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Old 04-12-2017, 03:18 AM   #91
Boomerang
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#39): Daredevil, Luck, Super Luck

Quote:
Originally Posted by KarlKost View Post
I see. So, you simply don't play "realism". And no, you don't need to be a veteran soldier to face such odds. Spies and gangsters face similar odds too. So do super heroes, supernatural characters, and sure, cinematic heroes.

You are NOT really a fan of "realism". You are a fan of low violence realism. Yeah. Its fine to play duelist gentlemen during Victorian Age that fight under strictly codes of honor. But don't say that this is "realism", because it doesn't encompass all the wide range that realism may encompass. In fact, your "solution" of using ONLY low violence, is not unlike using GM cheating to keep the PC alive. For example, while it is all fair to have your players dueling against equally honorable oponents, a single thug with a broken bottle and no honor could make a premature end of the career of your players.

You basically are rulling out a street fight between gangsters in a mortal fight, youre ruling out from your games the spy infiltrating the sovietic base, you are rulling out the soldier fighting th spacial battle, you are ruling out the mage facing the Dragon. Thats not really realism.
I think it is fine to have a different opinion but it is not fine to accuse someone of "GM cheating".
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Old 04-12-2017, 03:55 AM   #92
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#39): Daredevil, Luck, Super Luck

<Moderator>
Okay... EVERYONE. Step back and take a breath.

Among other things, the concept of accusing someone of GM Cheating is coming very close to personal attack territory. Drop that line please.

After that, everyone come back after a few breaths and remember to stay civil.

Thank you.
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Old 04-12-2017, 06:50 AM   #93
Celjabba
 
Join Date: Sep 2006
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#39): Daredevil, Luck, Super Luck

Regarding gameplay mechanics : I use tokens for luck and other time-constricted advantages. One 5 hours session : 5 tokens for luck. (or a small whiteboard with the number of uses of luck, serendipity, forethough, gizmo, destiny points, wildcard points, ... listed).
With a limitation against using more than one on a single "action" or "scene".
It cut down on the headaches, especially if a player have severals separate luck advantages, some of them aspected, and avoid time-delaying tactics to wait for luck ...

Regarding the advantages themselves:

For me, at least one level of Luck is almost mandatory for a character.

For the same reason that I prefer character-point free build system instead of 'old-school' random creation :
it give some control to the player over their character fate, inside the constraints of the game system and the settings rules.

One level of Gurps Luck give the player the option of choosing when their character will shine, what will be a remenbered moment ..
sometimes even more if the action still fail despites using luck !
Some players will keep it in reserve for critical attack rolls, some will concentrate on defenses, other will use luck on futile/mundane actions that nonetheless define their character ...
I never found it unbalancing : it doesn't guarantee success if the odds are bad enough.
It does guarantee that a player that don't spend it on success will rarely suffer from critical failure. I don't find it a bad thing.
And, contrary to spending a destiny point to guarantee a result, it still keep some randomness.

For me, it is not a "character" trait, it is a meta-advantage in the player hands.

More than one level is something else. It define a character, and in a "realistic" game, it may well be be excessive.
It may represent a "lucky" character but I also strongly advise player that have spend a significant amount of point in a skill to buy aspected luck for it (at a huge discount, houserule) : it represent real mastery of a skill, the ability to avoid mistake and compensate for unusual situation, instead of "luck".

I never had a character with Daredevil, either mine or in a game I ran.

I had a couple characters with super-luck.
One as a probability-oriented super, who used it to good effect. As the GM in that game, I did not found it unbalancing.
The other as part of an AA set of magic powers. I (the player) never got to use it.
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Old 04-12-2017, 07:15 AM   #94
Leeland
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#39): Daredevil, Luck, Super Luck

One thing i would like to do with luck:
Buy it only for a Talent-Group.

What would be the apropriate discount in your opinion?
Luck (only for skills of the Outdoorsman-Talent)

Also, do you think it matters (gives further discount) if you have the apropriate Talent?
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Old 04-12-2017, 07:54 AM   #95
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#39): Daredevil, Luck, Super Luck

(EDIT: Removed post as it continues a verboten tangent. --PK)

Last edited by PK; 04-12-2017 at 03:01 PM.
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Old 04-12-2017, 08:02 AM   #96
KarlKost
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#39): Daredevil, Luck, Super Luck

Quote:
Originally Posted by Leeland View Post
One thing i would like to do with luck:
Buy it only for a Talent-Group.

What would be the apropriate discount in your opinion?
Luck (only for skills of the Outdoorsman-Talent)

Also, do you think it matters (gives further discount) if you have the apropriate Talent?
A single skill would be -80%, so, all the skills under a Talent probably would be between 40-60%, GM Fiat.

And I as a GM would require the player to have the Talent
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Old 04-12-2017, 08:38 AM   #97
Leynok
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#39): Daredevil, Luck, Super Luck

Quote:
Originally Posted by Celjabba View Post
Regarding gameplay mechanics : I use tokens for luck and other time-constricted advantages. One 5 hours session : 5 tokens for luck. (or a small whiteboard with the number of uses of luck, serendipity, forethough, gizmo, destiny points, wildcard points, ... listed).
With a limitation against using more than one on a single "action" or "scene".
It cut down on the headaches, especially if a player have severals separate luck advantages, some of them aspected, and avoid time-delaying tactics to wait for luck ...
My group gets around this rather easily. Since we play online and have an open chat through Skype, we can easily type in the message room "Luck!" which gives us a time stamp which we can easily look up how long it's been since our last use. If the game goes on pause though, the GM does need to keep track of how long the break is, since Luck only recharges through game time.

I wouldn't let players have multiple Lucks though. I might let them buy base Luck unmodified and then say the next level Aspected, so if they use an Aspected roll, then it recharges faster, but 1 a player at most.
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Old 04-12-2017, 08:55 AM   #98
whswhs
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#39): Daredevil, Luck, Super Luck

Quote:
Originally Posted by Leeland View Post
One thing i would like to do with luck:
Buy it only for a Talent-Group.

What would be the apropriate discount in your opinion?
Luck (only for skills of the Outdoorsman-Talent)

Also, do you think it matters (gives further discount) if you have the apropriate Talent?
That's in RAW: it's called Aspected and it's -20%.
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Old 04-12-2017, 10:47 AM   #99
martinl
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#39): Daredevil, Luck, Super Luck

I looked around and there doesn't seem to be a table for "3d6 three times, take smallest total" available anywhere. I cheated (didn't do the math, just ran a histogram of 50k trials) out a little table for discussion though:

Code:
Value   Chance  CumChance
3	1.5%	1.5%
4	4.1%	5.5%
5	7.8%	13.3%
6	11.9%	25.2%
7	16.0%	41.2%
8	18.4%	59.6%
9	16.1%	75.7%
10	12.0%	87.8%
11	7.1%	94.9%
12	3.5%	98.4%
13	1.3%	99.7%
14	0.3%	99.9%
15	0.1%	100.0%
16	0.0%	100.0%
It looks like a reliable way to avoid crit fails, but about 5% or rolls will still be worse than average for 3d6 flat.

I also did a thread in 2013 about how much Luck improves things if you do it "choose to use it after the first roll" style (very common IME). The rough conclusion is that if you already rolled an 8 or less, Luck is unlikely to help much.
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Old 04-12-2017, 11:12 AM   #100
Celjabba
 
Join Date: Sep 2006
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#39): Daredevil, Luck, Super Luck

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
That's in RAW: it's called Aspected and it's -20%.
But since aspected (skills only,-20%) is valid, I and others houserule more restricting aspect.
That said, for aspected(one large talent), I would not go further than -25% or perhaps -30% so that it actually change something.
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