GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

Will the new edition of Heavy Gear be compatible with GURPS or include conversion rules?

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

Is there any reason to suspect it should?

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

Just this:

http://www.sjgames.com/ill/archives....&m=August&d=27

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

Well, the announcement indicates that it will be a new edition of the Silhouette-based rules, so that woul dsuggest it is unlikely to be GURPS-compatible. And if GURPS conversion rules were a planned feature of the core book, you'd thinkl that would be in the announcement.

But, who knows, maybe even if its not in the initial book, it'll come later , either as a conversion product or perhaps a GURPS adaptation after the initial, as with GURPS In Nomine.

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

Given the text of the release (particularly the reference to HG4e), I would expect it to be a non-GURPS line. However, I would hardly be surprised if the terms of the deal included a GURPS license.

I am, though, a bit disappointed in the announcement that it's primarily going to be an e23 line. I understand the business decisions involved in shunting so much stuff over to e23 rather than paper, but I can't help thinking that e23/W23 exclusives by their nature limit the audience and, in doing so, hinder FLGS outlets. I'm not trying to criticize, though - it's just my personal observation, and my wish that the numbers favored a different outcome.

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

It seems to me that more people can order games over t3h intarwebs than can find a FLGS nowadays. I'm fresh from GenCon where I heard all about it. Most of the folks who didn't buy some product at the booth because they lacked the cash or the desire to lug the goods home didn't say, "I can get this back home." They said, "Nobody carries SJ Games back home . . . what's the URL of your web store?" I would say that electronic products are more a response to poor brick-and-mortar coverage than a cause of it.

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

I think SJG's been pretty good at taking e23 products that work to hardback or POD softcover, and I don't think the choice is really been between electronic and physical media, I think its between electronic media and not getting a product out at all.

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

As Kromm noted, it's becoming rather hard to find actual FLGS's, as opposed to comic shops that carry D&D on a rack in the back and maybe stock some polyhedral dice at the counter. I'm entirely in favor of more easily-accessible electronic products.

I think Heavy Gear going to e23 is fairly awesome news, though, whether it's GURPS rules or not. There's just something inherently appealing about giant robots shooting at each other. :D

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

Answers . . .

* The new Heavy Gear will not be GURPS; it'll be a new edition of the Silouette system. A conversion document isn't currently planned, but isn't unlikely.

* Our current plan calls for a print version of the core game, to make those who only frequent physical FLGS aware, and PDF for the remainder of the line. However, given printing technology, you're going to see hardcopy sooner or later.

* Kromm said: "I would say that electronic products are more a response to poor brick-and-mortar coverage than a cause of it."

Yup.

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

Perhaps, but from what I've heard at my FLGS and from gamer friends around the country, most people are unaware of e23, DriverthroughRPG, etc. In that respect, I worry that RevBob is right that putting the product online limits its potential audience. That could change, but finding effective and efficient means of advertising is a challenge for companies much larger and wealthier than SJG.

(A simple way to advertise e23 would be to provide links to .pdf products from within Warehouse 23. But why have separate storefronts?)

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

Le sigh....

I saw the DI and went calloo callay! An exciting property from a great company to put right next to my GURPS volumes in the RPG section, then the dark treachery of e23 reared its ugly head.... (said facetiously as a purchaser of things electronic)

I understand why the move, but as a FLGS that is determined to be more than a d20/D&D shack, it gets frustrating when things migrate electronic. A lot of my customers still prefer print or at least want both without having to print it. Just need to find some way to get the FLGS into the e-loop in such a way that it is adding value to the process.

To keep things on track..Will SJG just be doing text or will they be handling the minis as well? Or will DP9 still crank out the gear and the minis game?

edited for lack of intelligence

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

An interesting perspective, but one that I'm not sure is supported by market realities. The web reaches everywhere -- including countries without FLGS and soldiers overseas -- and while people you know might not like to use it for shopping, the fact is that putting something online is a highly efficient way to reach the world. Most people in geek hobbies now rely on blogs, news aggregators, social networking sites, and online retailers for hobby info; roleplayers are pretty clearly among the early adopters of this stuff. My own view is that you can't fairly compare a few specialty shops, mostly in lower-rent areas of large population centers, to the web. FLGS who are succeeding are mostly FGS, minus the L -- that is, they've gone online; e.g., Le Valet D'Coeur, which is a mere block from where I live but which I've visited more online than in person for the past 10 years.

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

Online is about the only way I can get any interesting games I want. It has been since 1997. That's right 1997. Between LGSes being overwhelmed with options or clueless and Distributors not carrying some companies or simply misleading store owners, even good game stores have trouble getting some products. Meanwhile, I can visit Sentry box, Le valet or the company website and get it faster and with less hassle. Especially after moving to the Hat, where even talking about anything outside of D&D gets you funny looks.

-John

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

Looks like a cool place to browse... I think I might have walked by it (before working hours) when I visited some 15 years ago.

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

A Good Thing, IMO.

Unfortunately, that response can lend itself to a self-reinforcing spiral effect. If Player X wants to buy SJG stuff at his FLGS, but he can only buy certain things there whereas he can buy all of it at W23/e23, before long he's going to wonder why he doesn't just buy all of his SJG stuff at W23/e23 as a "one-stop shop" - and the FLGS loses out. Similarly, one of the FLGS shops in my area takes a rather dim view of e23, under the impression that SJG's trying to hoard the sales of those products for themselves. Even the announcement of retail POD distribution was met with "they're giving us their castoffs." Sure, you and I know that's not the intent - but that's his perception, and he's not open to changing his mind.

As I said, I don't intend to criticize - I just think the whole situation's unfortunate all the way around.

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

If we felt, in our opinion as professionals who rely on the market for our livelyhood, that we weren't already too far down that spiral effect to reverse it, we'd find another response.

Edit: I'm not saying the retail tier is in a spiral. I'm saying RPGs don't seem to work with that model the same way they used to, and we're too far down the new path to turn back. New ways to make RPGs work need to be found.

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

My FLGS in high school was primarily a comic book store. Went in a couple weeks ago to see after years of absence, to see if I could pick up the GURPS Basic Set there. The floor space that was used for games has apparently been replaced with Japanese comics. Of the other bookstores in town: one has a little D&D and no other RPGs, the other doesn't even have the D&D.

Even the next city over, went to a bookstore there, near the state university. It had a bunch of D&D and some stuff from White Wolf, but nothing from SJG.

So if I stay in my city of 200k, I can barely start in D&D without going online. If I go a city over (population over 500k), SJG RPGs are still not an option. If SJG products weren't available online, I'd be lost to them as a customer no matter how much I wanted to try GURPS.

I really doubt where I live is the only such place either, so I can't see how SJG is going to be worse off tapping every market they can. As far as the spiral stuff: it seems to me that with respect to that, SJG is in a prisoner's dilemma with other publishers. There's no way they can just hold out and hope everyone else does. No way.

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

My FLGS used to dedicate an entire rack to DP9 products. The majority was Heavy Gear but they had Jovian Chronicles, Gear Kreig and Tribe 8 as well.

One day, it was gone! When it vanished I was informed that I was, pretty much, the only person who ever looked at it. My FLGS was happy to order the books for me as they came out knowing that I'd be by to get them.

When I asked a number of the people playing Heavy Gear about where they got their books most of them said "on-line." They could get a better deal on-line than they could from the store.

I have a standing order at my FLGS for any GURPS Fourth Edition books that come out.

Personally, I like both forms. I like my dead-tree editions and I like my captive-electron editions. The PDFs make research a breeze when I'm working on ideas at my computer, and the hard-back versions make good clubs for getting players' attention. ;-) Just kidding. I use my Hero book for that!

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

I think we're partly victims of the success of d20 and partly victims of a failure of vision in the industry itself. You can complain that GURPS isn't selling all you like, but when the basic buy-in is $150 (yes, yes it is, most gamers are looking for a fantasy setting and a complete core set) it isn't surprising that the game sits on the shelves. Also, the fourth edition core books would kill a newbie dead with fright.

In the modern market there's only two systems that sell games D&D and Warhammer (and Warhammer Ancients sales are only earth shaking in terms of the historical miniatures market's sales figures)

As I've said in the past, GURPS desperately needs a user friendly fantasy starter set. An SF starter set might work if it says HALO or Starcraft on it, but historically that type of rpg / video game crossover doesn't seem to do so well.

What does seem to sell games these days is a brilliant setting that can't be ignored. (or boobs) Heavy Gear might fall into that category (not boobs, the other one). It certainly had the type of unified artistic vision that draws people in. But I'm guessing that it missed its hour. Timing is everything with getting a runaway success.

Roleplaying desperately needs a runaway success these days. Something that makes people open their eyes and grab the book off the shelf because it's too cool to ignore. We're really jaded these days, heroes and dragons and wizards just aren't enough to do it anymore. It'll probably take boobs.

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

So, what - GURPS Macho Women With Guns?

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

GURPS SPANC?

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

I'd buy that.

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

Nah, I'm thinking Tank Girl is probably the closest thing to the zeitgeist.

Well on the fringes anyhow.

The whole, squeaky clean but skanky, upper middle class vapidity that currently dominates the cultural mainstream with dross like American Idol and Big Brother isn't really gameable as anything other than targets.

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

Nah - they'd need to get a licence for that. Better to go with one they already have:

GURPS Kung-Fu Killer Mamas on Wheels versus the Motorcycle Aztec Wrestling Nuns

<VBG>

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

I have an FLGS here in Ventura, CA, but not one that seems more than casually interested in GURPS business. Now, in my younger days, when I had no money but plenty of time, I'd organize monthly demos and thank Dana Blankenship for the comp copies. These days, I can afford to buy from the FLGS at list (instead of shopping on Amazon) and bear the wait for a special order (longer than regular shipping from Amazon), but responsibilities professional and domestic prevent me from doing the stump work. The gamers in my group, even two in their early twenties, are in much the same position. Is there something about GURPS gamers that makes them more employable than the other species? Or am I just looking ata limited sample set?

GEF

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

I think a little of both. Part of it is just that gaming as a whole has grown up; much of the first generation of "nerds" have grown up to be successful businessmen. The younger generation that they associate with directly are those with either the connections or the INTEREST to hang out with successful businessmen.

This is true of gaming as a whole.

GURPS itself is a detail-oriented, customizable game. If someone is able to think that critically and creatively about a game, then they're probably going to have a slight leg up in the real world if their social skills are ok.

And, finally - I find that my generation has more DISTRACTIONS than most previous gens report. It's not just that we're busy with family and job. We're busy with family, job, gaming (tabletop), gaming (digital), online discussion groups, our own personal hobbies, our TV fandoms, our social nights out, and our extracurricular activities (gyms, book clubs, what have you) and so much more.

And we're busy with them all at once. The beauty of the current decade is that almost anyone can do almost anything on at least the amateur level.

The curse, is that if you aren't particularly driven you tend to do a little of everything but not often.

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

I second that.

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

What makes GURPS gamers more employable is that most of us are of employment age (at least on the forums - but I suspect at least this part of the online demographics maps fairly well to the offline folks).

We've been surveyed a few times, and the bulk of GURPS gamers are over 20.

Compare this to D&D, which deliberately tries to market itself to the 12-18 set, and Hasburo/Wizards even have an explicit marketing policy of releasing a new edition to harvest new young players once the last batch of recruits have left that target age bracket and wandered off to post-secondary education or into the work force.

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

That's where it starts and finishes, I believe. If it were because we all have genius-level aptitude at salable job skills, then as the game's main developer for over 13 years -- and presumably the guru to geniuses -- I should be getting job offers left and right. But of course I've had two offers, one lousy and one withdrawn for lack of funds, in all that time.

On the other hand, GURPS fans are older than fans of other RPGs. The fact that most Q&A requests arrive in my inbox during 9-to-5 hours, from corporate addresses, tells me most of what I need to know. The semi-annual "How old are you?" surveys in these forums tells me the rest. And I get visual confirmation at conventions, both big and small.

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

I've mostly switched to ordering RPG books online instead of my local gaming store once I realized that the online store will usually get them to my doorstep after a single day.

Plus, the local gaming store doesn't stock GURPS. Sometimes I visit them when I want to look at the latest Call of Cthulhu releases, which they tend to have...

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

My FLGS closed partly because of the declining profits. The store owner could not compete with the lower prices that were offered by online retailers. He saw customers that he had known for years buy off the internet. This store had been in business for about 30 years so he got to see all of the industry changes. Carried nearly everything that SJG had too as well as very complete lines from other companies. Diversified with family games, board games, card games (traditional and collectable), chess and darts. He employed sales help that were knowledgable about the games and gave great service. However selection and service did not beat 35% off the cover price.

It seems to me that as we get more comfortable with shopping on line we will kill the FLGS. The FLGS is only superior in three aspects - staff having an opinion about the product and how it plays, allowing you to examine the goods upfront, and providing demos and gaming space if so inclined. The internet has reviews of games for free, Amazon's look inside option may meet the need for the second, and the last may not be important as we find more ways to interact on line.

Back to on topic- Glad that you picked up a new line. I won't be buying it. A Gurps version may interest me.

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

That's too bad. You are missing out on both an excellent setting and an excellent system. If the system is good enough that SJG kept it, as opposed to converting it over to GURPS, that says something about it's quality.

As a Heavy Gear fan, while I wouldn't mind a conversion document for people who play GURPS, I would be leery of there being a GURPS edition of the game. It would be counterproductive to have the game compete against itself with a GURPS edition.

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

The smart thing to do would be to include a GURPS conversion guide in the back. That way people interested only in playing GURPS would have an easy road to conversion and it would actually drive additional sales of the main book as well as other books in the line.

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

It's smart if they have the staff time to devote to the creation of such a guide. If that small piece is likely to delay publication of the books by a significant amount, however, they may decide to put out a GURPS conversion later and get the reprints out the door more quickly.

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

The GURPS system is good, but the Silcore system is simpler. It has less computed values, and it was designed to handle large machines/animals.

The last Heavy Gear edition had two core systems behind it. You could use Silcore, or the terribly cludgy OGL (d20). I find it ... possible ... that the additional books, like the Vehicle Companion, will have both Silcore and GURPS rules for each Vehicle.

I'll put the Heavy Gear setting this way. It's a huge world, every major city is documented, every faction explained. There are factions within factions, inter/intra-religious wars, cults, pirates (aka Rovers), and Genetically Engineered supersoldiers. The battles are intense and deadly, but allow for wonderful roleplaying. Amazingly, you can even play a game where the big 'n' stompies never have any 'screen time.' The world is that flexable. I could go on and on about the praises of the setting, just PM me. (I'll even tone down the fanboy)

Ultimately, the only thing that you really need to know is this:
Heavy Gear is about GIANT ROBOTS backed by a system that was designed to work with mixed tanks, infantry, aircraft, and GIANT ROBOTS.

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

I am glad that you like it and can support it and GURPS. I really can't afford to eat up more of my recreational time and money learning another system that I have already seen (picked up a set of SilCore rules) and don't like. I agree that the setting is very detailed and has quite a few stories in it. Accessing it through a medium other than GURPS is not going to be a priority for me though. That was what I wanted to get across to the decision makers because I am pretty sure that they aren't keeping good enough tabs on me to notice that I haven't gotten my copy of HG. No rancor or insult intended just a statement of my own priorities.

When it hits the stands I won't mind checking the forum here for insight into how the rules function to produce a good mecha game (which by all accounts I have seen, it does) and hopefully how to do the same thing with GURPS.

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

What are the essential setting/system assumptions for Heavy Gear - now that we are talking conversions and such? Where does it go for realism? Where does it not? Are weapons powerful vs. the armour available? Are Mecha easily handled/agile? Etc.

Vehicle stats are relatively simple in GURPS 4e, and Mecha would be easy enough to describe - they would mostly be set apart by where they could be hit ("arms" and "legs" rather than wheels and tracks), and by how they are able to move.

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

Heavy Gear mixes realism with sci-fi crap.

It's 6000 AD or thereabouts. Earth had an ice age, crazy religious wars, massive migrations of the populations, made some genetic superhumans and eventually discovered anomalies that allow for interstellar travel. They colonized several worlds, ran out of money, and abandoned the colonies as the world economy collapsed and with it the world governent. Next Earth descended into a mad age of war lasting several hundred years which finally ended when one side won using super soldiers called grels and lots of nukes. The newly re-unified Earth now desperately needs: resources, a goal to sustain the pevailing fascist unification climate indefinitely, and something for a lot of socially stunted super soldiers bred only for war to go off and do somewhere else. Earth decides to warm up the mothballed gateships, and send their excess military polpulation out to reconquer the abandoned colonies.

As Earth is planning for a new interstellar empire, Terra Nova (one of the more successful colonies) is about to have a massive world war of their own, between the two polar superpowers that developed during the abondonment period. Just as they are about to go at it "for reals", The planet suddenly gets invaded by earthmen. Natch' the two superpowers unite and eventually drive the invaders off at a high cost, except the Earthers leave a lot of equipment and personel behind. These invaders form a new tiny city state in the desert equitorial region known as the badlands. Terra nova absorbs new technology from the stranded earthers. Meanwhile the Earth force that fled Terra Nova steals a few humanoid robot armored fighting vehicles that opposed them (called Gears) and uses them to develop an equivalent fightign machine called a Frame. They also develop a new better and more human looking super soldier.

About a generation passes and the two polar powers on Terra Nova are on the verge of a world war once again. This time they do fight and just as things are wrapping up something major happens to indicate that Earth is apparently ready to try another invasion this time using very different tactics. Terra Nova decides to reunify and clandestinely strike at the Earth forces on another colony world called Caprice that is being used as a staging area. They also want to establish ties to the other colonies worlds (Home, Utopia, Atlantis, Botany Bay, Jotunheim, New Jerusalem)and work to destabilize any Earth military presence on them. Eventually the Earth forces find (rather submissive) allies to help them fight their war on the Utopia colony(which has just had a pretty bad nuclear war). The Earth fleet sent to new Jerusalem just disappeared.

As to the machines, you have tanks, helicopters, jets, and other stuff resembling what we have today. (which seems a bit odd after 4000 years). People have sophisticated cybernetics and prosthetics available and medicine available to them.

The Gears themselves are controlled by a pilot using video game like controls to guide a trained nueral net that does the actual moving. Supposedly the controls somewhat resemble fighting game combos (like in Street Fighter 2). They are typically powered by a v-engine (and interal combustion engine) and stand around 12 to 15 feet tall and are most often used for war, reconaisance, security, and contruction. Gears are similar in many respect to Armored Troopers from the Votoms anime series and Labors from the Patlabor anime series. They can carry weapons in thier hands or on harpoints and can mimic a wide range of "human" movements including laying prone to fire a bipod supported anti-tank gun over a sand dune.

Larger robots are called walkers and have more armor but are easier to target and less agile. They fill the role between gears/afv's and tanks. (Every colony seems to have their own name for their own robotic vehicles. Caprice called theirs mounts.) Tanks rule the battle field but they generally need gears or infantry to support them. Aircraft and artillery help out too.

Heavy gears typically have rockets, autocannons, fragmentation cannons (giant shotguns), machine guns, mortars, and grenade launchers as armament. Less common are specialized equipment like drones (think UAV's only more automated), anti-missle defense systems, guided missles, particle beams, field guns, lasers, ECM gear, satellite uplinks, riot shields, flame throwers, active armor, supplementary armor around the cockpit resembling a bullet proof vest, or melee weapons. Many weapons are rapid fire or indirect fire or have special ammo that can penetrate armor or fragment. Most gears have fairly simple weapons because the deserts and swamps of Terra Nova play hell with touchy equipment like lasers. Bang for the buck is the name of the game.

Gears can be built from exotic materials to greatly lower their senor profile. They often have a secondary movement system or SMS in their feet or legs that lest them "roller skate" at a higher speed than they can run. Some can operate underwater or in space. The bigger they are the less maneuverable they are and the easier it is for sensors to pick them up.

Generally firepower overwhelms armor. The best way to survive is to manever to make yourself a harder target to hit.

Heavy Gear also has huge hovering landships acting as carriers and fire bases that can only work on Terranova due to some odd magentic property of the planet.

Animals on terra nova are often three jawed or have multiple spines. Arthropods and vaguely reptile-like creatures are common.

Space ships in terra nova tend to be smaller system defense ships. Gateships are huge, old, and getting kind of rare (sort of like Jumpships were supposed to be in 3025 Battletech). Gateships open space anomalies that lead to other star systems in a fixed network. Getting to one system usually means passing by the next world in the network so FTL travel is a bit inconvenient and strategic. On the other hand more sophisticated gate drives seem to be finding ways around this by opening anomalies that were previously considered unnavigable.

That's about all I remember.

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

I played in two Heavy Gear campaigns several years back. One was VERY over-the-top and my Gear was the ultimate intel mecha. I could see anything on the battlefield, so I was everyone's forward observer. My husband had a super-dueling Gear that was also a terrifyingly good sniper. The GM was a friend of mine who is, as far as I can tell, the INCARNATION of the Super Munchkin. Nice person, just can't restrain himself from Munchkining out.

The campaign premise was interesting, though. It was based on the typical HG storyline about Earth coming back to retake its colony with an interesting twist: some of their experiments (ala super-soldiers and gengineered mecha) had gone awry and were threatening both Terra Nova and everything Earth had.

In its normal form, though, the setting is interesting in that the planetary topography affects the civilizations. But it was clear to me that they intended to highly some of the serious flaws in our modern civilizations. For example, the North was religiously overzealous, drowning a noble culture in far-right-wing neo-conservativism and Crusader-like attitudes (hmm, and this was written before Dubya). The South, on the other hand, was decadent and decayed, run by people who were simply wishing to aggrandize themselves and didn't care how their populations suffered.

By the way, in the above game, we played Southerners. The super-duelist (my husband's character) was secretly a rebel feeding information to people who were going to collapse the government after the war with Earth was over. He was making plans to run north.

I wish I could recall more details about the setting, but it's been years... Something like eight. Yikes!

But it's an interesting game. ON TOPIC, however, yes, I would definitely be interested in a GURPS conversion, too. I felt the HG system did a great job with the minis combat aspect and terrible with characters. The characters just aren't very details.

Re: GURPS Heavy Gear?
 

I must say that this looks very good for a GURPS conversion. Actually, there may be things to draw upon from the THS supplements, in terms of construction principles etc. The blend of cybernetics, bionics and transhuman principles are easy enough to implement - certainly no harder than, again, THS. Ultra-Tech and Bio-Tech shall be our friends ;-).

I'm beginning to look forward to seeing the electronic versions of this game pop up.