Improving the Tonfa

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by Sindri

I said a redesigned list.

OK.

Originally Posted by Sindri

The improvement through adventure rules are irrelevant. They don't discriminate between what you are improving or what you are doing so they just speed up things they don't chance anything about the fundamental character.

To my mind, Improvement through study and Improvement through adventure are closely linked. A skill (or any other given ability) improves with both. The first is slow and always at the same rate. The second represents sudden boost thanks to experience and sudden understanding of something important. Both together are quite realistic. One without the other is not as much.

And Improvement through adventure discriminate a bit what is improving: it has to be something which is used during the adventure. Which makes a huge difference with D&D like improvement, for instance, where a character suddenly get a new ability without having learned or tried to use it during his adventures.

Originally Posted by Sindri

And yes, obviously there was a reason the GURPS authors chose to link in game learning speeds with out of game point costs. The consequence of that however is that you cannot derive anything from a combination of the learning mechanics and how long it takes to learn something in the real world because any link between how long it takes to learn something in the real world and in GURPS is incidental.

Of course. In reality, learning depends on so many different factors than it is impossible to be realistic here. A rule of that kind can just be plausible and consistent. It cannot correspond to a real number of hours...

In reality, it is impossible to say how many hours I will need to fully learn a given technique with a given weapon, for instance.

Originally Posted by Sindri

Practically anything I could replace it with would... also be insert-time-get-points. I'm not talking about a specific implementation here but the entire category of similar rules. Not that I won't have training rules but being able to convert time into points is something I've rejected.

It's still impossible to do something else in GURPS. Even if you say +1 to the skill, rather than +X character points, +1 to the skill does correspond to a given number of character points (most often 4).

Originally Posted by Sindri

You aren't enforced to buy anything.

If a fifth edition is published, I'll be enforced to buy the new Basic Set or I won't be anymore able to take benefit from the new fifth edition publications...

Originally Posted by Sindri

It's not like new stuff isn't done while the old stuff is being redone either.

New stuff go on being published, yes. But it is slowed down. Because rewriting the old one inevitably takes time. And since Basic Set, and other major books are very dense, they take a lot of time to be rewritten.

Originally Posted by Sindri

SJGames has so far mostly stuck to using errata for actual errata rather than rules revisions which is something I appreciate. Even if they started doing more significant corrections, corrections do not an edition change make. Fourth edition is not third edition corrected, it's third edition with the things that require a rewrite to change. That's the entire point of edition change; being able to make significant rewrites at the core of a system that will be heavily tested and supported by default instead of hiding in a Pyramid article.

Yes. I fully do agree. But I don't think that GURPS need a true rewrite. Just some corrections here or there.

Originally Posted by Sindri

Creatures I'll give you even though they are easy to convert and lwcamp is doing good work on detailed fourth edition animals. Vehicles I'll partially give because VD isn't out yet even though much of their stats are easily convertible especially for vehicle use in the sort of game that isn't using VD and Spaceships is usable with many vehicles if you like it's approach. Weapons though? How many obscure guns are there in third edition that haven't been updated to fourth? Surely there can't be that many.

There aren't many, indeed. But when you read a third edition book and you see something interesting (yipee!), there is always another feeling that come at the same time (draft! I will have to convert it in the new rules). That don't make things easy.

Originally Posted by Sindri

Well you know your monetary and temporal resources better than I obviously. However if there's an edition change you don't have to buy the new versions of books if fourth or third edition classic books or the new things for fifth edition coming out in parallel to the fifth edition versions of traditional GURPS books are a better use of resources.

Of course. But the Basic books of fifth edition will still have to be bought again... At least, if I want to buy and understand some of the interesting fifth edition books. Otherwise, I will be stuck on fourth edition.

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by Gollum

To my mind, Improvement through study and Improvement through adventure are closely linked. A skill (or any other given ability) improves with both. The first is slow and always at the same rate. The second represents sudden boost thanks to experience and sudden understanding of something important. Both together are quite realistic. One without the other is not as much.

And Improvement through adventure discriminate a bit what is improving: it has to be something which is used during the adventure. Which makes a huge difference with D&D like improvement, for instance, where a character suddenly get a new ability without having learned or tried to use it during his adventures.

It doesn't matter because it's still in the same paradigm that, controlling for how you study, a point in one thing takes the same time to gain as a point in another thing. Which is wrong because it's harder to increase very high skills than low ones. The point isn't that that's not realistic per se. It's that because it's not realistic you should not use the Improvement Through Study rules to conclude things about other areas of the rules.

Originally Posted by Gollum

Of course. In reality, learning depends on so many different factors than it is impossible to be realistic here. A rule of that kind can just be plausible and consistent. It cannot correspond to a real number of hours...

In reality, it is impossible to say ow many hours I will need to fully learn a given technique with a given weapon.

Just because being able to achieve perfection is dubious does not mean that rules couldn't be made that are more realistic.

Originally Posted by Gollum

It's still impossible to do something else in GURPS. Even if you say +1 to the skill, rather than +X character points, +1 to the skill do correspond to a given number of character points (most often 4).

It's extremely trivial to remove the insert-time-get-points part of GURPS. You just ignore the Improvement Through Study rules.

Originally Posted by Gollum

If a fifth edition is published, I'm enforced to buy the new Basic Set or I won't be anymore able to take benefit from the new fifth edition publications...

I would not describe that as being enforced to do anything. It's not true either. Just like many third edition books are quite usable with fourth edition there are many fourth edition books that are quite usable with third edition and I would expect this pattern to continue. It's not like there aren't any books in fourth edition that require other books in order to be usable without ever having to deal with any referenced rules you don't have access to either.

Originally Posted by Gollum

New stuff go on being published, yes. But it is slowed down. Because rewriting the old one inevitably takes time. And since Basic Set, and other major books are very dense, they take a lot of time to be rewritten.

Well yes, a new edition isn't free. Nothing in the GURPS line is free though. Every book takes resources that theoretically could go to another book and the GURPS fanbase is very broad in the sorts of books they would like. Any expenditure of resources will look bad from the point of view of people who are more interested in other things it could have been invested in.

Originally Posted by Gollum

Yes. I fully do agree. And I don't think that GURPS need a true rewrite. Just some corrections here or there.

Then we have very different philosophies about RPG systems because the only thing I'd recognize as something that doesn't need a true rewrite is some sort of magical platonic version of an RPG system that has nothing to do with actual books.

Originally Posted by Gollum

There aren't many, indeed. But when you read a third edition book and you see something interesting (yipee!), there is always another feeling that come at the same time (draft! I will have to convert it in the new rules). That don't make things easy.

How often do you see something mechanically interesting though? When I read third edition books it is for things like the historicals where the most important parts don't rely on mechanics. Off the top of my head there is Vehicles of course. Third edition Martial Arts still has some things that aren't entirely superseded (the fourth edition Focused Defense is better at what it covers but there is still room for an official treatment of "I adopt a stance obviously optimized to defend my [insert magically significant organ] and entirely ignore any other attacks because they can't kill me"). I wouldn't want to just convert third edition animals when there is Animalia to at the very least to check out. There are guns that haven't been updated to fourth edition but given the number of fourth edition guns they must be very few. Third edition magic items probably work nearly seamlessly. Settings have stuff that needs conversion but much of that has already been done. Hidden Mechanical Treasures of Third Edition is probably worth a thread of it's own though.

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by Sindri

It doesn't matter because it's still in the same paradigm that, controlling for how you study, a point in one thing takes the same time to gain as a point in another thing. Which is wrong because it's harder to increase very high skills than low ones. The point isn't that that's not realistic per se. It's that because it's not realistic you should not use the Improvement Through Study rules to conclude things about other areas of the rules.

This paradigm (it's harder to get higher when your are already high) is not necessarily true. Of course, to our point of view, people with high skills sound to have difficulty to go even higher. But it can be just a point of view effect: the difference between 1 and 2 is huge because 2 is the double of 1. 100% more. The difference between 10 and 11 is not so huge, because 11 is only 10% more. And the difference between 21 and 20 is just 5% more.

In GURPS terms, it is worse. Effective skill of 20, 21 and 22 exactly have the same chance of success.

Brief, this feeling could come from the fact that we just don't see higher skill improving (while they still do).

Originally Posted by Sindri

Just because being able to achieve perfection is dubious does not mean that rules couldn't be made that are more realistic.

Yes. But what I want to say is that it would require to change a lot of things, then.

Originally Posted by Sindri

It's extremely trivial to remove the insert-time-get-points part of GURPS. You just ignore the Improvement Through Study rules.

To be replaced by what? If you just ignore them, how would you answer to my player who once said, for instance: "OK. I've got one week free. I go to the library and begin to study Latin" (last example I've seen).

Originally Posted by Sindri

I would not describe that as being enforced to do anything. It's not true either. Just like many third edition books are quite usable with fourth edition there are many fourth edition books that are quite usable with third edition and I would expect this pattern to continue. It's not like there aren't any books in fourth edition that require other books in order to be usable without ever having to deal with any referenced rules you don't have access to either.

GURPS is mainly bought for its mechanisms. Of course, all books are very well documented. Authors of them are very skilled in the topic they are speaking about and do a lot of research to include interesting data. But if I buy a GURPS book about Egypt, Steampunk or anything else like that, it is to have both documentation and rules. If I just want documentation, I won't buy a GURPS book. I will buy another book which gives only documentation. For my Cthulhu campaigns, for instance, I mainly buy Call of Cthulhu books. And I also buy Lovecraft novels. They offer far much documentation on that topic that any GURPS book can offer. Not because GURPS authors cannot do as well. Just because GURPS author do something else: offering a game world and specific rules or stats to cover it with GURPS. As a lot of people, for instance, I bought Cthulhupunk mainly to play ordinary Cthulhu adventures. Not to play Cthulhu in a Cyberpunk world.

Originally Posted by Sindri

Well yes, a new edition isn't free. Nothing in the GURPS line is free though. Every book takes resources that theoretically could go to another book and the GURPS fanbase is very broad in the sorts of books they would like. Any expenditure of resources will look bad from the point of view of people who are more interested in other things it could have been invested in.

Exactly. I will add to that the fact that GURPS buyers are mainly interested by rules. Most of them create their own game world, campaign, adventures or used those of another publisher. So, when the rules change, they have to be bought again. Unless wanting to be quite alone... Just look at the number of thread which are speaking about the third edition on this forum. Just very few now.

Originally Posted by Sindri

Then we have very different philosophies about RPG systems because the only thing I'd recognize as something that doesn't need a true rewrite is some sort of magical platonic version of an RPG system that has nothing to do with actual books.

The chance that a 5th edition of GURPS goes exactly in the direction you want are very low, then. Unless you become one of the main authors.

GURPS is GURPS, and work very well as it is, even if all of us disagree with some points here or there. Some things can be corrected, of course, exactly as they have been corrected and improved since the third edition. But the game will still remain overall the same, with its 3 dice against the effective skill, its point base character creation system... And its Improvement through study rules (which were already there in the third edition).

Originally Posted by Sindri

How often do you see something mechanically interesting though?

Very often. As I said above, if I want only documentation, I have got better books than GURPS ones. Because GURPS is a roleplaying game, not a documentary book. So, GURPS books are designed to be played, which implies stats and rules. And even when they are easy to convert, that requires time.

Let's take Egypt, for instance. What is is interesting once you read the historical stuff? The chapters Characters, to create a character (pages 70 to 85), the Job table (page 84), the chapter on equipment, the spells and the bestiary... But all that is written for the third edition. Advantages, disadvantages, skills have changed, as well as costs, incomes, and spells. So, if I am a fan of Egypt, is it a better idea to use Egypt or to use documentary books on Egypt, Basic Set 4th Edition, Low-Tech for the 4th edition and Thaumatology? The answer is here: Egypt will remain on the shelves. And if a new book about Egypt is published for the fourth edition, a fan of Egypt will surely want to buy it...

Likewise, if, in the future, I buy the 5th edition, what part of Low-Tech, High-Tech, Ultra-Tech, Bio-Tech, Horror, Magic, Thaumatology will still be usable without having a lot of conversions to do? I've got these book for the third edition (apart from Thaumatology, of course, which didn't exist). As well as Compendium 1 and 2. I don't open them anymore (except when I feel a bit nostalgic).

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by Gollum

This paradigm (it's harder to get higher when your are already high) is not necessarily true. Of course, to our point of view, people with high skills sound to have difficulty to go even higher. But it can be just a point of view effect: the difference between 1 and 2 is huge because 2 is the double of 1. 100% more. The difference between 10 and 11 is not so huge, because 11 is only 10% more. And the difference between 21 and 20 is just 5% more.

I didn't claim that difficulty simply increased with increasing level, I claimed that high skill levels are harder to improve than low skill levels. Where low means 10 not 1 (which is barely even a real skill level).

The percentage increase in skill number is meaningless, all that matters is increase in chance of success.

Originally Posted by Gollum

Brief, this feeling could come from the fact that we just don't see higher skill improving (while they still do).

It certainly doesn't. Increased skill level means things and experts don't increase their ability to perform perfectly in increasingly absurdly difficult situations as beginners increase their ability to succeed in typical skill conditions.

Originally Posted by Gollum

Yes. But what I want to say is that it would require to change a lot of things, then.

It would require some rules additions but it wouldn't create any rules problems elsewhere in the system. Fun problems on the other hand... but there's a reason I don't like insert-time-get-points.

Originally Posted by Gollum

To be replaced by what? If you just ignore them, how would you answer to my player who once said, for instance: "OK. I've got one week free. I go to the library and begin to study Latin" (last example I've seen).

To be replaced by nothing. In case you haven't noticed it's much more common in RPGs in general (and I suspect GURPS though I have no data) to not let characters improve through throwing time at a skill than it is to have rules like Improvement Through Study. Normally studying or training is a point of flavour and character personality. Now personally my current model of character improvement involves finding the perfect level of points to give to neither have characters advance too fast nor feel wrong for studious characters.

Originally Posted by Gollum

GURPS is mainly bought for its mechanisms. Of course, all books are very well documented. Authors of them are very skilled in the topic they are speaking about and do a lot of research to include interesting data. But if I buy a GURPS book about Egypt, Steampunk or anything else like that, it is to have both documentation and rules. If I just want documentation, I won't buy a GURPS book. I will buy another book which gives only documentation. For my Cthulhu campaigns, for instance, I mainly buy Call of Cthulhu books. And I also buy Lovecraft novels. They offer far much documentation on that topic that any GURPS book can offer. Not because GURPS authors cannot do as well. Just because GURPS author do something else: offering a game world and specific rules or stats to cover it with GURPS. As a lot of people, for instance, I bought Cthulhupunk mainly to play ordinary Cthulhu adventures. Not to play Cthulhu in a Cyberpunk world.

The audience that actually bought/buys historicals did not on the whole buy them for their mechanical content. They bought them because they appreciated someone doing the research (including the hard less fun bits) and delivering it from the perspective of RPGs. A not insignificant amount of them weren't even GURPS players.

Originally Posted by Gollum

The chance that a 5th edition of GURPS goes exactly in the direction you want are very low, then. Unless you become one of the main authors.

Well obviously it won't go exactly the direction I would like. That's an extremely specific direction. However the mechanical changes from third edition to fourth and the (mostly optional) intraedition changes of fourth edition have mostly met with my approval, so I see no reason to assume that the fifth edition changes won't proceed along similar lines.

Originally Posted by Gollum

GURPS is GURPS, and work very well as it is, even if all of us disagree with some points here or there. Some things can be corrected, of course, exactly as they have been corrected and improved since the third edition. But the game will still remain overall the same, with its 3 dice against the effective skill, its point base character creation system... And its Improvement through study rules (which were already there in the third edition).

I'm not talking about "roll 3 dice against effective skill" level changes. Remember I said

Originally Posted by Sindri

Fourth edition is not third edition corrected, it's third edition with the things that require a rewrite to change. That's the entire point of edition change; being able to make significant rewrites at the core of a system that will be heavily tested and supported by default instead of hiding in a Pyramid article.

and fourth edition did not involve changes at the level of "roll 3 dice against effective skill" so clearly that's not the sort of change I'm talking about.

Originally Posted by Gollum

Very often. As I said above, if I want only documentation, I have got better books than GURPS ones. Because GURPS is a roleplaying game, not a documentary book. So, GURPS books are designed to be played, which implies stats and rules. And even when they are easy to convert, that requires time.

Most nonfiction books even if fine books for their intended purpose are rather suboptimal for RPGs. Putting that aside I suspect we have different things in mind for being mechanically excited because I'm only mechanically excited when I see stuff I don't already have and I already have most of third edition's mechanics only better in the form of fourth edition. I don't get exited because by eye happens to cross some mechanical rules text.

Originally Posted by Gollum

Let's take Egypt, for instance. What is is interesting once you read the historical stuff? The chapters Characters, to create a character (pages 70 to 85), the Job table (page 84), the chapter on equipment, the spells and the bestiary... But all that is written for the third edition. Advantages, disadvantages, skills have changed, as well as costs, incomes, and spells. So, if I am a fan of Egypt, is it a better idea to use Egypt or to use documentary books on Egypt, Basic Set 4th Edition, Low-Tech for the 4th edition and Thaumatology? The answer is here: Egypt will remain on the shelves. And if a new book about Egypt is published for the fourth edition, a fan of Egypt will surely want to buy it...

If the mechanical parts of historicals (which really shouldn't include roleplaying advice such as the character creation suggestions) are really the core reason you enjoyed them rather than nice pot sweeteners then you weren't a typical purchaser. A new edition of Egypt probably would actually face some difficulty with sales since a lot of people with the third edition version would be inclined to not pick up the next version and most of those who did would be hoping for things like more up to date scholarship.

Originally Posted by Gollum

Likewise, if, in the future, I buy the 5th edition, what part of Low-Tech, High-Tech, Ultra-Tech, Bio-Tech, Horror, Magic, Thaumatology will still be usable without having a lot of conversions to do? I've got these book for the third edition (apart from Thaumatology, of course, which didn't exist). As well as Compendium 1 and 2. I don't open them anymore (except when I feel a bit nostalgic).

Most of them? I mean obviously if you buy the fifth edition version they should be supplanted. but you obviously thought the improvements were worth the price if you bought it. If you don't have the current edition versions though most of that is usable. Horror is a genre book and is mostly edition independent. The rest of them are probably going to function fine. If conversion is necessary for any of the mechanical stuff that is actually important it's likely to be categorical conversions rather than spot conversions.

[Gollum]

Sorry, I won't answer argument by argument this time because it makes my posts too long (to write and surely also to read)...

I begin to think that, actually, we almost agree. We just have a lightly different approach. Indeed, I often exaggerate my examples to make what I want to mean more clear.

GURPS won't ever change it's 3 dice against the effective skill, for instance. It was just a quick (and bad) example to tell that the system will globally remain the same, including for the Improvement through study rules which did already exist in the third edition. But I do agree with you than a lot of things have changed with the fourth edition and if it was in the good way for you, there is a high chance that the hypothetical future 5th edition also change things in a way that you will like.

For the improvement, I also think that making it harder for higher level could be a good idea (that is what the BRP system do), but just wanted to say that what sounds to be obvious is not necessarily true in reality. Of course, for role playing games, it makes sense.

And for GURPS books, you are right, of course. There is an important part of text that aren't rules and that can be used with every edition of the game. But I wanted to insist on the fact that GURPS buyers are usually fond of rules. Reading 500 pages of rules, just for the Basic Set (!) is quite special... So, I may be a bit weird, but when I see all the discussions in this forum (How to handle this? How to translate this? Is this rule realistic?), I tend to believe that rules are what interest most of us. GURPS don't offer a lot of campaigns and adventures (even if they are some). And unlike the third edition, the fourth one doesn't even offer a lot of game worlds. It mainly offers a lot of rules and hints to allow everyone to build his own game worlds or to translate those from an other publisher.

I had bought again a lot of books with the fourth edition. And I'm sure that most of us did. The idea to have to buy them again dishearten me a bit. I didn't even finish to read them all!

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by Gollum

Sorry, I won't answer argument by argument this time because it makes my posts too long (to write and surely also to read)...

I begin to think that, actually, we almost agree. We just have a lightly different approach. Indeed, I often exaggerate my examples to make what I want to mean more clear.

GURPS won't ever change it's 3 dice against the effective skill, for instance. It was just a quick (and bad) example to tell that the system will globally remain the same, including for the Improvement through study rules which did already exist in the third edition. But I do agree with you than a lot of things have changed with the fourth edition and if it was in the good way for you, there is a high chance that the hypothetical future 5th edition also change things in a way that you will like.

For the improvement, I also think that making it harder for higher level could be a good idea (that is what the BRP system do), but just wanted to say that what sounds to be obvious is not necessarily true in reality. Of course, for role playing games, it makes sense.

And for GURPS books, you are right, of course. There is an important part of text that aren't rules and that can be used with every edition of the game. But I wanted to insist on the fact that GURPS buyers are usually fond of rules. Reading 500 pages of rules, just for the Basic Set (!) is quite special... So, I may be a bit weird, but when I see all the discussions in this forum (How to handle this? How to translate this? Is this rule realistic?), I tend to believe that rules are what interest most of us. GURPS don't offer a lot of campaigns and adventures (even if they are some). And unlike the third edition, the fourth one doesn't even offer a lot of game worlds. It mainly offers a lot of rules and hints to allow everyone to build his own game worlds or to translate those from an other publisher.

I had bought again a lot of books with the fourth edition. And I'm sure that most of us did. The idea to have to buy them again dishearten me a bit. I didn't even finish to read them all!

I don't mind single reply mode.

I agree that some variety of Improvement Through Study rules (which in case you haven't noticed DouglasCole recently did an article about on Gaming Ballistic) probably won't disappear. GURPS appears to like it's quirky assumptions about campaign model such as that and the assumption that player characters will have houses and jobs.

Rules certainly do interest the GURPS fanbase (thankfully!) but it's important to realize that the historicals, while they generated a lot of appreciation, apparently didn't actually sell that well and didn't cater to quite the same crowd as the people who buy GURPS books in general. After the fans of the historicals famously included lots of people who didn't actually play GURPS.

Theres a fair amount of people here who only got into GURPS with fourth edition or who significantly increased their commitment to it. I know third edition for me was an option whereas fourth edition has basically become the correct choice for any games I might actually run. There are definite downside to picking up new versions of RPG books for a new edition but on the other hand when I think about it excitement is my main reaction. An improved version of a broadly applicable book that I already like? Not that I don't enjoy most of the completely new books but many of them are somewhat more niche in applicability than things like genre books, tech books, and core mechanical expansions.

[Gollum]

I fully do agree with what you wrote above.

Let's come back to the main topic of this thread now. Did we answer to your question about tonfa/tonkwa?

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by Gollum

I fully do agree with what you wrote above.

Let's come back to the main topic of this thread now. Did we answer to your question about tonfa/tonkwa?

Sure, I'm satisfied with the results of this thread.

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by Sindri

Sure, I'm satisfied with the results of this thread.

Good. Thank you very much, and thanks to everyone, for this enthralling debate.