[GURPS resources] T Bone's Games Diner updates & announcements

[ravenfish]

Originally Posted by tbone

See examples in the article. A tiny thing, but I think it looks good. Anyone else?

I am reminded of Huxley's remark on learning of Darwin's theory of natural selection- "how extraordinarily stupid of me not to have thought of it myself". SJGames needs to adopt this immediately.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by tbone

To anyone peeking in, that's a kind reference to the article A modest proposal: Friendlier character trait blocks in GURPS. A most unambitious proposal, it merely suggests the use of bold in book layouts to highlight the names of skills and other traits (and a little extra tweaking of skill listings), to tame GURPS' infamous blocks of stats.

See examples in the article. A tiny thing, but I think it looks good. Anyone else?

I have tended to go a bit the other way. I use lots of white space and bullet points for traits, lay out attacks in tables (So does GURPS in general). Bolding works visually when there's not that much of it. If it's just one bold thing after another, it loses its eye-catching nature.

I'd have to ponder a more coherent response; overall, the "giant wall of text" is just horrible for anything but page density.

[ravenfish]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

I'd have to ponder a more coherent response; overall, the "giant wall of text" is just horrible for anything but page density.

I'm not inclined to disagree with you, but since SJGames seems determined to go with "giant wall of text", this seems a nice proposal to somewhat ameliorate the unreadability.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by ravenfish

I'm not inclined to disagree with you, but since SJGames seems determined to go with "giant wall of text", this seems a nice proposal to somewhat ameliorate the unreadability.

Yah. My own stuff aside, I think that you really, really want to keep the effective skill score immediately next to the level. Brawling-12 not Brawling lots of other stuff -12.

the other thing you can do is use color instead of grey to make the details hidden. I'm actually not a big fan of putting the design details like DX/E and points spent on character sheets, especially for publication, because it brings a lot of the "front-loaded" nature of the game's complexity into the foreground *all the time* instead of being able to just see the scores and forget it.

For monster and NPC sheets, that's more than fine

For PC sheets that are expected to be dynamic and change - maybe even during play if you have a short 'downtime' session in Town and can spend a few character points, you don't want to force a longer calculation-driven hiatus than is needed.

So initially I didn't like the greyed-out details...but they're growing on me.


I will note one thing: the actual bolding of these things is a colossal pain unless you do tricks. These are not HARD tricks, but they are tricks in InDesign. Things like a script that goes through every instance of [Skill Name][hyphen or en dash, depending on what's used; I think it's hyphen][one or two digits] in GREP and applies a "skill name" character style to it. Same with the list of Advantages/Disads, etc. Building that script isn't necessarily hard...though I'd have to learn to do it...but would pay dividends long term. But if you don't have a comprehensive script, your errata process is really ugly. Because there's always something that gets missed and that sucks.

[tbone]

Originally Posted by ravenfish

I'm not inclined to disagree with you, but since SJGames seems determined to go with "giant wall of text", this seems a nice proposal to somewhat ameliorate the unreadability.

That's pretty much my thinking. It'd be nicest to just avoid the wall o' text (through lists, lots of nice white space, etc.). But I'm not poking at the wall itself; whether it's good, bad, or neither, I expect there are good reasons for its use (like the ton of stuff that go into a GURPS template vs layout needs).

But given the appearances of text walls, maybe something as simple as bolding the key stuff would help the reader. (And maybe not. Sometimes people do miss seemingly obvious good ideas; other times, it's the well-meaning reformers who miss the obvious reasons for not doing the thing.)

Oh, one more thought, as long the conversation is fresh. About the overall format for writing out skills in a write-up or template, I suggested this in the blog post:

Brawling-12 (E) DX [1]; Diplomacy-15 (H) IQ+1 [8];

But really, I think I'd like this even more:

Brawling-12 (DX/E [1]); Diplomacy-15 (IQ+1/H [8]);

An unimportant difference; I guess I just like the idea of neatly packaging the "accounting section" of a skill in a single set of parentheses.

Originally Posted by tbone

See examples in the article. A tiny thing, but I think it looks good. Anyone else?

My preferred layout is:

[Cost] Skills Lvl (Bon) ATT/Diff Default BonSrc
[1] Occultism 15 (+1) IQ-1/A IQ-5 Elder Gift

But then I build sheets in a spreadsheet, when printed those spaces become cell walls (the whole sheet is a table).

On an NPC it would be; Occultism 16; and I'd call it a day. I understand people not wanting to bother with listing a skill's Default or splitting out the Bonus and where it's from, but I find it simplifies things when I need that info, it's already on their sheet.

[tbone]

A new batch of updates! For GURPS fans wanting a break from staring down the 2021 PDF Challenge counter:

• GURPS resource: New techniques: A page to collect new skill techniques. Just a half-dozen so far, but most are non-combat skill techniques, which I always like.
  
• Grow a delver – fast! – for the best dungeon RPG out there: A blurb pushing the Grow a Delver Kickstarter campaign.
  
• DFRPG resource: Wizardly Spell List: In which I give wizards a list like the lists clerics and druids enjoy, laying out what spells are potentially available at each level of Magery. It doesn't answer any questions about template-created PC wizards (nothing's off-limits to them!), but does answer a key player question: "So, if I'm not a wizard but I'm an elf, how many spells can I learn?" (My informed response: "A lot.")
  
• Swarm of observations: Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game: What it says. Not something you need if you're looking for fun content for use in the game; come visit for thoughts on which version of Esoteric Medicine is best, or how clerics' Turning ability could be made improvable (a la Turning in Other Games).
  
• Game design musing: Meeting weapon ST requirements (GURPS/DFRPG): Relive the good old days of periphrastic expostulation over nugatory rules ephemera! Here I submit that the rules really should specify Lifting ST, not Striking ST, as the trait that helps meet a weapon's ST requirement. Come fight me on this! (Warning: I have dwarves on my side, and my dwarves have bigger weapons than your dwarves.)
  
• Games Diner Site Updates: A new page cataloging edits and updates.
  
• Other: Several older pages have gotten updates these past few months: new weapons, new talents, new yammerings. See that new Site Updates page for details.

There you go. Read anything that looks interesting, then go back to telling people about that PDF Challenge.

[sjmdw45]

Originally Posted by tbone

But really, I think I'd like this even more...

An unimportant difference; I guess I just like the idea of neatly packaging the "accounting section" of a skill in a single set of parentheses.

Sold! I love the way

Diplomacy-15 (IQ+1/H [8])

looks and plan to steal it immediately, not so much for GMing (where I usually just write "Diplo-15") but definitely for anything written for other people, like character builder apps.

[mburr0003]

Originally Posted by tbone

Here I submit that the rules really should specify Lifting ST, not Striking ST, as the trait that helps meet a weapon's ST requirement. Come fight me on this!

Fight you? Lad that's the hill I've chosen to die on. You have my axe...




[EDIT]
Oh wow, hadn't noticed how old that post was...
[/EDIT]

[tbone]

Originally Posted by sjmdw45

Sold! I love the way

Diplomacy-15 (IQ+1/H [8])

looks

Ah, skill name and level, reunited and forever together. It's heartwarming!