Mailanka's Musings -- GURPS Content Post

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

Though while I really dislike the 'no active defenses or combat options', I do admit I'm torn on handling damage

One reason I use the cinematic rules for situations like these is that I often find they short-hand what's going to happen anyway. I'll use a more low-tech example, because I did a lot more of this analysis when I did CBR, where I tried it without cinematic options and I tried them with.

Defenses tend to vary. A character without combat reflexes and broadsword-12 has a parry of 9. With a retreat, that's a respectable 10. The same character would have a dodge of 8, and a retreat of 11. This makes waiving mook defenses a pretty big deal in melee combat (I didn't go that route in Cherry Blossom Rain, and Dungeon Fantasy doesn't do it either). In ranged combat, though, it's less relevant, as a dodge of 8 is less likely to come up and so you could be arguably wasting your time with the irrelevant roll. You'll notice in my playtest, more attention is paid to whether or not someone can hit, rather than whether or not someone can defend. Also, while deceptive attacks and feints are de-jure in melee combat, they're optional rules for ranged combat, and are less likely to come up due to ranged attack penalties.

The point here is not whether or not you should do this yourself, but that you can see how a cinematic rule changes the game more in some cases than in others. And you have to think about how much time you lose: One roll per attack. Is that worth it when you have other things to focus on? Again, not rhetorical, and that answer will vary depending on your game.

When it comes to damage, we can apply the same rule. If a PC with ST 12 hits a mook with a very fine katana, he'll do an average of 12 damage. An average mook will be stunned half the time, and unconscious half the time, giving him a 25% chance of still standing after a blow like that. If he's stunned, you can take an extra second and try to hit him again. If he's unconscious, it's effectively over. If you don't hit him, he'll go unconscious in a few seconds anyway.

But let's say your attack does less damage. Let's say you shoot someone with a blaster pistol and deal 9 damage. That won't knock someone out, but they'll have a -4 to any attacks, they'll be stunned half the time, and if they are stunned, they'll go down, and they'll need to recover from stunning, they'll have to stand up, and they'll have to carry on fighting with reduced Move. And frankly, you have to question why they'd keep fighting at that point, especially if the hero is so competent that he's casually kicking everyone's butt.

Here, if you ignore damage on mooks, not much will change. Down is down and most mook-level characters won't fight back after a serious hit anyway. But to track damage means that you need to make several additional rolls for every mook that gets hit, and you'll need to track the damage, all to confirm what would probably happen anyway: That they'd be dead. And, as you say, you need to ensure you have extreme damage to keep them down or you have a GM that says "Well, people reasonably don't fight past a certain point" at which point I wonder why you don't just use the mook rules in the first place.

There are good reasons to track damage on every little thing, of course, beyond the fact that you might find the idea that someone is defeated with a measly single point of damage to their foot. I like to do it in horror scenarios, because characters getting back up constantly forces you to really get down to the bloody work of actually killing people. It's grisly and gruesome and focuses on how messy death actually is. In a game like Star Wars, people just get shot by a blaster and "go down" and their actual fate is brushed aside... just like in the cinematic rules for mooks.

I experimented with several levels: A single point of damage (which creates a larger-than-life sense of heroes), a major wound (which means that sometimes heroes will fail to knock over a mook with the brush of his hand and encourages people to at least have a decent ST), 0 HP (which mostly just removes the chance that a really tough mook might just keep going on until you deal a ridiculous amount of damage to him), and full rules (which tend to encourage extreme damage and can be frustrating if a mook gets lots of lucky rolls)

[Mailanka]

GURPS Day comes earlier to the Netherlands than it does to the US (and I was up late, so this is a midnight post)

Last week, I looked at Action as a framework for Psi Wars. Today, I look at Action 4: Specialists as a framework for Template design, and use it as a basis for rebuilding the Bounty Hunter template.

Psi Wars: Adjusting the Templates

[Randyman]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

GURPS Day comes earlier to the Netherlands than it does to the US (and I was up late, so this is a midnight post)

Last week, I looked at Action as a framework for Psi Wars. Today, I look at Action 4: Specialists as a framework for Template design, and use it as a basis for rebuilding the Bounty Hunter template.

Psi Wars: Adjusting the Templates

Action 4 is 99 kinds of awesome. Using it for other TLs seems a natural extension. And adding in psi isn't all that difficult; I ran a thought experiment on doing so for an Action-to-MH genre-switch campaign idea.

But using it as a template ingredients list... genius!

[Kalzazz]

You missed my favorite Bounty Hunter disad - Intolerance (Criminal Scum)!

[Mailanka]

Apologies for the slow replies. I've had a busy couple of days.

Originally Posted by Randyman

Action 4 is 99 kinds of awesome. Using it for other TLs seems a natural extension. And adding in psi isn't all that difficult; I ran a thought experiment on doing so for an Action-to-MH genre-switch campaign idea.

But using it as a template ingredients list... genius!

I am, by trade, a software developer, and I'm sure it shows in my designs. I find programming quite similar to game design, in that both are more complicated than you think, they both need testing, both have tools already built to help you do the job, and you must realize that both are used by people who will do things with it that you cannot expect, so you need to build it in a robust fashion (not to keep them "in line" but to ensure your system can handle their unexpected wishes)

One thing I have learned programming is that you'll never really know what it looks like until you get to actually coding. As you write, you must necessarily discover. This explains the rambling nature of my posts and my designs, because I'm showing you the journey, hence why, for example, Kendra Corleoni 1.0 is a much worse character than Kendra Corleoni 2.0.

Action 4 was one of those discoveries, though I must confess not an entirely uexpected one. I had done something similar (and simpler) with 50 point lenses for a space opera game that heavily drew from Action. The next step of using Specialists seemed logical at that point.

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

You missed my favorite Bounty Hunter disad - Intolerance (Criminal Scum)!

Excellent idea. I had to think about it, because bounty hunters regularly interact with and hang out with criminals, but you need some reason to explain why bounty hunters hunt bounties, despite living in the rim. "I hate them" is certainly a good reason.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Excellent idea. I had to think about it, because bounty hunters regularly interact with and hang out with criminals, but you need some reason to explain why bounty hunters hunt bounties, despite living in the rim. "I hate them" is certainly a good reason.

You've already got Obsession (Bring in a specific criminal). A possible variant could be putting an end to a specific criminal vice (like a slave trade, or a particularly nasty drug).

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by RyanW

You've already got Obsession (Bring in a specific criminal). A possible variant could be putting an end to a specific criminal vice (like a slave trade, or a particularly nasty drug).

Templates serve many purposes. In addition to providing the player with all the necessary traits to serve his role, they can also inspire the player when creating his background by providing exactly the sort of examples you suggest. Thanks :)

[Mailanka]

I'm participating in Douglas Cole's Melee Academy today with a post on Wu Wei, wherein I discuss how you can use optional rules to create greater tension in your melee game, why Wait can be an excellent choice for an opening move, and show you a glimpse of Cherry Blossom Rain. Check it out here.

[Mailanka]

It's GURPS day! This week, I return to Psi Wars to muse over which templates to write up and sketch out a quick schema for how best to go about doing so.

Next week is a data-dump week, where in I will list a few new templates for the setting. See you then!

[Mailanka]

The Data Dump begins with the Commando, the Psi Wars military combat expert.