Pyramid #3/44: Alternate GURPS II

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Steven Marsh

(As an aside, I'll take this moment to thank Douglas for effort he put in to make the first half of the article clearer to me... it didn't change the underlying system, but the presentation felt a lot more accessible once the dust settled.)

This is the "right back at you" section, since the dialog made notable improvements in the way the system played, and Steven's suggestion solved some real issues with how to explain this concept.

Anyway, the way I kept it straight in my mind as I was editing it -- and how I'd likely run it, if I used this system in a game -- is to envision the "pool" to be three different-colored counters/chips/M&Ms/whatever:

• Green -- Light
• Yellow -- Severe
• Red -- Deep

This works very well.

Thus someone with 10 FP would have:

• Green
• Green
• Green
• Green
• Green
• Yellow
• Yellow
• Yellow
• Yellow
• Yellow
• Red
• Red
• Red
• Red
• Red
• Red
• Red
• Red
• Red
• Red

When you spend FP, first you burn the greens, then the yellows, and then the reds. When you recover, first you recover the greens, then the yellows, and finally the reds. This makes it entirely possible to have all your greens and all your reds, and none of your yellows. (I'd probably make custom counters for each player so that -- in addition to being color-coded -- the counters also listed how long each one took to earn back.)

I'm not sure if this is any clearer to you, but it worked for me when I was mulling it over. :-)

The only change I made above is the number of total "coins" or "chips." You have 5 FP of mild fatigue (10 FP down to 6 FP), 5 FP of severe fatigue (5 FP down to 0 FP), and 10 FP of deep fatigue (from 0 FP down to -10 FP).

This "where do the poker chips go" method is the best way of visualizing (and gaming!) how this works by far, and honestly it's due to Steven's prodding.