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Old 01-29-2020, 06:18 AM   #1
Mavelic
 
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Default adaptation of The Lost Regiment in SF setting ?

Hi,
I'm introducing my group of fellow roleplayers to GURPS and after a first attemps (fantasy), they seem to be hooked and ask for more, as this is their first try with a generic system (they usually play dedicated systems).
Following their request to try a SF background with GURPS, i've the idea to adapt The Lost Regiment (W.R. Forstchen) with the following differences : PCs are very late TL8, TL9 for many devices and are all spationautes, 300 pts (?), they come in a spaceship that partially crash on the planet where they discover human-like peoples who are in thrall of Tugars like creatures (they look like giant orcs with furs, organised like mongol's hordes and eating human flesh they appreciate above all other food).

What books i need fo that setting ?
What should be general stats for Tugars (I was thinking ST22-25, SM+1 or +2) ?
How can i introduce low tech weaponry to match UT PC's devices ? I was thinking giving them special metallurgy talent where their TL3 armors (scale/chain, shields ?) and weapons can match PCs TL9 devices...
Can i give them range TL from 3 to 4 ? (steam canon ?)

Any advices, help comment very much appreciated ! ^_^
Regards
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Old 01-29-2020, 08:53 AM   #2
Aldric
 
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Default Re: adaptation of The Lost Regiment in SF setting ?

What they need really depends on what your players have on their ship. If they're stranded and their ships doesn't have a Fabricator (Spaceships p16) and all they have are standard space suits and some handguns, your aliens can be scary enough with bows and arrows.
On the other hand, if the ship has that fabricator, raw materials, and a squad of Combat Walkers (UT p182) then your aliens have a problem.
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Old 01-29-2020, 11:54 AM   #3
Stormcrow
 
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Default Re: adaptation of The Lost Regiment in SF setting ?

You only NEED the Basic Set. You might like to use GURPS Space for help with organizing aliens, planets, and ultra-tech societies. You might want GURPS Ultra-Tech for a futuristic equipment catalog and GURPS Low-Tech for a primitive equipment catalog. What other books might be useful really depends on the thrust of the campaign. Survival in alien environments? Combat with hordes of aliens? High-flying cinematic or in-the-mud realistic? What the campaign is about will guide you to the books that might help.

Unless the aliens actually do have special weapons that are a match for the ultra-tech PCs' equipment, I wouldn't do anything to boost their equipment. Find other advantages for them: overwhelming numbers, superior tactics, better knowledge of the environment, dangerous special abilities, difficulty with negotiations.

Tech Levels are just a guide to help you choose the appropriate equipment for the setting, plus some help finding the right skill modifiers for unfamiliar technologies. If you set the aliens' TL to 3, that's just their base TL. You can give them areas of technology that are different TLs, or superscience, or just arbitrarily give them stuff and never mind its TL.
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Old 01-30-2020, 03:14 PM   #4
tshiggins
 
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Default Re: adaptation of The Lost Regiment in SF setting ?

The Tugars, as presented in the books, are Mongol bugbears who ride carefully-bred destriers, and who have a genetically-engineered predisposition toward violence that caused the downfall of the ultra-tech societies of their ancient ancestors.

The books describe them as able to lift a grown man one-handed, and they also use composite war-bows built to match that strength. So, I think you've got the ST range about right, and the range and damage of the bows, combined with their considerable mobility, makes them quite dangerous.

However, you need to understand why the author picked a Civil War regiment full of Yankee craftsmen (from Maine, no less) to zap to the Tugar world.

The Civil War was the last war in which the soldiers who fought could actually make most of their own weapons and gear, with workshops full of relatively simple tools they could fabricate, themselves.

Even by the end of the Civil War, that was no longer true. Brass shell casings are hard to get right. Brass shell casings with integrated reliable primers are even harder.

Modern weaponry requires a huge supply chain managed by skilled specialists able to create weapons and gear in automated factories to microscopic tolerances. Modern chemistry requires ultra-clean environments to maintain the purity that stabilizes highly volatile substances during manufacture.

In short, without a lot of magical hand-waving, there is no way a few astronauts will be able to create modern weaponry and gear. That would take, literally, generations of technological development, and the Tugar hordes would have showed up several times, by then.

So, I'm not really sure that sending in TL 8 or TL 9 people does anything good, unless you carefully set the expectations that TL 5-6 is the best they'll be able to do, for a really long time.
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Last edited by tshiggins; 01-30-2020 at 03:20 PM.
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Old 02-01-2020, 12:17 PM   #5
Mavelic
 
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Default Re: adaptation of The Lost Regiment in SF setting ?

Thanks for your many advices.

In the story I plan to play, the PCs are the 3rd space mission (to jupiter) and are partialy rescue team. Their spaceship will contain some automatic factories that will land on the "tugars'" planet but dispersed, because of tech troubles at the PCs unexpected arrival through a wormhole.
Short, PCs crach/land, have contact with locals, meet "tugars", must collect their dispersed equipments, fight "tugars", free peoples, then... meet "patrons" of tugars, fight them, maybe they can come back home, or not.
Finally, they'll be late TL9, with TL10 for some equipment. I'll give tugars what they need to match and balance PCs powers.

I know this is a simple start and plot line, but i'm confident that my player will elaborate plans inside plans inside my plans to fill the adventures.
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Old 02-01-2020, 01:09 PM   #6
Aldric
 
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Default Re: adaptation of The Lost Regiment in SF setting ?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mavelic View Post
I know this is a simple start and plot line, but i'm confident that my player will elaborate plans inside plans inside my plans to fill the adventures.
Players are well known for that.

If these Tugars are as large and as strong as you said earlier, your first point is to see what kind of gear you PCs will need to match them.

Hopefully the first step is not to equip your PCs with combat walkers running missile launchers and miniguns that can pick off targets a few miles down the road, while being imprevious to anything a low tech society, even one of giants can throw at them (quite litterally)

But if you give them handguns and maybe some rifles, they can probably meet the Tugars and probably kill them from afar, which means the next group will be wearing breastplates and wielding shields (for cover) that could be made with some exotic metal strong enough to have them close the distance.
So now your players, who were wearing lightly armored spacesuits look for something they can do to prevent a spear from piercing two men and killing the third behind them.
Or at least that's how I'd start thinking about it, but I know my players would find some other way, or maybe for once surprise me and try the diplomatic way.
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Old 02-02-2020, 12:25 PM   #7
Mavelic
 
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Default Re: adaptation of The Lost Regiment in SF setting ?

Aldric, you pointed exactly what i think !
Many thanks for your comments.
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Old 02-02-2020, 04:19 PM   #8
Aldric
 
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Default Re: adaptation of The Lost Regiment in SF setting ?

Thanks. Hope the campaign turns out well.
Also, quite interested in how it turns out, since I still have plans to run a sci-fi campaign sooner or later, even if atm they've been delayed
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Old 02-03-2020, 02:24 AM   #9
Mavelic
 
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Default Re: adaptation of The Lost Regiment in SF setting ?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Aldric View Post
Also, quite interested in how it turns out, since I still have plans to run a sci-fi campaign sooner or later, even if atm they've been delayed
I'll tell you how it happens. Promise !
Regards
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