GURPS resources for low-tech assassination campaign?

[fmultimedia]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Since you're in a fairly low-tech campaign, Dan Howard's Compact Castles is likely to be very useful. It's a PDF of floor-plans of small castles. complete with notes on how to break into them. They aren't hex-gridded since the book is generic and other games use squares, but printing them onto hex paper, or lifting them into a graphics program, will fix that.

That sounds like the perfect resource for us =) Thanks so much!

Too prescriptive. You have a lot of small "buckets" there, small enough that the granularity of GURPS points costs will cause the characters to spend odd points in skill they don't actually need to avoid wasting them.

Since you have only three characters and they're getting years of fairly personalised training, it makes sense to discuss with the players the things that all the characters need to be able to do, and the things that can be one specialist's job, and then collaboratively design the upgraded characters. This posting from Dr Kromm on skills every adventurer should have is a good guideline for a trained team like this.

In my defense, all those areas where defined in a conversation with the group, though the exact cp amount of each dedicated to each area was supposed to be defined by me. For example, they all agreed that they wanted martial arts to be a strong theme in the campaign, about as much or more than stealth/infiltration itself.

But you make a very, very good point indeed. I'm a bit afraid of leaving a big amount of CP - like, 200 - available for free use and end up with characters that are so specialized that when I put a challenge big enough for the specialized character, it will impossible for the others. Say, one super specializes in stealth; so either everything is so easy that it is boring to him and challenging to the others, or it is challenging for him and impossible to the others. Maybe I'm worrying too much, I guess it's nervousness from not having played the system in more than 10 years, it having changed so much, and the fact that I had never run with more than 100cp starting PCs. At the same time, I definitely don't want to pack them all in the same premade standard and have lots of PCs with exactly the same characteristics...

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by fmultimedia

Two more questions:
1) This one I had already mentioned, but since no one said anything, I'm hoping it just got lost in my many different requests for help: is there any kind of pre-made (hex) map cache available for public use (I would pay for that easily)? While the idea of extensively using tactical maps for detailed missions appeals a lot to the group, the prospect of having to draw one by one myself doesn't...

I use a combination of maps drawn quickly and freehand on a Chessex vinyl battlemap and maps I make with Campaign Cartographer 3.

Originally Posted by fmultimedia

But you make a very, very good point indeed. I'm a bit afraid of leaving a big amount of CP - like, 200 - available for free use and end up with characters that are so specialized that when I put a challenge big enough for the specialized character, it will impossible for the others.

See GURPS Template Toolkit 1: Characters and "Buckets of Points", Pyramid #3/65: Alternate GURPS III.

EDIT: Although since you are running over-the-top fantasy assassins, I'd suggest using Dungeon Fantasy as-is and just requiring the PCs use the Ninja or Assassin template or another template with the Ninja or Assassin secondary profession lens.

[DangerousThing]

If you're looking for hex paper, you can go to

http://www.printablepaper.net/category/hexagon_graph

Just print up as much as you want!

[fmultimedia]

\(*v*)/ Thanks a lot guys, all these resources really help! Have gotten the castle floor plans one already, and it's amazing! The hex papers are being download right now =D