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Old 04-21-2017, 02:57 PM   #31
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/102: Epic

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Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company View Post
Such as? Pyramid has always been the venue for experiments, alternatives, and things that wouldn't necessarily move into the mainstream (though some of them do), so that door has always been open.
Well, less 'Beer and Pretzel" stuff like Intrigue scenarios, or Realm Management. Although one alternative Dungeon Fantasy concept I'd like to explore is a version of the game where Divine Magic is removed, and just replaced with expanded Arcane Magic. Thus simulating settings like Elder Scrolls or Dragon Age.

Edit: Actually, after posting this, I remembered Dungeon Fantasy #17: Guilds, so there's actually a basic framework for intrigue and realm management scenarios using that book, so that's one thing covered. Even moreso if combined with GURPS Social Engineering, to turn the Party's Bard, Rogue and Cleric into social manipulators.

Although now I'm curious as to how one would go about simulating a Minecraft-style system in GURPS.

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Old 04-21-2017, 03:15 PM   #32
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/102: Epic

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Well, less 'Beer and Pretzel" stuff like Intrigue scenarios, or Realm Management.
I imagine Steven would welcome good articles on those topics, though "Goes To War" seems reasonably beer-and-prezelish itself. It's still about killing things and taking their stuff, just with a very large scale of killing.
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Old 04-21-2017, 03:57 PM   #33
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/102: Epic

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I imagine Steven would welcome good articles on those topics, though "Goes To War" seems reasonably beer-and-prezelish itself. It's still about killing things and taking their stuff, just with a very large scale of killing.
I'm currently running a GURPS Fantasy Mass Combat game that has elements of dungeon fantasy in it.

The biggest problem with running Mass Combat in a standard DF game is the scale of money. The sample Yrth force in Mass Combat (p 42) has a monthly maintenance of $332,000, so if the PCs have the cash flow to maintain troops, they have the cash flow to buy any mundane equipment they want. I've dealt with that in my game by just letting the PCs have whatever mundane equipment they want, but it would make things more complicated in a traditional loot focused DF game.
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Old 04-21-2017, 04:23 PM   #34
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/102: Epic

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Such as? Pyramid has always been the venue for experiments, alternatives, and things that wouldn't necessarily move into the mainstream (though some of them do), so that door has always been open.
To expand on that a bit . . .

Pyramid has been the Petri dish of GURPS for many years now (and Roleplayer served that role before then).

In general, like Vegas, what happens in Pyramid stays in Pyramid. This doesn't mean these ideas can't spill over into larger GURPSdom; it just means that things that are cool in Pyramid aren't necessarily standard practice for the rest of the line.

In this particular case, one of the central tenets of GURPS Dungeon Fantasy is that books are standalone; they can't reference GURPS books outside the series except the [url="http://www.warehouse23.com/products/SJG31-0001"]GURPS Basic Set and GURPS Magic. Thus, since Matt's article needs GURPS Mass Combat, it's a nonstarter to envision it as part of the core GURPS Dungeon Fantasy line.

Of course, long-time fans of the series know that we can bring in Cool Ideas from Pyramid. Perhaps the most germane example is how parts of GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 19: Incantation Magic previously appeared in Pyramid #3/43: Thaumatology III and Pyramid #3/66: The Laws of Magic.

Soooo . . . it's feasible that we'll someday have a version of GURPS Mass Combat that's pared down and designed specifically for GURPS Dungeon Fantasy. And that's especially true if lots and lots of folks buy copies of this issue and otherwise talk up how awesome that would be. :-)
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Old 04-22-2017, 11:51 AM   #35
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/102: Epic

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Well, to return to our primary topic, here's a little behind the scenes:

Of the ideas that went into Götterdämmerung, the one that makes me happiest is the Trained power modifier. This takes off from the remark in GURPS Powers that power modifiers can perfectly well work out to 0%. It has three components: a Nuisance Effect requirement for Maintenance of one session per week per ability, based on Teaching skill as used by one person (-5%); gradual fading of the ability if the requirement isn't met, too slow to endanger you (+5%); and a requirement for a week away from adventuring to regain neglected skills (+0%)—which works out to 0%.

The Basic Set equates an hour of formal instruction with two hours of self-study, so I thought it was legitimate to treat two sessions a week as equivalent.

What this is, is a PM for "super normals" like Zorro, the Lone Ranger, Batman, or Hawkeye. They have to train regularly, and the ones with lots of abilities have to do so almost constantly. If they slack off, they lose their edge, and then they have to work hard to get it back. This actually sort of approximates the way real training works, but fictional characters often don't seem to do it much. On the other hand, it works well to have a hero like Batman put in time keeping up his abilities.

The other aspect of this is that it doesn't make you superhuman; it makes you a super normal, with traits that put you at the high end of human ability. You can go a little past that with Special Training perks, but anything that's too steep for Special Training to cover is off limits.

Where other heroes of Götterdämmerung come from one or another of the submerged histories, a Trained hero could be a normal person who's just obsessed. Think about the second Hawkeye in Young Avengers, for example.

Anyway, that's what this particular gimmick is for. . . .
No offense, but this seems a bit overcomplicated to me. Why not just use the Optional Rule: Maintaining Skills from Basic Set p.294? Feel free to call it a -0% Power Modifier for the purpose of how it interacts with Powers and Abilities; but mechanically, you already have everything you need.

Though to be fair, it also doesn't feel like the equivalent of a zero-point feature: the more points you invest in Trained Abilities, the more time you have to spend Maintaining them. That puts a practical limit on how many points of Trained Abilities you can take, because there are only 168 hours in a week; and as you approach that limit, you run out of time to do anything else (like holding down a job or conducting downtime investigations that will potentially further the plot).

And there are no special benefits associated with it that I'm aware of. It would be a different story if, say, it allowed you to relax the requirements for Intensive Training in exchange for having to maintain the resulting skills; that I could see as a zero-point feature.
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Old 04-22-2017, 11:54 AM   #36
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/102: Epic

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And there are no special benefits associated with it that I'm aware of. It would be a different story if, say, it allowed you to relax the requirements for Intensive Training in exchange for having to maintain the resulting skills; that I could see as a zero-point feature.
The benefit is that you can add your power Talent to all uses of your abilities -- something that isn't possible if they were wild advantages.
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Old 04-22-2017, 12:06 PM   #37
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But that's true of all power modifiers. And to paraphrase the Incredibles, “when everybody's special, nobody's special”. Put another way, that's not really a power modifiers thing; it's a “belongs to a power” thing. The power mod is merely a convenient tag to identify such membership.

And like I said, “has the potential to eat up all of your free time” doesn't sound like a trivial limitation to me. Those maintenance hours add up.
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Old 04-22-2017, 12:16 PM   #38
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/102: Epic

Meanwhile, the issue's main attraction: Crafting Imbuements. I bought the issue on the strength of this article alone; and I was not disappointed. That said, there's room for expansion: while I get that it's about creating permanent items, it shouldn't take much to let you “jury rig”. And then there's the Frankenstein option, where you treat medical skills as craft skills.
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Old 04-22-2017, 12:30 PM   #39
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/102: Epic

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But that's true of all power modifiers. And to paraphrase the Incredibles, “when everybody's special, nobody's special”. Put another way, that's not really a power modifiers thing; it's a “belongs to a power” thing. The power mod is merely a convenient tag to identify such membership.
That's not quite accurate, though. The power modifier is what makes it a power, and while a PM can certainly net to 0%, that doesn't mean you should just throw a 0% on there and call it a day -- a power modifier needs to mean something.

So if the PM here didn't represent the need for training, it would need to reflect something else. It wouldn't just be "Training (-0%): No game effect, this just marks it as part of a power."
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Old 04-22-2017, 12:43 PM   #40
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/102: Epic

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No offense, but this seems a bit overcomplicated to me. Why not just use the Optional Rule: Maintaining Skills from Basic Set p.294? Feel free to call it a -0% Power Modifier for the purpose of how it interacts with Powers and Abilities; but mechanically, you already have everything you need.
Actually, no. The optional rule is defined for skills, not for advantages/abilities. Some advantages/abilities don't have levels; others have only a few levels, sometimes with a high level cost. And the optional rule says that you lose the skill and the points invested in it. So say, for example, that you apply this to Very Fit. If you "lose" it, it drops to Fit, I suppose. Now it costs 10 points to buy it back up, which is 2000 hours of training—a year's full time work.

The narrative effect of this approach is at least different. Instead of going six months without using Very Fit, losing it entirely, and having to spend 2000 hours to get it back, you skip a week's two hours of exercise, lose the use of the enhanced fitness, and have to spend 40 hours to regain that use.

A minor point is that this largely applies to physical abilities gained through physical training. The +5/+10 for Eidetic/Photographic Memory doesn't make much sense for continuing to be Very Fit, or to have Striking Strength +1.

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Though to be fair, it also doesn't feel like the equivalent of a zero-point feature: the more points you invest in Trained Abilities, the more time you have to spend Maintaining them. That puts a practical limit on how many points of Trained Abilities you can take, because there are only 168 hours in a week; and as you approach that limit, you run out of time to do anything else (like holding down a job or conducting downtime investigations that will potentially further the plot).
I'm not so concerned about that. I've been looking at Trained powers and abilities; at this point I'm up to 23. Say I get it up to 25. That's 50 hours a week, or half that if you have actual instructors. You can't do that if you're also holding a full time job, but it's not that unreasonable for a millionaire crime fighter, especially one who also has a couple of levels of Less Sleep, as many of them seem to.

And do you need to have all of them? Many super normals get by with much less. If you settle for 10 advantages with Trained, you only need 20 hours, which is well within the range that many people with a serious hobby spend on their activity. It's comparable to the requirements imposed by some forms of Disciplines of Faith and less onerous than some.

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And there are no special benefits associated with it that I'm aware of. It would be a different story if, say, it allowed you to relax the requirements for Intensive Training in exchange for having to maintain the resulting skills; that I could see as a zero-point feature.
PK has that one right: The primary benefit is getting to use Talent, including its use in Power Block rolls for some of them. See also The Role of Talent on p. 158 of GURPS Powers. I've been studying it closely.

Of course this is an experiment! But I've been treating it as an exercise in design, and I'm seeing what look like some interesting possibilities, for the specialized function of giving more detail to the "super normal" type of hero in a supers campaign. I don't think the Maintaining Skills rule gives the same results, and I think it's actually designed for a very different concept, that of a highly realistic treatment of skills in a mundane campaign.
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