View Single Post
Old 02-13-2018, 09:58 PM   #40
tshiggins
 
tshiggins's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Denver, Colorado
Default Re: How Would GURPS Rules Need To Be Changed For A Computer Game?

Quote:
Originally Posted by starslayer View Post
So Unreal World: Powered by GURPS?
I don't particularly care for Rogue-like games, but yeah, something like that idea only implemented with a first-person point of view. I'd also want an MMORPG, and not a single-player, although you could start out with a single-player game and build it out, iteratively.

I'd even have the game start with each player on a sea voyage, c. 1850, when a banestorm manifests and pulls his or her ship into a different world. Mostly, it's the same as Earth -- but only mostly. I'd add some fantastic elements for the players to slowly discover.

The character gets built ahead of time -- either use a template as-is, or do some modifications, or (or for more advanced players), build one from scratch. Use the GURPS skill system, as much as possible, and add in some advantages and (maybe...) some disads suitable to a computer game.

The character wakes up after the storm, on a small atoll , with the wreck of the ship in shallow water, visible, but a ways offshore. In that sense, it starts off a bit similar to Stranded Deep, but it's more granular and skill-based.

Scavenge what washed ashore with you; locate a source of fresh water (a spring in some cases, a coconut grove in others, the ability to create an evaporative purifier, perhaps...); and then get some food; and then take stock of what's available on the island. Build a raft or something, to get out to the wreck, where at least one significant predator has been drawn to the bodies. Use fatigue as well as HP, and enforce encumbrance rules using GURPS so it's similar to, for instance, The Long Dark.

Salvage what you can, fight off the critter, get what you've found back to the island, and realize you'll use up the food available faster than it can replenish itself, but fishing can extend that. Use the salvaged gear to build a larger vessel (a character with a "Survival" skill builds a raft or dugout canoe; one with the skill "Carpentry" builds a better raft or dugout; one with Area Knowledge (Polynesia) builds a large outrigger dugout; one with "Carpentry" and "Boating" can fix the hole in the side of the whale-boat or wooden dinghy found on the wreck; a character with "Carpentry" and "Boating" and "Crewman (Sailing Ship)" can add a mast and maybe a keel or leeboards to the repaired whaleboat) that allows escape to a different island. Find a tall island (the remnants of an old volcano), which is larger and has more resources (and dangers), and perhaps eventually discover a continent with many secrets.

Allow crafting mini-games of all sorts, give characters the ability to trade with one another from the get-go (but only if they're face-to-face -- no EVE-type markets), and let the characters teach each other skills. Allow the characters to set up cooperative endeavors, so they can accomplish things together that neither could do alone (for instance, if a character with an "Engineering" skill has enough ropes and pulleys, he or she sets up a block-and-tackle, and more than one character can pull on the rope to lift heavy objects -- stuff like that).

Basically, the rules of a game influence how the players will play that game. If all you have is combat, then combat is all anybody will do. Allow crafting and trade, and permit players to set up safe areas where (for instance) they can create unique structures if their characters have the right skills -- or if multiple characters have the right combinations of skills, and agree to cooperate under a character with (say) the skill, "Administration."

Maybe let them declare their characters as part of a defense militia when the player is off-line, and allow someone playing a character with military skills to set up 1850s style lines of battle to defend the settlement.

Implement as many options as possible, for the characters to choose from, and all sorts of emergent game-play occurs.
__________________
--
MXLP:9 [JD=1, DK=1, DM-M=1, M(FAW)=1, SS=2, Nym=1 (nose coffee), sj=1 (nose cocoa), Maz=1]
"Some days, I just don't know what to think." -Daryl Dixon.

Last edited by tshiggins; 02-13-2018 at 10:31 PM.
tshiggins is offline   Reply With Quote