[Speculation] GURPS 4.5e

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Trachmyr

I would like to see 4.5e be released along side 4e as an online only "live" product. The official rules would change an adapt with every Kromm Rulling, every clarification in new supplements, errata, or approved consensus (such as repricing Regrowth). I would love to see this product intergrated with Character Assistant, and be set up much like a Database Serch.

Looking for special combat rules? Well it found what you're looking for in MA: Gladiators, if you don't own it, it provides the link to e23.

This is pretty much the definition of when 5E will be geared up.
It has been posted not going to happen in near future and next version will probably be electronic and take advantage of new tech.
I would love a database for all GURPS products and I can see how you could write one that would work with the current format on E23.
For example if it were legal, ethical and moral (ie I had SJG permision) I could write one using fairly cheap software that would work on Windows, Unix and Macs and even Blackberrys or Androids. Be fully searchable and cross indexed in several ways that allowed you to start with the Core books and add supplements as you bought them on E23.
It could be made available offline this way or an online subscription format.
It could even accept updates or rewrites. The only downside is it would be a memory hog.

[Peter Knutsen]

Talents re-priced slightly. Power-Ups 3 or 4 simply changes the price to be 1 CP per Skill contained in the Talent, with a mininum of 5 CP per level.

My own solution would be to change from 3 to 4 pricing brackets. The smallest bracket costing 6 CP/lvl, then 9, then 12, and finally 15 CP/level for the most expensive bracket, containing the largest number of skills. This is in combination with raising the cost of DX and IQ slightly (so +1 IQ is 25 CP, while +1 Big Talent is 15 CP).

Part of the reason Talents needs repricing is that there's a huge glaring breakpoint, where if you add one more Skill to the list, the price doubles, or if you remove one Skill from the list, the price halves. This creates a lot of pressure on GMs creating Talents (except ***hole GMs, of course), and on players proposing Talents, to make sure to remain under that threshold, or at least to avoid the sourest of all sports, IIRC a Talent containing exactly 7 Skills.

Also, raising the minimum cost for Talent from 5 to 6 CP/level makes it look slightly less dumb to increase individual skills.

Having a less anarchic costing structure than that proposed in the relevant Power-Ups PDF also makes template design slightly easier, since general-purpose templates can demand X CP in 2 or more levels of any Talent.

Even better if a formal RAW trait category is added for traits that represent (or can represent) inborn giftedness, which includes Talents but also advantages like Langauge Talent, Empathy /Sensitive and Eidetic Memory. "The Lazian Security Agency prefers gifted recruits. Applicants with less than 100 CP spent on IQ, PR, WL and on Gifted Type Advantages are likely to be rejected".

A very minor thing, but for years I wondered about the appropriateness of the Artificer Talent for use in low-tech campaigns. Especially Machinist. I kept thinking if maybe 1 or even 2 skills should be removed, or some added. It seemed to me that it was a trait built on the assumption of a TL8'ish world. Apparently it is meant to be fine to use in TL3 or any other TL, with Machinist representing stone knapping, but it would have been really helpful to have this spelled out. Ideally for all Talents to be labelled according to what rough TL groups they make sense for without needing modifications.


Having a hard definition of Blessed as always needing to cost 10 CP (with a provision for "double slot" versions that costs 20 CP) will also make template design easier. Currently the core book contains too few examples of Blessed, and many of those in supplements (still few) cost something other than 10 or 20 CP, making them harder to "slot into" templates.


I'm not so happy with Compulsive Behaviour. It sounds profoundly diseased, and so it unlikely to be used by players who might otherwise have wanted to give their characters SCR-based tendencies, such as Sagatafl's Fond of Drink Flaw. It works the same way as Compulsive Drinking, but it sounds less like a psychiatric case.

Something similar could be done with religion. I'm not arguing for anything like the high-detail Religious Flaw that I use in Sagatafl, but the Disciplines of Faith are only useful for extremely devout characters. In a historical or historical fantasy, many NPCs (and some PCs) will be quite religious, but not at all to the extreme degree represented by a 10 or 15 CP Discipline of Faith. One could posit a 5 CP Compulsive Religious (Religion) disad, but again that's going to deter some players who might have seriously considered taking a disad that was named in a milder fashion but had the exact same effect.


I don't like the random nature of long-term exertion in GURPS, where depending on how you roll on any given day, the same character may be able to breeze through a triple-marathon, or he may collapse, coughing up blood, having failed to complete even a single marathon. Ummm... Can I have a reality check please?

Replacing the endless HT rolls with a more deterministic subsystem would be nice but I can't claim it is at all easy to get it right.


Some game mechanics to discern between soft city slickers and hardened travellers would be nice. Rather like Combat Reflexes, being an acquirable trait, but for wilderness travel and lack of creature comforts instead of for combat prowess. Maybe just a City Slicker disad, coming in two levels, -3 CP per level, doubling or tripling any roll penalties for physical discomforts and irritations, and doubling or tripling FP loss from same. Meant to be bought off gradually as the characters "harden" to adventuring life.


Support for overweight characters. The infrastructure is there, but without Lenses for Overweight, Fat and Very Fat, it's up to each individual player to propose an amount of levels of Reduced Move, or reduced Lifting ST, or whatever, for GM approval.

GURPS 3E handled overweight via an Extra Encumbrance pseudo-trait. That could be gamed, by "accidentally" choosing the right height and the right base weight for one's character, but it's fairly doable to invent an Extre Encumbrance disad that cannot be gamed.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Trachmyr

I would like to see 4.5e be released along side 4e as an online only "live" product. The official rules would change an adapt with every Kromm Rulling, every clarification in new supplements, errata, or approved consensus (such as repricing Regrowth). I would love to see this product intergrated with Character Assistant, and be set up much like a Database Serch.

No way! If this is implemented, then Sean Punch will feel a lot of pressure every time he posts on here. From what I remember, he dislikes that, and, I can easily see why.

It'd be good if he would sometimes make official rulings (me being me, I'd prefer if he could sometimes be compelled to do so), but most of his posts are simply meant as the best advice he can give, and is sometimes context-dependent.

Consensus material is fine too.

[wellspring]

I'm dead-set against a new version, and very much doubt if the business case was there. But with all that said, as a thought exercise it's interesting.

I'd fold in some of the rules from Powers (energy reserve and Illusion in particular). Add some of RPK's house rules (such as reduced cost for lifespan advantages and regrowth) as well. Very minor tweaks.

Rename Ritual Path Magic. You'll be hearing people confusing it with Ritual Magic until the end of time.

What I'd definitely do is revamp the organization of many of the rules, especially the combat rules. Just to take one example: Say I'm trying to figure out damage types. I found (not counting complications for optional systems like hit locations) B61-2, under Innate Attacks, B104-5, under Damage Modifiers, B268-9, under Weapon Statistics, and B378-81, under Damage Roll. The rules aren't inconsistent, and they sometimes even reference each other, but there's no one go-to place to look the concept up. I'm not arguing to change the system, just the organization of the rules that present the system so there's some logical structure and flow. A system that's partly explained on page X and partly explained on page Y but not comprehensively explored anywhere isn't going to be very user-friendly.

The more general version of the above is this: don't stick general rules in the middle of the write-ups of specific advantages.

Add a 3d6 chart that shows you how each die roll result matches to a success, failure or crit for each target number. I know this sounds super-basic and it's clearly explained in the text. I think this would be a big help for newbie players.

Clearly mark out the differences between core combat systems and options like tactical combat and hit locations. Like the 3d6 chart, experienced players have so internalized it that it's hard to realize how tricky this is for new players who are used to other games where there's One Big Damn System.

I'm of two minds on Infinite Worlds. On one hand, I feel like it's a waste of pages. It's great setting, very appropriate for a setting that really shows off what makes GURPS so wonderful. But it's too broad and thin to be playable, and why bother when there's a Hardcover for it? On the other hand, though, I'm still fairly new to GURPS and I distinctly remember getting the Basic Set and loving that IW came with it. It gave me context, helped me get what GURPS is for and why and how it works. Transhuman Space lured me into GURPS, and it's hard to overstate the case for having strong settings rather than just game mechanics.

I'd revise a few things to reflect much-needed changes that we saw in Martial Arts. Low Tech weapon/armor rules, for example. Different kinds of Feint. Whatever the virtues of the Basic Set Bastard Sword, we see this come up enough on the forums to know that something Does Not Compute.

I suspect that when Technical Grappling comes out, we'll want to change the way we talk about the core grappling rules. As written, they're the best I've seen in an RPG... but that's not saying much.

I'm over on the Bestiary thread pointing out how desperately GURPS needs more fully statted out example critters, so I'd be remiss not to ask for more of that, especially if IW was removed. Ditto for templates and lenses.

Imbuements are useful as the basis to a lot of powers. The basics might be in the Basic Set, referring to the PDF for the full set.

Explicitly standardize on Y2K$. Pet peeve, I know I'll get pushback.

Fold "A Deadly Spring" into the standard rules. I think everyone will be on board with this one.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

TL's: We have 7 TL's (0-6) for past/historical/fantasy settings, 2 TL's (7-8)for the present (ish), and only 4 TL's for everything later. While I understand that the designers felt this was a good move, I have still yet to see the virtue in categorically reducing the entire range of science fiction to twice the variation seen in the 20th century alone!

one thing that bugs me about UT (and this might just be the way people treat it) is the lack of genericness. In UT, Lasers have been calculated to come out the same way every time, along with specific types of armor and gadgets. It also assumes a very pretty hard scifi setting, with high energy capabilities.

I always read UT with a grain of salt, as in "this is a bag of tools that you can use to build a UT world, along with what capabilities probably show up together". When I build a UT setting, I usually end up doing my own weapons and armor to change the feel. UT is a good guideline, but often you want to build your own world. I'm just not sure how well that comes through. When reading UT you get the feeling: anything with a '^' means ask the GM, everything else is free game.

the move to just 4 TL for UT was probably a move to emphasize the genericness, and it does the GM feel less obligated to put certain things in front of others, but it also shrinks the sense of location, and when I make a UT setting (or scifi setting with a couple of UT elements, which is more common), I pretty much say "The tech level is 'here', and we'll measure relative from that point".

I think it'd be nice to expand the high TL and give ranges rather than numbers for the tech, maybe with a main number. Lasers are TL(9-11:10), meaning that in a setting with optimistic energy weapons you see them at 9, but some setting see them at 11 if energy weapons are slow to take off.

such are my dreams. I am quite happy with GURPS ability to model all the settings I can through at it, I just wish UT was a little more open ended and had more options as opposed to more stuff.

[wellspring]

Originally Posted by Refplace

This is pretty much the definition of when 5E will be geared up.
It has been posted not going to happen in near future and next version will probably be electronic and take advantage of new tech.
I would love a database for all GURPS products and I can see how you could write one that would work with the current format on E23.
For example if it were legal, ethical and moral (ie I had SJG permision) I could write one using fairly cheap software that would work on Windows, Unix and Macs and even Blackberrys or Androids. Be fully searchable and cross indexed in several ways that allowed you to start with the Core books and add supplements as you bought them on E23.
It could be made available offline this way or an online subscription format.
It could even accept updates or rewrites. The only downside is it would be a memory hog.

Totally agree here. By the time the world is ready for 5E, by the time there's a need for it, we'll be aiming at Tablets as the primary release medium, with a boutique market for high quality POD hardcovers for old curmudgeons with disposable cash like me.

That will change everything: layout, cross-referencing, tables, everything. Presumably using a standard ebook format. But some rules are screaming for a searchable database entry style approach, like Spells, advantages, skills, techniques and items.

The one thing I'd caution against is the subscription/push errata model. Hasbro has learned the hard way that there are serious downsides to this for both consumers and producers. One of the things I like about SJgames is that the books (for the most part) don't need all that much errata.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by samd6

Skill Categories is one of the free PDFs, it just lists skills in groups such as Arts, Criminal, Science, or Vehicle. It is kind of helpful for assigning skill points, but doesn't need to be included

I agree that Signature Gear is stupidly broken, but can't see any way to fix it such that it works for everything from "Trademark Hat" to "Giant Transforming Robot"

Yes, I remember contributing suggestions to the Skill Categories PDF, back in the previous decade. I'm just not sure how useful it is. I tend to like categories (they help teach, and they make character creation faster, by making it easier to see if you've overlooked concept-important skills), but sorting skills back into categories, as in 3E, is going to add to the page count.

Signature Gear seems to me to be a schizophrenic trait, in that it tries to do several different things simultaneously, much like GURPS' Magery (not the misleadingly named RPM version!) or the Hit Points in D&D/AD&D.

If you want to thoroughly fix Signature Gear, then you need to first break the ideas behind it down into individual traits, and the find an appropriate cost for each of them.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by wellspring

Rename Ritual Path Magic. You'll be hearing people confusing it with Ritual Magic until the end of time.

This.
Give the standard magic system an official name and rename the Ritual Magic system so it is less confusing with Ritual Path or Book/Path magic.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by wellspring

The one thing I'd caution against is the subscription/push errata model. Hasbro has learned the hard way that there are serious downsides to this for both consumers and producers. One of the things I like about SJgames is that the books (for the most part) don't need all that much errata.

Yeah I just mentioned it for completeness but I dont think SJG would go that direction.

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Yes, I remember contributing suggestions to the Skill Categories PDF, back in the previous decade. I'm just not sure how useful it is. I tend to like categories (they help teach, and they make character creation faster, by making it easier to see if you've overlooked concept-important skills), but sorting skills back into categories, as in 3E, is going to add to the page count.

for get page count the only time it a speed increase is a very narrow time usage, the reast of the time the 3e organization was a huge pain. That it usefullness is far better served as an optional free pdf like it is now.