The old GULLIVER for GURPS 3e details throwing skills for use in sports, not combat. Generally, I’ve suggested a hefty distance bonus in exchange for several drawbacks: encumbrance penalties, a Ready requirement, and a big TH penalty. (Yes, a TH penalty. Track-and-field javelin, hammer, discus, and so on never require the thrower to actually hit something. What the heck? Let’s get some man-sized targets out there, and go Spartan on the next Olympiad!) Come to think of it, perhaps these special skills can be built nicely using COSH, the system for modifying and building combat skills in 3e. Hmm, it’s worth a try! If this sort of thing piques your rarified interests, break out the COSH page along…
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RPG science: Character tails
Got a game character with a nice fluffy tail? Those things can be good for more than just Furry decor, you know. At a recent TED conference, biologist Robert Full presented research into the wonders of the wall-crawling gecko. (The video, embedded below, is worth a view; you’ll see both people and robots mimicking the gecko’s Spidey-like climbs.) But while uncovering the secrets of the lizard’s famous feet, scientists found the creature’s tail enabled some amazing acrobatic feats of its own, all with nice character-design potential. As the biologists point out, a passive tail – a simple dead weight – hampers maneuverability. But an active tail does quite the opposite. Here what’s…
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RPG science: Designing dinosaurs just got easier?
23Dinosaurs may not have been as heavy as previously thought. Those are the words of scientists who found flaws in the models used to estimate weight: “Palaeontologists have for 25 years used a statistical model to estimate the body weight of giant dinosaurs and other extraordinarily large extinct animals,” said Gary Packard, from Colorado State University, whose research will appear in the Zoological Society of London’s Journal of Zoology this week. “We have found that the statistical model is seriously flawed and the giant dinosaurs probably were only about half as heavy as is generally believed.” In other words, dinosaurs are just as big – long and tall, that is…
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RPG science: Biology fun for creature design!
Clearing out some old links I’d noted, here’s some good reading for game designers (or just detail-happy GMs) wanting to give good, hard biology a friendly nod: The Biology of B-Movie Monsters http://fathom.lib.uchicago.edu/2/21701757/ Wow, this is a heck of an article by Michael C. LaBarbera, professor in Organismal Biology & Anatomy at the University of Chicago. It’s a layman-friendly grand tour of how size and scaling work in reality, and what that means for B-movie creatures – and by extension, game-table monsters. Scaling of area vs mass and its relevant effects on cooling, terminal velocity, metabolism, and so on; mass and falling damage; mechanical difficulties posed by huge size; and…
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Summary of ways to handle power-vs-weight in GURPS creatures
Responding to this thread on the SJG forums, I started listing the different ways to handle the design issue of power-vs-weight in creatures. But my would-be post was getting farther from the focus of the thread (handling of armor and creature size), so I’ll place it here instead. The topic Creatures have vastly different ratios of power to weight. Here’s a summary of available ways to handle that, in increasing order of detail: a) Ignore it! Done. : ) b) Follow the 4e BS19 guidelines: just wing some adjustments to Move etc. that feel right. This is usually good enough! c) Per b, but use some rough guidelines for the…
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Gaming notes: Playing giants in any game system
Introduction Ogres. Hulking Trolls. Tree-sized giants. Mountain-sized Jotun. If they’re defined by a size bigger than us, then for this article, they’re all giants. Because whatever the specifics, they all share one thing in common: “TARG SMASH PUNY HUMAN!” I’m liberating the Big Games notes on gaming giants from my old GULLIVER rules for GURPS, to give them a proper new home within the Diner (with a little freshening-up too, including a pinch or two of content from other sections). Although I’ve got some GURPS 4e-specific notes at the end, the general overview is useful with any game system. Yet it’s all pretty brief; sorry, I haven’t witten The Complete…
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It’s here! GULLIVER Mini for GURPS 4e!
We interrupt your browsing for a special infomercial from T Bone’s GURPS Diner. Hmm. Well, since we can’t run actual infomercials here, I can at least show you the script. (Cue T Bone [TB], in cheap suit before polyester-curtained background. Flashes slick grin and points at camera.) “GURPS gamers! Need to lay on the Leprechauns, but don’t know where to start? Do your Ogres lack oomph? Are you loving 4e’s new-found support for all creatures big and small, but frustrated by scattered rules?” “Help is on the way! Introducing a big new game aid in a tiny package: GULLIVER Mini for GURPS 4e! “ (Cheesy video effect of a…
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GULLIVER rules expansion for GURPS
Many a GURPS newcomer (and some experienced players too) ask: Can GURPS handle huge and tiny creatures? You bet! And it does so well, too. But even in GURPS 4e, the built-in tools are lacking in spots. A little added clarification and exposition fills in the gaps, giving you all you need to unleash beings of any size in your game. What is it? The original GULLIVER for 3e is an old, nut-made fan-crafted expansion for the GURPS 3e roleplaying game. It explores many topics, mostly dealing with character/creature design and physical performance. (It does so thoroughly, and is renowned for its volume.) The newer GULLIVER Mini for 4e is…
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T Bone’s rules of dilettante game design, Part II
More navel-gazing, following an earlier inward journey of pretentious self-discovery (aka Part I). Back in the days of GURPS 3e, there were quite a few areas of rules that were “broken” – or at least problematic – in a wide range of ways. (4e is much improved in this regard!) Many gamers worked up house rules and patches to address these. I placed a big collection of my re-workings (developed with the aid of many helpful folk, especially a fellow going by the handle Dataweaver) into a big “3e overhaul” I named GULLIVER. While moving old site and GULLIVER FAQs to a new FAQ page, I extracted some “GULLIVER game…
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Notes on natural encumbrance (GULLIVER)
Forum poster P, in reference to GULLIVER’s natural encumbrance rules, included the word “messy” among other (much nicer!) comments. Of course, I had to ask what’s “messy” with them, and P was kind enough to oblige with a response. The below may or may not change anyone’s mind about the rules, but it did lead to the introspection below that natural encumbrance fans may find of interest. (And it’s a shame not to recycle such a long post into all-too-scarce blog content…) Here’s the forum text: Thank you for the kind words, P. Permit me an initial clarification: And, as I said above, I agree that your general approach was…
