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Patron advantage
How's everything?
Enjoying your Games Diner meal? Is the wait staff attentive? Is the chef bathed? (Then it must be a Sunday.) You do know that a little eggshell in the French toast adds calcium, right?
Hello hello! The ideal would be to take all you like from GURPS and combine it with all you like from Burning Wheel (or even other systems). It's not so hard to do when the parts to be combined don't overlap closely but rather cover very different areas - say, GURPS' simulation crunchiness + BW's ideas on heroic dice rolling and test-based skill advancement. Fortunately for you, Ben Finney's written two articles on just those topics.
On the duel of wits topics, you've probably seen other games offer detailed sub-systems for such things. I'm not sure about BW... I think Riddle of Steel has something... and I know I've seen versions elsewhere. GURPS scores on nice simplicity here, with its easy Contests, but I know some players enjoy more detailed systems, similar to combat rules. I've never developed any such thing myself in detail; are there any specific ideas or goals you have in mind?
Beliefs etc: I agree, encouraging players to flesh out PCs with these is a great thing. A few beliefs or motivations are much more important than a few Quirks related to clothing preferences, pet phrases, etc. But wouldn't beliefs, too, generally be Quirks (or if powerful, Delusions etc.) and not Perks?
Thanks for writing, and please mine the site for anything interesting you can find!
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Combining GURPS with other systems
Hello hello! The ideal would be to take all you like from GURPS and combine it with all you like from Burning Wheel (or even other systems). It's not so hard to do when the parts to be combined don't overlap closely but rather cover very different areas - say, GURPS' simulation crunchiness + BW's ideas on heroic dice rolling and test-based skill advancement. Fortunately for you, Ben Finney's written two articles on just those topics.
On the duel of wits topics, you've probably seen other games offer detailed sub-systems for such things. I'm not sure about BW... I think Riddle of Steel has something... and I know I've seen versions elsewhere. GURPS scores on nice simplicity here, with its easy Contests, but I know some players enjoy more detailed systems, similar to combat rules. I've never developed any such thing myself in detail; are there any specific ideas or goals you have in mind?
Beliefs etc: I agree, encouraging players to flesh out PCs with these is a great thing. A few beliefs or motivations are much more important than a few Quirks related to clothing preferences, pet phrases, etc. But wouldn't beliefs, too, generally be Quirks (or if powerful, Delusions etc.) and not Perks?
Thanks for writing, and please mine the site for anything interesting you can find!