GURPS 4.5e

[bert]

Originally Posted by Anthony

I would probably convert reaction rolls to normal rolls with all the normal mechanics (and move the extreme reactions to criticals).

In my own system, a reaction roll is basically a roll-under charisma roll. I think there is not reason that the roll should be roll-high for good results.

(That fright checks and damage both give bad results in high rolls is consistent, IMHO)

[tbone]

Originally Posted by bert

In my own system, a reaction roll is basically a roll-under charisma roll. I think there is not reason that the roll should be roll-high for good results.

(That fright checks and damage both give bad results in high rolls is consistent, IMHO)

Long ago, I too thought it odd that reaction rolls treat a high roll as desirable, while most checks (including influence rolls) treat a low roll as desirable.

I'm fine with it now. The "low is good" rolls, including influence rolls, are pass-or-fail checks. Reaction rolls aren't checks. They're what I call (for lack of a better word) "amount rolls", i.e., rolls for some amount of stuff. In this case, the "stuff" is pretty abstract – it's "amount of goodwill felt toward the target" (again, for lack of better wording). But that's still a roll for an amount of something (with an attached Reaction Roll Table to interpret what the amount of goodwill means for a character). It's the same concept to me as a roll for amount of damage, a roll for number of silver pieces in a chest, and so on.

(A little more blather on that topic here, if you like.)

[namada]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

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.

Fair enough, all games I don't follow, but it does make me wonder how many .5 editions happened prior to 3.5, and how many were just copycat nonsense.

[bert]

Originally Posted by tbone

Long ago, I too thought it odd that reaction rolls treat a high roll as desirable, while most checks (including influence rolls) treat a low roll as desirable.

I'm fine with it now. The "low is good" rolls, including influence rolls, are pass-or-fail checks. Reaction rolls aren't checks. They're what I call (for lack of a better word) "amount rolls", i.e., rolls for some amount of stuff. In this case, the "stuff" is pretty abstract – it's "amount of goodwill felt toward the target" (again, for lack of better wording). But that's still a roll for an amount of something (with an attached Reaction Roll Table to interpret what the amount of goodwill means for a character). It's the same concept to me as a roll for amount of damage, a roll for number of silver pieces in a chest, and so on.

(A little more blather on that topic here, if you like.)

For clarity, I think the way GURPS does it is just fine.

Why did I go with roll under for skills? Because it is one step less than roll to target number. I find roll under in general to be slightly more efficient. With the reaction table, with all the possible outcomes put in a table, it is inconvenient to first calculate margin of success and then look in the table, when you can just roll 3d+modifiers immediately. However in my own system I streamlined the reaction to just critical success/success/failure/critical failure, and in that case I think it makes more sense to keep it roll under.

Not a big deal; if it works, probably dont fix it....

BTW, when I click your link on my iPad, the browser gets hijacked to a malicious site.

[Thamior]

I would like to see more options for cinematic play which should be much more cohesive. As of now cinematic rules are too guideliney and abstract. There are a few good ones sprinkled around Pyramid and supplements but it's a pain to collect and tweak them all. Most of all I would like to see some kind of alternative cinematic well written and engaging Hit Point and Damage system, which may involve tweaks to some dependent advantages.

[lvalero]

With so many rules, advice, skill, spells, "switches", advantages/disadvantages and so on, it would be interesting to have some sort of "icons" to mark the sections with "recommended for SPCE, MH, ATE, ACT, DF, FNTSY, ..." This way a GM only interested in creating an epic fantasy could skip entire sections.



On the other hand, an index of suitable sections of rules based on "campaign type" would be also useful

[maximara]

How about GURPS Digital...oh wait we already have that its called GURPSwiki. ;-)

Seriously though the main reason GURPS 3.5 even existed was Supers had so many exceptions to the "standard" rules as to be effective be its own thing.

You really could not have a crossover between GURPS Supers and any other book in terms of balance. A 400 point GURPS Magic mage would totally wreck any 400 point GURPS Super Mage thanks to Supers allowing things like the totally broken Magery (Reduced Fatigue enhancement) combo (ie Magery itself could have the Reduced Fatigue option) to exist.

Heck, Supers 1e was such a FUBAR that the 2nd edition came out a year later and eliminated such things as Magic Power (40 points/level) and changed the way many things worked.

The Compendiums were an effort to patch 3e Revised (which was more 3.25 then 3.5 regardless of what the Basic Set and SJG were stating) into something somewhat coherent.

And there were still things that were FUBARed - GURPS Magic wasn't entirely comparable with GURPS Religion which wasn't comparable with ether GURPS Voodoo or GURPS Spirits which weren't exactly comparable with each other.

GURPS 4e is nowhere near the mess GURPS 3e was and really with pen and paper going more niche as time passes. Everybody is going digital and while the MMO route is DOA (the cost of setting one of those up for a single genre is insane and for GURPS it is totally off the wall bonkers insane.) there are lower end options that SJG should have been looked at (Tabletop Simulator and MapTool to mention two I am familiar with) rather then going down the dead end that GURPS Online became.

[namada]

Originally Posted by maximara

...with pen and paper going more niche as time passes. Everybody is going digital...

Pen and paper aren't going anywhere anytime soon. I know several kids personally that read plenty, have Fire tablets and Kindles for reading books, and yet still choose printed books over digital.

I've also done a lot of research for publishing my own rpg, and my finding is that the majority of folks prefer a Print+PDF bundle over either one alone.

Add to this a handful of studies showing that reading digital media vs print media leaves your brain retaining less of the information presented, and I think this issue has yet to be settled as much as you, and many others, seem to think it is.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by namada

Pen and paper aren't going anywhere anytime soon. I know several kids personally that read plenty, have Fire tablets and Kindles for reading books, and yet still choose printed books over digital.

I've also done a lot of research for publishing my own rpg, and my finding is that the majority of folks prefer a Print+PDF bundle over either one alone.

Add to this a handful of studies showing that reading digital media vs print media leaves your brain retaining less of the information presented, and I think this issue has yet to be settled as much as you, and many others, seem to think it is.

I didn't say pen and paper were going away I said they were become more niche; big difference. Also digital in this sense can also technically include PDFs of books. A well formated PDF has the advantage of being able to search and find a key piece of text then slugging through a paper book (I use this method in adding information to the GURPSwiki.

Also anytime someone says "a handful of studies show" I immediately go 'cite them so we know who did them and can see how good (or bad) they are'.

Thankfully a little searching coughed up Vincent, Jane (2016) Students’ use of paper and pen versus digital media in university environments for writing and reading – a cross-cultural exploration. Journal of Print Media and Media Technology Research, 5 (2). pp. 97-106. ISSN 2223-8905.

It admits "There are many new questions raised by our study and further research is required to explore the topic in more detail and with greater statistical validity." In fact, the issue of "digitally handwriting your notes with a smart pen on devices like the Samsung Galaxy Note You still get the benefits of handwriting, plus the advantages of using digital technologies." comes up.

Another problem is Students’ use... admits jumping the gun - "In considering the contribution of this summative study to the body of knowledge on students reading and writing practices one might ask why publish these qualitative results and not wait until the outcome of the follow up quantitative study is complete?"

That IMHO is a major red flag as ideal one should wait on the follow up then going full head...and find out you messed up (Case in point that infamous 1990s homeopathy article, Is evidence for homoeopathy reproducible?, that appeared in The Lancet that was later found to have so many quality control issues as to be effectively worthless and was later refuted in a proper study done in the mid 2000s)

The whole purpose of a follow up quantitative study is to find out if something may have been off in your first study and to publics before it is finished is just nuts.

[DreadDomain]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Kromm's article "Ten for Ten" in Pyramid #3/70: Fourth Edition Festival, has a bunch of quite specific changes that all seem very sensible.

I tend to agree with Kromm's list, partîcularly:

1. The added/generalized advantages from Powers (Control, Create, Static, Illusion, Leech, Neutralize, Damage Reduction)
2. Stunts from Powers
3. Impulse Points
4. Imbuement
5. Ham Clause
6. Gunslinger

I would also add:
7. Applying modifiers on equipment/weapons as well as natural weapon from PU and Pyramid
8. Better art

I would keep Magic as is, although Sorcery might also be a good option. I wouild absolutely not add RPM.

For a 5th edition, I would also rescale GURPS using KyoS.