Quote from: Aglondir;997176Interesting analysis. I wonder if another solution, rather than starting everyone at 250 CP, is simply to give everyone X more HP (where X = 10, 20, or whatever.) You could even increase X by 5 every time the characters earned a certain amount of XP.

Not really. In GURPS damage is literal injury, so you'd just be giving people a bizarre ability to take a silly amount of injury before dying. Also the ability to win fights in GURPS isn't mainly determined by that the way it often is in hitpoint games. A better fighter or a bad tactical situation or a good hit of the right sort would still take you out. You'd just tend to live through more abuse before you died.

Quote from: Larsdangly;997087I love games with this sort of rules sets; Runequest and TFT are both genius, and GURPS is basically TFT on steroids. But none of those games can really create the dynamic of a D&D adventure.

How would you describe "the dynamic of a D&D adventure"?

The one aspect of HERO that I strongly favor over GURPS is the Body / Stun damage aspect, where a character can be taken out of a fight by Stun damage which recovers fairly quickly, but they can also sustain more serious wounds which take from Body. Theoretically a character could be out of the fight while actually sustaining little long term injury (took lots of stun but little body), or remain on their feet fighting, despite being mortally wounded (negative body, but still have a positive stun value). Typically a character is taken out of the fight due to a negative stun value, but also sustaining a large amount of body loss as well.  

I know GURPS 3rd ed tinkered with this idea, although I wasn't particularly impressed as it felt like the bolt on afterthought it was. I don't recall if 4th ed improved this or even included that in any form. It seems like this is something that would help to address Lars' comment.


D&D's omnipresent magical healing (cleric healing / raise dead, healing potions etc) is definitely a characteristic of that game in my experience.

Quote from: AsenRG;997348How would you describe "the dynamic of a D&D adventure"?

An interminable string of encounters and challenges, where the more you can overcome the more you get. This is why megadungeons make perfect sense for D&D (in a very fundamental way are the whole point of the game, as originally imagined and developed), whereas games with different approaches to damage (e.g., Runequest) basically have no megadungeons, and if one were written no one could really play it. The biggest dungeon produced for Runequest might have been Snakepipe Hollow. A party can strip that place back to the wall studs in a night of play.

Quote from: Larsdangly;997589An interminable string of encounters and challenges, where the more you can overcome the more you get. This is why megadungeons make perfect sense for D&D (in a very fundamental way are the whole point of the game, as originally imagined and developed), whereas games with different approaches to damage (e.g., Runequest) basically have no megadungeons, and if one were written no one could really play it. The biggest dungeon produced for Runequest might have been Snakepipe Hollow. A party can strip that place back to the wall studs in a night of play.

I haven't played Runequest, but I have run huge dungeons in GURPS and TFT. You can have quite a few combats in a row if you use tactics, have some NPCs to flesh out your ranks, and/or take days or weeks to rest. Certainly it's much more likely if you've got magic healing (which exists in GURPS Magic though I prefer to omit or nerf/limit it), or if you're playing a game like D&D where you've got big piles of hitpoints and fast/abundant healing. And in my games, people going into such places need to think about how/where/when to retreat or rest or even go for reinforcements and return later, and can expect whatever's in the dungeon to also react, rest, reorganize and reinforce over time, too. It seems to me there is a big difference in gameplay style but it doesn't make large dungeons impossible to have to to get through. Danger is just present on turn one and can be reduced by tactics etc, as opposed to a fairly predictable drain on HP.

What I find an even greater difference between D&D and typical GURPS/TFT (pre-Dungeon-Fantasy) than the risk/injury is how steep the power curves are, and the high-powered magic and special attacks and immunities.

Quote from: Larsdangly;997589An interminable string of encounters and challenges, where the more you can overcome the more you get. This is why megadungeons make perfect sense for D&D (in a very fundamental way are the whole point of the game, as originally imagined and developed), whereas games with different approaches to damage (e.g., Runequest) basically have no megadungeons, and if one were written no one could really play it. The biggest dungeon produced for Runequest might have been Snakepipe Hollow. A party can strip that place back to the wall studs in a night of play.

Yeah, that's simply not true:). Just as Skarg, I've ran that kind of games in GURPS and in other similar systems.

Quote from: Skarg;997599I haven't played Runequest, but I have run huge dungeons in GURPS and TFT. You can have quite a few combats in a row if you use tactics, have some NPCs to flesh out your ranks, and/or take days or weeks to rest. Certainly it's much more likely if you've got magic healing (which exists in GURPS Magic though I prefer to omit or nerf/limit it), or if you're playing a game like D&D where you've got big piles of hitpoints and fast/abundant healing. And in my games, people going into such places need to think about how/where/when to retreat or rest or even go for reinforcements and return later, and can expect whatever's in the dungeon to also react, rest, reorganize and reinforce over time, too. It seems to me there is a big difference in gameplay style but it doesn't make large dungeons impossible to have to to get through. Danger is just present on turn one and can be reduced by tactics etc, as opposed to a fairly predictable drain on HP.

Yeah, same here, and "knowing when to retreat" is a basic survival skill in old-school D&D as well, especially if you listen to the grognards;).

I've played Runequest, TFT and GURPS for decades, in all sorts of different settings and adventure types, and I stand by what I said. The only way to survive an adventure that involves 10-20 fights in those games is to make sure no one of them offers much of a chance of injuring you, because if you have much of a chance of injury, you have a good chance of getting killed. You can blather all you want about tactics and whatever, but if characters are repeatedly coming out on top of encounter after encounter in those games, it is because those encounters are strongly imbalanced, such that PC's are rarely if ever being hit by a dangerous attack. Of course you can adventures like this. I believe you when you say you've done it. But it definitely changes the feel of a dungeon crawl if you go into nearly every encounter knowing no one can touch you. D&D presents a different approach, where most PC's have a significant chance of getting hit by most opponents, across a wide range of relative power levels, but tough characters can absorb a lot of those hits and still keep going.

One major difference that I've run into between RQ, GURPS and even HERO, is numbers matter a lot. D&D fighters can wade into hordes of lessor creatures with relative impunity.
When we tried to convert D&D modules to these other games we had had several TPK events until we figured out that the number of opponents met at a time had to be significantly reduced or the players would be quickly overwhelmed.

It's not blather, it's the difference between the mechanics and modes of play. I mean surely you know this already, but to be clear:

* In hitpoint-attrition-oriented play (I don't want to accuse all D&D of being merely this), you are pretty sure you won't die in typical non-magic combat until you start running low on hitpoints, which are usually argued somehow represent various abstract skilled people can avoid getting killed. There's usually a pretty high chance an attack will hit and do damage, but one of the main things about high-level characters is they have a lot of hitpoints.

* In TFT/GURPS, the things abstracted by the pile of hitpoints are represented in the gameplay. A great hero might be able to survive a bit more damage than a novice, or they might not. They survive by doing the things that keep them from getting injured, whether that's due to avoiding getting attacked, taking out the enemies first, deflecting an attack or wearing armor that deflects them. Instead of an automatic number, you have to actually arrange situations so you don't get killed.

That's not blather - it's the difference between detailed reasons why you survived, and surviving because you have 100 hit points. One reason for surviving might be "because those encounters are strongly imbalanced", but there are many other reasons, starting with encounters not being just about straight head-on hacking to the death, and players realizing that if they let certain things happen they're likely to die, and having various ways they can avoid getting into those situations. Scouting, stealth, caution, using terrain, tactics, cleverness, being willing to avoid combat, negotiate, flee, etc. The people who survive tend to be the ones who blunder ahead and avoid committing themselves to the point they're liable to die.

Quote from: Toadmaster;997638One major difference that I've run into between RQ, GURPS and even HERO, is numbers matter a lot. D&D fighters can wade into hordes of lessor creatures with relative impunity.
When we tried to convert D&D modules to these other games we had had several TPK events until we figured out that the number of opponents met at a time had to be significantly reduced or the players would be quickly overwhelmed.

Yep, and also (especially with a map) use of tactics - if you have some individual quality advantage or way to fight where you have a strong enough advantage one-on-one, then if you can also maneuver so you're only fighting at even odds at a time due to obstacles, positioning, confusion, etc., then a smaller force can defeat a larger one.

Agree with both of these posts.

Low hitpoints in D&D can easily be compared to a wounded fighter in GURPS etc where the wounds reduce their skill rolls, endurance and increase the odds of failed stun / death rolls etc.

HERO had a couple of advantages to allow better ability to fight against numbers, defense maneuver in particular reduced the penalty for having someone come at you from the rear or flank, and certain skill levels could be used defensively to reduce the odds of a hit. Again less familiar with GURPS as it has been longer since I actually played it, but I do recall it had similar abilities just done differently.

More detailed games reward smart defensive techniques and penalize overly aggressive tactics when out numbered. These are far less obvious in 1v1 or 1v2 battles.


As Fezzik says in his fight with Wesley, you use different tactics when fighting 1/2 a dozen people than when you just have to worry about 1.

Having played HERO and GURPS extensively, they are both in the same ballpark in terms of how tactical combat plays out. HERO favors customization and the extraordinary (given it origin as a superhero RPG) while GURPS is focused more on realism. But vice versa both RPGs covers well what the other focuses on. Both have excellent  game designs and have considerable overlap.

HERO has more number crunching for even realistic campaigns, while GURPS has more reference look ups.

As for playing D&D with GURPS, I think that idiotic. However on the other hand doing the same things as you did in D&D i.e. dungeon crawling, etc is very doable in GURPS. And you don't need fucking 250 points to pull it.

The point of using GURPS, Runequest, when switching away from D&D is have a different feel for how characters and customization works. D&D works but most of it are high level abstractions. Many gamers like a little more detail.

D&D 3.X, 4e, and 5e for the most part does a good job of scratching the customization itch that many players have. But at the in the day even with dozens of 3.X splat books it is still an abstract system that can feel more like an abstract wargaming than a RPG with all the feats and special abilities layered on top of it.

One path is to go minimal, like returning to OD&D, another to use a system like GURPS (or HERO) that designed to support realism as well as the supernatural.

What dungeon crawling like in GURPS with 100 to 150 pt characters? It like what you except if you really had to do this for real. You need to plan, and if you get beat up have a rally point in which to recover. Treating exploration of a dungeon as an expedition rather than ad-hoc looting confers enormous advantages.

In many respects dungeon crawling with GURPS pre-Dungeon Fantasy was very similar to OD&D core books only in terms of how fragile characters are and how smart you have to be about how you go about it.

I love everything about Dungeon Fantasy except for the 250 point templates which I despise. There Sean and his team veered to emulating D&D rather than presenting Dungeon crawling GURPS style.

I started the Majestic Wilderlands with AD&D back in 1980. I grew dissatisfied with the options of AD&D and how it played so by 1986 I was using Fantasy HERO 1st edition as my RPG of choice. However FH 1st had too much of Champion's DNA in it so two years laters I switched to GURPS 2nd edition.

While the system changed, what the players wanted to do and were able to do did not. I still ran the same type of adventures as I did with AD&D and often would take an older AD&D module and repurpose it for my campaign.

When I returned to playing D&D in the early 2000s, I opted to use OD&D instead because it's balance was a better fit for how I run things with GURPS. I didn't have any issue with switching over and now that one of my group wants to play GURPS I won't have any problems switching back.

Quote from: Larsdangly;997632I've played Runequest, TFT and GURPS for decades, in all sorts of different settings and adventure types, and I stand by what I said. The only way to survive an adventure that involves 10-20 fights in those games is to make sure no one of them offers much of a chance of injuring you, because if you have much of a chance of injury, you have a good chance of getting killed.

Yes, and you do that with tactics! Not by having a much higher skill, which you seem to assume.
No, you retreat to get the nocturnal goblins* to a more brightly lit area to give them penalties, then slaughter them with axes and swords. Set snares and punji traps to deny the orcs manoeuvring, then use reach weapons and crossbows to make them run. Use a shield wall against kobolds*, then run them over, abusing their small size and your shields giving you bonuses, and finish them while they're down!

*Well, those were nocturnal lizardmen and cannibal halflings instead of kobolds, last I played a GURPS dungeon, but same thing.

QuoteYou can blather all you want about tactics and whatever, but if characters are repeatedly coming out on top of encounter after encounter in those games, it is because those encounters are strongly imbalanced, such that PC's are rarely if ever being hit by a dangerous attack.

Of course they are. Just not by the GM or the system.

QuoteOf course you can adventures like this. I believe you when you say you've done it. But it definitely changes the feel of a dungeon crawl if you go into nearly every encounter knowing no one can touch you. D&D presents a different approach, where most PC's have a significant chance of getting hit by most opponents, across a wide range of relative power levels, but tough characters can absorb a lot of those hits and still keep going.

Sorry to say that, but you're getting things the exact wrong way.
In GURPS/Runequest, a single hit can kill you...and even if you've got a 90% defence, you a) can fail the 10%, or b) the enemy can crit you. And critical hits are indefensible, last I checked. (It's due to them that I managed to kill a few Gloranthan vampires with a starting character).
So yes, they can hurt you, and yes, it's going to hurt. That is, if you give them the opportunity...see above. Every time you fight, you have a non-insignificant chance to get hurt. You know that and you take precautions, making it as one-sided as you can.
But the GM is using Tucker's Kobolds for his halflings, too, so even with tactics, you know not to get too cocky until you've got them in your reach:D!

OTOH, in D&D, those "hits" you're "taking" don't matter. They don't give you penalties, like in GURPS, they don't stun you, they can't cripple you - until the last point. But until then, you're fine. You're not taking hits, you're changing the numbers of the countdown clock until you get vulnerable, like normal people;).

In short, it's D&D where the characters are invulnerable. In RQ/GURPS and their ilk, every strike can kill them, and they are taking risks in every fight.

Quote from: Toadmaster;997638One major difference that I've run into between RQ, GURPS and even HERO, is numbers matter a lot. D&D fighters can wade into hordes of lessor creatures with relative impunity.
When we tried to convert D&D modules to these other games we had had several TPK events until we figured out that the number of opponents met at a time had to be significantly reduced or the players would be quickly overwhelmed.

Yeah, that's true...or the players can make sure the enemies can't approach them at once. But mostly, reducing the numbers isn't a bad idea, unless you're using mook rules:D!

Quote from: estar;997771Having played HERO and GURPS extensively, they are both in the same ballpark in terms of how tactical combat plays out. HERO favors customization and the extraordinary (given it origin as a superhero RPG) while GURPS is focused more on realism. But vice versa both RPGs covers well what the other focuses on. Both have excellent  game designs and have considerable overlap.

HERO has more number crunching for even realistic campaigns, while GURPS has more reference look ups.

As for playing D&D with GURPS, I think that idiotic. However on the other hand doing the same things as you did in D&D i.e. dungeon crawling, etc is very doable in GURPS. And you don't need fucking 250 points to pull it.

The point of using GURPS, Runequest, when switching away from D&D is have a different feel for how characters and customization works. D&D works but most of it are high level abstractions. Many gamers like a little more detail.

D&D 3.X, 4e, and 5e for the most part does a good job of scratching the customization itch that many players have. But at the in the day even with dozens of 3.X splat books it is still an abstract system that can feel more like an abstract wargaming than a RPG with all the feats and special abilities layered on top of it.

One path is to go minimal, like returning to OD&D, another to use a system like GURPS (or HERO) that designed to support realism as well as the supernatural.

What dungeon crawling like in GURPS with 100 to 150 pt characters? It like what you except if you really had to do this for real. You need to plan, and if you get beat up have a rally point in which to recover. Treating exploration of a dungeon as an expedition rather than ad-hoc looting confers enormous advantages.

In many respects dungeon crawling with GURPS pre-Dungeon Fantasy was very similar to OD&D core books only in terms of how fragile characters are and how smart you have to be about how you go about it.

I love everything about Dungeon Fantasy except for the 250 point templates which I despise. There Sean and his team veered to emulating D&D rather than presenting Dungeon crawling GURPS style.

I started the Majestic Wilderlands with AD&D back in 1980. I grew dissatisfied with the options of AD&D and how it played so by 1986 I was using Fantasy HERO 1st edition as my RPG of choice. However FH 1st had too much of Champion's DNA in it so two years laters I switched to GURPS 2nd edition.

While the system changed, what the players wanted to do and were able to do did not. I still ran the same type of adventures as I did with AD&D and often would take an older AD&D module and repurpose it for my campaign.

When I returned to playing D&D in the early 2000s, I opted to use OD&D instead because it's balance was a better fit for how I run things with GURPS. I didn't have any issue with switching over and now that one of my group wants to play GURPS I won't have any problems switching back.

All of this, except I don't hate the 250 points templates...I just haven't used them (I stopped using GURPS before Dungeon Fantasy), and likely never will:D!
Also, I remember when Gronan was explaining about OD&D tactics and dungeoncrawling on TBP, my first reaction was "huh, that's actually smart, we've done something similar in GURPS".

So I'm one of those GMs who never managed to get a GURPS game off the ground because of the overwhelming number of options.  I love to rules tinker, but I guess I don't like to be told exactly how to rules tinker (and that this adjustment will be 75% of 13 points or whatever).  I like TFT, and I like a lot of GURPS' conceits, like a bit of "realism," some grit and human level characters, the base 3d6 mechanics, etc.  I like the idea of GURPS, so this might be a great way for me to give it a go.  A couple of questions: is it fully 4th ed. compatible? How deep do they go into combat and combat options? Is it easy enough to scale back those 250 pt character templates?  Do they use the core magic system?  How complete is the bestiary?

Quote from: Toadmaster;997359The one aspect of HERO that I strongly favor over GURPS is the Body / Stun damage aspect, where a character can be taken out of a fight by Stun damage which recovers fairly quickly, but they can also sustain more serious wounds which take from Body. Theoretically a character could be out of the fight while actually sustaining little long term injury (took lots of stun but little body), or remain on their feet fighting, despite being mortally wounded (negative body, but still have a positive stun value). Typically a character is taken out of the fight due to a negative stun value, but also sustaining a large amount of body loss as well.  

I know GURPS 3rd ed tinkered with this idea, although I wasn't particularly impressed as it felt like the bolt on afterthought it was. I don't recall if 4th ed improved this or even included that in any form. It seems like this is something that would help to address Lars' comment.


D&D's omnipresent magical healing (cleric healing / raise dead, healing potions etc) is definitely a characteristic of that game in my experience.

BODY and STUN I always thought were good in theory especially for replicating super hero comic books where, say, Spider-Man will get knocked out and get back in the fight a little while later none the worse for wear, but tracking BODY and STUN plus whether damage exceeded CON and caused Stun (not STUN) and how much END is spent and recovered just made it too much bookkeeping for me to maintain interest in Hero. And I found players would either forget legitimately or disingenuously to keep track of their END and such.