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Old 07-18-2022, 04:40 AM   #51
SilvercatMoonpaw
 
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Default Re: Games that should NEVER Be done in Gurps

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Personally I'm convinced that a large chunk of the idea that GURPS can't do Supers is because people come to the table with wildly different ideas for what to make, which have wildly different point costs.
Well, the genre is full of examples of seemingly normal people paling around with literal gods.

What's needed may be acknowledgement that one side of that duality shouldn't be built "realistically".
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Old 07-18-2022, 08:14 AM   #52
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Default Re: Games that should NEVER Be done in Gurps

The Supers genre is full of characters who themselves have wildly-varying power levels from appearance to appearance, which doesn't lend itself well to any sort of roleplaying system that isn't almost entirely narrativist. Similarly, when normals are working alongside extreme superhumans, first off these "normals" are typically superhuman themselves (even if the narrative claims otherwise), and secondly they generally are only able to contribute because the story is purposefully written in a manner that makes their contribution important. For this latter bit, high levels of metagame Advantages - Destiny, Luck, Serendipity, etc - are necessary in GURPS... if you want to replicate that sort of story, anyway. It's not like all Supers stories require team ups between Batman and Superman, Captain America and Thor, BMX Bandit and Angel Summoner, or similar mismatches - you could readily create a group of supers of similar power levels, rather than ones that are wildly-different but where the narrative manipulates events to make them more-or-less even.

Now, there are some traits where GURPS pricing can cause issues. Angel Summoner, above, can probably hit well above his point value due the way Ally is designed (particularly if the GM lets the player build the angels). Characters who can pay cash for their "powers," like Batman (arguably) or Punisher (more justifiably) can similarly hit well above their point value, avoiding needing to pay points for Damage Reduction, Dark Vision, Innate Attack, etc by just buying armor, night vision goggles, firearms, etc. The high cost of innate ST and DR are also frequent issues, given how common Bricks are in Supers stories. But then again, what makes playing a Brick seem not worth it comes back to the narrative issues from above - being able to tank massive hits and shift large amounts of weight doesn't seem like it would be useful to the characters who aren't Bricks precisely because they almost never wind up in situations where they need to tank massive hits and shift large amounts of weight. Nightwing doesn't need to be able to tank bazooka hits because he can't get hit by one, unless the author is specifically doing a "Death of Nightwing" (or whoever) storyline.
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Old 07-18-2022, 09:25 AM   #53
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Default Re: Games that should NEVER Be done in Gurps

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Originally Posted by scc View Post
Personally I'm convinced that a large chunk of the idea that GURPS can't do Supers is because people come to the table with wildly different ideas for what to make, which have wildly different point costs. GURPS also makes the classic brick very expensive, as it probably should be.
I never understood that. I've had great games of supers in Gurps. One of the most memorable characters I ever seen in a tabletop was my friend's "Captain Acme", who could pull out any kind of stuff he wanted from the Dreamworld with a modified version of Snatch (his story was that he were a son of Morpheus), truly epic. And it worked incredibly well
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Old 07-18-2022, 11:16 AM   #54
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Default Re: Games that should NEVER Be done in Gurps

The games that should NEVER be done in GURPS are probably just games that should never be run at all. There are, however, games where running them with GURPS is relatively high effort, typically because GURPS has assumptions such as 'guns do more damage than fists, even when the person using the fists is a martial artist'.
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Old 07-18-2022, 11:18 AM   #55
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Default Re: Games that should NEVER Be done in Gurps

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The games that should NEVER be done in GURPS are probably just games that should never be run at all. There are, however, games where running them with GURPS is relatively high effort, typically because GURPS has assumptions such as 'guns do more damage than fists, even when the person using the fists is a martial artist'.
It depends on how one interprets the "NEVER" in the title.
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