Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 12-20-2007, 09:55 AM   #31
kmunoz
 
kmunoz's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Seattle, Washington
Default Re: GURPS Fantasy Question

Quote:
Originally Posted by blacksmith
Well there are some stats out there. But think of this, what Elf do you mean when you say Elf?

Tolkien Elves?
DND Elves?
Shadowrun Elves?

There are so many takes on any specific fantasy creature that only real world creatures can be covered in any detail and not be setting specific.
You'd think so... but in fact even covering real world creatures requires a significant amount of "genericizing." Look at the black bear entries on p. B456. Their weights (and hence ST, and hence attacks) are something roughly equivalent to an average for an adult male... but adult females can be as small as ~100 lbs (ST 9) and males can get up to ~600 lbs (ST 17). That's a HUGE range, and it's not just individual variation; it's regional and habitat variation. And that's just on one continent.
__________________
Natural Encyclopedia: 660 GURPS bestiary entries
It Came from the Forums: A Community Bestiary with 160 entries
(last updated 2009...someday I will revisit.)
kmunoz is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-20-2007, 10:14 AM   #32
Bruno
 
Bruno's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Canada
Default Re: GURPS Fantasy Question

Quote:
Originally Posted by kmunoz
You'd think so... but in fact even covering real world creatures requires a significant amount of "genericizing." Look at the black bear entries on p. B456. Their weights (and hence ST, and hence attacks) are something roughly equivalent to an average for an adult male... but adult females can be as small as ~100 lbs (ST 9) and males can get up to ~600 lbs (ST 17). That's a HUGE range, and it's not just individual variation; it's regional and habitat variation. And that's just on one continent.
That's an entry from the BASIC SET, which has to be as generic as possible (although I note that it also includes an example elf and dwarf and dragon templates).

I suspect a proper bestiary supplement will either have attribute ranges, or note that black bears can fit in a given range, and then give stats for a small and a large bear, or give stats for one, and lenses to adjust it to the other, or some other way of covering more data points.

See, for example, GURPS Dragons, which gives minilenses for different sizes of dragon.
__________________
All about Size Modifier; Unified Hit Location Table
A Wiki for my F2F Group
A neglected GURPS blog
Bruno is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-20-2007, 10:23 AM   #33
kmunoz
 
kmunoz's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Seattle, Washington
Default Re: GURPS Fantasy Question

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruno
I suspect a proper bestiary supplement will either have attribute ranges, or note that black bears can fit in a given range, and then give stats for a small and a large bear, or give stats for one, and lenses to adjust it to the other, or some other way of covering more data points.
The old bestiaries (which are the only ones that had extensive real world creatures) only did this half-way. They gave variable ST and HT ranges but not much else. And they did some serious fudging on things like spiders and snakes (for good reason). For 4e supplements, lenses are a good idea...
__________________
Natural Encyclopedia: 660 GURPS bestiary entries
It Came from the Forums: A Community Bestiary with 160 entries
(last updated 2009...someday I will revisit.)
kmunoz is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-20-2007, 10:34 AM   #34
Bruno
 
Bruno's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Canada
Default Re: GURPS Fantasy Question

Quote:
Originally Posted by kmunoz
The old bestiaries (which are the only ones that had extensive real world creatures) only did this half-way. They gave variable ST and HT ranges but not much else. And they did some serious fudging on things like spiders and snakes (for good reason). For 4e supplements, lenses are a good idea...
I would prefer lenses to just attribute ranges - I think it's a much better approach.

Stating that a spotted hyena can range from 80 lbs to 250 lbs, and ST 6 to ST 14, and that males are smaller than females is... well... informative... but it does nothing for the GM. If I say "OK, I need a pack of hyenas, 4 females, 4 males, and it's been a lean year because the dark lord has burned everything to the ground so they're going to be scrawny" - I have no idea if the females should be 100 lbs or 200 lbs, and what ST rating they should be, and if that's scrawny or emaciated or fat or what.
__________________
All about Size Modifier; Unified Hit Location Table
A Wiki for my F2F Group
A neglected GURPS blog
Bruno is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
new gm, newbie

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 12:00 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.