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.

Inspired by the Steve Jackson interview post recently, I got to thinking about character creation alternatives from the baseline rules. (Steve said that character creation is one of the things he would change if he began designing GURPS today.)

I'd love to hear about / brainstorm alternatives, without necessarily debating the 'best' one, though it would be great to hear from others about gameplay risks associated with the various ideas!

And to put it up front: the baseline character creation isn't wrong, or bad, or broken. It makes a lot of sense, particularly for particular kinds of games and players.

And there is good in the RAW for character creation; for certain kinds of games, the ability to fine-tune skills, take interesting disadvantages to 'pay for' interesting abilities, the process of examining tradeoffs and benefits, that can be a lot of fun!

Particularly with a digital system where you're not recalculating everything all of the time, you're able to try things and test them, etc. (Or in the CRPG space; GURPS-inspired Fallout 1 letting you play with options before beginning.)

But we also know about the capacity of choice-paralysis of looking at the table of skills, the difficulty to correctly judge the 'table-value' of these abilities versus the point value. (Different GM tables mean that those skills are as useful as the game / GM allows, intentionally or not.)

There's also a sense in which this system was designed at a time where a lot of other systems were classic D&D-esque, rolling for stats, etc. And so it carries at least some implied awareness of those alternatives, even if the current books are written to explain it easily to anyone.

But now a lot of TTRPGs don't do the flat dice-roll creation system, and even those that do soften the impact and try to make sure anyone can create any kind of character they have in mind.

GURPS has had templates, (and those were in Fallout 1 as well) which does assist the process, but then it's still points to modify the character, and choice-paralysis can creep back in there too. My only critique with templates is that it can lack the sense of 'discovery' or 'creation' that a player can get from either the baseline rules or the methods of other systems.

It's been a while since my last post as I've continued working on the campaign the templates are for. I'm trying to create a character who is a merfolk smuggler. I'm having trouble because the character belongs to a subspecies which have an alternate form with legs but most species of Merfolk have No Legs (Semi-Aquatic). The legged form of the merfolk subspecies this character belongs to has Amphibious instead - would it be better to cost this simply as Amphibious or should I pay for the two forms? I'm currently working on the rest of the NPC, where I'm aiming for about 150 points to provide a sample enemy for the players once I get to that point.

Reading through Heat and I've noticed that it specifies its effect in ranges, such as up to 30° over the upper range of one's Comfort Zone (91-120° for the average human) and up to 60° over the upper range of one's Comfort Zone (121-150° for the average human).

Why is this, why not just over one's Comfort Zone (91°+) and 30 degrees over one's Comfort Zone (121°+)? The upper end being specified confuses me due to there being a gap between the default 150° mark and the 160° one where human skin starts to ignite.

Surely the previous effects don't vanish at 155° only to kick in worse at 160°, so why does that "gap" exist?

That was my first question, my other was regarding human skin igniting, does a higher temperature tolerance raise / prevent that as well or would one need DR on their skin itself to make it immune to catching on fire?

And finally, Intense Heat states that it kicks in if the ambient temperature is more than 6 * our comfort zone’s width over said comfort zone, that would be 330° over wouldn't it? The number seems a little higher so I wanted to confirm.

Please keep discussion as mechanically related as possible, I want to understand why things are the way they are RAW and the writer's intent with this section of the rules.

Tangents regarding related cases in real life, opinions on how this would better be modeled and other such remarks are interesting but not appreciated when the goal is to understand how the game designers expected this section to be read and used.

You can use it in Your own scenario, as a "historical" background.

Ys is a mythical city on the coast of Brittany that was swallowed up by the ocean. Most versions of the legend place the city in the Baie de Douarnenez.

King Gradlon (according to some versiosn, married to sorceress Malgven, which dies in childbirth) ruled in Ys, a city built on land reclaimed from the sea, sometimes described as rich in commerce and the arts, with Gradlon's palace being made of marble, cedar and gold. In some versions, Gradlon built the city upon the request of his daughter Dahut who loved the sea. To protect Ys from inundation, a dike was built with a gate that was opened for ships during low tide. The one key that opened the gate was held by the king.

Most versions of the legend present Gradlon as a pious man, and his daughter, Princess Dahut, as wayward. Dahut (sometimes called Ahez) is often presented as frivolous and an unrepentant sinner, or, sometimes, as a sorceress.

In most variations, Dahut acquires the key to the dikes from Gradlon, and its misuse leads to catastrophe. Commonly, Dahut steals the keys from her father while he sleeps, either to allow her lover inside for a banquet or after being persuaded to do so by her flattering lover. She opens the gates of the dikes, and the sea inundates the city, killing nearly everyone. A Saint (either St. Gwénnolé or St. Corentin) wakes the sleeping king and urges him to flee. The king mounts his horse and takes his daughter with him. As the water is about to overtake him, a voice calls out: "Throw the demon thou carriest into the sea, if thou dost not desire to perish." He either throws Dahut off or she falls off. In some versions, after falling into the sea, Dahut becomes a mermaid who continues haunting the sea.

Some scholars have connected Gradlon to the Breton lai of Graelent, as far back as Kerdanet's edition of Albert Le Grand's Vies des Saints. The knight Graelent, reduced to poverty after angering the queen, meets a beautiful woman at a fountain and takes her as his mistress. She restores his wealth. However, he breaks his promise to her and tells others of her existence. When she leaves, he pursues her and nearly drowns trying to follow her across a river. She relents and takes him with her to her world, leaving his horse waiting on the bank. Once again, Gradlon is in love with the strange woman, with obvious connections to water and sorcery.

Ok, let's sum up. Good king Gradlon marries a sorceress, connected to the water, with inhuman name, and has a daughter, who is considered a sinner, sorceress, freak by the people. She „loves the sea”. She has „lover” on at whose instigation she causes the city to be flooded. Later some mysterious voice demands that Gradlon give Dahut to the sea, and the princess becomes a "mermaid".

I see the obvious conclusion. Gradlon had the misfortune of marrying a Deep One hybrid, and the fruit of this union was another hybrid, Dahut. His wife died quite early, before her transformation began, which is why the king did not realized that he was having sex with a non-human. By the way, this wife, Malgven, is also character from the other Breton legend, and she is supposed to come “from the North”, but scholars agree that her name is neither Breton nor Scandinavian - its etymology is unknown, which is another reason to consider it not to have originated from any human nation. Also, Florian de Roy describes her with the words: “A water of enchantment shone in her eyes” - so once again, we have focus on her connections with some water “magic”. Obvious Deep One.

And Dahut obviously made contact with her sea-dwelling kin, which led to her involvement in the plan to flood Ys.

As I mentioned, in some tales, daughter of Gradlon is named “Ahez” (probably from "alc'hwez" – key). Under such name appears in the Breton folktale Kristof. Kristof, the lazy son of a fisherman (or a FISHMAN?), catches a talking fish which allows him to wish for whatever he wants (or maybe he just makes a contact with literal talking fish – aka full-fledged Deep One?). Kristof travels to the city of Ys and uses his powers to uproot and ride an oak tree (thanks to the contact with the „talking fish”, son of fisherman/fishman can use extraordinary technology). When Princess Ahez mocks him, Kristof wishes that she would become pregnant; his wish comes true and she bears a son. With help from a druid, King Gradlon identifies Kristof as the baby's father. He puts Kristof, Ahez and the child into a wooden chest and sets them out to sea, but Kristof uses the fish's power to create an island and mansion far more wealthy than Gradlon's. Impressed, Gradlon offers to let the three of them return to Ys, but Kristof refuses and predicts that the city of Ys will be destroyed by the next high tide, due to the loss of the oak tree (so “oak tree” technological piece was crucial in protecting Ys from flooding by the Deep Ones – something an Elder Sign). Yes, there are some contradictions between two tales... but it is obvious that Kristof is the “lover” from the first one.

Oh, and saints which warned king Gradlon? St. Gwénnolé established new monastery, but place where it was located, was so inhospitable that after three years, he miraculously opened a passage through the sea to found another abbey on the opposite bank of the Landévennec estuary. So someone who controls the sea... defeated the sea... defeated the Deep Ones? Someone who has will and knowledge to fight their machinations – no wonder, why he warned Graldon. Where did he get this knowledge from? Well, he was son of the st. Gwen the Three Breasted, which is folk Catholic patron of the fertility. And St. Gwénnolé is considered patron of fertility too, and one of the phallic saints (yep, they are thing in folk Catholicism) and had, well, priapic reputation. Oh, and he was not only one in his family who waged “war against the sea”. His father, prince Fragan, was known as a slayer of pirates. Brother of his grandmotheer, St. Teilo (yes, there are much more saints in this clan, including Gwénnolé siblings. What a pious family – or part of the plan to infiltrate the Church?) was known for defeating pirate Bwya (BTW his reliquary after his death was desecreated by other pirates – true emninity between him and people of the sea) and for defeating dragon/beast who he imprisoned by tying to a rock in the sea. In art he is shown raiding a stag (another connection to fertility?). And BTW, whole clan was related to the legendary King Arthur (this one), although it is not important part of this theory. So, Gwénnolé was member of the family known for the connection with fertility, unusual body parts and fighting people/monsters of the sea.. Maybe descendants of Shub-Niggurath spawn, who were waging war with Deep Ones?

And St. Corentin... He was master of Gwénnolé and bishop of the diocese of Quimper, designated by Gradlon. He was known for the possesion of the magic fish – it had regenerative properties, so he can eat it infinitely. He is shown in the art with stylized fishbones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:St_Corentin_Banner.jpg and is patron of... seafood. So, maybe Corentin was experimenting on captured Deep Ones... maybe including eating parts of them to gain their powers? And – maybe one of the saints is the same person as the druid from the”Kristof” version?

More such trivia, Lovecraftian concepts found in legends, folklore, true history and science, You will find in free brochure: https://adeptus7.itch.io/lovecraftian-inspirations-from-real-life-and-beliefs . You can use ideas mentioned in it in any way You want - in your own story/book/podcasts/game/video, whatever You want, without rewarding or mentioning me in any way. Below, full content table.

https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/343/931/550/022/733/original/a0b4ffc37ac08665.jpg

Amd here are video versions of some of the chapters: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDjiV321dZZ6ZOSge9Y_N4A

Haha, I am joking, I know that whatever I do, You will think it is a scam. Pity.

https://boardgamegeek.com/blog/1/blogpost/182802/masters-of-game-design-an-interview-series-intervi

Hi, i'm a long time GM, i've mastered games that were mostly narrative centric and the most crunch learning i had to make was just for stuff like the Old WoD games and CofD.

Beign a little scared of the crunch and knowing its a game with modular rules made me want to tell you some basics of what i want from my adventure and you can suggest manuals for that alongside some suggestions for approaching this game as a new GM.

Will you help me?

Here are the basics of my settings:

-its a post-apocaliptic medieval setting where a bunch of trees sprouted from the ground really fast, warping entire landscapes with their roots

-the PC are displaced people, survivors and refugees from many walks of life.

-Life in this setting is full of hardships but its not totally bleak, sometimes large towns thrive if people can put aside their differences and organize, but its much easier said than done.

-Combat should be quick and dangerous most of the time, especially if the party is outnumbered, so the bulk of the adventure will be in the form of exploration/survival

-Magic exist, only few people are born with magical abilites, very much like sorcerers from D&D, with two important differences: those are gift of the gods, as such they can be taken away if there's not a transational relationship in form of offerings to any god and they can pass those power to a successor, usually a son/daughter, a promising young temple assistant or an appointed nobleman/noblewoman. Most of these magic wielders are priest in a greco-roman sense or appointed nobles and those who are not tend to be scorned or, worse, killed outright since "they refuse to help their community with their powers". Layman magical istitutions exists but they tend to be fewer and they clash with many local temples and shrines authorites which are not centralized.