Hey total newby here

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Apollonian

I'm gonna throw a bit of a wet blanket on things here:

GURPS will definitely be able to build any setting you want. However, given what you've described, I'd take a quick look at the Savage Worlds RPG. It's more limited than GURPS, but it does do one thing very well: Two-fisted, pulpy action with special stuff like magic, weird tech, and so on.

GURPS, as other people have said, is a toolkit. You can use it to tune your setting and game to be pretty much exactly what you want, but it'll take time, effort, and system mastery. Savage Worlds will do what you've asked for out of the box. (It won't do much else, though.)

The question is what system you want. You could also suggest Spirit of the Century, which has the same specialty. While SotC, Savage Worlds, and GURPS can all do two-fisted action, that doesn't mean that they're the same when they do it...

[fengmd]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

The question is what system you want. You could also suggest Spirit of the Century, which has the same specialty. While SotC, Savage Worlds, and GURPS can all do two-fisted action, that doesn't mean that they're the same when they do it...

Apollonian did say that using GURPS to do what the OP wants would take time, effort, and system mastery and that Savage World and SotC would do basically what the OP wants right out of the box.

I would think that trying to do your own specialty GURPS campaign right off the bat without any prior exposure to how the system works would be very challenging, and probably frustrating.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by fengmd

Apollonian did say that using GURPS to do what the OP wants would take time, effort, and system mastery and that Savage World and SotC would do basically what the OP wants right out of the box.

I would think that trying to do your own specialty GURPS campaign right off the bat without any prior exposure to how the system works would be very challenging, and probably frustrating.

There's no GURPS campaign that isn't 'specialty', and two-fisted action seems like an easier fit than many. The only thing the OP has indicated that might be challenging to handle in quite basic GURPS is aircraft fighting, because it's not easy and maybe not desirable to just straight-up use the basic vehicle combat rules to portray a dogfight.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Apollonian

I'm gonna throw a bit of a wet blanket on things here:

Let me throw a burning blanket onto the fire here... look just roll with the metaphor alright?


When I started there was no one to learn GURPS from. While it was 'easy'*, there were mistakes made on my part. There will always be mistakes made. Just roll with them, and figure out how to correct for them in the future.

Heck, there's a forum for learning about the mistakes now! Why when I was starting it was uphill in the snow both ways without shoes or even a heated board to throw down...



The best part about GURPS is that if it's not doing what you want at first, you can pretty easily adjust the rules to get the results you want, once you figure out where things are going awry.
And this is the best rpg forum on the web.




* As easy as learning any other system without a support network... which yes, I've done several times. Though FATE does keep alluding me, I think it's simply a basic incompatibility with how it works and how I work.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by fengmd

Hey, welcome to the Forums!

As a sort-of-newbie (started seriously delving into the mechanics of the system about seven months ago), I'm going to say that GURPS has so much to it that it can feel overwhelming at times. I've tried introducing the system to probably half a dozen seasoned D&D GMs and they're thrilled at first, but once they started looking at the Basic manual (which is over 600pgs), they turned tail and ran.

For newbies, character creation is going to be a challenge because you will need to determine the character-point values for all your PCs and NPCs. I don't know what would be good for your campaign, but in the group I run with, we tend to run about 300 CP characters, which lends itself toward very cinematic characters, even minor superhero, but not epic. I view the CP limit as a great constraint because you really learn how to get the system to work for you to get the effect you want.

Anyhow, I'm just going to throw this advice in here: find an experienced GURPS group to play with before you try GMing a GURPS game. Also, trying to 100% replicate a character's abilities from popular tv-shows or anime, can be like getting lost down a rabbit hole if you don't have something to keep you grounded like these forums. Spend the money and get GCA (GURPS Character Assistant) because it's better than GCS, imo.

Also, if you want to talk more about this you can always reach me on Discord: fengmd#5279

I hope I don't sound too discouraging. I know how awesome it feels at first to see the potential of GURPS, but the system is more advanced than intermediate systems like D&D. I'd start with the Basic 4E manual. Powers would probably be a better manual to look into after that than one of the Thaumatology (GURPS magic) books.

There are ways to speed this up. Wildcard skills is a real easy solution for "disposable" NPCs. If you are doing things on the cheap (or like me use a Mac) GCS is better then GCA.

On a side note I have been improving the GURPS wiki like crazy and it can serve as a cliff notes to GURPS.

[tshiggins]

Actually, aircraft combat isn't too bad for beginners if you abstract it, a bit more, and toss in some color to explain outcomes.

For instance, the PCs in my campaign got involved in a dirigible fight, a few sessions back. It was a planned encounter, and I had decent stats for the vehicles, but that's all the planning I did. My people are still learning stuff in GURPS, and I didn't want to overwhelm them.

So, I had the players pick their route to the destination, and had one make her character's skill roll against Navigation to see how well she picked the flight path.

She succeeded at that roll by a large margin, so I started the encounter with their dirigible in an advantageous position on the flank and far astern of a potential enemy in pursuit of a third airship.

That meant the Navigation roll gave them the choice about whether to engage or try to evade. They chose to engage.

At that point, I had the pilot roll against Tactics to assess the situation. In my campaigns, Tactics provides the player with more (or less) (in)accurate information about the situation, and then the player makes decisions based on what he or she understands about what's going on. I then assign a modifier (in some cases) based on how well the player thought out the situation.

In this case, the player for the PC pilot made a good roll, so I determined that he'd figured out that the opposing crew was likely highly focused on the craft in front.

The player then decided to increase his altitude a bit so the envelope of the opponent's dirigible would block the view from the gondola, which meant they only had to worry about the spotter in the "crow's nest" on top of the airship. He then would accelerate as fast as he could without over-revving his engines, so they could get as close as possible.

That was a pretty good plan, so I gave him a +2 bonus to his Pilot skill to execute. As the airship closed, I gave the observer on the opposing dirigible a -1 to his Perception rolls every hundred yards, or so, to see them coming.

The crew of the opposing craft didn't spot them, but somebody on the third airship did, so I rolled Tactics for the NPC commander of that ship. He did very well, which meant he understood the PC's plan, and decided to assist.

That became apparent when the PC saw the third ship start to turn and the opposition craft cut more sharply to close the distance -- and, in so doing present its rudder, elevators, and all engines to the PC ship now directly behind and above.

The PC ship wasn't armed, but the characters aboard her had modern weapons, including two high-powered rifles.

As the shots began to hit, the opposing crew realized the PCs were there and went into a dive. That lifted the tail enough that the Maxim on the back of that gondola could get them in its sites. (Yes, that pilot made his Tactics roll, too.)

One PC focused on sniping the Maxim crew, with fair success, while the other tried to cripple an engine. Several shots later, that player rolled a critical hit on an engine followed by a second roll that deviated pretty substantially from 9-11 average.

So, for the purposes of dramatic effect, I ruled the shot had punctured the fuel line and the heat from the engine set it alight.

The gas bags were filled with hydrogen....

[Ulzgoroth]

I'd suggest that GURPS basic rules are actually going to handle airships a lot more handily than airplanes. It's mostly not the vehicle or combat rules that make things hard, it's the way airplane combat is so heavily about fine-grained competitive positioning, but the scale doesn't really work with GURPS' hexmap rules and there aren't rules for abstracted dogfight maneuvering in Basic.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I'd suggest that GURPS basic rules are actually going to handle airships a lot more handily than airplanes. It's mostly not the vehicle or combat rules that make things hard, it's the way airplane combat is so heavily about fine-grained competitive positioning, but the scale doesn't really work with GURPS' hexmap rules and there aren't rules for abstracted dogfight maneuvering in Basic.

That was actually my thinking, as well. It could be as simple as "make a contested skill roll against Tactics for both pilots," and the winner gets bonuses when the trigger gets pressed. Or, it could be as complex as detailed Vehicle combat.

I don't like the first option, because it leaves no room for the players to make decisions. The second is mechanically much more interesting, but for new players it would seriously slow down the action.

The approach I took split that difference in such a way that the character skills and player decisions were central to resolution of the situation. That's always a good choice.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

In re airplanes, Pyramid #3/53 has dogfighting rules derived from the chase rules in Action. I've somehow failed to own that issue, but Pulver wrote the article, so I assume it's good.

[dcarson]

You might read the http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=161774 thread which involves Nazis in other dimensions/dreamlands. Lots of stuff on zeppelins and weapons.