GURPS vs. Pathfinder / d20 / etc.?

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Novembermike
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Post by Novembermike »

Starmaker wrote: This kills the variety in secondary skills and quirks. Say, I'm doing a cyber-espionage adventure. One dude invests heavily in coding. Another is focused on social engineering, maintains hundreds of fake profiles and has thousands of contacts. A third picks stuff here and there, stealth, weapon use, etc - a generalist. But no one can be a chess grand master, or a professional musician, or a weightlifter, or a nun. Why? Because this shit costs prohibitively too many points for a flavor skill. In real life, a rock star who moonlights as a hacker is a more enviable person than a college dropout hacker who spends his free time fapping to /u/. But a story has a beginning, an end, spotlight and downtime, and the difference between ("So guys, you have a free week, what do you do?") "I perform at a concert and go home with two hot fangirls" and "I post desu on facebook and get wasted" is not big enough to warrant paying half the point budget for it.
Most of those are simply due to point restrictions. A rock star who moonlights as a hacker actually gets a lot out of being a rock star. He's going to be charismatic, wealthy, have an easier time finding people to talk to etc and he has to pay for that. Similarly a weightlifter is going to be strong, have contacts with people that are also strong and angry and he needs to pay for all of that (since it could conceivably be very useful). A nun shouldn't need to spend too many points for that occupation unless you're trying to be a high ranking member of the religion. If you actually plan on roleplaying as a nun you could probably gain some points with a righteous disadvantage.

What I'm trying to say is that your complaint is just a factor of the point level that the game is being played at. If you're playing at 150-200 points I think you could make any of those ideas work, and if you're playing at a lower point level then your character is going to be less impressive.
In many games flavor skills are often free. If you characters hobby is lockpicking and bypassing alarm systems you lose, but renaissance history, cabinetmaking or underwater welding is just fine. If you want to be a world renowned expert that's another matter, but expertise itself isn't that useful.
I've never found this to be necessary. If your character just wants to be decent at something ("I studied oriental basket weaving in college") then take it as a half point or point skill. Even a 50 point character can free up enough room for 4-6 half point skills for flavor.
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Post by Kaelik »

Vebyast wrote:I'm making a big deal out of things in Gurps having points in dodge or block, having immunities, or having advantages that give them significant tactical advantages. I'm not mentioning hit points because they don't matter. Yes, your only defense in Gurps is to not let attacks hit you.
No, in Gurps, your only defense is to never have anyone declare an attack against you that you aren't immune to.

In D&D declaring the attack still results in you surviving most of the time.
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Post by Vebyast »

Kaelik wrote:No, in Gurps, your only defense is to never have anyone declare an attack against you that you aren't immune to.
False and bullshit. Read my posts, read malngsdorf's post, read tussock's post, read ckafrica's post, read Archmage's posts. Every person on here that has actually played Gurps has repeatedly stated that that's fundamentally not true. You'd have to be illiterate to actually have read our posts and not understand that.
Last edited by Vebyast on Mon Mar 07, 2011 3:44 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Post by Surgo »

The one time I tried to play gurps as a fantasy game was quickly derailed by the fact that my character, a spear user, was doomed to inferiority by something so dumb a choice of weapon.

HERO kicks the ass of GURPS in every possible way. Paying for what you want to accomplish and then coming up with a reasonable effect is completely superior to trying to model every last detail -- because the latter means that 90% of your material is trap options.
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Post by kzt »

Surgo wrote:The one time I tried to play gurps as a fantasy game was quickly derailed by the fact that my character, a spear user, was doomed to inferiority by something so dumb a choice of weapon.
RL, spears generally suck. There are good reasons why levee's mostly have spears and professional warriors have swords.

There are some Japaneses schools that have some very some very clever things you can do with a spear, but in general they suck as weapons in single combat.

Of course, the GM should TELL you these things during char gen or allow you to change if he didn't realize how much they would suck.
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Post by Novembermike »

Surgo wrote:The one time I tried to play gurps as a fantasy game was quickly derailed by the fact that my character, a spear user, was doomed to inferiority by something so dumb a choice of weapon.

HERO kicks the ass of GURPS in every possible way. Paying for what you want to accomplish and then coming up with a reasonable effect is completely superior to trying to model every last detail -- because the latter means that 90% of your material is trap options.
I don't remember spears being a particularly terrible option, you can throw them, carry them one handed with a shield or two handed with extra range and damage, but they do a little less damage I think. Never really tried to use them. That said, if there's a problem with it you could have tried to work it out with the MC (either houseruling the spear or changing weapons).
RL, spears generally suck. There are good reasons why levee's mostly have spears and professional warriors have swords.
This isn't necessarily true. IIRC spears and polearms were always more of a battlefield weapon. Pretty much any historical army used either polearms, shields or both (not including archers, cavalry and specialist). The reason they weren't used in personal combat as often was more because they tended to be large and hard to carry around with you while a sword could be strapped comfortably to your belt.
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Post by ckafrica »

Surgo wrote:The one time I tried to play gurps as a fantasy game was quickly derailed by the fact that my character, a spear user, was doomed to inferiority by something so dumb a choice of weapon.

HERO kicks the ass of GURPS in every possible way. Paying for what you want to accomplish and then coming up with a reasonable effect is completely superior to trying to model every last detail -- because the latter means that 90% of your material is trap options.
In 4e GURPS you can actually choose to ignore the pregenerated equipment and design your own using the power rules. It's mostly designed for supers games I think but could be used in a fantasy setting. It's character point expenditure but there is something to be said for making quality of your items to be part of your total character calculation.

I dont know HERO but GURPS is always surrounded by traps because if you aren't building your abilities to the levels required for the setting, you're stuffed. GURPS definitely requires a certain amount of babysitting from the MC to make sure characters are keeping on the range (both up and down).
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Post by mlangsdorf »

Swordslinger wrote: The main issue with GURPS though is that it doesn't have any form of plot armor for important characters, something that any kind of TV show definitely has. It's not a bad system, but it could use some kind of Edge mechanic.
The Luck advantage allows rerolls in important situation, there are optional cinematic rules that let PCs trade character points for survival (or give them flat out plot immunity against mooks), there are options for using Ablative DR (at 1 CP/1DR or better) to give a PC "hit points", and bunch of other options.

I'm not entirely aware of them, because I don't like plot armor in my games. But there are certainly ways to do it.
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Post by Surgo »

kzt wrote:
Surgo wrote:The one time I tried to play gurps as a fantasy game was quickly derailed by the fact that my character, a spear user, was doomed to inferiority by something so dumb a choice of weapon.
RL, spears generally suck. There are good reasons why levee's mostly have spears and professional warriors have swords.
Even if this was true, so fucking what? I'm playing a generic fantasy game, not a recreation of the great battles of the middle ages. I want a character who can run around stabbing people with spears, and in GURPS this was apparently an inferior trap option. (Without bringing in some optional rules mentioned by others that I had no way of knowing.)
Novembermike wrote:That said, if there's a problem with it you could have tried to work it out with the MC (either houseruling the spear or changing weapons).
Somebody better write this one down in the history book. It's 2011 and we have an honest-to-God instance of the Oberoni fallacy.
Last edited by Surgo on Mon Mar 07, 2011 5:44 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Novembermike »

mlangsdorf wrote:
Swordslinger wrote: The main issue with GURPS though is that it doesn't have any form of plot armor for important characters, something that any kind of TV show definitely has. It's not a bad system, but it could use some kind of Edge mechanic.
The Luck advantage allows rerolls in important situation, there are optional cinematic rules that let PCs trade character points for survival (or give them flat out plot immunity against mooks), there are options for using Ablative DR (at 1 CP/1DR or better) to give a PC "hit points", and bunch of other options.

I'm not entirely aware of them, because I don't like plot armor in my games. But there are certainly ways to do it.
Also, by the time you hit the incredibly dangerous stuff (blasters and such) it's not unreasonable to have a transhuman character who has a cyborg body and has his memories backed up in a database so he can be killed a near infinite amount of times without major setback.

Not saying it's a great idea, but if you have ridiculous weapons you can make ridiculous (plot) armor as well.
Novembermike wrote:That said, if there's a problem with it you could have tried to work it out with the MC (either houseruling the spear or changing weapons).
Somebody better write this one down in the history book. It's 2011 and we have an honest-to-God instance of the Oberoni fallacy.
It's not much of a fallacy. If a system generally works but there's a small imbalance, then just houserule it. This doesn't excuse gaping holes in a system (DnD diplomacy for example) but if your problem is that weapon x is underpowered then just up the stats by a point or two. It's not really a fault of the system if the rules aren't perfect for corner case X.

EDIT: Also, I rechecked and it doesn't seem like spears are particularly weak. They do impaling damage which is good, can be used from a range and can be thrown effectively. They aren't necessarily as good as a sword at dealing damage to someone that is right next to you but it's got advantages that compensate for that.
Last edited by Novembermike on Mon Mar 07, 2011 6:02 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by CCarter »

Bumped since I managed to find this critique of GURPS which I found somewhat entertaining:
GURPS: the RPG of slow-motion combat between one-eyed sadists with no sense of smell
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Post by CraigM »

CCarter wrote:Bumped since I managed to find this critique of GURPS which I found somewhat entertaining:
GURPS: the RPG of slow-motion combat between one-eyed sadists with no sense of smell
Yeah, you could argue that if you're playing in a setting like Christopher Columbus, where everyone thinks that the world is flat, having a Delusion that "The World Is Flat" is not terribly useful. Again, it gets down to common sense. Sure, you could make a one-eyed sadist with no smell that has a delusion that the world is a bagel just to get some extra character point, but it's up to the GM / MC to ensure that what you're proposing is consistent with their game world. Maybe that person would fit in nicely with their campaign, so no problems, but then again maybe not.

I'm sure you can take any system and break it if you really try. One of the reasons that I like GURPS though is that it allows me to model characters as I see them, without having to figure how to bend the system to my will.
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Post by CraigM »

Swordslinger wrote:I always saw GURPS as an attempt to simulate a live action TV show or movie. So whether you wanted to to Lord of the Rings, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Heroes or Stargate SG-1 you could do it in GURPS.
I think it's a little more useful than just TV shows, but I do see your point. I think you could do a show like Red Dwarf with little problem with GURPS. Lister could have exceptional dumb luck with the luck advantage, and his hobbies could include billiards / snooker. You could use the same rules for an episode like the Gunmen of the Apocalypse where the characters are transported to the Better Than Life game using an old west program. Totally do-able in GURPS.
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Post by Akula »

CraigM wrote: Yeah, you could argue that if you're playing in a setting like Christopher Columbus, where everyone thinks that the world is flat, having a Delusion that "The World Is Flat" is not terribly useful.
[Historical Nitpick] Columbus's gamble wasn't that the world was round. The Greeks had figured that out and even gotten a pretty good measure of it's circumference. He posited that it was possible to sail from Europe to Asia in a reasonable timeframe with the technology of the time; as it turns out, he was wrong, and it he hadn't discovered a whole new landmass, he would have died on the open ocean.[/Historical Nitpick]
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Post by CraigM »

Akula wrote:[Historical Nitpick] Columbus's gamble wasn't that the world was round. The Greeks had figured that out and even gotten a pretty good measure of it's circumference. He posited that it was possible to sail from Europe to Asia in a reasonable timeframe with the technology of the time; as it turns out, he was wrong, and it he hadn't discovered a whole new landmass, he would have died on the open ocean.[/Historical Nitpick]
Yep, you're right. I blame one too many Looney Tunes cartoons for my mistake. ;) "The World, she's a flat-a like-a you head *WHAM*".
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Post by Novembermike »

His delusion example doesn't actually work. The delusion is a mechanical disadvantage. You're supposed to roleplay it, but the wording says that you have a mechanical disadvantage without regards to whether or not others believe it as well (there's no special exception).

Also, his superboy dependent doesn't work because dependents are supposed to be plot hooks. If the dependent is kidnapped threatened the PC is required to go to help them and if the dependent is injured or killed the PC loses those points and doesn't gain any points during the encounter (according to RAW) and if he's useful you have to pay for his cost as an ally as well. None of this even mentions the fact that the GM has to approve of all of this.

I understand his issue, but the points he's bringing up tend to fall under the Peasant Cannon issues DnD has. Just because you have a few rules that can be taken to an illogical extreme doesn't mean there's a problem with the system as a whole (especially when in the case of GURPS these rules are individual and all corner cases for that rule can be taken care of from within that single rule).
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Post by Starmaker »

Novembermike wrote:Also, his superboy dependent doesn't work because dependents are supposed to be plot hooks. If the dependent is kidnapped threatened the PC is required to go to help them...
Again, this is where GURPS tries to model real life and fails at storycraft.

You're a character in a story. You go on adventures. Every day is adventure day. If your girlfriend is kidnapped, you rescue her. If you have no girlfriend, terrorists attack the grocery store you're shopping in. Either way, this evening you're punching someone in the face, only in the first case, you do it better (because of the free points you invested in Face-Punching) and get time in the spotlight, because IT'S PERSONAL.

Benefits of having a happy accident-less NORP life are greatly reduced in-game. Definitionally, nothing interesting whatsoever happens during downtime, and it shouldn't cost you points.

It gets worse. There is another sort of disadvantages which actually limits your ability to go on adventures. In this case, either the MC (1) accomodates you by not having any adventures scheduled for today, (2) neuters the mechanical component of the disadvantage or (3) you play Smash Bros. So you either ignore the negative effects by playing normally or ignore the negative effects by being not present at the game ("Today I failed my emo check, so my char will now cut my wrists and cry in the corner and I go raiding with my guild") - in the latter case the free points act like an interest-less loan. (The girlfriend from a previous example is also an interest-less loan: you buy a dependent for M points, get to be awesome, lose X points per each session when a dependent bites the dust, buy another dependent, then, when the sum of X equals M, you buy the DA off with the points you have presumably accumulated through adventuring.)
Novembermike wrote:None of this even mentions the fact that the GM has to approve of all of this.
Oberoni again. "Approval" is patching the system. On the fly.

I have a pretty good system to model real life. It is known as "real life". Story logic - especially story logic in a group game - follows entirely different laws, which GURPS comlpetely fails to take into account.
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Post by Aharon »

Concerning the genericness of GURPS and Frank's Cowboy/Hacker/Wizard-Example:

My old gaming group got the impression that this kind of thing is supposed to be possible in GURPS. We even switched to the game system because we wanted to play a game like that (based on Tad William's Otherland books).

It worked out pretty well, which I find surprising in retrospect, seeing how the GURPS defenders say it isn't designed to do that :biggrin:
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Post by CCarter »

Novembermike wrote:His delusion example doesn't actually work. The delusion is a mechanical disadvantage. You're supposed to roleplay it, but the wording says that you have a mechanical disadvantage without regards to whether or not others believe it as well (there's no special exception).
I'm not quite sure what you mean here? The point of the delusion example is just that the disadvantage is costed based on the severity of the delusion, rather than how much of a disadvantage this is in-game.

In the case of Flat Earth Witch Heresy, its detrimental to NOT have the delusion (even though you got points for it), since it gets you burned at the stake. This is an extreme example, but the basic principle it illustrates is quite valid IMHO, that being that the disadvantage is mis-costed by being based on seriousness (clinical severity?) of the character's insanity, rather than whether or not it actually causes the character any problems in game.
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Post by Starmaker »

CCarter wrote:I'm not quite sure what you mean here? The point of the delusion example is just that the disadvantage is costed based on the severity of the delusion, rather than how much of a disadvantage this is in-game.
Actually, this was sort of fixed in GURPS 4E. I don't have the books within easy reach, but I distinctly remember there was an example delusion about purple things being alive costing different amount of points depending on the in-game impact:
[*] you pat and talk to purple things;
[*] you refuse to have important conversations with purple things in a room, because they are eavesdropping;
[*] you campaign for the rights of purple things;
[*] (I forgot the original one, something about destroying purple things on sight, but it's a bad example anyway since "purplz are evil" is a more specific delusion) you can be made to surrender by threatening to eat a purple candy bit.

Now, I'm not saying these are *good* disadvantages to include in the game and that the point cost is in any way justified outside of a particular after-action report, only that the issue has been given some thought in GURPS 4E.
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Post by Roog »

Starmaker wrote: Oberoni again. "Approval" is patching the system. On the fly.

Any toolkit system will require "Approval" for characters.

Being a toolkit (in terms of character creation) means that the character space for the system is larger than the character space for the specify game.

If the system is labeled as a toolkit then it's not Oberoni, as "Approval" is not a patch - it's the expected way for the system to function.
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Post by Novembermike »

Roog wrote:
Starmaker wrote: Oberoni again. "Approval" is patching the system. On the fly.

Any toolkit system will require "Approval" for characters.

Being a toolkit (in terms of character creation) means that the character space for the system is larger than the character space for the specify game.

If the system is labeled as a toolkit then it's not Oberoni, as "Approval" is not a patch - it's the expected way for the system to function.
Yep. Quite a few of the disadvantages aren't even designed for PCs. In a standard heroic game traits like Bully, Chronic Depression or Sadist probably aren't suitable, and if you're playing a human then Invertebrate makes absolutely no sense. You have to get GM approval for any character because there are options that simply should not exist in the setting (magic in a no magic setting for example).
I'm not quite sure what you mean here? The point of the delusion example is just that the disadvantage is costed based on the severity of the delusion, rather than how much of a disadvantage this is in-game.
There's a straight mechanical disadvantage. If you take the disadvantage you get between a -1 and -3 to reaction. You can also take it as a quirk for -1 point, but that's pretty much just a rolepaying hook.
In the case of Flat Earth Witch Heresy, its detrimental to NOT have the delusion (even though you got points for it), since it gets you burned at the stake. This is an extreme example, but the basic principle it illustrates is quite valid IMHO, that being that the disadvantage is mis-costed by being based on seriousness (clinical severity?) of the character's insanity, rather than whether or not it actually causes the character any problems in game.
The only problem here is the use of unclear language. What does "simply not true" mean? I'd probably consider it to mean that it's something that is obviously untrue. I wouldn't consider "The World is Flat" or "Matter is not Indivisible" to qualify for this in a medieval society. Most of the stuff like this I've seen is just obviously misinterpreting the RP aspect of a disadvantage, and if you don't want to RP those disadvantage then just don't allow them.
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Post by Starmaker »

Novembermike wrote:Yep. Quite a few of the disadvantages aren't even designed for PCs. In a standard heroic game traits like Bully, Chronic Depression or Sadist probably aren't suitable, and if you're playing a human then Invertebrate makes absolutely no sense.
Oh that's absolutely great! Now a thug who beats me up at the alley get to have Bully, Sadist, Dependent (kitten) and Dies Like In A Month to put some real power behind his punches and get to be a 25 point character.

blah blah blah no sane MC would... etc

Quite a few of "advantages" or "disadvantages" shouldn't cost anything. It really doesn't matter that a particular flying space jellyfish lacks either a spine or high standing in flying space jellyfish society. It has tentacles, and it wants to eat my face. Similarly, Sadist shouldn't cost -points, because if it does, either I get the free points and the whole party suffers, or I get free points and no one suffers.

GURPS has rules for all kinds of stuff. Some of these rules are even good (three cheers). But the core of the system - PC and NPC creation, points, skills and advantages - is screwed six ways till Sunday, and there's no fix for that. You have to write your own game. This isn't good. While in D&D I don't know whether dancing on a slippery tin roof in the rain would be Balance DC 25 or DC 30 or a weird combination of Balance and Perform (dance) until the MC makes a ruling, I can actually come to a table with a character and start playing with minimal fuss. In GURPS, I will probably find an exact formula with humidity, friction and roof curvature radius all taken into account. But it won't tell me how many points Dancing costs.
Last edited by Starmaker on Fri Mar 11, 2011 10:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Vebyast »

Starmaker wrote:You have to write your own game. This isn't good.
Writing your own game is the entire point. "Good" depends entirely on how you define it, and in this case, it means that you can use the same action resolution mechanic and action economy for almost any game you want to build in almost any setting you want to run. Gurps accomplishes that quite well, at the cost of some extra setup time for the mechanics. For example, selecting what characters look takes a bit longer ("choose allowable PC races and classes" is instead "choose allowable PC advantages and skills"), as does deciding what the setting looks like ("choose monsters and NPCs" becomes "choose monster and NPC advantages and skills").
Last edited by Vebyast on Fri Mar 11, 2011 10:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by ckafrica »

Disadvantages are definitely one of the weak points in the game. Most people either build around them or select ones that seem to have little effect to most of the game. (Lecherous, overconfident and impulsive for 35 bonus points? yes please)

Last time I considered running a gurps game (the players didn't want to bother with yet another new system) I had basically decided to give players more points and banish disadvantages because I knew that no matter what I said the max was, they would take it so they would have maximum points to spend on the good stuff. While some disadvantages can lead to more interesting characters, too many of them just are annoying.
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