04-21-2017, 02:57 PM | #31 | |
Join Date: Sep 2004
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Re: Pyramid #3/102: Epic
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Edit: Actually, after posting this, I remembered Dungeon Fantasy #17: Guilds, so there's actually a basic framework for intrigue and realm management scenarios using that book, so that's one thing covered. Even moreso if combined with GURPS Social Engineering, to turn the Party's Bard, Rogue and Cleric into social manipulators. Although now I'm curious as to how one would go about simulating a Minecraft-style system in GURPS. Last edited by LoneWolf23k; 04-21-2017 at 03:13 PM. |
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04-21-2017, 03:15 PM | #32 |
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Re: Pyramid #3/102: Epic
I imagine Steven would welcome good articles on those topics, though "Goes To War" seems reasonably beer-and-prezelish itself. It's still about killing things and taking their stuff, just with a very large scale of killing.
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04-21-2017, 03:57 PM | #33 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Pyramid #3/102: Epic
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The biggest problem with running Mass Combat in a standard DF game is the scale of money. The sample Yrth force in Mass Combat (p 42) has a monthly maintenance of $332,000, so if the PCs have the cash flow to maintain troops, they have the cash flow to buy any mundane equipment they want. I've dealt with that in my game by just letting the PCs have whatever mundane equipment they want, but it would make things more complicated in a traditional loot focused DF game.
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04-21-2017, 04:23 PM | #34 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Pyramid #3/102: Epic
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Pyramid has been the Petri dish of GURPS for many years now (and Roleplayer served that role before then). In general, like Vegas, what happens in Pyramid stays in Pyramid. This doesn't mean these ideas can't spill over into larger GURPSdom; it just means that things that are cool in Pyramid aren't necessarily standard practice for the rest of the line. In this particular case, one of the central tenets of GURPS Dungeon Fantasy is that books are standalone; they can't reference GURPS books outside the series except the [url="http://www.warehouse23.com/products/SJG31-0001"]GURPS Basic Set and GURPS Magic. Thus, since Matt's article needs GURPS Mass Combat, it's a nonstarter to envision it as part of the core GURPS Dungeon Fantasy line. Of course, long-time fans of the series know that we can bring in Cool Ideas from Pyramid. Perhaps the most germane example is how parts of GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 19: Incantation Magic previously appeared in Pyramid #3/43: Thaumatology III and Pyramid #3/66: The Laws of Magic. Soooo . . . it's feasible that we'll someday have a version of GURPS Mass Combat that's pared down and designed specifically for GURPS Dungeon Fantasy. And that's especially true if lots and lots of folks buy copies of this issue and otherwise talk up how awesome that would be. :-) |
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04-22-2017, 11:51 AM | #35 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Pyramid #3/102: Epic
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Though to be fair, it also doesn't feel like the equivalent of a zero-point feature: the more points you invest in Trained Abilities, the more time you have to spend Maintaining them. That puts a practical limit on how many points of Trained Abilities you can take, because there are only 168 hours in a week; and as you approach that limit, you run out of time to do anything else (like holding down a job or conducting downtime investigations that will potentially further the plot). And there are no special benefits associated with it that I'm aware of. It would be a different story if, say, it allowed you to relax the requirements for Intensive Training in exchange for having to maintain the resulting skills; that I could see as a zero-point feature. |
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04-22-2017, 11:54 AM | #36 | |
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Re: Pyramid #3/102: Epic
Quote:
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04-22-2017, 12:06 PM | #37 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Pyramid #3/102: Epic
But that's true of all power modifiers. And to paraphrase the Incredibles, “when everybody's special, nobody's special”. Put another way, that's not really a power modifiers thing; it's a “belongs to a power” thing. The power mod is merely a convenient tag to identify such membership.
And like I said, “has the potential to eat up all of your free time” doesn't sound like a trivial limitation to me. Those maintenance hours add up. |
04-22-2017, 12:16 PM | #38 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Pyramid #3/102: Epic
Meanwhile, the issue's main attraction: Crafting Imbuements. I bought the issue on the strength of this article alone; and I was not disappointed. That said, there's room for expansion: while I get that it's about creating permanent items, it shouldn't take much to let you “jury rig”. And then there's the Frankenstein option, where you treat medical skills as craft skills.
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04-22-2017, 12:30 PM | #39 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Pyramid #3/102: Epic
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So if the PM here didn't represent the need for training, it would need to reflect something else. It wouldn't just be "Training (-0%): No game effect, this just marks it as part of a power."
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04-22-2017, 12:43 PM | #40 | |||
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Pyramid #3/102: Epic
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The narrative effect of this approach is at least different. Instead of going six months without using Very Fit, losing it entirely, and having to spend 2000 hours to get it back, you skip a week's two hours of exercise, lose the use of the enhanced fitness, and have to spend 40 hours to regain that use. A minor point is that this largely applies to physical abilities gained through physical training. The +5/+10 for Eidetic/Photographic Memory doesn't make much sense for continuing to be Very Fit, or to have Striking Strength +1. Quote:
And do you need to have all of them? Many super normals get by with much less. If you settle for 10 advantages with Trained, you only need 20 hours, which is well within the range that many people with a serious hobby spend on their activity. It's comparable to the requirements imposed by some forms of Disciplines of Faith and less onerous than some. Quote:
Of course this is an experiment! But I've been treating it as an exercise in design, and I'm seeing what look like some interesting possibilities, for the specialized function of giving more detail to the "super normal" type of hero in a supers campaign. I don't think the Maintaining Skills rule gives the same results, and I think it's actually designed for a very different concept, that of a highly realistic treatment of skills in a mundane campaign.
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