GURPS Power-Ups 9: Alternate Attributes

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I can see both sides of this. I find the ease with which resisted abilities can be resisted a little troubling, but I like the idea of a cap. The Rule of 16 works for me, but reaching the point where it kicks in seems a little too easy. I have similar feelings about Fright Checks.

As someone running a game for 1000+ point 'normal humans', I tend to agree.

[dataweaver]

I bought this one sight unseen: as I write this, I still haven't read Dr. Kromm's post that started this thread, or the Warehouse 23 blurb that's supposed to entice you to but the thing: I'm too busy reading the actual text of the product. I'm only in page 6 right now; but so far, I'm liking what I'm reading.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

I'm only in page 6 right now; but so far, I'm looking what I'm reading.

Thats very important!
Unless you have text to speech software of course<g>.



Sorry, normally I ignore typos but that one was too funny to resist

[dataweaver]

On the subject of the External Social Attributes, another possibility to consider in an intrigue-heavy game night be something along to Wealth; but instead of that attribute representing purchasing power etc., it represents an abstraction of how well-informed you are.

[dataweaver]

Splitting up the universe: I've got a really elaborate grid worked out — so much so that it's likely to cumbersome to be practical. But boy, is it pretty:

Body
Strengths and Aptitudes:
Primary: Might & Precision
Auxiliary (Mobility): Speed & Agility
Basis: Fortitude & Fitness
vs. Injury & Fatigue
Resource: Wealth

Mind
Strengths and Aptitudes:
Primary: Knowledge & Reason
Auxiliary (Perception): Awareness & Insight
Basis: Stability & Focus
vs. Disquiet & Distraction
Resource: Connections

Soul
Strengths and Aptitudes:
Primary: Spirit & Intuition
Auxiliary (Social): Presence & Guile
Basis: Integrity & Composure
vs. Corruption & Stress
Resource: Status

Three Realms: Body, or the physical realm; Mind, or the cerebral realm; and Soul, or the visceral realm. For the Mind/Soul division, I'm contacting thoughts vs. feelings.

Each Realm (Body, Mind, and Soul) is divided into three broad Aspects: Basis, Primary, and Auxiliary. Basis is essentially a combination of Resistance and Resources, and is fundamentally passive and defensive in nature: your ability to resist, cope with, and recover from actions directed at you in that Realm. Primary it's its opposite: your ability to influence others in that Realm. Auxiliary is a specialized Aspect that varies from Realm to Realm, and as such is given an alternate name in each: the physical Auxiliary is Mobility; the conceptual Auxiliary is Perception; and the visceral Auxiliary is Social.

And each Aspect has two sub-aspects: a Strength and an Aptitude. Each Aspect's Strength is conceptually a quantity (how much can I lift, or remember, or motivate; how fast can I go, how much can I observe, how much can I stand it in a crowd), and its Aptitude is a quality (how well can I maneuver things, or think things through, or recognize and express beauty; how nimble am I, how insightful and I, how devious am I). The original idea was that all of the Strengths should be viewed as being ST-like, in that they're not a valid basis for skill rolls or saving throws, and don't have to fit on a 3–18 scale; in fact, they can and do vary wildly. By contrast, the Aptitudes are designed specifically with skill rolls and saving throws in mind. It doesn't entirely hold up that way in practice; Knowledge and Acuity, in particular, need to be usable as “do you recall/notice X?” With this in mind, I've been attempting to implement a combination of KYOS and Conditional Injury to make Might more like the other Attributes, and similarly tweaking things like Speed (conceptually equivalent to Basic Move, as opposed to Agility, which is conceptually equivalent to Basic Speed).

In addition to all of that, each Realm also has what I've called a Resource, which is not to be confused with what PU9's “Dividing Up the Universe” section calls a Resource: in PU9's terminology, these are External Social Attributes.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

On the subject of the External Social Attributes, another possibility to consider in an intrigue-heavy game night be something along to Wealth; but instead of that attribute representing purchasing power etc., it represents an abstraction of how well-informed you are.

Interesting idea. Off the top of my head Wealth can buy information and help arrange some meetings, so can Status, and Pulling Rank also has some capability. Good idea to think on for a bit.
Can you edit that second note with your attribute model to make the font bigger? My old eyes cant read it. If not I will try copy paste into something to enlarge it but responding will be harder.
Good night!

[dataweaver]

Edited. I've removed the resizing tags entirely, and changed the coloration for more contrast.

[Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2]

A collaborator of mine and I have been going over this supplement, with an eye toward two independent projects - mine, involving Call of Cthulhu magic conversion, and his involving a magic system for a fictional world involving wands and school-boy wizards with forehead scars. (Oddly enough, there's quite a bit of overlap ... more than you might think.)

We were working with the Quintessence stat from Pyramid #3/120, which had a lot of what we wanted. But Power-Ups 9 gives us more to work with. It's been a fun day.

The idea of an independent Perception attribute is a nice one. We adopted that immediately.

But the main idea we've worked with is merging Will with Quintessence, as Will represents "Inner Strength" more than IQ does.

That means the Attributes we would be working with would be ...

• ST, DX, and HT the same.
  
• Intelligence (IQ) at 10 pts/level.
  
• Perception (Per) at 5 pts/level.
  
• Quintessence (QN) at 15 pt/level.

And Secondary Characteristics would be largely the same. At least Hit Points (HP), Fatigue Points(FP), Basic Speed (Spd), and Basic Move (Move) would be unchanged.

Basic Will would equal QN, modified at 5 pts/level.

Quintessence Points (QP), though, is where the big changes come. This is the "fuel" for supernatural and spiritual powers. But my collaborator and I discussed (emphasis on "cussed") the connection between bodily health and mystical power, as it's a truism in GURPS that magic is exhausting, which is why it burns Fatigue. Also, cinematic martial arts skills are in legend depicted as wielding forms of inner power.

So we decided that physical ability influences QP by the formula QP = QN + (1/3 HP) + (1/3 FP) (QN plus one/third Hit Points and one-third Fatigue), modified at 3 pts/level.

Interpreting Quintessence as the source of spiritual abilities requires some modifications. Any skills based on Will would be based on QN instead. For aesthetic reasons , some skills based on HT, Per, or IQ (not all) would be moved over to QN control. the current list (subject to change) is ...

Autohypnosis (H); Body Control (VH); Body Sense (H); Breath Control (H); Dreaming (H); Enthrallment (H); Esoteric Medicine (H); Erotic Art (A); Exorcism (H); Flying Leap (H); Hypnotism (H); Immovable Stance (H); Intimidation (A); Invisibility Art (VH); Kiai (H); Light Walk (H); Meditation (H); Mental Strength (E); Musical Influence (VH); Power Blow (H); Pressure Secrets (VH); Push (H);Throwing Art (H); Zen Archery (VH)


Quintessence as spiritual power would mean changes to various spiritual Advantages. Blessed, Channeling, Oracle, and True Faith would replace IQ and/or Will rolls with QN rolls. Power Investure would be a base 10 pt/level QN bonus modified by the Pact limitation.

Will as Quintessence means a number of Advantages would be affected. Also, the aesthetics of QN affected by bodily health would require other Advantages to use QN instead of things like IQ or HT. The most easily modified Advantages would be ...

Danger Sense; Empathy; Healing; Intuition; Metabolism Control; Precognition ; Psychometry; and Visualization.


Some Advantages would require more modification. Wild Talent, based on QN, for example, would be normal. But to use the Retention enhancement, the appropriate Attribute would be rolled after the QN roll.

With cinematic martial arts being QN-controlled. Trained By A Master would be split into two Advantages: Trained In Exotic Skills (10 points), which would be the Unusual Background that allows access to cinematic skills; and Martial Arts Mastery (30 pts), which gives the skill modifications and combat bonues of the original TBM Advantage.

One interesting thing suggested by my collaborator would also change Weapon Master, making each version 10 points cheaper. The revised Advantage would give all the same advantages except learning cinematic skills. For that, the new Trained In Exotic Skills Advantage would be required.

Adapting magic in the smallest possible way to the new Attributes would have Magery be a variant of the new Trained In Exotic Skills Advantage for 10 points. (My collaborator, wanting his schoolboy wand-wizard, suggests divinding it into two 5-point levels, Level One ("squib") being the "Magery 0" senses, and Level Two ("wizard") being actual spellcasting.)

A proposed idea (which appeals to both of us but there are doubts) is taking the "spellcasting skills" (Ritual Magic, Thaumatology, Symbol Drawing, and just possibly Occultism and Weird Science) and dividing them into "Theory" (based on IQ) and "Practice" (based on QN), defaulting to each other at -4. A good "Theory" roll would give a bonus to "Practice". But it would be possible to have one without the other, representing the difference between an ivory-tower "student of the occult" and someone who has real spellcasting ability.

We're still discussing other details, such as whether or not a high Quintessence should give free reaction bonuses (basically free Charisma for spiritually-potent characters); whether aging rolls should be based on or modified by Quintessence (wizards, Holy Men, and martial arts masters are all known for freakish longevity); and a suitable Corruption technique for the new Attributes. (Accumulated Corruption scores? Penalties to QN? Rolling a resistance against QN? Each has it's own merits.)

Again, it's been a fun day. And not a game played yet.

[Leynok]

Haven't been lurking around these forums in a while, glad I decided to pop in and found this. I've been theory crafting messing with Attributes for ages, and a whole book with guidelines and new perspectives is super helpful.

[ericthered]

I'm very happy to see this book. Attribute tweaking has been something I've dabbled with for some time. I've understood much of the advice in the book for a while, but its still useful, because it gives us a shared vocabulary to talk about attribute tweaks with, and it lets me justify a lot of my tweaking to otherwise RAW skeptics.

For me, the highlights of the book are:

PK's "Will and Perception are separated from IQ" now has a RAW basis in power ups 9. Its phrased as "We will be using independent Will and Independent Per from page 21, and the cost of IQ will be raised to keep it at 20. I've added points to the budget as per the last bullet point on page 46"

The Strength costs 5/level house rule I often use is now one of the two official suggestions for costing strength at high tech levels.

I also now have a book to reference when I do things like halve the cost of all physical attributes because they won't be as important in a game.

The lists in "New Homes for Old Skills" are probably going to be very useful in discussions of skill types. There are 16 of them, and they might end up being default sub-attributes that we compose attributes out of.

The discussion of Magic Stats is a good one, and I'll probably use it eventually. Its appeared in pyramid before. This may be the final evolution of it, or we may need one or two more steps before something really awesome and useful pops out.

The "Keeping What Matters List" is going to be dead useful as a reference and tinkerer's guide, and make a lot of attribute tweaks less error prone.