New to GURPS my head hurts

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by jacobmuller

Although there was an amusing maneuver.

GURPS has them too. Though now I'm curious - what was the one in RQ?

[Anaximander]

I've been running a Fallout campaign for about five months now. When I started it, I gave my players 200 points to build their characters, set it at TL9, and drew heavily from Ultra Tech for gear. I tried making use of the GURPS Fallout Revised Edition, but I found it kind of dizzying myself. The variable tech levels by scientific field in particular were crazy to me, and I never really liked fooling with Status or Wealth. Status I threw out as irrelevant and Wealth I got rid of and just gave them some starting gear that I felt fit their background.
I ended up writing a lot of my own material. I drew up an equipment list so that weapons and armor in the fallout video games would be represented. I also trimmed down the skills list to only things that were relevant to the game and then went on to condense a number of skills. I also went through the advantage and disadvantage lists to pick out the relevant ones for my characters. That gesture was much appreciated by my players when it came time to create their characters.
So aside from the Basic Set, I would make use of High Tech, Ultra Tech and Action. I also personally have used material from Bio-Tech, Low Tech and Martial Arts. The GURPS Fallout book has the racial templates you want and plenty of gear which you can at least use until you stat out your own stuff. If you are going through character creation and something confuses you, like status in a world where there's little to no communication between settlements, or my own question of "what do I do with wealth as my characters gain and lose money and gear?", then just skip it! Making a Fallout version of Caravan to Ein Arris is a great idea. Maybe Caravan to Shady Sands?
This game I'm running now has been the best roleplaying game myself or any of my players has ever participated in, by their own admission. I wish you luck in yours, and if you're at all interested in seeing my own game material, just shoot me a message. By the way, where and when is your game taking place? Mine is in 2281 (right after the events of New Vegas) in Central Florida.

[jacobmuller]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

GURPS has them too. Though now I'm curious - what was the one in RQ?

LOL yours wins.
The Runequest item is much more mundane.

Outmanoeuvre: The Adventurer can engage multiple opponents in a group Opposed Test of Evade skills. Those who fail to beat his roll cannot attack him that Combat Round.

A starting character can have 4 actions per turn and this action gives a 30% chance of being immune (skill 51%). Burn one in the hope that no-one can hit you? Sold! Oh and success/failure can earn extra actions; theoretically the 4 action character could have 12 actions...

GURPs is definitely easier to handle.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by jacobmuller

LOL yours wins.

Just please realize it's not mine - I found it in GURPS Swashbucklers.

[Woodman]

Originally Posted by Opellulo

Good luck with that! While Fallout is a setting i love the problem in a GURPS game is that you don't got any support matherial (Stats for Gear, NPC, Maps and the rest of "handy" stuff) and Fallout is a pretty "heavy" setting.

For the first sessions better to start with something more "vanilla" until you and your players can handle better the ruleset.

The first way to hate GURPS is to launch with it in the cliff of a tricky setting without an adequate support material parachute.

Actually there is a pdf flaoting around the net, Which provides a decent setting description and a lot of 4E stats for Fallout.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by benz72

IF you are considering computer assisted character generation, I found out that GCA can be fairly easily edited to remove all the inappropriate equipment by TL and such. I've heard there is also an easy way to take out all the supers/mystic/cinematic stuff, but I haven't looked for it, so don't know where it is.

GCA with one of the categorization additions-templates-thingies-whaever, that sorts the Advantages into categories, and also sorts the skills, can be a great help, both for someone new to GURPS, and to someone who understands it fairlywell. Mainly by speeding things up, and giving a clearer overview of what options are available within a given category or group of traits.


What about GURPS Action, though? It doesn't quite fit post-apocalyptic, but of the two "distillations" available, it is the least bad fit, so that might be a good place to start.

[Wraithe]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

GCA with one of the categorization additions-templates-thingies-whaever, that sorts the Advantages into categories, and also sorts the skills, can be a great help, both for someone new to GURPS, and to someone who understands it fairlywell. Mainly by speeding things up, and giving a clearer overview of what options are available within a given category or group of traits.

Also worth mentioning is Gurps Character Sheet (GCS) which is open-source, free, and cross-platform (Mac, Linux and Windows). Like GCA, I've found it to be a great help in paring down the skills and advantages that people have right in front of them.

[Mgellis]

Harliquin76, welcome to GURPS and welcome to the forums.

* Please ask questions. It's a good bunch of people here. They're very willing to help out.

* Start simple. You can always add more options, more powers, etc. as you get a better feel for the system. Right now, just let the characters have common, basic advantages (Combat Reflexes, Luck, Night Vision, etc.) and skills and go from there.

* Before you run the adventure, run a couple of simple situations (e.g., a gunfight) on your own so you get a sense of how the rules work, the pace at which things go, etc.

* Keep the first adventures simple...the heroes must cross the desert, survive a fight with a giant scorpion, unlock or break into an old warehouse, search for canned peaches (the local boss they work for loves peaches and will reward them gloriously for the syrupy goodness) while avoiding the giant mutant cats that live in the rafters, and then on the way back survive an ambush by peach-loving mutants. You know, that kind of thing.

* If your players are all new to GURPS, you may want to create characters for them. Find out what kind of character they want and build them and just hand them out at the first session. This will make things go faster and give you experience playing around with the rules. Again, keep it simple. Folks can always make the characters more elaborate once everyone has a better feel for the system.

* You've probably noticed that pretty much everything I've said is connected to the idea that when you actually get your group together and start a game, you want to keep things moving along and not have to stop every five minutes to look up a rule, etc. A bit of practice and a bit of preparation can really help here.

* Feel free to shamelessly steal from every book, movie, song, anime, TV show, reality show celebrity antic, comic book, late night infomercial, etc. you can. You know you've won when your players give you that wide-eyed look of "I can't believe you just did that" horror. :)

* Have fun. When in doubt, roll and shout. :)

[nanoboy]

I want to elaborate on a piece of advice here. Some have mentioned trying to run some brief simulations. I think that the optimal way to do that is to get one or two players from your group and have them run through some quick combats or whatever. Don't get the whole group yet. The characters can be built by the players or be skeleton characters for the exercise.

The idea is to get at least one other person who can help other players in the real game. It should be easy to set up, too, since you won't have to get your whole group together.

[Jürgen Hubert]

Originally Posted by Stone Dog

Fallout is actually a good starting point to learn GURPS.

That's not very surprising, considering that Fallout 1 was originally supposed GURPS as its rule set. Sadly, the licensing deal fell through...