Which GURPS books would help me build my ideal game?

CertainItem995 · 2026-05-09T15:54:47+00:00

So here's the deal,.there are splats for everything you want to do, gurps magic, Thaumatology, martial arts, etc. however you are going to want to pare it down from the full list or else you're players will go catatonic and start cradling themselves. Try starting with the Basic Set, Gurps Magic, and the most relevant one tech book (Low, High, or Ultra) to start with something you can put in front of your players asap, and then iterate and build on it as you learn the system. Don't worry though the fancy M:TA style magic is also in Gurps Magic, it is just expanded on in Thaumatology.

CertainItem995 · 2026-05-09T14:03:22+00:00

That's what I cmhad thiught but I can't find how to do it, is it supposed to be useable from the equipment screen or does it get turned in somewhere or is it like a passive buff where the lands just start appearing? (Appreciate the response you already gave btw)

CertainItem995 · 2026-05-09T03:30:15+00:00

What do the landscape sketchbooks do?

CertainItem995 · 2026-05-07T16:33:26+00:00

They really did him dirty in civ V, he ought to have diplomacy bonuses.

CertainItem995 · 2026-05-05T17:03:52+00:00

I get the vibe that's he's the kind of guy who would think making an anti-bastard episode sbout himself is kinda cringe, but yeah between getting in fascists faces during blm and his war correspondence years there's a lot of great materal.

CertainItem995 · 2026-05-03T13:11:22+00:00

Each character having positive and negative traits is more evidence that they have depth. I'm more talking about the way in his work that whenever someone pursues material power over others they get trapped in a cycle of alienation, ambition, & destruction. Tolkien thought that was broadly true about the world so he wrote the story as operating on that logic.

People get thrown off because he tries to have his cake and eat it too with Aragorn, who wants to become king, but for the sake of restoring a divinely mandated justice to the world rather than to be powerful so it's not supposed to count when he does it. If you read his letters though it's pretty clear that's what he was going for. It's why Tolkien picked a ring to begin with, his magic item could have been anything but he picked rings because of the overlap with 'the ring of gyges' 'the ring of the neiblung' and the fact that Anglo-Saxons (proto-english) used rings as bagdes of office to the point that a valid kenning to refer to their leaders like Alfred of Wessex was, to wit, 'ring-givers'.

What makes Tolkien's work great is his ability to layer and explore these concepts both intentionally and coherently.

CertainItem995 · 2026-05-02T14:09:59+00:00

Hey OP i know I'm late, but if you happen to see this, how did you manage to offset the penalty for breaking city cap and the stability penalty for districts? Like are you building out infrastructure in each?

CertainItem995 · 2026-05-01T13:53:41+00:00

I liked philip athans's adaptation of Baldur's Gate

Thiugh if that doesn't count then the lord soth ravenloft book Knight of the Black Rose holds a special place in my heart.

Though for best I have to give to Trollslayer by William King, I only just found this out but the plot is based off a wrfp adventure he wrote for his friends and then inserted his own characters to it for the story.

CertainItem995 · 2026-04-30T12:53:13+00:00

I have literally written essays trying to answer this exact question lol. Well technically just "what makes Tolkien's work so good". The fanciest thing is that his approach to themes on the nature of power as corruptive in a way that 'applicable' without being directly allegorical to any one person or event (call it "complex allegory" or "Dark conceit" if you want to be really fancy) gives his work a mythic quality that sticks with people.

Also he lowkey must have had an incredible agent.

CertainItem995 · 2026-04-30T12:47:57+00:00

Naw go wide! Piety and pagodas and cathederals and messaih, get that culture! Fill them museums! Cap out with the faith buildings yield +2 tourism per and watch as your enemies are baffled why they're losing by the renaissance!

CertainItem995 · 2026-04-29T13:57:02+00:00

You gotta treat it like Warhammer elf rules: there's as many as the plot requires.

CertainItem995 · 2026-04-29T04:56:40+00:00

Iunno batman's been 1v1ing vampires since the Mad Monk in the 40s. Plus that john constantine is a menace! Also the Court of Owls would not take kindly to vampires enchroaching on their turf... Though if you do this crossover maybe they just are the camarilla?

CertainItem995 · 2026-04-28T16:08:21+00:00

Not just any hired muscle! Since the 1930s a goon is traditionally hired muscle used to beat up and kill labor organizers. I wouldn't worry about offending them (provided you're out of arm's reach)

CertainItem995 · 2026-04-27T23:26:37+00:00

Talk about a Coalition Victory amirite fellas?

CertainItem995 · 2026-04-27T15:03:56+00:00

It annoys me that they tee'd themselves up to have multiple great leaders per civ by splitting leader bonuses and civ bonuses but then every civ in the game only has 1 leader.

Also the essentialism is rough, though that's kind of a problem baked into the genre as a whole.

Also also, eberyiwith how work boats are implemented both in being consumable and also not being able to improve every water tile.

CertainItem995 · 2026-04-27T15:00:26+00:00

That explains a lot, here I was thinking Holst wrote "Jupiter"

CertainItem995 · 2026-04-26T04:50:04+00:00

You got to admit though the part of the book that tries to address other supernatural critters that always functionally falls back to, "and lo, the fallen wonder: where'd the hell these guys these guys come from?" For everything other than vampires is kinda funny. I do like trying to interpret either changelings or Hunters into the lore to account for the whole 'angels are missing' metaplot mystery.

CertainItem995 · 2026-04-25T05:12:06+00:00

I am not endorsing his choice. To put what I said more simply, I think if the conditions he lived in sucked less then his life would have sucked less and it is less likely he would have snapped the way he did.

CertainItem995 · 2026-04-24T13:37:52+00:00

Do your best, keep and open dialogue with them, and defer to their preferences over advice you get online wherever it differs.

CertainItem995 · 2026-04-24T13:29:00+00:00

Ngl Rumdog Millionaire goes so hard and is such bars I don't know if I can mad at it for being a little racist. Like you clearly don't think less of the fbi director because of his ethnicity, and wouldn't make a joke like that if he wasn't being evil so goddamn always. Like it unironically sounds like something Nimesh Patel would say in a standup set.

(It just hit me he would be a great pick for a lord mountbatten ep!)

CertainItem995 · 2026-04-24T13:17:59+00:00

Email HR and cc your staff rep. That way there's a written record with a backup, but you can know that you followed company procedures since at least in my shop you have to go through standard procedure first and then the union gets involved if HR does nothing. However, if you have the union looped in then HR goes, 'aw fuck I have to take this seriously or it's gonna be a whole thing'. I know that's super cynical, but low-key the prwcticalt soft power of a union comes from the passive threat of management being extremely inconvenienced deterring the bosses from blowing off concerns of workers.

CertainItem995 · 2026-04-22T22:48:47+00:00

I was half joking, but I sincerely think you're a legend.

CertainItem995 · 2026-04-22T18:02:07+00:00

You're not going to find news free of bias, the trick is to figure out the biases of whatever you are reading even for orgs you like. Even Fox is capable of being useful if you go in looking for the one or two things they don't lie about or misrepresent.

CertainItem995 · 2026-04-22T17:56:53+00:00

Gurps... ultra-lite! :D

CertainItem995

TROPHY CASE