A very particular set of (sub-) skills This article offers a rather unnecessary thing: a number of skill techniques bought to their maximum level and slapped with a new name, turning the techniques into quick-pick advantages. These came about when I concocted a technique-based bunch of parkour- and thievery-related power-ups during the playtest for Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Thieves. They didn’t appear in the book, so in the spirit of waste not, want not, I leave you with those power-ups here, along with a few more that I created later. Such technique-based advantages – I’ll call them “TBAs” – aren’t a new thing. Dungeon Fantasy 11: Power-Ups (p. 7) gives them…
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Dumping out the loot sack: More rules and tools for GURPS Dungeon Fantasy thieves
As promised in my mini review of GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Thieves, I'm rounding up and presenting ideas and content that I had suggested for the book during its playtest but that didn't end up between its pages.
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Game design musing: Easiest-ever, zero-math “weight-to-power” factor for characters (GURPS)
The last thing I posted to this site was a book review, and before that, a notice of a Kickstarter campaign. That’s two posts in a row that aren’t overly nerdy (as RPG hobbyist stuff goes). So I’m overdue to post something really dorky. You: “Uh, no, that’s okay, you don’t have to, really…” Say you want to set a weight-to-power ratio, or level of weight-to-ST, however you style it, for characters in your games. “O-o-o-kay, I think we’ve seen this before, and we know how it goes. This is why we got you those meds.” Hold on. There are two parts to a discussion: That second is the big…
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A mini review: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Thieves
Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Thieves is a new entry in the Denizens sub-series of the Dungeon Fantasy series for GURPS. It joins the earlier Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Barbarians and Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Swashbucklers as the third work to explore and expand a Dungeon Fantasy profession. (Or the fourth if you count Dungeon Fantasy 7 Clerics, but that’s a different sort of entry.) What’s in there Like its sub-series predecessors, Thieves aims for completeness in detailing its profession. The main text compiles lots of new and old information: In short, it’s a catalog of traits and gear for thievish characters. Which on its own would feel incomplete, but call-out boxes add thoughts…
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Update to new damage for ST
The old article “Rules Bit: New Damage for ST” was a fairly well-visited piece on this site, exploring the topic of a ST-based damage that scales linearly with ST – like “1d per 10 ST”. It’s a change that no one needs but that a lot of rues tinkerers like. I’ve revised the article considerably to cover additional considerations, remove unimportant cruft, and offer a spiffier Damage Table. I’ve also renamed the article, as it’s much more an exercise in system hacking than a mere rules tweak. I invite you to give the renewed version a look:
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Update to alternate cost progression for ST
Rules Bit (GURPS): A Better Cost for ST and HP is an old but relatively popular piece that places ST on an ever-decreasing logarithmic cost progression (the brainchild of D. Weber). A replacement for existing schemes to reduce the cost of high ST, it drastically reduces the cost to build a mountain-cracking jotun or bus-hurling super – and can even make designing such beings easier. I’ve heard nice things over the years from GMs who have put his to use. Give the newly polished old article a read, grab its prettier new Tables, and see whether its cost progression works better for the supes in your games.
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Update to rules for grazes
Rules Bit (GURPS): Grazes is an old house rule that stretches back to the 3e days. It details the effects of a graze: the bullet that only scores a character’s shoulder as it whizzes past, the punch that almost gets dodged but still clips the target, all the scrapes and scratches that heroes accumulate in fiction while escaping serious harm. I’ve given the work a good-sized overhaul. I made the conditions for a graze cleaner and easier, reflecting my experiments and experiences. I simplified the effects of a graze to just two basics (or even one), with other effects made clearly optional. I clarified how the rule’s intent and effects…
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Game design musing: Notes on ST in GURPS
GURPS has a long history of wrangling the cost and workings of ST to make it behave. Simultaneously the most straightforward and the most wily of attributes, ST commands a bizarre amount of attention on this very site. While writing up STROLL, I found myself with a bunch of longer takes and miscellaneous notes on ST-related topics that didn’t quite belong in that article. Well, waste not, want not, Grandma Bone (allegedly) said, so here’s the content for the few interested souls out there. I’ll probably add other stray thoughts on ST to this page in the future. (Maybe rants like “Grrr, lazy media articles, quit saying ‘insects are so…
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Unasked-for silliness: Some gaming “humor”
Any doofus can post a dumb thing online in an attempt at “humor”. But it takes a special kind of doofus to compile and release a collection of his misfires in a warped plea for further public ridicule. Here’s a collection of gamer-related “humor” tidbits that I’ve left steaming on forums or Twitter. Consider it a break from yet more pretentious posts about the proper cost of SM-dependent strength-based logarithmic damage with semi-balanced polearms, or whatever. I serve it as an amuse-bouche (if decidedly light on the “amuse”). Into the breach: The “Three GURPS Books” challenge You are allowed three random GURPS supplements. What’s your campaign? This thread on the…
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GURPS resource: ST Monster Table
What monstrosity lumbers forth? The ST Monster Table for GURPS! Why has it risen? None can say – or perhaps none dare. Born of a mad notion that the Damage Table and the Basic Lift and Encumbrance Table could be fused into a single heaving entity, this Qabalic construct reveals even damage scores expunged from the Damage Table. For while summoning new tables for STROLL of late, it was discerned that the stars are aligned and the portals are open; now is the time. The time for what? To create that hybrid beast of a table – and to cram it full of everything! What lies within? Madness, that’s what!…
