Quote from: David Johansen;651272I have an earlier attempt at a GURPS replacement where the stats are completely built out of trait points.

I'll look through it a bit more (there is a lot there), but just off the cuff, I really like what you did with building up the stats from the various traits!

The awkwardness of 512 lbs is small potatoes compared with most of the world needing to translate it into 232.239 kg!

(Actually I was thinking more along the lines of 100, 200, 400 in the normal human range, or close enough to 45, 90, 180 kg.)

Anyway, there are 10 kinds of people in the world, the binary-numerate kind who make up a significant overlap with GURPS-ish gamers, and the rest.

The problem being that I'd like to broaden the overlap in the core rules.  I do lean towards metric over imperial.  Actually, in my fantasy games I use paces.  For a science fiction game I once wrote a treatise on measurement systems based on gaming standards.  Hence spaces, rounds, and such as the concrete units of measure in the setting.  People felt it was too much and off putting.  Never the less, on paper metric and decimal math are easier to use than fractions.  For everything else it's imperial.  What I'd like to avoid is the messy math for things like orbits and interplanetary travel that arise from using Imperial measures.

But yes, I'll admit that the x 10 per +10 is a nitpicky thing but it gives a nice smooth scale up.  Galactic Adventures, the first rpg I really completed designing used a x 10 per +50 scale and had a massive chart you had to use to convert real world figures to game statistics.  The more recent evolution of it uses fourth roots as a cleaner and simpler alternative.

Quote from: David Johansen;651284But yes, I'll admit that the x 10 per +10 is a nitpicky thing but it gives a nice smooth scale up.

Yes, it has some advantages, although IMO it represents a fairly fast increase. Sometimes I even think that the +5 = X2 approach is a bit too steep.

In the past, I've considered going with a +10 = X2 approach for a slower rate of increase. That would give a scale that would match the linear progression of GURPS 3rd edition at stats of 10 and 20, but would still reach extreme values as the stats continue on up to higher numbers.

Late to the conversation, but I strongly recommend GenreDiversion3 as a GURPS replacement.

I just wish PIG would churn out some supplements for this game. More genre-specific pursuits, etc, a tactical grid game, all that stuff.

There is always the proliferation of standards issue.  There are a lot of generic rulesets available on-line.  One feature that we're specifically looking for is an open source with oversight approach where the SRD is held in trust but not actually owned or controlled by an individual or company.

At some point up thread I mentioned that I didn't want to impose restrictions based on taste or morality on authors.  It's not that I don't have standards of taste or morality but respecting artistic freedom is pretty high among them.  However I do think it would be good for the committee to impose a rating on products that get the brand compatible seal of approval.  One of them would have to be WTF???.

Anyhow, a topic close to my heart:

Vehicle Design

While I want to preserve the cube square law, surface area based armor, power to mass ratio based acceleration and drag based top speeds, I'd also like to be more forgiving and less fiddly than GURPS Vehicles.  It always bothered me that you couldn't do the ships from The Mote In God's Eye until they added super thrusters.

Galactic Adventures and Galaxies in Shadow use TL x Efficiency x Mass and have fuel consumption of Mass x Efficiency Squared / TL.  The rules are agnostic about the actual way this is achieved because the effects in various settings vary so widely.  Incandescent just uses mass and assumes you can get a gee hour out of a ten percent of mass rocket unit which includes fuel.  Then you can add "advances" which double output or efficiency.

I think we'd want more detail than that for a GURPS Vehicles replacement but I think we can skip stuff like the five bucks per seatbelt.  Actually, in my games things like sensors and seats are considered to be features of the structure and only need to have volume allowed for.  The passenger's weight is then just part of the load.  I do think we need to provide an efficiency range for power plants to give the system some wiggle room.  The endless redesign to get performance in GURPS Vehicles was annoying.  I also lean towards a flat mass x cost multiplier for the initial vehicle purchase and much higher prices for parts.

Quote from: David Johansen;651656Anyhow, a topic close to my heart:

Vehicle Design

While I want to preserve the cube square law, surface area based armor, power to mass ratio based acceleration and drag based top speeds, I'd also like to be more forgiving and less fiddly than GURPS Vehicles.  It always bothered me that you couldn't do the ships from The Mote In God's Eye until they added super thrusters.

Galactic Adventures and Galaxies in Shadow use TL x Efficiency x Mass and have fuel consumption of Mass x Efficiency Squared / TL.  The rules are agnostic about the actual way this is achieved because the effects in various settings vary so widely.  Incandescent just uses mass and assumes you can get a gee hour out of a ten percent of mass rocket unit which includes fuel.  Then you can add "advances" which double output or efficiency.

I think we'd want more detail than that for a GURPS Vehicles replacement but I think we can skip stuff like the five bucks per seatbelt.  Actually, in my games things like sensors and seats are considered to be features of the structure and only need to have volume allowed for.  The passenger's weight is then just part of the load.  I do think we need to provide an efficiency range for power plants to give the system some wiggle room.  The endless redesign to get performance in GURPS Vehicles was annoying.  I also lean towards a flat mass x cost multiplier for the initial vehicle purchase and much higher prices for parts.

Sounds good.

I'll admit that I haven't really bothered too much with the specifics of vehicle design, but I'm glad that somebody is thinking about it.

Quote from: warp9;650889As I'm sure is true with most of the other people on this forum, I've been influenced by a whole bunch of different games. Although, for me, the ones that are most relevant to the present discussion are: GURPS, HERO, EABA, and, to some extent, Mayfair's DC Heroes System. And, if I were to remake GURPS, I'd probably end up with something which looks like a combination of those systems.

As far as GURPS goes, I like the fact that a guy with an 8 DEX performs DEX-based skills much differently than a 12 DEX guy (as opposed to HERO's 9 + stat/5 approach, where 8 DEX counts the same as a 12 DEX). I'd definitely like to stay with the idea that each point counts.

I know that GURPS 4th has moved to a "STR squared" scale for lifting (rather than the linear lift pattern in 3rd edition), however, I'd like to see GURPS go to an exponential/logarithmic scale (similar to what you see with EABA, or Mayfair's DC Heroes).

EABA V2 has just been released. I held off buying it as I knew the new version was coming soon. It looks interesting; I'm continually on the hunt for good generic systems and despite having invested thousands of $ in GURPS I find it just too clunky these days. The attraction of a 1-book system is undeniable.

Quote from: David Johansen;651656Anyhow, a topic close to my heart:

Vehicle Design

While I want to preserve the cube square law, surface area based armor, power to mass ratio based acceleration and drag based top speeds, I'd also like to be more forgiving and less fiddly than GURPS Vehicles.  It always bothered me that you couldn't do the ships from The Mote In God's Eye until they added super thrusters.

You can be fiddle as you want as long as you use the bare to the bones  system as a basis for a second modular system. Just to resist the urge to hand wave the modules. That why I think GURPS Spaceships is pure genius.

Quote from: dbm;654822EABA V2 has just been released. I held off buying it as I knew the new version was coming soon. It looks interesting; I'm continually on the hunt for good generic systems and despite having invested thousands of $ in GURPS I find it just too clunky these days. The attraction of a 1-book system is undeniable.

EABA is a pretty cool system.

Quote from: David Johansen;650949My own thoughts relate more to presentation and availability at present.  The core of the game shouldn't be more than 64 pages and should cover magic and powers in that range. The stat set should be small and be set up so finer variation like manual dextertity can be broken down from it.  Combat should be simulationist but fast.  I think stepping away from one second rounds would probably be good as it's an obstacle many people complain about.  Perhaps there should be a seconds per action rule to represent various initiative levels and super speed.  Incidentally these rules thoughts relate directly to gaining wide acceptance rather than personal preference.  There's always room for optional rules.

I believe that you are correct about the optional rules; a system can be designed with quite a bit of flexibility.

Of course, any system can be tweaked quite a bit (with optional rules or house rules). I'd just hope that I wouldn't have to tweak too much to get where I want to be.

GURPS Zombies will probably be that last book I buy from SJGames, since they've slowed heavily in producing new GURPS material.

But SJGames is still selling PDFs of nearly every book.  NEX-GEN kids these days think paper books are evil and so they i-love the PDFs.  So I don't see how that equates to dropping their support for GURPS.

Quote from: dbm;654822EABA V2 has just been released. I held off buying it as I knew the new version was coming soon. It looks interesting; I'm continually on the hunt for good generic systems and despite having invested thousands of $ in GURPS I find it just too clunky these days. The attraction of a 1-book system is undeniable.

Thanks for posting this; purchased the PDF this morning. The new setting, Aethos, looks pretty interesting as well.