03-24-2023, 03:23 AM | #31 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: Math, GURPS, and its reputation for complexity
I certainly prefer it to games where everyone can just shoot forever and the way to win is pure attrition. "Enjoy" is weird here. I don't enjoy breathing, I just breathe.
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03-24-2023, 04:15 AM | #32 |
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Rome, Italy
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Re: Math, GURPS, and its reputation for complexity
IMHO the problem with GURPS is its obsession in trying to be a "physics simulator" where every phenomena should be translatable to game rules.
I get that this idea is tempting for a "generalist" system but it creates black holes of "math and other morbid considerations" that adds almost nothing to the game experience but weight much to the accounting. A typical setting can be played with like 20 skills total and an handful of advantages/disadvantages and equipment, and yet you got those massive lists and rules explanations which less than 5% of adventures are going to use (my personal beast is the table for irreversible radiation poisoning in the base manual, no hard feeling for who wrote it but who thought it was a good idea?) So yeah, when you add this infrastructure to an obsessive focus on point costs (which should be hidden to the players, they are something a GM use to have a rough idea about balance, nothing more) and some weird '90 choices like having fractions to calculate Speed or different values for skill difficulty and yeah, you understand why GURPS has a (well earned IMHO) reputation for being math and accounting heavy. ...also many players find weird that the good dice rolls are the LOW ones, but this usually get easier to do within the second session.
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“A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?” |
03-24-2023, 04:45 AM | #33 | ||
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Math, GURPS, and its reputation for complexity
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The whole thing makes me think of a passage from Bernard Shaw that Heinlein quotes at the start of Glory Road: "He is a barbarian, and thinks the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature." I grant that there are people who think that way; they just seem strange to me. Perhaps this is a point where I'm the "barbarian."
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
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03-24-2023, 06:53 AM | #34 | |||
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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Re: Math, GURPS, and its reputation for complexity
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survivalist manuals, etc., (though they tend to have somewhat out of date descriptions) so it needs to have those effects. Quote:
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Rupert Boleyn "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history." |
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03-24-2023, 07:41 AM | #35 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Math, GURPS, and its reputation for complexity
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GURPS Overhaul |
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03-24-2023, 08:02 AM | #36 |
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: The Athens of America
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Re: Math, GURPS, and its reputation for complexity
Eh I am an old Star Fleet Battles player.
GURPS is not that complex. One thing SFB did that I wish GURPS had done is an 'outline' systems for their Rules. Movement rules are in Section C. Seeking Weapons Section D. Direct Fire Weapons Section F. Empires and Ships Section R. Then the subsections are numbered. It makes referencing, citing and looking up easier. mumbles accountants that wanna be lawyers... /mumbles
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My center is giving way, my right is in retreat; situation excellent. I shall attack.-Foch America is not perfect, but I will hold her hand until she gets well.-unk Tuskegee Airman |
03-24-2023, 08:31 AM | #37 |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Math, GURPS, and its reputation for complexity
The first Gurps rules for radiation were probably those in Gurps Space 1e (which won awards) so "who" was likely Steve Jackson.
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Fred Brackin |
03-24-2023, 08:41 AM | #38 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Math, GURPS, and its reputation for complexity
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Like, even when the enemy does run out of ammo within the scope of engagement, I'm hard put to think of games where that causes defeat rather than changing their ability to deal out attrition...
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I don't know any 3e, so there is no chance that I am talking about 3e rules by accident. |
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03-24-2023, 09:24 AM | #39 |
Join Date: Dec 2022
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Re: Math, GURPS, and its reputation for complexity
GURPS should only be as complex as the GMs and players want it to be.
As a GM if you don't want to go through complicated radiation poisoning rules, then don't. Just decide the effect and apply it. Such an event can't be a total surprise so just prepare before hand. Note that I'm not harping on the person that brought this up, just using it as an example. IF you're letting first time players build their own characters without assistance (which is a bad idea and the result of many lost players IMO), prepare a list of available ads/disads, skills, and spells before hand. I remember a post somewhere where a GM just told the players to buy the rules and build characters for a fantasy game. The result of that is goofy things like brachiating humans with DR3 and gills. A better idea for first time players is to do a one shot game with pre-prepared characters so they can get an idea of the game before trying to decide how to build a character. Aside from skill bonuses, nearly all math can be precalculated. If you don't want to worry about the rest, don't. If you don't like turn order going by speed and then by dexterity and then by random roll, just roll initiative like D&D. Don't like a d6 number of turns of do nothing maneuvers rolled separately for each surprised character, then just MAKE SOMETHING UP. You can literally ignore 3/4+ of the combat rules and still portray a dramatic and exciting fight. All you really need are 3 or 4 maneuvers along with attack, defense, and damage rolls. Don't like 1/3 HP, knockdown, stunning, shock, posture, etc then simply IGNORE THEM. Just look at Critical Role. Geez, Mercer is so easy on those guys. I only watched the first 30 or so episodes from the first campaign but I don't recall them ever specifically collecting fired arrows, disabling the rod of go nowhere (or whatever it's called) and collecting the rope, deciding a marching order until AFTER Mercer places them on the table or almost everything that I would require the players to tell me. For God's sake they cast FLY on a bear and a 700 pound Goliath Barbarian surrounded by 4 friendlies in a 6' tall tunnel can swing a flaming war hammer full strength no problem!!! They do almost everything wrong IMO. In fact IMO the only thing they do right is HAVE A GREAT TIME. And that is the ONLY THING THAT MATTERS. --Outlaw P.S. Also, how can you tie a rope to a smooth steel rod magically suspended in mid air and not have the rope slip off? Even setting the rod horizontally, there is no way that rope is going to stay in place with people fast roping down. Quantum fluctuations alone would send the rope slipping off one end. |
03-24-2023, 09:56 AM | #40 |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Math, GURPS, and its reputation for complexity
Pretty sure both of these are pure rules as written for the game they are playing. Making up a bunch of punitive rulings isn't the standard expectation or anything...
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I don't know any 3e, so there is no chance that I am talking about 3e rules by accident. |
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complexity, math |
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