How much effort is too much? (aka show off your efforts!)

[EarthStone]

So, I started a thread in GURPS forum a while ago when I was making a list of 'street' items for the PCs to find/buy/available, and that involved referencing my initial lists of what is common, uncommon, rare, etc. in the campaign world... and that lead to my creating a new huge list of all the items and how they're used along with their price factor. Weeks of pouring over it debating how much more expensive one thing is than another.

I figured I'd share just part of it here, and ask who, if any, do this for their own campaigns? And what do you make?

Wayforlake Resources Guide

Pottery (x0.25 or 0) - With lots of good local clay, The most common household items are made from pottery. There’s actually two types, ‘street pots’ are thin and uber cheap, designed for short term use. Most street vendors and some bars & taverns use it as it is easily replaced. The other is normal glazed earthenware pottery that will survive normal usage quite well.

Ceramics (x3) - Lighter and stronger than pottery, but also produced locally, all except the poorest families have a family heirloom of some ceramic item (a serving bowl or platter for example) that is taken from storage and used for holidays or special events. Most ceramic items are also nicely decorated with a colorful glazing.

Glass - Imported from the distant south and used in the windows of the wealthy districts. As with most things, when a pane breaks, the smaller pieces are repurposed for use in poorer districts. Glass windows in North Lakeside (what few there are) look more like an unstained stained-glass window with small bits of glass held together with lead seams. Commonly used in lamps due to the omni-present rain. Only the wealthy use glass drinking vessels. (4x Low Tech prices)

Paper - The hard part about dealing with paper in the city is the constant moisture will ruin ‘normal’ paper in less than a year. Not to mention the constant humidity makes creating paper by air drying sheets mostly useless. Thus they have to use scraps of wood from rot-resist trees and/or add special oils to the mix to make a paper that will not absorb ambient moisture but will still accept ink. Then they have to dry the sheets in a ‘smokehouse’ like room. This produces a thick paper that can be re-used (almost like velum) by scraping off the old ink at the cost of the quality of the sheet diminishing each time. (2$ per sheet)

Stone (x5) - The hills north of the city supply a huge quantity of cut stone, most of which goes to building projects in the high class districts. As that stone weathers, chips, or gets replaced with new construction, the older used blocks are re-cut and reused in the lower class districts. Most of the stone is regular granite starting off in 2' x x 2' x 3' blocks in new construction and ending brick sized in poor areas.

Brick (x8) - With the easy availability of stone and given its greater durability, not much brick is used in construction… except in some ‘stylish’ wealthy buildings just because it’s different than the usual stone. There are no large-scale brick making facilities, so this actually makes brick construction more expensive than stone! Most local clay that could be used for bricks goes into making pottery and ceramics.

Softwood (0) - The trees around the city are called ‘softwood’ meaning they do not have the tensile strength of regular hardwood. Lengths greater than 5’ have to be thicker than ‘normal’ to have a useful strength. 5-10’ is double weight, 10-15’ is triple, 15-20’ is quadruple weight. Thus a 12’ ladder would be 3 times the weight of a normal hardwood ladder but cost the usual price. The problem with wood construction is that due to the constant moisture and heat, rot is an ongoing problem. Wood buildings that are not cared for (painted or plastered yearly and having rotten members replaced regularly) will collapse within 10 years.

Hardwood (x8) - Imported, it is never used as an external building material because of the rot problem. Sometimes used for interior construction by the wealthy. Mostly used for tools and weapons where it’s greater strength for less weight is most useful. Small lengths of hardwood, less than 6' and usable for tools or weapons are only x4

Rot-Resist wood (x16) - A rare type of hardwood that grows locally and resists rot, mold, and parasites. used mainly in base supporting members of buildings or docks. Can last over a hundred years if properly taken care of. Also used in boat hulls as it resists growths, barnacles, wood worms, etc. Exported to the south seas to make the finest boat hulls.

Leather, lizard (0 or x2.5) - Local leather is entirely from lizards, usually smaller ones 1- 20 lbs (like a small dog) thus yielding small skins. This means most lizard leather requires considerable effort in stitching together small skins to make anything of decent size. Skins smaller than 1’x1’ are price modifier (0), larger than that requires stitched together skins and costs more. The nice thing about lizard leather is that it is naturally stain and water resistant.

Leather, Cow (X5) - Widely imported because the ease of working with it (large sheets) makes it only twice as expensive as lizard leather for bigger items.

Fibers, cloth, rope, wicker, etc. (see clothing/store chart) - With the marsh providing a steady supply of reeds, flax, jute, hemp, and other fibrous materials, wicker, canvas, and linen are commonly used and widely available. It is actually a common pastime for women to work small batches of fibers from plants into usable product, either thread for cloth or string for rope. Lacking things like looms and such, They sell these small batches to shops where they are then worked into their final forms.

Silk (6) - Produced locally it is the go-to standard for clothing for the wealthy because of its light-weight cooling properties.

Iron (x3) - Low grade pig iron is mined north of the city. It rusts almost as fast as it’s put in use due to the constant humidity requiring constant oiling and care.

Copper (x4) - Copper is a semi-common ore in the mountains to the north. It’s a bit soft to make many items from directly, although depending on the item, it might be used.

Brass (x6) - With Zinc ore around, combined with copper, brass is used to make many small items in the city especially because it doesn’t rust like Iron in the highly moist air.

Steel (x10) - Unfortunately the iron found near the city (and mostly all over the world) is a very poor grade of iron that can’t be easily turned into good steel. All good steel is imported from great distance.

Fruit (0.5) - The most common food in the city. There are abundant fruit trees in and around the city that give fantastic yields almost year round. dried and candied with local honey it is a major export. “Eat a banana today and you’ll live to see tomorrow” - common saying (for the potassium)

Cane (x2) - The most common source of sugar. Crushed, soaked in water, and adding salt, sweet-water is a standard drink found on the streets. Cane sugar, molasses, and rum are all common local products.

Honey (x4) - Beekeeping is a common hobby given how easy it is to set up on a rooftop garden.

Fungus & mushrooms (0) - The constant moisture makes growing edible mushrooms easy and some specimens grow to amazing size. A common basement business for many people… although care must be taken to ensure they aren’t poisonous versions that look much the same as the edible ones.

Rice (0) - Rice fields abound between the districts and provide a staple of the diet.

Pickled Vegetables (x2) - Clay pots filled with herbs, vinegar, and vegetables are both local delicacies and a routine export item.

Corn (x3) - Not growing well due to the moisture, a lot of corn is imported from the south due to demand for something other than rice.

Slug (x0.5) - The most common protein available to the poorest people. routinely ‘farmed’ by keeping a box of vegetable scraps on the roof and gathering them up in the morning, These slugs are more oily than watery and big ones can reach the size of a grapefruit. Most are the size of a golf ball when ‘harvested’. The smaller they are, the more acrid-bitter the taste with the largest being quite mild in flavor.

Eggs (0) - Most rooftop gardens will include a couple chicken or more for pest control of their plants. This produces a steady supply of eggs.

Fish (x2) - With a huge lake adjacent, only the lack of refrigeration keeps fish from being the dominant protein source of the city. Fishing boats go out early every morning and return each mid-morning and late-afternoon with their catches. Fish markets near the docks sell to buyers in the rest of the city. On the other side of the city, the same is true for the river. There they use both boats with lines and in some places, emplaced nets to catch schools of fish moving up and down the river.

Snake & lizard (x3) - In the marsh and swamp around the city, some snakes grow to be 20’ long and are hunted for their meat. Lizard would seem easier to get, but the trick is in knowing which ones are edible and which are poisonous. Also known as ‘bushmeat’, it is pickled or dried for export.

Chicken (x4) - All those egg layers time is up once they stop laying.

Pork (x6) - Some folks, instead of keeping chickens will keep a pig instead. Fed on table scraps (often gotten from neighbors as well) they’ll be raised for a year and then killed for a holiday feast. Or they’ll sell it to a butcher for the coin it brings.

Dairy cheese (x8) - Wheels of cheese are routinely shipped up river to the kitchens of the wealthy.

Mutton (x10) - Imported from the mountains to the north, smoked or cured mutton is regularly trekked into the city and is a regular dish served by the wealthy.

[RyanW]

I once created the coat of arms and family tree of an NPC nobleman, including all descendants of his great grandfather. I doubt his lineage survived the great hard drive crash of 2015.

[Flyndaran]

I once created a hypothetical biochemistry for an alien species. As in oxidizing photosynthetic plant like organism that used carbon dioxide stored during the night phase by day that switched to reducing methanogenic usually using oxygen stored from the day phase by night. Having everything in one critter got a bit "complex" but technically possible.
They reduced iron oxide to iron and oxidized it back during night and day phases making their blood a ferrofluid. They had skins with numerous small crystals of a real type that partially blocked weak planetary magnetic fields so they didn't stroke out from natural wobbles.

[exalted]

I routinly put in way to much work into campaigns and explorations of new ways to do RPG systems and I usually have a few dozen half done campaigns and systems lying about just in case.

Insane efford would however be my gurps inspired exalted setting, campaign and conversion/new system but more then anything else charms, likely thousands of charms check, hundreds of different martial art check etc...and yes it is still a work in progress after about sixty sessions played and half a decade or more in development. Sometimes I toy with the idea to print it and bind it but its no longer just one book...

https://drive.google.com/drive/folde...WJVTFdGOFZlS3c

Then there is the research into making interesting and real world physics space combat...that is a black hole of a subject...which never really get anywhere constructive.

[simply Nathan]

I've gone into a fair amount of detail in terms of defining which races in my fantasy games can breed with which others and how their traits are passed down (I.E., two half-elves won't have the same mix of human and elf traits even if they have the same exact parents, except by coincidence) and I've been mulling over ways to mark traits as "passed down, but dormant to be awakened in future generation at random".

Not finding the rules right now, I'll have to look again after sleep and work, but it was a cinematic one leaning towards "gender equals breed" where traits are always more likely to pass down to same-sex children.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by simply Nathan

...
Not finding the rules right now, I'll have to look again after sleep and work, but it was a cinematic one leaning towards "gender equals breed" where traits are always more likely to pass down to same-sex children.

Some inherited features do "care" which parent they came from in real life, so it's not that wacky of a concept.

[simply Nathan]

I can't find the document I had it written in, but basically the rules went like this:

Line up the traits of both races like size, relative strength based on size, other attribute modifiers, etc; combine necessarily-connected things like fur + DR from fur, fur + spines, fur + partial camouflage, night vision + colorblindness, and the like into meta-traits as needed. Anything present in both parent races is guaranteed on the child's racial template, for everything else roll 3d6:

3 = Most expensive possible combination of traits between parent races
4-11 = Same trait as same-sex parent
12-17 = Same trait as opposite-sex parent
18 = Least expensive possible combination of traits between parent races

4 or 4-5 and 17 or 16-17 should probably be the places to put things like "trait of (parent) passed down, but dormant in individual".

It's a cinematic quick & dirty hybrid-making ruleset I guess.

In my personal setting, humans are compatible with all sapient life (including those from other worlds like elementals), nearly-human races like dwarves, giants, and halflings are compatible with all native sapients of the setting and with specific outworlders as specified (giants with fire and water elementals, dwarves with earth elementals, furries with Elder Things, etc.), fairies of all sorts (including elves) compatible with each other and with the near-human group, goblins of all sorts (including ogres and gargoyles) compatible with each other and the near-human group, dragons of all sorts (including lizardmen) compatible with each other and with the near-human group, etc.

[RogerBW]

I have a map with ~30,000 (real) stars, hyperspace routes between them, owning powers, and initial colonisation dates.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

I have a map with ~30,000 (real) stars, hyperspace routes between them, owning powers, and initial colonisation dates.

wow. What format is the map in?

[David Johnston2]

This is my ongoing list of supers character aliases who didn't show up on the first page when I googled "x" "comic book character". And believe me, for every character on this list there are 10 I thought of but weeded out that way.

A-Wut (Thai “weapon”)
Abbator (Romanian “slaughter house”
Able Archer
Abra-Melin the Mage
Adrian Messenger
Aeria Gloris (Latin “Heavenly Glory”)
Agent Zed
Aletheia (Greek “truth”)
Aleya (Bengali “will o' the wisp”)
All-Star
Alpha Bitch
Alraune
Anesthesia
Ant-Girl
Amanita
Amaranth
American Steel
Artifex
Aspect
Autonomic
Avventura (Italian “adventure”)
Azoth (Alchemical term for “tranformation”)
Baron Kriminal
Bedlam Boy
Berserkergang
Bitter Sweet
Black Dagger
Black Despair
Black Sand
Black Shark
blaue Licht, Das (German “The Blue Light”)
Blonde Fury, The
Blue Murder
Blue Steel
Blueshift
Blutengel
Bone Shaker
Bonedust
Briar Rose
Brutal Logic
Cain Caliban
California Girl
Camo
Captain Chaos
Captain Conundrum
Captain Noble
Captain Orgone
Captain Stingray
Captain Strange
Captain Wrack
Carcharodon
Card Sharp
Carrion Crowe
Cenotaph
Chain Fire
Chernaya Dyra (Russian “Black Hole”)
Chorachunni (Bengali “Ghost-Thief”)
Collider
Coppelia
Constance Sorrows
Contessa Verdi (Italian “Countess Green”)
Crimson Alizarin
Cryptic
Crystal Blue
Cyberlynx
D-Void
Daggertooth
Dark Dreamer
Dead Ernest
Deathvolt
Deception
Defrag
Devil Woman
Diadem
Doctor Cadmus
Doctor Dee
Doctor Feelgood
Doctor Gates
Doctor Utopia
Dolorosa, La
Doomgiver
Dragonfury
Drakensturm
Dreamsinger
Drunk Tank
Duet
Eisenhans (Germany fairy tale character “Iron Hans”)
Electric Banshee
Electro-Cute
Elektrogeist (German “Electric Spirit)
Elfshot
Eloa (Character from Eloa or The Sister of the Angels )
Em Kultra
Endgame
Endless Summer
Enigma Seven
Erika Zann
Eschaton (Religious utopia)
Eva Destruction
Existenz
Fabrikant
Fandom Menace, The
Fata Morgana (Italian “mirage”)
Fever Dream
Fiddler Green
Fire Cobra
Flamberge (French “flamboyant” or a kind ofsword with a wavy blade)
Flashpoint
Flower Child
Forever Girl
Freakish
Frostbyte
Furiosos
Gemstone
Ghostwalker
Glass Dagger
Glimmer Man
Glorious Day
God Mode
Golden
Governess
Gradient
Greyshade
Gun Bunny
Gunsight
Gold General
Halogen
Hat Trick
Headmistress
Heartless
Heat Death
Herr Unbekkant (German “Mister Unknown”)
Hexenhammer (German “Witchhammer”)
Hivemind
Hotzone
Influenza (Italian “Influence”)
Insectra
Insight
Invidia (Latin, “Envy, the evil eye”)
Jack Riddle
Jeremiah Rainmaker
Jerusalem Rose
Jigoku no Hana (Japanese “Hell Flower”)
Joy Serene
Judas Kiss
Judgement Day
Kakashi (Japanese Scarecrow)
Kaos
Kildevil
Krokodil
Lady Nemesis
Lady Virtual
Last Man
Laternen-Träger (German “Lantern Bearer”)
Lazarus Volt
Lectrice, La (French, “The Teacher”)
Legacy
Lemuria
Lion Heart
Logos (Greek “Word/Reason/Plan)
Lord Obsidian
Loverboy
Lucky Thirteen
Mack Attack
MAD Machine
Major Graviton
Margrave
Marianne
Mariposa
Massif
Master Disaster
Meat Puppet
Medusa Gaze
Melusine
Misfortune
Miss Dangerous
Miss Murder
Mister Capricorn
Mister Fate
Mockery, The
Model Alpha
Mondengel (German “Moon Angel”)
Moon Dreamer
Morthor (Old English: Murder)
Mother Monster
Naked Anarchy
Netwraith
Naysayer
New Soviet Man
Niebla (Portuguese “Fog”)
Nochnaya (Russian “Nocturnal”)
October Mourning
Officer Friendly
Ombra (French “shadow”)
Oriflamme
Pandemia
Pax American
Perfectionist
Pirate Queen
Pit Viper
Phayu: (Thai, “Storm”)
Plexus
Primero
Poison Butterfly
Professor Brainstorm
Pretty Poison
Profit, The
Progenitor
Pyrotech
Q-Bit
Queen Size
Quicksilver Girl
Quiet Man, The
Rabid
Rage Monkey
Rattenkonig (German “Rat King”)
Red Mercury
Resilient
Rosenkreuz
Ryouiki (Japanese “Territory”)
Runelord
S-Rank
Sanity Claws
Sargasso
Scarborough Fair
Screampunk
Sentenza: (Italian, Verdict)
Serpiente: (Spanish, Serpent)
Seven Devils
Sgian-dubh (Scots Gaelic “Black Knife”)
Shadow Mask
Shadow Puppet
Sha'ir (A kind of pre-islamic poet/bard/oracle)
Sharp Breeze
Shock, the Monkey
Sicarius
Silent
Silver Arrow
Silverglass
Sindona: (Italian, “Shroud)
Sister Hood
Sleeping Dog
Slime-Thing
Slow Hand
Sky-Eye
Solar Max
Solitude
Starlit Destiny
Stone Breaker
Stormqueen
Street Ranger
Strangelet
Sunstone
Talion
Tarasque
T-Rex
Temple Bell
Thin Lizzie
Thing in the Night, The
Tiara Star
Tilt
Tinker Tailor
Tommy Rot
Timewarp
Trailblazer
Traverse
Travesti
Tru North
Ubiquitous
L'Uomo Electrico
Urizen
Vala (Blake's Zoa)
Valence
Vanguard Ultra
Vedma (Russian “Witch”)
Vespa (Italian “Wasp”)
Vine
Virago
Viral
Vitriol
Volatile
Voretech
Vyrus
War Witch
Wicked Doll
Wild Wolf
Willforce
Winterfrost
White Diamond
Wolver
Worldshaker
X-Patriot
X-Ray Tango (XT)
Yehudi
Zaide Velvel (Yiddish, “Grandfather Wolf”)
Zen Bowman
Zero Point
Zettai Shugo (Japanese “Absolute defense”)
Zulfiqar (A legendary sword in Arab history)
Zweihander (German “two-handed sword”)