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Old 09-26-2018, 04:32 AM   #11
The Colonel
 
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Default Re: Villain design material?

Stats aside, is this the sort of campaign where villains need characterisation?
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Old 09-26-2018, 04:23 PM   #12
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Default Re: Villain design material?

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Originally Posted by Dalin View Post
The third edition of GURPS had a series of books (published in the '90s) for common character archetypes like warriors, wizards, and rogues. (...) You might find inspiration for your evil mage, for example, in GURPS Wizards. A few sample characters include Martheblio the Damned, a 390-point lich; Lord Rivak of Zang, a 500-point wizard overlord; and Focalor, a 750-point "duke of Hell." (...)
For quick reference, how do I tell between 3e and 4e books? The year maybe?
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Old 09-26-2018, 06:05 PM   #13
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Default Re: Villain design material?

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For quick reference, how do I tell between 3e and 4e books? The year maybe?
The style of the cover tells a lot. For starters, they changed the GURPS logo with 4e. If it's in PDF format, the 3e stuff is labeled "GURPS Classic"; also, the 4e stuff that had a print run has a black cover for the most part, otherwise, the PDF has a white cover page. There's other subtle differences, too.
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Old 09-27-2018, 01:40 AM   #14
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Default Re: Villain design material?

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Originally Posted by Hide View Post
For quick reference, how do I tell between 3e and 4e books? The year maybe?
That, and the words "Fourth Edition" on the cover, usually right after "GURPS". Most of the 3e books have the words "Third Edition", instead... so it's not really hard.
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Old 09-27-2018, 05:31 AM   #15
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Default Re: Villain design material?

I normally toy with an abstract NPC in the first place. Just a rough template abilities and skills. Then out of curiosity I create it with GCA.

The other side is where the NPC fits into the campaign world. Is it a world changing NPC, or is it an underling?

Is it an NPC with an overt interest with the PCs? Or is it a 'random' encounter? Does the NPC have conflicting or coninciding objectives with other NPCs.

Before long you will have a gallery of rogues who are squabbling for the limelight.
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Old 09-27-2018, 06:20 AM   #16
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Default Re: Villain design material?

Soldiers are not Allies. Soldiers are employees - player characters and non-player characters can just hire people and pay them money and deal with loyalty. If you treat your evil army poorly this may result in desertion problems so overall a lot of time and resources will get wasted stopping that and/or kidnapping new recruits, but they're still just employees. You pay for Rank to have a lot of employees you can command, usually, not bulk Ally Group.

The Presidents/Emperors/Overlords Guard might be Allies... unless they're actually more loyal to the Army than they are to you...

An army of skeletons and zombies may not count as Allies. If you can't control them directly, you instead pass orders to generals who pass orders to majors who etc etc. I wouldn't call them Allies. You will have the same sort of communications problems and problems with following orders as real armies, although the logistics will be a lot easier. They probably won't desert, but they might wander off (or rot to pieces).

Of course, if the Evil Overlord controls their vast skeleton army personally and they respond perfectly to his commands, that's a lot like an Ally Group.
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Old 09-27-2018, 10:59 AM   #17
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Default Re: Villain design material?

If you're looking to design a memorable villain, rather than just looking for mechanics, I'm personally fond of this short article (it's targeted toward players of That Other Game, hence the mentions of classes, levels, and challenge ratings, but the actual design process works just as well for any system, or indeed just for writing a story). As for the mechanical side, you need to decide if you're one of those GM's who gives his monsters and NPC's point values, or not. If not, you needn't restrict yourself to GURPS traits for building the character - rather, you need to define what the character can and cannot do. The Fire King example in the linked article doesn't need to be built with a huge level of fire-only DR to make certain he's immune to any flames the characters throw at him, he can just be immune to fire damage. Make certain the mechanics still work within GURPS, of course, but you can allow for what would be complicated builds as GURPS Advantages rather simply by just defining "this is how it works."
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