[Space] [Templates] Really Alien Aliens II: Empire of Pain

[SydneyFreedberg]

I wholeheartedly agree with your argument that the best racial templates are reasonably close to 0 points. (Everyone interested in building aliens for GURPS should read Eric the Red's blog post on the subject). But in practice I can't always get a concept to work: e.g.Striders, who are elephant-inspired herd beasts, and Fomori, who are literal combat monsters.

Yes, it's pretty superfluous, even counterproductive, for a spacefaring race to have massive bodies (Striders) or glaive-like weapons built into their arms (Fomori). But, well, those are the concepts that have been rattling around in my head since the 1990s, and those physical traits have informed their racial psychologies....You gave me some good tips for making the Striders more point-efficient, and maybe we can figure out something for the Fomori too.

Or maybe by "most of your attributes are too extreme," you're referring to the high basic stats of some of these aliens. I'm less bothered about that, because these are meant to be unusually successful spacefaring species, in a setting where humanity is an unexceptional species from an insignificant little blue planet. But it does rack up the point costs.

As for your other suggestions:

- I see your point about the Fomori "Code of Honor." Codes are hard to cost out in the first place, and this one is not a traditional code because it's at least partially hardwired by instinct. I'll ponder how many points to rate it.

- The Teceti are meant to be physically kinda fragile, hence low ST and HT. But arguably HT-2 makes them sickly, which would be an odd thing for an animal to evolve to be. Again, I'll ponder.

- The Teceti are also meant to have better hearing than humans but worse eyesight. Problem is GURPS has lots of options for fine-grained improvements to senses but only fairly gross options for decrements; there's no "slight astigmatism (-5)." Suggestions are welcome!

- The Spitslug attack may not warrant Low Signature. I was thinking that meant anyone in the vicinity would have a hard time noticing what was going on, since there's no loud noise or bright flash. But, yeah, the Spitslug is basically hawking up a giant loogie, which could be attention-getting in another way....