A sufficiently houseruled GURPS is indistinguishable from RIFTS.

...or so Mr. Clarke  said.

Mr. Clarke never played in my game.

...or Lord Svengali's, or Dar's ....etc.


- Ed C.

I recently contemplated running a GURPS campaign in the Rifts-verse. Then, after about a minute, I decided that attempting to do so would be an exercise in futility, since...
1) I do not possess much in the way of readily-available Rifts material with which to model the Rifts-verse,
2) I've already done something similar with Torg,
3) I'm not interested enough in Rifts to make it worth the effort, and
4) I already have three RPG campaigns running (2 more-or-less weekly and one monthly), as well as an upcoming SCA war for which my household is preparing.

That isn't to say that I would not be interested in looking into it at a later date, when I have the time to do so and have managed to acquire a few of the appropriate books for reference. I even have some players who would probablty be interested in giving it a try. But it is definately a back-burner project...so much so that I don't think it's even in the kitchen at this point.

Well, thanks to this thread I now have YET ANOTHER campaign to plan to run.

Thank you very much.


Yup, a good old Gurps book, ultratech, and my collective libarary of madness, all I need.

Hey! Look at that! I have all that already!!!Woot

There is a mechanical difference between roll over & roll under.

Roll under [generally] has a discontinuity where skills approach the maximum on the dice.

i.e. you can get a point where skills cease to change the outcome - eg the difference between 17 & 18 target in GURPS (from my understanding of the rules posted earlier) is negligible.

Also, when skills pass this point such systems seem to run into problems

V.

Quote from: VolkazzThere is a mechanical difference between roll over & roll under.

Roll under [generally] has a discontinuity where skills approach the maximum on the dice.

i.e. you can get a point where skills cease to change the outcome - eg the difference between 17 & 18 target in GURPS (from my understanding of the rules posted earlier) is negligible.

Also, when skills pass this point such systems seem to run into problems

V.

That's just short sighted design, not anything inherent to roll under.

-clash

Quote from: flyingmiceThat's just short sighted design, not anything inherent to roll under.

-clash

Also, there is quite a big point, harder tasks get penalties to your roll, which means that doing something fairly ordinary an 18 skill and a 20 are much of a muchness.  Doing something really incredibly difficult, that 20 is worth having.

Both are incredibly high skills for the system though, so it also doesn't come up much.

In around a decade of running and playing Gurps this was never an issue for my group, it's a classic reader not player criticism that Volkazz is making.

Quote from: BalbinusAlso, there is quite a big point, harder tasks get penalties to your roll, which means that doing something fairly ordinary an 18 skill and a 20 are much of a muchness.  Doing something really incredibly difficult, that 20 is worth having.

Both are incredibly high skills for the system though, so it also doesn't come up much.

In around a decade of running and playing Gurps this was never an issue for my group, it's a classic reader not player criticism that Volkazz is making.

I'm not familiar with GURPS per se, but I am familiar with roll-under systems. That's one of the ways a good designer deals with the situation in question.

BTW - I wasn't saying GURPS wasn't designed well. I was saying that if this is an issue in a game, it's the designer, not the choice of roll-over or roll-under, that's the problem.

-clash

No, I haven't played GURPS, but it was a problem we had with BESM second...

V.

About to tell my group's version of the joke again,..tonight Saturday  May 5th from 5pm to 10pm.

 The players are in the star system of Judice in subsecter District 268...making their way back to Tarsus.

- Ed C.

Quote from: VolkazzNo, I haven't played GURPS, but it was a problem we had with BESM second...

V.

I'm never going to live that down, am I?  

In fairness, WHFRP and Call o' Cthulhus' respective roll-under systems work a lot better IMO.  Though Volkazz and I know someone who breaks them through total flukey dice luck (The man has a 01 to 05 for every occasion).  Having never plaeyd GURPS but looked at it a few years ago, it seemed reasonably playable to me.

I'll stop derailing the thread now.