[Recruiting] GURPS play-by-post

[ajardoor]

I am looking for players for a proactive GURPS campaign to be held here, on this forum.
I want players to try to post at least once a day to keep the campaign going.
Any questions about the rules or setting should be asked here and now, as much as possible. I will be happy to help.
If your post here is “this sounds great, but I can’t play right now” then don’t waste your time. I appreciate the sentiment, but it’s off-topic. I want to hear from people who CAN and WANT to join and play.

If possible, try to have each PC fit into a “party theme” that explains why they are working together. Themes might be; bounty hunters, monster hunters, thieves/criminals, a cult, enforcers/cops, etc.

How do you want to roll dice for this game? I would prefer to do the actual rolls myself (after the player tells me what they want to roll and what the effective level is) in case there’s unknown or hidden modifiers in play, and so I can narrate the outcomes in the same post without players jumping the gun. It’s smoother that way.

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The basic campaign concept is; a modern day mega-corp managed to build an arcology on a series of artificial islands off the coast of Greece. This “company town” operated on the edge of national law, and has a population of a big city. But then a nasty socio-economic collapse in Europe caused the mega-corp to go bankrupt, leaving the arcology and islands to fall into anarchy. Magic and Psionics exist, but are only known in the shadows.

City Stats for The Atlantis Arcology
Population: 90,000 (Search +2)
Terrain: Enclosed, Floating, Salt-Water Sea
Attractive Appearance (+1)
Hygiene -1
High Mana (Common Enchantment)
Languages: English, Greek, Chinese, other European Languages
Native Literacy
TL 8^
Struggling (x1/2) Wealth
Status -2 to 3
Government: Anarchy, Free City
CR 0 (Corruption varies)

Factions that are notable and publicly known;
A crime syndicate, they run a whole bunch of illegal operations and have the most connections to smugglers. They’re in it for the money.
The remnants of the mega-corp, mostly their in-house security firm, their scientists and a few executives. They mostly want to regain their control of the arcology and islands.
An Anarchist commune made up of the arcology’s lower classes and remnants of the middle class. They want to eliminate the criminals and the corp-o-rats.
Other factions may exist and be known to PCs with the right skills.

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Character Creation

Each PC should have 2 or 3 goals (one is long term, the rest are more immediate, Disadvantages and Quirks may reflect these goals) to make their play proactive. Goals should be multiple, in varying time frames (some need only a single adventure to complete, another should take the whole campaign), measurable (so you know when it’s done), consequences for failure, and fun to pursue.

Each PC should have their own personal Callsign/Use-Names/Handle that they use as their moniker in place of their True Name.

150-points, -50 Disadvantage limit (lowered Attributes and Secondary Characteristics count towards this limit), up to 5 Quirks.
Make sure you note which books you are using for creating your character, so that your GM may follow along.

TL 8^
No Wealth, no Status, no Rank - starting cash $20K, all of it personal gear
https://forums.sjgames.com/showpost....8&postcount=21

Try to make your PC good in two to four of the following areas (but don’t spread yourself too thin); Combat, Intrusion, Medical, Observation (not just the one skill!), Social Engineering, Technology (this area includes use of Computer Programming and Expert Skill (Robotics) skills as depicted in After The End 1&2), Fixing, and Detective Work. Survival (the arcology basically counts as a city so Urban Survival and Area Knowledge will mostly suffice) and Transportation (vehicle skills are probably not needed unless you leave the arcology limits) are probably the areas least useful. About 15-25 (average 20) points spent on relevant skills (not counting Advantages or Attributes) related to an area is enough to be “good enough” at that area. Keep in mind that areas overlap and special abilities contribute to them. Stealth is not its own thing, it will fold into the areas given above.

Magic and Psionics are available, but no Cinematic or Exotic traits. All PCs are basically standard humans, as far as you all know.
I have not made many particularly hard-coded decisions on Magic for this campaign yet. If you want your character to know and use magic, suggest to me what system (Sorcery, Path/Book Rituals, standard skill-based, etc.) you want to use and I’ll decide if I think it should be in the campaign. Gun to my head, I think Sorcery is worth a first choice. We can discuss it in detail during character creation. Magic is much less well-known than Psionics, and every magician should start the campaign with a Secret worth -10 points counting against the Disadvantage limit.
My default assumptions for Psionics used in this setting is: (addressing Decisions, Decisions on Psionic Campaigns page 11) Ergokinesis is not split up, Psychic Healing is not split up, Animal Telepathy does not exist, Dream Control may exist and the dream realm is not entirely separate, Optional Crippling Rules may be used, new mental maneuvers can be used, Jam technique does not exist, Telekinetic Control exists and replaces all separate Telekinetic abilities, Telespeak does not exist, RL Exoteleport does not exist, GM decides if using abilities as advantages, no uber-techniques. Psychics are required to have both Secret (Psi) [-10] and Unusual Background (Psi) [5] Traits, counting against the Disadvantage limit.

A small rules change (since this is a PbP campaign); as per Powers page 108, certain abilities like Luck and Serendipity that operate on real time will instead use game-time cooldowns. Ditto the Unluckiness Disadvantage.
For Luck advantage, each use per real-time hour instead equals uses per in-game day (i.e. Ridiculous Luck has six uses per day).
Advantages that have uses per session are uses per in-game week instead.

Also consider having a public (accessible to all players) “loot sheet” that records both your personal equipment & money on hand, and whatever items your PCs get in-play.

[Alden Loveshade]

Originally Posted by ajardoor

How do you want to roll dice for this game? I would prefer to do the actual rolls myself (after the player tells me what they want to roll and what the effective level is) in case there’s unknown or hidden modifiers in play, and so I can narrate the outcomes in the same post without players jumping the gun. It’s smoother that way.

I hope it goes well!

A suggestion on the dice rolling. You might consider using something like dicelog.com . You as GM can still make the rolls, but that way the players can see the rolls for their own PC.

Before I started doing GURPS online, I did a campaign with a long-term friend over the phone. It was fine--except I wasn't comfortable when my friend was the GM and couldn't see my dice rolls. We'd been friends for years and trusted each other. But still, I think being able to see the rolls works better. Just a suggestion.

[ajardoor]

Thank you for the suggestion. The site looks good.

[ericthered]

I'm up if you can get players together.

I think it'd be fun to play a hacker/wire-rat/drone operator. I'm up for suggestions as to what the party theme should be.

[ajardoor]

I’ll try posting an ad to the Discord.

[jwalton99]

Definitely interested. 150 points will be a challenge...

[ajardoor]

Originally Posted by jwalton99

Definitely interested. 150 points will be a challenge...

I could recommend you some character templates and books?

[jwalton99]

Oh, I'm fine. My 'preferred range' is 175-200 points (I find I can make a pretty competent character at that range), but a number of GMs lately are backing down from that (I've got a 125 in another game, and he ... struggles a bit).

Also, my character concept (hopefully) won't be that combat oriented, which means I have TIME to set up rolls and such. Short version - SOMEBODY has to be doing maintenance on the physical plant (or people would suffocate when the HVAC goes out, or the water shuts down, etc.) - and he's either 'it' or one of the people doing it....

[Kalzazz]

Do you have pregens?

[ajardoor]

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

Do you have pregens?

If I did, I’d already have said so in the OP.
So, no.
Need me to make you a character? Do you have a preferred concept?