Newcomer seeks advice: Ravenloft in GURPS?

[HuManBing]

Mana and Magery levels:

Crunch:

Most of the Core is at Low Mana, which means that only individuals with the "Magery" advantage (or "Power Investiture", for clerical spellcasters) can cast spells. They do so with all their skill levels at -5, which also means that a lot of casters will need to spend longer and use more elaborate rituals to cast spells.

Certain select domains may have No Mana, which means that nobody can cast spells at all, and magical items generally don't function. This applies to the more technologically advanced nations where magic and religion are dismissed as superstition. They may also be domains that are for whatever reason so primitive that even medieval-era fantasy magic should not be allowed to work in order to preserve the game flavor.

A very small number of places could be Normal Mana, meaning that magic functions at about the same level as it normally does in fantasy RPGs. You still need Magery or Power Investiture to cast spells, but you do so with no skill penalty. Castle Avernus, Hazlik's red tower, and Strahd's laboratories all qualify for this. These would be few and far between.

Notes: Ravenloft in d20 has high-magic domains and low-magic domains. In 3E, there was an actual game mechanic assigned to societies like Lamordia where the post-Enlightenment rationality actually counteracted the effectiveness of spells.

In GURPS, there are two aspects of this. First is the Mana issue, which is how magical the actual campaign setting is. Second is the Magery/Power Investiture issue, which determines if and how a given individual can manipulate magic.

Magery as an advantage can be capped at different levels, where the higher the level, the more powerful the spellcaster. Dungeon Fantasy allows for up to six levels of Magery, which we can take to be the norm for most fantasy magical campaign settings. Ravenloft should be much lower, possibly no higher than 3 for natives. This might be largely to blame for the low mana levels too. (Arguably if a PC wizard got a very powerful patron who had access to normal-mana areas and had a high Magery level themselves, the PC might be able to raise their level beyond 3. But the list of characters that this encompasses is very small and most PCs would find this largesse comes with serious ethical and logistical complications.)

[HuManBing]

Character Points:

Crunch: Most campaigns in Ravenloft will want to stay no higher than 100 points for characters. In GURPS terms, this puts them at roughly the same level of achievement as star athletes, seasoned soldiers/policemen, or talented scientists and doctors. Campaigns with PCs as outsiders from other worlds can feature higher point totals, and those featuring PCs as normal inhabitants of Ravenloft may even want to go as low as 50 or 25 points to begin with.

Notes: GURPS does not have class levels. Each character, NPC, or creature is constructed from the ground up using Character Points, a universal system that dictates attributes, skills, innate advantages and disadvantages, and so forth. This allows for a large degree of customizability that d20 system didn't have.

For comparison's sake, "high fantasy" characters featured in the GURPS Dungeon Fantasy line of books have about 250 Character Points, for clearly larger-than-life personalities. GURPS Monsters lists Dracula at 993 points and Frankenstein's Monster at 273.5 points. GURPS Who's Who 2 lists Josef Stalin at 120 and Adolf Hitler at 61.

[Crakkerjakk]

Originally Posted by HuManBing

For comparison's sake, "high fantasy" characters featured in the GURPS Dungeon Fantasy line of books have about 250 Character Points, for clearly larger-than-life personalities. GURPS Monsters lists Dracula at 993 points and Frankenstein's Monster at 273.5 points. GURPS Who's Who 2 lists Josef Stalin at 120 and Adolf Hitler at 61.

You may want to adjust the 3E stats up 50%. That's roughly the difference (for most builds) from 3E to 4E

[HuManBing]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

You may want to adjust the 3E stats up 50%. That's roughly the difference (for most builds) from 3E to 4E

Hey, that's good to know. So 3E and 4E are not a 1:1 comparison. I'll keep it in mind.

Advantages:

Crunch: As a general rule, Ravenloft is not a "cinematic" campaign setting. This applies to advantages and disadvantages as well, so any that have "cinematic" in the description should be considered off-limits in Ravenloft... at least for starting PCs. (Some NPCs and many Darklords would have these, and some PCs might be able to acquire them, but they should be treated with a fair bit of plot-line gravitas.)

Suitable advantages for PCs and allies: (* shows special notes below)
Ambidexterity, Animal Empathy, Appearance, Blessed, Breath-Holding, Catfall, Channeling, Charisma, Clerical Investment, Combat Reflexes, Common Sense, Danger Sense, Daredevil, Destiny*, Double-Jointed, Eidetic Memory, Empathy, Extra Attack, Fashion Sense, Fearlessness*, Fit, Flexibility, Gadgeteer*, Hard to Kill (capped at 2), Hard to Subdue (capped at 2), High Manual Dexterity, High Pain Threshold, High TL (especially suitable for PCs from another world), Higher Purpose, Independent Income, Indomitable, Intuition, Language Talent, Less Sleep, Magery (starting cap 1 level, can go up higher but needs plot rationales), Medium, Mimicry, Night Vision (cap at 2 - we still want PCs to be a little afraid of the dark), Oracle, Perfect Balance, Pitiable, Power Investiture, Precognition, Resistant (generally limited to 5-point variant), Signature Gear, Silence, Single-Minded, Social Chameleon, Social Regard, Spirit Empathy, Talents, Temperature Tolerance (2 ranks cap), True Faith*, Unusual Background, Versatile, Very Fit, Voice, Wealth.

Social advantages might be better gained through play than granted upon creation. Ravenloft has many societies and groups that PCs may find interesting to explore and befriend. These are: Allies, Alternate Identity, Claim to Hospitality, Contact Group, Contacts, Favor, Patrons, Rank (all types), Reputation, Status, Tenure, Zeroed. Of course, a DM with a specific backstory in mind can allow these at creation.

Notes by advantage:

Destiny: This could go either way. There are several prepublished Ravenloft adventures where the PCs are expected to Achieve Great Things (killing a darklord, preventing a fiend from overwhelming a human realm, etc.). If the DM is thinking of running the Grand Conjunction set of adventures, this might be a suitable advantage to give the PCs. One possible problem with this is that the horror game may lose something if the PCs somehow know they must be kept alive until they fulfill the destiny - a player who treats routine threats in a cavalier manner can ruin the game. (Like Arthur Dent and Stavromula Beta.) A negative Destiny could be a better idea, as it would free up more Character Points for the PCs to use at generation, and they will be more likely to take every smaller threat seriously... because with that Destiny disadvantage hanging over their heads, who knows whether this combat or threat could be their last one?

Fearlessness: capped at 2 ranks (for a +2 to the roll, maximum). If higher levels are used, then the Sanity Check mechanic becomes more useful because it limits the maximum bonus to +4 and then halves the entire roll. Otherwise, use the Sanity Check only in situations of extreme duress.

Gadgeteer: suitable for a mad-scientist style game, and so I would mostly confine it to the Coastal nations.

True Faith: This threatens to short-circuit the entire threat of undead. GURPS rules have it that undead immediately flee from the person showing a holy symbol. In d20, it allows a "turn undead" roll. One possible workaround is to allow the undead to make a Quick Contest against the True Faith character, using their Will scores. Another potential issue is to make the undead more susceptible to any symbols of religions that it observed or respected during its life. (So a Christian priest would get a bonus if using a Crucifix to hold a former Catholic undead at bay, but would not get a bonus if trying to turn a Confucian vampire.) I'll try to expand the rules of clerical magic in a separate post.


Assume any advantage not listed above is a counterindicated advantage that probably would cause problems in a Ravenloft horror campaign. One especially important one is Unfazeable, which may be fine for some of the NPCs or Darklords, but which would essentially kill the horror aspect of the game dead.

Some advantages would be more suited to some types of characters (e.g. the gypsy-style Vistani wanderers, or the militaristic soldiers of Falkovnia), which I'll try to write up in template form later.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

You may want to adjust the 3E stats up 50%. That's roughly the difference (for most builds) from 3E to 4E

You mean the point costs, right? There shouldn't be a real need to change the stats in most cases.

[HuManBing]

Disadvantages:

Crunch: These are good disadvantages for Ravenloft. Usual limit of 50% starting Character Points applies. Many of them make for good failed Powers Checks as well.

Absent-Minded, Addiction, Alcoholism, Amnesia, Appearance, Bad Back, Bad Grip, Bad Sight, Bad Smell, Bad Temper, Berserk, Blindness, Bloodlust, Bully, Callous, Charitable, Chronic Depression, Chronic Pain, Chummy, Clueless, Code of Honor, Colorblindedness, Combat Paralysis, Compulsive Behavior, Confused, Cowardice, Curious, Cursed (usually after roleplay), Deafness, Debt, Delusions (usually after roleplay), Dependents, Destiny, Disciplines of Faith, Disturbing Voice, Divine Curse, Dread, Duty, Dyslexia, Easy to Kill, Easy to Read, Enemies (roleplay, or could be Unknown at creation), Epilepsy, Extra Sleep, Fanaticism, Fat, Fearfulness (especially good for Ravenloft), Flashbacks, Gluttony, Greed, Guilt Complex, Gullibility, Ham-Fisted, Hard of Hearing, Hemophilia, Hidebound, Honesty, Hunchback, Impulsiveness, Incurious, Indecisive, Innumerate, Insomniac, Intolerance, Jealousy, Kleptomania, Klutz, Lame, Laziness, Lecherousness, Light Sleeper, Loner, Low Empathy, Low Pain Threshold, Low Self-Image, Low TL, Manic-Depressive, Miserliness, Missing Digit, Mistaken Identity (especially effective in doppelgänger adventures), Motion Sickness, Mundane Background (very suitable for some native domains and some outworld visitors, depending on origin), Mute, Neurological Disorder, Night Blindness, Nightmares, No Sense of Humor, No Sense of Smell/Taste, Oblivious, Obsession, Odious Personal Habits, One Arm/Eye/Hand, Overconfidence, Overweight, Pacifism, Paranoia, Phantom Voices, Phobias, Post-Combat Shakes, Reputation, Secret, Selfish, Selfless, Sense of Duty, Short Attention Span, Shyness, Skinny, Sleepwalker, Sleepy, Slow Eater, Slow Healing (maybe as a curse), Slow Riser, Social Disease, Social Stigma, Squeamish, Stress Atavism, Stubbornness, Trademark, Trickster, Truthfulness, Unfit, Unluckiness, Vow, Wealth, Workaholic, Wounded.

Skills:

Accounting, Acrobatics, Acting, Administration, Alchemy (magical domains only), Animal Handling, Anthropology (Enlightenment domains only), Archaeology, Architecture, Area Knowledge, Armoury, Artillery, Artist, Astronomy, Autohypnosis (Enlightenment only), Biology, Blowpipe, Boating, Body Language, Bolas, Bow, Boxing, Brawling, Breath Control, Camouflage, Carousing, Carpentry, Cartography, Chemistry, Climbing, Cloak, Combat Art/Sport, Connoisseur, Cooking, Counterfeiting, Crewman - Seamanship, Criminology (Enlightenment only), Crossbow, Current Affairs, Dancing, Detect Lies, Diagnosis, Diplomacy, Disguise, Dreaming, Economics, Engineer, Enthrallment, Erotic Art, Escape, Esoteric Medicine, Exorcism, Falconry, Farming, Fast-Draw, Fast-Talk, Filch, Finance, Fire Eating (!), First Aid, Fishing, Forced Entry, Forensics (Enlightenment only), Forgery, Fortune-Telling, Freight Handling, Gambling, Games, Gardening, Garrote, Geography, Gesture, Group Performance, Guns (Muskets and Pistols only, and only in Enlightenment), Heraldry, Herb Lore, Hidden Lore, Hiking, History, Hobby Skill, Holdout, Housekeeping, Hypnotism, Interrogation, Intimidation, Jeweler, Jumping, Knot-Tying, Lance, Lasso, Law, Leadership, Leatherworking, Lifting, Linguistics, Lip Reading, Literature, Lockpicking, Makeup, Masonry, Mathematics, Mechanic (Enlightenment), Meditation, Melee Weapon, Merchant, Metallurgy, Meteorology (Weather Sense in most domains), Mimicry, Mind Block, Musical Composition, Musical Influence, Musical Instrument, Naturalist, Navigation, Net, Observation, Occultism, Packing, Panhandling, Parry Missile Weapons, Performance, Pharmacy (herbal only), Philosophy, Physics, Physiology, Pickpocket, Poetry, Poisons, Politics, Professional Skill, Prospecting, Psychology, Public Speaking, Religious Ritual, Research, Riding, Ritual Magic (magical domains only), Running, Savoir-Faire, Scrounging, Search, Sewing, Sex Appeal, Shadowing, Shield, Shiphandling, Singing, Skating, Skiing, Sleight of Hand, Sling, Smith, Smuggling, Soldier, Spear Thrower, Speed-Reading, Sports, Stage Combat, Stealth, Strategy, Streetwise, Surgery, Survival, Swimming, Symbol Drawing (magical domains only), Tactics, Teaching, Teamster, Thaumatology (magical domains only), Theology, Throwing, Throwing Art, Thrown Weapon, Tracking, Traps, Urban Survival, Ventriloquism, Veterinary, Wrestling, Writing.

This is just a "cast an eye down the list and blink" exercise. For actual Ravenloft domains and ethnicities, some will be more suitable than others, but that will be a later post.

[Crakkerjakk]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

You mean the point costs, right? There shouldn't be a real need to change the stats in most cases.

Yeah. That's the only stats he mentioned in the post I quoted.

[The Benj]

Originally Posted by HuManBing

Fearlessness: capped at 2 ranks (for a +2 to the roll, maximum). If higher levels are used, then the Sanity Check mechanic becomes more useful because it limits the maximum bonus to +4 and then halves the entire roll. Otherwise, use the Sanity Check only in situations of extreme duress.

Although much more than this is likely to be a bit hard on the tone, I don't think it's overwhelmingly so, as the Rule of 14 prevents you from ever being truly safe from fear.
I've never really much cared for Sanity-Blasting Fright Checks, mostly because they encourage PCs with very high IQ, as that's not directly effected (only indirectly, via the halving). I'd be happier with just making them Fright Checks with big penalties, or making them Cosmic.
Unfazeable is definitely inappropriate (unless balanced by something like Prefrontal Lobotomy maybe)

True Faith

GURPS True Faith does not force undead to flee. They just can't approach you. Very different. Yes, you can hold them at bay as long as you Concentrate, but that's it. You can't drive them away or help out a friend while you do. And if you get too tired to keep Concentrating...

[HuManBing]

Originally Posted by The Benj

GURPS True Faith does not force undead to flee. They just can't approach you. Very different. Yes, you can hold them at bay as long as you Concentrate, but that's it. You can't drive them away or help out a friend while you do. And if you get too tired to keep Concentrating...

Hmm, interesting! This opens up good possibilities then. I'm reading through the GURPS Undead 3E book, and there's a fun little sidebar with the question of "does the symbol have to be priest's faith or the undead's faith?" and it gives the example of a Jewish vampire who laughs at a Crucifix.

Here's my thinking:

True Faith works as normal. Self-willed undead cannot approach you, but they don't flee from you. This relies on your divine patron protecting you. This is already a considerable downgrade from the d20 mechanism, so I think GURPS as standard should be suitable for Ravenloft, where the undead are rather bold anyway.

I don't know if there's a "turn undead" mechanic (make them affirmatively scared and run away from you) but here's my preliminary take on it.

If you want to "turn" undead, then it's something like a Quick Contest Will roll, but there are a number of potential modifiers to the roll (e.g. it's cast at night, on holy/unholy ground, the undead has a strong tie to the area, etc.). This means in most cases, the priest will suffer a significant penalty. The only way around this is to also use a symbol that is significant to the undead itself - this relies on the undead's god punishing the undead. This will encourage the PCs to do thorough background research on each major undead they encounter, because now they need to find out what culture it came from, and what religion(s) it respected in life.

This could be especially challenging or downright impossible if the relevant undead was indifferent or outright dismissive of all religions in its life. Azalin the lich, ruler of Darkon, might well qualify as one such "godless atheist undead". As a side note, it also gives an interesting power to the campaign setting's most powerful artifact - The Holy Symbol of Ravenkind. What if the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind affects all undead equally? A potent tool indeed - and well-justified, given the symbol's key role in the formation of the entire plane of existence.

GURPS 3E also states that mindless undead such as zombies and skeletons are immune to True Faith because they're more akin to automatons, just following orders. I'm not sure I really want to use this mechanic. I'm still deciding. Granted, it'll give the PCs a balancing factor to use against more powerful undead, but it's still a serious weakening of the True Faith power.

[HuManBing]

Colleges of Magic:

In Ravenloft, the max starting Magery level is 1, so mages (and priests) have little in the way of actual power. Further levels must be bought later in one's career, likely with a compelling adventure or two, demonstrating how the apprentice becomes an adept. Most domains will limit the level to 3 maximum. High-magic domains (Darkon, Hazlan) could go higher, and people like Azalin could have up to 6, given that Greyhawk and other outworlds might be high fantasy settings.

However, there are some schools that Ravenloft makes more difficult. I have not decided on how the powers impair the casting. I'd rather not just say "They're inexplicably impossible unless the DM decides to allow it". I'd like to do something with ceremonial magic, or ritual magic, or otherwise impose a massive penalty so that the appropriate effect is gained.

Gate spells will be heavily opposed by the Dark Powers. Gating things into the demiplane is bad enough, but they almost never allow mere mortal magic to effect an escape. Gate spells almost never work. Gating things into Ravenloft is not very Gothic (demons are a little too supernatural for a Gothic horror game - in much the same way as "The Monk" left Gothic horror and became medieval morality play when Satan appeared at the end to throw the monk off a mountain) and Gating things out of Ravenloft should flat-out neven happen, otherwise a mighty wizard like Azalin should have accomplished it by now.

Is there a mixture of mechanics I can apply to make this feasible? The Dark Powers could put a large negative modifier, and/or require ceremonial magic for it, so even having an effective 15+ skill level to start the ceremony for the Gating spell is going to be very difficult.

Incidentally, Azalin's major goal is to Gate himself out of Ravenloft. His curse (being unable to learn new magic) needs retooling to be more focussed on this goal, I believe. Something that pairs up with the demiplane's general hostility to the Gate spells should be good. E.g. if the Demiplane itself requires all such spells to be done as Ceremonies, and on top of that gives a effective -10 skill level, then in a normal mana area you'd need a skill level of 25 to just start casting it. If Azalin's personal curse is that he suffers a further -10 skill for Gate spells, then he'll need an effective skill level of 35 to start casting. Reaching such a skill level could take millennia of research... to say nothing of the time required to cast the spell itself and keep it going (logistical impediments to this will be detailed later).

Healing spells are seriously curtailed, but not as bad as Gating spells. Many of these should be reserved for priests with Power Investiture, rather than Mages. They should not be necessarily harder to cast, but should take time to cast. (So if you get into a fight, you can be taken to the temple to be healed overnight, but you can't ask a cleric to tap you with his finger mid-fight and suddenly feel better.)

Knowledge spells change slightly. In d20 Ravenloft, most Knowledge-type spells work less well in Ravenloft than in other realms. However, GURPS magic is already less distance-based than d20 magic is, so on reading through the Knowledge spells, I think most of them can stay as they are without too many changes.

However, there are certain specific limitations. In d20 Ravenloft, magic cannot determine alignment (ethics, in GURPS). This shouldn't be a huge problem, since GURPS doesn't adhere stringently to the alignment system anyway, so the Ravenloft PCs will still have to rely on a person's actions rather than magic to determine their true character.

Know Location could be a problem - much of Ravenloft is based on disorientation and misdirection (the Mists are a sublime example of this). This spell could have an arbitrary modifier imposed by the DM depending on how much interest the Dark Powers take. For similar concerns, Astral Vision, Pathfinder, Seeker, Trace, and Remember Path may also encounter a modifier, as deemed suitable by the DM. (If the DM applies a modifier judging on circumstances, it means the players may still have some reason to justify learning and using the spell. It could still work, but it might take more attempts to get it to do so.)

Finally, many evils in Ravenloft are disguised by magic, and the purpose of this is to force the players to rely on their own judgment to determine the truth. Thus, spells like Know True Shape and See Secrets may also need to be nerfed with penalties.

On the flip side of the coin, Divination magic is very well suited to Ravenloft. It's lengthy, dependent on knowledge of History, and imprecise - basically, all the hallmarks of Gothic horror portents and omen-telling!