Previous thread: >>97531613GURPS is a modular, adaptable system, capable of running a wide range of characters, settings, and play styles, with a level of detail varying from lightweight to completely autistic.Optional rules allow you to emulate different genres with a single system, or even switch genres within a single game.A nearly complete archive of GURPS books can be found by using the image. Never post direct links to the archive anywhere in plain text.If you're wondering where to start:- The Basic Set covers everything, including a lot of optional rules you probably won't use.- A genre guide can be found in the archive, under Unofficial/GURPSgen. It tells you what extra books and articles you may find useful for many common genres.- How To Be a GURPS GM is a good read even for players.- GCS (gurpscharactersheet.com) is an excellent character-builder software, with page references to all the books and the option to export to both Foundry and Fantasy Grounds.TQ: Abstract Wealth, yes or no?
>>97628233>TQ: Abstract Wealth, yes or no?Highly dependent on the game, but in general I find that abstract wealth is actually just as much hassle as simply counting money. Subtracting one number from another is simple now that everyone carries a smartphone, converting prices to wealth roll modifiers or whatever is a pain, and accounting is a trivial task compared to the rest of gear selection in GURPS.
>>97628233>TQ: Abstract Wealth, yes or no?No and fuck noGURPS has one of the shittiest wealth systems in games but anything beats abstractshit
Does anyone know of a supplement, not just for gurps but other RPGs or settings, that details fictional modern wars? I'm in the mood of doing a modern military campaign, but I'm not really competent and knowledged enough to whip out my own fictional conflict, or even run an actual conflict considering all the stuff you need to know (places, various ops, forces involved etc), so something more easily digested as an rpg book would be grand
>>97628233>TQFor games where people will not be buying stuff all the time? YesFor games where people will be purchasing stuff every end of a session? No>>97628560What's wrong with it?
>>97628233>Abstract Wealth, yes or no?If equipment lists were already given in terms of Abstract Wealth values, then I'd use Abstract Wealth. But they're not, so you need an extra step to convert, which just isn't worth it IMO. It's like Conditional Injury. If the damage were already defined in terms of Wound Severity and HP in terms of Robustness, then I'd probably like it a lot more. But like Conditional Injury, it's probably simpler to take the parts you like (e.g., being able to more-or-less just simply ignore trivial wounds in Conditional Injury) and write up an equivalent rule for the way the game works already. Two things I like about Abstract Wealth is that I can more-or-less just ignore trivial expenses (less than 0.2% of starting wealth), and I can ignore the Job rules and just assume that everyone is making ~10% of their starting wealth per month.
>>97628233>TQ: Abstract Wealth, yes or no?Yes… and no. Abstracting wealth is only good for dealing with vast sums of money, and things costing vast sums of money.Realistically, you're unlikely to see such things, unless you design your game around it in some capacity.
Where can I read about Abstract Wealth?
>>97628678Twilight 2000 is set in an alternative history where the Soviets hung on until the end of the 20th century, then fought a nuclear war with NATO.Some Tom Clancy novels (e.g. Red Storm Rising, SSN) feature fictional conventional modern wars.Harry Coyle's Team Yankee novel has a wargame based on it. Soviets vs. NATO, again.John Hackett's The Third World War / Untold Story are more USSR vs. NATO novels.Operation Flashpoint video games have moderately realistic depictions of smaller wars.
>>97628888Pyramid 03-44: Alternate GURPS II
>>97628894thanks!
>>97628393>>97628879Do people really go to all that length to do a conversion of values? I usually just wing values on the spot for my MH game since I don't wanna bother with stuff like bean counting money to buy stuff.
>>97628950I do just wing it for cash costs a good chunk of the time. But even then, I find that me and my players tend to understand exact cash values better than abstract ones, even if we often forget to mark off expenses for anything that isn't big like weapons, armor, hirelings, and vehicles.
>>97628894>>97628896>tying purchases to rollsI get what it's going for but that doesn't really sound fun to me.
>>97628879Yeah, Conditional Injury is like making up a shitty wound track system when you could either play wound track systems or use the injury rules from MA
>>97628678One approach might be to copy a recent real war, but 'file the serial numbers off' and set it elsewhere, so you don't look like a fool for getting historical details wrong. Honestly though, I really doubt that anyone is going to care much if you just use any African shithole conflict and get a load of stuff wrong. Nobody knows much about them anyway (probably including most of the people involved).
>>97628879>>97629007My only problem with conditional injury is how it synergy with armor and other damage reduction, the SOLIDS approach was way more appealing to me but try convince my group to use is another story.
>>97628233Abstract wealth is good for campaigns where finding piles of dollars doesn't make much sense.It's also good at high TL because money is a bit crazy in high TLs.It's not so much about how much effort either system takes but which one is more logical to use in the campaign.
>>97628890Ah nice, thanks. I discarded TW2000 immediately because it's set in the post nuclear war, despite being otherwise bang on for the tech level, or thereabouts. >>97629012I was thinking something more like a peer war first world countries, basically cold war gone hot but 21st century. African adventuring is fun but not this time.
New book just dropped. Need it or keep it?>We Have a Team on StandbyGURPS Action 1: Heroes and GURPS Action 3: Furious Fists offer templates for classic action roles, but they focus on niche competence, relegating context – subgenre, who the heroes work for, and the traits those things imply – to minor add-on lenses. GURPS Action 4: Specialists presents an approach that allows more customization, but it isn't a quick-start system, as the user must make numerous choices and do considerable accounting. Either way, the GM has to vet the resulting characters to ensure that they fill vital campaign roles without drifting off into questionable ones.>GURPS Action 10: Go Teams inverts this, starting with a baseline template for a group (Covert Operations Cell, Emergency Response Team, Gang, Heist Crew, Interagency Task Force, Police Squad, Posse, Security Detail, Special-Ops Detachment, or SWAT Team) suited to a classic action subgenre, and then offering lenses that give its members vital niches. The GM picks a "team template" and chooses a few options, and then the players divvy up key roles among characters guaranteed to be suitable. The descriptions and customization notes act as detailed campaign seeds, while boxes explaining how everything was derived from Specialists teach you how to create more.
>>97629685sounds fun
>>97629685Sounds interesting
>>97613352https://samuelbaughn.blogspot.com/2026/02/tatzelwurms-in-gurps.html
>>97629685When are they doing a Transhuman Space Action book
>>97628233>Abstract Wealth, yes or no?Nah, but wealth does need to be abstracted on some level.I once crafted a modular system that works for any campaign style (especially ones with wealthier/more social characters) to satisfy my autism, I think half of it was pilfered from another homebrewer but it's been like 10 years and I genuinely can't remember, and I might have posted it here ages ago, and of course it has never been used by a group, but here's how it goes:Wealth: TL Average Starting Wealth x0 [-15], x1/5 [-10], x1/2 [-5], x1 [0], x2 [5], x5 [10], x20 [15], x100 [25], x1000 [50] ^(+1) [+25]Could be noted such: Wealth 4 (Filthy Rich) [25], Wealth -2 (Poor) [-10]Your Wealth is in "assets". Assets are inaccessible and somewhat abstract, and will increase or decrease when your Wealth level changes (or vice versa). If you prefer, you can think of this as your "Wealth Index" that serves purely to calculate practical wealth below. You start with a sum of cash equal to 20% of your assets for free.Liquidity: 10 level limit. Each level in liquidity represents a sum equal to 10% of your assets that can be quickly withdrawn or turned into cash. You may specify how it can be accessed and withdrawn. Liquidity costs 1 point per level unless your wealth level is negative. Buy 2 levels per point if you are Struggling, and 10 levels for 1 point if you are Poor. You may also freely convert sums of cash equal to 10% of your assets into liquidity levels (this still increases your point total as if you had bought them.) Liquidity levels are lost when they are converted to cash, reducing your point total. You may be allowed to convert liquidity levels back into assets for a point refund, at the rate of 1 point per month, at the GM's discretion.
>>97630533Job Income: Average Income/TL x0 [-10], x1/5 [-5], x1/2 [-2], x1 [0], x2 [2], x5 [5], x20 [10], x100 [20], x1000 [40] ^(+1) [+20]Could be noted: Job 3 (Very Wealthy) [10], Job -1 (Struggling) [-5]Cost modifiers: -1 per level of Wealth, -1 per level of Rank or Status if required. Halve the cost if illegal (maybe double negative costs)Adv/Dis: Duty, Tenure etc apply as normal. Servitude forbids you from looking for another job and changing your work hours, -2 points. Dead Broke jobs often imply servitude, while Very Wealthy+ jobs tend to imply Merchant, Admin, Feudal or Criminal Rank. Hazardous jobs (if not Duty-bound) may qualify as quirks.You may freely halve both your working hours and your Job Income (unless it's zero), without modifying the level of either (a job where you make $10k/month with a 20h workweek is still a Wealthy job) OR you can use the rule below to modify your work hours alone:Work Hours: Average Work Week +5h/level [-1/level] or -4h/level [1/level]Stacks with Workhaolic, Duty etc. Jobs with flexible hours may qualify as perks.
>>97630536Example occupations assuming a 40h week : Slave: Job (Dead Broke) [-10], Work Hours (60h week) [-4], Servitude [-2], Duty [-10], -26 points (doesn't count social impact)Serf: Job (Poor) [-5], Work Hours (50h week) [-2], Servitude [-2], Duty [-5]: -14 points.Part-time Volunteer: Job (Dead Broke) [-10], Work Hours (20h week) [5], -5 points. Can be tweaked easily to represent any amount of unpaid work per week (16 hours of volunteer work are worth -4 points, 28 hours are worth -7 etc) Can fit a caretaker, housewife...Construction Worker: Job (Struggling) [-2], Work Hours (45h week) [-1], Hazardous [-1], -4 points.Bureaucrat (requires Admin Rank 4): Job (Very Wealthy) [6], Work Hours (30h week) [5], 11 points.Mafia Don (illegal, Criminal Rank 6): Job (Filthy Rich) [7], Flexible Hours [1], 8 points (good luck dealing with the law)Use (Job level + Wealth level) divided by 2 to figure out Status input if any: +1 if 3 or more, +2 if 5, +3 if 7.
>>97630542Regular Income: 5% of the character's assets for (Wealth)/level, minimum of 1. Half cost (or double percentage) if Poor. Standard 20% limit. Fixed sum, so points could be refunded as wealth increases.Welfare: 10% of the character's appropriate Cost of Living, for (Status)/level, minimum of 1. Negative Status halves cost. 100% limit. Fixed sum, points ought to be paid on Status increase.Money Supply: worth 20% of the character appropriate Cost of Living, for (Status)/level, minimum of 1. Negative Status halves cost. Also halve cost if origin is illegal. No limit, but cannot be accumulated (if it's not spent this month, it's gone.) Represents allowances, mission funds, provisioning etc. Usually conditional.Expenses: +50% to the character's Cost of Living for -1/level. No limit. Meant to represent alimony etc. Variable sum.Debt: -5% of the characters' assets for -1/level. Standard 20% limit. Variable sum unless bought off when Wealth increases.
>>97630547And some practical examples of what you could get for a given point budget:Basic assumptions as in RAW: TL8, $20,000 starting wealth, $2,600 income, $600 CoL, $40 hour workweekWealth (Struggling) [-5]: $10,000 (abstract)Cash: $2,000Job (Average) [1] $2,600Regular Income (5%) [1]: $500Liquidity (20%) [1]: $2,000 Property (50%) [2]: $5,000= 0 points total.Wealth (Average) [0]: $20,000 (abstract)Cash: $4,000Job (Struggling) [-2] $1,300Regular Income (5%) [1]: $1,000Property (25%) [1]: $5,000= 0 points total.Wealth (Poor) [-10]: $4,000 (abstract)Cash: $800Job: (Dead Broke) [-8]: $0Working Hours [10]: 0 hours per week (full-time murderhobo)Welfare (for Average CoL) [7]: $420Liquidity (100%) [1]: $4,000Property: $0= 0 points total.Wealth (Wealthy) [10]: $100,000 (abstract)Cash: $20,000Job (Wealthy) [3]: $7,000 (half-pay, free with half-time)Working Hours: 20 hours week (part-time, free for half-pay)Liquidity (10%) [1]: $10,000Property (150%) [6]: $150,000= 20 points total.Wealth (Filthy Rich) [25]: $2,000,000 (abstract)Cash: $200,000 (-20k banked, effectively [-1])Job (Very Wealthy) [6]: $52,000Working Hours [3]: 34 hours weekLiquidity (10%) [1]: $200,000Regular Income (5%) [4]: $100,000Property (300%) [12]: $4,500,000= 50 points total.
>>97630533Of course I skipped one of the most important sections, fuck me:Property: 20 level limit. Each level in property represents a sum equal to 25% of your assets invested in real estate, facilities, furniture and other non-adventuring gear. Property costs 1/level. Property cannot be quickly converted to cash without losing most of its value: consider that each level can be flatly traded for 1 point in Liquidity in an emergency. Skilled brokers with plenty of time can get better deals when selling property, but the extra liquidity levels must be paid for with points. Levels and points are lost when property is liquidated. Property acquired with cash will convert to property levels for free when the sum reaches 25% of assets, this increases your point total.
>>97612701https://samuelbaughn.blogspot.com/2026/02/casspir-apcs-in-gurps.htmlFound enough documentation for the Casspir, but fuck-all on the Indian version. Probably close enough that there is no real difference.
>>97628879>If equipment lists were already given in terms of Abstract Wealth values, then I'd use Abstract WealthBut they are? Abstract Wealth uses cash costs, there's no conversion needed. This isn't d20M where you needed to convert everything under the sun into a DC; you see the price tag and then see where it falls on your thresholds. Simple as.
>>97630618Excellent, I shall use this in a game
>>97630160
I wonder if anyone ever has played one of theseMy guess is no
>>97633870Well very few people use GURPS for ERP.
>>97633930If one of my friends ever ends up running THS, I'm playing one of those (and not ERPing)I remember some guy at the SJG forums saying he played an Elf Kitten before so at least that one's been done
I just watched Ivanhoe and want to subject my friends to knight shit. Anything I need besides Low Tech and Martial Arts?
>>97634270Based. Watch El Cid next for more knightly kino.You should be set with just those two books, but you might get some mileage out of some of the 3e historical books, like Middle Ages.Also, Banestorm has a good Knight template with several lenses for different knightly orders.
>>97634270>watchedCringe. Read the original book. https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/82GURPS Robin Hood is highly relevant.
>>97634432Pic related.
What rank (as in, the advantage rank) should a police detective have?A Miami PD detective back in 1983 in case specifics are needed.I know he has to have law enforcement powers too.
>>97637242I'm no expert, but it seems like Rank 1 should be enough. They don't really have any permanent underlings, but seem able to give orders to beat cops (presumably Rank 0) when they are managing a crime scene or something. Obviously the leader of a unit of detectives is higher.
>>97637242t. too lazy to check GURPS Cops
What's the best approach to a WoD-style GURPS game?>Monster Hunter>GURPS VtM, WtA and MtA>a mashup of Blood Types, Shapeshifters, Cabal, Spirits and Faeries (maybe with Voodoo and In Nomine as well).
>>97638541There's a GURPS WtA and MtA??
>>97638570https://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/werewolftheapocalypse/https://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/magetheascension/
>>97637664It's for 3e so I don't even know if it translates directly
Is there a good excel character sheet? I've been mostly bumming around with GCS but I realized how annoying it is to have to directly share the file with each other and I think using google sheets will be a much more painless way for me and my players, but I can't find a good sheet. For some reason the one from the official sjg website doesn't actually work, its formulas reference tables that don't actually exist (or maybe it's so old that the way excel works changed so massively that it broke it).
>>97638980Very odd, I tried it three days ago and just before making this post and it didn't work. I try it again and now the formulas work? Hitler please make it make sense.
>>97638980If I were your player I would hate that.Wow this new captcha sucks ass.
>>97638980What would you need to share the charsheet (file) with someone else for anyway?I can understand letting GM check it out, but why let others know everything?
Here comes a question here nobody can answer: where can I find people to play with?
>>97639356https://www.reddit.com/r/tulpas
>>97639309>why let others know everything?I personally hate the "le you shouldn't know your party's stats!!" meme
>>97639356I've found good players here and r/LFG shockingly enough. Trannycord, too, but I've had worse results there.
>>97638708
>>97639309I am the GM. I want to just make like 6 sheets, each for one of my players. I wouldn't let everyone see each other's stats or anything, since a few have secrets hidden there. It's a rather fast-paced campaign with a lot of homebrewing so there's fast changes to the sheets, basically every session, and sharing .gcs files through pisscord sucks ass. GCS itself is kinda unwieldy for the sorta homebrew shit I do as well.>>97639030Good thing you aren't then?
>>97639356I found decent groups in the official Discord
>>97639381Fair enough. I'll chalk it to personal preferences and how the game is being set up then.I'd rather handle learning about who the others are and what they can do in-game, in a more involved and immersive fashion.It's just too clinical and impersonal of an approach to me, but you do you anon. I'm certain there's a balance to be found here.>>97639412That explains it.If all else fails, you could bite the bullet and make one yourself.Big upfront investment of effort, but at least you could reuse it in future campaigns.>GCS itself is kinda unwieldy for the sorta homebrew shit I do as well.Nta, but I've had to deal with making and using my own charsheet in Excel way back when. I'll take GCS over that any day.Can't be the only program that does this sort of thing, though. Good luck either way anon.
>>97638570White Wolf actually cancelled the deal with SJG after the sales were outperforming their own (White Wolf was under bankrupcy around that time) so they are very rare and expensive. Voodoo was a form of re-released version of the MtA book.
>>97639446>Nta, but I've had to deal with making and using my own charsheet in Excel way back when. I'll take GCS over that any day.My ass is used more to excel because of my job, so the interface of GCS is just annoying me. I think I'll probably end up making the excel myself. Come home from work just to work.Thanks for the wishes though.
>>97639356r/gurps is probably the closest thing where you will find people who are mixed between new and veteran players making groups.SJGforums is mostly people already tied on their on knit closed groups.GURPS Discord is GURPS Discord, enter at your own risk.
>>97637624Thanks, that seems about right.>>97637664I didn't even know gurps cops existed>3e bookthat would require converting, wouldn't it
>>97639478W-what's wrong with the GURPS Discord?
>>97639496>that would require converting, wouldn't itYes, but Rank doesn't seem to have changed significantly between the two editions.
>>97639381I do too, but sharing the first GCS sheet is enough, instead of constant live updates.
>>97639696I'll take a look then.
>>97634270Middle Ages and Crusades. If you want more fantastical there's Camelot, Robin Hood, and possibly Harkwood.
>>97639806I don't do much more than that either
For the same price as a college associate's degree [20], I can get 10,000 loyal chickens [19.2].
>>97640914seems about right
>>97640914The chickens should yield a better ROI, both in game and real life.
>>97639412>Good thing you aren't then?Or am I...?
>>97639515It's full of the bad kind of autistic retard, where as we here are the good kind of autistic retard.>>97639356Gamefinder General.
>>97642993Explain further. Do you mean the particualirly insufferable kind?
>Can Be Stolen>Easily snatched with an unopposed DX roll (e.g., a hat): -40%.>Thief must win a Quick Contest of DX (e.g., a bracelet) or ST (e.g., a wand) with you: -30%.>Can only by taken by stealth or trickery (e.g., a coin in a pocket): -20%.>Must be forcefully removed (e.g., a suit of armor): -10%.What does a kamen rider belt count as?It can be stolen when it's just in belt form (since usually the first step to transform is to put the belt on, so it's not like you need to unbuckle it to steal it) but it can't be stolen mid-combat after the rider already transformed.
>>97643923I think the idea is that you assess how difficult it is to steal while it is in use. After all, anyone could leave their magic ring or wand lying around where it could be easily stolen, or keep it locked in a safe, at the bottom of their backpack, etc.So if it can't be stolen at all while worn, it doesn't qualify for 'can be stolen'.
>>97643989I see. I guess they don't count as a gadget at all then.In that case what I need is some limitation to represent the fact that most of the time the DR and extra ST granted by the belt are off, and require a ready (take pose, scream henshin) to activate.
>>97630160>>97630618Anyone got any more requests?Creatures, weapons, vehicles, or pretty much anything else. No magical or martial arts styles, because the former is annoying and the latter I don't feel I'm knowledgeable enough about.
>>97644005What's the reason the character doesn't just wear it all the time? I'm guessing it comes with a dorky costume, so maybe Temporary Disadvantage (Distinctive Features)?
>>97644028Three reasons:The main one: it's armor that is only meant to be used to fight for justice!2: you can't exactly walk around with a full face helmet and combat armor in the modern world. You can't even eat or drink with it on.3: It looks scary
>>97644013D&D 4e fomoriansthey're giants from the feywild with fey powersAnother thing that could be more generically useful (if a bit boring to do) would be some generic enemies for games like fantasy bandits, modern soldiers, things like that. I remember a pdf with stuff like that for medieval games but it was really badly formatted, real annoying to use.
>>97644005Put all of the buffs into an Alternate Form with multiple levels of the Reduced Time enhancement (I think 4 levels gets you down from a 10-second transformation time to one second). Alternate Form also comes with a free cosmetic appearance change to cover the suit aspect. On a related note, the "rider template"'s cost can be reduced by adding in negative traits like Social Stigma (Monster), multiple Distinctive Features, or negative Appearance. Being innately heavily armored can be handled by giving the template enough levels of Odious Personal Habit to cover the reaction penalty for wearing armor.Also I haven't seen a ton of Kamen Rider series, but from what I have watched, riders tend to transform back upon receiving enough damage or getting knocked out, at which point the belt can be torn off of them (or destroyed, for secondary riders). I think that's enough to qualify for the -10% stealable gadget limitation.
>>97644063>alternate form with multiple levels of the Reduced Time enhancement That works. I'll create a rider template and use that. I originally avoided alternate form because of the 10 seconds transformation time.>Also I haven't seen a ton of Kamen Rider series, but from what I have watched, riders tend to transform back upon receiving enough damage or getting knocked out, at which point the belt can be torn off of them (or destroyed, for secondary riders). I think that's enough to qualify for the -10% stealable gadget limitation.That's true, good point.
>>97644037>it's armor that is only meant to be used to fight for justice!Something something oath-related disadvantage or modifier?Isn't Rider a paladin of sorts, by the virtue of their "for justice!" thing?Could require acting the part, otherwise it either won't work or has reduced duration, or whatever.
>>97644085I feel like it would be a version of "emergencies only" but for justice.
>>97644085Depends on the series. IIRC there are a few instances of the belts in older Showa-era shows being semi-conscious and not willing to work for those not aligned to its causes (protecting humanity, defeating aliens, etc.), but the vast majority of the time they're basically just tools and the only thing making the guy wearing them a hero is that he wants to be a hero; he could just as easily use the belt towards selfish ends. In the Hesei-era shows, there are often multiple belts in the series in the hands of all sorts of people, giving us some villainous riders alongside virtuous ones.
>>97644013I got a difficult one for you: a race that was artificially created, and has to share a finite amount of power. The fewer alive there are, the stronger the remaining creatures will be, until you get to the ubermensch.
I want my natural DR to also protect the eyes but I don't want all the extra stuff from forcefield. How do I do that?Buying DR only for the eyes separately at -80% seems silly, if I'm buying the exact same amount, I'm paying the same amount of points as forcefield but without the advantages of forcefield.2DR [10]. 2DR (eyes only -80%)[2]; [10]+[2]=[12]2DR (forcefield +20%) [12]
>>97644328DR 2 [10] + Nictitating Membrane 2 [2]. Still costs [12] but you get +2 HT vs threats to the eyes as well.
>>97644423Well, better than the forcefield stuff that wouldn't make sense for my character I guess. Thanks
>>97644168NTA but looks like we're recreating the Law of Conservation of Ninjutsu, so a good starting point might be GURPS's handling of that trope.
>>97644013The vehicle collections refer to various 85mm guns a lot but there's only the AA gun statted
>>97642898Couldn't be, you haven't filled the thread with blacked porn.
>>97645515The tank and tank destroyer variants were basically identical and I intended the stat-line to cover all three, if I remember right.
>>97644056>Another thing that could be more generically useful (if a bit boring to do) would be some generic enemies for games like fantasy bandits, modern soldiers, things like that.>I remember a pdf with stuff like that for medieval games but it was really badly formatted, real annoying to use.Like this?https://samuelbaughn.blogspot.com/2026/03/generic-thugs-in-gurps.html
>>97645795>https://samuelbaughn.blogspot.com/2026/03/generic-thugs-in-gurps.htmlYes, exactly, this kind of stuff is always useful.I can think of some more>generic professional soldier>generic mafioso>generic spec ops team>generic swat teamYou could even combine with some of the vehicles already done, like "this is the typical squad that rides this IFV".When playing more realistic modern games it's very useful to know these sort of things.
>>97646034The problem with doing military units is that you need to either be vague and incomplete (generic rifleman, automatic rifleman, LAW gunner, NCO with no real loadout assigned), which means they aren't usable 'as is', or extremely specific (which means carefully researched, as far as I'm concerned) with exact loadouts for everyone, but they would only work for a small number of one nation's forces during a specific period.
>>97646512Oh yeah, you're right.I don't know much about military so I assumed there wasn't that much difference within the same TL.
Does anyone have the one fantastic dungeon grappling house rule pdf that got shared? I somehow lost it.It had some cool house-rules about grappling with your legs only and stuff like that.
>>97646512>>97646558I'm going to try and do a generic third-world / insurgent unit loadout, because the combination of AKM, PKM, RPG-7, no body armour, no optics, etc. was incredibly common and is still seen in a lot of places.
>>97646612nice that would be cool
>>97633580kek
>>97645753From a cursory search you're right, the only exception is the ASU-85 which has a different gun
Been working on porting the Monster Hunter video games to GURPS. Anyone want to see the work I've done?
>>97650385yes absolutely!
>>97650402Here goes! Do note that this is 100% imcomplete. I plan on making an "exploits" document that contains GM-facing things.https://docs.google.com/document/d/1az19BuiWakZp-7OT3FHZ9IUZAgYwhHyeVvJu3LAnKKo/edit
>>97650410Very cool anon, but I do have one criticismLow Tech Armor is rather pointless in gurps when dealing with unrealistic monsters with ST higher than 20 (or higher than 15 if using KYOS), I advise you to come up with some house rules to make armor worth wearing once the PCs start getting into the big monsters.
>>97650410This is very well done. Have you done any test fights against monsters yet? I'd like to know how long it would take to fully hunt a monster.
What are the must must haves of 4e?I have an addictive personality, and want some sweet sweet dopamine release from buying more GURPS booksI have the two core books, space, horror, powers, supers, infinite worlds, zombies,and the 4e THS book.I'm assuming fantasy, magic, and the tech books are obviousn eeds, but what else?
>>97651613Martial Arts, Tactical Shooting.
>>97651613>buyingnigga why
>>97651695t. probably doesn't even support his favorite website
>>97651705how bad should having a 4chan pass activated affect reaction rolls?
>>97652413Odious Personal Habit -3 I think.
>>97646512Specific for nation and TL isn't a problem for me, Tactical Shooting has some of those but we could use more
I'm about to embark on putting all the options for chargen into a nice PDF for my players, but just to make sure I haven't missed something like a retard, there isn't a character creator that has everything stored in it out of the box, right? I'm looking at GCS and all the data within seems to be completely broken.
>>97652814Try uninstalling and reinstalling your GCS. It will be much easier and more helpful to make a library of GCS templates than making a pdf.
>>97651695I like hardcopies
>>97646512I don't see the issue with making them generic tbqh. Just gotta omit the more specific equipment (even though armor and the guns are near identical with GURPS granularity), so it's up to each GM to fill in the details. A soldier is a soldier, adjust skill up/down according to training and you're set. It's not like a videogame where each nation has to have a wildly unique doctrine
>>97652963>It's not like a videogame where each nation has to have a wildly unique doctrineMost nations have what you call wildly unique doctrine though
>>97652976What's the difference between an american army rifleman and an UK army rifleman
>>97653846I'm not an expert but mags carried, amount and type of linked ammo carried and AT weapons carried may be differentAll that if you don't count the M7 rifle vs. the L85A3 too
>>97628233Years ago I remember someone posted an "Upgraded" presentation of Dungeon Fantasy Templates to make them easier to read. Same content, but different formatting. Does anybody here have those PDFs they uploaded? I'd like to look at their formatting for inspiration.
>>97652866Huh, are you sure you mean GCS and not GCA? It's just an executable I have no option to install, and I'm getting it straight from the official release.
>>97654773Who in their right mind would use GCA in 2026
>>97654869Nobody to my knowledge, but GCA is the only one I know of to have anything for me to reinstall. Admittedly I'm new to virtual tabletop so I might just be a moron here, but even I've noticed nobody so much as mentions GCA anymore.
>>97654077So very minor things that each individual GM can adjust from the generic template? You don't have one army using plasma weapons, the other bolt actions, and the other only short range, rapid fire weapons man. All soldiers train marksmanship, squad coordination, how to use grenades, and they use intermediate cartridge assault rifles as the main issue weapon (even the US and the hoax that's the M7). The rest is just easily adjusted from a generic template. For example, norks in Ukraine are allegedly cracked shooters, because Kim is obsessed with marksmanship so the norks are very good shots, especially when it comes to taking down drones with their rifles.
>>97655073That kind of thing is for people who use wildcard skillsI want full autism
>>97655073>hoax that's the M7nta but qrd?I know nothing about guns besides what's in gurps high tech and tactical shooting.
>>97654773I misspoke. I meant delete and redownload.
>>97655540I don't think hoax is the right word, it's the new US Army rifle that goes against all conventional wisdom and recoils like a bitch because of its too-hot-for-no-reason cartridgeYou could call it a scam though, SIG just can't stop winning. They'll sell the military turds and the Army'll lap it up
>>97655697I googled itKinda surprising to see it uses some ammo type I never heard of.Wouldn't that mean they have to change their entire logistics around carrying a new type of round?
>>97628233How would one make their own magic system in gurps?My idea was a non mana based system where instead of draining a ressource players have the chance of gaining "miasma" which can lead to more unstable spellcasting and other bad effects which will last until the spellcaster "grounds himself". should I just modify the basic set magic system or is there a better way?
>>97655737GURPS Thaumatology has extensive guidance on this topic.
>>97655727>Wouldn't that mean they have to change their entire logistics around carrying a new type of round?Yes but they're overhauling a lot more than that, like the MMGs, because the higher ups are envisioning another Afghanistan but with roided and armored jihadis
>If an advantage always requires the use of a Character Point to activate, it costs 5x lessI remember vaguely seeing this rule somewhere, is it real?
Could GURPS be used as a system for an OSR flavored game?
>>97656129Dungeon delving: Dungeon Fantasy seriesArmy leading: Boardroom and Curia, Mass Combat, Tactical Mass CombatDomain ruling: Not applicable (Realm Management is shit, and At Play in the Fields and Lord of the Manor are not really up to the task)
>>97655737Your idea is similar to how Threshold magic works, so check Thaumatology
>>97656017I think so? It should be in Power-ups: Limitations or Impulse Points
>>97656269Thanks, I'll take a look at those books.
I don't like the way blasters and lasers are statted in ultra-tech, are there alternatives?Basically I want to run a Space Opera campaign in a custom setting that is kinda like star wars, but the ridiculous accuracy of energy weapons doesn't really fit the way I imagine blaster shots.
>>97656353For space opera, use GURPS Tales of the Solar Patrol.
>>97656604Thanks, I'll take a look at it.
>>97655540Sorry, sleep deprivation posting. I meant scam as the other anon said. The worst thing, is that it's completely useless. Really. You don't need a new gun, with terrible recoil, a completely new round, and somehow intend to equip everyone. They wasted God knows how much money on a dead end project, when all they needed was a designated marksman in each squad using a 7.62 dmr. You could've just spent the money on developing improved round for 7.62 and you'd be set, like that 9mm sabot round that can pierce soviet-era APCs, but scaled up
>>97656845The important part is the MG, which is an actual substantial upgrade over the M249.
>>97657264NahThe age old M240 would still do the trick
Making a futuristic campaign is kind of annoying. All the high TL shit makes combat impossible to balance, with ridiculous damage and DR being thrown around while everyone is still squishy humans with 10hp so any mismatch in DR vs damage means you just die in one hit.Not to mention you start with 30k+ cash and with weapons costing 10k at most and armor costing 10k at most you end up with thousands of cash lying around at character creation.Makes me miss the low tech and DF where you start with 1k cash and don't have enough money to start with the best weapons and armor possible.
>>97656353The steampunk gear book has raygun gothic blasters, and there's a pyramid article called something like 'laser and blaster design', but for totally unrealistic weapons which simply follow genre / setting / style conventions, you can just make shit up. All that really matters is that relative damage, accuracy, etc. follow basically the same ratio, so that long-arms are a bit more accurate and deadly than pistols, etc.
>>97657647>pyramidfound it, it's issue 37.Thanks I'll take a look at both.
Ok, I didn't like any of the stats I saw in the various settings books and articles and just made it up based 100% on pure feels with 0 research.Prices is based on metatech but divided by 10 and rounded down or up based entirely on feelings.Rate my beam weapon table
>>97654881People are cheap so they hate on GCA.
>>97656177What is wrong with realm management. Too abstract?
>>97657264They got scammed. Should've just gotten a new mg, instead of the bazillionth "let's replace the M16 (proceeds to not replace it anyway)" money dump. But I guess if they don't use 100% of their budget, they get less so here's to endless money sinks
>>97658271https://enragedeggplant.blogspot.com/2024/06/review-gurps-realm-management.html>GURPS Realm Management simply doesn’t function. I don’t think it’s worth buying or even pirating. Many say that GURPS Magic or GURPS Ultra-Tech are the worst GURPS books, but I would say that GURPS Realm Management takes the cake here. And it’s a shame, because I know that the author can do better – he wrote some of the best Pyramid articles, but this book definitely was a miss. And since it already occupies this niche in the ruleset, we are not going to see anything better.
>>97658426Yeah but what do YOU think of it? I'm assuming you did try it.
>>97658426What's wrong with GURPS Magic?
>>97658441My opinion doesn't count. I'm a filthy secondary who enjoys reading GURPS books but has never actually played a campaign.But, if you must know, I bought the book and thought it seemed somewhat cool in isolation but too abstract and unmoored from reality to actually be useful.
>>97658461Its spells do not mesh with the rest of GURPS.In normal GURPS, you have to spend a zillion points (including the Cosmic modifier) in order to get extravagant effects like complete immunity to fire damage or a guaranteed parry of a missile weapon. But GURPS Magic lets you do the same by spending just a few FP.
>>97658508That makes sense.But that's just how fantasy wizards work. GURPS needed a way to have fantasy wizards without them costing 20x as much as other characters.I don't see a way to solve this without letting wizards "cheat" like how GURPS Magic does it.
>>97658614>premise: wizards are powerful>problem: wizards are way more powerful than other fantasy characters>solution: just pretend that the problem doesn't exist
>>97658271It’s not just abstract, it’s overtly boardgame-y in how it handles things. At no point does it use GURPS mechanics or interact with the base system at all. PCs have no way of affecting their Realm. The entire conceit of the splat seems to be that you’re competing with other Realms, but this is left unstated and is not a generic or universal assumption and is closer to Sid Meir Civ than GURPS. You accumulate a variety of points every month-long round to represent various resources, but the points are completely divorced from usable (or researchable) concrete values that GURPS relies on elsewhere. Also the interactions between points and the actions you can take each round are pretty arbitrary and seem, again, more like a boardgame aiming for balance than a component of GURPS.All of this would be one thing if it worked, though. RM would still have its detractors if it were just an overly-abstracted boardgame-esque splat, but the thing that pushes it into “worst GURPS book ever made” territory is that it plays like a *half-finished and poorly-thought-out* boardgame. Your options each round are nonsensical, like you can throw away half your Productivity Points for a chance to get 1d+2 Worker Points that month… or you can just buy Workers using Productivity at a rate of 1:1. Buy from who? Who knows?! The book never explains if that’s a generic option and you’re just exchanging with other abstract Realms or if every player is supposed to have their own Realm and players trade points Settlers of Catan style. The economic and government styles of your Realm have bizarre effects that run counter to what they should be. The math in the book only works between Realms of roughly the same size, which again pushes the idea it’s a competitive game rather than a GURPS splat.
>>97658647>>solution: just pretend that the problem doesn't existCorrect.It works 90% of the time, all the time.
>>97658614>But that's just how D&D wizards workFixed that typo for you.
How do you convert the Rate of Fire of spaceship weapons when using them in normal combat?Like if you use a Very Rapid Fire beam in normal 1 second combat, how much is the RoF? Cause the RoF in the book is for 20second rounds and assumes time spent aiming.
>>97658647Have fewer wizards and either don't allow PC wizards, or have them use the base version since they are but weak apprentices.If anything, this lets a wizard be a force to be reckoned with, as they were in the sword & sorcery settings of yore.
>>97655737Off the top of my head, there are already three different ways of going about that:>Threshold-Limited Magic, from Thaumatology>Spirit-Assisted Magic, also from Thaumatology>Power Corrupts, from GURPS HorrorEach of these magic systems are intended first-most for the standard magic system, but they can theoretically work with any magic system. Power Corrupts talks about how you can replace FP costs for cinematic skills and special abilities with Power Tally, Spirit Energy, or Corruption. Supernatural powers that don't use FP costs can instead get an equivalent bonus to rolls at +1 to skill per point of Corruption. And finally, abilities with neither FP costs nor skill rolls can still use Corruption to add extra levels or enhancements.Use Threshold magic if you like the idea of mages becoming nuclear bombs when they overcast. Use the other two systems if you like the idea of gradual demonic possession or slow subtle corruption better.
Is there any optional rule or house rule for Signature Gear that lets it scale the same way Wealth levels do? That is, an exponential progression. 50% of average starting wealth per point seems way too good compared to Trading Points for Money, and just not nearly enough when trying to make big purchases (like a spaceship).
>>97659173Can't help you there, but I can give you a couple of suggestions that are sort of related: >Dungeon Fantasy version of signature gear is simply "[1] your gear is protected, if broken or lost you can get it back for free." you have to buy the gear itself with regular cash from your wealth level.>In Spaceships II (in Pyramid vol. 3 iss. 71) the article "The Captain's Boat (pp 32)" has rules for spaceships as patronsthat ends up being much much cheaper and more balanced than trying to buy spaceships with cash.
>>97659285Looking at the Dungeon Fantasy version, that seems to work well for personal gear, but not for vehicles, buildings, or anything bigger than what one person can carry. I'm the GM, so I could just rule that it works on vehicles and buildings too. But I feel like bigger expensive items should require more points to insure with plot-protection.Spaceships as patrons does sound like an interesting idea. Probably not what I'm looking for, but maybe worth a read for another idea I might have later down the line.
>>97659173RPK's a long-time GURPS contributor and has a post on his website that reworks cash-for-points into something not dumb: https://www.mygurps.com/index.php?n=Main.GURPSMoneyThe TL;DR is that cash-for-points now both scales with Wealth *and* should always get you roughly double the cash that spending those points on more Wealth would get you (since Wealth has more lasting effects like free Status and higher monthly income). This makes cash-for-points a viable solution for characters that want a big fancy toy at chargen but doesn't want to play a character with Multimillionaire 4. And yeah, Signature Gear is now just a 1-point Perk that grants plot protection to an item.
>>97659285There's a krommpost where he reverse-engineers the cost of Signature Gear and applies the exponential-scaling progression of Wealth levels:>https://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?p=750563#post750563Basically, take the point cost of an equivalent Wealth level then divide by 5 to get the point cost of Signature Gear.The rationale for Signature Gear being so much cheaper than Wealth, I believe, is that Wealth is a liquid asset that you can trade/invest, is assumed to come with a Job that pays a monthly income in proportion to your Wealth level, and also comes with imputed Status which can benefit social interactions.If your game doesn't feature social encounters, last long enough for monthly income to matter, or have an extensible economy that you can interact with, then Wealth loses a lot of its value compared to Signature Gear.
>>97659373Meant for >>97659173
>>97658647Just don't allow ER, them having to use FP actually gimps casters
>checking some blog about gurps>link to bluesky account>think oh neat, I wonder what RPG related things he's tweeting!>it's nothing but politicswhy link your tweeter to your RPG blog if you're not tweeting anything about RPG
>>97659372>>97659373I like both these posts. I think I'll use RPK's rules when Trading Points for Money and the Krommpost for Signature Gear.
>>97659407Keeping track of separate personas for all the different activities that you enjoy gets tiresome. I can understand wanting to be a single person rather than going crazy with multiple identities.
Ahem.Kill Realm Management. Behead Realm Management. Roundhouse kick Realm Management into the concrete. Slam dunk Realm Management into the trashcan. Crucify filthy Realm Management. Defecate in Realm Management's food. Launch Realm Management into the sun. Stir fry Realm Management in a wok. Toss Realm Management into active volcanoes. Urinate into Realm Management's gas tank. Judo throw Realm Management into a wood chipper. Twist Realm Management's head off. Report Realm Management to the IRS. Karate chop Realm Management in half. Curb stomp pregnant Realm Management. Trap Realm Management in quicksand. Crush Realm Management in the trash compactor. Liquefy Realm Management in a vat of acid. Eat Realm Management. Dissect Realm Management. Exterminate Realm Management in the gas chamber. Stomp Realm Management's skull with steel toed boots. Cremate Realm Management in the oven. Lobotomize Realm Management. Mandatory abortions for Realm Management. Grind Realm Management fetuses in the garbage disposal. Drown Realm Management in fried chicken grease. Vaporize Realm Management with a ray gun. Kick Realm Management down the stairs. Feed Realm Management to alligators. Slice Realm Management with a katana.
>>97657405>thousands of cash lying around at character creation.Isn't it outright stated that the starting balance is supposed to be for all the expenses of a normal person (housing, food, clothing, etc), and the "pure" adventuring budget should be like 30% of that?
>>97658647Strawman. Some people like and want powerful fantasy wizards, therefore it's not a problem for them, and neither for you, as you can just not use Magic.For an ars gurpsika game, Magic works, as the game works on "magic wizard and his support gang"
>>97660621I never do that because it's incredibly confusing coming from other games and the cost of living system SUCKS
>>97657405Try focusing less in jumping on enemies and actually looking for cover and maneuvering. Also, any good GM actually select which equipment is available for the start of the campaign instead of just letting players waste all their gurpsbucks on whatever they seem fit plus cost of living also serve for that exact purpose of making sure player in any TL start with the avarage available money for their Social Rank.
>>97660828Yeah, so just don't give them 30k and tell them they start with less? I understand your gripe, but it is literally that simple
>>97660951>and actually looking for coverTL 10 shit has +12 accuracy or even higher, cover is meaningless>Also, any good GM actually selectThat is annoyingyou don't have to do that for TL 4 or lower campaigns.
>>97661076Yes, it does. Even with high skill you can't believe the difference that makes, trust me. Besides if it is a TL10 game, as you say, then there is probably some sort of high tech gizmos you can use to interfere with your oponnents. Now, if the main problem is just "the weapons are too powerful, armor is too weak", there is Survivable Guns and Armor Revisited on Pyramid. If the problem is " I want more stuff to make gunfight harder" then Tactical Shooting have stuff for that.One more thing, if it is a TL10 game, then you have even more reason to handle what type of equipment is available for players. Sorry, buddy, but that is the GURPS way, once you get it you can unleash it's full potential.
>>97661117Yes, that is why I said it was annoying. To make a high TL campaign there is a fuckton of stuff you have to take it into account compared to even just a TL 8 campaign.With TL 4 I can just go "ok make some adventurers, here's the books and here's the list of forbidden advantages"and then throw a hole with some goblins.With high TL it takes a whole week or more to prepare.
>>97661154What type of TL10 game were you trying to play?
>>97657405I use body hit rules from High-Tech, so penetrating damage from most ranged attacks get capped at HP.I also allow PCs to modify armor, swapping out some their DR for an inner layer of Ablative DR at a 1:5 ratio, or replacing a fraction of DR with an equivalent Damage Reduction factor (e.g., DR is halved, but get a Damage Reduction factor of 2), so combat has more of an element of attrition and is less swingy.Finally, I strictly enforce the LC for Shaped-Charge warheads, charging a huge mark-up price or forbidding them entirely for anyone who's not authorized military personnel, and give most battlesuit users a laser rifle on a shoulder-servomount operated by a Battle Agent AI to shoot down incoming warheads using the Point Defense rules from Spaceships.
>>97661184>DR is halved, but get a Damage Reduction factor of 2Actually, now that I think about it, trading every 10 points of DR for a +1 to Damage Reduction factor (-10 to DR gives Damage Reduction 2, -20 to DR gives Damage Reduction 3, and so on) probably would be more fair, since most average humans only have 10 HP.Though, most of my players take cybernetics to boost their HP, so I was wary of giving them too much Damage Reduction.
>>97661175Basically Star Wars with the serial numbers filed off.>>97661231Like if you have 20DR you can have instead 10DR but Damage Reduction 2?
Alright lads, I was wondering if any of you anons could chip in for a bit of game design/worldbuild help, obviously related to GURPS rules.I was inspired by Symbaroum's magic system, which would be easily ported to GURPS, but at the same time was looking to change it a bit, but I'm unsure how exactly. The way it works, is that magic corrupts. Learning spells and rituals gives you permanent one, using them temporary one. You hit the max, your character is taken out of the game. At the same time, you can buy abilities that represent training with a certain school of magic, which prevents permanent corruption for learning spells and reduces the corruption cost of casting them. It's generally way better to invest into a mystical tradition this way, even though it's cheaper to be an "untrained" mage, but it makes for a fun, risky character even then.Now, the thing is, GURPS has more shit available to it, like FP, and I was thinking of mixing it up in some way. Like, you can choose to instead pay corruption instead of FP, but untrained sorcerers have to pay both, or maybe you always pay both but training allows only a token amount of corruption to be accrued. If anybody has any idea or suggestions, I'd gladly consider and even include them.
>>97661314>Like if you have 20DR you can have instead 10DR but Damage Reduction 2?Yeah. DR 10 is worth 50 points, and Damage Reduction 2 is also worth 50 points, so it should be somewhat balanced, at least for human-scale HP.You might decide to change the ratio when armoring vehicles. Say, SM +1 costs -15 DR per +1 to Damage Reduction, SM +2 costs -25 DR per +1, SM +3 costs -35 DR per +1, and so on, following the same progression as the SSR table.Giving Damage Reduction to armor might not be totally realistic, but it does give a better reason for players to invest into ST/HP.
>>97661909Honestly, I could see it being realistic if you treat it like something between the Flexible limitation on DR and the optional rule for Blunt Trauma and Edged Weapons from Low-Tech.Let the Damage Reduction only affect basic damage up to twice the armor's original DR, but as an additional benefit, any physical damage below that threshold gets treated as Crushing damage.>Example:Take a DR 70 battlesuit. Trade -40 DR for +4 Damage Reduction. Now it has DR 30 and Damage Reduction 5 up to 140 basic damage.If the wearer of this battlesuit takes a Piercing attack to the vitals for 50 basic damage, then he takes 4 points of "blunt trauma" injury, which is worse than unmodified armor.But if he takes a Piercing attack to the vitals for 100 basic damage, then he only takes 14 points of "blunt trauma" injury, which is a lot better than the 90 points that a normal battlesuit user would take.If he were to take a Piercing attack to the vitals for 200 basic damage, though, then he would take 22 injury from "blunt trauma" and 180 points of injury from the remaining damage which blows past the "blunt trauma" threshold.
>>97661314>Star WarsHave you tried checking the homebrew material on the archive?
>>97661909That's an interesting idea, I think I'll give that a try.>>97662071Yes, the ones for 4e use the Ultratech stats for blasters which don't fit the setting at all.
>>97628233What's the benefit of using GURPS instead of a more modern system like 5e?
>>97662243>new good>old bad
>>97662243Mainly because GURPS is superior to every single other RPG out there, regardless of old or new. And I'm not joking or being ironic.GURPS isn't perfect but it beats the competition in every aspect except for "ease of setting up".
>>97662539(and except for realm management)
>>97662243you're not playing 5e
>>97662243Armor Class is the root of all evil.
>>97662243Better combat
>>97662243I like playing characters. Classes are not characters.
>>97662539>every aspectI don't know man, specialist games are better than GURPS. I like it, but there are definitely plenty of systems that do something better than GURPS.
>>97663277>specialist games are better than GURPSNope. This fucking retarded idea is based entirely on hearsay and not actual experience. I have played and GMd over 30 something systems since the 90s, and I only tried GURPS 4e 4 years ago. Not a single one was able to beat GURPS 4e.GURPS is the best:>medieval fantasy system>cyberpunk system>action movie system>horror system>Sci-Fi system>Space Opera systemThe only niche I haven't tried is anime game and I bet GURPS is better than those too at making anime games.
>>97663316You need to work on your bait, you almost had me.
>>97663343>baitAnd these are just the games I have pdfs for, I have my actual physical collection with shit like Millenia and some other random shit I found.GURPS is by far the best. Nothing comes close.BTW I noticed you didn't even mention a game, you just used the generic "oh specialist games are better" bait.
>>97661314May I interest you in Mailanka’s Psi-Wars setting? It was originally a thought experiment on creating a GURPS setting built on a bunch of tropes you like, in a way that doesn’t require a ton of labor from the GM. However, it got popular with his Patrons so its grown a LOT over the years, going from Legally Distinct Star Wars (plus a hefty dollop of Dune) and curated but otherwise out-of-the-box GURPS mechanics to this dense and intricate setting with tons of homebrew mechanics, custom styles and templates, and original gear.
>>97663277>I don't know man, specialist games are better than GURPSThat's what I used to believe. But after learning to tweak and homebrew about a dozen different systems, I've learned that sometimes a universal system can be better than a specialist system at representing its own game.For instance, I've been extremely dissatisfied with virtually every Cyberpunk game I've ever played (except maybe Shadowrun), and never once didn't think to myself while playing, "this would be better in GURPS."When playing 2020, the core rulebook was horribly organized. Game rules often referred to other rules which either contradicted themselves or just simply didn't exist. The PDF scans we had were impossible to search. Combat was hyperlethal to a nearly unrealistic comical degree. "Style over substance" my ass. Also, a stationary semitruck is about as easy to shoot as a midget on a scooter going at 90 MPH. Game balance is a joke. The majority of the skill list and several character statistics have no associated game rules making them worth investing into. One player showed up to the first session as a full-borg with all max stats, and this was fine according to the GM, because "he rolled well enough at character creation to get a sponsorship for his full-borg conversion." Humanity loss lacks nuance, being just a number with no game rules for mental disorders or health problems that might arise from too much cyberware. Netrunning is an absolute clusterfuck. The amount of house rules needed to fix all the problems we had would be like trying to develop an entirely new game. And every other cyberpunk game I tried was not much better.Yet none of these things would've been a problem in GURPS.
How do people actually run GURPS on a VTT? I've never run GURPS and my basic plan was to>Read the rulebooks>Run combat sims with a friend>Prep 3-4 One shots that are different genres such as mecha space opera, digital fantasy mmo, feudal samurai, and 1776 revolutionary war, and maybe some standard D&D fantasy to sure things up.But my biggest hurdles are that I've heard you basically need external character calculators, and I just have no idea how you run things and prep from within a VTT (all my games will be online)I'm so fucking tired of searching for systems and I just want to actually learn one and be fucking done. I have How to be a GURPS GM, and GURPS for Dummies as well.
>>97663973Foundry has a GURPS engine (GGA, GURPS Game Aid) that works great. It's absolutely worth buying it if you'll be running games online.
>>97663973>>97664012I can vouch for this. The Foundry GURPS engine is very good. If you set it up right you even get PDF page reference mappings.
>>97664012>>97664061Am I supposed to use this alongside other tools or do I just manually add everything? I don't see any compendium.
>>97664095you have to use GCS for character sheets but outside of that, that's all you need externally
>>97663316Shadowrun is the only system that can run Shadowrun
>>97663597See, that's just anecdotal evidence. I agree that cyberpunk RPGs suck, but for example, I vastly prefer other games for medieval and fantasy over GURPS, be abuse what they do, they do better than GURPS. For example, ars magica for wizard, harnmaster for the wound and armor layering systems (I also quite like the level up), fate of the norns for vikang roguelite experience, mouseguard for whimsical forest critters, symbaroum for very lethal dark fantasy, and so on. I would hate trying to do each of these systems, or combine them in GURPS for the reason GURPS is good: the fact you have to do everything yourself. Recreating the ars magica magic system for example would require so much work, for little gain, same with porting over Symbaroum's abilities and races. And yet, while these games have disadvantages (ars magica is not crunchy enough outside magic, symbaroum is horribly unbalanced), they are better, for me, over GURPS because they do what they set up to do better, even if it just means that they're simply ready to go without tinkering
>>97664838That's debatable. There's no system that can run Shadowrun, not even Shadowrun.
>>97665086Sure it can, it's just clunky as fuck but it has that flavour GURPS can't quite capture. As much as I like THS, I also think GURPS could have used a character sheet with separate mental and physical stats like Eclipse Phase
>>97665086Only unredeemably bad part in SR are matrix rules and the rules organization, the rest is just the fault of the dogshit editing, so it's not difficult to run. If you want to include the terrible magicrun balancing, the 90% useless Ivory tower gear porn and the power creep of the splats, you do have more of a point, but it still doesn't make SR not runnable.
>>97663973>>97664012>>97664061If you don't want to spend money, Roll20 is functional too.
>>97658794According to Weapons in Ordinary Combat (Spaceships, p. 66) each attack in the space combat system is assumed to have 3+ seconds of aiming, so attacks can be made no more than once every four seconds. Therefore the lowest possible rate of fire is the one listed for 3-minute turns (ibid, p. 58) divided by 45 (i.e. 180 seconds divided by 4). This results in a very low RoF and means that the weapons would have to be self-guiding, and all loading, cooling, and recharging happens simultaneously with aiming.The maximum rate of fire would seem to be that listed for 20-second turns, where each attack would be 3 seconds of aiming, 1 second of firing, and 16 seconds of guiding the weapon to target, cooling, reloading, and/or recharging capacitors. This gives numbers which seem more plausible.tl;dr: just use the RoF for 20-second turns.
>>97663475>Mailanka’s Psi-WarsI looked it up but it's all locked on patreon, and outside patreon it's all spread out over multiple blog posts across two different sites. I would use it if it was like a single pdf or something but as it is, it's too spread around. Not sure how people even play in it.
>>97663973I just use roll20. The character sheet works fine and accepts imports from the official gurps character builder.
>>97664838There's not a single unique thing about shadowrun that doesn't exist on GURPS. Combat in shadowrun is atrocious compared to GURPS
>>97665524Those are very slow guns. Basically if you have a spaceship on call you get one artillery barrage per combat I guess.
>>97661076>TL 10 shit has +12 accuracy or even higher, cover is meaninglessPartial cover, maybe, but at TL 10 you should be able to shoot from full cover, exposing only your weapon at most.Also, you need to understand that at TL 10, normal engagement range is measured in miles, not yards. Typical 20th-century engagement ranges with 22nd-century guns have lethality similar to assault rifles at spear-length ranges.
>>97662243Just because the latest version of D&D was published more recently than the latest version of GURPS, doesn't make it more modern. D&D remains locked into an old-fashioned paradigm and has failed to incorporate many of the innovations in game design developed since the first edition. Meanwhile, GURPS has pioneered many of those innovations.
>>97665562Availability & legality codes ready made instead of something you have to kludge together from GURPS rules (god bless FASA), wound track system, priority system in chargen. It's unique. It can't be replicated satisfactorily in GURPS. My other example was Eclipse Phase and that game is prime GURPSifying material, actually tempted to borrow the flavor skill pool from EP for my GURPS games
>>97663316This is generally true, but not universally.Call of Cthulhu is fairly unambiguously better for Mythos games. Arguably, a couple of other games do their specific setting better than GURPS too (WFRP 2e IMO).Rules-lite systems (including OSR) are better for large groups who refuse to learn rules beyond the most basic elements.Almost anything is better for low-prep games.A handful of games have neat mechanics which are tricky to port to GURPS (Alien RPGs stress dice, for example).
>>97665592>wound track systemThere's been many better versions of wound systems in gurps.>priority system in chargenYou can easily replicate this, I can't remember where but some book or pyramid article had guidelines for setting up discrete "Pools" of points at chargen, all you need is to have various kind of pools.That said, why would you WANT to recreate that shit? Templates or lenses are much better "guides" for creating characters.>>97665608>WFRPI disagree. All gurps needs to run wfrp better is to use the threshold system and create a more flavorful table for going over the threshold.>Rules-lite systems (including OSR) are better for large groups who refuse to learn rules beyond the most basic elements.The players being dumb doesn't make a game better.>Almost anything is better for low-prep games.This is the only valid excuse, the GM doesn't have time to prepare shit.
>>97665569Yeah, spaceship weapons are optimised for space, where engagement ranges are in the hundreds or thousands of miles and heat management is a huge issue. So they generally function more like artillery than machine guns.Think of it as calling in a bombardment from a naval ship, rather than CAS.
>>97665053>says anon is wrong for citing anecdotal evidence >makes his own point using anecdotal evidence and subjective feelings Anon, I...
>>97665627>The players being dumb doesn't make a game better.This seems like saying 'ducks being small and fast-moving doesn't make shotguns better than rifles' or 'metal being hard doesn't make hacksaws better than wood-saws'. RPG rules are tools. If circumstances call for a certain tool to solve a problem, that's the best tool for the job. Is a pipe wrench a better tool than a hatchet, or needle-nosed pliers, or a Swiss-army knife? Kind of depends on what you are trying to do, doesn't it? GURPS is my favourite tool-kit, which can handle most jobs, but sometimes using it is just an exercise in frustration due to the circumstances and limitations of what I'm trying to achieve.
>>97665631Yeah, that makes sense.I've been trying to scale down the system (the math is pretty easy to scale things down) so I can use the system for smaller vehicles (still space-worthy) so I run into weird issues like the RoF.
>>97665627>That said, why would you WANT to recreate that shit?Flavor? GURPS is still my go-to, but trying to do everything in GURPS feels stale.
>>97665765>FlavorThat's what templates are for.
>>97665802Templates don't cut it
>>97665569You need to keep in mind, anon, that the spaceship weapon has to travel all the way from orbit to the ground, too. That's 100km on earth sized planets
>>97665642Yeah, precisely. His anecdotal evidence proves that GURPS is always better. Mine proves it isn't always better. As >>97665655 said, different tools for different jobs. I could run a Lovecraft game in gurps, but that would mean sifting through books to find all the rules I want to use, put down character creations rules and what's allowed or not, stat all the various monsters and creatures...or I could just pick up CoC which is perfectly suited to running Mythos games. I personally haven't found a sci-fi system that satisfied me, so I use gurps, and I also use it for completely homebrew settings where the entire point is crafting the ruleset, as it doesn't exist, and it's much better to use BURPS over hacking other specialist games.
>>97665976Well the setting uses mostly beam weaponry so I imagine it's almost instant in terms of shooting the big fuckoff laser and it reaching the ground.
>>97665997Since we're on the GURPS thread, GURPS is always better until proven otherwise. Which it won't be.
>>97665053Y'know, sure. I'm just very frustrated because most of the games I've played in my life have been just fucking terrible; and I've realized I've only enjoyed them because of the people I've played them with, in spite of the system. (But too many of these retards that I love refuse to budge from their rock.) I'll concede that some specialized systems are actually good at what they do. Like, I wouldn't try to recreate Ars Magica or Shadowrun in GURPS (except perhaps as a challenge to myself). For the average GM who doesn't want to do the work, I can see how it can be better to take an already prebuilt system that already works.I really like the GURPS framework, though. It's not just a "generic" system. There are actually a lot of game mechanics and subsystems here that I've always wanted in an RPG, but that I've rarely seen (or literally never seen) in any other RPG. A few examples: I love the concept of Extra Effort and Power Stunts. I think the way ST and HT are handled GURPS is genuinely unique and makes so much sense. And I think every game needs Defaults and a generic system of modifiers for varying the expenditure of time, effort, energy, resources, etc.; just so the GM has at least the vague semblance of a guideline to let players "do cool things" (especially if the thing isn't written on their character sheet), but at a cost to maintain game balance. But I rarely see these mechanics in other games, and tacking them onto other games doesn't always work. So I have a lot to gain by converting other games to GURPS.>>97665642Tbf, trying to prove a general statement (GURPS is better than any specialized systems) is hard, because you need a lot of evidence to support general statements, but only a few counter-examples to disprove them. It's just how things works.Proving non-general statements (GURPS is better than some specialized systems) is easy, though, because you only need a few examples to support the claim, and counter-examples don't debunk it.
GURPS is better than every other system out there and if you disagree you have a right to your own opinion but it's the WRONG opinion.
GURPS is better for CoC-sucking than CoC is. GURPS skill resolution is similar but better and GURPS combat is miles better than CoC's. I can appreciate that sanity mechanics might be a matter of preference, but fright checks are a really excellent way to show insanity, what with ever growing and more debilitating disadvantages. And it gets away from the security of having a sanity number, which lets players measure their remaining sanity. With fright checks, you never know.Also, CoC modules can be run in GURPS with basically no alterations whatsoever. You may need to convert NPCs, but that's it.
>>97667006>GURPS is better for CoC-sucking than CoCI'm no expert in Corruption of Champions but...
>is easy to make, requiring a Chemistry+3 or Explosives (Demolition)+3 roll and simple materials: gasoline and something to gel it. Packing peanuts, liquid soap, melted animal fat, and many other common materials will suffice. Orange-juice concentrate won’t Did I just accidentally learn how to do something very illegal by reading GURPS high tech?Also what's with the Orange-juice reference?
>>97666139Lots of games have the equivalent of defaults though, kind of struggle to remember games that don't
>>97667151>Did I just accidentally learn how to do something very illegal?You obviously would need to spend a lot of time tinkering with the proportions.
>>97667151Orange zest is famously flammable and the limonene extract is an equivalent of turpentine.
>>97667517Ok good, I won't be on any weird lists.
>>97667394Only thing that comes to mind are games that focus more on feats/traits/spells/abilities than on skills. While most games allow you to try to use a skill you aren't trained in, most games don't allow any attempt at all with any special abilities you haven't specifically invested into at character creation or a level up. This makes sense for many esoteric or magical abilities, which can have whatever prerequisites depending on the setting.But for mundane techniques like a Rapid Strike? That would be an endgame capstone ability exclusive to the Samurai fighter archetype, which no one else can attempt, in D&D 5E. In many of the WH40K RPGs, like Dark Heresy 2E, you would likewise need an expensive max-tier trait like Lightning Attack to even attempt anything similar to a Rapid Strike. And these aren't free attacks; you still get the skill penalty to hit.
>>97667151>Also what's with the Orange-juice reference?Fight Club claims that you can use OJ concentrate. Similar claims about any sugary substance are common, and don't generally work.
>>97667736Oh, that's a deep cut reference.I haven't watched fight club
>>97646612https://samuelbaughn.blogspot.com/2026/03/generic-3rd-world-infantry-in-gurps.htmlHere's the first instalment. It ended up being quite a lot even with just four troop types. I'll do some vehicle crew and an MG team later.Although these guys hover around 0 points, they are still capable of fucking up almost any realistic opponent if they have the advantage of numbers or good position.
Have the Armalite AR-10, AR-16, AR-18, etc. been given official stats in GURPS? I know they are just yet more American battle / assault rifles, and probably differ very little from M-14s and M-16s, but they are kind of iconic.
>>97668003Where's the rifleman sticking 6 mags in considering a Chicom rig can take 3?
>>97668003>https://samuelbaughn.blogspot.com/2026/03/generic-3rd-world-infantry-in-gurps.htmlThis is pretty awesome, gonna use this right away for my GURPS Action campaign, thanks bro.
>>97668042Apparently they can stretch enough to cram two of the metal ones into each pouch, and you can always sew more on, but yeah, I think I'll dial it back to 3. Probably not going to reload more than three times in a GURPS firefight anyway, even if your standard tactic is just unaimed full-auto.
>>97668003Worth adding an option for AK-74? Or are they not common among third-worlders?
>Q: You mentioned "sensitivity." What does that mean?>A: It means that, when referring to a group of people, we replaced outsiders' labels for them – often slurs – with terms that members of the group prefer. Where we had used terms for groups of people to refer to negative deeds, events, and situations, we found other words. And we took a firmer stance against slavery, torture, and other horrors.>Well, little things like "black" instead of "Black," "kidnapped by gypsies," and calling Inuit or Yupik "Eskimos" probably don't offend you, personally if you aren't Black, Romani, or Yupik. Anything to do with slavery should bother you; it bothers us. And why say "crippling problem" when we can say "debilitating problem" to avoid offending people who've been the butt of "cripple" jokes?>Q: Why did you revise for sensitivity? Was that not a lot of work for something most people do not care about?>A: Apparently we disagree on how many people care about this in 2026. We do. We wrote it as we would write it if we were starting afresh this year. The one exception is the replacement of "he" with "they" and so on. The accumulated effect of that change would have altered too many page endings.Imagine still playing GAYURPS. OSRChads stay winning.
>>97668459If you deliberately stretch them you can, but many thirdies also use straight Chinese airsoft vests that typically are some sort of Blackhawk clone with a capacity of 4+. P83 vests or Tarzan vests or copies thereof can take 6-8 AK mags but IMO those are rare
>>97668493>Or are they not common among third-worlders?That would be the case, FALs and G3s on the other hand are
>>97668508Fuck, is that what all the updated editions of old books changed?
>>97668579Yes. >www.sjgames.com/gurps/4erfaq/>https://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?p=2565616#post2565616
>>97668550Apparently Galils are more common than M16s in South America and Africa, so they might be a better choice for the 5.56 option.
I just know some dude must have done a full homebrew module for running 40k in GURPS, where is it?
>>97668579It feels like an elaborate troll almost. Updated 4e, but they just changed he to they and removed gypsy and eskimo. Vehicles 4e died for this btw
>>97668793Is in the archive
>>97668826>they just changed he to theyt. can't read
>>97668793Honestly a good idea. I am very fond of the FFG 40k games, but man, rolling for each individual bullet is tough, plus the toughness and armor stacking, and critical damage tables...
I remember a monster called something like a 'warhog', intended as a steed for orcs or something, possibly from a Pyramid article. Does anyone know what I'm talking about and where to find it?
>>97668848Never mind, it's in the Dungeon Fantasy (RPG) Companion 2.
>>97668832The only thing I can say in my defense is that I'm blind as well as stupid.
>>97668835Sorry, I'll deliberately make stuff up to be mad about.
I found Ultra Tech and Magic selling for cheap is it okay if i skip them i heard they suck.
>>97668826>Vehicles 4e died for this btwAn official Vehicles 4e would never happen. It would require massive amounts of research and editing, and the only people who really want it are tiny minority of turbo-autists in an already niche and autistic community. The fact that an anon is trying to comission it himself is enough of a miracle.
>>97668953Magic is kinda lame unless you really like Dungeon Fantasy or something. Ultra-Tech is full of poorly balanced gear but it also has a lot of cool ideas.
>>97668954>miracleIt's literally just six thousand dollars--and pseudo-crowdfunded by several anons, not paid for by a lone-wolf philanthropist. It's extremely cool, don't get me wrong. But calling a miracle is hyperbole, IMO.
>>97665500>>97665559I already own foundry, it's what I use to run 5e and OSE.Mainly it just seems like GURPS is an extraordinarily complex system on the setup end of things and was hoping there'd be more help as far as compendium and character building goes on the vtt. At the end of the day though I guess it's not that huge of a deal. I'll probably want to offer premade templates for the one shots though with some points to spare for character customization.
>>97668981You're gay, 4e Vehicles has been ordained by God
>>97668508>A: It means that, when referring to a group of people, we replaced outsiders' labels for them – often slurs – with terms that members of the group prefer.I just woke up and burst out laughing because I read it as "we replaced the labels for them with slurs"
>>97665550Literally at the top of his current site dude: https://mailanka.wordpress.com/2016/07/21/a-psi-wars-index/ That page has a link to the Heroes and Adventures PDFs (equivalent to the first two books of other GURPS series like Action and DF) as well as the wiki, which I will also link here directly since I personally find it easier to parse than the PDFs: http://psi-wars.wikidot.com/wiki:index
>>97646561This the one?
>>97668953UT is good if a little unbalanced on the weapon side, Magic is poorly edited but it's the only proper spell compendium for GURPS so it's broadly ok too
>>97668953IMO both Magic and UT are viable *if* the GM curates what's allowed. All-purpose wizards are boring to play and hard to challenge, and a TL10 game with all TL10 gear available is a clusterfuck; but games with more restricted Magery can have fun and flavorful wizards without requiring the GM make a new magic system from scratch, and a setting with, say, TL10 armor and medical tech but TL9 guns and TL11 computing is easier to manage.
>>97670212The problem with curating magic is the prereq system really, really encourages building an everything mage, and trying to do anything else will result in you not being able to cast half your spells or needing to buy a dozen spells you aren't allowed to cast. Its why I personally prefer Sorcery, which makes it really hard to do an everything mage but pretty easy to make a 2-3 things mage.
I grew up playing gurps. Im in a 5e campaign now. Maybe im just rose color glasses but gurps feels like a way better system than 5e. Class systems are omega cringe
>>976705275e is shit. Everything aside from GURPS is shit.
>>97670425I ignore the prereqs if my player has a concept in mind, done>>97670527D&D sucks but fancy that, I'm a player in a 5e game too
What happened to GURPS on Demand? The release schedule used to be much tighter.And there are still many quintessential supplements not available as PoD, like Cyberpunk and Vehicles.
>>97652936Same but the company is gay
>>97670540>>97670587I kind of envy the players in my 5e game. They are happily watching the shadows in Platos cave
>>97670628Isn't that just every player in every game
>>97670641I started playing RPGs with 5e, like many. Even then, I grew immediately frustrated with how limited and shallow it was. It was a weird feeling, I'd imagine like gender dysphoria but for RPGs.
>>97670641>I started playing RPGs with 5e, like many.Newfriend...
>>97670745>5eWhat are you talking about, there is no 5th edition of GURPS. Even the new core book coming out this month is a revised edition of GURPS 4.
>>97670750It's true. You're just in the autistic corner of the internet. Tons of people start with DnD 5e, and either see the light out of the cave, or stay and rot in DnD. It's up to you and introduce people with other stuff. Myself, I got my group by starting on harnmaster.
Reminder you share the hobby with people likes these
>>97670768Honestly I wish every template in a game had a concise explanation of what it does before you start looking up the advantages and skills one by one
>>97665608>Call of Cthulhu is fairly unambiguously better for Mythos gamesHow is it mechanically better?
>>97668953I like Ultra Tech, lots of cool ideas for things technology can do that aren't just killing your enemies.
>>97670143Yes, that's the one, thanks!
Anyone have any practical advice for using ACKS w/ GURPS for realm management? I'm doing a game where I want to have the door open to the players becoming landed later on down the line.
So, skill rolls based on ST are normally forbidden because ST scales differently from all the other attributes. However, there are some exceptions, the most common of which is when the skill involves a Quick Contest against another person's ST, such as with many grappling moves. This gives me a dumb idea:>Muscle Magic: Magery (Based on ST, +20%; ST-Based, +100%)Under this enhancement, all casting rolls for spells are treated as a Quick Contest between the ST of the mage and the ST (or HP) of the target. You can't cast a Regular Spell on someone unless you're strong enough to bench press his entire body. Missile Spells have their range divided by 10, but multiplied by ST, and inflicts a full multiple of the mage's Thrust damage per die of damage the spell would normally do. If the spell has no physical component that can be compared to ST, then the Casting roll is HT-based instead.
>>97670823It isn't. It just isn't significantly worse for that specific style of game, while requiring minimal prep-time compared to huge prep time in GURPS. Mechanics mostly don't matter unless they are annoyingly bad. GURPS doesn't even have especially great mechanics, it just (mostly) avoids having bad ones. A 'good' system is mostly one which provides you with content you can have fun with. GURPS does that with (mostly) well-researched (or well-imagined) sets of gear, powers, creatures, settings, and so on. But it has only a modest amount of 1920s content, little cosmic horror stuff, and barely any specific Mythos things, while CoC has absolutely tons of that.
>>97670783>I wish every template in a game had a concise explanation of what it does
>>976711971 ACKS GP = 100 GURPS dollars
>>97671520I said every template. Look at THS cybershells, they don't even tell you outright what your radio range is.
>>97671523Should I use ACKS or ACKS II?
>>97671520which book is that from?
>>97671564I believe that ACKS 2 is similar to GURPS 4, in that it is largely compatible with the previous edition but incorporates a bunch of stuff that previously was relegated to separate supplements and magazine articles (Axioms vs. Pyramid). So ACKS 2 is better.>>97671573Dungeon Fantasy Henchmen
https://samuelbaughn.blogspot.com/2026/03/extinct-hyaenids-in-gurps.htmlHyenas. Mostly just more dog-like and hyena-like animals, but Dinocrocuta and Pachycrocuta are large enough to be credible fantasy monsters, with the former being big enough to serve as a mount for small goblins and the like. The rest make good pets for orcs, wildmen, etc.Do you have any requests for creatures? I'm debating whether to round out the classic 'ice age Europe' ecosystem with Irish elk, aurochs, etc., dive into the weirdness of something like the Cenozoic South American or Australian fauna, finish of the 'famous' dinosaurs, or finally do some pterosaurs, birds, fish, or marine reptiles.I'm open to suggestions of legendary creatures, cryptids, and so on too. Not keen on converting from other games.Requests for guns, vehicles, NPCs, and basically everything else are also fine.
>>97671806Alvis Saladin armored car pls
>>97671484>It just isn't significantly worse for that specific style of gameDoesn't all the combat suck ass?
>>97671484GURPS CoC requires no additional prep at all. You just need NPC statblocks, really, which can be done far faster in GURPS than in other systems.
>>97672942>Part 2
>>97671484CoC's HP-but-representing-sanity is possibly the worst, most immersion-breaking way to handle your character's decline into madness. "Oh no, saw something mentally scarring, pause the dramatic scene and give me a sec to do some math. Whew, it's okay guys I'm still two big scares away from suffering any consequences." Like what the fuck is that.I'm not going to claim that GURPS's fright checks are the best mechanic in the universe, but they're miles better even with zero tweaking. So yeah, GURPS, at its core, does CoC stuff better than the specialized CoC system.
>>97671484>Mechanics mostly don't matter unless they are annoyingly bad.Yeah you can fuck right off with that retardation. Mechanics are literally the only part that matters in an rpg SYSTEM.>b-but fluff and cool ideasThose can be stolen and used in a good system.>b-but roleplayingthat's up to the players, not the system. The system can get in the way of the roleplaying sure, but it's not gonna make the players roleplay if your players don't want to.
>>97673061>I'm not going to claim that GURPS's fright checks are the best mechanic in the universe, but they're miles better even with zero tweaking.I've been thinking about running a game where the PC's are normal people thrust into terrifying and harrowing circumstances. How should I handle fright checks?
>>97673082Honestly they're pretty solid out of the box, but I do like the Madness rules from Horror (roll on a second table for additional, usually longer-term effects after a failed fright check). I feel like they add more flavor to the results.There are also the Stress and Derangement rules from the same book, where failed rolls accumulate penalties that affect certain skill and attribute rolls, self-control rolls, influence rolls, and most dangerously future fright checks. I'm not as big a fan of these additional rules but some Anons really like them.Just ignore Mad as Bones from Pyramid. It's a Rice article that recreates the sanity-as-HP system from CoC and is bad for all the same reasons.
>>97673061>"Oh no, saw something mentally scarring, pause the dramatic scene and give me a sec to do some mathI find that's usually a problem of delivery. I get the best results calling for the check first:>You turn the handle and slowly press the door open, the rusted hinges squealing in protest. The room beyond is unlit, a bolt of light stabbing in through the widening crack to make a sanity check"You have to be slow and lurid with CoC, then you use the sanity check as the jump scare before letting them process the horrible thing that prompted it.
>>97673418And then the player goes "oh it's fine I only lost a bit, I can still take a few more scares".Meanwhile, if you do the same thing with GURPS Fright Checks, every single one is more tense by comparison.
>>97673434You might have missed the part where the GM gets to hijack PCs on failed sanity rolls. The tactical impact is largely comparable, but CoC operates on a more attritional long-term system, while fright checks only get character-destroyingly ugly under individual circumstances.
How might you implement something like the Alien RPG's stress dice into GURPS?(It's a D6 dice-pool system where each 6 is a success. When you gain stress, you add stress dice to all your rolls. If they roll 6s, they count as successes too, but when they roll 1s you develop problems.)I like the general idea of stress making you a bit more determined and focused, while also threatening you with unpredictable issues, and the simplicity of the system is great too. I don't see any obvious way to port it into a roll-under mechanic though.
>>97673597Forgot to mention, you can also choose to gain stress in order to re-roll tests, and some actions like firing full-auto make you pay in stress.
>>97673597Reminds me of my favorite narrative system Don't Rest Your Head.It wouldn't be a 1:1 thing, obviously, but Stress and Derangement mentioned earlier has cumulative penalties that grow over time as you fail fright checks, and it would be simple for a GM to say that the penalty is actually a bonus (either universally or for certain skills e.g. applies as a bonus to combat and other fast-paced skills but keep it as a penalty to slower skills like research, lockpicking, etc.). But maybe they also lower your critical failure threshold, like how poor maintenance reduces a gun's Malfunction score, or they just make things worse on a normal critical failure (e.g. roll once on the table per Stress and pick the worst result)?
>>97673597Instead of dice, use a Stress bonus. Each point of Stress adds +1 to rolls, but also raises the threshold for critical failure by 2. For instance, if you have 2 points of Stress, then you get +2 to rolls, but you score a critical failure (or have other problems) on any 3d roll of 6 or more above your target number.
>>97673983>raises the thresholdShould be "reduces" or "worsens", but you get the point.
I just finished running my first GURPS campaign... and I feel disappointed, empty, and full of dread for the future.I've slowly come to love this system, but no matter how hard I tried, it just never fully clicked with my friends.I can't really go back to other systems now, but I don't want to leave my friend group.I'm too degenerate, weeby, and racist to make new friends.
>>97674027Behead those who insult GURPS
>>97674836If GURPS is so great, why is it getting a new edition this month?
>>97674851woke mindvirus
>>97672942>far faster in GURPSThat's one massive lie. I can make stat block in pretty much any other system far faster than in GURPS.
>>97675526Hood RatST 12, DX 10, IQ 8, HT 11Criminal! 12DR 1 (heavy clothes)HP 12, Speed 5.25; Dodge 8, Parry 8Knoife: 1d-2 Imp; Reach C-1Unarmed: 1d-2 cr, Reach CTook me literally a minute. I guarantee it would take longer to make D&D statblock.
>>97675585>completely ignores skills and (dis)advantages Oh yeah, if you put it like that, it also takes 30 seconds for dnd, which is still faster
>>97675622He didn't ignore skills, he gave him a generic wildcard Criminal! to cover all the skills the Hood Rat will realistically use. It's an npc, it doesn't need the level of detail a pc does.As for traits, what traits would he need that are actually relevant?
>>97675622Ah yes because a GM would totally need to list "bloodlust (12)" and "Social Stigma (Criminal Record)" on an NPC sheet to make it usable. Come the fuck on, NPCs are not PCs, you don't count points for NPCs, and most traits don't matter since they're not gonna come up for the 3-6 seconds of combat the NPC will exist for.
>>97671861https://samuelbaughn.blogspot.com/2026/03/alvis-saladin-armored-cars-in-gurps.html
>>97671861>>97675968>Alvis Saladin armored car>google images itWhat a cute tiny tank
>>97676071>small wheels: 5 percent of body volume>standard wheels: 10 percent of body volume>off-road wheels: 20 percent of body volume>this vehicle's wheels: 40 percent of body volume
>>97676234>>97676071It looks like the guy inside is just pushing it with his feet, Flintstones style.Also that armor looks so thincan it really stop bullets
>>97676406>Also that armor looks so thin>can it really stop bulletsThe driver's hatch is thin so that it is easy to open and closed. Not sure about the wisdom of putting a weak point right in front of the guy's face, but I guess every design has compromises. The glacis is apparently over an inch thick and well capable of stopping autocannon shells. Sloped at about 45 degrees too, which helps a lot.
>>97676483Neat.it's the kind of vehicle I'd give to an adventuring party.
>>97675622He has wildcard skill Criminal! Just gotta give him wildcard advantage Criminal! and wildcard disadvantage Criminal!.
I want to make a character that is an AI in a ship, that uses hard light holograms to inhabit.It's super science so no need to be realistic, but I want to know how to>create a character that has one core that can't move but can create bodies to control and affect the worldand>create bodies that cannot move far from a specific object (the holographic hard light emitter)Anyone got any clues on how to do this pls tell me.
>>97675655>>97675686So it isn't any faster than in other system. Say, shadowrun. Assign attributes, and just make them roll 12 dice if they're competent, or 9 if they aren't.
>>97676725>I want to make a character that is an AI in a shipSee "infomorphs" in Transhuman Space (detailed Third Edition material) and Changing Times (less detailed Fourth Edition update of Third Edition material).
>>97676742Wildcard skills are a prominent part of the GURPS system, with an entire dedicated book just for them (Power-up: wildcard skills) and is used in two different lines: Action and Monster Hunter. Furthermore every secondary attribute is accounted for, every fight relevant thing is there.That character is complete, it's not just handwaving and making shit up.There's no equivalent of wildcard skills in shadowrun. So you are just handwaving and making shit up.
>>97676826There's an equivalent, it's called skill groups.
>>97676781Informorphs are more or less what I want. Now I need to figure out how to build bodies that are controllable from a distance, cause cybershells are something you inhabit, while the hard light constructs I'm thinking of would be more a projection.
>>97676918Wildcards are much more than just skill groups tho, since they encompass any roll that is related to the role. So "Criminal!" isn't just "the breaking and entering skill category" it also include gun and knife usage, it includes hotwiring a car, and any other relevant activity relevant to the role of being a criminal.
>>97676999Powers has the Projection limitation that can be applied to Alternate Form. The main body goes unconscious while the Alternate Form walks around with its new racial template (which would be its hardlight form, in your case).
>>97676742I haven't played Shadowrun so I wouldn't know, but it's certainly faster than, say, dnd or coc, which makes GURPS faster than other systems. I think a more relevant challenge would be creating a system that can create a fully functional npc in a meaningfully shorter amount of time than GURPS.
Is anyone else getting an urge to run a Taliban (or ISIS, Hezbollah, Asian Dawn, etc.) vs. dinosaurs game?
Speaking of AI, there's several traits that make part of the AI metatrait that I don't think are ever to come up in my campaign (I'm the GM).Is it fair to remove them from the template? Like Photographic memory is something an AI would have, but it's never going to come up, so I feel like it's just making the template more expensive than it needs to be.>>97677230Oh that's perfect! Thanks!
>>97677443>Speaking of AI, there's several traits that make part of the AI metatrait that I don't think are ever to come up in my campaign (I'm the GM).>Is it fair to remove them from the template? Like Photographic memory is something an AI would have, but it's never going to come up, so I feel like it's just making the template more expensive than it needs to be.If you're the GM, you can do what you like, but I wouldn't. IMO, it's just part of the package deal of being an AI and if you can't find a use for it, that's on you. There aren't many genres I can think of where full, accurate, and instant access to every experience you ever had can't ever be made to work in your favour. On the other hand, I make age-related traits (Longevity, Unageing, etc.) zero-point features in most of my games. If you're convinced it's genuinely useless, don't charge for it.
>>97677273Howis it faster than dnd? If you have to create a mook criminal like that one, it's just as fast with dnd. You're just biased because you're thinking of all the special abilities better enemies get, which would take as long in GURPS if you have to use specific powers
>>97677273>I think a more relevant challenge would be creating a system that can create a fully functional npc in a meaningfully shorter amount of time than GURPS.Dumb argument, because with most popular games you don't need to 'create' an NPC. You just open the book and pick one. That work being done for you is part of what makes them more convenient than GURPS.
>>97677617>which would take as long in GURPS if you have to use specific powers>Wildcard Powers: Quadruple the cost of any advantage-based ability, after all modifiers. This can then stand in for any other ability that costs no more than its basic (non-quadrupled) cost, if the player and GM can agree on a way it could serve the desired purpose. For other considerations, see GURPS Supers.>Lava Elemental>ST 16, DX 8, IQ 7, HT 12>DR 5 (tough skin)>HP 16, Speed 5, Dodge 8>Fire Blast: 10d6 burn, Range 10/100, Acc 2, Recoil 1, RoF 1.>Skills: Fire Elemental! 11>Advantages: Flame! - stands in for any fire related power that costs 200 or less points (the cost of his innate attack fire blast *4)You were saying something? I couldn't hear you over the sound of GURPS being the best as always.
>>97678059That doesn't seem terribly helpful unless you've also got a catalogue of ready-to-go fire powers.
>>97678108If you know how gurps works you don't need a catalogue of fire powers since you have a reasonable understanding of the existing advantages in the game.
>>97675622>disadvantagesWhat disads does a mook need?
>>97678244Unrelated to the discussion at hand, but I once ran a game with a fun houserule that unimportant mooks with brief statblocks are assumed to have some sort of mental disadvantage (because why else would they be stuck being an unimportant mook), but they're not recorded on the sheet ahead of time. Instead, if a PC pass a Psychology (or similar) check, they "discover" a disadvantage of their choosing that they can then exploit later. Stuff like Bad Temper if they wanted to bait them into something reckless, or Greed if they wanted to bribe him, things of that nature. It was an Action game, so cinematic reads weren't that extreme compared to other exploits.I stole the idea from some wuxia/xianxia RPG with a title I cannot remember. IIRC the Doctor archetype could do the same thing with physical ailments by reading their chi imbalances, and I think warriors gained insight into their opponent's fighting style? Basically everyone had some sort of "analyze opponent to inflict a disadvantage" gimmick, and porting that over to GURPS helps out more social/cerebral characters, lets people use the more niche rules and options, and keeps me from having to spend more time building up disposable mook templates.
>>97628233Hey GURPS bros im practicing building some lvl 1 characters from other systems to gadguge what im looking at for starting character point values. Im stuck on trying to re create an ability that gives me a pool of d8s equal to the class level that I can expend a number of equal to proficiency bonus to add on top of any healing done or damage done when the character uses a medicine check to cause damage using another ability that lets you make an attack along with a medicine check that adds your int modifier to the attack. I thought about extra effort with energy reserves to eat a couple of the fatigue costs and thematically I feel like extra effort would work for iq and dex based skills but it only has rules written for str and attacking, any suggestions?
