or three defense
rolls at 14 to 18, so do the foes. This makes All-Out Attacks quite
unviable (they really do nothing to batter down defenses like that),
and makes characters who do not have the skill to Feint successfully
quite useless. The same PC as above found himself in another battle
where his "nemesis" was a skinny ST 9, DX 15 fencer. The PC had ST 15,
DX 12 and a weapons skill of about 14 (88 points), while for about
the same points, his foe had skill 20! The big guy tried to All-Out
Attack, met two 17-or-less (with PD, CR) Fencing Parries and then got
it in the eye. So AOA's are also unviable against skilful foes.
In case (3), sometimes a PC will gamble that the single, nasty foe is
so preoccupied with engaging 6 or 8 PCs that he might not be able to
notice who is doing an All-Out Attack and who is not. That is fair,
and I do require NPCs beset by hordes of PCs make a Tactics roll at
-(number of attackers in direct contact with his hexes) to figure out
if someone has done an AOA. However, against such nasty foes *one* big,
high-ST AOA might not matter much. Usually such foes are legendary,
and I design them to take the worse the PCs can dish out in case the
dice are nasty to me a few times. Most such foes are also phenomenally
intelligent in my game, and will soon realize that the big guy is just
swinging wildly and crush him.
Re: related issue of how AD&Ders learning GURPS see ST/STR & DX/DEX
Fundamentally, the ST > DX route does seem to be favoured by former
AD&Ders. Probably because in AD&D, "level" gives fighters both offensive
(better THAC0, wider opportunity for specialization, more attacks) and
defensive (more hit points, better ST's) benefits in equal measure, and
also because in AD&D, STR gives bonuses to hit and for damage. So a PC
fighter in AD&D wants to be strong - not necessarily dextrous - and
does not need to worry about his offense:defense ratio. In GURPS, it
is all under the control of the player, and you have to make a conscious
decision as to whether you wish to be an offensive or defensive fighter.
In either case, DX is really more important, as it increases the chance
of hitting (and hitting a decent hit location) and Feinting as well as
the chance of Dodging, Blocking and Parrying.
Dave Ripton
>In article <2u7nne$9...@search01.news.aol.com>, elm...@aol.com (ElMundo) writes:
>|> In article <21JUN94.12...@VM1.MCGILL.CA>, Kromm
>|> <CX6...@MUSICA.MCGILL.CA> writes:
>|> Ahh the sheer loonacy (SP?) of AD&D comes forth! :) Just why
>|> doesn't a DEX of 20 not affect THAC0? :) One of the great mysteries
>|> of the world I guess. :)
>
>do with determining whether you hit something than if you are nimble.
In defense of AD&D (how unlikely, I know) the same thing can happen
in GURPS against an opponent with a high DR, especially with the
basic combat system. The high-skill, low ST fighter usually hits
but never causes any damage. This is equivalent to missing in AD&D
terms -- obviously many "misses" vs. an opponent with a good AC are
hitting but not penetrating. The stronger but less dextrous character
is more likely to hit with some effect, since he can do enough damage
to punch through the DR.
This is why the advanced combat rules are needed for game balance
in GURPS fantasy-type games. The nimble-but-weak types need the
opportunity to attack less-armored parts of the body. And DR has to
be broken up by piece, so that the guy in full plate doesn't also
have DR 7 on his eyes, hands, and feet. (It's also important to be
able to get behind an opponent or break his shield to reduce his
defenses, or certain characters will almost never be hit.)
I like GURPS combat a lot better, but this AD&D mechanic isn't that bad.
What is _stupid_ is that thrown weapons get modified for both STR and
DEX, so it's easier to hit somebody with a thrown spear than a hand-
held one if you have good stats. Oh, yeah, and there's the fact that
AD&D STR is so stupidly nonlinear that STR 15 gives no bonus, 17 gives
+1/+1, and 18/00 gives +3/+6. But I digress...
Dave Ripton
Kromm
>Also, I'd like to point out that HT may or may not be important when
>being faced with a laser. But it isnt any more important than any other
>stat in a high tech game. Starting around TL 8, it is quite cheap to
>merely take the highest level of wealth or better yet the x10 wealth levels
>that have been added on top of those, and have 10 in all your stats.
>Simply buy no HT or ST since you feel its not needed. THEN, dont buy IQ or
>DX either ... buy one of the many available implant devices and give
>yourself a laser, an arm with computer guided sighting and effective dex
>of 15+ and a brain implant with sockets that let you plug in any skills
>you need.
I think Lewis has done a fine job of underlining a very general problem
with "high-technology" games in any system: the problem of characters
ultimately becoming overshadowed by the technology level of the game.
Sure, "Real Roleplayers" do not care about their PCs' abilities, just
their personalities. However, *real* roleplayers (like, the ones you
will meet in a Real-Life gaming group) do, as it is important to many
gamers to feel as if their characters can actually do something and do
it in a way that distinguishes the character from the other characters
in the campaign world. Since the Real-Life trend in technology is to
take humans out of the loop (automation, AI, etc.), to make their day-
to-day their lives "easier" (labour-saving devices, expert systems,
etc.) and to compensate for their deficiencies or weaknesses (prosthe-
ses, TDD, etc.), it is hard for a human presently living in this world
to think of SciFi tech in any way but as the logical extension of these
trends. Given such trends and environmental influences, it is hard for
many gamers to see the point of even trying to make competant PCs in
a world where ST, skills, a healthier and more resistant body, better
senses and so forth can be had for money.
>And heaven forbid you should ever end up somewhe
>on a planet where you arent allowed to bring your equipment. Or heaven
>forbid you crashland on a planet or get stranded somewhere where your
>equi[ment doesnt work. Or heaven forbid that someone from a heavy gravity
>world challenges you to a wrestling match or else they nuke your ship.
Now this is a solution. What do you do when magic starts to overwhelm a
fantasy campaign? Throw in magic-resistant foes, rulers who are opposed
to magic use, secretive and vengeful guilds, mana depletion due to
excessive spellcasting and perhaps nasty magical side-effects for mage
PCs. So what do you do when tech starts to overwhelm a SciFi campaign?
Throw in utterly alien ULTRA ultratech foes, outlaw some tech, make
certain tech the jealously-guarded secret of patent-holders, make tech
unreliable, have tech run out of power or simply have a thief or a crash
deprive the PCs of their tech. What do PCs do when their former crutch
of tech *or* magic is taken away or reduced in effectiveness? They
suddenly become really good at thinking their way out of situations
instead of relying on their Spell of Plot Warping or Gizmotronic Plot
Shield Emitter. The personal qualities of the PCs suddenly come to the
fore. Nothing better than seeing a PC who has no power cells for his
gadgets being forced to fight with a club and navigate with a compass :)
>Also, look at our own world. ST isnt really needed anymore for at least 2/3 of
>the population. And yet we idolize it, worship it, and people with high
>ST and/or big muscles get lots of the glam and social status. Every non-
>core world has extensions to its rule base. Every campaign world has
>social modifiers. Make ST idolized, give +1 to social status for anyone
>with ST 13+, and +2 to anyone with ST 16+. Anyway, there isnt any need to
>do this.
This is very true, however. Look at that Leadership default to ST-5 for
a minute. What that means is that in the absence of formal leadership
or assertiveness training, high-ST characters will end up in positions
of power in a GURPS game that is played strictly by the rules. Is this
so in Real-Life? Well, until moderately high technology freed people to
study philosophy and live other than by the sweat of their brow it *was*
true in Real-Life. Things are not that brutal now, but we all have a
subconscious tendency to get out of the way of strong people, view them
as being somehow capable and doing our best not to tick them off. I
guess that is the ST-5 default to Intimidation in use :)
>On a related note, are there any Sci Fi games where ST is important?
My formerly fantasy and now multi-genre, multi-TL game has a lot of
SciFi elements: aliens, cyborgs, space ships, orbital battlestations,
AI, energy weapons, etc. Nevertheless, high ST has proven very useful
to the few PCs or friendly NPCs who have it, as well as to the enemy
NPCs. Fighting at 3 hexes or less with gyrocs loaded with HE and APEX
is a bad idea, so out come knives, billy-clubs and vibroswords. Even
the best TL 7 and 8 weapons make *some* noise (a buzz or a crack, even
for needlers and lasers), while fists and knives can be quite silent.
Ultratech weapons still have Minimum ST scores and large power cells,
and early (TL 8) energy weapons are heavy. Grenades are a high-tech
combat staple, but you have to be strong to throw them far enough,
especially with those nasty ultratech grenades.
Out of combat, it is always nice to have enough Fatigue that you
can use your psi talents. Most exoskeletons amplify ST, so a wimp in
an exosuit is still a wimp compared to a tough guy in an exosuit. All
that tech you carry to make up for no skills has *mass*. How do you
plan to lug it through a jungle or over a dune without ST? Engineers
on space ships will still need to be strong, since big, powerful
ultratech drives have big, powerful ultratech parts made out of things
like neutronium and second valley of stability elements. Want to operate
during high-G maneuvers? Better be strong. When all that tech breaks,
you had better be strong enough to slew the turret around with a hand
crank, or kick open the airlock before you suffocate (would you use
explosives in a confined space full of oxygen-rich air?), or hold on
to the rails when gravity fails.
Never underestimate ST.
Great Cthulhu
> Just a short comment here...
>Doug Gibson <d...@chem.ucla.edu> wrote:
>>roc...@netcom.com (Rockerboy) writes:
>>>The proof is in the stats. In AD&D, a character with 19 strength can
>>>press 640 lbs., approximately 25-26 in GURPS.
>>
>>Hold on there... in GURPS, you're allowed to lift up to 30 times your ST with
>>the expenditure of Extra Effort (and a point of Fatigue). This lets someone
>>with ST 20 lift 600 pounds, which is darn near what you want.
> Errrh? So the average person (ST10) can lift 300 pounds? Isn't
>that a little overboard?
With a squat technique, I'm not sure. Does anyone have relevant numbers?
Anyway, I think I was off a bit at first; I think the actual number is 25xST,
not 30xST (guess I've got Dwarf on the brain... ow! B^). If you want to give
certain races (or even characters) extra lifting capacity in GURPS, just give
them the Extra Encumbrance (I think that's what it's called) advantage.
> This is a rule from 2nd Ed _GURPS Supers_, no? Perhaps it should
>remain in that genre.
I think I remember seeing it in the basic book, or something like it, but I'm
not sure. I'll have to go look it up.
Bill Seurer
|> d...@chem.ucla.edu (Great Cthulhu) writes:
|>
|> >> This is exactly the problem. I was playing in a SF GURPS game with a medical
|> >> scientist with 16 IQ. Another player had a sleuth with high HT and ST and
|> >> IQ of 12. But the rules make it much much easier for me to spot things than
|> >> him.
|> >Wrong. HE made it harder for himself to spot things by not buying a good deal
|> >of Alertness or Acute Vision. No self-respecting detective should be without
|> >some sort of acute senses, and it is not the system's fault that the player
|> >didn't buy them.
|>
|> If we both put the same number of points into Acute Vision I do better than
|> him simply because I've good IQ. This is silly. If he has to put 5 points
|> into Acute Vision just to be as good as a bozo scientist at spotting things
|> he's paying for stuff I get for free.
IQ is free in your game? Where'd the sleuth put the other points that you
spent on the higher IQ? Presumably in something he valued more than IQ.
Great Cthulhu
>Thanks for the responses to my question about GURPS combat.
>The long post by Kromm was very informative. I get the thinking behind it.
>I may disagree on details, but on the large I buy it.
>Two minor points:
>* I would make shield block a 2/3 of skill level, not 1/2,
> since shields are meant solely for blocking blows.
I wouldn't, because if you're using a shield you're already getting the PD of
the shield added to your defense. For the (fairly standard) medium shield, PD
is 3, which is usually larger than the difference between 2/3 and 1/2 of skill
anyway (until skill 18). At any rate, shields become truly disgusting if you
make block 2/3 of skill. Trivia point: in GURPS 2nd edition, Block was *1/3*
of skill!
>* I don't agree that defending is _that_ much harder than attacking. In the
> real world there were examples of knights, vikings, samurai etc who
> actually managed to live through a _lot_ of fights, so I don't think a
> fight where one combatant is disemboweled by the second blow is any
> more 'realistic' than one where the fighters beat on each others for
> say a minute or two. On the other hand, realism is not the prime issue
> in a RPG, playability is, and I can see justification for wanting to
> cut down on the length of combats.
Well, in the case of knights, take, say, an ST 12 knight. He does 1d+3 with
his broadsword. Subtract the DR 6 or 7 of his opposing knight's plate, and
you'll see that even when he does hit (defending is a lot easier when you've
got the PD 4 of plate added to your defense!) he's only dishing out relatively
minor wounds.
barrington-cookj@logica.co.uk (Jardine)
> d...@chem.ucla.edu (Great Cthulhu) writes:
>
>>gwi...@graceland.att.com (11265-Graham Wills) writes:
>>> This is exactly the problem. I was playing in a SF GURPS game with a medical
>>> scientist with 16 IQ. Another player had a sleuth with high HT and ST and
>>> IQ of 12. But the rules make it much much easier for me to spot things than
>>> him.
>
>>Wrong. HE made it harder for himself to spot things by not buying a good deal
>>of Alertness or Acute Vision. No self-respecting detective should be without
>>some sort of acute senses, and it is not the system's fault that the player
>>didn't buy them.
>
> If we both put the same number of points into Acute Vision I do better than
> him simply because I've good IQ. This is silly. If he has to put 5 points
> into Acute Vision just to be as good as a bozo scientist at spotting things
> he's paying for stuff I get for free.
>
Locally we have decided to "fix" this "problem" by running perception off
HT rather than IQ. You still have all the advantages/disads to get the character
conception right, but this just seems more natural and balanced to us.
Jardine Barrington-Cook
barringt...@logica.co.uk
personal opinions...
Brett Slocum
Bill Seurer <BillS...@vnet.ibm.com> wrote:
>I like that. But what about the effects on spells? Right now it is
>+1/+2 to all spell skill levels.
Hmm, I'd leave it alone (since it is already a fix from doubling or
quadrupling the points in spells).
--
Brett Slocum "These eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfill,
slo...@io.com An it harm none, do what ye will."
Kromm
> This is exactly the problem. I was playing in a SF GURPS game with a medical
> IQ of 12. But the rules make it much much easier for me to spot thin gs than
> him.
> If we both put the same number of points into Acute Vision I do better than
> him simply because I've good IQ. This is silly. If he has to put 5 points
> into Acute Vision just to be as good as a bozo scientist at spotting things
> he's paying for stuff I get for free.
What are you trying to say, here? Suppose we were to make 3 characters
who are equivalent in every way and who all start with an IQ of 10. Now
we give each character 80 points. Character 1 buys IQ 16, Character 2
keeps IQ 10 but gets Alertness:+16 and Character 3 keeps IQ 10 but gets
Acute Vision:+40. Character 1 will have decent Will (16), mental skills
and perception (16). Character 2 will have merely average Will (10) and
mental skills, but *exceptional* sensory acuity (26). Character 3 will
be average in all ways but Vision (50), where he is the God of Vision.
No one has been ripped off - their talents are just in different areas.
It is manifestly invalid to compare a (say) ST 13, DX 13, IQ 12, HT 13
character to a ST 10, DX 13, IQ 16, HT 10 one and then bitch that the
former has a lousy Vision roll. Both spent 110 points, and each has a
different set of abilities bought and paid for. Why should the first
character - just because he is a sleuth - have the same Vision roll as
the second (who paid for his Vision via IQ) *unless he pays extra for
it*????
Re: Graham's stance that any situation where ST or HT is intentionally
made useful is "contrived", especially in high-tech game worlds.
>Well, let's contrive something else.
Any adventure is "contrived". The GM creates a situation or situations
where the PCs feel that if they get involved, things will be more
interesting and more rewarding than just sitting in front of the tri-
D video set. Obviously, unless the perceived challenges are challenges
the PCs feel they can deal with, they will not accept the mission, so
to speak. In simple terms, if someone makes a really strong character,
then they will probably be more interested in adventures where their
natural talents are useful than in ones where they will be useless. In
any kind of reasonable gaming group, players will back players in their
decisions, and it is likely that the group will oppose any proposal to
embark on an adventure where one of the players will be bored because
that player's PC will have nothing to do.
If you had a party full of techies in a high-tech situation, would
you consider it to be "contrived" if they chiefly carried out only tech-
nocentric missions? Would you deprive them of all tech so that their
skills were utterly useless? Probably not. So if one character is, say,
an empath and not a techie, would you just leave her to fend for herself
and not present any situations where the character would be useful? Do
you seriously think that any mature group of gamers would stand by and
let you pick on one of them that way? Why is a strong character any
different? Look - DX and IQ and all the related skills are so useful
in high-tech genres in GURPS *because* the SciFi genre and its spinoffs
are *contrived* in such away that the focus of the plot is more often
than not on technical things. How often in Real-Life is someone's
entire waking existence dedicated to solving technical problems like
Mr Scott on the Enterprise? How is it any more contrived to change the
genre a bit to suit your PCs if they are, say, strong instead of tech-
nically-inclined?
I think that linking ability costs in a universal system to the
"default bias" for or against that ability according to plain vanilla
genre conventions is missing the point. Universality means that you do
not have to change mechanics between genres. However, for a system
that is both generic and universal to work, you have to be willing to
have fluidity between genres, and that means discarding genre conven-
tions and taking a *game*-centred - not literary-centred - stance
which emphasizes the role of the PCs as they mix and match genres.
Your stance on ST (and HT) stems from a deeply-ingrained support of
the genre conventions, at the expense of the fun of the PCs.
David P. Summers
<CX6...@MUSICA.MCGILL.CA> wrote:
Kromm <CX6...@MUSICA.MCGILL.CA>, in article
<23JUN94.13...@VM1.MCGILL.CA>, writes;
>Fine, Dave, fine! Then I will sell my free advice *AT COST*! Yes - that
>is 100% (one-hundred percent) off! Free! Whoo hoo hoo hoo! @-)
Darn! I just don't see how I can do better than that and still make
a profit :-).
I do agree that the value of ST vs DX will depend on the situation.
(more below). I'm not sure if this is why your group tends to
be different. To begin with, I was refering to characters that
are strickly fighters, so I don't know if that makes a difference.
Also, the games I've been in have been at a _much_ lower point
total.
>This depends on your style of GMing -
This is probably at least partially true. However...
>(1) much more numerous than the PCs, inferior to the PCs in power
>(2) about equal to the PCs in number, about equal to the PCs in power
>(3) single foe, incredibly powerful w.r.t. PCs
>
>In case (1), I give the NPCs a good deal of tactical cohesion. They
>will gang up on the "big guy" to get better odds, and will take any
>and all openings to get the advantage over him and his pals. The last
>PC who tried the "high-ST/low-DX, All-Out Attack with a heavy weapon"
>philosophy was once beset by quicker, lightly-armed foes who had two or
>three defense rolls of 12 to 16. They used Parries and Dodge & Retreats
>to avoid the two blows and when he was defenseless (All-Out Attack),
>about two or three of them nipped-in, dumped a net over him and poked
>him to a bloody pulp a few hits at a time. IMHO, All-Out Attack is
>desperate at best, and should *never* be used while outflanked.
It depends. In low powered campaigns, numerous, inferior, NPC's are
usually not good enough to take called shots and so your DR gives you
some protection. I agree that if you are in a campaign where you are
likely to be beset with numerous oppenents, all of which can hit you
in the face (or worse eyes), then all-out-attacking could be a very
bad idea.
I won't go into the rest of the examples. It should also be noted that
the character didn't all-out-attack all the time, just a lot (something
like 50% of the time). However, in the situations he was in it work.
>In either case, DX is really more important, as it increases the chance
>of hitting (and hitting a decent hit location) and Feinting as well as
>the chance of Dodging, Blocking and Parrying.
I think you overstate it. I've seen high DX, low ST, character work
to try and get a good shot in against well armored foes (while, since
they are often more poorly armored, try and keep themselves safe)
only to roll a 1 or 2 on damage. I think it's safe to say that, if you
want to be a good fighter, both ST and DX are important. It may be
that ST is easier to sacrifice if you need to compromise someplace,
but even that is often overstated.
Bill Seurer
|> On a related note, are there any Sci Fi games where ST is important?
In original Traveller (don't know about later editions) yout strenth was
one of the attributes totaled to get your hit points. It and ENDurance,
DEXterity, and, uh, something else I think. Drat, it's been too long...
Bill Seurer
strengths than dexterities. When you hit a certain point of armor
increasing your skill doesn't help much even with aimed shots. The low
ST guys are so slow lugging around the armor...
ALL of the truly memorable warriors my groups have created are high ST
sorts. The few who became legendary were the REALLY strong ones like SAF
with ST 19 and DX only 12. He had worked out how to handle the low ST
guys quite well and one hit from him and anyone was gone, gone, gone...
Hawke
>In article <gwills.7...@graceland.att.com>, gwi...@graceland.att.com (11265-Graham Wills) writes:
>> d...@chem.ucla.edu (Great Cthulhu) writes:
>>
>>>gwi...@graceland.att.com (11265-Graham Wills) writes:
>>>> This is exactly the problem. I was playing in a SF GURPS game with a medical
>>>> scientist with 16 IQ. Another player had a sleuth with high HT and ST and
>>>> IQ of 12. But the rules make it much much easier for me to spot things than
>>>> him.
>>
>>>Wrong. HE made it harder for himself to spot things by not buying a good deal
>>>of Alertness or Acute Vision. No self-respecting detective should be without
>>>some sort of acute senses, and it is not the system's fault that the player
>>>didn't buy them.
>>
Just a thought ... how about steal from hero...
IQ that does not modify perception or will has a 1/4 disadvantage..
buying will or perception is buying IQ w/ a 4 disadvantage (about) ...
These numbers will probally have to be played with ... and perhaps
you could say that only will or perception comes w/ IQ, the other starts
at 10 ... heck, make that a choice the player makes...
I think the basic prob is that improving/weaking Perception and Will
is linear, where the rest of the system (buying stats and skills) is
not...so base perception and will off of the standard chart...
Just a couple of brass buttons...
Hawke
-- kilp...@craft.clarkson.edu --+-------------------------------------------
ShadowHawke @ too many places | Brain, n.:
Doug in RL (or what passes here)| The apparatus with which we think that we
What?!? I _have_ an opinion??? | think. -Ambrose Bierce, Devil's Dictionary
scott david orr
>Thanks for the responses to my question about GURPS combat.
>
>The long post by Kromm was very informative. I get the thinking behind it.
>I may disagree on details, but on the large I buy it.
>
>Two minor points:
>
>* I would make shield block a 2/3 of skill level, not 1/2,
> since shields are meant solely for blocking blows.
>
the shield is for blocking is taken into account by the fact that you add
the shield's PD to your active defense--it's otherwise just a parry (a sword,
btw, is also meant for blocking blows, and is in some ways more effective in
doing so than a shield--because of better leverage).
>* I don't agree that defending is _that_ much harder than attacking. In the
> real world there were examples of knights, vikings, samurai etc who
> actually managed to live through a _lot_ of fights, so I don't think a
> fight where one combatant is disemboweled by the second blow is any
> more 'realistic' than one where the fighters beat on each others for
> say a minute or two. On the other hand, realism is not the prime issue
> in a RPG, playability is, and I can see justification for wanting to
> cut down on the length of combats.
>
In most of these cases, the thing that made them survive was 1) they killed
the enemy before the enemy killed them and 2) they were wearing oodles of
armor (in regards to the stats thread, this is one real good reason for high
ST). Combat with high defenses is going to be jsut about as lethal as combat
with low defenses (assuming equally armed, armored, and skilled opponents),
unless poeple are in the habit of running after the first hit or two (not
typical in a 'fight to the death').
Scott D. Orr
Bruce Baugh
scott david orr <sdo...@mik.uky.edu> wrote:
I, Bruce Baugh, who got carried away and deleted too many lines, wrote:
>>Likewise. I think four stats is a very good number. If I were going to
>>modify, it would be in the direction of down, abolishing stats and replacing
>>them by ads/disads of different kinds. IQ would be the first to go, its
>>functions served by dis/ads that deal with willpower, learning of different
>>kinds, memory, and so forth.
>>
>Well in this respect, reality would be against you. Aside from strength, IQ
[deletions]
>endeavors) most of the variance in performance among individuals can be
>explained (if you remove the differences for training) by two factors:
>"verbal" and "reasoning" abilities (under various names). Of course, this
>doesn't apply (necessarily) to things like willpower, but it does apply to a
>LOT.
Right. I'd break verbal and reasoning abilities out into separate
characteristics, since they vary with little, if any, correlation. People
can be linguistically excellent and horrible at logical analysis, or vice
versa, and it's no trouble to make the rules reflect this.
In my approach, any general mental-based roll would default to, presumably,
10. Most people are pretty equivalent, at least at the coarsness of 3d6.
Players should be able to modify particular features up or down as they
wish.
Of course, I tend to favor an approach in which there are no fixed
attributes at all; I like OVER THE EDGE for this reason (among others). I
think a good dis/ad and skill system does everything attributes are supposed
to do.
--
bru...@teleport.com
"It looked like only a few of the bears knew how to use fire, and were
carrying the others along. But isn't that how it is with everything?"
-- Terry Bisson, "Bears Discover Fire"
Tracy Ratcliff
Lewis Beard <le...@damops.wes.army.mil> wrote:
>
>On a related note, are there any Sci Fi games where ST is important?
>
I'm shocked that Sean Barrett hasn't chimed in yet:
GURPS Lensman
Between the intertialess drive and personal force screens which stop
beams but not hand-to-hand, a space axe is the preferred weapon for
many situations. If you're following the novels closely, you're running
a lot of covert operations where the characters can't use their Delameters.
Incidentally, there's at least one episode in every novel where the hero
must resist something 'with every Herculean fiber of his being' -- in other
words, a HT roll.
Tracy Ratcliff NBCS(1.9.1) B3 h f t w-- cd g-(++) (k?) s++
"When in doubt, deny all terms and definitions." -- Calvin
Rockerboy
: Hold on there... in GURPS, you're allowed to lift up to 30 times your ST with
: the expenditure of Extra Effort (and a point of Fatigue). This lets someone
: with ST 20 lift 600 pounds, which is darn near what you want.
Not really, though. For one thing, I got the impression that this is a
maximum you could get even an inch off the ground. For another, I really
didn't care for fatigue. (I.e., it was one more thing to keep track of,
and I didn't use it.) It still feels different, GT.
: And, as someone else has pointed out, a 19 ST GURPS character has a
: significantly MORE frightening ability to deal out damage than a 19 STR AD&D
: character.
Yeh, 'twas me who mentioned that. Another thing that bothered me.
Rockerboy
: In reply to article <rockerCr...@netcom.com>, from roc...@netcom.com
: (Rockerboy);
: OK, from what I understand. From what a understand you had a character
: who was lot stronger than the others but wasn't unbalanced because he
: didn't do that much more damage. But you had problems when you
: converted to GURPS because he need a lot of points to be able to
: lift the same amount (which also allowed him to do a lot more
: damage)?
This is correct.
: In that case I guess you are, in a sense, right. You can't make a character
: in GURPS that works just like in AD&D. Every system has to judge
: who much a person of a given ST can lift, do damage, jump, etc. These
: are, given the nature of the problem. It just so happens that in this case
: GURPS and AD&D differ a fair bit.
I'm not 'in a sense' right, I am _completely_ right. I have never made
any claims other than the fact that you can't make a character in GURPS
that is the same as his AD&D counterpart, whic you clearly concede here.
The systems _are_ different, radically so. That's the only point I have
been making.
: Now to editorialize my view... I personally feel that the reason they differ
: so much is because of the sort of thing I left AD&D to get away from.
: D&D had 18 as it's max stat. To please people they stuck exceptional
: strength on top of that in AD&D. Apparently, in second edition, they
: stuck Str 19 on top of that. The result of all these kludges is that,
: for me at least, you have think (like damage vs lifting) that don't make
: sense. However, since you apparently don't see it that way I will
: agree that it is perhaps better that you went back to AD&D.
It's not an issue of making sense. It's an issue of feel. In GURPS, you
can be killed by falling from a 20 foot high ledge, whereas in AD&D, it's
_very_ unlikely after a level or so advancement. You seem to feel that I
am advocating AD&D over GURPS, which is not the case, so you needn't
bother defending GURPS. I am merely pointing out that the differences
make it very difficult to convert while preserving the feel of the
characters and the game.
: Well, I suppose that GURPS, like any system, might have a few kludges
: here or there but I find GURPS definitely one of the least "kludgy" out
: there. I definitely find it better in this regard than AD&D. Regarding
: disads. From where I stand, this isn't kludge but a well thought out
: and flexible game mechanic that I wouldn't change. However, I guess
: we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one.
: --
You still ignore the divergence from escalating to lenar prices on disags
which modify stats.
Rockerboy
: Here's an idea (a compromise?). I too think that it's unrealistic for IQ to
: be (for most players) the sole determinant of sensory talent (do I see it or
: don't I?). If you agree do this: create a skill called "Recon". Recon is
: a mental/easy skill, but instead of being based on IQ, it's based on a con-
: stant "attribute" of 14 for everyone (thus, the default for Recon is 10).
: Characters with Alertness, or the proper Acute sense, get a bonus. Charac-
: ters with IQ 12+ get a 1+ bonus (smart people DO make better scouts), those
: with IQ 14+ get a +2; likewise IQ 8- gives a -1, IQ 7- a -2 (anyone with
: and IQ less than 7 is profoundly retarded and probably has bigger problems
: to worry about). This skill is used ONLY for noticing things--actually
: seeing, smelling, tasting, something in particular. For noticing the
: signifcance of something (not that the picture is askew, but that that might
: mean there's a safe behind the picture) still requires a straight IQ roll
: (the grey areas will probably be large--this is what GM's are for). If
: characters get levels of this skill that are too high, simlply make it
: average or hard (or reduce the level of the atribute from which it defaults--
: either way has exactly the same effect). Maybe you could do something similar
: for will rolls? I dunno.
This seems an exceedingly complex system to solve what could be more
easily solved by adding two new stats.
Mark Hughes
: In original Traveller (don't know about later editions) yout strenth was
: one of the attributes totaled to get your hit points. It and ENDurance,
: DEXterity, and, uh, something else I think. Drat, it's been too long...
Hit points? In Trav? I don't *THINK* so. Damage was taken directly from
Str, Dex, and End stats in the original Trav - you rolled a D3 for each die of
damage to determine which stat to reduce (I repainted several matched pairs D6s
into "wound" dice, with Str, Dex, End painted on the faces twice on one die,
and the other die left 1-6. It made combat run quite a bit quicker.)
-Mark Hughes
Steffan O'Sullivan
>House rule for Eidetic Memory (based on Scott Orr's discussion of
>Eidetic Memory):
>
>Prerequisite: IQ 12+.
I don't see the need for this at all, Brett. How else are you going to
play an idiot savant?
--
-Steffan O'Sullivan | "Lose no chance of doing service, wherever you
s...@oz.plymouth.edu | may find it; and if you should see sorrow,
Lamson Library, PSC | pass not by until the sorrow be lightened."
Plymouth, NH | -Rhiannon's advice to Pwyll, _The Mabinogian_
Bill Seurer
|> In article <2uc1nl$l...@joanna.wes.army.mil>,
|> Lewis Beard <le...@damops.wes.army.mil> wrote:
|> >
|> >On a related note, are there any Sci Fi games where ST is important?
|> >
|>
|> I'm shocked that Sean Barrett hasn't chimed in yet:
|>
|> GURPS Lensman
|>
|> Between the intertialess drive and personal force screens which stop
|> beams but not hand-to-hand, a space axe is the preferred weapon for
|> many situations. If you're following the novels closely, you're running
|> a lot of covert operations where the characters can't use their Delameters.
|> Incidentally, there's at least one episode in every novel where the hero
|> must resist something 'with every Herculean fiber of his being' -- in other
|> words, a HT roll.
Yeah. Those drugs were nasty. The GURPS rules are things like, "Make a
HT-5 roll or die". Not pretty at all.
Bill Seurer
Yeah, that's it. The 3 attributes were your "hit points". Hey, we were
also playing AD&D at the time so we used the same terminology.
Bill Seurer
realized that effectively what you are getting is +1 or +2 to the skill.
Actually, EXACTLY what you are getting is a +1/+2 except for M/VH.
1/2 point == 1 point == +1 to skill
1 point == 2 points == +1 to skill
2 points == 4 points == +1 to skill
buy normally now == +1 to skill EXCEPT for M/VH
See? Maybe it would be better to just use the same rule as for magic.
In article <1994Jun24....@oz.plymouth.edu>, s...@oz.plymouth.edu (Steffan O'Sullivan) writes:
|> slo...@illuminati.io.com (Brett Slocum) writes:
|> >House rule for Eidetic Memory (based on Scott Orr's discussion of
|> >Eidetic Memory):
|> >
|> >Prerequisite: IQ 12+.
|>
|> I don't see the need for this at all, Brett. How else are you going to
|> play an idiot savant?
As for the IQ prereq, I don't agree with that either. Does anyone have
access to any pschological information about eidetic memory? Does it
really only occur in very bright people (or is that an artifact of them
remembering everything and thus they just seem smart) and in idiot
savants?
I'd hate to see it limited thus. The best use of EM in a character I
have seen was in someone who only had IQ 11 and didn't abuse it at all.
Unknown
In article <gwills.7...@graceland.att.com> gwi...@graceland.att.com[IQ 16 scientist vs. IQ 12 P.I.]
> If we both put the same number of points into Acute Vision I do better than
> him simply because I've good IQ. This is silly. If he has to put 5 points
> into Acute Vision just to be as good as a bozo scientist at spotting things
> he's paying for stuff I get for free.
He's paying *seperately* for stuff you got as part of the IQ package. Not
the same thing.
(BTW this is one of the GURPS rules I'm not entirely happy with, but even
so...)
>
[trim]
>>Them's the breaks, bud. If you want to survive a 15d
>>laser rifle shot (though this seems VERY high), you should be wearing armor
of
>>comparable tech level.
>
> Yep, I completely agree. And HT makes no difference in either case.
Really ? A HT 8 character will die *automatically* from 48 points of
damage - less than the average of 15 dice. A HT 14 character taking 15 d6
of damage will typically have to make 6 rolls of 14 or less - a 55% chance
of survival. I'd say that's a difference.
For lesser wounds the HT 14 character can take twice as much damage before
suffering ill effects (ignoring hit location rules), and has a 90% chance
of staying conscious against 26% when hits reach zero. Not to mention the
same probabilities apply to being crippled by a serious injury.
And don't orget that HT is one of the attributes determining basic speed
(which also affects dodge).
A non-combatant in a modern/sf game can get away with a low HT.
Any character that's going to get involved in a fight needs HT.
Paul K.
por...@gems.vcu.edu
>well represented as a single stat, even if you just consider one aspect of it,
>like vision. I'll use myself as an example. My vision is about 20/13 (on
>really good days, if the room isn't too brightly lit, I can make out the 20/10
>line, but not without a lot of effort), which is easily better than that of
>anyone I know. This gives me a tremendous advantage when it comes to reading
>street signs at a distance, but when it comes to spotting the pen on a messy
>desk I'm no better than anyone else. I have yet to see the system that can
>handle this, and we haven't even STARTED to talk about the correlation with
>IQ! I maintain that part of my ability to read, say, something like the eye
There are a lot of ways to handle the IQ/perception attribute that work out.
The most obvious is to outright declare the stat as being not only sensory
perception, but the cognitive aspects of using it properly. I.e. if you buy a
character with a "high" IQ/Perception, it is *assumed* that the character is
both intelligent *and* perceptive. Wouldn't you, in GURPS terms have an IQ of
whatever, and a level or two of Acute Vision?
ObPlug: CORPS does this with the AWR stat, and allows bonuses to a part of the
attribute much like GURPS lets you buy Alertness, etc.
With two attributes, this isn't that hard, and can be accepted as a
compromise (just like overall DEX (dancer) and fine control DEX (jeweler), and
HT (healing rate) and HT (drug resistance)). Of course, unless you have
Supers, there is also ST (Conan) and ST (Conan the Wizard). Makes me almost
long for Tunnels and Trolls. ;)
The problem with GURPS is that IQ is also mental fortitude, so
A.Einstein will stand up as long under torture as Conan. I won't even get into
the default skill level problem... I think they tried to cram too much into
the limited number of attributes available, and so the loss of detail shows a
lot more than in a game with more attributes.
Greg
David P. Summers
wrote:
> The problem with GURPS is that IQ is also mental fortitude, so
> A.Einstein will stand up as long under torture as Conan. I won't even get into
> the default skill level problem... I think they tried to cram too much into
> the limited number of attributes available, and so the loss of detail shows a
> lot more than in a game with more attributes.
One problem I have with arguements like this (and I've heard a number
of them) is that the examples almost always tie in perceptions and
assumptions about the character which, once corrected, show little
or know problems. Aside from the questionable idea that Conan has
a low intellegence (based on the stories I've seen I would give
him at _least_ average intellegence), Conan has an iron will and
will be able to stand up to more than any other man. Any Conan
NPC/PC should have several levels of strong will.
scott david orr
>slo...@illuminati.io.com (Brett Slocum) writes:
>>House rule for Eidetic Memory (based on Scott Orr's discussion of
>>Eidetic Memory):
>>
>>Prerequisite: IQ 12+.
>
>I don't see the need for this at all, Brett. How else are you going to
>play an idiot savant?
>
I agree. Must we have a rule for everything? My original aim in this
discussion was to suggest ways to create a character with eidetic memory.
THat doens't mean you have to codify my suggestinos (after all, the GM al-
ways has an absolute veto on characters).
Scott Orr
Dave Ripton
>Two minor points:
>* I would make shield block a 2/3 of skill level, not 1/2,
> since shields are meant solely for blocking blows.
It's too easy to defend already. It's not too tough to get Shield-16
for a 100-point character. With the current rules, that's a basic
block of 8, plus 3 for the PD of a medium shield, plus 2 for the
PD of leather armor, plus 3 for a retreat. That's a roll of 16 or
less. Do you really want to increase this any further? You seem to
be hung up on the basic roll, and forgetting about modifiers.
>* I don't agree that defending is _that_ much harder than attacking. In the
> real world there were examples of knights, vikings, samurai etc who
> actually managed to live through a _lot_ of fights, so I don't think a
> fight where one combatant is disemboweled by the second blow is any
> more 'realistic' than one where the fighters beat on each others for
> say a minute or two. On the other hand, realism is not the prime issue
> in a RPG, playability is, and I can see justification for wanting to
> cut down on the length of combats.
In one-on-one fights, high-skill GURPS fighters tend to bash each other
for quite a while before one goes down, especially if they've skimped
on their ST to get that skill. With only one opponent, a combatant gets
to Retreat every turn (unless his opponent has a reach advantage and
knows how to use it right). Armor tends to greatly reduce the effects
of the few attacks that get through.
GURPS combats _do_ take a long time. Well, a lot of turns, which are
only one second each. The ways around this are high ST (to take the
opponent down with the first solid hit, and break his shield
ASAP to reduce his defenses), high skill (to feint the opponent's
defenses down and then hit him in a lethal hit location), or superior
tactics (getting somebody in the back while he's engaged with another
combatant, thereby reducing his defenses dramatically, or ganging up
on somebody so that you get to face his dodge rather than his block or
parry).
Dave Ripton
Dave Ripton
>I disagree with Kromm. In my groups the fighters tend to have higher
>strengths than dexterities. When you hit a certain point of armor
>increasing your skill doesn't help much even with aimed shots. The low
>ST guys are so slow lugging around the armor...
>ALL of the truly memorable warriors my groups have created are high ST
>sorts. The few who became legendary were the REALLY strong ones like SAF
>with ST 19 and DX only 12. He had worked out how to handle the low ST
>guys quite well and one hit from him and anyone was gone, gone, gone...
I'm with Bill on this one. I see Kromm's point, for high-point characters.
A really good DX can let you push weapon skills way up (in the 20 range)
and make eye shots feasible. But the dividing line for me when looking at
a fantasy fighter is whether he has a chance of breaking a shield in one
blow. If he can, then he's lowered the target's PD by 3, not only for
himself but for his allies, for the rest of the combat. And eliminated
his block, reducing his defenses to one parry and then only (usually
lower) dodges. Quite an advantage.
Fencers are neat and everything, but I'd often get frustrated when
playing one against armored foes. "Critical hit! No damage!" Or "Eye
shot! 6 -- I hit! Parried!" get old after a while. Fencers also have
severe problems with flails, or with opponents wielding weapons heavy
enough to break their rapiers. And when they do get outflanked, the
inevitable stabs in the back don't have much DR to stop them. Gimme
the fantasy equivalent of a Brick anyday. (Can I _please_ play an
ogre? I'll buy off cannibalism. I'll grunt appropriately...)
Dave Ripton
ErolB1
DPSu...@Ames.arc.nasa.gov (David P. Summers) writes:
>In article <1994Jun24....@gems.vcu.edu>,
por...@gems.vcu.edu
>wrote:
>> The problem with GURPS is that IQ is also mental fortitude, so
>> A.Einstein will stand up as long under torture as Conan. I won't
even get into
>> the default skill level problem... I think they tried to cram too
much into
>> the limited number of attributes available, and so the loss of
detail shows a
>> lot more than in a game with more attributes.
>One problem I have with arguements like this (and I've heard a
number
>of them) is that the examples almost always tie in perceptions and
>assumptions about the character which, once corrected, show little
>or know problems. Aside from the questionable idea that Conan has
>a low intellegence (based on the stories I've seen I would give
>him at _least_ average intellegence), Conan has an iron will and
>will be able to stand up to more than any other man. Any Conan
>NPC/PC should have several levels of strong will.
Part of it is perception: Joe Genius with IQ 16 and -3 Weak Will has
the *same* will as Joe Stubborn with IQ 10 and +3 Strong Will, but a
character with Weak Will will always to *seem* to have a weaker will
than one with Strong Will - at least at first thought.
Another (and more serious) problem is that Joe Genius' -3 Weak Will
counts against the campaign disad limit, but Joe Stubborn's Strong
Will doesn't count against any sort of "advantage limit" - at least
not in a normal campaign.
Maybe GURPS needs a rule stating that reduced Will and Perception
scores only count against the disad limit if they drop below 10.
Erol K. Bayburt
Evil Genius for a Better Tomorrow
Joseph E. Beck
>It's too easy to defend already. It's not too tough to get Shield-16
>for a 100-point character. With the current rules, that's a basic
>block of 8, plus 3 for the PD of a medium shield, plus 2 for the
>PD of leather armor, plus 3 for a retreat. That's a roll of 16 or
>less. Do you really want to increase this any further? You seem to
>be hung up on the basic roll, and forgetting about modifiers.
Joseph E. Beck
>of them) is that the examples almost always tie in perceptions and
>assumptions about the character which, once corrected, show little
>or know problems. Aside from the questionable idea that Conan has
Ok, so your low IQ but iron will high percep guy has bought high will
(+4 per level), and alertness (+5 level) so he's as good at these
things as the research scientist. Yikes! That's 9 points/level, you
mean the actual skill part of IQ only costs 1/level (up to 13, then 6
level to 15, etc). Wow, better ask the GM for some more points...
Then of course, there is the silliness with defaults.
But I suppose with some hacking on the default rules, playing with the
costs of will and per things *could* work. Seems more direct to muck
with IQ directly though.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
jb...@andrew.cmu.edu -- If I have not seen further it is because giants
were standing on my shoulders.
"I was embarassed by how many of my species considered this book to be
a contribution." -- Marvin Minsky on "The Emperor's New Mind"
GCS/M/SS d- p- c++ l u+ e- m+(--) s/++ n-@ h f+ g+ w++ t+ r y?
Joseph E. Beck
>Maybe GURPS needs a rule stating that reduced Will and Perception
>scores only count against the disad limit if they drop below 10.
most -1 points/level.