Converting Avatar: The Last Airbender/Legend of Korra setting to GURPS

[timeladymanedwolf]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Really, with Chinese Elemental Powers and Martial Arts most of the really crunchy things about the setting are already available.

You might want to pick up a copy of How To Be A GURPS GM as well as try to run your first campaign with Action, Dungeon Fantasy or Monster Hunters. These are all great resources that would have saved me a lot of learning curve if they had existed back in the dim eighties when I started playing GURPS. I cannot recommend them enough to new GURPS GMs.

Sounds like what I really need to do is get the right books, then.

I'll work on that, but might have to develop my own setting rules if I can't get access to those things.

What about naming NPCs? What name generators and name meaning related resources can you guys recommend?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by timeladymanedwolf

I'll work on that, but might have to develop my own setting rules if I can't get access to those things.

Again, all of these are available in perpetuity from Warehouse 23 as pdfs. With a few rare licensed exceptions (GURPS Vorkosigan Saga and the forthcoming GURPS Discworld) all books for GURPS 4th edition are either exclusively pdf, simultaneously published in hardback and pdf, or start as pdf only and get a softcover printing later. The deadtree books go out of print, but the pdfs are available forever.

What about naming NPCs? What name generators and name meaning related resources can you guys recommend?

It depends on the setting. I often just do some Google searches for period or culturally appropriate names.

[Celjabba]

Originally Posted by timeladymanedwolf

What about naming NPCs? What name generators and name meaning related resources can you guys recommend?

This one :
http://tekeli.li/onomastikon/

But also:
http://www.ocean-of-storms.com/nameme/index.jsp
http://www.behindthename.com/random/

Hope this help

Celjabba

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

It's chi-based in the setting. I don't know if you want to change that. GURPS Thaumatology: Chinese Elemental Powers and GURPS Martial Arts can basically get you all the way there.

I'd look to GURPS Psionic Powers first. It might be a dud in one of several possible ways, but then again it might in fact serve the OP very well.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

I'd look to GURPS Psionic Powers first. It might be a dud in one of several possible ways, but then again it might in fact serve the OP very well.

I don't see why you think that. Bending isn't much like psionics.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I don't see why you think that. Bending isn't much like psionics.

Bending is an inborn potential that is subsequently realized by learnable skill. GURPS Psionic Powers, and indeed psionics in most fiction, is exactly like that.

But sure, if Chinese Elemental Powers does that thing even better, then the OP should probably go for that. I don't have it, have very little clue how it does things. But I know GURPS Psionic Powers fits.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Bending is an inborn potential that is subsequently realized by learnable skill. GURPS Psionic Powers, and indeed psionics in most fiction, is exactly like that.

"Can only buy new abilities in a Power if you started with abilities or Talent from that power" isn't especially unique to psionics and isn't so revolutionary an idea that you can't just get it from the sentence I just wrote (look, I saved the OP $9.99!). The "skills" for Bending are martial arts not the Psionic skills in Psionic Powers.

But sure, if Chinese Elemental Powers does that thing even better, then the OP should probably go for that.

It has chi-based elemental abilities that are very similar (if not identical to) bending unlike Psionic Powers which has psionic abilities that aren't based on classical Chinese elements and don't at all resemble any feat in either cartoon series.

I don't have it, have very little clue how it does things.

Much more like the source material than Psionic Powers.

But I know GURPS Psionic Powers fits.

How do you figure? What ability in Psionic Powers matches an Earth Bender pushing somebody with a slab of rock combined with a Tai-Chi push?

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

It has chi-based elemental abilities that are very similar (if not identical to) bending unlike Psionic Powers which has psionic abilities that aren't based on classical Chinese elements and don't at all resemble any feat in either cartoon series.

Chi is usually depicted as learnable, in fiction; even if some individuals are born with an increased aptitude for it (as represented by the two Chi Talents in GURPS Martial Arts), anyone can learn it.

Psionics, in fiction, is usually depicted as an innate gift that only a few are born with and then the rest can't participate at all. At most a few percent of the population, and more likely a few per million.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Much more like the source material than Psionic Powers. How do you figure? What ability in Psionic Powers matches an Earth Bender pushing somebody with a slab of rock combined with a Tai-Chi push?

Psionic Powers doesn't have a lot of specific examples that fits Avatar, but it does show how to adapt GURPS Powers to fit various manifestations. Just focus on the physical examples, which IIRC are filed under Telekinesis and the like, rather than on the Telepathic stuff.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Chi is usually depicted as learnable, in fiction; even if some individuals are born with an increased aptitude for it (as represented by the two Chi Talents in GURPS Martial Arts), anyone can learn it.

Psionics, in fiction, is usually depicted as an innate gift that only a few are born with and then the rest can't participate at all. At most a few percent of the population, and more likely a few per million.

Originally Posted by Chinese Elemental Powers p. 10

If you have at least one level of Talent for an elemental power, you can acquire new abilities of that power by study.

But really this bit is trivial. That's a sentence. There's no point in buying an entire book for one sentence.

Psionic Powers doesn't have a lot of specific examples that fits Avatar, but it does show how to adapt GURPS Powers to fit various manifestations. Just focus on the physical examples, which IIRC are filed under Telekinesis and the like, rather than on the Telepathic stuff.

That doesn't make any sense at all. Why use Psionic Powers if you are just going to have to use Powers to make up your own powers anyway? Why not use the system that already has all of the elemental martial arts chi-powers from Avatar in it more-or-less already?

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

But really this bit is trivial. That's a sentence. There's no point in buying an entire book for one sentence.

Especial as the same line is in GURPS Powers

aslong long as you have the Power talent you have the excuse to buy other abilities in the power.

That how you model latent powers, buy the talent but not the abilities.