GURPS Lone Wolf

AllenOwen · 03-11-2019, 06:08 PM

I'm sure many on this forum remember the old Lone Wolf series of gamebooks from the 80s. There is a table top RPG being produced by Cubicle 7. I have the box set and one of the supplements. It's a good product, but the system is basically the system from the gamebooks ported over to a table top RPG. Even has the "Action Chart" printed on the inside of the box! Nothing wrong with that, and even though I haven't run it yet, I'm sure it runs fine. I'm interested in GURPSifing the setting. I saw an thread on the SJGames forum where they talked about converting the old d20 game over to GURPS. It didn't seem to get very far. I found this for 3ed here:

https://www.magnamund.org/risingsun/August99/GURPS.html

Which seems a good a place as any to start. I think it is better to just look at the setting and make it in GURPS rather than try to convert from another system. Has anyone else tried to make a Lone Wolf GURPS setting?

AlexanderHowl · 03-11-2019, 07:16 PM

I have the entire American run, so I am quite familiar with Lone Wolf. The key thing to remember about the Kai is that they are psychic weapon masters, so they should probably start at around 400 CP (Kai), 600 CP (Magnakai), and 800 CP (Grand Master). Each additional book should probably represent 40 CP of progress, which may be in the form of attributes, abilities, and/or skills (Lone Wolf would therefore have been around 1200 CP at the end of book 20).

AllenOwen · 03-11-2019, 08:43 PM

I have, or used to have, the Magnamund Comnpanion...I only played through a few of the American run. I do have the Lone Wold Adventure Game boxed set and the Heroes of Magnamund supplement.

As I said, I don't want to try a direct conversion of any other game; instead, I think it best to look at what Kai Lords and Knights of Sommerlund, etc can do and put it into GURPS.

Here's an initial list of character types available in the LWAG and tentative CP values for each:

Kai Lords (400/600/800 for Kai Lord/Magnakai/Grand Master, respectively)
Knight of Sommerlund (A medieval knight, 250 CP)
Knight of the White Mountains (Also a medieval knight, 250 CP)
Dwarven Gunner of Bor(250 CP)
Brotherhood of the Crystal Star (seems to be standard fantasy mage, 250 CP)
Magician of Dessi (Sorcerer, 250 CP, maybe Ritual Path Magic to differentiate them from the Brotherhood?)

More character types later.
I think I'll start with Kai lords.

They are psychic weapon masters and apparently, skilled woodsmen. I think Joe Dever was thinking what would happen if Aragorn was a Jedi Knight or a samurai...

I think it would be helpful to list the "Kai Disciplines" and try to see what GURPS traits best represent them.

There are 10 Kai Disciplines from which you can choose at first, and as you progress through the books, you'll get all 10, then you can start learning the 10 Magankai disciplines. I never played enough to see what Grand Master disciplines were like.

From the website I linked to in my first post, the 10 Kai disciplines and a possible GURPS interpretation are:

Camouflage (GURPS = Stealth and Camouflage at 14+)
Hunting (GURPS = Survival, with 2 terrain types and Running)
Sixth Sense (Precognition)
Tracking (Tracking at 14+)
Healing (Healing advantage)
Weaponskill (Any weapon at 14+)
Mindshield (Mindshield power)
Mindblast (either Mental Blow or Drain Attribute)
Animal Kinship (Speak with Animals, GURPS Supers)
Mind over Matter (Telekinesis)

I'd change Sixth Sense to Danger Sense, perhaps.
Healing becomes Psychic Healing (B256)
Animal Kinship maybe becomes the Animal Friend talent (B89)
I'm not sure what to do with Mindblast; I dont see anything in the Basic Set that looks similar. Probably need to look in GURPS Powers or GURPS Psionic Powers.
The rest I'd leave be.

Continuing, the 10 Magnakai Disciplines and GURPS interpretations are:

Weaponmastery (Skill should be about 16, and some non-cinematic maneuvers from GURPS Martial Arts could be added at the player's option)
Animal Control (Control Animal (GURPS Supers))
Curing (Healing advantage)
Invisibility (Alter Visage knack from GURPS Magic from 3ed)
Huntmastery (A reduced need to eat (5 points) and some points in Move or Running)
Pathsmanship (Tracking 18+ and an advanced Danger sense (treat as the Sense Danger knack in GURPS Magic, 25 points). Also, add linguistics skill and 3 to 5 levels of language talent.)
Psi-surge (Mental Blow to power 12-15, limit extra levels with costs 2 fatigue per use.)
Psi-screen (Mindshield, power 12-15.)
Nexus (Temperature Tolerance)
Divination (Add more levels in Precognition, and about 6 to 8 levels in Telerecieve and Telesend.)

A lot of this came from GURPS 3ed and will need to be converted to 4th ed.

I don't know if knacks made it into GURPS Magic 4ed.
I'd make Divination Procognition and Telepathy
Weaponmastery could become Weapon Mastery for one weapon type
The psi stuff I'll need to look up.

I also think I'd create a Kai Lords martial art that all Kai Lords learn. I think I'll use the listing under Aikijujutsu in GURPS 4ed Martial arts as a starting point. Kai Lords always struck me as knowing an exotic martial art in addition to everything else. They would have received training in swords, knives, axes, maces, staff, spear and unarmed combat, and then focused on a particular weapon type. It also makes sense to me they would have received instruction in the Karate and Judo skills, since they trained at a monastery and had time to do so.

More later.

Dragondog · 03-12-2019, 01:23 AM

In my blog series for The Dragon Tablets, I created a Psionic Ranger template inspired by the Lone Wolf series in my post about how to create templates. It was the first template in the blog series for a reason.

The Lone Wolf series is legally available for free online!

I made the following incomplete list of GURPS traits, and a couple of other comments, needed to cover the powers of the Kai.

Camouflage/Invisibility Stealth, Camouflage, fitting in, Honest Face, Urban Survival, shadowing, Language Talent, Omnidialectal [4], Invisibility
Hunting/Huntmastery Survival, Enhanced Movement, parkour
Sixth Sense/Divination Danger Sense, Empathy, Oracle, Detect (Psionic Abilities), Telepathy, See Invisible
Tracking/Pathmanship Tracking, Intuition, Omnilingual (Reading only, -50%), Detect (Traps)
Healing/Curing Regeneration, Cure injury/disease/blindness, Naturalist, Herb Lore
Weaponskill/Weaponmastery Knife, Spear, Axe/Mace, Short Sword, Broadsword, Staff, Bow
Mindshield/Psi-screen Mind Shield
Mindblast/Psi-surge Crushing Attack
Animal Kinship/Animal Control Animal Empathy, Speak with Animals, fight from the saddle
Mind over Matter Telekinesis
Nexus Temperature Tolerance,

johndallman · 03-12-2019, 03:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AllenOwen

There is a table top RPG being produced by Cubicle 7. I have the box set and one of the supplements.

That RPG is currently available on the Bundle of Holding.

cosmicfish · 03-12-2019, 07:08 AM

I looked into doing this a few years ago, but never got significantly into the effort. My intent was to create a level scaling system for each rank, so that a Grand Master is more than just a collection of power blocks, along with those specific blocks representing the disciplines. I wanted each successive tier of Disciplines to cost more than the equivalent lower tiers (perhaps 10cp for Kai, 20cp for Magnakai, 40cp for Grand Master) and, likewise, the point value of ranks to increase each time. I never got past aspirations because (a) it looked like a lot of work and (b) I didn't see an actual game on the horizon that would use it.

AlexanderHowl · 03-12-2019, 08:00 AM

A tiered system is not a bad idea, though some of the Kai abilities are more natural than others. I could see the Kai starting at 200 CP, with +20 CP per Kai ability, +40 CP per Magnakai ability and +80 CP per Grand Master ability. That would have made Lone Wolf a 300 CP character at the beginning of the Kai series, a 520 CP character at the beginning of the Magnakai series, and a 1,040 CP character at the beginning of the Grand Master series. At the end of the Grand Master series, he would have been 1,680 CP, which makes sense given what occurs in the last book.

GarenLiLorian · 03-12-2019, 08:28 AM

I have a player in a Monster Hunters game that wanted to play a Kai lord. We started with the Warrior template, but probably the Crusader would have been a better fit to start with (substituting Psi for Mysticism powers). Our stabs at the Kai disciplines were pretty close to what previous posters have stated, with the difference that we used the esoteric Sensitivity skill for Mindblast (which is pretty similar in mechanical effect, if not in fluff)

Camouflage (GURPS = Stealth and Camouflage at 14+)
Hunting (GURPS = Survival, Traps, and Running at 14+)
Sixth Sense (Danger Sense)
Tracking (Tracking at 14+)
Healing (Healing Touch)
Weaponskill (Weapon Master)
Mindshield (Mindshield power)
Mindblast (Sensitivity)
Animal Kinship (Ally (animal) with Special Rapport. Speak with Animals would have been a better build.)
Mind over Matter (Telekinesis)

Dragondog · 03-13-2019, 06:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by johndallman

That RPG is currently available on the Bundle of Holding.

Thanks for sharing. Bought those.

AlexanderHowl · 03-13-2019, 06:51 AM

In actuality, Camouflage and Hunting are superhuman traits beyond anything that normal humans could manage (same with Weaponskill and Tracking). For example, Camouflage would probably include modified versions of Chameleon and Silence and Weaponskill would probably include DR (since greater CS results in reduced damage). Lone Wolf is going against powerful magical and psychic entities, even from the first book, so none of his Kai powers should be considered mundane abilities.

03-11-2019, 06:08 PM	#1
AllenOwen Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: Thomaston, GA	GURPS Lone Wolf I'm sure many on this forum remember the old Lone Wolf series of gamebooks from the 80s. There is a table top RPG being produced by Cubicle 7. I have the box set and one of the supplements. It's a good product, but the system is basically the system from the gamebooks ported over to a table top RPG. Even has the "Action Chart" printed on the inside of the box! Nothing wrong with that, and even though I haven't run it yet, I'm sure it runs fine. I'm interested in GURPSifing the setting. I saw an thread on the SJGames forum where they talked about converting the old d20 game over to GURPS. It didn't seem to get very far. I found this for 3ed here: https://www.magnamund.org/risingsun/August99/GURPS.html Which seems a good a place as any to start. I think it is better to just look at the setting and make it in GURPS rather than try to convert from another system. Has anyone else tried to make a Lone Wolf GURPS setting?

03-11-2019, 07:16 PM	#2
AlexanderHowl Join Date: Feb 2016	Re: GURPS Lone Wolf I have the entire American run, so I am quite familiar with Lone Wolf. The key thing to remember about the Kai is that they are psychic weapon masters, so they should probably start at around 400 CP (Kai), 600 CP (Magnakai), and 800 CP (Grand Master). Each additional book should probably represent 40 CP of progress, which may be in the form of attributes, abilities, and/or skills (Lone Wolf would therefore have been around 1200 CP at the end of book 20). Last edited by AlexanderHowl; 03-11-2019 at 07:19 PM.

03-11-2019, 08:43 PM	#3
AllenOwen Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: Thomaston, GA	Re: GURPS Lone Wolf I have, or used to have, the Magnamund Comnpanion...I only played through a few of the American run. I do have the Lone Wold Adventure Game boxed set and the Heroes of Magnamund supplement. As I said, I don't want to try a direct conversion of any other game; instead, I think it best to look at what Kai Lords and Knights of Sommerlund, etc can do and put it into GURPS. Here's an initial list of character types available in the LWAG and tentative CP values for each: Kai Lords (400/600/800 for Kai Lord/Magnakai/Grand Master, respectively) Knight of Sommerlund (A medieval knight, 250 CP) Knight of the White Mountains (Also a medieval knight, 250 CP) Dwarven Gunner of Bor(250 CP) Brotherhood of the Crystal Star (seems to be standard fantasy mage, 250 CP) Magician of Dessi (Sorcerer, 250 CP, maybe Ritual Path Magic to differentiate them from the Brotherhood?) More character types later. I think I'll start with Kai lords. They are psychic weapon masters and apparently, skilled woodsmen. I think Joe Dever was thinking what would happen if Aragorn was a Jedi Knight or a samurai... I think it would be helpful to list the "Kai Disciplines" and try to see what GURPS traits best represent them. There are 10 Kai Disciplines from which you can choose at first, and as you progress through the books, you'll get all 10, then you can start learning the 10 Magankai disciplines. I never played enough to see what Grand Master disciplines were like. From the website I linked to in my first post, the 10 Kai disciplines and a possible GURPS interpretation are: Camouflage (GURPS = Stealth and Camouflage at 14+) Hunting (GURPS = Survival, with 2 terrain types and Running) Sixth Sense (Precognition) Tracking (Tracking at 14+) Healing (Healing advantage) Weaponskill (Any weapon at 14+) Mindshield (Mindshield power) Mindblast (either Mental Blow or Drain Attribute) Animal Kinship (Speak with Animals, GURPS Supers) Mind over Matter (Telekinesis) I'd change Sixth Sense to Danger Sense, perhaps. Healing becomes Psychic Healing (B256) Animal Kinship maybe becomes the Animal Friend talent (B89) I'm not sure what to do with Mindblast; I dont see anything in the Basic Set that looks similar. Probably need to look in GURPS Powers or GURPS Psionic Powers. The rest I'd leave be. Continuing, the 10 Magnakai Disciplines and GURPS interpretations are: Weaponmastery (Skill should be about 16, and some non-cinematic maneuvers from GURPS Martial Arts could be added at the player's option) Animal Control (Control Animal (GURPS Supers)) Curing (Healing advantage) Invisibility (Alter Visage knack from GURPS Magic from 3ed) Huntmastery (A reduced need to eat (5 points) and some points in Move or Running) Pathsmanship (Tracking 18+ and an advanced Danger sense (treat as the Sense Danger knack in GURPS Magic, 25 points). Also, add linguistics skill and 3 to 5 levels of language talent.) Psi-surge (Mental Blow to power 12-15, limit extra levels with costs 2 fatigue per use.) Psi-screen (Mindshield, power 12-15.) Nexus (Temperature Tolerance) Divination (Add more levels in Precognition, and about 6 to 8 levels in Telerecieve and Telesend.) A lot of this came from GURPS 3ed and will need to be converted to 4th ed. I don't know if knacks made it into GURPS Magic 4ed. I'd make Divination Procognition and Telepathy Weaponmastery could become Weapon Mastery for one weapon type The psi stuff I'll need to look up. I also think I'd create a Kai Lords martial art that all Kai Lords learn. I think I'll use the listing under Aikijujutsu in GURPS 4ed Martial arts as a starting point. Kai Lords always struck me as knowing an exotic martial art in addition to everything else. They would have received training in swords, knives, axes, maces, staff, spear and unarmed combat, and then focused on a particular weapon type. It also makes sense to me they would have received instruction in the Karate and Judo skills, since they trained at a monastery and had time to do so. More later.

03-12-2019, 01:23 AM	#4
Dragondog Never Been Pretty Join Date: Jan 2005	Re: GURPS Lone Wolf In my blog series for The Dragon Tablets, I created a Psionic Ranger template inspired by the Lone Wolf series in my post about how to create templates. It was the first template in the blog series for a reason. The Lone Wolf series is legally available for free online! I made the following incomplete list of GURPS traits, and a couple of other comments, needed to cover the powers of the Kai. Camouflage/Invisibility Stealth, Camouflage, fitting in, Honest Face, Urban Survival, shadowing, Language Talent, Omnidialectal [4], Invisibility Hunting/Huntmastery Survival, Enhanced Movement, parkour Sixth Sense/Divination Danger Sense, Empathy, Oracle, Detect (Psionic Abilities), Telepathy, See Invisible Tracking/Pathmanship Tracking, Intuition, Omnilingual (Reading only, -50%), Detect (Traps) Healing/Curing Regeneration, Cure injury/disease/blindness, Naturalist, Herb Lore Weaponskill/Weaponmastery Knife, Spear, Axe/Mace, Short Sword, Broadsword, Staff, Bow Mindshield/Psi-screen Mind Shield Mindblast/Psi-surge Crushing Attack Animal Kinship/Animal Control Animal Empathy, Speak with Animals, fight from the saddle Mind over Matter Telekinesis Nexus Temperature Tolerance, __________________ Daydreams of a Dragon: My blog

03-12-2019, 07:08 AM	#6
cosmicfish Join Date: Mar 2010	Re: GURPS Lone Wolf I looked into doing this a few years ago, but never got significantly into the effort. My intent was to create a level scaling system for each rank, so that a Grand Master is more than just a collection of power blocks, along with those specific blocks representing the disciplines. I wanted each successive tier of Disciplines to cost more than the equivalent lower tiers (perhaps 10cp for Kai, 20cp for Magnakai, 40cp for Grand Master) and, likewise, the point value of ranks to increase each time. I never got past aspirations because (a) it looked like a lot of work and (b) I didn't see an actual game on the horizon that would use it.

03-12-2019, 08:00 AM	#7
AlexanderHowl Join Date: Feb 2016	Re: GURPS Lone Wolf A tiered system is not a bad idea, though some of the Kai abilities are more natural than others. I could see the Kai starting at 200 CP, with +20 CP per Kai ability, +40 CP per Magnakai ability and +80 CP per Grand Master ability. That would have made Lone Wolf a 300 CP character at the beginning of the Kai series, a 520 CP character at the beginning of the Magnakai series, and a 1,040 CP character at the beginning of the Grand Master series. At the end of the Grand Master series, he would have been 1,680 CP, which makes sense given what occurs in the last book.

03-12-2019, 08:28 AM	#8
GarenLiLorian Join Date: Jul 2011	Re: GURPS Lone Wolf I have a player in a Monster Hunters game that wanted to play a Kai lord. We started with the Warrior template, but probably the Crusader would have been a better fit to start with (substituting Psi for Mysticism powers). Our stabs at the Kai disciplines were pretty close to what previous posters have stated, with the difference that we used the esoteric Sensitivity skill for Mindblast (which is pretty similar in mechanical effect, if not in fluff) Camouflage (GURPS = Stealth and Camouflage at 14+) Hunting (GURPS = Survival, Traps, and Running at 14+) Sixth Sense (Danger Sense) Tracking (Tracking at 14+) Healing (Healing Touch) Weaponskill (Weapon Master) Mindshield (Mindshield power) Mindblast (Sensitivity) Animal Kinship (Ally (animal) with Special Rapport. Speak with Animals would have been a better build.) Mind over Matter (Telekinesis)

03-13-2019, 06:51 AM	#10
AlexanderHowl Join Date: Feb 2016	Re: GURPS Lone Wolf In actuality, Camouflage and Hunting are superhuman traits beyond anything that normal humans could manage (same with Weaponskill and Tracking). For example, Camouflage would probably include modified versions of Chameleon and Silence and Weaponskill would probably include DR (since greater CS results in reduced damage). Lone Wolf is going against powerful magical and psychic entities, even from the first book, so none of his Kai powers should be considered mundane abilities.