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Hand-crafted tables of fine wood – for gaming. Our gaming, not billiards and poker and bridge. 

A dropped play surface lets you just cover up a game in progress, and pick up play without a hitch after that bothersome dinner party ends. Individual player stations feature flip-down desk surfaces, storage drawers, and trays for counters or pencils. You get "dice towers" for rolls, transparent map covers and grids, and an extra-sized GM station with built-in screen and rulebook trays.

Will it cost you? Oh yes, it will – over $8000 for the highest-end models. Why, that's probably almost as much as I spent on all those GURPS books over the years! : /

Do I want one? No – because there are no cup holders! Who would build a gamer table without cup holders? I can't believ–

Oh. It does have cup holders. At all player stations. Sigh. Where do I sign?

Go drool on the furniture over at Geek Chic.

Here's a minor, yet-untested melee idea that came up during chatter over some GURPS combat scenarios:

When you close a distance gap to attack, you give the defender more time to react than you do by starting out close enough to strike. Game that consideration with this simple rule:

• If the attacker needs to Step or Move to get within striking Reach, the defender gains +2 on Active Defense vs the attack.
• If the attacker begins his turn within striking Reach (even if he chooses to Step or Move anyway), there is no mod to Active Defense.
• If the attacker begins his turn in close combat and strikes in close combat (even if he then moves away), the defender takes -2 on Active Defense vs the attack.

The first case represents the attacker having to first move to get within striking distance, which hands the defender extra time to prepare (as well as an extra, clearly visible indicator that the attack is coming).

The second case is the default combat norm: You're already within range to strike, and you do so. Nothing special going on.

The third case helps model the "roaring and punching" aspect of close-combat free-for-all. Attacks come from so close, and thus come so fast, that it's hard to defend against them (or even see them coming in the first place).

It's all extremely simple to play out when using a hex map. How will it change combat? I expect the following: Read more...

Here's a quick example of putting the ideas in Game design musing: Pricing breadth in skills to work:

GURPS' Wildcard skills (BS 175) allow purchase of multiple skills for the price of three; Talents (BS 89) allow a bonus to many skills (plus other minor benefits) for a fraction of the eventual cost of full levels in those skills. Both share fuzziness in common: There's no stated limit on on how many skills a Wildcard skill covers (so why stop at 10 if the GM will allow 20?), and you can freely choose the number of skills a Talent covers, within the limits of its group size (gee, should I take one skill or six for the same 5-point cost of a small group?). 

There's no big problem in all that, but what if you wanted more varied costs to reflect the number of skills covered? The "Zeno's method" suggestion in those breadth rules offer a solution: Read more...

In my review of GURPS Banestorm, I briefly mention one of the points that intrigues me about its gameworld: Unexplored pockets of diverse Earth cultures tucked among Yrth's dominant European-, Middle Eastern-, and Asian-descended cultures. From page 9:

...African, Chinese, German, Indian, and Slavic groups popped up across the continent. Dominant local cultures quickly absorbed most of these smaller ones, but even today travelers can find isolated villages where almost all the inhabitants have black skin, worship Krishna and Vishnu, or speak undiluted German.

This is an opportunity for the GM to create any sort of interesting micro-culture that he can envision, as long as it is well off the beaten path!

While that's pretty much all the book has to offer on the overall topic, it's plenty to set the GM mind in motion. A few non-dominant cultures do get a bit more mention (like low-tech Hindi or Mesoamerican peoples around southern Araterre and Bilit Island), yet others remain entirely up to us to flesh out (African tribes? Slavic villages?).

I like the possibilities, and think there's a great supplement concept waiting to be born: Banestorm Enclaves, books detailing outlying clusters of humanity from non-dominant cultures. (Hmm, I thought I picked up the label "enclave" from within Banestorm, but a quick search shows I must have tacked it on myself. I like it anyway!) Read more...