First GURPS Night as GM (and role-playing fullstop) - Trip Report

[OldSam]

Originally Posted by DrDraxium

e.g.

Game Starts.
PC wants to drink water from a fountain. [Secret]GM rolls against PC Drink level 12. Roll = 14. PC fails "Drink" check [/Secret]. GM announces PC has walked over to the fountain, only to slip and chip his teeth on the stone construction. PC loses 1HP.

basically you should try to keep the game running, so avoid non-important die rolls which slow things unnecessary...
taking your example: If a PC wants to drink water from a fountain, he shouldn't need to make any roll for that. also slipping while walking has nothing to do with drinking but you could call for a dx-roll.
anyway, IMO you shouldn't let your PC slip in this trivial situation without giving some (warning) information beforehand, e.g. "The stones look slippery" (if it isn't obvious, it would call for a perception-check).
usually a good hint for a GM is to say "yes" or "yes, but..." to most ideas of the players to let them be creative and make things interesting and fun.
e.g. PC: "I want to go to the fountain and put some water into my bottle.", GM: "Ok, you arrive at the fountain and take your bottle, but you notice that the water is a little darker than usual... do you want to fill your bottle now?"

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by B9anders

? Those aren't skills.

I think he means Slight of Hand and Filch.

[blacksmith]

Originally Posted by aesir23

I think he means Slight of Hand and Filch.

Or slight of hand and hold out.

[DrDraxium]

Originally Posted by OldSam

basically you should try to keep the game running, so avoid non-important die rolls which slow things unnecessary...
taking your example: If a PC wants to drink water from a fountain, he shouldn't need to make any roll for that. also slipping while walking has nothing to do with drinking but you could call for a dx-roll.
anyway, IMO you shouldn't let your PC slip in this trivial situation without giving some (warning) information beforehand, e.g. "The stones look slippery" (if it isn't obvious, it would call for a perception-check).
usually a good hint for a GM is to say "yes" or "yes, but..." to most ideas of the players to let them be creative and make things interesting and fun.
e.g. PC: "I want to go to the fountain and put some water into my bottle.", GM: "Ok, you arrive at the fountain and take your bottle, but you notice that the water is a little darker than usual... do you want to fill your bottle now?"

The drinking water was a poor example, I would never make a PC roll against the simple act of doing it, I merely wanted to highlight the format in which I'd like to see a session log as such.

In your example, I assume you would only warn them should the PC have succeeded in a hidden roll against his/her perception?

[madickey]

Originally Posted by DrDraxium

(clippage) it seemed like you could just take a whole bunch of skills for 0 CP and have them at least equal your DX level (DX10 = Acrobatics 10, Brawling 10 etc.) Then we all worked out that (going by the skill purchase chart in GURPS Lite) that there was a minimum point expenditure for all skills.

Remember, very few skills default straight to an attribute. In your example above, 0 pts with DX 10 would give:
Acrobatics (defaults to DX-6) at 4
Brawling has no default
You can still use skills you haven't put points into, but the skill level is quite low, typically Stat-4 to Stat-6.

[OldSam]

Originally Posted by DrDraxium

In your example, I assume you would only warn them should the PC have succeeded in a hidden roll against his/her perception?

Generally if I (as the GM) think it's trivial to see something, I tell it to the player without rolling.
In this case I'd say it depends on two things:
1. How obvious is the difference between normal water and this darker water? If it's only a small subtle difference, e.g. it contains some tiny dark particles, I'd roll perception. In case it is dirty or something like that, e.g. having a dark shade, I'd say this is obvious and tell it to the player without rolling. Normally I try to imagine if it would be obvious for me being at the PC's place, then I decide.
2. If the PC is somehow distracted, in a hurry or busy with another task, chances are good that he overlooks something - which calls for a perception roll. On the other hand if the PC is relaxed and not in a hurry, I'd rather tell it without rolling or would give a bonus on the roll.

[DrDraxium]

Originally Posted by madickey

Remember, very few skills default straight to an attribute. In your example above, 0 pts with DX 10 would give:
Acrobatics (defaults to DX-6) at 4
Brawling has no default
You can still use skills you haven't put points into, but the skill level is quite low, typically Stat-4 to Stat-6.

Ok, now I'm confused all over again.

Initial Skill Purchasing
Let's take Acrobatics (DX/H) Default DX-6.
Character has a natural DX level of 10.
According to the GURPS Lite skill progression/purchase chart (if I'm reading it correctly) if I were to purchase this skill, the minimum cost would be 1 point taken at -2 controlling attribute. So you'd end up with Acrobatics 8 (1)

Default Rolling
If a character hasn't purchased Acrobatics, he/she can roll against the skill by defaulting to his own DX score (regardless of what it is) -6.

Is my working out right on both these fronts?

Originally Posted by OldSam

Generally if I (as the GM) think it's trivial to see something, I tell it to the player without rolling.
In this case I'd say it depends on two things:
1. How obvious is the difference between normal water and this darker water? If it's only a small subtle difference, e.g. it contains some tiny dark particles, I'd roll perception. In case it is dirty or something like that, e.g. having a dark shade, I'd say this is obvious and tell it to the player without rolling. Normally I try to imagine if it would be obvious for me being at the PC's place, then I decide.
2. If the PC is somehow distracted, in a hurry or busy with another task, chances are good that he overlooks something - which calls for a perception roll. On the other hand if the PC is relaxed and not in a hurry, I'd rather tell it without rolling or would give a bonus on the roll.

Interesting, there's a lot more to think about on the fly as GM than I previously thought. Nothing wrong with that of course, it's just something I suppose I'll get used to after a few more sessions of putting this kind of thinking into practice. Thanks for the advice.

[weby]

On buying skills in general the free GURPS Skill Categories from e23 will help people visualise what skills are used for what.

While looking for the link to that I came across: GM-fu: Session Prep , also a free download that you might take a look at on session preparation.

[Green-Neck]

DrDraxium;

"Initial Skill Purchasing
Let's take Acrobatics (DX/H) Default DX-6.
Character has a natural DX level of 10.
According to the GURPS Lite skill progression/purchase chart (if I'm reading it correctly) if I were to purchase this skill, the minimum cost would be 1 point taken at -2 controlling attribute. So you'd end up with Acrobatics 8 (1)

Default Rolling
If a character hasn't purchased Acrobatics, he/she can roll against the skill by defaulting to his own DX score (regardless of what it is) -6.

Is my working out right on both these fronts?"


To my knowledge you've got it spot on.

[younglorax]

Originally Posted by DrDraxium

Ok, now I'm confused all over again.

Initial Skill Purchasing
Let's take Acrobatics (DX/H) Default DX-6.
Character has a natural DX level of 10.
According to the GURPS Lite skill progression/purchase chart (if I'm reading it correctly) if I were to purchase this skill, the minimum cost would be 1 point taken at -2 controlling attribute. So you'd end up with Acrobatics 8 (1)

Default Rolling
If a character hasn't purchased Acrobatics, he/she can roll against the skill by defaulting to his own DX score (regardless of what it is) -6.

Is my working out right on both these fronts?

I'm not sure whether you're right here, but here's an expanded skill level chart, using an Acrobatics as an example. Assume Joe Average has DX 10.

Points     Skill level   for Joe Average
  0  (default)DX-6          4 
  1           DX-2          8   
  2           DX-1          9
  4           DX+0         10
  8           DX+1         11

ETA: There's a description of what Defaults are (that is, when you spend 0 points on a skill) on the last column of page 13 of GURPS: Lite.