GURPS Power-Ups 10: Skill Trees

[Donny Brook]

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.

If it's not backward compatible with existing 4e, then I think it's more like a move toward 5e than 4.1e.

[Kromm]

Up from roots to crown
Pushing out from trunk to leaf
Fractal in Nature

— "On Trees"

GURPS is known for being "skill-based": Where some RPGs focus on raw talent and powers, and add ". . . oh, and you can study" as an afterthought, GURPS makes skills the focus of games that aren't in explicitly powers-based genres (like supers). GURPS is also known for being a little complicated, and much of that complexity stems from the previous point. "Here are a few hundred skills, linked by defaults and prerequisites, and split up into various groups, specialties, and techniques, all bought using discontinuous cost progressions that newbies will need to look up on tables" isn't the most enticing of sales pitches . . .

Some people solve this problem with wildcard skills – explored in all their glory in GURPS Power-Ups 7: Wildcard Skills – but those are innately "cinematic," and achieve simplicity by sacrificing resolution. GURPS Power-Ups 10: Skill Trees offers a different approach: a telescoping "skill tree" system that reduces what new or time-pressed players have to remember and write down, and yet supports many levels of refinement for veterans and perfectionists. Indeed, it spells out all of the underlying assumptions and math for the benefit of those who like complexity.

Author's Note: This supplement totally transforms all of the skill-facing aspects of character creation, and implicitly assumes that you're starting a new campaign – not adapting an existing one. Thus, it's "alternate GURPS" content, meaning it's aimed mainly at rules-hackers, who by nature are unlikely to agree with everything I wrote. However, I've shown my work, so it should still save you considerable time and effort if you want to overhaul the skill system in a different-but-related way.

—

Store Link: https://warehouse23.com/products/gur...10-skill-trees

[Refplace]

My review and thoughts
https://refplace.blogspot.com/2024/0...ill-trees.html

[thalcos]

I had the same thought - this is really, really awesome, and if this skill tree system was the baseline in 5E I'd be absolutely thrilled. But the system is difficult to incorporate into a game (especially given how much my group uses GCS and Foundry).

But I might use it in convention games I run for new GURPS players.

[cupbearer]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Up from roots to crown
Pushing out from trunk to leaf
Fractal in Nature

— "On Trees"

GURPS is known for being "skill-based": Where some RPGs focus on raw talent and powers, and add ". . . oh, and you can study" as an afterthought, GURPS makes skills the focus of games that aren't in explicitly powers-based genres (like supers). GURPS is also known for being a little complicated, and much of that complexity stems from the previous point. "Here are a few hundred skills, linked by defaults and prerequisites, and split up into various groups, specialties, and techniques, all bought using discontinuous cost progressions that newbies will need to look up on tables" isn't the most enticing of sales pitches . . .

Some people solve this problem with wildcard skills – explored in all their glory in GURPS Power-Ups 7: Wildcard Skills – but those are innately "cinematic," and achieve simplicity by sacrificing resolution. GURPS Power-Ups 10: Skill Trees offers a different approach: a telescoping "skill tree" system that reduces what new or time-pressed players have to remember and write down, and yet supports many levels of refinement for veterans and perfectionists. Indeed, it spells out all of the underlying assumptions and math for the benefit of those who like complexity.

Author's Note: This supplement totally transforms all of the skill-facing aspects of character creation, and implicitly assumes that you're starting a new campaign – not adapting an existing one. Thus, it's "alternate GURPS" content, meaning it's aimed mainly at rules-hackers, who by nature are unlikely to agree with everything I wrote. However, I've shown my work, so it should still save you considerable time and effort if you want to overhaul the skill system in a different-but-related way.

—

Store Link: https://warehouse23.com/products/gur...10-skill-trees

Neat book. Reading through it. Am i right to think that skills no longer default to each other? They all basically default to attributes-5 ?

[Ninja Monkey]

Just bought it and I'm already thinking that it could be applied to GURPS Magic or other skills based magic system. A Branch could be a College of Magic, perhaps next level down could be Verb based, like Detect, Create, Shape...

[Farmer]

Originally Posted by Ninja Monkey

Just bought it and I'm already thinking that it could be applied to GURPS Magic or other skills based magic system. A Branch could be a College of Magic, perhaps next level down could be Verb based, like Detect, Create, Shape...

To torture the metaphor some, that's a really nice seed of an idea!

I've just spent a little time reading through the book, and there are so many concepts that can be unpacked further. For a relatively short tome, I think it's going to take a while to fully realise everything that can come from it.

[Archangel Beth]

As I put on the official Discord:
"Absolutely fascinating little book, a little fuzzy-to-grok in places at first read, but with the kind of fuzziness that would probably straighten out fine when using it. I'm very suspicious that it would be nearly perfect for my personal Star Trek Adventures conversion -- high Trunk competency seems like an excellent representation of General Starfleet Competency."

I'm rather intrigued to try converting some characters with it at some point. (Both prior GURPS ones, so I know what's up, and non-GURPS ones, for the vibes.)

[corwyn]

I've been trying to come up with a way to broaden combat skills for some time and this might be the way, at least as a start.

[nudj]

I really like Attribute-5 defaults because I like characters sucking when they have never done something that is challenging. But I don’t like having to trudge upward from that -5 at 7 or 3 points per +1 trunk/branch. I love the big initial jump in skill in normal Gurps. So I think in my game I will let the first 7 or 3 spent jump the penalty up to Attrubute-2. Since the book offers “hey just use -2 defaults” as a viable option, I feel like my rule is a legit in-between choice. So I get the sucking and the non-sucking that I want.