Ravens N' Pennies - GURPS Content Posts

[Christopher R. Rice]

Carpe Blogiem: The Bonecarvers of Sicatra - Part II

The second part of my little ramble-on about an integral part of the my fantasy campaign.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Gamemaster's Guidepost: Apocalypse Features

After marathoning the Walking Dead with my kid sister (who'd never seen it before) I got to thinking about the Zombie Apocalypse...and, well, that turned into a more general noodling on the Apocalypse in general.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Sicatra - The Bloodied and the Banal - Game Session 2

So we're still gaming right now - here's a Session report from the vault. Enjoy.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Designer's Notes: Pulp Hunters!

If you haven't noticed I decided I'm going to try to knock out my back log of Designer's Notes before the end of the year. Today's installment features new Monster Hunter inhuman options and a bit of history from one of my first ever Pyramid articles.

[ericthered]

Those are an interesting pair of inhumans, and really demonstrate the versalitality of the template. I love the concepts. Interestingly, both of them lean heavily towards being tough. This is one of inhumans classic strengths (lycanthropes and vampires anyways) but these include some unmodified unkillable 1, a full blown unkillable 2, and injury tolerance (Homogenous), without the gaping vulnerabilities of the classic tough inhumans.

I'm not sure what reawakened actually does for a monster hunter. It's an unusual background for --- learning restricted skills? taking advantage of study skills without a teacher? I'm not really sure why its on there. If playing one I'd try to get the GM to swap it for another level of wild talent.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Those are an interesting pair of inhumans, and really demonstrate the versalitality of the template. I love the concepts. Interestingly, both of them lean heavily towards being tough. This is one of inhumans classic strengths (lycanthropes and vampires anyways) but these include some unmodified unkillable 1, a full blown unkillable 2, and injury tolerance (Homogenous), without the gaping vulnerabilities of the classic tough inhumans.

I felt the trade-off between the typical high attributes/raw killing power of the other inhumans and Unkillable was fair for just Unkillable. These guys are basically just normal people - but they live forever.

Originally Posted by ericthered

I'm not sure what reawakened actually does for a monster hunter. It's an unusual background for --- learning restricted skills? taking advantage of study skills without a teacher? I'm not really sure why its on there. If playing one I'd try to get the GM to swap it for another level of wild talent.

The way I treat Reawakened is to be able to give hints when players are stuck: "You remember something like this." But it also gives skill access: "Okay, Expert Skill (Egyptology) is not on your template list at all, but because you have Reawakened you can buy it." And sometimes as a reaction bonus: "I knew one of your past lives an they did me a solid once."

Of course, this switches to different reasoning for immortal-like beings, but the game effects are the same.

[Flyndaran]

Aesthetic preference I admit, but Golems that don't need any form of physical fuel or sustenance make me want to add some kind of dependency on mana or sanctity.

I do like how immortality comes with a price. It's reminiscent of Cabal and how the human mages all search for no strings attached immortality making do for the time being with very dark rituals.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Aesthetic preference I admit, but Golems that don't need any form of physical fuel or sustenance make me want to add some kind of dependency on mana or sanctity.

Neither of those things really exist in Monster Hunters. It's why it's got Reprogramable.

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I do like how immortality comes with a price. It's reminiscent of Cabal and how the human mages all search for no strings attached immortality making do for the time being with very dark rituals.

I tried to cover all the tropic bases.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

Neither of those things really exist in Monster Hunters. It's why it's got Reprogramable.
...

Really? I knew MH winnowed things down, but I didn't realize it did it even more so than DF.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Really? I knew MH winnowed things down, but I didn't realize it did it even more so than DF.

Mysticism abilities don't really rely on holy ground, but instead require pact disadvantages. RPM have places of power - and desecrated areas, but don't really need either of them. Less things to track, really. :-)