Converting Twilight 2000 for use with GURPS 4e

[Erling]

Originally Posted by Z09SS

I did not consider armor as dice. I didn't even know how that worked until just the other day and I still haven't made up my mind about the concept yet.

For the most part I tried to keep it stock GURPS 4e.

Armor as Dice is an official optional rule, so it's "stock" in some sense. BTW, have you checked this thread? It provides explanation for some facts in HT:

Originally Posted by HANS

GURPS DR is always average. This has been RAW since forever, and has discussed on this forum numerous times.

Armour-piercing projectiles with a steel core are AP, not APHC (High-Tech, p. 167)

Cheers

HANS

Originally Posted by Langy

The average damage of a firearm in GURPS is based on the amount of material its bullets can penetrate. This isn't based on max damage because bullet penetration is pretty consistent. Thus, DR needs to be based on the average amount of damage rather than max in order to be on the same scale.

Unfortunately, this does lead to times when bullets will penetrate higher DR than is realistic, but this can be worked around by imagining that those bullets went through weaker parts of the vest or something. Alternatively, use the Armor as Dice optional rule. EDIT: Note that it's now an official optional rule, not just a house rule, as it was printed in Pyramid a while back.

Before I had read this thread I thought that DR 35 armor in HT was meant to be NIJ level III (35/2 equals average damage from 5.56mm), but now I see it was meant to be NIJ level IV if you take AP x0.7 damage modifier into account. It's not very important, though, as DR remains average anyway and it still can be penetrated by a round which realistically can't make it through, so switching back to APHC and raising NIJ IV to DR 50 doesn't make any significant change.

What's more important, there are several ways to make penetration more deterministic:
1) Raise DR dramatically;
2) Add Hardened enhancement (your choice);
3) Options from Pyramid 3#/34, such as Armor as Dice and lowering basic damage variability.

The reason I'm suggesting Armor as Dice is its capability of making penetration deterministic while keeping DR simple. Armor divisors works well this optional rule too. Also there's an option which turns soft ballistic armor into "all or nothing" thing: if a vest is capable of stopping the round, it will stop it, otherwise it can do very little to mitigate the injury (which is quite realistic I guess).

Armor as Dice really helps with realistic TL8 campaigns. I would bring it into my early-TL9 games too, but since everybody tends to sport near-full body armor on this tech level, deterministic penetration would bog down a game a little bit.

[hal]

The one thing I have always hated about GURPS bullet damage is that for those rounds that do multiple dice of damage, you can never get a grazing attack for exactly 1 point of damage against unarmored individuals. A bullet that passes through the arm's muscles only - shouldn't be doing 7 points of damage for a weapon that does 5d+2 damage as the bare minimum of damage.

Back in the day when I had worked out a method for damage before GURPS HIGH TECH first edition came out, and only had the AFTERMATH rules to adapt for use with GURPS, I had a max damage value for bullets, and used dice like 1d60 for a .50 caliber round. It was a simple process to roll 1d6 as the tens dice, and 1d10 for the one's dice. Rolling (1d6-1)*10 plus 1d10 gave me a range from 1 to 60 points without a problem.

Alternatively, rolling percentile dice x max damage will provide for a range of damage from 1 to max damage as well.

Problem is, no one feels like creating a simple index card that lists the weapon damage, and a percentile table that cross references what is roll with the damage value. Works fast, and simply enough.

The large part of why it hardly ever comes up in my campaigns is the simple truth that we rarely, as a group, played in modern campaigns with military weapons and largely used only civilian handguns for the types of campaigns we did do (Modern Fantasy for the most part).

If TWILIGHT 2000's game system were supported by Fantasy Grounds 2 (FG2), I'd likely simply use THAT system instead of GURPS. There are some things I like about GURPS, and some things I like about T2K (last used by my group for Traveller: The New Era). The Damage methodology for GURPS is one fo the things I dislike unfortunately.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by hal

The one thing I have always hated about GURPS bullet damage is that for those rounds that do multiple dice of damage, you can never get a grazing attack for exactly 1 point of damage against unarmored individuals. A bullet that passes through the arm's muscles only - shouldn't be doing 7 points of damage for a weapon that does 5d+2 damage as the bare minimum of damage.

Back in the day when I had worked out a method for damage before GURPS HIGH TECH first edition came out, and only had the AFTERMATH rules to adapt for use with GURPS, I had a max damage value for bullets, and used dice like 1d60 for a .50 caliber round. It was a simple process to roll 1d6 as the tens dice, and 1d10 for the one's dice. Rolling 1d6-1*1 plus 1d10 gave me a range from 1 to 60 points without a problem.

Alternatively, rolling percentile dice x max damage will provide for a range of damage from 1 to max damage as well.

Problem is, no one feels like creating a simple index card that lists the weapon damage, and a percentile table that cross references what is roll with the damage value. Works fast, and simply enough.

The large part of why it hardly ever comes up in my campaigns is the simple truth that we rarely, as a group, played in modern campaigns with military weapons and largely used only civilian handguns for the types of campaigns we did do (Modern Fantasy for the most part).

If TWILIGHT 2000's game system were supported by Fantasy Grounds 2 (FG2), I'd likely simply use THAT system instead of GURPS. There are some things I like about GURPS, and some things I like about T2K (last used by my group for Traveller: The New Era). The Damage methodology for GURPS is one fo the things I dislike unfortunately.

Wouldn't part of the problem of doing it like that mean you end up with very swingy results i.e you're are as likely to get 1pt, 20pt and 60pts of damage in that example.


Currently a .50 in GURPS does 7dx2 so a range of 14-84 with an average of 49 but there's a significant bell curve there. (48.5% of results will be between 44 and 54)

But I agree with you regarding grazing, however I suggest a grazing house rule were in a situation you deem a gaze is the result have much reduced amount of damage (I think there one in a T-Bone's Pyramid article in alternative GURPS I)

[Z09SS]

Originally Posted by hal

The one thing I have always hated about GURPS

SNIP

If TWILIGHT 2000's game system were supported by Fantasy Grounds 2 (FG2), I'd likely simply use THAT system instead of GURPS.

SNIP

Considering this thread is specifically about converting Twilight 2000 to GURPS 4e... I think you're in the wrong place. Just sayin'.

On armor as dice, for my conversion I tried to stick to the rules as written and skip as much optional rules as I could. The straight game, as it were.

I might end up making an alternate conversion rule set with dice as armor. I didn't like quadratic strength when I first read it either, now that I've seen how it plays I'm more comfortable with it. I'd have to play a live game or two with the dice as armor rules to see if I like the taste of it.

Mr Cole's rules on the topic are compelling, especially with how soft armors behave.

[hal]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

Wouldn't part of the problem of doing it like that mean you end up with very swingy results i.e you're are as likely to get 1pt, 20pt and 60pts of damage in that example.


Currently a .50 in GURPS does 7dx2 so a range of 14-84 with an average of 49 but there's a significant bell curve there. (48.5% of results will be between 44 and 54)

But I agree with you regarding grazing, however I suggest a grazing house rule were in a situation you deem a gaze is the result have much reduced amount of damage (I think there one in a T-Bone's Pyramid article in alternative GURPS I)

Then we have the issue of "Why is 1d6 acceptable for a steel blade with a length of 36" swung by a normal strength man, but a straight distribution of damage from a bullet measuring more than 1 dice is supposed to have a bell curve? Shouldn't ALL weapons have a bell curve? We could for instance, have sword strikes that do 1 to 6 points of damage, but are graded according to 2d6 divided by 2 in order to get a bell curve of 1 to 6 points (and if we round either way, the bell curve will either get 3 or 4 points as average damage).

So, I'm not sure how to answer your question about "swingy" (no pun intended). If it is possible to inflict 1 point of damage and deem it to be "normal" for a sword strike for instance, or a spear thrust, or an arrow strike - why wouldn't 1 point be acceptable for a bullet that under normal rules does 2d or 2d+1? Heck, we can have weapons inflict ZERO points of damage in GURPS, but it isn't consistent across the board.

What would in reality, be a zero point bullet wound? Suppose I fired at you (not that I'd do it in real life!!!) with a rifle from nearly point blank range? Suppose too, that the path of the bullet were such that it barely grazed your skin but hit at the perfect angle to be deflected by your rib cage bone AWAY from your body, but tore off a patch of skin that measured at most 1mm long by 2mm wide. Raw, and will bleed a LITTLE - but not directly important in the grand scheme of things.

Is that 1 point of damage or zero points? GURPS doesn't really say. In GURPS COMPENDIUM (GURPS CLASSIC) there were definitions of what comprised a 2 point wound, or a serious wound etc - but what specifically are examples of each type of wounding by points?

So, I'm going to just leave it at the concept that if it is possible to have zero point woundings in GURPS for some weapons, bullets should at the very least be capable of inflicting zero point wounds. A miss by 1 for instance might be deemed to always be a graze wounding for bullets. A bullet that strikes EXACTLY with what was needed to hit, might always do ONE point of damage, while bullets that hit by 2 or more needed to hit, roll for the full normal random damage. But then we get into the philosophical question of why do 1d6 damage weapons follow a random arc where each damage possibility is equal to the rest, but all over attacks in excess of 1d6 with multiple dice go on a bell curve? (mind you, I'm not talking about game design philosophy so much as inherent meaning of WHY some attack types are bell curve and some are linear - they are contradictory and seeming without resolution on a philosophical level).

[hal]

Originally Posted by Z09SS

Considering this thread is specifically about converting Twilight 2000 to GURPS 4e... I think you're in the wrong place. Just sayin'.

On armor as dice, for my conversion I tried to stick to the rules as written and skip as much optional rules as I could. The straight game, as it were.

I might end up making an alternate conversion rule set with dice as armor. I didn't like quadratic strength when I first read it either, now that I've seen how it plays I'm more comfortable with it. I'd have to play a live game or two with the dice as armor rules to see if I like the taste of it.

Mr Cole's rules on the topic are compelling, especially with how soft armors behave.

So noted and I will behave... ;)

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by hal

Then we have the issue of "Why is 1d6 acceptable for a steel blade with a length of 36" swung by a normal strength man, but a straight distribution of damage from a bullet measuring more than 1 dice is supposed to have a bell curve?

To be honest I was really just referencing the point that bullet penetration is known to centre around mid point in real life.

Also the logical construction if X isn't right then why worry about Y, doesn't really work. It would be great for both to be right of course but second to that is having one be right. Rather than making the more correct match the more wrong one?

That assumes that hand held weapon penetration follows the same distribution pattern as bullets (it might well, but there less work on that because the variables are harder to identify and evaluate).


And on top of that you have the point of the larger context of what those numbers represents in absolute terms for playing GURPS. Yes 1d6 is indeed swingy but the highest and lowest differ from the mid point by 2-3 points. Certainly enough for an effect, but in comparison to the much larger one for 14-84 its smaller.

Also most hand held weapons are actually not just Xd but rather Xd+Y which reduces the proportional spread

Originally Posted by hal

Shouldn't ALL weapons have a bell curve? We could for instance, have sword strikes that do 1 to 6 points of damage, but are graded according to 2d6 divided by 2 in order to get a bell curve of 1 to 6 points (and if we round either way, the bell curve will either get 3 or 4 points as average damage).

You could certainly do that

Originally Posted by hal

So, I'm not sure how to answer your question about "swingy" (no pun intended). If it is possible to inflict 1 point of damage and deem it to be "normal" for a sword strike for instance, or a spear thrust, or an arrow strike - why wouldn't 1 point be acceptable for a bullet that under normal rules does 2d or 2d+1?

I agree but it wasn't a point I was contesting, just your chosen method will have knock on effects elsewhere.

Originally Posted by hal

Heck, we can have weapons inflict ZERO points of damage in GURPS, but it isn't consistent across the board.

Well it's consistent if you accept the rules premise about the exception

Originally Posted by hal

What would in reality, be a zero point bullet wound? Suppose I fired at you (not that I'd do it in real life!!!) with a rifle from nearly point blank range? Suppose too, that the path of the bullet were such that it barely grazed your skin but hit at the perfect angle to be deflected by your rib cage bone AWAY from your body, but tore off a patch of skin that measured at most 1mm long by 2mm wide. Raw, and will bleed a LITTLE - but not directly important in the grand scheme of things.

Is that 1 point of damage or zero points? GURPS doesn't really say. In GURPS COMPENDIUM (GURPS CLASSIC) there were definitions of what comprised a 2 point wound, or a serious wound etc - but what specifically are examples of each type of wounding by points?

So, I'm going to just leave it at the concept that if it is possible to have zero point woundings in GURPS for some weapons, bullets should at the very least be capable of inflicting zero point wounds. A miss by 1 for instance might be deemed to always be a graze wounding for bullets. A bullet that strikes EXACTLY with what was needed to hit, might always do ONE point of damage, while bullets that hit by 2 or more needed to hit, roll for the full normal random damage. But then we get into the philosophical question of why do 1d6 damage weapons follow a random arc where each damage possibility is equal to the rest, but all over attacks in excess of 1d6 with multiple dice go on a bell curve? (mind you, I'm not talking about game design philosophy so much as inherent meaning of WHY some attack types are bell curve and some are linear - they are contradictory and seeming without resolution on a philosophical level).

I agree these are all good questions and there is a discussion the be had about what wounds means what at the lower end of the scale. As I said above there are some published graze rules out there that address these questions as well.

But again I'm not sure the trade off benefits for rolling 1d6 x 1d10 in order to give you a 1.67% chance of doing 1 damage is worth the knock on effects mentioned.

It pretty much know that GURPS tends to give some odd results at the very low end of the scale (ask any any house cat who usually does 1d-5 damage but then chooses to do an AoA Strong)!


I should add your should look at the armour as dice options and alternate damage rules in Pyramid, you migt find something you like.

[Z09SS]

As far as some of the armor values I chose go, I selected the maximum damage the round could do because the specs for the armor demanded zero penetration at muzzle velocity with a 90˚ impact angle.

That's pretty much the worst case for the target.

For any ranged weapon your velocity is constantly dropping the entire time of flight and we don't even get into complications as the angle of impact can differ a lot at long ranges from the line of sight because you're arcing the round. It's called a ballistic arc... ;)

Modeling damage can be epically complex. There's folks who've taken "obviously" mortal wounds who are still walking around today. There's dead people who sustained apparently trivial injuries.

Even assuming you come up with a simple system that perfectly models real world injury, is it something your players will come back for? Getting killed is discouraging if you have to report to character generation too often.

Gaming is supposed to be entertainment! You know, fun?

I live in the real world and I do my damnedest to not get stabbed, slashed or shot. Bet everyone else here does too! But when we make worlds and characters, we jump into the fray in a manner that makes Medal of Honor winners look like craven cowards.

Getting your character killed realistically isn't fun for long.

[Tessen]

Hello there,

I'd really like to see your T2K to gurps file if you could post it to iron_sight@zoho that would be most appreciated.

Thanks


Thanks for your quick response I thought I'd be waiting ages until my message came up on your radar!.

com...guv?...Ah yes of course I get what you're on about.

Could you please send it to iron_sight@zoho.com OR gods.disco@gmail.com that would be most appreciated.

[Z09SS]

Dot com? Dot net? Dot gov? ;)