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.

Hey gang,

New GM here trying to wrap my brain around GURPS to use in my low-magic fantasy setting. Had a couple dumb question about skills:

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On page 170 of Book 1 (GURPS Characters), there is a skill costs table.

The top line of the table reads "Attribute-3" and has a 0 cost for all difficulties of skills except for very hard.

Does this mean that a PC could take a little bit of every skill (except for very hard skills) at no point cost?

Am I understanding this correctly? It seems like a way to avoid nearly all default rolls. Maybe that's not important, it just seems odd to me.

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My other question is when I am looking at a skill that defaults to other skills and not an attribute,

e.g. Stage Combat (page 222) defaults: Combat Art or Sport-2, an actual combat skill-3 or Performance-3

Does the other skill substitute as an attribute on said skill costs table?

e.g. PC already has Performance 13 and wants Stage Combat 15. PC pays 8 points to acquire the skill (average difficulty).

Is this correct?

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Thank you!

Is it playable? :<

(I've heard somewhere that playing TTRPGs through text posts is not a good idea, this upset me somehow)

Hey everyone!

I was wondering if anyone could help me out with some rules clarification?

If a player increases their DX, for example, all of the stats and skills associated with DX go up too.

If a DX based skill goes up by one level, does that effectively lower the cost of that skill thereby giving them points back?

It's a rule I saw once but can´t remember where. It was a second stat of HP-like points. Something like 10*HP. Whenever the character gets hurt, they first lose from this points, and a fraction of the damage received goes to HP. It was meant to make either gunfights or Super abilities more survivable.

I don't remember on which book I saw it. I checked GURPS Supers but didn't find it there.

Edit: It included a combat example. It was relatively long.

Edit 2: Found it! It's Power-ups 9 Alternate Attributes, page 30. They are called Stun Points.

So as far as I understand, if you spend 20 points to increase Dx and gain back 20 points by going down to 8 St, that adds 20 points against your disad limit. It might just be that I’m too used to other TRRPG systems, but I constantly want to increase some stats and drop others, but 9 times out of 10 I don’t because I also want more actual detailed disads, and so I’m left with a character that has super detailed skill and advantage/disadvantage lists, and 10s or maybe 1 11 for all my attributes. This also happens when I’m making NPCs as a GM, so I’ve been thinking of making the home brew rule that all your total attribute score points added up count towards your point total/disad limit. For example, if I drop St by 3 and raise Dx by 1, it counts as 10 points to my disads instead of 30. Is that balanced? Am I misunderstanding something? Do you think it’s a good idea?

in a previous post it was discussed that forearm crutches can be used as a mitigator for the lower cost version of lame. I was thinking about that and the fact that when using them it occupies the use of your hands making it very difficult to carry anything let alone use them for fine manipulation without having to lean on something. I imagine gurps can probably handle this somehow and stack on another disad while using the crutches to mitigate the lame but I wasn't sure if it would be the same as just adding the other disad in this case probably no fine manipulators or hamfisted not sure and then adjusting the net cost/savings. If anyone has any thoughts Lmk thanks.

I've only played Banestorm so far, but I'm liking it!

I'm trying to set up a campaign, and am working on some racial templates right now. One that I'm looking at is the Vampire Template as given in the base game and trimming the fat out of it so it would be a more usable one for the players (For instance, not all vampires need to be able to turn into bats and wolves just because they are vampires. If they want to do that they can go learn some magic to do that).

But I notice that the Vampire template as shown in the game has no built-in social stigma. What I'm thinking for my campaign is that all vampires are "suppose" to have the social stigma of Second-Class Citizen for -5 points. But of course, a Vampire character might try to hide that they are a vampire and so instead take the secret disadvantage at -5 points meaning that either option costs the same at the start of the game but if the secret gets discovered they get that Second-Class Citizen stigma along with another -5 points of disadvantages.

But the question I have is should that extra -5 points of disadvantages be clearly defined (IE: perhaps it's another social stigma of Criminal Record at -5 points that makes law enforcement irritated at you for trying to hide your true nature from the community) or should it be left up in the air to be decided at the time the secret is discovered based on circumstances?

NOTE: The reason I'm going with Second Class Citizen instead of more serious stigma, is that in this world being a vampire doesn't make you super powerful. But it still gives people the heebie-jeebies about the fact that you drink blood and might make assumptions about where and how you get your blood.

Page 14 of Infinite Worlds has an info box on cover stories PCs can use while operating in parallel worlds.

To my surprise, there's nothing that would cover non-human PCs, despite the fact that one of the example player characters for the setting is a giant robot (C31R07).

Does anyone have any suggestions for cover stories that would work for non-human characters?

When I say this, I mean everything is up to you. Try singing to elevator music, it’s a blank canvas waiting for you to paint on. You just got to put the feelings and emotions into it.

For instance, the attribute system, which is very vague yet comprehensive. Dexterity is ones physical agility, what the fuck does that mean? Oh wait, dexterity is your fine motor skills, I see why it was called that now. It sets out a base and a standard, than you follow it and fill in the blanks. Sorry, I’m on mobile because I can’t be bothered starting up my PC.

I’m building a character for a superhero themed game. His abilities are based on the redirection of kinetic energy to enhance himself. So I gave him a special recharge energy reserve to represent his accumulated energy, but I cannot figure out how to make it so it would recharge when he hits/parries with an unnarmed attack, any suggestions?