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Old 07-17-2021, 05:03 AM   #1
Professor Phobos
 
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Default [Hack] Player-facing GURPS?

I've grown quite fond of "player-facing" rules sets these days, which basically cut the GM out of most, if not all, dice rolling and engagement with the mechanics. No wargame element, basically.

Examples include GUMSHOE, the investigation system for Trail of Cthulhu (and others), and the "Powered by the Apocalypse" family of games - Monster of the Week, Urban Shadows, Apocalypse World, and so on.

The way they generally work is that the mechanics only care about the point-of-view of the players. So for example, if you're sneaking past a cultist, the player would roll Stealth (or equivalent) for their character. The GM would not roll Observation (or equivalent) for the cultist. There might be a passive difficulty for the Stealth roll based on the Cultist's statistics (as in GUMSHOE) or that sort of thing might not be a concern of the system at all (as in PbtA).

Out of sheer malevolent, perverse curiosity, how would you hack GURPS to have the same player-facing design element?
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Old 07-17-2021, 07:19 AM   #2
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Default Re: [Hack] Player-facing GURPS?

Do you want to keep the odds the same? If so, note that with a contest of two rolls, you're rolling six dice, so you need to roll six dice for any contested roll. And you need to take both sides of the roll into account.

So, for example, if I'm trying to intimidate a foe, and I have Intimidate-12, and they have Will-12, I ought to succeed just under 50% of the time, as we're evenly matched. Rolling 6d, I have an average roll of 21. That ought to represent evenly matched rolls by the two of us. So I ought to succeed on a 20 or less. We can say, I think, that what I have to roll is my effective skill, plus 10, on 6d, with -1 to skill for each point my foe's effective skill is above 10, or +1 if it's below.

If I have attack-14, and my foe has Dodge-9, for example, my required roll is 14 (my skill) +10 +1 (for my foe's Dodge being under 10).

ALTERNATIVELY, you can say that my foe's roll is always treated as a 10. But that's going to mean that most foes never dodge, because Dodge is typically 8 or 9. I think that may make things too easy.

I've been discussing a similar tweak for Champions/Hero System over on the general roleplaying board . . .
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Old 07-17-2021, 09:59 AM   #3
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Default Re: [Hack] Player-facing GURPS?

This would be something I'd be greatly interested in. There's been groups I've played in where the GM was legitimately poo-poo'ing on the fun of the players, either mine or that of my fellow players. They don't deserve to be bullied.

I remember one character of another player that I played with, his female character and her female lover got lynched by a religious hate mob. "That's what you get for playing queer characters in my campaigns!", cackled the GM.

While that's a unfortunate extreme example, I think GURPS could benefit from a system where the GM is no longer totally essential for all GM-facing mechanics resolution.
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Old 07-17-2021, 10:14 AM   #4
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Default Re: [Hack] Player-facing GURPS?

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Originally Posted by Tymathee View Post
This would be something I'd be greatly interested in. There's been groups I've played in where the GM was legitimately poo-poo'ing on the fun of the players, either mine or that of my fellow players. They don't deserve to be bullied.

I remember one character of another player that I played with, his female character and her female lover got lynched by a religious hate mob. "That's what you get for playing queer characters in my campaigns!", cackled the GM.
That seems to me to be a different issue.

I have, as a GM, used the Buffy the Vampire Slayer engine, where all rolls are made by the players. That approach can be used in a classical GM-run campaign.

The other thing I would say is that abusus non tollit usum (abuse does not take away use): the fact that some GMs use their powers badly doesn't mean that that sort of thing is inherent in GMing.
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Old 07-17-2021, 11:17 AM   #5
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Default Re: [Hack] Player-facing GURPS?

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That seems to me to be a different issue.

I have, as a GM, used the Buffy the Vampire Slayer engine, where all rolls are made by the players. That approach can be used in a classical GM-run campaign.

The other thing I would say is that abusus non tollit usum (abuse does not take away use): the fact that some GMs use their powers badly doesn't mean that that sort of thing is inherent in GMing.
Fair enough. Anecdotally, I haven't always had the most positive experiences playing TTRPGs. In fact, I don't think I've ever had the pleasure of having a GM that wasn't down right abusive to me or the other players. What's worse is when said group patronizes and bullies you, even knowing that you suffer from crippling PTSD.

This is a social issue as much as it is a GM issue. Nerds being nerds, and likely having suffered some degree of prejudice in their lives if only for their hobbies, are capable of a kind of callousness that a nerd could have born from that.

I understand that I shouldn't make blanket statements based on my own personal anecdotal experiences. But the writing is on the wall.
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Old 07-17-2021, 11:37 AM   #6
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Default Re: [Hack] Player-facing GURPS?

My love of player-facing systems is mainly that I am very lazy.

I also prefer to improvise most of my GMing and being able to concentrate on purely reacting to player actions rather than managing my half of a wargame helps free up brain-time.
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Old 07-22-2021, 11:33 AM   #7
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Default Re: [Hack] Player-facing GURPS?

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That seems to me to be a different issue.

I have, as a GM, used the Buffy the Vampire Slayer engine, where all rolls are made by the players. That approach can be used in a classical GM-run campaign.

The other thing I would say is that abusus non tollit usum (abuse does not take away use): the fact that some GMs use their powers badly doesn't mean that that sort of thing is inherent in GMing.
In the real world, you don't strip the powers from someone in a job that abuses said powers. You remove the bad person and get a good person. The powers of the job should be based upon a typical holder and not a really bad version.

If I felt a GM was abusive I wouldn't play. I wonder though if due to PTSD as mentioned in another post that some of the issue is one a lack of awareness but even more so a lack of empathy. My PCs kid each other all the time and from what I can see it's not hurtful but it could be hurtful to someone sensitive to that particular kidding. Communication would be key I'd think and if the players are accommodating after that then I'd find another group to be honest.

I'm not a big fan of the kinds of games being discussed here. It's kind of why I came to GURPS to escape that world to some degree.

But my ethos is that all players including the GM should have fun. I strive to make my campaign fun for everyone. So I don't feel especially tyrannical. I do let the dice fall where they fall and I try to carefully script my NPCs so as to not be biased once the game starts.
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Old 07-22-2021, 12:33 PM   #8
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Default Re: [Hack] Player-facing GURPS?

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Originally Posted by Tymathee View Post
While that's a unfortunate extreme example, I think GURPS could benefit from a system where the GM is no longer totally essential for all GM-facing mechanics resolution.
There's really no way to have a game that has a human GM in which said GM is incapable of abusing their power. This is in no small part because, even if you did somehow manage to create such a system and make it fun to play, a GM who enjoys abusing their power won't use it - they'll run something else that they can abuse their power in, or modify the rules to get the same effect. Sure, the players can vote with their feet by refusing to play that, but then they already have that option with an abusive GM - the same reasons the players don't exercise that option now (nobody else willing to GM, afraid of souring their out-of-game relationship with that GM and/or other players, etc) will still be in play.


That out of the way, I'd be inclined to handle contests of various flavors as treating the NPC's as always rolling an 11. For direct contests (like Stealth vs Observation, say), I'd simply adjust the NPC's score to 11 and apply the same adjustment as a modifier on the player's roll (if the NPC has Observation 10, that's +1 to Stealth against him). For combat, I'd get rid of Deceptive Attack (and Telegraphic Attack) as options and just bake them into the contest - a foe who nominally has Dodge 8 and Parry 15 is actually at +6 to hit when Dodging* and -8 to hit when Parrying. For attacks, an NPC with Broadsword 20 (or 19 for that matter) would simply impose a -4 to defend. For simplicity, I'd probably get rid of iteration penalties for multiple defenses in a round.

*This would need some tweaking so that foes don't become harder to hit when they aren't defending than when they are. Perhaps cap the bonus at +10, for a defense score of 6 or less. This does make it easier to hit a foe who isn't defending (or has a really low defense), but not to the extent that I think it's going to damage anyone's Sense of Disbelief (in no small part because a lot of people find it ridiculous that they can miss an undefending target).
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Old 07-23-2021, 02:50 AM   #9
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Default Re: [Hack] Player-facing GURPS?

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
That seems to me to be a different issue.
It’s a completely different issue. This thread has almost been derailed by the misunderstanding. Player-facing mechanics have nothing to do with preventing abusive GM’ing or disempowering the GM (which aren’t quite the same thing, for that matter).

The GM can be very powerful in a system with player-facing mechanics. They set the roll difficulties, and if they choose to set them arbitrarily high, they can. If they choose to set an NPC lynch mob on the PCs for arbitrary and vindictive reasons, they can then set the difficulty of escaping that mob very high for added effect.

It’s notable that some systems with player-facing mechanics are used a lot for horror games, which should make the point. In fact, insofar as they effect the flavour of the game, they can make it darker; the monster doesn’t just have a good chance of making success rolls against the PCs, it is a mass of looming high difficulties. The statistics may be the same, but the tone is still more oppressive.

It shouldn’t be too hard to convert GURPS mechanics into something more player-facing, though that may involve the players rolling damage on their own characters, which may feel a bit odd. What people are thinking of as a way of dealing with abusive GMs is Narrative Control, which is a whole other basket of chaos. Personally, I’m more in favour of dealing with abusive GM’ing by telling that GM where to go, but if people want to discuss Shared Narrative Control in GURPS, I suggest that they start a separate thread. GURPS isn’t really a system designed for shared narrative control though, I’m afraid.
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Old 07-23-2021, 05:12 AM   #10
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Default Re: [Hack] Player-facing GURPS?

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It shouldn’t be too hard to convert GURPS mechanics into something more player-facing, though that may involve the players rolling damage on their own characters, which may feel a bit odd. What people are thinking of as a way of dealing with abusive GMs is Narrative Control, which is a whole other basket of chaos. Personally, I’m more in favour of dealing with abusive GM’ing by telling that GM where to go, but if people want to discuss Shared Narrative Control in GURPS, I suggest that they start a separate thread. GURPS isn’t really a system designed for shared narrative control though, I’m afraid.
You expressed yourself far better than I did but this is my take. One reason I chose GURPS, among a few reasons, is because I wanted to get as far away from such games and approaches as possible. The other is of course flexibility in world creation.

Obviously I don't care what other people play but I at least want to be able to play a game without it and it's getting harder in many games to do that. GURPS due to it's natural flexibility brings in optional rules and excludes them far easier than most systems. This is a strength for me.
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