GURPS Boardroom and Curia

[GM Joe]

Awesome! I saw this release yesterday and immediately thought, "What a cool supplement!" Just the sort of thing that makes GURPS what it is.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Tyneras

I think this is the first 4E release where I didn't have a clue what it was about from just the title.

During playtest we were told "This is the book that will not be called Gurps Organizations".

[Joseph Paul]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

If you're inclined to read something like "polity" or "district" for "city" in City Stats, you can probably use it as a very abstract way of treating any political unit, and B&C is already broadly scalable. It depends on what you want out of your game, though. The larger the scale, the more abstract it gets, and none of it provides you with a detailed guide to structuring the day to day tasks of people with positions in government or other organizations. That is, B&C (and, to some extent, City Stats when taken together with the city management article from Pyramid) give you an at-a-glance take on the capabilities of the organization/polity, but they don't tell you what the lord high judge or assistant guild master does on a daily basis.

I am inclined to read polity/district/Empire of Sol as 'city' in City Stats.

I am OK with coming up with day to day routines of staff and supplicants/citizens using services/etc of organizations within a populated area on my own. What I would be looking for is how to resolve things between polities or organizations within a polity. Ideally I could use B&C to flesh out the organizations in Space. How much can the Intelligence Service interfere with Law Enforcement? Does someones personal satrapy have the wherewithal to flout functionaries of the Imperial Government? How much are which organizations dependent on others?

[PK]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Was surprised to see the Green Lantern Corps mentioned by name.
That get a legal pass as a reference or something?

Doesn't need one. It's kosher to simply mention someone else's IP, as an example or such. Heck, I tried to throw as many pop-culture examples into Monster Hunters as I could fit, and even did a straight up list of "these were the things that inspired MH" in Pyramid 31.

Now, if we were to go as far as statting the Corps up, that starts to get squishy . . .

[Joseph Paul]

Originally Posted by OldSam

My first thought was: Great, now I can resolve conflicts in fights for power with different empire or so, like in Game of Thrones for instance... But I did not find the rules for that - the foundation is there (well made IMHO) and the rules for running organizations on their own. Conflicts are, for me, the missing bit to make this addon a really great and valuable resource. Actually it would be the most important bit for my games.

I would think that this would be resolved by either picking a trip point that would lead to declaration of war (Mass Combat) or going to a higher court (Court room drama or SE?) or by using Social Engineering rules to allow the leaders/functionaries of the various factions to thrash it out with threats, charisma, promises of payment or social transactions like advantageous marriages.

[ULFGARD]

Originally Posted by PK

Doesn't need one. It's kosher to simply mention someone else's IP, as an example or such. Heck, I tried to throw as many pop-culture examples into Monster Hunters as I could fit, and even did a straight up list of "these were the things that inspired MH" in Pyramid 31.

Now, if we were to go as far as statting the Corps up, that starts to get squishy . . .

In fact, in terms of IP, I'd think they'd WANT this kind of mention. If you're familiar, you nod and smile. But if not, you may well become curious. I ended up reading/watching some of the things in your MH Pyramid bibliography article. Which means the owners of said IP made money as a result of essentially free advertising. Everybody wins.

[ULFGARD]

Originally Posted by Joseph Paul

I would think that this would be resolved by either picking a trip point that would lead to declaration of war (Mass Combat) or going to a higher court (Court room drama or SE?) or by using Social Engineering rules to allow the leaders/functionaries of the various factions to thrash it out with threats, charisma, promises of payment or social transactions like advantageous marriages.

Also, that seems like it would be the stuff of adventures. Otherwise I suppose a Pyramid article could sort that. But much as Mass Combat isn't really a war game but rather is set up as a platform for role playing, so too should such conflicts be.

[mehrkat]

This has already made its way into my current campaign as ways to think about organizations. I've been hoping for this one.

[OldSam]

Originally Posted by Joseph Paul

I would think that this would be resolved by either picking a trip point that would lead to declaration of war (Mass Combat) or going to a higher court (Court room drama or SE?) or by using Social Engineering rules to allow the leaders/functionaries of the various factions to thrash it out with threats, charisma, promises of payment or social transactions like advantageous marriages.

Some aspects could probably be resolved that way... But, for instance, what is about the reputation? Let's say two political parties are facing each other as GURPS organizations in a conflict before an election. The question is who wins: a or b?
Now party a successfully manages to gain reputation. How does that affect party a? (e.g. New reputation b = Old reputation b - Reputation win a?) Or, as an alternative, making it the other way around: How do I handle a "negative reputation" campaign against the other party?

I'd say this kind of stuff is very important. Also the same mechanics could be used to handle "rumour" about a person, affecting his/her reputation (reaction rolls) etc.

Another example: How can e.g. company a make a win on the market against company b? Thus in GURPS terms, company a would increase the resources, while company b would lose some... These mechanics would definitely be very nice for my games. Really does not have to be very detailed (can be quite abstract), but there should be a good way to generally resolve conflicts.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by OldSam

Some aspects could probably be resolved that way... But, for instance, what is about the reputation? Let's say two political parties are facing each other as GURPS organizations in a conflict before an election. The question is who wins: a or b?
Now party a successfully manages to gain reputation. How does that affect party a? (e.g. New reputation b = Old reputation b - Reputation win a?) Or, as an alternative, making it the other way around: How do I handle a "negative reputation" campaign against the other party?

I'd say this kind of stuff is very important. Also the same mechanics could be used to handle "rumour" about a person, affecting his/her reputation (reaction rolls) etc.

There is a lot of mechanics for that in Social Engineering. For example, there are rules for undermining an opponent's position in a debate, or making a romantic rival look bad; those obviously would generalize to negative campaigning.