Yeah, Braintapes are this annoying idea that was even in the first edition GURPS Autoduel, where the idea is you can have a copy made of your brain, stored on a device, and if you die, a clone can be fast-baked with your DNA and your brain tape copied to the clone, and yo ho ho you get to play as your clone, though you'll lose whatever experience you had since the tape was made. I never believed that made enough sense and even if it were real, it seems to me it cheapens life and death and makes for an annoying dystopic situation where "why don't we make a clone army of Jango Fetts" and death is trivialized and bleh.

(Oh, and of course, "in my opinion, for my own purposes, and so sorry to anyone who enjoys playing that - go ahead and keep enjoying that". :rolleyes: )

Gotcha...I think I'll pass on braintapes and cloning. Seems too much of a workaround for PC death for my taste.

Quote from: Dumarest;995428Gotcha...I think I'll pass on braintapes and cloning. Seems too much of a workaround for PC death for my taste.

Braintapes were designed to allow recurring characters in Car Wars, where everyone had 1 hp and fought to the death every night with weapons that did 3d6 damage.

Quote from: Pat;995448Braintapes were designed to allow recurring characters in Car Wars, where everyone had 1 hp and fought to the death every night with weapons that did 3d6 damage.

What's the point of fighting to the death if you're  going to have an escape clause?

Quote from: Skarg;995347Depends on the situation, but in general, it's highly lethal. More lethal than Classic Traveller, I would say, if you are talking about shooting people. It's realistically deadly unless you use some options to stop that happening, and naturally the higher-tech weapons tend to be more lethal than modern weapons, so... One shot can and often does take someone out of combat. However, they may likely live if they get good medical attention. Also, especially if you make the gameplay be about controlling what happens and being tactical, then it can be a case of doing things so you don't get shot. Get the drop on people, use cover and terrain, and know when to run, dive for cover, or even give up rather than blasting away and hoping they die and you don't.

There's also high-tech armor, and actually there are quite a few situations where the armor is almost impervious to most non-military personal weapons, unless you use the right ammo, aim for a weak spot, etc. The GM should to figure out what weapons and armor to have in his setting and what the implications are, and that's a bit more complex that figuring it out for medieval weapons.

Medical tech can also make things a lot less lethal. Especially if you rule that a failed death check might be revivable. Then with blow-through, people can get shot several times and still likely be healable.

Or at higher tech, you can allow cloning and braintapes, but I find that about as annoying as games where resurrection is trivial.

Thanks for the reply. Your experiences match up with my fears. I don't want the game to be that lethal, even if it is realistic. I think I'll stick with Mongoose.

Yes, that's what I was looking at. I can explain more about it if you like.

Quote from: Skarg;995339I almost asked - is the space combat system identical to the system presented in GURPS Traveller Insterstellar Wars 4e?

Yes, that's what I was looking at. I can explain more about it if you like. I don't have Gurps Space or Starships, so I don't know what's in there.

Quote from: Dumarest;995456What's the point of fighting to the death if you're  going to have an escape clause?

Didn't matter, when there weren't rules for skills. But once they added skills, apparently people wanted to have a chance to actually develop those skills. That would never happen in click-boxy Car Wars, where every battle was basically an even match to the death. Though that became less relevant when the board game with some minor ability to differentiate characters became an RPG supplement. RPGs aren't just a series of death matches, and tend to build in some degree of PC-protection (even D&D's attrition at low levels is far kinder than CW). Though by then, Gold Cross was a significant part of the setting.