Newcomer seeks advice: Ravenloft in GURPS?

[Fwibos]

Originally Posted by kidbrock9

The disadvantages rule is not set in stone; it's completely up to you. If you want a higher than 50% limit (advisable with a lowly 25 point character) than go for it!

No, it's not set in stone. But while were at it, let's have DX and IQ cost 10 points a level. That's not set in stone either, because you can house rule it. .
Since this person is new to the game I will say it a different way:

HuManBing: Think very carefully about letting your 35 point characters have too many disadvantages. The limit is put their for your sanity as well as the PCs. Most disads are horrendous, and don't reflect minor foibles. The represent severe weaknesses or personality flaws, the kind that many of even the most extreme personality types you find in life won't have.

Of course, as I said before: 1) This is Ravenloft, so they may be worse off.
I'll add: Lowered stats still count towards disadvantage limit.

I understand if they will become 100 point characters that you may want to have them start as 25 points with 50 points in disadvantages. But again, disadvantages are severly limiting, and don't reflect minor personality quirks. Just look at something like Overconfidence and Megalomania. a -5 point disadvantage will be almost immediately disadvantageous in the first few meetings, either people will notice it or it will hassle you.

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by Fwibos

I love these.

Thanks! I keep meaning to do some more. :)

Originally Posted by Fwibos

However, attribute reductions count as disadvantages now, which normally equals a characters half your final point cost.

No Disadvantage limit was stated by the OP. My intention was to create playable characters with a case-by-case examination of how their negatives will interact, not to min-max or adhere to an arbitrary number (aside from the requested total).

Originally Posted by Fwibos

Of course, the lot of peasants in Ravenloft seems to be limited to use as foils for PCs and as set pieces for grandiose displays of horrific power by the Domain Lords [snip]

Sure you could run it that way, but if you're translating it to GURPS anyway why not dispense with the D&D power-game assumptions and make characters who have a reason to be terrified? :)

Originally Posted by Fwibos

No, it's not set in stone. But while were at it, let's have DX and IQ cost 10 points a level. That's not set in stone either, because you can house rule it. .

No need for hyperbole; there's a clear difference between rules that can be changed because the GM can change anything, and rules that are explicitly suggested as optional.

[Fwibos]

Liudvikas, who should know better. [75]

Culture: TL 3-4ish for Original Style, or 5ish for Masque of the Red Death [0]; Familiarity: The Core Domains [0]; Languages: Any Local (Native / Semi-Literate) [-1];
Attributes: ST 13 [30] DX 10 [0] IQ 10 [0] HT 11 [10]

Secondary Characteristics: Per 11 [5] Will 10 [0]

Advantages: Blessed (Heroic Feats, ST) [10], Reputation +2 (Helpful, The Village, on 10 or less, -2 as a blundering clod, villagers who understand the occult, all the time.) [3], Luck (15)

Disadvantages Dependent (Wife, Loved One, 75% of points) on 9 or less [-4], Ham Fisted [-5], Selfless [-5], Clueless [-10], OPH:Long-winded Moral Speeches -1) [-5], .

QuirksQuirk Level Vow: Fidelity to Wife and God [-1]. Quirk Level Honesty/Truthfulness [-1], Quirk Level Delusion: Everyone is impure of motivation, excepting myself and religious leaders [-1]

Skills Area Knowledge (The Largest Forest in The Domain)-12 [4], Axe/Mace-10 [2], Camouflage-10 [d], Fishing-11 [1], Merchant (Lumber)-11 [2], Naturalist-8 [1], Navigation(Land)-10 [2], Professional Skill: Woodcutter-13 [8], Singing-11 [1], Stealth-10 [2], Survival(Woodlands)-12 [4], Theology (Perun)-8 [1], Throwing (Axe/Mace)-11 [2], Tracking-10 [1], Two-Handed Axe/Mace-11 [4]


Background Liudvikas has been a woodcutter all his life, his hands bent and crooked from a lifetime of work. He says he comes closest to god out in the woods. Perhaps that his true, for his friends and neighbors certainly here of godliness when Liudvikas returns with wood. Some call him helpful and brave, while others say he's lucky and a damn fool. The Village Sagewoman recalls the time when Liudvikas found a beautiful birch tree, and proceeded to cut it down, blocking a faerie trod. Or the time a pack of wolves came dangerously close to the Village, and attacked travelers. Liudvikas wandered that same parcel of woodland, singling loudly the hymns he is so fond of, and never once heard howl or saw hair of them.

In addition to his fools luck, Liudvikas acts as near a fanatic as he can. His peers disperse when he comes without wood to sell, knowing that at any pretense he will begin to launch into a speech on the townsfolk's morality (or lack thereof). Of course, he is no more good than anyone else, and he is prone to little white lies and covering worm rot on wood he sells. This fact seems lost on Luidvikas. He simply adores clergy men, and while he does not follow them blindly, he is certain that their motivations are completely pure.
.

[kidbrock9]

Originally Posted by mib2932

I always look up spells in the spell list, then use the page reference to go to the page; they don't need to also be in the index.

If I was just interested in spells, that would be fine, but most of us who are new to gurps find ourselves in this situation:

Oh, these powerstone costs on page 20 are interesting; they must be a very important item to include this chart just for their sake; I'd better find out what they do..... now where are the rules for powerstones? I'll just look it up in the index.... hmmm... page 20? That's weird, maybe it's under magic items.... no.... no..... where the heck are the rules for these things???? I guess I'll jump on the forum and ask around... maybe they're in another book altogether.

I know this is true, because I've seen the result in several threads. Most people expect magic items to have separate entries; it's not intuitive that they would all be in the Enchantment spells. Especially coming from other systems, which nearly always have sections devoted to various magic items. For this reason, the index should include the entry: Powerstones......69.

To Gold & Appel Inc: Thanks for the backup. I thought that response was a little over-the-top. The rules about disadvantage limits are obviously optional and the 50% limit is a 'rule of thumb,' not an actual game rule (like IQ being 20 pts).

[Fwibos]

Originally Posted by kidbrock9

I
To Gold & Appel Inc: Thanks for the backup. I thought that response was a little over-the-top. The rules about disadvantage limits are obviously optional and the 50% limit is a 'rule of thumb,' not an actual game rule (like IQ being 20 pts).

I concede it is a suggestion, per the book.
I guess I don't see how you consider my response "over-the-top." 50% disadvantages is a good suggestion, and backed up by beta-testing. It's not some arbitrary limit decided willy-nilly after a night of binge-drinking. It's clear that if too many disadvantages are allowed, even if they make sense based on character background, will derail any attempt at a story by the GM. Also, it is always stated that if you don't like a rule, you may change it. Given that as an axiom, then isn't every rule a "rule of thumb?" The IQ is 20 points has just as valid an argument for it's inception as the 50% disadvantages. This isn't "over-the-top" in any sort of way. It is a case of YMMV.

[CapnHowdy]

Hey all--

Just read this thread, because I might run a GURPS Ravenloft campaign some time down the line...

Being a noob, I'll ask:

Instead of tooling around with magic powers of Azalin/Strahd/etc. -- can't you just "give" them the powers and not necessarily stat them?

"Azalin raises his twisted claw of a hand, and the graveyard earth errupts -- you become surrounded by a horde of undead..."

I thought in GURPS you didn't really have to stat everything.

But then -- what's the pros/cons of stating a huge villain like Strahd? Isn't it just easier to say he can "do action X"?

[Crakkerjakk]

Yeah, that'd be my approach, but a lot of people like to stat out more than they absolutely need to either to get practice in creating unique abilities or because that's how they like to run their games.

The only abilities that you actually need to stat out are ones that PCs might be able to gain. But there's nothing stopping you from statting them out if you want to.

[tHEhERETIC]

Originally Posted by CapnHowdy

Instead of tooling around with magic powers of Azalin/Strahd/etc. -- can't you just "give" them the powers and not necessarily stat them?

"Azalin raises his twisted claw of a hand, and the graveyard earth errupts -- you become surrounded by a horde of undead..."

I thought in GURPS you didn't really have to stat everything.

But then -- what's the pros/cons of stating a huge villain like Strahd? Isn't it just easier to say he can "do action X"?

Capn Howdy? brrrrrrr! Love the nick!

I'm running PbP and not GURPS, so YMMV a lot. I have several characters who are unstatted because, given the pace of PbP, if I need them statted it's easy enough to do between posts. When we're doing a chat game, however, I have every character involved statted and ready. Most of the time I don't need them, but if a PC decides to do something I hadn't anticipated at least I'm ready. Hard lesson learned from the first session.

However, by not revealing the whole character sheets I've left myself some room for improvisation. The sorceror, for instance. They've seen him do two basic spells. I've written a handful more, but if I need something left field to make the plot better (and it's consistent with his character) I haven't painted myself out of it. Cross off something I haven't used and replace it with the thing I need for that scene.

If your PC's don't do anything unexpected, you could probably go without statting your Strahd. But then how often are players predictable, and are you willing to be caught with your proverbial pants down if they're not? Having stats and dice gives the game a sense of fairness, the look that you just...might....win....

[carllarson]

An option to fully statting out major plot villians is to partially do so. Stat out the main combat abilties, for the big bruhaha at the story's climax, but only note out abilities that are for scene setting or plotline development.

Frex, Azalin Rex has the ability to raise anything dead to zombiehood at will and in mass. This is easiest written as just that, without stats. Its plot-driven. (Azalin would probably have most of his writeup like this, I never could devise a way to make him stand and fight.)

On the other hand, Strahd has many plot powers which can be designed as simple as above, but he can be pinned down into a brawl, eventually. So, he needs some stats to run that combat scene fairly.

ANd I'll fess up, I like designing villians using GCA and seeing if I can make workable versions of powers, which may or may not ever be available to players.

[HuManBing]

Let's get cracking on this conversion!

I'm still new to GURPS. I've done a lot of reading of auxiliary sources and rules supplements, but any input is still appreciated. I'm including explanatory notes to help introduce d20 Ravenloft players to the GURPS differences. Of course, this forum will be familiar with them already.

Chapter Two: in which HuManBing attempts to port Ravenloft over to GURPS

Global factors:

Tech Levels:

Crunch: 0 (Stone Age) to 5 (Industrial Revolution, as per Victorian England). Most of the populated Core will be TL 3-4 (Medieval Age to Age of Sail), with the northwest regions at 4, and the inland regions at 3. Large domains like Darkon could be at 3 inland and 4 at the metropolitan coastal areas. Sparsely populated domains could be lower, and Nosos may be higher, closer to TL 5.

Notes: Interestingly, the Ravenloft-only mechanic of "Culture Levels" is also present in GURPS. I cannot think of any domain that is 6 or above, but one could easily be made to be so, without jeopardizing the horror feel of the game. (The events of the book and film No Country For Old Men could be a good model for a modern horror campaign, and that's set in 1980s, at TL 7.) Some intra-domain variations of the actual Tech Level is certainly possible, e.g. Lamordia may have Tech Level 6 in medicines (antibiotics, blood typing, safe transfusions) but only a Tech Level of 4 in weaponry (muskets and pikes).

Culture groups:

Crunch: Coastal (roughly German/French post-Enlightenment, higher tech level, religious skeptics), Central (more eastern European, rural, medieval, superstitious). Demihuman races (dwarves, elves as per Sithicus, fey of the Rift, and the Forfarian goblyns in Forlorn) have their own cultures, as do the Vistani. Some domains from clearly different homeworld backgrounds will have their own minor culture category (Valachan, Hazlan, Sri Raji, Rokushima, Har-Akir etc.). Darkonian stands alone because of its high-fantasy roots (multi-racial, multi-ethnic, higher-magic-level melting pot).

Notes: In GURPS, Culture Groups are not as finely divided as languages are - the keystone example is that Americans and Italians in modern Earth both identify fairly well with a single cultural group (although they may have some minor differences) but they're quite different from Arab or Asian nations. Here I decided to go with the two predominant European flavors - the "enlightened" west European scientific realms (Lamordia, Dementlieu, Richemulot) and the "superstitious" realms like Barovia and Gundarak etc. The famous cultural misunderstandings between Gundarak and Barovia are still relatively minor and not quite great enough to count as a cultural paradigm shift in the GURPS sense.

As for languages, we have the material in the Gazetteers so there's no need to repeat them here.


Fear/Horror/Madness:

Crunch: Using the Fright Check table (B361) as a guide, DM should prepare effects for major situations the PCs are likely to encounter (as per CoC). Mental disadvantages (B119-166) are a good place to start. The ones primarily featured listed in the Fright Check table are Quirks (a 1-point penalty that's very minor eg a small delusion or minor dislike, etc.), Delusions (eg "the King can see me through every single coin - I saw his eyes move in the metal!" therefore PC can't use Darkonian currency), and Phobias (GURPS has a list, with a points listing for each one, so Autophobia, the fear of being left alone, is far worse than Ailurophobia, the fear of cats). But the list also says any mental disadvantage is suitable, from the list.

In the 3rd ed. Horror supplement book, there is an optional type of Fright Check called the Sanity check, which basically halves the entire target roll value (so a total of 14 would become 7), and it also limits all IQ-based bonuses to the Fright Check to a maximum of +4. Failure means the victim permanently loses Will, which affects his ability to resist future such rolls. This is a very tough mechanic, and is only suggested for Cthulhu-style campaigns, where the players discover Something That Simply Cannot Be. It would probably correspond to a Malignant Paradigm Shift in standard Ravenloft rules - something that happens very rarely even in Ravenloft. A key example of this might be a Darkonian PC's discovery that Azalin is a lich - after a lifetime of believing the government propaganda that Azalin was the only human alive who can stand as a bulwark against the Grey Realms, his entire belief system comes crashing down when he learns that Azalin is not just one of them, but arguably their leader.

Notes: GURPS 4th ed. comes prepackaged with the option of a Will Roll, and its close cousin, the Fright Check. A Will Roll is simply a roll against your Willpower attribute, and is used for everything from resisting the seductive advances of a temptress, to recovering from a stunning effect.

The Fright Check is a special type of Will Roll with steeper penalties and a set of suggested mental effects. These look very familiar to Ravenloft aficionados. However, they're also rather general, and do not bifurcate into Fear/Horror/Madness of Ravenloft d20 practice.

Taking a page out of Call of Cthulhu, I'd suggest the DM takes the time to map out a set of possible results for each and every major Fright Check the PCs may encounter. It's important enough that, like found treasure, it's something the DM probably shouldn't leave up to a dice roll to determine the effect. GURPS also has a very detailed list of disadvantages that cost or grant points to the character, and a failed check could easily grant these. Most mental disadvantages are suitable.

This is more subtle than the Call of Cthulhu sanity ratings, which tend to be a permanent loss. In GURPS, you gain a disadvantage which is worth a certain number of character points, and you can "buy off" those disadvantages slowly by using character points you earn later on. The DM may require other in-game exercises as well, such as the type of psychotherapy seen in the Forbidden Lore boxed set, or may set up a method for the PC to confront and prevail over his inner demons (eg finally standing up to that Falkovnian soldier and learning not to fear the Falcon's crest).

Citizens of each domain can have different flavors of mental disadvantages. The Phobia list of disadvantages is especially colorful, and I can see a Darkonian citizen having quite different triggers for outright panic than, say, a Falkovnian citizen. The former might react poorly to hints of grave desecration or other undead-related triggers. The latter might cringe and cower when hearing armor plates clink, and completely go to pieces when challenged by a military type.



Powers Checks:

Crunch: The Powers check in d20 consists of a) a d% roll against various factors, plus b) a grant of an advantage and a disadvantage.

That roll could be preserved for GURPS (which admittedly is otherwise only a d6 system) or it could be eliminated entirely, leaving the decision up to the DM. However, the advantages and disadvantages in the d20 manual are easily portable over to the GURPS advantages/disadvantages system, with a point value for each. The initial stages can be relatively small points values, and grow to increasing levels at later stages.

E.g. Vlad Drakov's progressive stages of his Powers Checks might have been something like this (based on my fan fiction The Bladeforge):

1. Brutalizing his colleagues as a young boy, because his adoptive father beat him. Advantages: Fearlessness x3 (6 points) and Hard to Subdue x2 (4 points). Disadvantages: Bully (-10 points).

2. Trapping and privately torturing a former employer, because the man once had him imprisoned and nearly beheaded. Advantages: High Pain Threshold (10 points) and +1 to Will (5 points). Disadvantages: Sadism (-15 points).

3. Publicly torturing female hostages in gruesome ways, who were once enemy combatants and assassins sent against him. Advantages: Hard to Kill x2 (4 points), +1 Will (5 points), +1 Perception (5 points), +2 Fatigue (6 points). Disadvantages: Paranoia (-10 points), Negative Reputation of Surpassing cruelty (-10 points, reduced by 1/3 from -15 because one large class of people is an exception, namely his military followers and political allies).

4. Assassinated a key number of high ranking corrupt priests in a religion that had aided him for most of his life. Advantage: Magic Resistance x10 (20 points) as the gods turn away from him. Disadvantages: Megalomania (-10 points), Negative Reputation of Grand Treachery (-10 points, reduced by 1/3 from -15 because his political military followers understand his rationales for his actions). [Also, in game terms, he loses the benefit of a 25-point Patron: a very powerful religion.]

5. Killing three old friends after he learned they deceived him years ago for his own good. Advantage: Indomitable (15 points). Disadvantage: Paranoia (-10 points), Phantom Voices (-5 points).

6. Massacring and staking the leaders of his hometown, including his adoptive father and his biological mother, for their perceived betrayal of him. Advantages: Daredevil (15 points), Unfazeable (15 points), Unaging (12 points, 1/4 lower than 15 points because he needs to shed blood for it to work). Disadvantages: Bloodlust (-10 points), Berserk (-10 points), Fanaticism (-15 points), Destiny (-10 points for a major disadvantage that he will nonetheless survive, eg being drawn into Ravenloft).


The points system for GURPS advantages and disadvantages is not foolproof, but it does give a somewhat easier time of balancing things. Even so, the DM is encouraged to give a benefit or curse that just "feels right" and to worry about the points only as a secondary matter.