4e GIN?

[milliken]

Originally Posted by Hyrneson

As Walter noted earlier, the genre could be done and even the frame work of IN represented, the challenge is in doing a conversion of the mechanics of the game system to GURPS.
GURPS represents the game type just fine.

Exactly -- we were trying as hard as possible to retain the "look and feel" of In Nomine in GURPS. And GURPS doesn't do entirely well with cinematic genres, with the result that there are a number of things that sort of cascade together to make things rather ugly, including game-world visible mechanics in In Nomine, which I consider a bit of a flaw in the IN design, frankly. But it does also fit the theme of In Nomine that there's a lot more out there than corporeal reality, which is mostly what GURPS mechanics reflect.

One of the more unexpected problems, by the way, in the In Nomine mechanics was figuring out how vessels worked. I had thought that one or another of the existing multi-form schemes would be adaptable, but they all turned out to work poorly. Finally, Kromm and I cooked up the GIN vessel scheme so it worked properly, but it took a fair amount of effort. I suspect 4e probably fixed or expanded the multi-form mechanics to account for the IN type, but I haven't yet looked at what's been done in that area in 4e.

---Walter

[milliken]

Originally Posted by h3rne

Hi! I'm a gate crasher from a foreign SJG forum... IN got flagged on Websnark just recently and it piqued my interest. I found this thread trying to work out whether to buy IN or go for 3e GIN.

Generally I'd recommend the GURPS version if:

- your players already play and like GURPS a lot, and don't like other systems, especially ones where the rules are "squishy"
- you want detailed combat rules (or just detailed rules in general)
- you want to do historical stuff, and mine the various GURPS historical books for NPCs
- you want some semblance of play balance between the PCs
- you want to intermix humans with celestials a lot (human PCs are very disadvantaged in regular IN, not so much in GIN)
- you want to intermix IN with "regular" magic, psi, or other non-mundane genre stuff, or use it in a genre cross-over campaign

The regular IN is best if:
- your players are more interested in roleplaying and character over rules, and like "rules-light" systems
- players won't care if one character is much more powerful than another
- you'll gloss combat a lot (the IN combat rules aren't much faster than the GURPS ones, just less detailed)
- you plan to stick strictly within the IN background, and not introduce supernatural stuff from other backgrounds (though it's not all that hard to add "house rules" for things created within the IN framework)

Note that I actually like and use both systems (well, if I ever have time enough to actually play again), but prefer to play the IN background in In Nomine. I'd definitely use the GURPS version if I wanted to do a mix-and-match game -- Elizabeth did an In Nomine/Yrth game in GURPS IN, for example, and it worked fairly well. It would have been very hard to do in regular IN.

I strongly recommend the e23 version of the core rules over a hardcopy from eBay or the like -- this is in large part because the core rules started out badly organized, especially for character creation, but the addition of the PDF bookmarks and searching capability pretty much alleviates the problems with finding things quickly.

---Walter

[Hyrneson]

Originally Posted by milliken

I suspect 4e probably fixed or expanded the multi-form mechanics to account for the IN type, but I haven't yet looked at what's been done in that area in 4e.

Yep, that is what I was thinking, also, by use of the Enhancements and Limitations. Without diving for my books I can think of several Modifiers and the possibility of buying Power Investiture three times, once for each realm.
'Powers' addresses taking things to the cosmic level, as mentioned in the discussion above, so it may Modify some things, too.

RH

[alexondria]

Originally Posted by milliken

Generally I'd recommend the GURPS version if:



- you plan to stick strictly within the IN background, and not introduce supernatural stuff from other backgrounds (though it's not all that hard to add "house rules" for things created within the IN framework)


---Walter

Adding things in from other genre's is very easy with normal In Nomine. My last game went long enough that by the end of it I was pulling things from Shaddowrun (we had the Universal Brother Hood and a lot of bug spirits), we ran a module from Dark Matter, their was a thing or 2 from Don't Look Back, and those are only the things I can think of off the top of my head.

[h3rne]

Originally Posted by Hyrneson

As Walter noted earlier, the genre could be done and even the frame work of IN represented, the challenge is in doing a conversion of the mechanics of the game system to GURPS.
GURPS represents the game type just fine.

I am, perhaps, expecting too much from GURPS. IMHO essentially any game type is representable in any system. D&D SF? No problem. Traveller Fantasy? Fine. etc. My observation is that anything claiming itself as Generic Universal needs to be more. That, to me, would be by being flexible enough to represent any mechanic. But maybe a system so broad would be no system at all.

Simon*

[h3rne]

Originally Posted by milliken

Generally I'd recommend the GURPS version if...

Thanks, this was really helpful - perhaps you should add it to the FAQ for seekers following in my footsteps.

As it stands I've purchased the e23 Core. Postage to the UK is sufficiently prohibitive to make me hold off from getting the periphery stuff, especially when I'm promised on the product page "The future of In Nomine is with e23". Also with every bookshelf in the house double parked I'm liking eRules more and more! But as I'm gearing up for GURPS 4e anyhow, I might hold out for GIN 4e - ebay pending.

Simon*

[Archangel Beth]

Originally Posted by milliken

[...] how vessels worked. I had thought that one or another of the existing multi-form schemes would be adaptable, but they all turned out to work poorly. Finally, Kromm and I cooked up the GIN vessel [...]

I don't remember that one as Kromm and you, dear. I think that one was one of my hacks.

[milliken]

Originally Posted by Archangel Beth

I don't remember that one as Kromm and you, dear. I think that one was one of my hacks.

The final idea well could have been, but I know we were going around and around on it in email with Kromm, and he did have to approve it. My memory is blurry on exactly which mechanic bits I came up with, which you did, and which both of us did. I do remember you did all the Song stuff, though, since I was busy for a long time trying to figure out the bulk of the attunements.

---Walter

[milliken]

Originally Posted by h3rne

I am, perhaps, expecting too much from GURPS. IMHO essentially any game type is representable in any system. D&D SF? No problem. Traveller Fantasy? Fine. etc. My observation is that anything claiming itself as Generic Universal needs to be more. That, to me, would be by being flexible enough to represent any mechanic. But maybe a system so broad would be no system at all.

I'm sure SJ intended it to meet the name's promise (though the name itself was originally just the in-house working title), but I'm not sure he was thinking about modeling mechanics from other systems. And there are places the system doesn't work as well as it should, which has resulted in some of the tweaking done in the 3rd and 4th editions.

What you're talking about, I would classify more as a meta-system. The two most notable of those are Hero (which I find to have many of the same issues as GURPS when stressed to model things outside its original design parameters), and FUDGE. One of the problems with this type of system, though, is that you wind up designing the game system along with the campaign -- and the results are not necessarily compatible with anyone else's campaign. The general rules are familiar, but each campaign can have different attribute sets, for example.

So I'm not sure total coverage of all possible systems is either possible, or even a good idea. Genre coverage, on the other hand, is much easier, but works better in some systems than others. I would argue that D&D is a fantasy-only game, since its classes cover only that genre. Yes, you can use the mechanics to do others, but you'll wind up designing new classes in many cases. The skill-based RPGs are generally more flexible, though I'd be dubious about using Trav, for example, for a fantasy campaign. Possible, but probably not very pretty -- Trav's weapon mechanics are centered around ranged projectile weapons.

Which is all probably far enough off-topic that we should probably drop it, unless it gets into the whys and wherefores of the IN design....

---Walter

[milliken]

Originally Posted by h3rne

Thanks, this was really helpful - perhaps you should add it to the FAQ for seekers following in my footsteps.

That's up to Elizabeth, since the likely place to put it here is in the book recommendations sticky thread.

Originally Posted by h3rne

But as I'm gearing up for GURPS 4e anyhow, I might hold out for GIN 4e - ebay pending.

Heh. Don't hold your breath on GIN 4e. Unless there's a distinct upsurge in GURPS IN interest, I don't think it's even close to being on the radar. More likely that the 3e version will make it to PDF someday, and I suppose it's remotely possible it might later get updated, if someone comes up with credible 4e replacements for the chewy bits. But I'm very far from volunteering to do that, as you can probably tell....

---Walter