Blogs

I've made a very minor update of the GLAIVE system for detailed low-tech weapon design, to v2.1. It's a minor clean-up of writing, including friendlier compatibility with GURPS 4e. The end product is still GLAIVE for 3e, not 4e, but with the minor changes noted should play nicely with 4e. (Sorry for not being more ambitious, but I say there's no sense in undertaking a full reworking for 4e until we see what the coming GURPS Low-Tech will bring to the weapon design arena!)

[EDIT: Oops, title should be "...GLAIVE for 3e...", not "...4e...". Fixed.)

Looking back on a year in which I didn't think I posted much, I see that my output actually wasn't that bad! A review for those who missed the excitement:

New GURPS rules articles

The "Rules Nugget" series of small, simple rules saw a good handful of additions, with articles for adding "just a flesh wound" grazes, shield cover, and shield size considerations to combat. Two other articles resurrected and renewed older rules for a new ST-based damage progression and a revised Toughness stat that's perfect for action heroes.

Old GURPS articles refreshed

The old GURPS Diner provided fodder for the wizards out there: freshly-polished and 4e-friendly articles on Magic skill and magical languages. This site's old ESCARGO and FEND articles also got the 4e treatment. A very old bunch of miscellaneous house rules also came over to this site, although still in 3e-centric format.  

Miscellaneous new goodies

The biggie for me in 2009 was the appearance of the GURPS Range Ruler, in collaboration with SJG, as an e23 freebie download. My thanks to the good folks at Steve Jackson Games for turning this into a real GURPS tool! 

Ben Finney contributed MERC, a fresh look at what is and isn't important in dice rolling and gameplay based on modern-day game design advances. Go take a look if you haven't!

Other fun bits include an idle idea for GURPS Banestorm releases, a look at noted game The Riddle of Steel and the use of dice pool mechanics, a system for pricing skill breadth in GURPS (including Talents and Wildcard skills), a reworking of specialized throwing skills using COSH, and notes on designing dinosaurs and designing characters with tails. 

See the year's whole list of articles, in alphabetical order, at the end.

What's next?

If you're a gamer-writer, I guarantee you've got a frighteningly-long list of topics and projects you want to tackle... someday. Same here: both new gaming articles, and more outtakes and updates from the old stuff (especially the old GULLIVER). 

But recently I've been revisited by something that was long absent: that obsession to work on my homebrew Project T. Years in the vapor-making, it's something I've only tackled it in bits and spurts over the years. Thanks to the discovery of some great helpful resources, I'm keen to scribble and test anew – and I've learned very well that when the urge to work visits, it's best to chain it down and milk it for all it's worth. So that'll be my focus for as long as it takes to release the project.

That plan aside, your suggestions for updates, additions, and new features are always very welcome. Please visit a whole lot in 2010! Read more...

The old GULLIVER LITE distillation of my GULLIVER for GURPS 3e rules is still available for all the retro 3e players out there. I noticed an embarrassing boo-boo in the text, though: long-outdated URL and email info. I updated those, took the opportunity to improve wording in a few more spots, and, despite no changes even worth noting, upgraded the version number from 1.1 to 1.2 just for the cheap rush of power. It's downloadable now, should anyone actually need it.

(Unrelated tech tangent: I'm pleased to see that ol' AppleWorks 6 still chugs along in OS X.) 

Oh, and an added note for the masses playing GURPS 4e: Don't forget that GULLIVER Mini now exists as a nice, free one-page expansion for building and playing critters of any size in GURPS 4e. If you haven't downloaded it, go get it now; if you have a gaming website, please let your readers know about it!

Make Every Roll Count (MERC) by Ben Finney is a set of gaming guidelines for placing story first and making the most of gamers' time at the table. More narrowly, it homes in on a key question at the heart of all RPGs: When should the dice be used at all, and toward what end? The answer involves a change from the too-common focus on resolving tasks, to a focus on resolving players' intent.

While MERC includes specific guidelines for use with GURPS, it's applicable to RPGs in general. I think it offers good advice to GMs both new and experienced, and am pleased to see it here at the Diner. What do you think?

MERC: Make Every Roll Count

From the Quality-out-of-Control Department:

The embedded spreadsheet shot in Game design musing: Pricing breadth in skills had a big boo-boo that didn't match the text: base cost of skill was set to 1, not 5, in the image. It's now fixed.

I've made the sheet itself downloadable too in Numbers and Excel formats. It now sports easy-to-read rounded cumulative skill costs, so you can see at a glance how many skills you get for x points, given your chosen inputs. 

Please head to the article, re-read the text following the graphic (now that it makes sense!), and play with the spreadsheet if you like. Sorry for the goof!

SECOND UPDATE (09.08.27): Ack. You know, I generally do all right in working out the crunchy stuff, but then often go and write it up all wrong. I made multiple written references to the term (1/x) in the article text and once on the spreadsheet, when what's actually used in the calculations is the correct (1-(1/x)). Fixed now. Sorry again!!