Templates, templates, templates, recursively, templates...

[Joe]

I love GURPS. Fanatically [-15].

I even love reading ridiculously long templates and meta-trait stat-blocks. They're fun, for me.
Even so, there are times when GURPS frustrates me immensely.

CASE IN POINT FROM TWO SECONDS AGO:

I'm happily leafing through GURPS Horror. I come to the blurb on Tulpas (p81) and think - awesome, this is fun, I wonder what characteristics a Free-Willed Tulpa has?

I look at the stat block for "Free-willed Tulpa". It refers me to the stat block for "Mature Tulpa".

I look at the stat block for "Mature Tulpa". It refers me to the stat block for "Specter" on p 27.

I look at the stat block for "Specter". It refers me to the "Spirit" template, which is on B263.

As it happens, I don't have a copy of GURPS Characters on me, so I give up trying to find out how a Free-Willed Tulpa looks in GURPS.

GAH! At this point, my strong feelings of frustration are nearly enough to conjure a Tulpa of their own.
Thanks for listening! Had to vent.
Has anyone else had this kind of problem?

[Dwarf99]

Originally Posted by Joe

<snip>I'm happily leafing through GURPS Horror. I come to the blurb on Tulpas (p81) and think - awesome, this is fun...<snip>
As it happens, I don't have a copy of GURPS Characters<snip>.

Well, this is one of those things where I'm sitting here slack jawed wandering why anyone who has a book that is an expansion on a default rules set without having the complete set of default rules. I can pretty much see having Thaumatology without having GURPS Magic, because everything important in Thaumatology is also discussed in the Basic Set. The books say Basic Set right on the cover. Any 'problems' you have like this are pretty much your own fault.

[gruundehn]

Uh, Dwarf, the comment was that the core book wasn't on me as in present at the reading site, not that the core book was not owned.

[Culture20]

Originally Posted by Joe

I look at the stat block for "Free-willed Tulpa". It refers me to the stat block for "Mature Tulpa".
I look at the stat block for "Mature Tulpa". It refers me to the stat block for "Specter" on p 27.
I look at the stat block for "Specter". It refers me to the "Spirit" template, which is on B263.
As it happens, I don't have a copy of GURPS Characters on me

You, sir, just described the gaming equivalent of Dependency Hell. The last dependency is always something unavailable or incompatible with the current system. You're lucky it didn't refer you to a 3E book or worse.

At some point, there needs to be a rule about copying the complete stat block for something that is several parts removed from the original source (perhaps with a "see-also Specter" at the end just for comparison).

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Culture20

You, sir, just described the gaming equivalent of Dependency Hell. The last dependency is always something unavailable or incompatible with the current system. You're lucky it didn't refer you to a 3E book or worse.

At some point, there needs to be a rule about copying the complete stat block for something that is several parts removed from the original source (perhaps with a "see-also Specter" at the end just for comparison).

That's true. But on the other hand, the described chain had only one template that wasn't in the same book, and that template was in the Basic Set. It seems fair to me to ask people to look in the Basic Set. Admittedly it's not always convenient to have the Basic Set everywhere you go, but it's not like sending you to a chain of three other books. At that point you just mark the page and say, "I want to read that carefully when I have the Basic Set handy."

Bill Stoddard

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by whswhs

That's true. But on the other hand, the described chain had only one template that wasn't in the same book, and that template was in the Basic Set. It seems fair to me to ask people to look in the Basic Set. Admittedly it's not always convenient to have the Basic Set everywhere you go, but it's not like sending you to a chain of three other books. At that point you just mark the page and say, "I want to read that carefully when I have the Basic Set handy."

Bill Stoddard

Its also when you trust a template in basic labeled 'spirit' to behave like a generic spirit. You can't trust that everywhere, but in basic I think you can.

[Joe]

I don't see any real problem with asking people to look to the basic set, for a lot of stuff. (Of which, somewhat ironically, I have not one but two hard copies - just none that happened to be to hand)

My frustration stemmed more from the fact that I expected, erroneously, that reading the GURPS "Free-willed Tulpa" template would quickly give me a sense of what GURPS characteristics a "Free-willed Tulpa" has.

As it turned out, even if I'd had the basic set to hand, this would have been pretty hard, since it involved mentally assembling 4 templates. I just can't keep them all in my head at the same time.

But look, I still love GURPS! Just sharing a momentary frustration. I should probably just chase up my copy of the basic set and work it all out on paper.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Joe

I don't see any real problem with asking people to look to the basic set, for a lot of stuff. (Of which, somewhat ironically, I have not one but two hard copies - just none that happened to be to hand)

My frustration stemmed more from the fact that I expected, erroneously, that reading the GURPS "Free-willed Tulpa" template would quickly give me a sense of what GURPS characteristics a "Free-willed Tulpa" has.

As it turned out, even if I'd had the basic set to hand, this would have been pretty hard, since it involved mentally assembling 4 templates. I just can't keep them all in my head at the same time.

I'm not really disputing that point; I would rather not try to do that complex mental integration either. Having the tulpa based on a template that's fifty pages away is inconvenient.

To my mind, the upper limit of reasonable cross referencing is (a) having a template that (b) includes a meta-trait from the Basic Set and (c) having variants on the template, on the same page, that say "add X" or "subtract Y." That much my brain can process.

I was just reacting to the suggestion (not from you) that what you had described was a long chain of references across multiple books that GURPS players couldn't be expected to own all of.

Bill Stoddard

[Joe]

Originally Posted by whswhs

To my mind, the upper limit of reasonable cross referencing is (a) having a template that (b) includes a meta-trait from the Basic Set and (c) having variants on the template, on the same page, that say "add X" or "subtract Y." That much my brain can process.

That I can certainly endorse.

Regarding this whole thing, on the plus side - GURPS is the only system I trust that lets me build a "free-willed Tulpa" at all!

(Or at least, lets me build it in the way I want: detailed, many options, sort of gritty feel. One could do it in HERO, say, but for me it's just not quite the same...)

[Dwarf99]

Originally Posted by Dwarf99

Well, this is one of those things where I'm sitting here slack jawed wandering why anyone who has a book that is an expansion on a default rules set without having the complete set of default rules. I can pretty much see having Thaumatology without having GURPS Magic, because everything important in Thaumatology is also discussed in the Basic Set. The books say Basic Set right on the cover. Any 'problems' you have like this are pretty much your own fault.

Originally Posted by gruundehn

Uh, Dwarf, the comment was that the core book wasn't on me as in present at the reading site, not that the core book was not owned.

Aah I've misread that! In that case, my apologies OP!