Quote from: B.T.;467610What is this shit.

A GURPS power that's wildly overcomplicated for no good reason.

Also, Powers is full of pre-made abilities that you can just pick from a list if you're so inclined, so I disagree with the hyperbolic "forty hours a week to dedicate to the game" bit. I know it makes charming Internet hyperbole, but I don't dedicate ten hours a week to gaming and I get along with GURPS just fine.

As for the OP, I think the suggestions about essentially breaking GURPS into smaller, more genre-specific games in order to appeal to different player types is interesting but not really feasible market-wise.

I also don't think that taking all the optional rules in the current set and putting them in other books somehow "fixes" GURPS. The people who have problems with the system will continue to have the exact same problems.

A lot of the arguments about fixing the system that I've seen eventually seem to boil down to people wanting a system that has no required DIY, with an implied or established setting, a short list of pre-made abilities and spells, and a roll-over resolution mechanic... so, basically, D&D.

Quote from: Imperator;467665What I don't get is how you calculate the chances of an impalinghit. I  mean, in standard CoC you 1/5 of your 5 skill of getting a special  success or a impalement.

I think you guys are nuts applying Roll Over Is Better to BRP - I wouldn't particularly want to be doing double-digit addition continually for a ton of cultists at 3 am while drunk. But YMMV, I guess.

However...note you can also get an equivalent result in an additive system, using 'confirmation rolls', where a specific unmodified natural die roll triggers a reroll against the original skill. In the Impalement example where you're going for 1/5, you'd use a natural roll of 81-100 (one fifth of the die range of 1-100), followed by a reroll against skill, which gives the same chance of success.

i.e. with a 50% skill level: if you roll 81+ on the unmodified dice, you'd reroll the attack [d100+50]. The total odds of the impale being a critical then would be [20% chance of rolling 81+ times 50% skill = 10%] or one-fifth of the chance you normally hit with.

This is how critical hit confirmation rolls work in d20 for instance: if you're using a longsword in 3.5 D&D (19-20 threat range) then one-tenth of your hits against a given AC will be criticals, though this isn't apparent to most people.

For odds as high as one-fifth it would generate a fair bit of extra dice rolling (since you get a reroll 20% of the time you're rolling 1.2 dice per roll on average, of course), but it works OK for odds of one-tenth your skill or so.

Quote from: FrankTrollman;467684For games that use a percentage of your success chance as a critical chance, it's best to use "magic numbers". Magic numbers are special numbers in the ones place on the percentile dice that make something awesome happen if you are already succeeding. The number of magic numbers you have is determined by what the divisor is supposed to be. So if you are doing a WFRP thing where 1/10th of your success rate is your crit chance, then you have one magic number. If you're doing CoC where 2/10ths of your success rate is your crit chance, then you have two magic numbers.

Which magic numbers you choose depend on how the game is supposed to handle rounding. So you might choose 0 as your magic number to round one way, or 9 as your magic number to round the other. If you round off in some funny way, then you might select something in the middle.

So let's consider our 56% skill character. Using a 01-100 percentile dice set-up with roll equal-or-less, that's a 56% chance of success (some formulations of percentile have a 56% skill granting a 55% or 57% chance of success). But we're doing roll-over, which means that you'll succeed on a literal roll of 45-100 on a 01-100 roll (or you could do it on a 44-99 on a 00-99 roll, different formulations of percentile systems do it differently, and it doesn't matter save that you have to be consistent. Use whatever makes sense to you). You could have it round down by picking 0 and 5 as your magic numbers. That way you'd impale on a literal roll of 45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75, 80, 85, 90, or 95 - precisely 11% of the time. If you decided that you wanted to calculate it differently and round up instead, you could have the magic numbers be 9 and 4 instead, and then you'd impale 12% of the time. And of course, if you decided that the breakpoint between 11% and 12% impale should be 57 or 58%, you can set the magic numbers accordingly to do that for you automagically.

This sort of thing is actually really convenient, because it means you don't ever have to do division at the table, and even if you get a big temporary modifier to your skill you aren't being asked to recalculate impalement chances.

-Frank

Awesome. Now I get it. Many many thanks, Frank, a very interesting idea

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;467606I offered some ideas previously in this thread, where Elliot asked what could be done, and we answered, and he said actually he couldn't be bothered doing anything anyway. I hope this will be more productive...

I remember it more as me asking if anyone had tried a particular approach. You offered another approach; fair enough, but it wasn't anywhere along the lines that I was interested in, so it was off-topic. I don't know why you feel a need to put words in my mouth.

Quote from: KrakaJak;467601Again, this is not really true, but how the rules are written, there is no explicit and easy information about high end skills and attributes.

Someone with the Archery skill at 35 has an epic mastery of archery. The benefit of doing so is being able to offset all kinds of penalties, making them able to make impossible shots (let's say a called headshot at extreme range after quick readying the weapon and not aiming). The rules never explicitly explain this. One of the problems with Gurps.

Actually, there are explicit and easy to use information about high end skills. A scale is given in the Skills chapter along with natural language descriptions. There is a sidebar devoted to skill levels above 20.

Quote from: Imperator;467727Awesome. Now I get it. Many many thanks, Frank, a very interesting idea

Harnmaster counts any roll ending in a 0 or 5 as a critical. In practice it works very well.

Quote from: estar;467754Harnmaster counts any roll ending in a 0 or 5 as a critical. In practice it works very well.

Has Harnmaster a similar system to MERP/RM? I feel I may be mixing it up with some other ICE game.

Quote from: Imperator;467807Has Harnmaster a similar system to MERP/RM? I feel I may be mixing it up with some other ICE game.

The Hârnmaster system is very similar to RuneQuest/BRP (roll under, skills expressed in %, etc), the main difference is that for damage it uses a chart.

Quote from: Claudius;467822The Hârnmaster system is very similar to RuneQuest/BRP (roll under, skills expressed in %, etc), the main difference is that for damage it uses a chart.

Sure, the damage charts must be the thing Thanks, mate.

How do you do damage on a chart?

Quote from: B.T.;467931How do you do damage on a chart?

With a pair of scissors or an exacto knife.


- Ed C.

Quote from: B.T.;467931How do you do damage on a chart?

Like in Dračí Doupě, you have a modified weapon hit bigness and you have a target armoredness or other defendedness value and you compare them on a literal table and that determines how many hit points the target loses.

It's the kind of thing people thought was a really good idea until they came up with actually static hit points and soak rolls.

-Frank

Quote from: Imperator;467807Has Harnmaster a similar system to MERP/RM? I feel I may be mixing it up with some other ICE game.

The combat system doesn't use hit points, and there sub systems (sort of like Traveller) to handle specific aspects of Harn. Some have their own product (Harn Manor).

Quote from: B.T.;467931How do you do damage on a chart?

This is the Harnmaster Combat Card http://www.columbiagames.com/resources/4001/harnmaster-combattables.pdf

Both side choose a maneuver and roll an attack and a defense. You cross index the result and roll impact. You then look at the damage character to see how many injury points are inflicted and what special saving throws are needed (stumble, fumble, amputation, death, etc). Injury points reduce your skill and attributes. This effects subsequent saving throws by making them more likely.  

All the chart lookup sounds a little crazy but unlike Rolemaster, you just need the one card. Everything else is on your character sheet. Combat plays only slightly longer than OD&D/AD&D 1st. Way shorter than a GURPS, Fantasy Hero, or D&D 4e fight.

Plus Columbia Games has the card as a free download so everybody can have one (I have five copies myself).

For a complex combat system that tries to emulate realism Harnmaster is the best out there.

One side effect is that it is highly immersive due to the graphic way injury is described. It not like Rolemaster, but when a player go through combat and hears, minor stab to the upper arm, a serious slash to the thigh, etc, most of them get really into it.

On this site
http://www.warflail.com/harn/index.html

You can download a d20 vs Harn combat comparsion

http://www.warflail.com/downloads/HMCvsD20.zip

And my own account of a Harn session here

http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2011/06/911-call-from-attic-repost.html

Minor public service announcement - for anyone who happened to get the Pakistan relief package download from DriveThruRPG ages back, that included a copy of the HarnMaster3 core rules. I expect people who liked BRP/RuneQuest would probably enjoy it. Seems to be alot of overlap with GURPS players as well.

As a fan of GURPS, I agree heavily to the thoughts that GURPS should have seperate books broken down by genre as a lead-in (regardless of what is marketable or economically feasible, I would love to see them...much like a GURPS Bestiary, which people have been wanting for years). Thats something primarily for players, and people who don't like the fiddly bits, mind you. If I can't find players, I can't run GURPS games. Considerations have to be made for people who don't like toolkits and just want something 'kewl'.

I would also appreciate it if the basic GURPS books were marketed more as 'a toolkit to buil your own rpg' instead of a game in and of itself. That what it has always been, and is now in 4e more than ever. It would set it apart from things like 4E D&D where the parent company won't even explain how they create the underlying mechanics. I think the reason GURPS appeals to me is BECAUSE it's a toolkit...I like videogames like LittleBigPlanet, where I can spend endless hours just making things. I think GURPS (or Hero) oughta be like that. With more and more control of entertainment being taken out of consumer hands as time goes on, I think there's a niche to be filled for 'do-it-yourself' stuff.

GURPS as it is appeals to GMs and worldbuilders. It does not appeal to very many players (thus the need for genre books or settings). I could walk to any game store in town and start up a Pathfinder game within seconds, but it takes months and begging to get a GURPS game going.