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.

In the old 3rd edition sourcebook Wild Cards they presented the new disadvantage Social stigma: Joker to represent the negative reaction modifiers for being a visibly deformed victim of the Wild Card virus. It was priced at -15 points, representing both the negative reaction to the deformity, the possibility that you might have weird powers and also the fact that in the setting a lot of people think that you can "catch" the virus from contact with a wild carder even though it (mostly) doesn't work that way. It was presented with the caveat that in more cosmopolitan areas like NYC a Joker might "only" face a -2 reaction, but in areas without a lot of wild carders people would react at a -4 or possibly worse.

In 4th edition Supers you have the -10 point social stigma: Freak, representing the somewhat more generic negative reaction to X-Men style mutants, or to supers in general if appropriate to the setting.

My question is which point cost would you as a GM use for a 4th edition Wild Cards game? I'm pretty comfortable with using the -15 because it does represent the revulsion, fear of unknown powers and the fear of contamination. But I wanted to throw it out there and get some other perspectives.

A couple of years back someone brought up the subject of where spells originally came from back in the stone ages. I don't recall it being a very productive discussion, but a recent song I heard on Youtube brought the question back to mind. Now of course this is a world-building decision so there is no one answer. But for your world-building convenience I'm going to list some options.

1. The hard way. The questioner pointed out that the necessary wealth to make a magic workshop wouldn't exist in a TL 0 village, and someone who had never cast or seen a spell wouldn't have Thaumatology and those things are required to use the spell invention process described on page 15 of GURPS 4th edition Magic.

The obvious response is "so they used a different process". GURP's spell invention rules are designed to allow it to happen within a human lifespan. So if they don't have the prerequisites to do it that way, then perhaps they'll use another approach, one that happens over multiple generations of shamen using trial and error (or a single elf struggling over centuries) rather than a systematic approach intended for people who know what they're doing.

That being said, when I looked back just now I realized the price of a workshop is actually determined by the value in the setting of a single point of energy, and before magicians have invented their first spell, a single point of energy has no value. Or at least only has the worth of an hour of a TL 0 shaman's time. Therefore the price of the workshop (which is to say a hut with some foraged magic herbs and shiny rocks) is perfectly affordable for a TL 0 setting As for Thaumatology, one can argue that you can learn a bit if you've been dealing with spirits because spirits are magical beings.

1. On the other hand we can assume that thaumatology is invented by the philosophers and therefore arcane spellcasters only come into existence at TL1. At TL 0 magery becomes only useful for warning of high mana levels and te monsters that live in those parts. So what kind of magic are TL 0 cultures using? Clerical spellcasting of course. Humans don't invent spells back then, they get them granted by spirits.

2. Then of course there's the loud way. All you need is one mage with Wild Magic and retention. (Wild Talent, Magic only, retention)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luq3sC10fx0

Title. Mechabeasts seem pretty straightforward, just use vehicles from Modern or Ultra-Tech as a baseline, then I’m sure there’s a supplement that adds Need For Speed style mods and upgrades for rides.

The tricky part comes with figuring out how to stat slugs? In any case I figured I’d probably stat them out as advantages. I had considered building them as allies (with their appearance rate being the likelihood of them returning to you at the start of each scene, if you weren’t able to pick them up mid combat and they couldn’t just fly back to you like Burpy). Alternatively I could stat them as Modular Abilities, they can switch into any advantage that could reasonably represent the effects they can create. Most would default to an innate attack and maybe one or two other abilities, but players can improvise effects based on the thematics of the slug and I’ll just pick the closest equivalent advantage to gauge how strong their effect would be. In any case, I would like to have slugs come in ‘tiers’ of rarity, determining their starting points, and they can level-up and gain ‘XP’ (character points) through use and training. I was thinking that I could use the “Melee, c” limitation for most of the slugs’ attacks, because inspite of being ‘ranged’ attacks they usually require the slugs to travel to their target and make contact. I won’t be using the canonical move speed of “100 mph” for the slugs and will instead approximate what the apparent move speed is portrayed as in the show (they don’t usually look to be going nearly that fast). And I’ll probably give them “Nuisance Effect, Telegraphed Attacks (targets aware of the slug get +1 to dodge for every turn it takes the slug to reach them) -10%”. I also wanted to give the slugs a “friendship value”, sort of like a talent that gives you a bonus to getting the slug to cooperate and do what you want, and to preform complex maneuvers. Alternatively if you’re mean to your slugs this value can go into the negative and become a penalty as they don’t want to cooperate.

I was thinking of adding a new influence skill for interacting with slugs. It pretty much does what you’d expect and lets you roleplay as Ash Ketch’em/Eli Shane and lets you befriend your ammo, it can default to any other influence skill that would normally be applicable to to influence another human (it just works).

As for blasters… idk how to calculate costs? I figured the mechanics of the item should be to hard to figure out and make a few variants, and I’m sure there’s a resource for blaster mods & upgrades.

I was thinking of limiting the character to more “grounded realism”, ie. Max HP rule will be enforced and there will be max values humans can get for their attributes (cave trolls max HP caps at +50% starting ST and have a higher ST cap, I don’t remember the other races off hand but I’ll figure out the details for each later). Character advancement will mostly be through collecting and upgrading slugs, what character points they will get will mostly go towards raising skills or buying a few advantages like Combat Reflexes or Trained by a Master.

So, any thoughts? Any suggestions?

What would be the difference during combat from normal Duplication (Linked to Telesend while not having purchases Mindlink) and the enhancement Construct? Would I be choosing to basically use Possession (because my Dupes also have Telesend, as it is linked to Duplication) while not taking actions myself? I'm going solo here, so I'm also the GM. Am I wrong in believing that I need Compartmentalized Mind as well just to move simultaneously with my Dupe? It says under Construct that my Dupes are "material possessions under your mental control." I just don't know if that means I can only use 1 at a time per mental action with one mental action per turn. Sorry about how messy this is. Since my Dupes have Telesend, I would think this acts as a Mindlink. I want to keep the IQ roll to connect from Telesend, but I've allowed either me or my Dupe to connect for both. So it's roll or my roll connect for both of us. Thanks in advance!!

(this one version is very quickly made up, heavily hand-waved and may need playtesting)

There are a few tweaks to the rules:

1. No engines, the city always lies on the ground (still can have fuel tanks as a reserve).
2. Each District is based on SM+14 ship. It can have fewer (but not more) than 20 systems. If the city grows and additional systems are needed, they're built as additional SM+14 ships/Districts with fewer (initially) systems. All Districts can count as one city, but are targeted as distinct ships. Instead of "Core", there are "Central" systems, they can be targeted by enemy, but only from above, or if some non-Central systems are taken over.
3. Districts are connected via City Transport systems, otherwise they become isolated/different cities.
4. Of course, each such city design makes heavy use of all the Habitat cabin subtypes, as well as system size tweaks.

New unique systems:

1. Concrete walls (dDR of Stone Armor, but not semi-ablative. Cost is cost of Steel Armor, divided by 10. Repair skill is Masonry.)
2. City transport (a network of roads, connects two specific districts. Unlike External Clamp, can't unclamp and change direction, but needs only one such system for connecting two districts, instead of two Clamps.)
3. Supply station (a port or ground transport station. Allows for inter-city communication. Cargo intake is 10 times the cargo intake of Hangar Bay).

From Alternate Spaceships: "Basement: A vertical design building may optionally have an extensive underground level. Designate one or more of the lower story systems as basements. Basement systems cost an extra $1,000 per ton of building mass to cover excavation costs over and above their normal system costs, but are hidden from view and cannot be targeted directly. However, they’re automatically buried if the rest of the building is disabled, and destroyed if the rest of the building is destroyed."

In this case, it also counts for the system as having an additional layer of Stone Armor.

In RPG and fantasy, we are often faced with a situation where the existence of gods is an empirically confirmed fact, rather than a matter of belief. Two extremes can be distinguished in the representation of these entities (note - I do not claim that all creation adopts one of these two extreme points of view). On the one hand - the current, for which, for example, most of the settings for D&D can be considered representative - gods are personification of certain values professed by people, not infrequently they are even "born" from the faith of mortals or at least derive power from it/are shaped by it, gods described as "good" are simply good in the conventional sense of the word, they sincerely care about their followers and you know what to expect from them. On the other side, we have motifs that can be considered taken from Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythology - the gods are incomprehensible, distant beings, completely unconcerned with human worldviews and so-called "good and evil. good and evil, mostly indifferent to humanity (and if by chance their paths intersect with that humanity, so much the worse for it) - at the same time, it is not uncommon for most mortals to be unaware of their existence, instead worshipping imaginary, more anthropomorphic deities tailored to their emotional needs. I wanted to invent some deities standing somewhere in the middle - entities whose goals, yes, are not fully understood by mortals, but nevertheless close enough to their own morality that worshippers can find some commonality (real or imaginary) with their patrons. At the same time, I wanted each description to contain a hook, an important point where the devotees' understanding of the deity diverges from its real nature - and whose discovery could be a significant twist. I invite you to read and discuss.

Full free brochure here: https://adeptus7.itch.io/twisted-gods

If for some reason You are afraid to download, here are is online version on the blog: https://adeptusrpg.wordpress.com/2022/09/22/twisted-gods-vol-english-version-of-pokretni-bogowie/ https://adeptusrpg.wordpress.com/2022/11/27/twisted-gods-vol-ii/