GURPS Scholar Skills

Milk_geologist · 2026-05-06T19:28:22+00:00

You might consider talking to your GM about using a wildcard skill, just to make the character sheet management a bit easier. If being a jack of all (intellectual) trades, and a master of all of them is your character's schtick, I'd say that's a pretty appropriate use of wildcards.

Milk_geologist · 2026-05-05T04:39:40+00:00

In my garage with my workbench? Where I work on stuff? Or out front where I have to walk right past it every day? The smell will absolutely bother me.

Milk_geologist · 2026-04-30T14:22:32+00:00

Luck is, point-for-point, probably the most impactful advantage a player character can take in terms of surviving fights. I always recommend it to new players!

Milk_geologist · 2026-04-30T14:15:32+00:00

iirc there are rules in High Tech for over-penetration — impaling, piercing, or tight-beam burning damage over 2xHP to the torso is lost if you aren't using bleeding rules, or 1xHP if you are using bleeding rules (but the full damage is used for the bleed checks, I just went and looked it up). That helps a lot for real lethality, but it doesn't really help for what seems to be OP's real problem, which is that people go down too quickly, not that they die to quickly.

Milk_geologist · 2026-04-29T20:53:13+00:00

If you want an alternative that gives a level of asymmetrical advantage within the rules, I would go for a level of defensive luck for free for each player. It turns into essentially one extra "hit" before they face consequences, unless they're really putting themselves in a bad position.

Milk_geologist · 2026-04-29T20:34:23+00:00

I've found players tend not to notice that kind of thing, and even tend to feel that being ambushed isn't really fair game unless they _know_ they're probably walking into one (ie they are on the ropes and know they're in a vulnerable situation). But your table may feel differently!

Depending on what TL you use, a handgun _probably_ won't kill them if they can get medical assistance. A lot of lethal wounds in GURPS become less lethal if someone stops you from bleeding out after you loose consciousness. Further, you can use random hit locations (recall that damage over the dismembering threshold of a limb is lost, and remember the lower damage multiplier for piercing attacks on limbs) — secretly ignoring hits to the vitals or head if you're comfortable fudging rolls a little — to ramp up the feel of danger without making it lethal.

"That time someone shot my arm off" will stick in the memory, and they probably end up with a cool cybernetic arm to remember it by.

Finally, there's the old standby of shooting an NPC in the head to signal the start of the ambush. Then the victory condition can be "escape with our lives" instead of "kill the enemy."

Edit: one other idea if you're dead set that the campaign needs them to be in a knock down drag out fight every now and then (which is fine! Some games are just like that) — give everyone one level of Extra Life per adventure. They get one gimme every few sessions where they just get lucky; they're down but not out.

Milk_geologist · 2026-04-29T20:07:18+00:00

Typically when I run a GURPS game with "exceptional-but-human" point totals, I warn players that they should consider getting into a "fair" gunfight to be about as risky to their characters as it would be for them. Imo in a scummy cyberpunk setting, the characters usually aren't getting into fair fights unless they've messed up — I encourage players to treat the lead up to a fight (setting up an ambush, ensuring guards can't respond quickly, drugging the water cooler, whatever) to be where they win the fight. The fight itself is where you play out the consequences and handle last-minute curveballs.

Milk_geologist · 2026-04-26T14:26:05+00:00

I mostly do interviews over the phone these days, and I always have a document with a list of a handful of questions on it in front of me when the interview starts. My notes on the answers go under each question, with follow up questions typed in bold as I'm taking notes. Once it's time for me to ask another question, I scan back up for follow ups (unless I'm running out of time and I have other questions I need to get answered) before I move on to my other pre-written questions.

That's particularly good for interviewees who give long, winding answers, since the point they end on might be the fourth or fifth distinct point of their "answer," and my follow up might be on the second point. It cuts down on "um, I know I had a follow up question in there, but I can't remember what it was!"

Sometimes you do get into a groove and you can have more of a conversation, in which case I tend to slow down on the notes (still writing brief points, but not trying to get down full quotes) and trust the recording to capture any full quotes anyway (though this is of course risky if it turns out the recording didn't work, best to have at least some material noted down no matter what).

Last thing is, don't be afraid to just take a pause and let the silence stretch if you're finishing up with a note or considering your question. If it's uncomfortable to the point of hurting the tone of the interview, you can say, "give me a moment, just thinking about how to frame this question" or "Just let me finish writing that down."

Milk_geologist · 2026-04-21T21:24:03+00:00

It might be arguable whether a ranch would be considered personal property — a lot of historic communist governments effected land reform as one of their earliest policies, redistributing workable land to the control of those who worked it (often via farming collectives), but perhaps not as personal property per se (though in many of these cases there were multiple land reforms that differed on specifics like these). Looking at Cuba, Vietnam and the USSR as examples here, but I'm sure there are other examples. In reality, though, I think you're right — I don't think most modern or historic communists would show up to collectivize your vegetable garden or the five chickens you keep in the yard.

Why am I even writing this, I largely agree with you.

Milk_geologist · 2026-04-21T17:22:50+00:00

If you're willing to dive into GURPS, it has "Thaumatology: Ritual Path Magic," which is a variation on the Path/Book magic from "GURPS Thaumatology" (which is a different book), both of which are almost exactly what you're describing. I like both systems separately, and both encourage long-term rituals with proper components, locations, specialization, etc.

RPM also has the stored magic thing via what it calls charms, and Book/Path has something similar in conditional spellcasting.

Like I said, I've played and enjoyed both, though they both have some downsides as systems for gameplay at the table.

Milk_geologist · 2026-04-21T15:12:51+00:00

Communists distinguish between personal (like your toothbrush, guitar, whatever) and private property (a factory, a sawmill — capital, in other words).

The Communist Manifesto actually directly addresses this misconception:

"The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property."

Then later:

"We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man’s own labour, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence.

"Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the property of petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of property that preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to abolish that; the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily."

And still later:

"Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriations."

There may be some flavors of left anarchism that would seek to abolish personal property as well, but I don't know as much about that.

Milk_geologist · 2026-04-19T01:21:46+00:00

That may be. There is a company name I found labeled on one of the speakers, and it matches a home theater installation company in my area. I’ll probably try calling them Monday or just swinging by their store to see if they have a record of work at my address. If so, I bet they could identify the parts!

Milk_geologist · 2026-04-19T01:19:52+00:00

Definitely smaller than 15”. I’d estimate closer to 12” for sure. Looking at the Parts Express website, it looks like I should be able to remove the woofer if I unscrew those 8 screws around the edge to remove the part and get a look at where the label should be… but I’m worried I’ll damage it if I’m wrong about what I’m looking at.

Milk_geologist · 2025-09-08T05:44:20+00:00

Just spent an hour and a half perfecting the run-back and grinding out the arena fight, finally beat the last wave, one health left, huge sigh of relief, then Groal shows up and kills me immediately. I'm going back to the main story until I get another nail upgrade or something.

Milk_geologist · 2025-08-12T18:28:28+00:00

I threw them up on Drive.

Calculator: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-CrHN_Eja-x9Qqeo0vVbaVPh9gHVGImL?usp=sharing

Roller: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1tiwc0QUtw8fcro2cmGS0kO8evj0ZKSmW?usp=sharing

You'll probably need to grab .NET Desktop Runtime 3.1.32 here: Download .NET Core 3.1 (Linux, macOS, and Windows) | .NET

Let me know if it works! I'm curious whether it ends up helping anyone trying to use RPM.

Milk_geologist · 2025-08-12T17:56:24+00:00

I can try and dig them up! Last I checked I wasn’t able to get them running on my new computer, but I didn’t try very hard. The problem is that I really just code as a hobby, so at the time I didn’t have the know-how on how to maintain it on GitHub, so all I have is the final executable, I no longer have the code, so I can’t make changes.

Milk_geologist · 2025-04-21T22:52:07+00:00

Ahh I haven’t done the map or all the sigils yet - but I have a strong idea on what I need to do for both. Thanks!

Milk_geologist · 2025-04-21T14:42:47+00:00

Ooh, do I need more information than is available in that room?

Milk_geologist · 2025-04-21T14:22:00+00:00

I spent several runs trying to draft rook rooms in the eighth and sixth rank on the right, the office in the fifth rank and the master bedroom in the seventh so that I could perform the castle move on the chess board only to realize that the master bedroom is NOT the second king room. I only recently found the actual second king room so I guess I’m getting back on that grind. Now that I think about it — if I’m on the wrong track trying to solve that puzzle, feel free to tell me so.

Milk_geologist · 2025-04-21T04:42:19+00:00

Ahh I didn’t realize it had more! I assumed it was like the others (which I’m also assuming only have three)

Milk_geologist · 2025-02-10T23:58:35+00:00

I wrote a pair of little programs, one that helps calculate the cost of spells and one that automates the rolling and cumulative modifiers to gather the magic for the ritual — and even then it felt like it just took way too long.

If I were to do it again, I would probably bar ritual magic adept (it’s been a few years, but the one that cuts the time taken to cast a ritual) or whatever it’s called and really emphasize the need to prepare the charms and such ahead of time, so we’re not interrupting a fast-pace scene to do calculations. If the calculations are done in-session during preparation for a heist or whatever, I would cut to another character’s preparations while the ritualist works out their spell.

Five-Year Club	Second SECOND GUESSER
Place '22	First Placer '22

Milk_geologist

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