I'm glad that 4e now incorporates something as simple and basic as a size for characters! SM, what took you so long?

My friendly little quibbles with SM as s/he stands (Basic Set p 19) are as follows:

BS 431 offers a nice table for putting falling distance together with velocity. But did you know you've already got a tool for generating those numbers? You guessed it: that ever-handy Size and Speed/Range Table. It'll even tell you how long it takes your PC to plummet off a cliff. Or calculate spacecraft travel statistics. And other fun stuff.

This rules nugget looks at two separate but complementary items: the very simple interaction between a shield and its wielder's size, and the more involved matter of letting shields provide cover instead of a DB bonus.

DECIDE has been a busy little topic for discussion. In the spirit of designer's notes, here are additional notes not on the idea behind it, but on the specific implementation I used.

More under-the-hood musings for fellow monkey-wrenchers.

"What's a role-playing game?"

Who among us hasn't responded to that question by the uninitiated, or enjoyed a good reply put forth by other gamers?

Actually, I don't know how many versions of the latter I've heard or read. "An RPG is a form of collaborative storytelling... " "It's a kind of play-acting..." "Remember back when you played Cowboys and Indians..."

And so on – a hundred ways to start out explaining. RPGing is nothing overly complex, as we know, but it is one of those things that's easy to demonstrate in person, hard to describe otherwise. (My gaming group started its RPG career playing D&D profoundly wrong, as the text's "how to RPG" instructions just didn't work for us.)

I forget what spurred this topic – it was probably some comment on a gaming forum – but I'll add my take here on what a role-playing game is, simply because I don't think I've ever written it down. It's nothing special in the least, and for all I know, has been used almost verbatim by someone(s) long before me. But anyway, just for fun:

I ran across a GURPS page – "lens" as it's called – on Squidoo.

http://www.squidoo.com/gurps/

The first link given is to my GURPS Diner, for which I'm grateful, but it's the old defunct address. I'd like to request an update to the link, but there's no owner listed for this "lens", and no way that I can find to locate an unnamed Squidoo "lensmaster".

If you know (or are) the "lensmaster" for that GURPS page, please give me a shout! – end –

A post made to the SJG forums: as an attribute or skill rises in level, should each additional +1 cost more or less than the previous level? There's a good argument either way. Read on.

Okay, here's a topic I've yabbered about enough on my site and in forums, but it still pops up often as a frequent GURPS player question. I'm going to post a one-stop overview here, which I can point to when the topic next comes up.

Why do ranged and melee TH use different rules in GURPS? What happens when a weapon is really big compared to the target? What happens when combatants are odd-sized? Does SM apply in melee? If so, how can two tiny combatants possibly strike each other? Why can't ranged weapons get a bonus for really close range? And if they can't, again, how can tiny shooters ever manage to blast each other?

All is answered: there exists a GURPS Unified Theory of Hitting Stuff (or GURPS Unified TH System; it's GUTHS either way). Read on.

Ben Finney (author of GURPS Metric) has a great pair of posts at Treasure Tables on his successful session with some GURPS newbies. Check it out for a detailed look at the special prep he made to accommodate the new players (including a nifty "here's all the rules you need" intro to GURPS), and a thorough review of what worked. Plenty of good ideas for an experienced group, too. http://www.treasuretables.org/2007/05/introducing-rpgs-to-new-players-part-1 -end-