GURPS Power-Ups 2: Perks introduced a new perk that I loved immediately: Standard Operating Procedure (SOP). This one-point beauty lets you specify some task or action that your character performs as a matter of course, even off-screen – reloading weapons (good for action heroes), sitting with your back to a wall (good for paranoid heroes), and many more – without your having to say that the PC performs the action. “Cool”, I thought. “It’s automation for characters.” There aren’t a lot of SOPs offered in Perks, but they’re easy and fun to think up. Here’s a giant handful of SOPs to keep your PC busy, on and off screen. But first,…
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Idea Pot: Earn-as-you-go disadvantages for GURPS
In a game like GURPS, what do you get for saddling a PC with a disadvantage? A more interesting character, of course, but also a more immediate benefit: instant character points you can spend on stuff that makes you awesome. Not everyone’s crazy about how that works, though. Like this SJG forum commenter: I don’t like buying disadvantages at character build time… I’d much prefer a system (or option) which rewards disadvantages as they come up during play rather than as a big chunk of bonus points beforehand. Hmm. Could that work in GURPS? I think it could. Even better, I think it could work alongside the game’s tried and…
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Books we want: An updated GURPS LITE
Do we really need a new GURPS LITE? No. There’s nothing about GURPS LITE that demands a new version. It has always been, and still is, a well-made and perfectly playable introduction to GURPS. A read through the work, though, suggests a number of ideas for small improvements, additions, and, yes, subtractions. Even if none of those are pressing, LITE has been out there for a whole bunch of years. With LITE as the first GURPS that many people will see – and the only GURPS they’ll see if they aren’t impressed – isn’t it worth revisiting the book once in a while to make sure it’s putting the best…
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Magical mystery tours: Three GURPS Dungeon Fantasy adventure seeds for bards
Three… bardventures? No. Let’s not do that. What we have here is simply three adventure seeds that highlight PCs of the musical persuasion, though of course other Dungeon Fantasy professions may be involved. The scenarios came up while I was writing Dungeon Fantasy: The Musical! feat. Bards, a look at all things bardic that could go into a future Bards installment in the Dungeon Fantasy Denizens series. I didn’t include the storylines in that article because the Denizens series doesn’t deal in adventure seeds, and because no one would use these ideas anyway. But what the heck. They do no good sitting in my slush pile. So here you go: a…
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Dungeon Fantasy: The Musical! (feat. Bards)
Ooh, look! Yet another “They oughta write a book” article from me! Because it’s so darn easy to lay out the work that someone else should do for my amusement! You know the still-nascent Dungeon Fantasy: Denizens sub-series of books, each showcasing an adventurer archetype? The next installment ought to be Bards. Actually, when the sub-series first launched with Denizens: Barbarians, I thought Bards would be next. You see, I drew on my knowledge of game industry publishing, brought the full breadth of my intellect and reasoning skills to bear, examined and analyzed all relevant factors, and arrived at a deduction: “Bard” comes after “Barbarian” alphabetically, so that should be…
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A blogger’s dozen (Part IV): 13 ideas for RPG articles
Yikes, I forgot I have a big list of this stuff remaining in my scrap pile. Here’s installment no. 4 in a series no one asked for: ideas for gaming bloggers/authors facing a dry idea well. (As if such gaming bloggers exist.) 40. Mundane stuff with non-mundane stories Create a weapon, crown, or other mundane item, and imbue it with a back story. (A complex back story with specific persons, locations, etc. is fine if aimed at an existing game world; otherwise, more vague “fill in the blanks” description may provide a better fit for readers’ game worlds.) Example (with appropriately malleable place names): The Sword of the Alliance was…
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Books we want: How to Be a GURPS Player
The first time I suggested “There oughta be a book” was here, with a suggestion for more mini-books on Yrth cultures and societies (because, hey, I like Banestorm). Time for another suggestion! How to Be a GURPS GM by Warren “Mook” Wilson is a great book. It’s packed with invaluable advice and insights for gamemastering GURPS. Well, with the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game set to ignite (?) an explosion (??) of demand (???) for our favorite game system, perhaps it’s time to release a dedicated guide to playing GURPS. A book that would fill three roles: In short: Let’s have How to Be a GURPS Player! (Sounds like a fine new idea…
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Tiny GURPS/DFRPG idea: A better Outdoorsman
While we’re on the topic of back-to-nature barbarians: GURPS offers the nifty Outdoorsman Talent (B91) that boosts seven relevant skills for 10 points/level. That’s a great bargain over buying up the individual skills at high levels. Yet it feels expensive to some gamers, especially in any genre that prioritizes success in combat or social dealings over competence at the campsite. GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Barbarians even calls out the issue on p. 21, suggesting two fixes: Both are fine ideas. But why stop there? It seems to me any of the following skills could also join the nature-boy jamboree: That’s a lot of skills! In fact, you could toss in the…
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Gaming Tips: Taking your chances on 3d6
“A 12 or less? That’s good… right?” If you come from one of those popular games that uses a twenty-sided die to whack monsters and roll other checks, and you step up to one of several games that uses three six-sided dice instead… you might feel a little lost. We deal with percentage-based probabilities every day: “30% chance of rain” and all that. So given the obvious fact that each number on that twenty-sided die has a 5% chance of occurring, it’s easy to mentally convert “Roll 19 or higher to succeed” into “10% chance of success”, or to understand “You shrug off the poison on a 12 or higher”…
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Get religion with Dungeon Fantasy 7: Clerics
Who’s your sky daddy? If you’ve got dungeons and you’ve got clerics, then you want GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 7: Clerics by Phil Masters. At just 37 pages, this supplement lets you trade in your bland and no-brand McPriest for a uniquely devoted servant of… Wait a second, why do clerics get their own special book? I mean, sure, there are dedicated books for Barbarians and Swashbucklers, but those are part of the offshoot GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Denizens sub-series that will (I presume) eventually showcase all of the adventurer archetypes. But of the PC types in the main Dungeon Fantasy series’ Adventurers book, why do clerics alone get the splatbook spotlight…
