GURPS Action 4: Specialists

[Kromm]

A tricky mission
A phone call to the experts
A walk in the park

— After-Action Haiku

GURPS Action does a solid job of rounding up the key archetypes of its namesake genre: the stealthy assassin and infiltrator, the cunning investigator and face man, the no-nonsense shooter and demolition man, and so on. Each role is writ large; for example, the medic doesn't just bandage the wounded, but also autopsies corpses, administers truth serums, and handles bio-weapons, while the wire rat is expected to be an expert at communications, security systems, surveillance, and everything else with a circuit board inside. Moreover, there's little overlap between templates – for instance, while anybody can power up a computer or drive a car, only the hacker can crack digital security and only the wheel man has much hope of winning a high-speed chase.

But what about the action hero who focuses on a single, narrow area – or on several unrelated ones? That's when you call in the specialists . . . or in this case, GURPS Action 4: Specialists.

This modular character-design system for the Action series offers an alternative to the chunky 250-point templates of GURPS Action 1: Heroes and GURPS Action 3: Furious Fists. It gives you the tools to equip your alter-ego with precisely the skill sets needed to fill a specialized role, allowing you to cover gaps in your team's capabilities or simply play somebody with an unusual past. And because abilities are added one 25-point chunk at a time, the same tools enable you to generate low-level NPCs for use as enemies, extras, or sidekicks – or to create low- or high-powered PCs for games that start before or long after the protagonists are A-list celebrities. You can even use these rules to "level up" the heroes of your existing campaign.

Like to think outside the box? Feel inspired by that oddball in your favorite movie? Just need a way to toss together interesting supporting characters on the fly? GURPS Action 4: Specialists is on your team!

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Store Link: http://www.warehouse23.com/products/SJG37-0331

[GM Joe]

Seeing Action 4 released inspired me to not only buy it, but a bunch of other GURPS digital stuff yesterday. I hope the $100 or so I spent will be taken as a vote in favor of more Action supplements.

[cbower]

The Disadvantage groups on the basic template alone made this one a good buy for me, and I don't think I'll ever run Action. They're very inspirational.

[sonic232]

Originally Posted by cbower

The Disadvantage groups on the basic template alone made this one a good buy for me, and I don't think I'll ever run Action. They're very inspirational.

This exactly. It'll really help me out with helping players pick out their disadvantages in freeform creation. I think DF and MH need this treatment, too. The Pointless systems in the Alternate GURPS Pyramid articles are one step, but I think they should be re-done to be more like this!

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by cbower

The Disadvantage groups on the basic template alone made this one a good buy for me, and I don't think I'll ever run Action. They're very inspirational.

That is indeed an interesting disad classification system. A very useful guide for some players, to PC creation, and for some GMs for NPC creation.

The Slush Fund thing is also kinda good. I mean, uneven points and having the same trait twice was never a real problem, so this is a rather good and elegant solution to an unreal problem.

I do miss the whole Background Lens thing, though. That was one of the best things of GURPS Action, but volume 4 seems to do away with it.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by GM Joe

Seeing Action 4 released inspired me to not only buy it, but a bunch of other GURPS digital stuff yesterday. I hope the $100 or so I spent will be taken as a vote in favor of more Action supplements.

Is it still possible to see e23 sales figures, like it was some years ago? I'd like to see the sales figures for this voume 4 PDF...

[sonic232]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

I do miss the whole Background Lens thing, though. That was one of the best things of GURPS Action, but volume 4 seems to do away with it.

I think they took it away and snuck it back in as some of the skill sets already in there ;) Take another look, I think you'll find most of them ready-built in there, with 5 extra points to boot.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by sonic232

I think they took it away and snuck it back in as some of the skill sets already in there ;) Take another look, I think you'll find most of them ready-built in there, with 5 extra points to boot.

The Action 1 Lenses were much more flavourful.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by sonic232

I think they took it away and snuck it back in as some of the skill sets already in there ;) Take another look, I think you'll find most of them ready-built in there, with 5 extra points to boot.

I think so, too. ;) Some are dead obvious:

Academic → Academics
Criminal → Criminal Past
Journalist → Journalism
Law Enforcement → Law Enforcement
Martial-Arts Master → Martial Arts
Survivalist → Survival

Others are merely obvious:

Intelligence → Intelligence or Tradecraft
Military → Infantry Training, Military Crewman, or Military Pilot
Security → Area Security or Personal Security

A few don't have common terms in their names, so they take a second to click:

Athlete → Physical Training
Rich Adventurer → Bon Vivant

But it's all there! The difference is that you can specialize a lot more. The whole point is that you build up your background in detail rather than being forced to use one of a handful of one-size-fits-all lenses – maybe your intelligence guy was a language expert who worked behind a desk (Linguist), and perhaps your criminal was subtle rather than seamy (like Femme Fatale). The rules still support the GM imposing a specific background if it suits the campaign; see pp. 7-9.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Kromm

That's when you call in the specialists . . . or in this case, GURPS Action 4: Specialists.

SQUUUUUUUUUUUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!