Dice and Lives: Gurps Content Posts

[JoelSammallahti]

It's been a while but I've got a new post up, a session report of the first Sleepless Nights adventure. Spears, axes, teeth, arrows, spells, fangs, darkness penalties, a player character dog, and future shock in 2,500 BCE. https://diceandlives.wordpress.com/2...e-of-the-wolf/

[JoelSammallahti]

In the spirit of HANS's fantastic shootout breakdowns, I decided to analyze a fight from my favorite movie, Conan the Barbarian. Check it out.

https://diceandlives.wordpress.com/2...the-barbarian/

[JoelSammallahti]

There's a new post up, a blow-by-blow of the final fight from the Fellowship of the Ring movie.

[JoelSammallahti]

There's a new post up, containing writeups of two real-life martial arts.

[The_Ryujin]

Just read your Connan write up. I came, I read, I LAWLZ'ed.

I think you just earned a spot when I do my next Blog and Posts that I Live write up.

[Leynok]

First, I love your posts on Sleepless Nights, they make me want to run my own Vampire game using the stuff you have there (with some minor tweeks), but I have a question regarding Hibernation.

Hibernation is a bit of a kludge. Basically, I want vampires that sleep in coffins or caves for years at a time, conveniently waking up for the next adventure.

While it does allow them to hibernate for years on end, I don't see the motivation behind wanting to hibernate for so long. The only reason I can think to Hibernate is because you don't want to drink any blood, or if blood is unavailable (so it's great if you're a vegan vampire), but I can't think of any other motivation behind wanting to Hibernate for years. Is it something I'm missing?

[JoelSammallahti]

Originally Posted by Leynok

While it does allow them to hibernate for years on end, I don't see the motivation behind wanting to hibernate for so long. The only reason I can think to Hibernate is because you don't want to drink any blood, or if blood is unavailable (so it's great if you're a vegan vampire), but I can't think of any other motivation behind wanting to Hibernate for years. Is it something I'm missing?

I don't know, man, I've got a 4-year-old and a 2-year-old and one or the other has woken me up every single night since 2012. If I could just sleep for 50 years I would.

More seriously? I didn't specify this in the template, but in this campaign, sleeping for decades is something vampires just have an urge for. It's not that they get some kind of special benefit, it just feels good to them. It's also not worth any points, any more than random human instincts like having a sex drive or liking sweet flavors are. Of course, a human could have Lecherousness or Gluttony if a particular instinct is so strong it leads to trouble, and correspondingly a vampire character might have Compulsive Hibernating or something.

I'll get into the matter some more when I post about vampire psychology. Stay tuned, same bat-time, same bat-channel! :D

Of yeah, and I'm super happy to hear I've got a reader who wants to use some of my stuff in their own game. Let me know if you do!

[sir_pudding]

Long hibernation would seem to have survival benefits. The chance of people believing in vampires, and therefore instituting mandatory naked noonday parades, is directly related to the frequency of vampire activity. Vampires that wake up only when in danger of starvation, feed to the minimum necessary to sustain hibernation and then return to torpor for decades or centuries seems to be one of the more plausible bits of vampire lore.

[JoelSammallahti]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Long hibernation would seem to have survival benefits. The chance of people believing in vampires, and therefore instituting mandatory naked noonday parades, is directly related to the frequency of vampire activity. Vampires that wake up only when in danger of starvation, feed to the minimum necessary to sustain hibernation and then return to torpor for decades or centuries seems to be one of the more plausible bits of vampire lore.

That makes a lot of sense. Works a bit differently for these particular vampires because they don't starve while hibernating, but certainly laying low when the mortals catch on to your game and reappearing when you're just a crazy story grandma used to tell is a survival strategy.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by JoelSammallahti

That makes a lot of sense. Works a bit differently for these particular vampires because they don't starve while hibernating, but certainly laying low when the mortals catch on to your game and reappearing when you're just a crazy story grandma used to tell is a survival strategy.

Alternately leaving torpor occasionally to reproduce works too, especially since as parasites of a dangerous apex predator, vampires can't afford competition, which selects for low reproductive rates.