This thread is made out of lame.

Quote from: AosThis thread is made out of lame.

 Yes it might be. Take a look at the original post that started it...your reason for the lameness right there.

- Ed C.

Quote from: C.W.RichesonMainstream games off the top of my head: M&M, HERO and Tri-Stat.

I readily admit that I know little-to-nothing about M&M and Tri-Stat...but isn't HERO the same system that we used for Champions, Danger International, and Justice Incorporated back in college? If so, I wouldn't think of that being necessarily a shorter skill list; the core list of skills may very well have been, but I seem to recall that you pretty much had to expand upon it in order to use the system for anything other than Champions. (Granted, I haven't played it in about 15 years or so, so I could be mistaken.)

Quote from: Settembrini...except that they are all mechanically different and really, really play in a   different crunchy ballpark.

In D&D you´ve got Spells, Items, Feat, Feats, Feats and some more Feats who let you do stuff that is mechanically different.

Are you saying that different characters determine success in different ways?

I don't see how you would be using different mechanics based upon individual characters, since a game's "mechanic" is, as far as I know, pretty much the same as its combat/task resolution system -- which in D&D requires you to roll a d# (usually a d20), add your various modifiers, and compare it to the target number. I don't know of any spells, items, feats, etc that allow you to alter the way the task resolution system works.

If what you say is true, then perhaps I have been playing the game incorrectly for the past 27 years.

QuoteActually it´s the GURPS characters who are all alike:

So what you are saying is that a vampire gunslinger, an ex-Army alchemist, a timelost heavy sniper, a sumo wrestler-turned-luchador, and an albino computer hacker/Savate expert (all characters from my current GURPS campaign) are all essentially identical?

QuoteJust a bunch of Skillls you can roll for.

You don't roll for skills in GURPS any more than you do in D&D, unless you are using the Random Character Generation (which I don't think anyone actually does for anything but idle diversion).

QuoteIt´s a shame, Nox: GURPS is a fine system, but your reasons for liking it, are totally ridiculous and show how much you lack in Roleplay-ology.

"Roleplay-ology"? What's that? If you mean "the art/science of Roleplaying Games", I fail to see why a person's reasons -- ridiculous or otherwise -- for liking a particular RPG system would show a lack in that regard.

C.W.: I, for one, am always confused by systems that scale the difficulty of learning to the needs of the campaign, rather than the more easily graspable :how hard is it to learn: method.  GURPS is not the only system to use that method, but for the life of me I can't remember another off the top of my head.  Oh... Heavy Gear, with it's 'complex skills'... took me long enough.

Quote from: SpikeC.W.: I, for one, am always confused by systems that scale the difficulty of learning to the needs of the campaign

I certainly agree that that aspect of GURPS leads to more realistic skill acquisition.  Realistic by RPG standards, anyway.

Quote from: Dominus NoxOne thing to remember is that in gurps it's easier to design a unique character that is really one of a kind and special. (Not "Christmas ape" special, but the good kind of special)

In d20 characters tend to all look alike, especially with class and level rules.

I like a character that isn't just another thief, fighter, wizard, netrunner, etc.

This, of course, ignores feats and skills, as well as combining classes in different ways.

As far as it is true, it's a good thing [TM]. IMO, the action of a given genre is best carried through a somewhat standardized set of standard required competencies and roles than forcing the GM to haphazardly throw challenges at the players and hope that they have some means to deal with it amongst a set of PCs whose abilities are built up either around whimsy that does not necessarily relate to the genre at hand, or by some hyper-specialized abberation built around a possibly erroneous player assumption about what particular skill sets are going to let them "win" the game.

Quote from: Caesar SlaadIMO, the action of a given genre is best carried through a somewhat standardized set of standard required competencies and roles than forcing the GM to haphazardly throw challenges at the players and hope that they have some means to deal with it amongst a set of PCs whose abilities are built up either around whimsy that does not necessarily relate to the genre at hand...

That depends upon your style of play. I've always viewed telling players "You must include this, that, and the other thing among your characters" is pretty much forcing the players to create characters that conform to the GM's idea of how the game will progress.

Rather, at the start of a campaign, I have already worked out a rough storyline, and I give the players a bit of information that will allow them to create suitable characters. I do not require them to do so, however; most of my players are experienced enough to create characters that will complement each other nicely. As the game progresses, they learn the hard way which skills they are lacking should probably pick up. Even if they don't have a particular skill that is needed to accomplish a particular segment of the adventure, they can usually attempt it at a default; if they find that they need the skill more than once or twice, somebody is bound to learn it. If they absolutely need the skill in order to succeed, with no other means of success open to them, I will usually allow the PC most likely to possess it to spend a character point on the spot to have the skill.

To make more clear what I said before:

If you character consists of only a skill list, then every character is mechanically as boring as the next one.

You can only make skill rolls, all the time.

Whereas D&D, or several other games, have different rules for different character elements.

To wrap my point in a different cloth:

All that makes GURPS so "diverse" is a huge skill list.
We have established that this skill list is not mechanically balanced, it has to be balanced by the DM in charge.

So, if I ported that skill list into D&D, D&D would be more powerful a tool than GURPS. I can port it very easily, as it is not balanced in GURPS, so I don´t have to balance it in D&D.

I just write down one more skill, and voila, it´s more "diverse" than GURPS, by your own logic.

Excuse me, are you saying that any game with a unified resolution mechanic is crap?

That would be an interesting claim, at least.

Sett: That comment is so twisted around it's eating itself, man.

What exactly is BAB? Why... it's nothing more than your character's skill at hitting things.

So, GURPS is a joke because it strips away these subsystems to make actual skills at hitting things, allowing players to decide if their character gets better at hitting things or not?

Where is it said that the GURPS skill list isn't balanced? It is Balanced, it just is 'too big', because you are supposed to pick what you need out of it, rather than try to take everything.  That's not a balance issue, it's a 'buffet' issue. Only take enough to fill your plate. Just because they have Roast Beef AND hamburger doesn't mean you need both.

QuoteExcuse me, are you saying that any game with a unified resolution mechanic is crap?

No. I´m saying any game with just a big list of skills and a simple mechanism for rolling them is not actually diverse, but mechanically bland.

Imagine D20 without feats, spells, maneuvres.
now add a table with X+1 skill.

How can that be "diverse"?

I´m puzzeld why we are not all agreeing here. It is so obvious to me, I can´t even start to wonder what went wrong with communication.

It must be my inability to communicate.
Otherwise you´d all be terribly dumb, which I just can´t imagine.

So please ask specific what is giving you a hard time to grok, and I´ll rephrase. It´s very important to me to transport this, because I´m so shocked not everybody already is of that opinion.

*shakes his head*

I seldom fully understand what Sett says but I will give it a go.

I have observed two big divides in terms of resolution mechanics. The first group has one mechanism for everything. Say, for example, a d20 plus a modifier. This is used for everything from skill resolution to magic. It is always the same and thus, for people interested in the mechanics side, rather dull. Then there are the less unified systems that have a different mechanic for how a cleric casts magic, skill resolution and combat. Folks interested in mechanics often enjoy such games since they are essentially systems within systems.

As it applies to the number of skills, IMO, is that there are different forms of flexibility. The two represented here would be the flexibility of character creation (many skills) vs the variety of system (few or no skills but many sub-systems). In the first, you can take a number of skills but essentially you will resolve your cleric's initiate skill the same way you would a thieves picking locks. Essentially rendering the same "feel" to the different types of characters. In the second case, the sub-system can control a very different "feel" mechanically for that profession. In AD&D your thief picked locks with a % roll, while your mage ticked off the use of a pre-memorized spell.

Personally, I like both and that is why I get hammered in reviews for Iridium.

Bill

So the idea is that because the mechanic is the same, it gives the characters the same feel?

Huh.

Never would have occurred to me. To me what a made a character unique or not was what made up the character/how the character was played. Mechanics were there only to resolve issues that required it. The reason I liked that D&D went from % rolls to d20 for thief skills was it removed something to worry about (is this a % roll or a d20 roll, that is, the mechanical aspect) and allowed for more focus on the character.

Amazing how different people perceive different things...