Mailanka's Musings -- GURPS Content Post

[Kalzazz]

Some thoughts on the recap

--Kyto Caster is cool! I think as a player I feel a fondness toward this NPC and maybe a bit of ownership because hes the guy who got introduced in the first session based on questions I asked. So I (before reading all the recaps) remembered his name and didn't remember Cog Thanis's.
--Spear carriers being forgotten - actually, I didn't think you forgot them, I figured you were using the tried and true DMs trick of adding extra friendly spear carriers that don't do much just in case. Party needs help? The spear carriers become more useful, or some enemies divert attention at them. Need to have a fresh wave of badguys crash onto the scene? They arrive in a blaze of glory dropping a few spear carriers! Mage wants people to buff, leader wants people to inspire? Handy spear carriers!
--I am in the same boat on hex maps and online gaming. I love hex maps and tokens. They make me smile and want to start singing 'Heroes on a Hex Map' to the tune of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. But I loathe the time and fiddliness involved, I don't like prep work, I want to roll the dice already! So I don't use them when DMing online, only in person where its all of a few seconds to flop out a map and throw down some markers.
--Mobility. If I hadn't seen targets to shoot at, my first action would have been 'I hop out of the trench and run toward the sound of the guns'. But since I could shoot, I shot. There might have been much more mobility with a hex and without action range bands, with the full granular range system there is much more motivation to try and cross range boundaries, and with a hex map you can actually see those range boundaries and also can see how to target enemies rear and side hexes, and try to prevent enemies from doing the same. The main use I see from ranged fighters with Gunslinger/Heroic archer and move and attack is when they can setup a 'crossing the T' and run behind the enemy with a runaroud attack (-2 to defend!) aiming at the skull (only -5 from behind!). But as is, when I didn't have enough skill to reliably make shots even with Acc from Gunslinger, yeah, moving didn't seem fun. I didn't realize I was behind cover, I was trying to be a visible target, since if they shoot me I can try to shoot back, so I needed them to shoot at me.
--I really favor things which encourage moving around and a glorious swirling melee . . . . thats one thing I dislike in for instance a lot of more dungeon oriented games, people just standing around in a dense clump, often near a doorway. So stuff that encourages surging gloriously into battle is encouraged.
--If I am playing a straight fighter, I don't mind chilling and waiting until things kick off to do things, a specialist is really used when their specialty comes up after all. But for better or worse, the end character has a very healthy dose of 'not combat' stuff, 58 or so points of 'absolutely not combat' stuff, plus things that shade both ways like Luck, IQ, and raised DX etc (DX definitely shades more combat than not, but its used for things like Stealth and so forth to). So it will cause sadness if I don't get to do cool non combat things. Obviously don't expect to do as many cool non combat things as someone who specializes in such.
--Non Combat is expensive! I have an entire laundry list of non combat skills, and I don't even have quite a few of the ones that have come up in game (Politics, Body Language, Administration etc) . . . and I still have quite a few more of those than I do combat skills.
--Its more a GURPS finickiness than Psi-Wars specific, but, the flat cost to raise skills works towards this. If I like both Blaster and Streetwise, but I like Blaster more, and both of them cost 4 to raise . . . well . . I'd rather be better at Blaster. In the old West End Games D6 Star Wars (and in other systems you mentioned such as Shadowrun and White Wolf) higher skills cost more to raise. So if my Blaster is higher than my Streetwise, I might still consider Blaster my more favorite skill, but Streetwise is tempting to raise to. Maybe if there was some cool perk I might pick up that provides more coolness for only a single CP?
--I'm not to worried about the ROF thing, since it used a stack full of technique points and perk and such to basically do what a high ROF weapon like a security blaster does off the shelf for less encumbrance.
--I used dual weapon attack once, against a single target. The -1 to dodge should have hurt the single target, plus the lack of increased recoil from the DWA rather than the spraying fire meant I hopefully would have landed far more hits on him on the same rolls. I wanted him dead, dead, dead (he had a grenade!).
--There is no Template I saw that offers Gunslinger (Security Blasters only) unless I missed it, its such a cool weapon somebody should be able to specialize in it.
--Would a soldier have been better able to conquer the fog of war problem?
--Armored foes and such make me cringe. I want to see how that turns out. Part of the purpose behind this character is to see for myself whether or not a character armed with papercut inducing sidearms really can be useful! I've grumbled about Bounty Hunters not being able to have a rifle focus since who knows what Iteration, so I am curious to see how founded my fears at the uselessness of pistols are. Pistols are the American Katana, the elegant sidearm of the true warrior, so they should have a niche out of inherent coolness definitely.
--Beam Weapons have bizarrely bad defaults. For Guns, a Pistol and a Rifle are only -2 apart. For Beam Weapons it is -4. So a specialist in Psi Wars is even more of a specialist than in any modern game. A modern cop who trains more with his sidearm could very well pull a rifle from his patrol car when the need arose and not worry to much about it, the Psi Wars cop might need to think long and hard.
--I hope the surprise NPC is an alien! We've had space princesses, now we've had a robot, now we need an alien.
--I'm enjoying the campaign, so I am in no hurry to see it end.

[Mailanka]

For you fans of Psi-Wars, my GURPS Space Opera setting, I have True Communion, the Jedi-inspired philosophy, as an esoteric (or psionic) style, including yet another picture of a jedi meditating. There are a lot of those!

[Mailanka]

Happy GURPS Day! On my blog, I continue my look at True Communion, a psionic philosophy for Psi-Wars, my GURPS Space Opera Setting. True Communion has a major division within it: the human version, which I detailed already this week, and the original version created by the telepathic Keleni, which I offer to you today.

[Mailanka]

Patreon week starts early! I've got a $1 patreon special for those who love Kung Fu: my research notes on the Shaolin, including the five elders, and a deeper look at their martial arts, including the connection between the Shaolin and the Knights of Communion.

[Mailanka]

Patreon Week continues! I'm taking a brief break from True Communion to bring you the Poll Results for the Emperor of Psi-Wars, my GURPS Space Opera setting, and his Schism of the Cult of the Mystic Tyrant. Today is JUST the results of the poll itself. Tomorrow will be the actual schism. If you're a ($3+) patron, you have my thanks, and check it out!

[Mailanka]

Patreon Week continues! Yesterday, I released the poll results for the Cult of the Emperor. Today, I release the fourth and final schism of the Cult of the Mystical Tyrant: the Cult of the Emperor, including its oaths, symbolism, imperial conspiracies, and an esoteric style lens for the Cult of the Mystical Tyrant philosophical style.

This patreon post is available to all $3+ patrons. If you're a patron, check it out!

[Mailanka]

Happy GURPS Day! Today, I'm finishing up February's patreon week with a follow up on the Cult of the Mystical Tyrant's Transcendent Principles, which introduces a time-manipulating and a body-manipulating power-set for the tyrants of Psi-Wars, my GURPS Space Opera Setting. This patreon post is available to $3+ Patrons.

Thank you, Patrons, and for those of you who have embraced True Communion into your lives, fear not, for it shall return next week.

[Mailanka]

Hello to the GURPS Community! It's the end of the month (or thereabouts), so I have my usual retrospective and preview for the coming month. Today's is special, as I have an art preview and a poll for the coming art available to patrons. Patron or reader, check it out!

[Mailanka]

Hey GURPS fans, True Communion, a psychic philosophy for Psi-Wars, my GURPS Space Opera setting, returns with its Orthodox Virtues. Virtues require the practitioner to carefully align themselves with the principles of the Virtue, but grant greater attunement to the universal gestalt of Communion and divine insights. The "Orthodox" virtues represent traditional Keleni values, which they claim are the "True" virtues.

[Mailanka]

Happy GURPS Day! Today, I have part 2 of the virtues of True Communion, a psionic philosophy for Psi-Wars, my GURPS Space Opera setting. Today, it's Heterodox Virtues, which includes diverse theories, ideas and approaches to True Communion disapproved of by the more orthodox sects.