01-01-2017, 11:05 AM | #51 |
Join Date: Feb 2009
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Re: Octopus Carnival - GURPS Content Posts
Your right, there it is, my bad
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01-03-2017, 05:45 AM | #52 |
Join Date: Jul 2009
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Re: Octopus Carnival - GURPS Content Posts
My first post in 2017 is something a little different from the usual: a detailed post-mortem on a campaign I ran that ended in 2016. It was called X-COM: Noises in the Dark.
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01-03-2017, 09:50 AM | #53 |
Join Date: Feb 2009
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Re: Octopus Carnival - GURPS Content Posts
No mass carnage of PCs?
I loved X-Com hugely, and one of the things that was most vivid is the brutal battle of attrition at times combat, and deciding what unit you would send through the door first knowing he would probably die a horrid death Well, also remembering that laser pistols couldn't break power armor so I used them on the rare occasions I used armor to avoid death by mind control The fact high end armor required Elerium 115 and hiring new soldiers didn't made for a brutal calculus |
01-03-2017, 12:51 PM | #54 |
Join Date: Jul 2009
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Re: Octopus Carnival - GURPS Content Posts
The pre-game decision that would have led to mass PC carnage would be choosing Mr. Smiley as Commander. His recruiting philosophy would have lead to 150-point PCs against the same enemies, which would not go well even with NPC squad members acting as a "redshirt buffer".
It also helped that they made sound tactical decisions at the right times - the missions had several potential TPK spots in them. |
01-03-2017, 12:53 PM | #55 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Saskatoon, SK, Canada
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Re: Octopus Carnival - GURPS Content Posts
We lucked out on the missions, it's true (I was playing Kendall). I like to think we also used good tactics, but we definitely lucked out.
Quote:
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01-03-2017, 12:58 PM | #56 |
Join Date: Jul 2009
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Re: Octopus Carnival - GURPS Content Posts
The enemies at that last close-quarters firefight in Dubai had blaster pistols, so you definitely lucked out on that one. Our poor Russian NPC squad members took most of the fire on that one and were into single-digit negative HP by the end.
The White Masks, AKA Elite Puppets, also had armor that your rifles couldn't penetrate except on a very lucky damage roll, along with high-cyclic burst ETC firearms. You wisely decided not to engage in a protracted firefight with them. Last edited by Bira; 01-03-2017 at 01:02 PM. |
01-03-2017, 01:44 PM | #57 |
Join Date: Feb 2009
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Re: Octopus Carnival - GURPS Content Posts
The redshirt buffer is a classic X-Com tactic
What sort of guns skill were you looking at? I have a hard time imagining X-Com combat in GURPS, where in the same mission soldiers can both 1 shot an enemy 10 screens away they can't even see and miss an enemy in an adjacent square |
01-03-2017, 01:49 PM | #58 |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Saskatoon, SK, Canada
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Re: Octopus Carnival - GURPS Content Posts
By the end of it, I had Guns (Longarms and Pistols) in the 12 range, but Kendall was never supposed to be a great gunman - he was the tech specialist, and if you had to put him into one of the X-COM classes, he'd be a Support. I was buying up my Throwing, and if the game had gone on longer, I was planning on asking for some nifty grenade types to toss about.
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01-03-2017, 01:50 PM | #59 |
Join Date: Jul 2009
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Re: Octopus Carnival - GURPS Content Posts
The Commanders referenced two classic X-COM tactics: Mr. Fox was the "have a core of super badass soldiers and sack anyone who doesn't make the cut" guy, and Mr. Smiley was the "redshirt buffer" guy.
Our PCs had gun skills in the 12 to 18 range, tough only Minette approached the higher end. The 12 was Kendall's, with the others hovering around the 14 mark. IIRC, Valenkov had a 20, but no one ever ended up playing him. Someone would choose him as a PC in a re-recruitment round and would proceed to drop from the game soon after the group's composition was canonized in the IC thread. So he ended up being an NPC most of the time. |
01-04-2017, 06:07 PM | #60 |
Join Date: Jul 2009
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Re: Octopus Carnival - GURPS Content Posts
Today I finally complete my series of Pathfinder Iconic conversions! Check out Ezren the Wizard.
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