Appeal to SJG

[giant.robot]

Originally Posted by David Johansen

One of the reasons I drifted from GURPS to Rolemaster Standard System was that it was harder for players to build a useless character there. The system does more to focus character design. Even so, I have this one player who could build a useless character in TWERPS.

The biggest problem I find with balancing encounters is breaking the D&D mindset. If your players see an army coming they should be thinking of other ways to approach the problem, not thinking of it as a head on combat encounter.

I suspect the converse is true, with Gamemasters who set up everything as a combat encounter and lack the flexability to allow the players to seek alternative solutions.

I think these are situations where a GM's tips and tricks book would be really useful, something like a GM's FAQ. Hypothetical but likely situations where there's listed several potential routes for the GM to take or to offer up to the players. The players can of course do whatever they allow but an advice item along the lines of:

The PCs are facing what will be overwhelming odds and you don't want to see them killed off yet.

1) Have the PCs make perception checks to notice a path to sneak around the oncoming horde.
2) Offer the PCs a strategic retreat.
3) etc.

With a decently written table of contents and a thoughtful index I think such a book (or PDF) could be really helpful to GMs. Getting away from D&D tropes can be difficult for a lot of players as they're often most familiar with them and have internalized them. I think games like GURPS have to go the extra mile to retrain players. Even advice like "combat doesn't need to occur just because the characters can see the enemies."

[cmdicely]

Originally Posted by Xplo

IIRC D&D 3.x had a substantial list of guidelines in the DMG for things like:

- how many HD a creature should have to face a party at a given power level
- how much armor a creature with a given number of HD should have
- how much damage it should do
- how many special/magical attacks it should have
- what its saves should be
- how much treasure it should have
- how much XP it was worth

I suppose he wants something like that.

D&D had a very specific focus and set of assumptions on genre, playstyle, character advancement, campaign pacing, and range of character variation built into both the rules and marketing of the game that make it possible to give guidelines like that. GURPS, by design, does not have a narrow focus on any of those points.

[dgrm4]

Originally Posted by Kromm

What these cases all have in common is the "human factor," which no system can really plan around. Since I got into this hobby in 1979, I have seen more fights decided by the "human factor" than by stats! The real secret to balancing encounters isn't in the numbers at all. It's in the psychology of knowing your fellow gamers and the willingness to adapt stats on the fly to the fluid conditions of a roleplaying session.

My professional opinion is that a book on GM advice would be more useful than a monster-design system to the overwhelming majority of gaming groups that have trouble balancing encounters. If you understand how to run a game, then you can balance three accountants against Grendel. If you don't, then you can get the Three Musketeers and d'Artagnan, too, killed fighting rats in a barn.

Based on this logic then why have any rules at all? I mean, aren't our players going to hoze things up regardless of all the rules we create? The best advice either written or verbal to give GMS is this "RUN AS MANY GAMES AS YOU CAN". Experience is the best teacher.

As far as a monster system I would suggest that you create it assuming that everyone involved will be decent tacticians...use a middle of the road approach when descerning difficulty. For the extremes you mentioned, that is in the GMs hands to handle his group accordingly.

[cmdicely]

Originally Posted by dgrm4

Before you discontinue the GURPS hardbacks...could you find it in your hearts to release 2 more?

1. Monsters/Creatures. Catalog of many many creatures and also a Gurps system on how to build our own.

GURPS -- in the Basic Set alone, though Powers in particular may be useful for more guidance and options for the basic ads/disads/modifiers system -- has the components you need to make your own monsters, and GURPS Space has a system -- nominally for aliens -- that's reasonably good if you are stuck for inspiration and just want to roll-up (via random tables) some creatures to use (either as-is or as starting points for your own designs.)

[Grouchy Chris]

Originally Posted by dgrm4

Based on this logic then why have any rules at all? I mean, aren't our players going to hoze things up regardless of all the rules we create?

Of course they are. But "preventing unexpected player choices from leading to unexpected outcomes" is not the purpose of rules.

As far as a monster system I would suggest that you create it assuming that everyone involved will be decent tacticians...use a middle of the road approach when descerning difficulty. For the extremes you mentioned, that is in the GMs hands to handle his group accordingly.

Have you seen Mailanka's extensive notes on monster creation for DF?

[Gizensha]

Originally Posted by cmdicely

GURPS -- in the Basic Set alone, though Powers in particular may be useful for more guidance and options for the basic ads/disads/modifiers system -- has the components you need to make your own monsters, and GURPS Space has a system -- nominally for aliens -- that's reasonably good if you are stuck for inspiration and just want to roll-up (via random tables) some creatures to use (either as-is or as starting points for your own designs.)

...And wind up with a foraging herbivore with radial symmetry, primary locomotion of brachiation, and 10 limbs.

...If you're lucky.

(No, no. Love Space. Love the alien design system in space, and the random tables... But by gods when I'm using it straight do I get some utterly insane results)

[cmdicely]

Originally Posted by Sunrunners_Fire

I'd like a system that is designed to help create balanced opponents.

Generic rules for creating "balanced opponents" are fundamentally impossible. D&D 3.x had some rules which did perhaps a tolerable job for encounter balance for a very narrow range of assumptions of party size, possible combinations of character and monster traits, how people would interact with and be threatened by opponents, what equipment was available, etc.

For GURPS, which is designed to support a much wider array of options than D&D in all of these areas, it would be impractical to do such a thing.

[Anaraxes]

the "human factor," which no system can really plan around

This would be useful advice for the monster design guidelines. I won't say "system", because I agree you're not going to get ironclad guarantees out of any RPG. D&D is the best example, and even there our DM would have to modify the number of creatures +/-50% or so, and sometimes pull his punches tactically to avoid a TPK -- or on the flip side, invent arbitrary reinforcements or whatnot to wind up at the desired point. Even games with a "system" depend on consideration of the actual party and on-the-fly adjustments by the GM.

Explaining exactly that, along with some Nymdok-style guidelines, would be useful to a lot of people, I think. To some people, it seems obvious that you should compare the expected damage from the monster to the PC's DR and HP to get some idea of how long it's going to take to kill them, and vice versa. To others, that's not obvious at all, and it might help to have a "rule" in the "design system" that says exactly that.

It's never going to be as easy as "total the party CP and multiply by 0.87", but the path might be made smoother.

[Gizensha]

Originally Posted by cmdicely

Generic rules for creating "balanced opponents" are fundamentally impossible. D&D 3.x had some rules which did perhaps a tolerable job for encounter balance for a very narrow range of assumptions of party size, possible combinations of character and monster traits, how people would interact with and be threatened by opponents, what equipment was available, etc.

For GURPS, which is designed to support a much wider array of options than D&D in all of these areas, it would be impractical to do such a thing.

To us a quick analogy... Chess variant creators have so far been unable to figure out a way of coming up with an automated (i.e. by taking a function of movement and capturing ability to assign a piece a 'value') way of creating two balanced, but different, chess armies - Even assuming an 8x8 board and every piece that captures captures by replacement. GURPS is several orders of magnitude more complex.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

]To some people, it seems obvious that you should compare the expected damage from the monster to the PC's DR and HP to get some idea of how long it's going to take to kill them, and vice versa. To others, that's not obvious at all, and it might help to have a "rule" in the "design system" that says exactly that.

Ah... in which case, mentioning the opponents' HT is also important: creatures with high HT often wind up getting taken taken to -5*HP and thus auto-killed before they fail a HT roll and pass out, while lower HT creatures will often oblige you by collapsing rather sooner.