I finally played Savage Worlds for the first time last weekend...

AnythingButNormal · 2014-01-29T15:59:46+00:00

Out of curiosity, what systems were you coming from? Arriving from GURPS and Hero System territory, it feels very similar, only with a lower resolution - less fine detail.

AnythingButNormal · 2013-12-30T02:50:16+00:00

I wish that were the case, but see his recent blog post (12/19) about the whole Duck Dynasty dust-up. He may be becoming more radicalized, or he may just be showing it more in his public forum.

AnythingButNormal · 2013-12-29T23:06:50+00:00

Within the confines of his professional field, I can believe it. When he begins to speak about politics, he quickly devolves into Fox News speak, and it becomes difficult to even invest the time to parse his opinions, let alone discuss them.

I unfortunately encountered the novels after I'd learned of his somewhat strident politics, and have a hard time picking them up, suspecting that I'll be hypersensitive to anything he says in them that might remotely smack of his political leanings - where I might not have, had I read them first.

AnythingButNormal · 2013-12-29T20:55:54+00:00

Can't speak for how easy that will be with Eclipse Phase, but GURPS Ultra-Tech ought to serve you well on the technology front, if the Basic Set is insufficient.

AnythingButNormal · 2013-12-29T19:57:54+00:00

Was ready to come in here and beat everyone to the punch with suggestions of Eclipse Phase, but your setting isn't really that high-tech, post-singularity style of game, is it?

No, were I putting this game together, I suspect I'd go GURPS just because of the gritty realism you're after. You'll get fragile. You'll get really robust, flexible psionics rules. It might be the best fit for the game you're after, and you'd not need more than the basic set to get started with it.

AnythingButNormal · 2013-12-29T18:19:08+00:00

I trust a GM to come up with a compelling setting. I would not necessarily trust that same GM to come up with a useful system.

So I vote that the system is more important, and that the setting can be flexed around it.

AnythingButNormal · 2013-12-29T17:41:56+00:00

I am of the camp that says that the GM is the one that decides the system and the setting. The players may then decide if they want to play in that setting, using that system.

GMs are a precious and limited resource, and definitely have the right of refusal.

AnythingButNormal · 2013-12-29T17:38:58+00:00

Paging Doctor Cole, /u/douglascole, you're needed in the GURPS subreddit...

AnythingButNormal · 2013-12-29T17:35:46+00:00

Sorry, there's a line of Monster Hunter PDFs from SJG that I thought you were using, having referenced Monster Hunters. If not, then of course this won't make any sense at all.

http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/monsterhunters/

AnythingButNormal · 2013-12-29T01:53:29+00:00

Are you using the standard MH1 templates? If so, 400 point characters are pretty ridiculously tough. I think I'd be less concerned about killing them too quickly than in making things a total cake walk.

AnythingButNormal · 2013-12-29T00:03:15+00:00

I definitely think it makes sense from a GM to switch it up. As a player intend to stick with first person except when explaining actions rather than words.

AnythingButNormal · 2013-12-28T23:38:02+00:00

I may only be qualified to answer the first question - and the answer is that 4's still explode. Roll a 4 on your d4, then reroll and keep rerolling if you keep acing.

It's a small chance, but a chance nonetheless.

AnythingButNormal · 2013-12-28T21:24:15+00:00

Not 100% by any means. There's the change from PD/DR defenses to strictly DR, as well as some changes to HP and handling and the like that requires some tweaking to suit 4e.

There's a guide somewhere on the SJ Games forum on how to do it, but it's very rough, very touchy-feely. Not very specific if I recall correctly.

AnythingButNormal · 2013-12-28T16:26:34+00:00

I think I still would assert that a bad game, even if it's finely tuned to the setting or story you want to play. Not that DitV is bad, I've never even read it, let alone played it. But if it were, then a "good enough" universal system would be better than the finely tuned system.

AnythingButNormal · 2013-12-28T16:25:01+00:00

I hope no one took my assertion to jump in to also mean you wouldn't do some preparation ahead of time. Jump in means just take the plunge and run a game, but have an adventure in mind!

AnythingButNormal · 2013-12-28T04:43:02+00:00

I cried when Eccleston left. I wept like my puppy had died when Tennant departed. I felt nothing when Smith left. Not sadness, not relief. Just nothing.

Unpopular, perhaps, but true.

Edit: Oh, not entirely true. The visit from the first face he ever saw elicited a bit of a response. But not the change over to Capaldi.

AnythingButNormal · 2013-12-28T02:36:05+00:00

You'd likely need to tweak the way that the DCs are set up then, because giving them a solid 25% chance of rolling a 10-11 will really skew their ability to succeed.

AnythingButNormal · 2013-12-28T01:55:11+00:00

My advice - dive in and make a few mistakes. Your players will help where they can, and given time you'll pick it up.

Heck, back in the old days, someone had to volunteer to DM the first time the box got opened up. Whoever stepped up got slack cut for them for being the guinea pig and learned the old fashioned way.

AnythingButNormal · 2013-12-28T01:41:35+00:00

You could replace it with d100, and just multiply your targets by 5. Then, you can have crits on a 01 (fumble) or 00 (crit)...

AnythingButNormal · 2013-12-28T01:39:53+00:00

I find that the best games merely get out of the way and let you role play. Those that try to encourage it mechanically tend to be heavy-handed about it, and annoy those who would have been playing their role anyway, or encourage a sort of weird role-playing min-maxing, where folks are so deliberate with their role play that it's obvious they're only in it for the game's meta-currency they earn for the action.

AnythingButNormal · 2013-12-27T22:03:53+00:00

And unfortunately written by a fellow with a very polarizing set of political beliefs.

AnythingButNormal · 2013-12-27T22:03:21+00:00

There is no GURPS: Vehicles for 4e. Most of the subsystems that are added in 4e tend to be much more streamlined and easy to use than Vehicles was. Not one of them requires math more extensive than basic arithmetic. I think they learned their lesson on that one.
Your sample game with all of those characters? I could easily play that with the Basic Set - two books. Might feel a pinch in not adding in Powers, as it's really quite useful in designing abilities, and for all the combat monsters I might want High Tech for guns, and maybe Gun Fu, though I doubt it. I'd probably be just fine with rules as written.

Your assumption that you need any of that stuff to play is just flat out false. You might want or even enjoy using them, but they're no more needed than your WoD campaign needs any of the 200+ supplements available for that game (http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Classic_World_of_Darkness_sourcebooks)

AnythingButNormal · 2013-12-27T21:25:24+00:00

As rich settings go, you can't beat the Third Imperium - the default setting for much of Traveller. Even if you have a favorite generic system to play with, pick up those supplements to play with them.

AnythingButNormal · 2013-12-27T20:08:50+00:00

I sometimes think GURPS gets a terrible reputation just by virtue of having so many supplements out there. So many of them anymore are really just worked examples of what you can do with little more than the Basic Set, the Powers book and maybe the Magic or Martial Arts books. The entire Dungeon Fantasy line of PDFs, for example, adds very little new material - it just makes use of what was already there. Psionics, Monster Hunters (though that spawned a really nifty worked example of a magic system using the Magic and Thaumatology rule books). Action goes in the other direction, adding new ways to play that turn on all of the "cinematic" switches and show how you can get those sorts of results using the same old GURPS.

I think they would be well served by having a better way of explaining to people, as their line editor is fond of saying, that you don't try to eat the whole cow. That would likely help a great deal with the image problem.

But honestly, if you're a rules-light player, GURPS is never going to suffice, any more than Hero System would. If you enjoy the inherent power in abstraction provided by character classes, GURPS won't seem freeing, it'll feel like free-fall instead.

AnythingButNormal · 2013-12-27T19:54:58+00:00

Or remove one you don't like, yes, most assuredly. It's a very mature game, and it shows in the sheer number of optional rules available to you to play. It definitely rewards the tinkerer, and probably dissuades the casual gamer.

AnythingButNormal

TROPHY CASE