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Old 06-17-2022, 03:19 PM   #1
KarlKost
 
Join Date: Mar 2017
Location: Brazil
Default Alternate Gurps - Alternate Attributes

Here are a few modifications Im building for my Gurps games, with some big changes into Attributes and a few new resources.

Primary Attributes


Physical

Strenght (ST) +/- 10
Like Base Gurps.

Dexterity (DX) +/- 10
Motor Coordination and manual dexterity. Most Weapons and Vehicle skills and skills under High Manual Dexterity and Ham Fisted. Rules precise movements.

Agility (AG) +/- 10
Reflex, flexibility and balance. General athletics
like Acrobatics, Bicycling, Dancing, Jumping, and Riding,
and rolls to keep your feet, flexibility for Climbing, Erotic Art, Escape, Wrestling, etc., not to mention rolls when grappling. Rules speed and grace.

Health (HT) +/- 10
Immune system, physical resistance. Holl HT to avoid death and uncounciousness. Roll to recover health.

Endurance (ED) +/- 10
Cardio-vascular and muscular endurance. Roll to recover FP.


Mental

Intelligence (IQ) +/- 10
Basic cognition, memory, logic and knowledge; replaces Eidetic Memory at high levels. Used for most sciences and knowledge skills

Creativity (CR) +/- 10
Capacity to create and innovate. Used for artistic skills (except Entrallment skills). Replaces IQ for Thaumatology, Symbol Drawing, Alchemy, Herbalism, Engineering, Computer Programming and others when inventing new spells/potions or new technology

Perception (PE) +/- 10
Same as base Gurps.

Will (WL) +/- 10
Resist torture, fear, surprise, mental stun and any sort of supernatural attacks to the mind. Do NOT resist Influence Rolls, but resists Brainwashing and Hypnotism skills or abilities.


Social

Charisma (CH) +/- 10
Personal "charm". Governs most "social skills", like Acting, Carousing, Public Speech, Politics, Fast-Talk, Diplomacy, Intimidation, Sex-Appeal, Panhandling, Brainwashing, Savoir-Faire, Haggling (no longer part of Merchant), Streetwise, Leadership and all Enthrallment skills (including any "cinematic Leadership" skills). Replaces Charisma advantage and any typically "social" Talents (like Smooth Operator).
Carisma is also used to resist Interrogation.

Empathy (EP) +/- 10
"Emotional Intelligence". Replaces ALL Empathy advantages. Used for Detect Lies, Fortune Telling, Psychology (applied), Propaganda, Interrogation, Discern Emotions, skills to deal with animals and to resist Influence Rolls (instead of Will). Replaces Indomitable at high levels.
Dealing with spirits still require some way to see and communicate with them.

Presence (PR) +/- 10
The character's bearing and demeanor. Replaces Appeareance and many other similar traits; provides modifiers for Reaction Rolls for intrinsinc traits (it can still be modified by external ones, like Rank, Reputation etc).
Some abilities may use Presence as it's controlling attribute (such as emotional control and others).


Supernatural
Those Attributes may not exist in all settings

Mystical (Magery/Chi/Divine/Psyonic Power/Super/Others) (Mys) +/- 10
This is a special class of different attributes that signify an affinity towards a specific source of supernatural powers. Magery is the ability to cast spells; in order to be able to buy levels of Magery, you must first buy the Unusual Background Magery 0 for 5 CPs. Chi is the ability to use the internal energy of the Chi for superhuman purposes, like some cinematic skills such as Pressure Blow etc. To buy Chi levels you must first have Trained by a Master. Divine, Psy, Super and others may as well require their own UB at the GM request.
Note that each one of those is a different, independant attribute; Magery is one Attribute, Chi another, Psy Power a totally different one etc. So, if you want to build a Chi martial artist who can also cast spells, you have to buy each as a separate attribute.
All Mystical Attributes replace other traits for the use of their relative powers - for example, Magery replaces IQ for casting spells, Chi replaces Will or Per or any other for Chi abilities and so on.
The average value is 10; only characters which posses those traits can have it bellow that value (this can represent someone who has just begun learning those abilities, using the Attribute discount to buy them in game

Intuition (IT) +/- 10
A "sixth sense". This replaces the Intuition and Common Sense advantages at high levels. This attribute is used to sense any sort of supernatural phenomena; players may also ask the GM for advice when they are in doubt on a course of action with a secret roll of Intuition; the GM is also free to roll Intuition in secret whenever a player is about to do something incredible stupid - a success in this roll earns a "friendly GM warning".
Some kinds of mystic senses also rely on Intuition rather than Perception or other traits; for example, Magery no longer grants bonuses for detecting magic or similar, roll Intuition for that.
Intuition also replaces IQ and Per for esoteric advantages (e.g., Blessed, Clairsentience, Danger Sense, Mind Reading, Oracle, Precognition, Psychometry, Telesend and Visualization)

Spirit (SI) +/- 10
This Attribute rules over the character supernatural resilience. All kinds of supernatural attacks that aint directed as mental attacks are resisted by the Spirit. This Attribute replaces Magical Resistance/Weakness and similar. It replaces any HT rolls to resist supernatural powers of any kind that isnt target at "the mind", such as body transformations, curses, possessions, "death spells" etc.

Corruption -20/lvl
This is a situational Attribute, fitting only for genres with supernatural forces; ideal for Horror games. It's an "anti-attribute", there is, the more you have it, the worse you are.
Once your Permanent Corruption score reaches your Will, you are either driven utterly insane or consumed by evil. Meaning, you become a NPC.
Every 20 points of Temporary Corruption turns into 1 Permanent Corruption; every time you acquire 1 Permanent Corruption, also acquire 20 points of Disadvantages (GM pick).
Corruption may also occur due to "spiritual distortion", as discussed on Thaumatology under "Spirit assisted magic". Using angelic powers may end up shaping you into a mere celestial weapon, an pure instrument of angelic wrath devoid of free will, or a mere vessel of inhuman spiritual energies from beings from other planes.
Gurps Horror has rules on acquiring Corruption.


Secondary Characteristics

Courage (CR) = Will +/- 2
Resistance to Fright Checks. Replaces Fearless and similar at high levels.

Initiative = (Agility+Perception)/2 (round down). +/- 5 (max +/- 1 for regular humans)
Initiative determines the order of play on each turn. This can be solved by:
A.) Pure trait. The one with highest Initiative goes first (in case of a tie, compare Agility).
B.) The GM have each player and NPC roll their Initiatives at the beggining of Combat; the order of action for the remainder of the combat will be defined by the MoS or
C.) Each player rolls Initiative each turn (the GM rolls Initiative for the NPCs). The MoS determine the order of actions each turn; critical failure means "mental stun", you must "Do Nothing" for the rest of the turn while you cannot decide what to do; critical success could give some bonus (bonus to skill? Any idea here is welcomed)

Dodge = 3+ (Agility+Perception)/4 (round down). +/- 10 (max +/- 1 for regular humans)
Active Basic Defense as is in Base Gurps.

Basic Move = Endurance/2 (round down) +/- 5


Resources
I'll expand on those later as they'll need some consideration, even more so since regeneration times and depletion consequences will be vastly different from vanilla.

Fatigue Points (FP) = HT +/- 2

Action Points (AP) = AT +/-2

Willpower (WP) = WL +/-2

Health Points (HP) = ST +/- 2

Soul Points (SP) = SI +/- 2

Energy Reserve (ER) = Mys +/- 2
Mana, Chi Points, Psi Points, Blood Points, Rage, Super Energy etc etc

So, what do you guys think?
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Old 06-17-2022, 04:11 PM   #2
KarlKost
 
Join Date: Mar 2017
Location: Brazil
Default Re: Alternate Gurps - Alternate Attributes

So, a few considerations:

Physical

*DX* broke down into Dexterity and Agility, thus cutting prices by half to both. Agility keeps most of the skills, however the most attractive skills (combat ones) are under Dexterity; however, Agility is also crucial for both Initiative and Dodge (there's no longer a Basic Speed); therefore, I'd say that both remain equally useful and very complementary.

*HT* broke down into Health and Endurance. Health is how you resist hunger, heat, cold, poison, disease, collapse under injury and death. Endurance is how you resist being physically tired. It is tied to holding your breath, "catching your breath" and keep going.
In game terms, Health controls FP, which will take a much longer time to heal (similar now to HP), and Endurance controls AP (action points), which recover in a few seconds but also are spent a lot more willy-nilly.

PS: I forgot to put above, but missing sleep will affect Will and reduce the Willpower Points, no longer being controlled by HT and affecting FP.

HT is so useful that I saw no reason to reduce costs to either, particularly now that FP and AP are supposed to play a major role in play, particularly when combined with the other resources. Also, there's a small discount already considering that FP is being broken into 2 types of "energy", and each costs only 2CP/lvl instead of 3.


Mental

*IQ* is the one that suffered the greatest overall. Also, it is the one everybody most complains about. Thus, IQ has been broken into tons of tiny pieces.

First of all, all Social and Supernatural interations of IQ have been given their own separated areas.

Second, IQ has been segregated from both Will and Perception, who have both gained status of primary attributes.

The remainder of IQ - there is, the part that rules over mundane skills usage - has been broken into 2 pieces: Intelligence, which will cover most of the uses of regular mental (non social) skills, and Creativity, which covers artistic skills and ANY rolls for inventions.

Since both are still VERY useful, 10 points is still fair.


Social

*Charisma* is basically what you use to influence others, *Empathy* is what you use to "read" others and not be played for a fool. Presence is the modifier to your Reaction Rolls based on the first impression; sure there are components of Appearance to it, but there's also some "personal magnetism" to it that goes a little beyond just physical beauty. Since those can be used to create massive "social chameleons" for very cheap and since most people that usually focus on combat or "brainy activities" or all the cool supernatural powers tend to bypass social, or simply enjoyed mages with massive IQs to drop a single point on those skills, 10 CP per level is fair and useful to make focused "faces"


Supernatural

*Mystical* - separating all the many supernatural powers from IQ is a necessity. IQ is already too good even if *only* controlling mundane skills. With IQ also controlling a massive plethora of supernatural traits, it gets insane.
Therefore, creating an attribute just for using supernatural powers make both more manageable.

*Intuition* and *Magery* - there's an important consideration here about Magery; Magery no longer can detect magic; that's now entirely under Intuition.

Now, Magery suffers a lit bit in here, because being cast away from IQ means no longer being the wizard/sage/spy.

However, increasing ONLY magical ability is now just 10 points/lvl, not 20 - althought Thaumatology got a little more distant, as did things like Hidden Lore, Exorcism etc

And with magic detection also out, Magery has lost a little.

Also, I recommend that divination spells be based on Intuition, not Magery.

That's more than compensated with the fact that Magery comes with a "Mana" (ER) trait "free" of charge.
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Old 07-03-2022, 05:26 AM   #3
jacobmuller
 
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Default Re: Alternate Gurps - Alternate Attributes

Am I sad in that I admit to enjoying the in depth analysis of Attributes in the book?
Where I'm at with stats:
ST [5/10%]: TL10, HP still matter, ST is limited & set by SM+clade. HP 2/lvl; StST 1/lvl; LftST 2/lvl.

IQ 18: increased relevence, removed Per, added Spd. IQ! 12/lvl. Will 6/lvl* but three aspects

DX 10: ranged skills are Per, Agility skills are shared, cheaper Spd

HT 20: increased relevence, add Per, share of Agility skills, no Spd

Per 10: increased relevence + extra skills + chpr Spd

Basic Spd is (2DX+IQ+Per)/8, costs 12 ie [3/0.25]: OODA loop, Dodge is still important, turn order loops, dropped Move.

Dodge: Basic Spd +3 -SM, costs 12.

Agility, Ag [15]: (DX+HT-SM)/2

Move [1] (Ag/2)+SM: it's TL10, who cares how fast you run in space.

*Aspected Will, 2/lvl /aspect
Ardor (chi, spirituality)
Balance (willpower, stability)
Charisma (empathy, strength of character)
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Old 07-03-2022, 06:15 AM   #4
whswhs
 
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Default Re: Alternate Gurps - Alternate Attributes

By my count you have between 12 and 16 primary characteristics. That's just way too many. Psychologists talk about "the magical number seven, plus or minus two" as a cognitive limit. There are games with few attributes—Big Eyes Small Mouth has three, and GURPS has four; many games fall into the 5-9 range; two systems at the upper limit, nine, have a 3x3 structure, three larger categories (physical, mental, and spiritual for DC Heroes; physical, social, and mental for World of Darkness) with three attributes each. I think if you go past that you're exceeding the number of traits that can make intuitive sense to most human minds, including mine.
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Old 07-03-2022, 08:56 AM   #5
KarlKost
 
Join Date: Mar 2017
Location: Brazil
Default Re: Alternate Gurps - Alternate Attributes

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
By my count you have between 12 and 16 primary characteristics. That's just way too many. Psychologists talk about "the magical number seven, plus or minus two" as a cognitive limit. There are games with few attributes—Big Eyes Small Mouth has three, and GURPS has four; many games fall into the 5-9 range; two systems at the upper limit, nine, have a 3x3 structure, three larger categories (physical, mental, and spiritual for DC Heroes; physical, social, and mental for World of Darkness) with three attributes each. I think if you go past that you're exceeding the number of traits that can make intuitive sense to most human minds, including mine.
Yeah. Dividing DX and HT are actually excessive and unnecessary divisions; I guess I'll stick with 3 Physical Attributes. I was just experimenting anyway, looking for some good ideas to see "what sticks". I guess 4 broad categories are fine at most, or to divide into 3 like WoD and have a single extra "Supernatural" like Magery or Chi or whatever. IQ already has the natural division of Will and Per, so it only needs to make those independant. Other than that, I think Charisma and Empathy are good fixes for Social Attributes, and discard Appereance as a further one - or even letting just a single "Charisma" social Attribute. That would give 7-8 attributes, plus a mystical one that would be setting dependant.

As for "consumables", I like WoD "Willpower Points (WP)" and I like Gurps FP; I wanted to use WP "special case ER" to allow for purchasing "extra effort" for Mental Actions, particularly resisting self control rolls (that one is going to be trickier), creating a "mental fortitude against intrusion" and that sort of thing. Finally, I really liked the idea of "Action Points" from one Pyramid issue, and wanted that too; and ER to fuel supernatural powers. That's 4 different pools of consumables (5 with HP) which... Undoubtly gets convoluted - and yet Im so unwilling to cut any of it... I guess I could keep just FP and WP, althought I wanted more...
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Old 07-03-2022, 09:16 AM   #6
KarlKost
 
Join Date: Mar 2017
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Default Re: Alternate Gurps - Alternate Attributes

Quote:
Originally Posted by jacobmuller View Post
Am I sad in that I admit to enjoying the in depth analysis of Attributes in the book?
Where I'm at with stats:
ST [5/10%]: TL10, HP still matter, ST is limited & set by SM+clade. HP 2/lvl; StST 1/lvl; LftST 2/lvl.

IQ 18: increased relevence, removed Per, added Spd. IQ! 12/lvl. Will 6/lvl* but three aspects

DX 10: ranged skills are Per, Agility skills are shared, cheaper Spd

HT 20: increased relevence, add Per, share of Agility skills, no Spd

Per 10: increased relevence + extra skills + chpr Spd

Basic Spd is (2DX+IQ+Per)/8, costs 12 ie [3/0.25]: OODA loop, Dodge is still important, turn order loops, dropped Move.

Dodge: Basic Spd +3 -SM, costs 12.

Agility, Ag [15]: (DX+HT-SM)/2

Move [1] (Ag/2)+SM: it's TL10, who cares how fast you run in space.

*Aspected Will, 2/lvl /aspect
Ardor (chi, spirituality)
Balance (willpower, stability)
Charisma (empathy, strength of character)
I LOVED the Alternate Attributes Power Ups. I already used some of those options - independent Will and Per, I always use ER too, I already always used Magery and similar as a different attribute with 10+Magery, so a lot of stuff there I was already putting to good use for years anyway; I also had Charisma as a different Attribute rather than an Advantage-like-Talent. That always worked pretty fine for me, but I also always wanted to use "Willpower Points" (WP) like in WoD to complement FP. I never had considering turning Empathy into an Attribute, and I liked that idea.

So, when I saw the Alternate Attributes Power Ups, I decide to try some experimentation... I also really like the take on Action Points from Pyramid and another article that makes FP far harder to heal, and that apply penalties based on lost HP and FP (which if memory serves it's in the same Pyramid issue), so Im in a phase of high experimentation... Obviously, I'll have to pick some and drop others, but that book is absolutely genius in every sense, and a huge source for inspiration
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