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Old 11-17-2017, 03:29 PM   #11
JoelSammallahti
 
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Default Re: GURPS 40K RP conversions

Ultra-Tech and other GURPS scifi supplements try to keep within shouting distance of realism, and Warhammer straight up doesn't give a hoot.

If I were doing this, I would throw out all the Basic Set and Ultra-Tech stats for guns and post-TL4 armor. I'd make up my own stats for the more common guns on the basis of how they compare with melee weapons in the 40k RPGs and the miniature rules. Power fists, chainswords, power armor etc. likewise; I might look into treating special tech like that as magical enchantments.

And I'd consciously keep all the numbers pretty modest, so characters with exceptional personal abilities could still shine even against superior gear. Like, a run-of-the-mill gun would do 2d pi, and a bolter would do maybe 2d+2 pi+. Enough for the players to get excited but not enough for the latter to completely invalidate defenses that work against the former, or to discourage the ST 20 space marine or the ST 15 ork from pulling out a sword or choppa when the enemy gets close.

And, yeah, 2d pi for a military weapon from a spacefaring future sounds absolutely ridiculous considering TL6 pistols do more. But 40k and realism just don't go together.
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Old 11-17-2017, 04:30 PM   #12
mr beer
 
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Default Re: GURPS 40K RP conversions

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Originally Posted by Kfireblade View Post
Hmmmm I'm not sure how hes gonna feel about that suggestion. From a lot of what I have read the 40k community for the most part thinks that the weapons are far more powerful then that and this friend of mine is rather fund of some of the more extreme high end feats for pretty much everything in 40k
Of course that's fine too. If you want to go that way, build high end PCs, take what you want out of Ultratech without lowballing weapon effectiveness and give the PCs good kit. The net effect will be that they walk through armies of mooks but fighting equivalent enemies will be somewhat rocket tag. That still leaves melee weapons in the dust, so that will need some work.

As this thread implies, the way to convert 40K is decide on the feel you want and then build your setting to match that.
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Old 11-17-2017, 09:04 PM   #13
Maz
 
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Originally Posted by warellis View Post
But wouldn't using the novels be more appropriate?

It's like trying to do a GURPS WW2 game and then basing everything off of Medal of Honor or Call of Duty if you're going for the tabletop approach.

It just strikes me as a weird thing to do, not using the fluff or "actual effects" for a game.
Dark Heresy, The RPG follows the toned down approach.
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Old 11-17-2017, 09:32 PM   #14
Ashtagon
 
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Default Re: GURPS 40K RP conversions

Gw is notorious for creating highly partisan fluff. Orcslais routinely slaughter marines in the fluff from orc source books. Marines do the same to orcs in marine source book fluff. I take the view that fluff and novel are "some one in universe really wrote and or belives this". That doesn't mean it really works that way. It's mere propaganda.
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Old 11-18-2017, 02:19 PM   #15
warellis
 
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Gw is notorious for creating highly partisan fluff. Orcslais routinely slaughter marines in the fluff from orc source books. Marines do the same to orcs in marine source book fluff. I take the view that fluff and novel are "some one in universe really wrote and or belives this". That doesn't mean it really works that way. It's mere propaganda.
Does that mean you take "lasguns only have 6" of range because it's a tabletop game" as the truth then?

Oddly enough, tabletop games aren't able to quite show off how dangerous or deadly things can be. It's why in WW2 video games, rifles have a combat range of like 20 feet.

Last edited by warellis; 11-18-2017 at 02:22 PM.
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Old 11-18-2017, 02:34 PM   #16
AlexanderHowl
 
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Yeah, that is always a problem with video games. The later Fallout games tended to be more realistic, as I managed sniper shots at a quarter of a mile in Fallout 3.
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Old 11-18-2017, 05:12 PM   #17
Kfireblade
 
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Default Re: GURPS 40K RP conversions

I feel like I maybe wanna step away from this, because I tend to lean more towards the lower end of things here but the person in question I was helping is the opposite to a ridiculous extreme, (Like Imperator titans being hundreds of meters tall instead of about 50.) So i'm thinking that trying to involve myself here is gonna devolve to scub.
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Old 11-18-2017, 05:26 PM   #18
David Johnston2
 
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Originally Posted by warellis View Post
But wouldn't using the novels be more appropriate?
.
That depends. Do you want to retain melee weapons as a viable combat choice? Then you need ranged weapons to be kind of naff.
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Old 11-18-2017, 07:16 PM   #19
warellis
 
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That depends. Do you want to retain melee weapons as a viable combat choice? Then you need ranged weapons to be kind of naff.
Melee weapons in the novels are generally used at extremely close range during boarding operations, or for specialized assault marines. And various other species use equivalents like teleportation or superscience crazy biology to allow them to get in close enough that a pistol & melee weapon can be useful.

Powerfists are generally used during boarding operations to make new doors for example. They're heavy enough that Terminator armor is used with them during boarding operations because both armor and powerfist are generally considered too sluggish outside of really close quarters.

Terminator armor sensors are sort of interesting:
Quote:
Master of Sanctity by Gav Thorpe

He had fought in zero-gee vacuum, whirling from one starship to another on a grav-line, and taken the battle to enemies amidst swirling dust hurricanes and in the collapsing core of a hive, but Telemenus nevertheless had to fight back a wave of deep nausea as more data signals, targeter relay reticules and situational analysis symbols swam across his vision. The sensorium of the Terminator suit was even more sophisticated than his power armour’s auto-senses, feeding information not only via sight, smell, sound and touch, but directly interfacing via his black carapace implants to provide a three-hundred-and-sixty-degrees impression of the battlespace around him for up to half a kilometre. Added to that was the feed-link to the armour of his fellow Terminators, sub-displays showing their view, micro-channels conducting what came to their ears.

It was like two extra sets of eyes capable of radar, infra-red and ultraviolet; ears that could detect the sound of a bolt shell dropped onto cloth at fifty metres, powerful enough to use the reverberations for echo location; taste sensitive enough to pick up one part in a million for chemical and biological traces; boosted kinaesthetic and proprioceptors alerting him to the physical position of his armour as an outer skin and the relative attitude of his storm bolter and power fist; all combined with an artificial form of extra-sensory perception that tracked millitorrs of static and dynamic pressure differences as well as fluctuating luminosity, temperature and electromagnetic readings.

And if this sensory overload was not enough to contend with, making Telemenus feel as though he was blinded, disorientated and deafened whilst constantly and gently vibrating from head to toe, the tactical analysis data feeds and vox-network made it seem like there was a thousand counsellors alternately whispering and screaming at him with a host of occasionally relevant but often obscure or nonsensical advice.

Closing his eyes didn’t help this time, it simply made the neural feeds boost the other sense signals to compensate; a nice sub-doctrine of the armour to account for the fraction of a second whilst blinking and to allow him to fight whilst blinded. Telemenus desperately wanted to ask if there was some way to turn off some of the systems, perhaps filtering out half of them to allow his mind and body to adjust. He couldn’t ask, not without showing weakness in front of the others. He was mindful that Grand Master Belial had appeared on the observation gallery above the practice range moments before the Techmarines had activated the armour’s full suite of augmented systems.
Quote:
Armoured for battle he could crush a man's skull in his fist and punch through the armour of a tank. Hundreds of relays within the armour bolstered his already acute senses, feeding him a constant stream of information from extra senses, his specially developed brain assessing them all subconsciously as a normal man might look with his eyes and hear with his ears.

Boreas paused for a second and looked at the villagers who were gathering close by, the auto-senses of his skull helm casting a red tinge on the proceedings. Olfactory filters allowed him to identify the contents of the atmosphere - mostly oxygen and nitrogen, but with heavy traces of sulphur, carbon from the fires, the sweat of the villagers; all of this he took in without conscious effort.

Last edited by warellis; 11-18-2017 at 07:29 PM.
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Old 11-19-2017, 12:11 AM   #20
Ashtagon
 
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Default Re: GURPS 40K RP conversions

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Does that mean you take "lasguns only have 6" of range because it's a tabletop game" as the truth then?

Oddly enough, tabletop games aren't able to quite show off how dangerous or deadly things can be. It's why in WW2 video games, rifles have a combat range of like 20 feet.
I take those ranges to be the limits of effective accuracy. The actual projectile flies much farther,but loses accuracy beyond that point. Basically, by the 40k era, melee weapon technology became so advanced that there was no desire to restore/improve long range weapon tech.

Last edited by Ashtagon; 11-19-2017 at 01:26 AM.
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