Narf the Mouse

At least for me, HERO flips a switch in my brain that says "I must tinker with this!" So I tend to look for any excuse to tinker with it.

GURPS, on the other hand, seems to flip the switch that says "Must buy cool stuff!"

Kind of like the difference between legos, and an electronics store.

I believe Summoning in 6Ed (as well as Followers and possibly Vehicles and Bases) bases the calculations on Total Points -- Complications do not make them cheaper.

I remember the same.

Just make Magic item creation Expensive and Time Consuming for anything but the most basic of items. ie Scrolls, Wands and Weapons and Armor would be fairly easy, but still a bit expensive. Stuff with lots of different powers become very expensive and extremely time consuming.

Edit: Response was too snarky, sorry.

That is a good overview. How would you expand it into a full system?

You know, I think the logical first setting is simple: Dungeon Hero. That's arguably a subset of the world of D&D, but a beloved one judging by the sales of GURPS: Dungeon Fantasy. And since everyone knows what it is, you don't have to teach the setting, only how to do it in hero. Support is more monsters and modules, though if you do it right you can make it easy to run modules written for other systems anyway (Hero just isn't going to be able to crank out modules the way some companies can).

I've made attempts at this. Expansions (48 pages each?) could bring the builds into different areas (magic item crafting rules, etc.). As-is, that is one thing that gets in the way in HERO - a character creating magic items in-game requires a lot of GM intervention.

I suppose that's harmless, but in that case does it even need to be stated? Extradimensional Travel already exists, and can be used to travel to other campaigns if the GM agrees to allow it to be used that way. You can have your superheroes fight Morgoth if you insist, traveling between fantasy worlds is that much more natural.

And when you do, maybe I'll have finished this guy: http://www.herogames.com/forums/index.php?/files/file/39-morgoth/

Shameless plug.

One large factor is coherency. D&D has very high coherency. You can take nearly anything in D&D, mix it with nearly anything else in D&D, and everyone will know pretty much what to expect.

HERO, on the other hand, can do nearly anything. But when you use it to do one thing, as you almost must to run a game, it becomes distinct from many other things you could do with it. You can make dozens of different low-fantasy games with HERO, and have most of them be incompatible in setting, tone, magic system(s), extra-ordinary abilities, presence or absence of other races, monsters, other dimensions, etc. and etc..

You could write a "Fires of Heaven" supplement for "Fires of Heaven". But you would have more trouble (I would guess; I don't have the second) making a "Fires of Heaven" supplement that is compatible with "Terricide", even though they are both "HERO System".

Sorry the first Published PnP fantasy world with gates feeding in races and cultures from other worlds is The world of Arduin (AKA Khaas) by David Hargrave. Arduin had many wars over the dimenional gates leading to and from Arduin. Also you could point to Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion Series for similar things.

 

IMHO the Generic Fantasy D&Dish world should be the first thing to start with. Something safely similar to Greyhawk, The Forgotten Realms and Golarion.

I don't see how more examples is a thing to apologize about.

Edit: It means the idea is that much less likely to be taken as derivative, or has more arguments for not being derivative.

Ok. I don't want to say this. I really don't want to say this, because I like it as a game setting. And because HERO needs a good setting.

But...*Sigh*...Google GURPS: Banestorm.

Much as HERO needs a setting, using this setting  *will* get criticisms of "copycating".

Edit: Ok, it also sounds like the Forgettable Realms.

And some others.

So maybe it is usable by dint of sheer genericness.

Gurps combat can drag, and drag. I figured I was doing it wrong so I asked ona forum and realised a 2-4 hour combat is expected. The turns are broken into 1 second and every single dodge is rolled.

 

I bring this up as an example of how much more complicated GURPS is. Everything in GURPS runs the assumption of higher detail and more specific. On the surfase it tries to trick you by having only 4 Stats you can see, but once you know the system you realise every other characteristic is actually in there, only hiden.

 

On the other hand I would say GURPS plays out better for the gritty non-romantic games. I know a lot of people disagree, but if you are in to picking very presise skill lists and abilities that have built in assumtions. I found as a GM building a game in GURPS required none of the GM set up that hero has. In hero I design a magic system, in gurps I can say we are using the default with X maximum magery.

First off, I only have GURPS Lite and Characters. However, based on the combat tests I did, that sounds way out of range. Some questions, with the caveat that some or all of the upcoming advice may not apply at all:

1) For Block or Parry, did you roll under 3 + (1/2 your skill) plus modifiers, or under your skill plus modifiers?

2) Did you roll for unconsciousness at -HP and death at -NxHP?

3) Were you all using Crushing damage? (It sucks. Only use it if you like +1 or +2 damage more than x1.5 or x2 damage that gets past armour)

4) How much armour did you have?

5) Did you use things like Feint or Deceptive Attack, which impose penalties to your targets' defense rolls?

6) Were you using Hit Locations?

Ok, some quick math. 1d6+4 Cutting is fairly easy to get. Most beginning enemies won't have more than 5 Damage Resistance (from heavy cloth and scale). Assuming no hit locations (so you always hit versus DR 5), you roll an average of 3.5 HP. That sucks. Don't do that. Either cut everyone's cash in half, so their armour is lower, or buy Striking STR, and less utility skills. Those are the "Hero-Style" fixes. Or...

Now, with Hit Locations: Ok, first of all, hit them in the face. Or neck. Or groin. Or eye. Or skull. Or hand. Or any part of their body that doesn't have armour. You're not John McClane. You're Jason Bourne. You're not Arnie. You're Indie. If there's a cheap shot, take it. Some of the target locations have damage multipliers, or other nasty effects. Hitting someone in the eye has a very obvious effect. I frankly don't know what happens if you hit the skull. But I imagine 'Instant death" is a distinct possibility. If you can attack somewhere there's no armour, you'd do an average of 11 damage, and probably cripple whatever it is.

Here: GURPS: Dungeon Fantasy Actual Play: http://dungeonfantastic.blogspot.ca/search/label/Felltower

Not mine, but should give you an idea of how fast things "should" go with a decent group. I don't know how long their sessions take, though.

Finally - Based on my experience, every single system, or at least most of them, has people saying that combat takes four hours, and others saying that combat takes a half-hour. My own experience is that speed of a game depends mostly on how much OOC stuff is going on, how long it takes players to react, look things up, figure out what's happening, do their turn, and do whatever fancy dice-rolling method they like. Based on what I've read and experienced, a group with low OOC chatter, who know how their stuff works, who pay attention to what's happening, have an action ready when their turn comes up, shake the dice a couple times and slap them on the table (no, there is no such thing as a lucky rolling method - Just randomize them and slap them down) will run through combat like a hot knife through butter.

That would be FUDGE, in its base form.

So you just FUDGE it?

Because the GURPS: Basic Rules are 32 pages, and the GURPS: Very Basic rules are technically 8 pages, but you fold one page using a set of instructions I didn't manage to make heads or tails of.

 

It's a good analogy for many parts of GURPS.

 

Edit: Sorry, I'm on Page 99 of GURPS: Character Creation, and I've been wading (or trying to wade) through it for months. All the slogging is making me sarcastic about it. Probably not the system for me.

Ok, this? Forget this. It's making sense.

...I, uh, yeah. I dunno. It just clicked.

Two! Two generic rulesets![/wakko]

A tour of the International Space Station

 

http://www.youtube.com/embed/doN4t5NKW-k

I love it.

I'm in med school, and spent the spring term with the orthopedics. I still say blood flow is the main trouble -- how is oxygen be able to get to the osteoblasts through a polymer?

 

It'll be interesting to see how the trials turn out.

Well, you'd know more on the subject than I do. It could be porous, but I'm also not a chemist and don't know how ridiculous the idea of a porous polymer might be.

Haven't looked at the article, but breaks that would be hard to heal anyway -- like a dislocated collum femoris fracture -- wouldn't be much helped by glue. Disrupted blood flow would still lead to necrosis of the caput.

It's not just glue. It's printing additional bone cells on the break (for actual details of application, ask a doctor; I don't have a clue how you'd apply it, practically speaking).

Still seems like a complete thread derail.  Maybe I'll try reading it again when I'm more awake...

Yes, please get some sleep.

Maybe I'm being obtuse Narf, but what does that have to do with the article about medical tech?

We're in the future. It's amazing.

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

 

You have my Vote! 

 

~ M

And my Asks!

So include halflings, gnomes, and dwarves.  Check.

I don't even remember why I posted that. So it's definitely that, and not the number of pages.

As a GM, and knowing the players I play with, (and have played with), a complete fantasy RPG book should have:

1) Shortness.

2) How to create a character.

3) Archetypes.

4) Equipment (In order: weapons, armour, enchantments, special materials, magic items, supplies)

5) Monsters.

6) How to do combat.

7) A complete adventure.

8) Special abilities (inc. spells)

9) Races.

10) Skills.

11) NPCs.

In that general order. As a general guideline, if it's not needed to play a game right now, keep it out.

Edit: I'm not saying this is good or bad, just what I've seen.

This seems to be going well guys. We've made more than we spent setting up the books as POD, so I think we can safely call the idea a "not failure" at this point. Thank you for your support.

 

"The Management"

Good; I was worried with the relative lack of responses here.

Which article you can read on your wireless communications device, smaller than a paperback book, not much heavier than a pen, which is connected to a world-wide communications network containing a large portion of the sum total of human knowledge, art, religion, culture, philosophy, ethics, history, economical activity, etc., in which you can find nearly any subject you are looking for using massive computerized calculation engines capable of searching the near-endless seas of knowledge to almost always deliver what you want, usually in less time that it would take to type out the query.

Including at least one page on which it is possible to pay for (and possibly even receive) your own, personal, jetpack.

"You're pulling my leg, right?" - Test subject from 1972.

The only problem with this cunning plan is, I already have those.

I once wrote a filksong about the game's title. The chorus went:

 

What is a Gurp, Steve? What is a Gurp?

Is it some immoral power you are trying to usurp?

If you kill one, will it bleed on you? If you eat one, will you burp?

Mr. Jackson, could you please explain -- What the Hell is a Gurp?

In case you actually want to know, "Generic Universal Role-Playing System".

The Lite rules are not great. They should be followable, but they're not terribly useful for any but the most narrow of games. The Ultra-lite rules are a joke, honestly.

 

It definitely helps to either a) have an experienced player to explain the idiosyncrasies, or have played it from 1st edition, a million years ago.

I taught myself HERO System. I don't think it's either problem. I like many of the Actual Plays I see (Note to forum: We need more HERO APs), but the rules aren't really clicking for me. No insult to the system, honestly; no RPG that comes up with most of the APs I've seen of it can easily be bad. But I'm probably not a GURPS'ier (GURPS'ian? GURPS'oid?).

Because the GURPS: Basic Rules are 32 pages, and the GURPS: Very Basic rules are technically 8 pages, but you fold one page using a set of instructions I didn't manage to make heads or tails of.

It's a good analogy for many parts of GURPS.

Edit: Sorry, I'm on Page 99 of GURPS: Character Creation, and I've been wading (or trying to wade) through it for months. All the slogging is making me sarcastic about it. Probably not the system for me.

Presense Attack. At +6d6 SA and 10 PRE, you have an 8d6 PA. That gives you an average roll of 28, or 18 over 10 PRE. This is enough that, if you have a relevant SA, you can shout "Stop right there, criminal scum!" and most thugs will pause for at least a half-phase, and probably surrender.

If the presense attack is based on beauty, there'll be a lot of headslaps, and people wanting autographs.

Edit: Actually, given the relative PA levels, the character would be a walking marriage-breaker of a mind-control level.