01-10-2015, 03:53 PM | #271 | |||||||
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: France
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Re: Improving the Tonfa
OK.
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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. Quote:
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. Quote:
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... Quote:
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Last edited by Gollum; 01-10-2015 at 04:00 PM. |
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01-10-2015, 04:35 PM | #272 | ||||||
Join Date: Nov 2011
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Re: Improving the Tonfa
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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 Third edition Martial Arts still has some things that aren't entirely superseded (the fourth edition Focused Defense is better at what it covers but there is still room for an official treatment of "I adopt a stance obviously optimized to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. |
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01-11-2015, 01:41 AM | #273 | ||||||
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: France
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Re: Improving the Tonfa
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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). Quote:
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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). 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). Last edited by Gollum; 01-11-2015 at 01:53 AM. |
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01-11-2015, 02:54 AM | #274 | |||||||||||
Join Date: Nov 2011
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Re: Improving the Tonfa
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The percentage increase in skill number is meaningless, all that matters is increase in chance of success. Quote:
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01-12-2015, 11:47 PM | #275 |
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: France
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Re: Improving the Tonfa
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! Last edited by Gollum; 01-13-2015 at 12:11 AM. |
01-13-2015, 12:22 AM | #276 | |
Join Date: Nov 2011
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Re: Improving the Tonfa
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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. Last edited by Sindri; 01-14-2015 at 11:18 PM. |
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01-14-2015, 11:15 PM | #277 |
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: France
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Re: Improving the Tonfa
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? |
01-14-2015, 11:28 PM | #278 |
Join Date: Nov 2011
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Re: Improving the Tonfa
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01-15-2015, 09:18 AM | #279 |
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: France
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Re: Improving the Tonfa
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Tags |
house rules, low-tech, martial arts, tonfa, weapons. |
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