Converting GURPS for Cosmic Deity Characters

[Coinage]

Hello everyone.


I was thinking about cosmic level settings, similar to Glorantha: The Gods War, and Cthulhu Wars, as well as the Titanomachy from Greek mythology, the over-the-top wars between the Devas and the Asuras in Hindu mythology, War in Heaven in Milton's Paradise Lost, the cosmic conflict between the Elder Gods and the Outer Gods in different versions of the Cthulhu mythos, and other similar settings.

Looking for inspiration, I was perusing through GURPS 3e Spirits, and I came across this passage:

"... the GM can borrow a page from GURPS Bunnies and Burrows and treat deities adventuring on their home plane as relatively normal characters operating on a “god scale,” with human abilities so far beneath them as to be insignificant. Gods’ weapons do normal damage to each other, but a godly attack would automatically annihilate a mortal. Likewise, godly defenses are too great for any mortal weapon to breach. ..."

I was thinking of doing something similar to just that. Have characters use typical GURPS stats, but have those stats represent something on a much larger scale.

Take, for example, Basic Lift. According to standard rules, Basic Lift (BL) is the maximum weight you can lift over your head with one hand in one second and is equal to (STxST)/5 lbs. When lifting with two hands, the equation becomes 2( (STxST)/5lbs ). Telekinesis means that you can manipulate distant objectsj ust as if you were grasping them in a pair of hands with ST equal to your Telekinesis (TK) level.

What if I changed lbs to equal 1 SolarMass (M☉)? So, a character with ST 10, lvl 1 Telekinesis, would have the ability to move 2 x (10x10)/5M☉) = 40M☉ or about 40 star systems.

Wow, that got big in a hurry.

I have a question. Is there anything to watch out for when it comes to this sort of conversion? Are there issues to be Please, let me know.

Thanks everyone.

[johndallman]

I doubt anyone has previously rescaled GURPS this far!

Provided you're strict about saying "mortal-scale stuff has no effect" I don't know of any problems that would result, although carelessness by the deities could do a lot of damage.

[Coinage]

Great thanks. I hope that things will work out.

[Pursuivant]

Rescaling GURPS to this level will require lots of GM improvisation to make it work.

Take a look at GURPS Powers and Supers for ideas on scaling things up.

GURPS Supers 3E had rules for "collateral damage" from missed attacks, but I'm not sure it got ported over to GURPS 4E. Essentially it was a 3d roll the GM made to determine just how badly a missed attack, etc. damaged the local environment. On a god-like scale, collateral damage might level or raise mountains, change the course of rivers, or gouge out canyons or lakes.

[Coinage]

GURPS: Powers and GURPS: Supers. Thanks for the recommendations. I will look them up for recommendations of collateral damage.

I will have to see if anyone posted any rules for collateral damage elsewhere.

[weby]

Yes, Gurps Supers helps in setting up different combat scales for super powerful beings.

For powerful gods game you may want to use C-scale or M-scale. At C-scale tanks and heavy anti tank weapons might at best still do 1-2 PT damage. At M-scale you can ignore such too..

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by weby

Yes, Gurps Supers helps in setting up different combat scales for super powerful beings.

For powerful gods game you may want to use C-scale or M-scale. At C-scale tanks and heavy anti tank weapons might at best still do 1-2 PT damage. At M-scale you can ignore such too..

Do we have rules or houserules for using ST (not damage, ST in general) with the various scales instead of using the normal cost or Super-Effort? It seems like it would help, and be a good fit.

[Jareth Valar]

Originally Posted by weby

Yes, Gurps Supers helps in setting up different combat scales for super powerful beings.

For powerful gods game you may want to use C-scale or M-scale. At C-scale tanks and heavy anti tank weapons might at best still do 1-2 PT damage. At M-scale you can ignore such too..

I agree with the OP with the reverse Bunnies & Burrows reference. Only when interacting in different "scales" would any of that matter.

This brings up an interesting point, since you mention C & M-scale and others have mentioned Powers...

Is there anything set so far that could allow someone with Innate Attack or Gadgeteer or anything like that to temporarily amplify and attack (either IE, DR or a piece of tech) to that level ? Obviously it would be pricy and/or have some sort of backlash maybe. If there isn't, how could this be modeled?

Not the best example maybe, but the only thing that comes to mind ATM would be something Tony Stark would modify on the fly or the scene from Force Unleashed where you are channeling Force Lightning into the turbolaser and affecting ships. EDIT: Lensmen might be a good example as well?

This could allow a 'mortal' to potentially affect/survive a 'god', even if only once in an encounter.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Do we have rules or houserules for using ST (not damage, ST in general) with the various scales instead of using the normal cost or Super-Effort? It seems like it would help, and be a good fit.

I don't think so. Lifting is easy: for every factor of ten you're dividing Strength by, divide BL by 100. On the other hand, you can't just look up damage on the same chart and declare that scaled damage because the damage table is non-linear.