They should really fix that in Cabaret Chicks on Ice!

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by benz72

Just take it as an IQ penalty [-20], or perhaps Social Stigma (EWWWW!) [-20]

Or you could use the Mythos Fright Check rules from Cthulhupunk.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by aesir23

Personally, I'm looking forward to a treatment of different weapon materials, how is a TL 2 Iron Broadsword different from a TL 3 Steel Broadsword. Just how much better is Obsidian to Flint?

I'll scour the relevant sections to see how well that is handled. I note, however, that a lot of such details will likely come out below GURPS resolution (except maybe as regards breakage).

Originally Posted by aesir23

Like a lot of people, I'm also looking forward to a more advanced treatment of how to make things.

I believe that TPTB have promised such a system for the books. I will, of course, do my best to test aspects of it in my gaming.*

*Happily, I have a player whose PC has planned for the next session an expedition into a dwarven stronghold in order to have them forge a very special hammer for him.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by nik1979

One of the most confusing things about CCoI is Wealth and Status. Since that world is so different to that of today, it would help to touch up on some basics about the low TL mindset.

Fix the "Job" mindset that is confusing to most players when they deal with Low Tech. Explain that self sustaining, cottage industry aspect of daily life etc.

Very true.

Of course, it should give you, just as it gives me, enormous satisfaction to know of the involvements of William Stoddard and Matt Riggsby when it comes to this kind of detail. If delivering a gameable version of real sociology was a sport, they'd be... well snorting ampheto-steroids and fighting legal battles, probably, but before that they'd be Olympic athletes.

Originally Posted by nik1979

Complete Low TL Gear Load outs would be nice for the CCoI follow up books, as well as a bunch of comprehensive examples of what certain wealth levels have just so that the GM can use them as basis. Ideally no complicated system of creation that would take hours. Examples would be enough I figure.

Ex.
Poor- A 1 room house on a masters land
Struggling- Plot of land and small 2 room house, typically a tenant farmer .
Average- A small farm plot a 2 room house with an older house used as a barn
comfortable - a large plot for a farmer, a comfortable residence in one's liege lords manor land...etc.
Wealthy - villa in a town, or a manor tied to a small village, etc.
etc.


Responsibilities of these real Low Tech roles- duties and common problems and challenges of knights, manor holders, etc. Team based structure found (like a bunch of knight, yeomen, sergeants etc.).

Add some GURPS Mass Combat Details like examples of Armies of a Duke, King or Prince. Maybe a fast way of organizing one for a Game.

All of these ideas sound good for follow-up volumes.

I would dearly like to see some follow-up to the Mass Combat system myself and the Loadout series is perfect for this, of course.

[Witchking]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

The costumes, of course!

Everything I have ever read about CCoI there has never been a mention of costumes...

If the Chicks are wearing Costumes I aint gonna bite...

thats my 2 florins worth and I am unanimous in that!!

Edit:
of course if that minor issue is addressed I am planning on going "all in"

[Witchking]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

Note to self: need more cabaret chicks

This does not address my anixety on the costuming front, or any other direction....

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Witchking

Everything I have ever read about CCoI there has never been a mention of costumes...

If the Chicks are wearing Costumes I aint gonna bite...

thats my 2 florins worth and I am unanimous in that!!

Now, now; there are many ways to veil without hiding, if you know what I mean.

The utter absence of costume is nowhere near as entertaining as the presence of one that subtly threathens to abscond.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Icelander

You got anything?

I re-read through a bunch of pages in the old Low-Tech about a week ago, and didn't find any new problems of significance.

There's a sidebar about silk, talking about how much mass and area of silk can be made per year per weaver, but nothing about how many items of clothing that will make (IIRC it was 6.4 lbs of silk per weaver, also stated as an area of cloth). I could try doing a back-of-the-envelope calculation myself, of course, but it's something that should be in the book.


Then there's my old question, about the way in which GURPS fails to simulate the fact that higher TL means you can make better swords. A swordsmith in a TL3 setting, with one level of Advanced TL, Limited to metalworking, doesn't gain any RAW benefits whatsoever. Nor with two levels. That's really the main problem that I see.


Getting some more stuff about agriculture, number of cows per square mile and so forth, would be good, but I already have such figures myself, grabbed from Jeff Wilson's "Fantasy Agriculture" web article and a few others. I was just reminded by it because I've just re-read parts of the "Pagan Shore" supplement for Pendragon, which suggests 20 dairy cows on a 100 acre field, which doesn't sound quite right to me.


edit: Oh, one thing I forgot: Shipbuilding technology. Viking ships were "clinker built" which was supposed to be noticably superior to other TL3 ships, in terms of both sturdiness and performance, but nowhere in GURPS Low-Tech or Vehicles is this reflected.

Also note that I'm not particularly interested in making GURPS a better game. My perspective is that of someone using GURPS supplements as ressources for other RPG systems.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by umbros

The thing my group has mentioned to me is, "They better fix the armour weights". I would add that I'd like to see options for more (and less) detail and the abilty to customise armour (so that I could more effectively model historical examples.)

Some discussion of realism versus good game would also be valuable, in the section adding more detail to the armour rules.

If armour is too light, then all the PCs will opt for the heaviest armour that they can afford, which kills variety and stomps on its corpse. Likewise if armour is too heavy, no PC will ever wear any. I don't want either of those to occur.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by weby

I do not have answers, but I do have some questions/commenst/complaints/flames/lipstick.

Travel rules:
Travel times. The rules in HT are better than the basic set ones, but seem overly harsh.. and further many people playing in low tech world will not have Hight tech. So at minimum have the HT rules there, but better to have full travel rules including using animals.

Oh yes. I'm currently trying to pump some Usenet horse people for knowledge about what horses can do under various circumstances.

Especially, don't just cover the standard assumption, of each player character owning one horse. Also deal with courier horse relays where the rider can change hourse 5 or 10 or 38 times a day, or one rider owning multiple horses which he can alternate between.

If the mounted travel rules takes into account the stats of the mounts (HT, FP, Fit/Unfit or not, Move and Enhanced Move) then it becomes much easier to produce non-GM-dependent answers about how high-quality mounts differ from normal-quality mounts (including attempting to answer how much more a high-quyality mount would cost compared to a normal-quality mount - yes I know the core books answers this, but if Low-Tech changes the mounted travel rules then the cost multiplier for Fine/Very Fine mounts should perhaps also change).

Also makes it a lot easier to provide non-GM-dependent answers to questions about what various spells, powers and permanent magics do to horses.

For instance, it is my understanding that real-world horses cannot have Very Fit; only humans and a very few other mammals (such as canines) can. So what would the consequence be, in terms of travel performance, if a horse is magically granted Very Fit?

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by aesir23

Personally, I'm looking forward to a treatment of different weapon materials, how is a TL 2 Iron Broadsword different from a TL 3 Steel Broadsword. Just how much better is Obsidian to Flint?

One approach to RPG design is that it isn't so important what the sword is made of, whether it is iron or steel, but what the final quality is, e.g. in terms of GURPS' Poor, Good, Fine or Very Fine. It is simply that making a better sword is easier if you have steel to work with than if you only have iron, and much harder if you are trying to do it with silver.

Information abuot what material the sword is made of should of course still be kept, because it may have social or supernatural consequences, e.g. if you visit a culture where they don't know about steel making, or if some monsters can take half damage from steel but full damage from iron. My point is just that the material won't necessarily have any game-mechanical consequences for the owner - it already had its consequences, when the sword was made.


That's one take on the interaction of metal and weaponmaking, but I'm actually not sure whether it is the best.