GURPS 4.5e

[tbone]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Personally, my only change for a 4e Revised would be to ditch the Infinite Worlds chapter and replace it with three small adventures designed to showcase the flexibility of the system: one fantasy, one modern day (heist or monster hunting), and one sci-fi.

I'd hate to see Infinite Worlds disappear - but it wouldn't, of course. It has its own 240-page book, with several supplements to boot. I agree with you that the space in BS could be better used.

The tough part would be choosing what "better used" represents. There's so much good stuff from the Action series, from How to Be a GURPS GM, from the Templates Toolkits, and on and on, begging to fill that opened-up space.

But I have to agree that sample adventures would be great. For fun, let's imagine there were room to squeeze three things in. Different genres would be good, as you suggest. They could also be different in nature, like this:


1) A gladiatorial-style combat scenario (map, simple PCs, several simple objectives like 1x1 fight, 2x2 fight, etc.). This could be played solo; refereed, it could fill the classic need for an "introduce newcomers to GURPS combat" tool.

(I like 2e's solo adventure, of course, but I'm conflicted on whether it'd be good to bring back the idea for BS, for the simple reason that programmed solo adventures aren't the usual way to play. Now, a separate book of programmed solo adventures – that I'd welcome!)

2) A micro-"dungeon" scenario (a handful of connected rooms with a couple of encounters and some objective at the end). Purpose: show how an adventure is formatted (how to describe rooms, encounters, rewards, etc.).

3) Not an adventure, but a campaign background (very short and simple). Purpose: Demonstrate planning a campaign (possibly using a form), especially the all-important task of narrowing down traits, rules, character concepts, etc. to just what's needed (i.e., showing how to not include everything plus the kitchen sink).

[maximara]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Experience Matters

Under the Experience Matters change, characters would reduce skill penalties by one for every 4 CP that characters invest in a skill (and its related techniques). The reason for such a change is that it would reduce the relative importance of attributes and advantages and give a reason for characters to invest in skills and techniques rather than just investing in attributes and advantages.

Uh, techniques already reduce skill penalties on a 1 point for each +1 up to +4 making this more a 'GM doesn't really understand the rule' problem then 'the rules themselves need fixing' problem.

[namada]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Personally, my only change for a 4e Revised would be to ditch the Infinite Worlds chapter and replace it with three small adventures designed to showcase the flexibility of the system: one fantasy, one modern day (heist or monster hunting), and one sci-fi.


Don't need any changes to the mechanics of the system, IMO, but replacing the kitchen sink "default setting" which has in my experience turned people off to the system because it encourages new GMs unfamiliar with the system to use everything at once would help not drive people away and encourage the "toolset" mindset.

Yeah, including Infinite Worlds was a mistake. Rather than ditch & then refill those pages, I'd rather drop the page count & combine the two books into one, if that were the only change being made.

Of course, I'd disagree that's the only change that needs to be made, and that the mechanics of the system don't need changes in the core - Powers introduced a generic version of Neutralize (on p97) because the Basic Set's version hadn't actually been made generic in the 4E rollout. And that's just one example of fixing. I could list at least a dozen examples of traits that could be streamlined, and a dozen examples of other traits that could be reconfigured into leveled versions for greater flexibility in character creation. Plus, there's that list of 'things I'd do differently' that Kromm posted at one point.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I have never been able to make sense of RPM, and so have never tried to use it. And I'm not a novice player. There's just something about it that I find deeply unintuitive.

As someone who somewhat understands RPM (it's effectively Ritual Magic on a major overdose of steroids) my issue is that it also has elements of Magic as Powers ala Hero system ie you (ie GM) have to build every spell. That is a lot of heavy lifting for even an expert GM.

[rkbrown419]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Another change that I would not mind seeing for a hypothetical GURPS 4.5e would be making RPM the default magical system of GURPS 4.5e. The reason for the change is that it aligns better with the standard character point system of GURPS (the energy cost for spells that enhance characters depends largely on the character point cost of the modification).

If you want to replace the magic system in Basic Set I'd suggest Sorcery might be a better choice. It builds off the advantages you're already introducing without adding another way to do things that has a different point balance. I'd also stress that any example spells included are just one way to do things and Sorcery can adapt to how the GM wants magic to work in his setting and still have play balance.

Another thing that might help new players put Supernatural and Exotic Advantages/Disadvantages in a separate section at the end of their chapters. That way they don't have to wade through a bunch of traits that are only important if they're creating a race or someone with powers.

[dataweaver]

GURPS 4.5? Start by incorporating everything from Power-Ups 1–8 into the Basic Set. :P

Seriously, though: a 4.5e shouldn't make drastic changes to anything; it should make the minimum changes needed to fix the most broken aspects of the game, with an emphasis on “minimal” to minimize the possibility of unintended consequences; and it should only add material that in hindsight really ought to have been in there to begin with.

[namada]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

GURPS 4.5? Start by incorporating everything from Power-Ups 1–8 into the Basic Set. :P

Seriously, though: a 4.5e shouldn't make drastic changes to anything; it should make the minimum changes needed to fix the most broken aspects of the game, with an emphasis on “minimal” to minimize the possibility of unintended consequences; and it should only add material that in hindsight really ought to have been in there to begin with.

Since the only game - ever - to release a ".5" edition of the game is D20 3.5, which was a minimalist update of the 3rd Edition - BUT still a new edition, if we're talking about GURPS 4.5E, we need to clarify, are we talking:

• GURPS 4E, Revised - as in, we need to keep page reference consistency, but can add pages & reuse deleted pages?
• GURPS 4.5 - something none other than WotC has ever done - so why bother talking about it, because it'll never happen?
• GURPS 5E - SJG is firm & adamant this will not happen soon, but that does not mean they're not taking notes on what we discuss here, so any idea is theoretically feasible?

[scc]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I'm not a big fan of the default Magic system while am one of RPM. But that said, RPM is a bit too involved and troublesome for novice players and GMs to be the default, IMO.

Yep, but I think Ritual Magic is a better choice for new players/GMs because if you accidentally miss something crucial the penalty isn't horrible. Beyond that if we're going to have multiple Magic systems none of them should in the Basic Set

[AlexanderHowl]

Originally Posted by maximara

Uh, techniques already reduce skill penalties on a 1 point for each +1 up to +4 making this more a 'GM doesn't really understand the rule' problem then 'the rules themselves need fixing' problem.

The problem is that skills (and techniques) are usually not worth the points that characters invest in them (relative to attributes and most advantages), though there can be notable abuses if GMs are not careful. Anyway, techniques do not generally reduce skill penalties, they increase effective skill by buying up from a default to a skill. The Experience Matters rule would be cumulative with the increase in effective skill provided by techniques. The benefits of techniques would be a specific increase in effective skill while the Experience Matters rule would give a general reduction in skill penalties.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by namada

Since the only game - ever - to release a ".5" edition of the game is D20 3.5

Tunnels & Trolls 5.5, 7.5
Call of Cthulhu 5.5
Narcissist: Crash Free 0.5 (a pre-release version)

I'll bet there are more.