This is a monthly r/GURPS thread for anything and everything related to your own campaigns. Tell us how you and your friends are making out. Update us on the progress of your game. Tell us about any issues you've run into and maybe we can help. Make suggestions for other players and GMs.

This is a monthly r/GURPS thread for anything and everything related to your own campaigns. Tell us how you and your friends are making out. Update us on the progress of your game. Tell us about any issues you've run into and maybe we can help. Make suggestions for other players and GMs.

The number one method is to just think up random superpowers yourself. There is no better method. If you want a considerably worse method, however...

Use the following list of power classifications.

These are taken directly from Wildbow's excellent Worm/Ward books. Use a random number generator to select one or two at random - oftentimes a Super will have two or more.

Here's a list of GURPS advantages. Follow the instructions to put them into a spreadsheet and give them all a number, then use a random number generator to select one at random. Allow the randomly selected advantage to act as a seed to give you an idea for a superpower. You don't even need to use the same advantage, maybe Charisma makes you think of Mind Control - that sort of thing. Try to find a way to get the advantage you rolled to 'fit' into the class you rolled earlier. If nothing comes to mind, roll a different class or a different advantage.

Now, here's the most important part: come up with one or two good limitations for the ability. Interesting superpowers are always defined by their limitations. Maybe your Possession ability only works on bugs (Accessibility: Only on bugs -40%), or maybe your devastating beam of energy needs to be charged up with sunlight before you can use it (Nuisance Effect: Doesn't work if you haven't been exposed to sunlight in the last 12 hours -5%).

Accessibility and Environmental limitations are very common, as well as Requires magic words -10% (you need to shout some specific phrase to make your power work: Shazam! Fus Ro Dah! etc.), Requires gestures -10% (this is super common on Innate Attacks, Afflictions, and Bindings, where you need to gesture like a Waterbender from Avatar or a martial artist of any stripe), or Requires (item) -10% if you need a specific item (a broomstick for a witch's Flight, a staff for a wizard's Burning Attack, a sword for a superhero's overpowered sword-swipe, a gun for a superhero's overpowered gunshots, a bow for a super-elf's overpowered bowshot, etc). Oftentimes those latter ones also require you to be holding the item, which is Temporary Disadvantage: One Hand -15%. Of course, other limitations are great too, just remember that tons and tons of superpowers have one of those mentioned above.

And there you go, a shoddy way of manufacturing large numbers of superpowers. It will never compare to just using your imagination, but if you're stuck, it will do in a pinch.

I'm thinking about running a campaign with a superhero theme to some extent, but I have no idea how to handle a large number of NPCs with different powers. Are there any ways to quickly create these types of characters (or any characters, for that matter)?

I could spent some time beating around the bush to pretend I'm not, but I'll be honest, I'm making a sorceress inspired by Pokémon's Delphox. Most things are easy Innate Attacks and GURPS Powers stuff, but I'm stuck about two things that I really wanted to include:

Nasty Plot: Nasty Plot increases the Special Attack stat, which in turn increases the "magic" attacks damage, up to a maximum of 4x the base attribute for, you guessed it, 4x the damage. I don't care about the cap, it will be an "Only whe in combat" skill that'll fade out as soon as it ends, so it'd be impossible to stack it that many times without y'know... fucking DYING. The problem, though, is that, since Innate Attacks aren't based on attributes, I'm not sure how to build it. I imagine it'd go something like "Affliction 1 (Advantage, something something, +%; Stackable, +400%)", but I'm not sure what.

Defense reducing stuff: I'm aware about "Affliction 1 (Nullify Advantage, DR x, +5x%)", but, coming to the realization most things got no DR (at least in the tables I play), I was wondering if there's any disadvantage equivalent to DR, where you'd receive, like, 3 more base damage upon being attacked, with all the relevant DR enhancements and limitations (like Limited). I wonder what would it's pricing be too. I've considered sticking to reducing DR and applying Vulnerability (Magic), but even at its lowest, 2x damage is way too overkill most times, and every DM I've used this kind of gimmick on kinda hated it after I had to say "yeah, I made my buddy do 200+ damage with their attack" lol.

Besides those, some funny thing I thought, is how much damage would a "fiery vortex surpassing 5,400 degrees Fahrenheit" actually do? I feel there's an answer to "how much damage x degrees do" somewhere around in the web, but my searching skills were not up to the task.

Lastly, and less importantly, since it's just based on and not literally Delphox, I wanted to give this character some extra oracle-related powers, since Delphox is based on the Oracles of Delphi. If anyone got any suggestions on cool (cheap and not necessarily useful or important, since the main focus is on fire+psychic sorceries) oracle powers, I'm open for suggestions (⁠ ⁠ꈍ⁠ᴗ⁠ꈍ⁠)

Thaumaturgy has good guidelines for building PCs who are intelligent items like a sword or a harp (No Manipulators, No Legs (portable), and Dedicated Controls). There are even modifications you can put on an innate attack to make it usable only by the person wielding your pc. It gets me thinking about how a shield pc could grant its defense bonus to its wielder.

One way would be to buy multiple levels of Enhanced Defense with Affects Other, and Can't Affect Self. For a medium shield, this would cost somewhere around 60 points.

The other way is to buy a 1 point quirk "Counts as a medium shield".

The enormous difference in these costs makes me think I should ask other people for their thoughts. There are some differences, the expensive version would work against bullets and the off-hand side arc, but nothing that would justify such a price difference. Which option would be more balanced?

New to the system and wondering if there’s an active community on discord for it

In my far-future world PCs are going to be special forces who get regenerated from backups when they die. Quite like Takeshi Kovacs in the Altered Carbon TV series (sorry haven't read the books!). I'm looking for tips on a character build.

A starting PC might have been regenerated into a new body as many as ten times, and have lived perhaps 200 years in total.

I am looking for ways keep verisimilitude and balance with someone who wants to play an innocent who has been regenerated only a couple of times and might have lived only 20 years and would thus realistically have less experience.

Clearly the 20-year-old might just be especially gifted. Also a longer life would be time to collect more mental disadvantages giving the longer serving soldier more points to buy up high and varied skills that come with long service (I'm leaving aside all physical stats and traits for now since they come with the body).

A long serving soldier might have skills that aren't currently relevant – E.G. your century-long stint as a nuclear weapons officer on a swamp planet gave you lots of technical, area knowledge and survival skills that won't apply onto the campaign on this desert world where the kid grew up. Is there a way to price a package of skills as worth less points because it is less relevant to the campaign at hand?

Finally and this is the big question: Imagine the long serving solder got shot in the head thirty years ago and the backup was damaged, so she lost a lot of skills, but since amnesia is kind of boring is there a way to price someone only having occasional access to some skills? Like they are faced with a ticking atomic bomb they might get flashback to how to disarm it. Or wading confidently into a swamp they might only remember the time they met the space crocodiles only a hundred meters from dry land...

A year or two ago, I played a long-running low fantasy game of GURPS in my friend's homebrew world, and I absolutely loved it. It was all of our first times with the system (barring a little test one shot) but he was a great GM so it went really well.

I'd really like to get into GMing myself. I thought it would be fun to run a game in the world of the "Abhorsen" series by Garth Nix, and I'd like some advice on where to look (as in rulebooks, systems, etc...) for the magic stuff, since I'm not very experienced with it.

--- further explanation ---

The main magic system is quite soft; there is a large language of words that you can either write or speak, but they define the theme of the spell more than the exact effects. I.e. you can use a fire rune to replace a campfire or to cremate a dead body such that its soul does not return. I was considering just reflavouring a bunch of GURPS spells, which the players can learn individually, but it wasn't sure if there might be a magic system in GURPS that fits better.

There is also a secondary magic system involving calling souls from the land of the dead. The exact details aren't important, just that it's risky (you might die yourself) and involves briefly visiting the land of the dead (leaving your body vulnerable). There aren't any particular "spells" you can cast with this system, so I was thinking it might be better to just have it be an environment with creatures (souls you might have to fight or force to move around) and hazardous effects you have to survive.

(For those who know the books: The idea I had was to have the players be soldiers in the wall garrison. They get sent over the wall on missions, or defend it from attacks. If one of them dies, they have an easy excuse to make a new character: someone got reassigned to the squad to fill it up. This lets me prebuild some characters for the players who are totally new, but the more experienced players can build their own.)

I've been gaming and GMing for over 37 years. I've played a LOT of systems, at least a good three dozen for sure. In terms of running, for the last decade, I've tended towards lighter games or more "narrative" ones (so, Burning Wheel is a favorite, but it sure as hell isn't light).

Anyway, I've noticed for the last five years my gaming has been fine, having fun, but there's something missing, a level of detail that I find helps me GM better, and most games are just missing it. I like to have something to hang my hat on, so to speak, and like it when the system gives me answers to questions when running it. This won't be news to anyone, but a lot of the lighter system but the onus on the GM to say what's what and so on.

I tend to run politics heavy games, where we see intrigue, social stuff, and mass comabt a lot. It's my thing. Thing is, most games don't really go into the weeds on, for example, social abilities (like having allies or enemies or whatever), and if they do, it isn't terribly well taken care of or an after thought. I won't talk about the fact that most games don't have mass comabt systems at all, or if they do, again, its an after thought.

So what led me back to GURPS?

Recently running a fantasy game set in Terrinoth, using Savage Worlds, my usual genre and style, so all the stuff mentioned above. SW is a fine game; we ran three good sessions with it, but it isn't, for me, satisfying. Why? I'm missing detail. The die spread for certain things makes it feel like there isn't much room for movement. Like, the characters are nobles, but they aren't at the same level. No way to model that in SW (you pick Aristocrat as an Edge, maybe Famous or Rich and that's that). Everyone more less used Persuasion for every social situation (only Intimidation and Taunt are there, but they don't like being mean to get what they want, so...). No real way to model levels of Wealth (I mean, there is a Wealth system, but it has 5 levels (and you default to one of them) and the last level is generally unreachable except temporarily, and anyway, there are almost no rules behind it).

Mind, this isn't a dig at SW - it works very well for what it does, and it isn't meant to be stretched into the granular places I want it to, which is the point. From the beginning of the game I regretted picking SW (it was the "easiest" choice) and that turns out, later, to have led to some things in game that are "uninformed" at the level I'd usually like. Which is the point.

GURPS lets me dial up or down, as I wish. Do I want to get into lots of Wealth levels and having that make a difference? I can! Do I want lots of ways to talk people into what you want (Diplomacy, Sex Appeal, Fast Talk, Carousing, etc.)? Then I can say here are the skill you use. Basically, in SW, I started adding skills and other things to, essentially, make it more like GURPS. So I just switched to GURPS.

So, for those of you who play lots of other things, what always leads you back to GURPS?

Those are just examples, but I hope you see where I'm going. Vermissilitude. Detail. I was missing them.