Be social

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? If the cramps haven't set in yet, I hope you'll say Hi to the chef or check out the many ways you can contribute to the Diner. Now eat. Eat up! You're as thin as a rail.

Bite-sized rules nuggets

Is that "nuggets" as in gold, or as in mystery poultry parts? You be the judge. (I'll admit, the latter better fits the "diner" theme. And possibly the writing quality.)

One-off ideas, pocket-sized tweaks, house rules no bigger than a bird's nest... They're too small for a Big Article of their own, and they'll languish forever if they wait to be grouped into a Mega Supplement. So here they are, in their little Pekinese-like cuteness. (Not that the Diner would ever put Pekinese in its nuggets. *cough* Never!)

Rules Nugget (GURPS): New Damage for ST

Posted Tue, 2009-10-13 19:13 by tbone

Intro: Refinishing the table

What's wrong with GURPS' table linking ST scores to thrust and swing damage? Nothing! It's done its job for over 20 years, and so far no one's gotten hurt. (Except all those on the target end of ST 14, 2d swings, of course.)

But a little thing like "it works well enough" never thwarts the compulsive rules hacker! Nay, the tinkerer's quibbles must out.

First, wouldn't it be swell if damage followed ST in a neat, linear relationship? (Necessary, no; nice, yes.) That's certainly not the case now, where neither thrust nor swing damage follows any observable pattern connecting it to ST.

Second, what's with the relationship (or lack thereof) between thrust and swing values? For a while, swing damage is roughly twice thrust damage (clearly so at ST 14 and ST 22), but then begins to increase more slowly, until it tops out at only thrust + 2d for very high ST scores. That means the higher the ST, the more that thrust and swing become effectively the same thing.

Below is an optional reworking of the damage table that addresses both of those quirks with clean, easy-to-remember damage values. The progression is so regular that you'll only need a small subset of the table on paper or in your head, with all other values computable on the fly! Read more...
- 4 comments
- Quote
Rules Nugget (GURPS): Revised Toughness

Posted Fri, 2009-10-09 02:47 by tbone

Intro: "Go ahead, runt, punch me in the gut."

Imagine that's the growl of a hulking bully with an Olympic wrestler's build. And imagine that your physique is more that of... er, a guy who once gamed a wrestler PC. (Did you have to imagine hard?)

It's easy to imagine that your best punch to his gut – or just about anywhere beefy – simply won't hurt the guy. At all. Oh, maybe a few dozen punches would start some bruising, sure, but you don't get that chance; his first punch has you coughing up the lunch money as soon as your limbs start working again.

Using GURPS' or most any RPG's combat system, the mismatch won't quite play out as described above. It will when the bully's high damage meets your puny Hit Points; no problem there. But as long as your punch is capable of dealing some damage, you will hurt the bully – at least a point of hurt, which in GURPS is not trivial. (If your punch can roll zero damage, then you might not hurt him, true – but that roll won't hurt a weakling, either.) Most RPGs have no mechanism that lets a strong fellow shrug off minor impacts without damage.

Below is a revised Toughness trait for GURPS that represents resilience from thick muscles. It's as good as DR against crushing damage, letting a hero laugh off weak punches. Yet Toughness isn't DR; a weak knife slash will still cut you, and a stab to the heart can kill. Read more...
- 2 comments
- Quote
Rules Nugget (GURPS): Grazes

Posted Tue, 2009-05-19 15:49 by tbone

Intro: "It's just a scrape!"

In action fiction, an endless succession of lucky nicks, scrapes, and near-miss bullet scratches keep heros nicely bloodied but not inconveniently dead. We can do the same in gaming, too. Even under a gritty combat system like GURPS', it's easy to set up such hide-saving grazes to handle heroic flesh-wounds – and, as a bonus, simulate armor deflection of attacks better than the old Passive Defense stat did.

These rules are born of some old writings, but please take a new look anyway; there's a lot of added and updated material. Read more...
- 4 comments
- Quote
Rules Nugget (GURPS): Shields and Cover

Posted Sat, 2009-05-16 04:00 by tbone

Intro: Under Cover

This rule looks at the matter of letting shields provide cover instead of a DB bonus. That option offers some interesting benefits, from a nicely-restored (in 4e) ability for shields to protect passively, to detailed protection by body location, to shield walls and other defensive tricks. It all meshes nicely with existing game rules for cover, too. Read more...
- Add new comment
- Quote
Rules Nugget (GURPS): Shields and Size

Posted Wed, 2009-05-13 09:09 by tbone

Intro: "Is that a Frisbee?"

"Sir! We demand that you halt this tea party right now, and give us back our shields!"

"Er, begging your pardon, brave Knights of the Shire, but we haven't seen any shields..."

"Those... tea saucers! Give them back!"

Hmm, just how big is a Halfling's shield? And what happens if the little chap picks up a human's shield?

GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 3 p8 offers some nice rules for Pixie weapons and other "tiny tools" – not generic, physics-friendly stuff, but quick'n'dirty guidelines for easy play. While shields got left out of that discussion, handling them in the same quick'n'dirty fashion is pretty easy. Read more...
- Add new comment
- Quote
Rules Nugget (GURPS): A Better Cost for ST

Posted Sat, 2008-02-09 14:02 by tbone

Intro: "What? Aren't we done now with ST cost?"

After bouncing from one hack to another in the treatment and pricing of ST, GURPS finally settled upon a happy solution in 4e. It all works fine; there's nothing outwardly broken to fix.

Yet the current scheme isn't without its quirks, namely the ever-decreasing relative return that each additional 10-point purchase of ST confers. For a 10-point purchase of +1 ST, a ST 1 rat gets +100% ST and +300% Basic Lift, a ST 10 human gets +10% ST and roughly +20% Basic Lift, and a ST 100 super gets +1% ST and about +2% Basic Lift.

While there's nothing wrong with that, one's tempted to tweak a bit more. That's where D. Weber offers an interesting alternate suggestion for ST cost. The scheme applies an ever-decreasing cost to every +1 ST that offsets the ever-decreasing relative return, and sets a nifty cost progression at the same time. It was a good idea when originally shoehorned into 3e's ST rules, and works even better under 4e. Read more...
- 4 comments
- Quote
Rules Nugget (GURPS): Die, Monster, Die!

Posted Mon, 2007-12-10 12:57 by tbone

Intro: "Whaddya mean, the Colossal Amoeba passed out?"

A fierce dragon finally meets its match: Conrad the Bavarian, who takes the dragon down from 120 to 0 HP and goes to administer final rites. Good job, but one question: how long will it take to deliver another 120 points to kill the unconscious wyrm? Or 240 points if the beast makes its HT rolls? Up to 600 points if those HT rolls keep succeeding? (Dragon HT can be pretty high!) Won't the magic-user, the thief, and the cleric have nabbed all the gold pieces by the time Conrad finishes hacking away? Read more...
- Add new comment
- Quote
Rules Nugget (GURPS): Distance, Time, and Speed in Falls

Posted Mon, 2007-10-29 19:42 by tbone

Intro: Easy as falling off a log

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. Read more...
- Add new comment
- Quote
Rules Nugget (D&D): Real Hit Points for Real People

Posted Fri, 2007-10-05 14:05 by tbone

Intro: "Can I have some real hit points, please?"

As we all know, D&D has that "hit point thing" going on. I'm not here to put it down or even debate it. In fact, I'm fine with D&D hit points as some opaque, totally unrealistic luck-plus-heroics-plus-partial-defense cinematic furball, as long as the game presents it as such, and players accept it as such. I wouldn't design a new game, even a cinematic fantasy one, using hit points in the same way, true – but still, where's the harm?

It's hard, though, to like the tremendous disparity in hit points, especially at first or second Level. Any "normal" human, even a beginning PC (hero material, mind you!), is quickly dispatched by anything resembling combat. Even, infamously, a tussle with a house cat.

When I heard years ago that D&D 3rd edition was coming, I had a small idea for making low-Level hit points more palatable. Now, I'll admit I'm way out on a limb with this one. I haven't even played D&D since its "Advanced" days, and for all I know, my "suggestion" below is already widely discussed (and debunked?), or house-ruled, or even an official part of some other d20 offerings. And it's only an idea for a rules nugget, needing fleshing out by an actual D&D player. Read more...
- 6 comments
- Quote
Rules Nugget (GURPS): What's a Miss?

Posted Fri, 2007-10-05 13:19 by tbone

Intro: "Missed me by that much!"

There are two ways in GURPS to "miss" a target with your attack: either fail your TH roll, or have your successful TH roll thwarted by the target's successful defense roll.

The latter case is easy to understand: the attack was "on target", but the target avoided it. This rules nugget will only look at the former miss, the failed TH roll. I've always played this as the attack proceeding off-target, plain and simple: the bullet whizzed past the target, the sword thrust stopped short, and so on.

But other interpretations float about: namely, the idea that a "miss" might actually represent the attacker hesitating – perhaps failing to see an "opening" – and not attacking at all. I've avoided that interpretation, as it can create conflicts with known consequences of an attack. If the "attack" didn't happen, why is the attacker's axe now unable to parry, or his halberd completely unready? Why is he short a bullet, arrow, or throwing knife?

Further, it's artificial to imagine fighters always "circling" and "probing" in a way that allows hesitation. An enraged Ogre, a mindless zombie, or just a hero hacking his way through baddies to reach the heroine slipping off the ledge – none of these would "look for an opening" or otherwise hesitate for an instant.

Yet there are other circumstances in which "hesitation" does play realistically. And there are situations, such as when using DECIDE, in which the difference among no-attack hesitation, a true attack that misses by a hair, and a true attack that misses wildly have potential combat significance. Below is a suggestion for gauging these. Read more...
- 8 comments
- Quote