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Old 01-15-2018, 12:47 PM   #11
Alonsua
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Default Re: Creature/Animal creation

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Originally Posted by Tigrah2k View Post
Hello everyone. I have yet another of my endless off the wall questions. This time, is there a book or rules set (preferably one that will work well in a fantasy campaign) that details creating creatures for the campaign? I'm looking to create the major and minor beasts, animals, and vermin that will live within an ecosystem, and I hope to find a good rules set that will help me create them in GURPS with decently balanced stats.
There are some rules, such as the one allowing you to extrapolate Strength from weight with the following formulas:

((ST-1)/2)^3 for minimum weight.
((ST+1)/2)^3 for maximum weight.

Personally I like to throw in the point that it must be lean muscle weight, this way the strength won´t be the same for a fat person who weights 300lbs than for a muscle man weighing the same. Then you can extrapolate animal´s IQ from p. 458-459 Campaign and for DX and HT I would not be able to help you, because I dont know the full system, so hopefully someone else will come and help us both.
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Old 01-15-2018, 01:14 PM   #12
Flyndaran
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Default Re: Creature/Animal creation

Anyone and anything could be weaker than any formula you use suggests.
Especially animals specialized in long distance endurance.
Or just have odd lack of strength like humans for a variety of hypothetical reasons. All other primates are about twice as strong as we are assuming similar pounds of muscle.
Animals specialized for burst power like cats will be stronger than such formulas suggest.
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Old 01-15-2018, 01:38 PM   #13
Alonsua
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Default Re: Creature/Animal creation

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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
Anyone and anything could be weaker than any formula you use suggests.
Especially animals specialized in long distance endurance.
Or just have odd lack of strength like humans for a variety of hypothetical reasons. All other primates are about twice as strong as we are assuming similar pounds of muscle.
Animals specialized for burst power like cats will be stronger than such formulas suggest.
As per Campaigns average chimpanzees run with ST 11 (Arm ST+3) and Gorillas with ST 15. Both of them move as per the formula (DX+HT)/4+1, so they have Base Movement+1. For quadrupeds you got for example Lions at ST 16 with Movement+4, Wolves at ST 10 with Movement+3 or Cavalry Horses at ST 22 with Movement +3. Let´s calculate some estimated weights:

Chimpanzees
((11-1)/2)^3 = 125lbs, their weight seems to be about 100lbs.

Gorillas
((15-1)/2)^3 = 343lbs, their weight seems to be 300-430lbs.

Lions
((16-1)/2)^3 = 421lbs, their weight seems to be 330-500lbs.

Wolves
((10-1)/2)^3 = 91 lbs, their weight seems to be 85-100lbs.

Cavalry Horses
((22-1)/2)^3 = 1157lbs, their weight seems to be about 1000lbs.

The problem with this estimations is that you can look at different species or varieties and get other results, but that is not a problem of the formula since we are checking into "Cavalry Horses" or "Wolves", not specific species, and thus we would need to reverse-engineer.
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Old 01-15-2018, 05:24 PM   #14
Tigrah2k
 
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Default Re: Creature/Animal creation

At this time, I'm trying to create the creatures of one biome of a fantasy setting, so I'm not really all that concerned with what a real world animal's stats might look like. However, having some rules that will help me whip up a creature is what I'm aiming for. By the sounds of it, there really aren't that many rules for this purpose, and it's largely arbitrary. With the exceptions already pointed out.
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Old 01-15-2018, 05:33 PM   #15
Alonsua
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Default Re: Creature/Animal creation

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Originally Posted by Tigrah2k View Post
At this time, I'm trying to create the creatures of one biome of a fantasy setting, so I'm not really all that concerned with what a real world animal's stats might look like. However, having some rules that will help me whip up a creature is what I'm aiming for. By the sounds of it, there really aren't that many rules for this purpose, and it's largely arbitrary. With the exceptions already pointed out.
Actually I guess that if you know what the speed of those creatures are, you can extrapolate the average among DX and HT, but then you would need to split it among the two stats, and you would also need to consider the creature´s size. That is the best with which I can come up at this moment without further research in mathematic models.
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Old 01-15-2018, 05:39 PM   #16
Tigrah2k
 
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Default Re: Creature/Animal creation

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Originally Posted by Alonsua View Post
Actually I guess that if you know what the speed of those creatures are, you can extrapolate the average among DX and HT, but then you would need to split it among the two stats, and you would also need to consider the creature´s size. That is the best with which I can come up at this moment without further research in mathematic models.
That's an interesting thought, and quite useful.
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Old 01-15-2018, 09:27 PM   #17
Kelly Pedersen
 
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Default Re: Creature/Animal creation

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Originally Posted by Tigrah2k View Post
At this time, I'm trying to create the creatures of one biome of a fantasy setting, so I'm not really all that concerned with what a real world animal's stats might look like. However, having some rules that will help me whip up a creature is what I'm aiming for.
Two suggestions here, one of which is much simpler than the other.

The first, simple suggestion, is to figure out which real-world animals would inhabit the biome on Earth. Then, take those animals and basically reskin them as your fantasy creatures. You'd be surprised at how much change a new look and a few extra or fewer features will disguise players, particularly since you're not likely to be giving them a full biological description. Got a plains biome? Have it be grazed by large herbivores that move in herds (bison), which are preyed on, when young or old and sick, by pack predators that live in simple family groups (wolves). But make the grass bright orange, give the animals coats that will blend into that, and say that the common ancestor of both the herbivores and the predators had eight legs. Suddenly, you've got a population of bright orange, eight-legged herbivores with huge bony domes on their heads (same stats as horns, but look different!), preyed on by packs of eight-legged creatures with bony ridges in their horizontally-opening jaws, with pelts of dull red with dark stripes. Just don't call them "orange bison" or "eight-legged wolves".

The second suggestion, if you have Space for 4th edition, is to use the alien lifeform creation system. You'll have to do a lot of rolling for this, and then more work to figure out the actual stats, but it might be more satisfying to you, I don't know. The thing to do here is to figure out some broad classifications for the animals - the equivalent of mammals, birds, reptiles, etc. Decide how many broad classes of creature you want. Then, for each of the "Alien Creation" boxes, roll 2d. If the result is 12, some feature defined in that box is fixed - all creatures that belong to that class will share it. If there are multiple features defined in each box, either pick one to be shared, or roll more dice to determine it randomly. Once you've got two or three boxes "fixed", move on to the next class and do the same (if you've rolled on all the boxes and haven't got any fixed features, go back and roll some more). I suggest, incidentally, to treat the first box, which covers the basic biochemical basis for life, as fixed as the same for all your classes, because a world with more than one biochemical basis for life is going to be weird. Once you've figured out which features are fixed for each class, just roll the rest of the features randomly, and just note down which class each creature belongs to. This will produce a range of beings that fit into observed types, and let you make some remarks to your players about what's related to what, and give you a sense of how evolution might have proceeded on your fantasy world.
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Old 01-16-2018, 01:58 PM   #18
Tigrah2k
 
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Default Re: Creature/Animal creation

I am running with the theory of at least some of the reptilemen of Banestorm having come with animals (prey, predator, and scavenger types), as well as some plants. From there, I have theorized that, in series of events they chose to move away from the desert, and came to live in a harsh volcanic region instead. The reptilemen have adapted to using hot spring cave systems to enter and leave their walled villages, that keep them safe from a variety of three or four types of SM +1 to SM + 3 predators, and territorial omnivores.

Using the Reptilemen and other species from their homeworld as a basis, I reasoned that they were all reptiles of some form, and that they were tolerant of high temperatures. Also reasoned that the majority of predatory and scavenger species are likely bipedal, or semi-quadrupedal, while the omnivore species were almost invariably quads. Still reasoning out what may fit in the "bird" niche.
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