GURPS Power-Ups 10: Skill Trees

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Kromm

In truth, Power-Ups 10 is closer to Alternate GURPS than to Power-Ups (we just didn't want to launch another series!), and very much aimed at inveterate rules-hackers. I'm not going to pretend that it will meet the needs of all . . . least of all conservative GURPS fans. For that, there will be a sister volume, Power-Ups 11. Still, I show all my math and explain all my thinking, so even if you hate my approach, 80% of the work necessary to create your own approach is done for you.

While I've only been able to give it a brief skim, speaking as one of those inveterate rules-hackers, I really appreciate this book, and the Under the Hood bits explaining your methodology and math. This book is great.

Originally Posted by Refplace

Thank you, it looks interesting but going to require sleeping on it to digest properly.
Best line of the book though "It’s your funeral campaign!" where underlined is actually strikethough in the supplement. This is for an option idea in an optional box.

For future reference, strikethroughs are doable on the forum, using the [ s ] tag (with no spaces), to produce something like "It's your funeral campaign!"

[nudj]

Originally Posted by Kromm

In truth, Power-Ups 10 is closer to Alternate GURPS than to Power-Ups (we just didn't want to launch another series!), and very much aimed at inveterate rules-hackers. I'm not going to pretend that it will meet the needs of all . . . least of all conservative GURPS fans. For that, there will be a sister volume, Power-Ups 11. Still, I show all my math and explain all my thinking, so even if you hate my approach, 80% of the work necessary to create your own approach is done for you.

Alternate GURPS or not, this is exactly the way I personally want GURPS to go for my games. Much less fiddling for really the same benefits. Great supplement. Much better for new players.

[cupbearer]

Originally Posted by Kromm

In truth, Power-Ups 10 is closer to Alternate GURPS than to Power-Ups (we just didn't want to launch another series!), and very much aimed at inveterate rules-hackers. I'm not going to pretend that it will meet the needs of all . . . least of all conservative GURPS fans. For that, there will be a sister volume, Power-Ups 11. Still, I show all my math and explain all my thinking, so even if you hate my approach, 80% of the work necessary to create your own approach is done for you.

I called this! Lol thank you. You saved GURPS.

[thom]

Got Skill Trees, currently absorbing the concept. What would really be helpful (to me at least) is having all the iconic DF characters "statted out" using Skill Trees, so we'd have examples to work from...

thom

[WingedKagouti]

Originally Posted by Kromm

In truth, Power-Ups 10 is closer to Alternate GURPS than to Power-Ups (we just didn't want to launch another series!), and very much aimed at inveterate rules-hackers. I'm not going to pretend that it will meet the needs of all . . . least of all conservative GURPS fans. For that, there will be a sister volume, Power-Ups 11. Still, I show all my math and explain all my thinking, so even if you hate my approach, 80% of the work necessary to create your own approach is done for you.

It looks like an interesting concept, but also something that should be used from the start of a campaign instead of being added in the middle, so it's not useful to me at the moment.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by WingedKagouti

something that should be used from the start of a campaign instead of being added in the middle

Yes, definitely. It is not an add-on. It is one of many ways to get edition 4.1 or whatever, and you'd have to use it from Day One. To quote myself:

GURPS Power-Ups 10: Skill Trees uses skill and Talent prices from the GURPS Basic Set and GURPS Power-Ups 3: Talents in calculations, but its traits completely supersede standard ones during character creation and in play. Trunks replace and shouldn't exist alongside Talents or wildcard skills, while Branches, Twigs, and Leaves supplant and shouldn't coexist with ordinary skills or techniques. To ensure a straightforward campaign that's fair for all, choose either classic GURPS rules or this supplement's approach – don't mix the two!

If you've already created characters with the existing rules, you've already chosen your approach. You could reboot into the new one, but that strikes me as being a lot of extra work.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Yes, definitely. It is not an add-on. It is one of many ways to get edition 4.1 or whatever, and you'd have to use it from Day One. To quote myself:

GURPS Power-Ups 10: Skill Trees uses skill and Talent prices from the GURPS Basic Set and GURPS Power-Ups 3: Talents in calculations, but its traits completely supersede standard ones during character creation and in play. Trunks replace and shouldn't exist alongside Talents or wildcard skills, while Branches, Twigs, and Leaves supplant and shouldn't coexist with ordinary skills or techniques. To ensure a straightforward campaign that's fair for all, choose either classic GURPS rules or this supplement's approach – don't mix the two!

If you've already created characters with the existing rules, you've already chosen your approach. You could reboot into the new one, but that strikes me as being a lot of extra work.

Huh. Interesting concept (I haven't bought it yet, but might if my finances improve). I find myself wondering what this would look like if the standard spell-based system were redone with (I assume) Colleges as Trunks, et al.

EDIT: The Celtic Tree Magic system from Thaumatology might be more thematic, though (or at least funnier).

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by WingedKagouti

It looks like an interesting concept, but also something that should be used from the start of a campaign instead of being added in the middle, so it's not useful to me at the moment.

I was going to comment about potentially converting an existing character to it, replacing skills with Branches (or Twigs, depending on scope) and Techniques with Leaves, and then merging appropriate Branches into Trunks, but doing some preliminary work on doing that with Shigran, it's readily apparent that using Skill Trees calls for a very different approach to skills, and possibly to attributes, as the costs are essentially front-loaded when compared to the default system. This means a character with high attributes and a between [1] and [4] each in a variety of skills in the default system is likely to cost markedly more, with the prices getting closer the more you are invested in a particular skill. For example, Shigran has a lot of skills at the [1] level (relying on his DX 15 to give him a decent skill level). He has a total of [41] in skills under the default system - but converting those skills directly into Branches (and a Twig), this is instead [130]! Consolidating Acrobatics, Climbing, Jumping, and Throwing together into the Athletics Trunk, plus grabbing one level of the Throwing Branch (his Throwing skill was +1 relative to the other 3 skills), drops this down to [110], and also gives him access to a lot more (like swimming, which I was a bit worried about him not having to start with). It's certainly something I'll need to play around with to see how it works out.

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Huh. Interesting concept (I haven't bought it yet, but might if my finances improve). I find myself wondering what this would look like if the standard spell-based system were redone with (I assume) Colleges as Trunks, et al.

Individual spells are arguably focused enough to be Twigs, maybe even Leaves in some cases. You could have a group of closely-related spells as a Branch, and a College as a Trunk, although that latter might be a bit too broad. Roughly speaking, Leaves are equivalent to Techniques, Branches to Skills, Twigs are somewhere in between, and Trunks are akin to lesser, more realistic versions of Wildcard Skills (EDIT: actually, describing them as akin to Talents is probably more appropriate - the way things are written certainly implies that was the idea, although they typically have a lot more skills than Talents would). As noted for Shigran, Skill Trees would not mesh well with the typical way mages are built in GURPS (high IQ+Magery and [1] in a bunch of different spells). I do think this system would work rather well for a revamp of my Wand-based Elemental Magic System; I still need to do a more in-depth dive of it, however.

[Kromm]

Yes. One reason why I said "edition 4.1 or whatever" is that points will not have precisely the same value as they currently do if you use this supplement to build your campaign. There will be an exchange rate other than 1:1 in the case of skill-focused characters. Diversified characters will cost more, while with the right trunks, focused ones will cost less. Those who don't care about skills at all will just do what they always do . . . And since these appear in different proportions in different campaigns, the exchange rate in question will be campaign-specific, not system-wide.

Anyway, it's the seed of an idea, given semi-official sanction by virtue of being published. At 20 years of age, Fourth Edition can safely be said to be a "stable release," and can reasonably support some speculation that takes it off in wild directions that might be some writer's idea of Fourth Edition, Revised, or Fifth Edition, or Mirror-Universe Edition, or Kromm's Fever Edition even if Fourth ends up being the Ultimate Edition.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Yes. One reason why I said "edition 4.1 or whatever" is that points will not have precisely the same value as they currently do if you use this supplement to build your campaign. There will be an exchange rate other than 1:1 in the case of skill-focused characters. Diversified characters will cost more, while with the right trunks, focused ones will cost less. Those who don't care about skills at all will just do what they always do . . . And since these appear in different proportions in different campaigns, the exchange rate in question will be campaign-specific, not system-wide.

I'm fairly confident a character like, say, Goblin Slayer, will work out to be less expensive in this system than in the default system. This is because he has middling stats (above-average due to training, but nothing spectacular - with the exception of Will, which is easily 20+) but high skill with basically every weapon possible (and adapts to new ones quickly), plus Brawling. In GURPS, that's a lot of weapon skills (while navigating defaults); in this, that's Melee Combat + Ranged Combat. He also seems to have the bulk of the skills under Athletics and Outdoors, as well as a good selection of those from Sneakiness (building him in That Other Game, Ranger would be the natural choice, and may be what he's based on). In the default system, that's going to be a huge number of skills, and the only way to avoid massively ballooning costs would be to get away from one of the central aspects of his character (that he's not exceptionally talented or otherwise gifted, and is physically largely-unremarkable, he's just highly skilled and very, very driven) and give him rather high DX, HT, and IQ and lower skill levels (probably with nothing above [4], and a lot of skills at [2], [1], or even part of a Dabbler Perk). Skill Trees seems like it's better suited for building a character to a concept, while the default system encourages altering a concept for optimization (do you really need to be skilled in a wide variety of weapons when you'll very rarely be without your main one?). This does unfortunately mean things like the DF templates (and Delvers to Grow) will mesh poorly with it, as those are all about optimization based on the default skill system.