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Old 07-30-2018, 08:16 AM   #11
ericthered
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Default Re: New to GURPS, Making sense of suplements for Zombie Apocalypse.

Commentary on other people's lists:



Zombies: I'm torn on this one. Its very comprehensive, and it will help you understand exactly what you want and how to build it. On the other hand, you can get templates from the other books, and After the End 2 has pretty good zombie rules. How much "Zombie" do you want, and how much "Apocalypse"?



After the End 2: This is the Apocalypse to your zombie. It describes secondary hazards, How to Loot houses, how to improvise weapons, gives zombie infection rules, and even has a couple of zombie templates. If you only get basic and one other book for this game, get this one. The biggest failing is that its about AFTER the end, not DURING it.



After the End 1: Is less overwhelmingly useful than 2. Its more character focused, and it starts with fully fledged heroes, not civilians budding into survivalists. If you're interested, you may be able to skimp on high tech, as this is the gear book for after the end. Or maybe not. It also has great rules on improvised weapons, and I don't think you can really get those elsewhere.



Martial Arts: This is not about punching people. This is about melee combat. Swords, fists, and stick... its all there. If bullets are precious, and scratches matter, you should consider this book. It is more advanced than basic, but no other supplement lets you mentally see what a fight (or any other activity) looks like. Highly recommended.


High Tech: Only if you're going to use it. If characters can loot stores to their hearts content and find plenty of bullets, go ahead and get it. If you're going to try and keep goods scarce, you'll find it less useful. This is ultimately a GM call.



action 2: A generally good Gurps book. Its not terribly related to your topic, but I can see why people are bringing it up. It has useful rules that will improve most games.



Low Tech: you'd really only want it for expanded armor rules and perhaps to have a bigger catalog of weapons to based improvised stuff on.



Gun Fu/Tactical Shooting: if you're going to have THAT many guns, sure. They're good books, but I rarely use them.



Not sure why folks recommended them:

Action 1 is about building characters that fit into action movies.

Monster Hunters: load outs doesn't really fit well. If you have it and not high tech or After the end 1, I suppose it could fill in.
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Old 07-30-2018, 09:48 AM   #12
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Default Re: New to GURPS, Making sense of suplements for Zombie Apocalypse.

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Originally Posted by scc View Post
One book that hasn't been mentioned yet the 3e book Ice Age, which I believe has rules for things like keeping count of how many calories your character has eaten. Sounds like it's in the area you want.
Where in Ice Age is that mentioned?
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Old 07-30-2018, 10:24 AM   #13
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Default Re: New to GURPS, Making sense of suplements for Zombie Apocalypse.

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Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
Action 1 is about building characters that fit into action movies.
Purely for templates and getting a look at what "Action Heroes" look like. This would give a good indication of where he wants his PCs to fall out at. Though, AtE 1 also does this a bit.

Also those initial 20 point lenses are nice "this is what that profession needs to do it's job".
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Old 07-30-2018, 03:18 PM   #14
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Default Re: New to GURPS, Making sense of suplements for Zombie Apocalypse.

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Where in Ice Age is that mentioned?
Sorry, don't have the book myself, but saw it mentioned here that it had that stuff.
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Old 07-30-2018, 03:38 PM   #15
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Default Re: New to GURPS, Making sense of suplements for Zombie Apocalypse.

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Originally Posted by safisher View Post
Where in Ice Age is that mentioned?
If it's there, it is very well hidden. The "Man Against Nature" campaign theme on p46 could include it, but there are no rules for it that I can find after searching the PDF for "food", "calories" and "starvation".
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Old 07-30-2018, 06:22 PM   #16
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Default Re: New to GURPS, Making sense of suplements for Zombie Apocalypse.

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Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
If it's there, it is very well hidden. The "Man Against Nature" campaign theme on p46 could include it, but there are no rules for it that I can find after searching the PDF for "food", "calories" and "starvation".
There is, FWIW, a very good discussion and some rules on this in GURPS WWII Red Tide, starting on pg. 98.
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Old 07-30-2018, 07:15 PM   #17
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Default Re: New to GURPS, Making sense of suplements for Zombie Apocalypse.

Hello again Ladys and Gents! Sorry for the late reply my one year old has been getting to sleep at 4am...reading up in the responders and looking at some synopsis of the books that have been recommended I have to say these forms are extremely helpful! I feel I should clairify a bit more where I'm comeing from for the setting. As I said I am new and I know I dont have to use all the rules for GURPS.

I had a game 4 years ago for a zombie apocalypse useing the Modeen d20 system. We started as normal humans who picked up the necessary skills, or perished. My character for example was a community college student who focused on engineering and computer. Along the way he learned to use a gun, a bat, and lost his arm. Others made a veterinarian, a delivery driver, a mechanic, and an actor (Renaissance Faire Knight). Some survived for a while, others died of heroics, others bad luck, or plain stupidity.

I would like to do the same for my game the players all make characters who are beliveable laywo/men. And truely fight for survival. The game will be takeing place on the day of the outbreak on Christmas Eve. The Zombie are Biological and infection come from bites, or transmission of bodily fluids into wounds or ingestion. I think i may want my players to roll the die to see if they are immune, a carrier, or vulnerable.

Im not looking for my heros to be badasses right out the box, but to grow into them or die trying.

Looking over the books some will definately come into play later as Society was still functioning up until the big event so basic resources are easily available bur there are alot of scared desperare people and of course the zombies.

I don't want to dissuade my players from making a character that they want my Golden Rule as a GM is to allow players to do what they built their characters to do.

For example,
I do see my players wanting to be competent in self defence in hand to hand, maby an odd player would want to be a kung fu guy but i would not pull that book untill our group needed it.

The same goes for the gun combat. As it stands I would like to keep track of wounds as realistically as I can mostly because a big antagonist of the campaign is going to be other humans.

Is tactical shooting something along the lines of called shots? I'm thinking im missing something when looking at the book. I dont mind a savant with a gun, but i don't want to have a John Wu film.

I do plan on having a villain of the week sort of thing. Perhaps while they're running around trying to establish a camp there by a nuclear reactor and run into the radioactive zombies, or some other campy things for example.

Over all I want the game to feel desperate by what I make the player keep track of. Ammo, food, water, medications, clean clothes, wounds, ect.

Calorie intake interests me quite a bit because thats an easy way of quantifying another stat.

I want to push the group in a (forgive me) walking dead sort of tale.
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Old 07-30-2018, 07:28 PM   #18
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Default Re: New to GURPS, Making sense of suplements for Zombie Apocalypse.

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Originally Posted by Steamwitch View Post
Is tactical shooting something along the lines of called shots? I'm thinking im missing something when looking at the book. I dont mind a savant with a gun, but i don't want to have a John Wu film.
GURPS Tactical Shooting is about realism and even more detail. (See the free preview on the Warehouse23 page linked. The table of contents and index in those are always good for giving you an idea of what's covered, along with the actual sample.) John Wu movies would be more the province of GURPS Gun-Fu.

"Called shots" are already covered in Basic; see the hit location rules starting on B398. Martial Arts has some more rules for even more hit locations and effects, near misses, sub-locations for the Basic hit locations if you want to randomly determine details like attacks on a "leg" actually hitting an artery or a joint without having the characters target those directly. (Martial Arts is sort of the Advanced Combat System for all sorts of combat, and covers armed as well as unarmed combat. It's not just cinematic kung fu D&D monk wuxia action, as the name might cause you to think.)

Last edited by Anaraxes; 07-30-2018 at 07:37 PM.
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Old 07-30-2018, 07:34 PM   #19
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Default Re: New to GURPS, Making sense of suplements for Zombie Apocalypse.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Steamwitch View Post
Hello again Ladys and Gents! Sorry for the late reply my one year old has been getting to sleep at 4am...reading up in the responders and looking at some synopsis of the books that have been recommended I have to say these forms are extremely helpful! I feel I should clairify a bit more where I'm comeing from for the setting. As I said I am new and I know I dont have to use all the rules for GURPS.



Is tactical shooting something along the lines of called shots? I'm thinking im missing something when looking at the book. I dont mind a savant with a gun, but i don't want to have a John Wu film.
We try and ypu picked up fast on a key point. The more we understand what you want the better our advice.
Also and more importantly is the idea that you do not need to use all the books or even all the stuff in just the Basic set.

As for the last.
Tactical shooting is if you want a marine sniper or realistic swat team.
Gun Fu is more if you want John Wu.
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Old 07-30-2018, 07:37 PM   #20
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Default Re: New to GURPS, Making sense of suplements for Zombie Apocalypse.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Steamwitch View Post
Over all I want the game to feel desperate by what I make the player keep track of. Ammo, food, water, medications, clean clothes, wounds, ect.
Calorie intake interests me quite a bit because thats an easy way of quantifying another stat.
I want to push the group in a (forgive me) walking dead sort of tale.
I would recommend using After the End for its Long-Term Fatigue stat and its rules for looting, etc. If I were running it I would use High-Tech, Tactical Shooting, and Martial Arts, with all their optional rules turned on for damage and injury, Will, Fatigue, etc. It would be a brutal game that way if you did.

You may create a campaign template for the PCs (survivors) that includes points narrowly restricted to Rapid Healing, +2 Fatigue and Will, +2 Hard to Kill, Fit, etc. This will give them a chance.
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