01-12-2013, 11:16 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Brooklyn, NY
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Better Aging Rules
I've never been satisfied with the GURPS aging rules. They're not bad, and definitely better than in many other RPG systems. They're just not great.
Anyone have any good house rules to do aging better / more realistically? The only system that seems to have something better than GURPS's aging rules is Ars Magica (latest edition), but it's still not really great, and requires a bit of work to make it fit and play well with GURPS. Any ideas or suggestions, or house rules to contribute, would be much appreciated!
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01-12-2013, 11:42 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: France
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Re: Better Aging Rules
The problem of aging rules is that aging is very complex. Decline is not at all gradual and it does not only involve what GURPS names "Basic Attributes". It involves every sub-attributes (flexibility, memory, hearing...) and also skills.
So, if you extensively use the option "you may lose advantages or gain disadvantages of equivalent point value instead of losing an attribute point" (Basic Set, Campaigns, page 444), GURPS aging rules become fine. Of course, this is not great, as you wrote it. But it still allows a good diversity of decline without having to use a complex table and too many rolls. |
01-13-2013, 12:19 AM | #3 | |
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Chelyabinsk, Russia
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Re: Better Aging Rules
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01-13-2013, 01:07 AM | #4 |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Better Aging Rules
A quick idea is to make the aging rolls as given. For every two points the HT roll is missed by, deduct 5 points from the character. In case of a critical failure, deduct twenty points and roll again at HT-6.
In case of a second critical failure, the character suffers a major incident like a fall, seizure, heart attack or a stroke and suffers a "mortal wound". Deal with it like for any other mortal wound on page B423. |
01-13-2013, 01:24 AM | #5 | |
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: France
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Re: Better Aging Rules
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Now, there is also a reason which explains why Aging rules are not great. Most characters are adventurers and live a lot of adventures every year... So, they suffer aging far much less than other hazard... Last edited by Gollum; 01-13-2013 at 01:28 AM. |
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01-13-2013, 05:16 AM | #6 | |
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Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Europe
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Re: Better Aging Rules
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One thing I did was to introduce a general unit for aging, called an Oldness Point. Oldness Points define the aging roll intervals for different species, e.g. for Humans it is 1 OP per 3 Years but may be much longer for other species, and also facilitates magical effects that inflicts aging proportonally to the lifespan of the target species (and unaffected by magic that slows down natural aging, e.g. a Torc of Longevity). So one Spellcasting Fumble Outcome might be that you accumulate 3 OP. For a Human, that's 9 Years, while for a Dwarf it might be 15 Years, and 90 Years for an Elf. This makes magic-mishap-aging suck equally much for all species. Another thing, which I'm actually not sure if GURPS does, is that after a certain number of rolls, penalties get piled on. So the first 10 rolls are at normal Roll Difficulty and 1 roll per OP. After that it's 2 rolls per OP for the next 10 rolls. After that again it's still 2 rolls per OP but now the RD is 1 higher, for a further 10 rolls. Then comes 15 rolls at 3 rolls per OP and at +2 RD, and so on. This means that everybody is going to die eventually, and the escalating penalties means that very few characters will live surprisingly longer than average. There's only so much player's luck at the dice can achieve. Thirdly, aging rolls are not based on Constitution, but on a "normalized" derived stat. Sagatafl uses (Con+6)/3, so GURPS would use (HT+20)/3, or (HT+10)/2 if you want a less severe "normalization". This serves to reduce the influence of constitution on the process, without removing it entirely, and still opens up for Advantages that can give a bonus to the roll. |
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01-13-2013, 07:44 AM | #7 | ||
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Brooklyn, NY
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Re: Better Aging Rules
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Depends on the campaign though. In campaigns with large time skips, or with paranormal or superscience aging attacks or accelerators, or even time travel, aging rules become more important.
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01-13-2013, 07:46 AM | #8 | |
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Brooklyn, NY
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Re: Better Aging Rules
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01-13-2013, 08:13 AM | #9 | |||
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Brooklyn, NY
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Re: Better Aging Rules
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Again this is where I like Ars Magica's treatment, as it starts aging rolls around when humans really start aging decline, from the mid-20s to early 30s; you also get to keep track of fractional loss of attributes, which sounds like a pain and has no in-game significance until you lose a full point due to more aging but gives a nice feeling of "I'm not what I used to be" that can be roleplayed, and also keeps track of how aging is affecting your appearance (it can do so less for some more than others). It also introduces modifiers that help or hurt your aging roll for a given period. Things like healthy living which should realistically provide a bonus, and poverty providing a penalty. A decent set of modifiers that included penalties for unhealthy things like abusing drugs and alcohol, having certain diseases, etc, and bonuses for eating right (maybe you spend a bit more cash on the healthier options), being the guy at the bar that doesn't get blitzed each time, etc would go a long way to making even GURPS's system more realistic feeling. Quote:
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01-13-2013, 01:42 PM | #10 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Better Aging Rules
There's a difference between aging and risk of death. I've heard that every eight years or so doubles one's risk of dying in a given year regardless of environment and life expectancy.
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Tags |
ageing, aging, house rules, houserules |
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