This thread is to collect the blog posts from Gaming Ballistic. Before it was a company, it was a blog, and I post on GURPS, DnD, firearms, martial arts, and lots of other stuff. It's also the hosting site for GURPSDay, the weekly roundup of GURPSy blog posts.

Some recent posts:

There have been a few posts recently on the SJG Forums that have brought up Technical Grappling. While my old Blogger site had a nifty index page for all my grappling posts and their titles, called The Grappling Mat, this one doesn't. At least not yet.

But I did want to lay down the various things I've written that might be helpful, so here's a Grappling Index for GURPS

Sunday was  GunDay on Gaming Ballistic, so I looked carefully at the GURPS Ultra-Tech selection of pistols. I've since done other weapons, and will continue to do so.

Still, I thought I could do better with more careful consideration, and so here I present one possible direction to go for a futuristic pistol design.

Copyright for my ammo design belongs to me, so if Remington or Winchester wants to chat . . . I'm here.

Here's a bit of general musing that came to me while I was pondering the keyed monster list.

Think about why your monsters are wandering, and ensure encounters are adjusted to taste.

Over on his blog, Brandes Stoddard offers up an in-depth analysis, from his perspective, of a giant list of feats in the Fifth Edition rules. He might have thrown in some Unearthed Arcana in there too.

You might read his analysis and conclude he's totally off his rocker. You might agree with every point. Regardless, he makes his case and gives you the reasons he's saying what he's saying, so you can fight it out with tact and eloquence.

I really grooved on reading his stuff, so I'm going to comment on his stuff, but I'm also going to give some insight into the Feats in Dragon Heresy, and see if they pass muster based on what he's noted, in a follow-on post.

This project isn't strictly for the GURPS Dungeon Fantasy RPG - but that's what inspired it and so that's where the thrust is. But it's a challenge out there to throw down on a modular hex-grid some good map-shapes and setting fragment ideas that can be pulled together willy-nilly to populate a fantasy world.

Build-your-own-sandbox, if you will.

You can see some of the original thoughts that inspired it in a linked post, but basically, I was thinking that if you throw down a full-on world and someone doesn't want to use it, it tends to be ignored. But if we have many pieces of worlds that have a common border type so that you can put Bob's piece next to Matt's, and Dyson's from over there makes a nice bridge . . . then you can really have a lot of material to hand. This is appropriate for any fantasy game, really.

GURPS Hexworld Challenge (with extra bonus Hite action!)

A few posts since the last update.

Nifty video taken by Historical European Martial Arts practitioner and expert Roland Warzecha, exploring cutting clay with a "cast blow" technique. While all models are wrong, and some are useful, it was a fun test. Plus: ogre face!

Clay Cutting with Viking Swords - Cast Blow Technique


SJG has also thrown up a Reprint Bundle. They're only going to do a limited number of them, but  it's a decent deal, especially if you're in the USA (international shipping is a bit of a pain).

GURPS Reprint Bundle

SunDay was GunDay, and this is basically the first of a three-part post. This one looks at Ultra-Tech rifles, and judges that unlike the pistols and SMG/PDW set, these required a lot less tweaking before sanity reigned, though some of the weapons still come up short to design objectives.

Sunday is GunDay: GURPS Ultra-Tech Rifles

It's once again Monster Monday, and today we've got some monsters of the human variety for you. Between other parties of adventurers as well as bandits and other riff-raff, humans form an important part of the encounter landscape, for early adventures just north of Audreyn's Wall, or the two hundred year old conflict on the southern border of Torengar with the Neveri.

Monster Monday: Human Opposition Sampler Pack

A bit over a week ago, I was joined by David Kenzer of Kenzer and Company. In fact, I was originally joined by Jolly Blackburn and Steve Johansson as well, but after nearly 90 minutes of great conversation, I had the horrifying discovery that I had 90 minutes of video . . . and no audio whatsoever.

Fortunately, David had the time and grace to do it again. We covered some of the same, and a lot of different topics the second time around, though Jolly and Steve were unavailable.

It was a good chat, and we covered topics ranging from the history and product portfolio of Kenzer and Company, to the production and design of Hackmaster, to the current Kickstarter for Aces and Eights Reloaded.

GB's Firing Squad welcomes Kenzer and Company

Cool!

Thanks! Text transcript pending!

Blog Action for the last couple of days:

GURPSDay Summary May 5 - May 11, 2017 - the usual script pulled over 40 posts that are GURPS related. Some are all related to a single topic, many bounce around and cover a wide range.

Weak and Odd Scopes - Many issued scopes and magnifiers are below GURPS resolution, which is irksome. I tried a mathy approach that didn't work well to fix it, and a simple approach that did.

Call for Playtesters: "Requirements" is a strong term - the Call for Playtesters makes it sound like we're only looking for perfect candidates; this is not the case.

Falling behind on my post updates, alas.

Here's the next batch.

We kicked off a new campaign under Christopher Rice's GMing hand. We are doing all sorts of interesting things with rules for this game.

The Chronicles of Ceteri (B-Team): Prelude and Ep2

As part of my research and interest in Viking culture and fighting that I developed when researching Dragon Heresy, I got involved with Asfolk, a Viking re-creationist martial arts and crafting group (mostly martial arts, but the instructor Arthur is also a traditional weaponsmith and has done some pretty cool experimentation).

They've got lots of equipment, but one of the things that's encouraged is to make your own. I finally got a good start on that this weekend, as some of the pieces of what will become a viking shield came in, and I finally have/took the time to get going.

Making a Viking Shield

When Shawn Fisher emailed me that the US Army was looking at adopting a new medium machinegun, this one capable of accurate automatic fire at a range of over a mile, where the M-2 in .50BMG can only deliver single shots, I was intrigued. When I heard it was being considered in .338 Norma Magnum, I knew it was time for a reloading press.

Reloading Press: .338 Norma Magnum

Thursday is GURPSDay, and may Thor make your games a bit more exiting today!

GURPSDay Summary May 12 - May 18, 2017

Catching up on posts.

The book contains about 80 different write-ups, categorized as landscapes; cities, towns, and buildings; events; people. There are twenty of each. There's typically a full-color photograph of the thing in question, and a few pages of writeup, in 6x9 format. Every entry ends with some thoughts on how to use the idea in play.

Review: Archive - Historical People, Places, and Events for RPGs


My fate was sealed when I pledged to the Dungeon Fantasy RPG Kickstarter, and opted into the Saturday 1-5pm session with Sean Punch. Doubly sealed when I decided I'd try and go there under the auspices of the Indie Game Design Network, as both an exhibitor and table fiend.

But . . . that meant I could take the time to do a bit of hands-on demonstration, too.

Grappling Smackdown: Dungeon Grappling at GenCon

After two years of intense training, the rag-tag group of orphans have been forged into a formidable band of brothers. We are sent - notionally to help Lorenzo and Gabe get their extreme conditions merit badge - into the Yukon for a survival camping expedition. We discover just how good athletes we are, and eventually come across a very strange half-made cabin.

The Chronicles of Ceteri (B-Team): Yukon Take It With You

Wow. Fell off the wagon hard on updating my posts. I won't slam y'all with six months worth of stuff, but I will hit you with the GenCon reports from my first RPG convention in 15 years.

GenCon 50 - Day 0

GenCon 50 - Day 1: Five Hours in the Box

GenCon 50 - Day 2: Secured my Con GM Merit Badge

GenCon 50 - Day 3/4: The Big, The Free, and The Teardown

Finally, a watcher and then a player in my Dungeon Grappling demo sessions wrote a guest post:

A Casual Review of Dungeon Grappling