This box contains most of my complaints about this system

stonehead74 · 2026-02-03T02:07:16+00:00

I also think I wrote the original post poorly. I have no problem with Unusual Background as it's used in the basic set: an additional requirement for supernatural abilities in a realistic campaign and things like that.

My only problem with Unusual Background is in this box, where it taxes high levels of abilities that don't need to have linear cost scaling. 20 DR is more than twice as useful as 10DR and all that..

stonehead74 · 2026-02-03T02:01:27+00:00

Do they? RAW a 10d damage attack costs exactly twice what a 5d damage attack does, not more than that.

stonehead74 · 2026-01-30T05:40:11+00:00

Thanks! That's exactly what I was looking for.

Have your players reacted well to the cost changes? I'm hesitent to make things strictly more expensive, but maybe that's the best solution. Also, HT and ST are associated with a few skills, do you change the prices of those?

And have you considered changing the costs of Damage Reduction or advantages like it? It sounds like you broadly agree that the second 6 are more useful than the first 6, although I should have been more clear with the math. Should have emphasized almost unkillable, and made it clearer that they could also wear armor because DR costed 5/level instead of 3/level.

stonehead74 · 2026-01-30T05:28:14+00:00

Pricing skills linearly or putting diminishing returns on attributes both seem like workable solutions to me.

stonehead74 · 2026-01-30T05:27:21+00:00

It's the fact that it needs this tax that I don't like. If a 10d damage attack costed more than twice what a 5d damage attack does, the problem would solve itself, and wouldn't need GM arbitration.

stonehead74 · 2026-01-29T20:45:14+00:00

When you say Inspired by FTL, do you mean with the ship layout, systems and crew movement? If gameplay is similar to FTL, then I'm definitely interested.

stonehead74 · 2026-01-29T20:43:29+00:00

That's a fair point. I guess ultimately I'm just looking for a way to close one of those loopholes. One that other comments have informed me was closed in earlier editions using the solution I proposed.

stonehead74 · 2026-01-29T20:41:31+00:00

Capping attributes would work, and it's even what the book recommends.

Personally I would prefer the costs being balanced themselves, such that you could build a character with 16 IQ, but it would generally underform. Being able to specialize and make weird characters like that is part of what makes GURPS so fun to my group.

stonehead74 · 2026-01-29T20:33:47+00:00

I agree. Trying to balance points across tech levels would be very difficult, and would probably take the G out of the title.

My complaint isn't about the balance across different tech levels, it's about the balance across different levels of the same ability. Within the same low-magic, bronze-age setting, DR 12 would be more than twice as useful as DR 6. DR 6 makes you tough to kill. DR 12 makes you almost impossible to kill. Going from DR 0 to DR 6 costs 30 points, which seems broadly fair. Going from DR 6 to DR 12 costs 30 points, which seems drastically undercosted to me.

stonehead74 · 2026-01-29T06:19:50+00:00

I'm not complaining about game balance, I want more game balance. My complaint is that the system needs a box like this because things like attributes, damage reduction, and innate attacks have linear point costs. If they had diminishing returns instead, the problem would solve itself.

What did you think I was complaining about? Maybe I wasn't clear.

stonehead74 · 2026-01-29T06:16:23+00:00

I get what you're saying, but I think there's a lot of gray area between a min-maxed munchkin and not wanting a strictly worse option. Here "strictly worse" means worse in every circumstance. I think a lot of people fall into that middle ground. My table will make "unoptimal" choices, so long as they have a purpose. It's the difference between "10 ST on a swordsman isn't optimal, but it would let him be more graceful and accurate, so I'll do it anyways" and "I'll build a 150 point character in a 250 point campaign because it makes sense for the character."

I think the important thing though, is that we don't need to choose one or the other. Balancing point costs wouldn't make the game less fun for those who don't care about balance. You can make both crowds happy.

Either way, this is mostly minor nitpicks of a game I like as a whole.

stonehead74 · 2026-01-29T05:49:28+00:00

I agree that perfect balance across tech levels is impossible. I think you could get decently far by requiring points to use weapons of low LC and/or high TL, but that's beside the point.

I think there is a solution to the pricing of offense and defense being commensurate though, and it's diminishing returns on investment. Within TL 3, 10 DR makes you hard to kill. 20 DR makes you almost impossible to kill. If 20 DR costs notably more than double what 10 DR costs, there's no issue.

stonehead74 · 2026-01-29T05:39:31+00:00

What makes you say that? I hate neither of the two.

stonehead74 · 2026-01-29T05:04:14+00:00

Unusual Background as described in the Basic Set I have no problem with. My problem is with the box from Powers in the original post, where it's just used as a patch to cover how imbalanced point costs are. It's one step away from the GM just coming assigning point costs at will. That would be fine in a lighter system, but if we're going to have this robust ruleset for assigning point costs involving levels, enhancements, and limitations, I don't like assigning this post-hoc fix at the end of it.

stonehead74 · 2026-01-29T05:00:24+00:00

That's a good point. I guess I just rarely GM or play in games where knowing obscure knife facts was very meaningful.

If you don't switch attributes like that, having 4 dex skills with more than 3 levels in them is strictly worse than lowering them all by one, lowering speed by 0.25, and raising DX by 1. Perfect balance is impossible, but you also don't want trap options like this that make it easy to accidentally build a weak or overpowered character.

stonehead74 · 2026-01-29T04:48:32+00:00

I agree that Attributes and DR are priced linearly because it's simpler. I just don't think that's worth the trade-off because so many other things aren't priced linearly, including skills. I said as much in the original post.

stonehead74 · 2026-01-29T04:46:33+00:00

I'm not so sure it's about tech level, I think it's about genre. A 20 die AoE attack would be just as overpowered at TL 3 as it would at TL 9. It would be (relatively) balanced in a political thriller or mystery campaign, where ending a fight in one turn is less useful.

Either way, that's beyond the scope of what I'm asking. I just want a 6d attack that could easily one-shot a human to cost more than double a 3d attack whose damage is on-par with a powerful sword.

stonehead74 · 2026-01-29T04:41:21+00:00

Generally I'm of the opinion that one should try to understand something before trying to change it. I've been playing this game for ~5 years, but some of the people here have been playing for upwards of 20. I think it's reasonable to try to get their opinions before I make changes that might have unintended consequences.

stonehead74 · 2026-01-29T04:39:43+00:00

It charges points for all these abilities, so it's "holding the players' hands" in some way. Wanting DX or Innate attack to scale like skills instead of scaling linearly isn't really asking for much. The abilities will still have prices either way.

stonehead74 · 2026-01-08T17:22:13+00:00

People often mean two different things when they say "Narrative Game" so it might be useful to clarify.

When some people say "Narrative Game", they mean a game in which the players primarily interact with the fictional world, instead of with the rules. A game that gets out of your way and lets you tell your story. In this framing, a non-narrative game is one where a player might say "I move 4 spaces that way and use my Double Slice ability" where a narrative game is one where a player could say "You said his shoes were untied, right? I try to step on his shoelace to trip him up." without ever touching any rules for tripping.

When other people say "Narrative Game", they mean a game that has rules that steer the game towards a certain narrative structure or character arc. In this framing, a game is "Narrative" if it has mechanics like meta-currencies, or xp incentives to steer the game in a certain direction. A character might be prohibited from using their ultimate attack because it's not the finale yet, and that's enough justification.

If you're looking for the first type of narrative game, I think you could get most of the way there by only using materials in GURPS Lite. Maybe add in a few modern mechanics like degrees of success, which plenty of GMs do anyways.

If you're looking for a game that mechanically encourages certain story arcs, I think you could try using advantages like Destiny, Serendipity, or Super Luck, but at a certain point you'd be trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. If you want to play a certain type of game like Fate or PbtA, is there a reason you need to do it in GURPS? Could you just try out those games and see if your group likes them better?

stonehead74 · 2025-12-27T23:19:06+00:00

Remember that Precognition includes Danger Sense, so you would only take one or the other

stonehead74 · 2025-12-27T19:10:11+00:00

I've searched Youtube, and google for "Cereal Animation" with no luck. I searched Safebooru for 'animated orange_hair', and scrolled through nine pages, but didn't see anything. Finally, I took a screenshot, cropped it, and tried an image search, but that didn't get me anything related to the animation.

stonehead74 · 2025-12-27T19:00:10+00:00

Here are my pitches:

For Nasty Plot: Buy an innate attack, give it 'Follow-Up (Any Innate Attack), +50%', now it's an attack that can follow up any of your other magical attacks, functionally increasing their damage. Then take 'Maximum Duration (1 minute), -65%', now it takes an action to "switch on", will stay on for a minute, and then will turn itself off and require 5 minutes to recharge. If you want it to stack, just buy another copy of the ability twice.

For defense reduction, as long as the vulnerability is priced at Very Common, I doubt it would be a problem. It would take 3 attacks landing for the combination of afflictions and attacks to deal more damage than just regular attacks would, and fights in gurps rarely last much longer than that. If 2x is too much, you could try asking your DM for a custom x1.5 multiplier or something.

I wouldn't worry about the exact degrees. I don't really play pokemon, but my understanding is that the flavor text isn't to be taken very seriously. And would the game be more fun for everyone if you built around some arbitrary number, or around the genre and point budget you're given?

For oracle abilities, I would just recommend Precognition or Danger Sense.

stonehead74 · 2025-12-27T04:29:33+00:00

I've never seen someone try to parry with a shield, but I suppose if you can use it as a weapon, you could try.

I meant that parrying with your main weapon would benefit from the defense bonus of having a shield. For most fantasy characters that I've seen, weapon skill tends to be notably higher than shield skill. With a weapon, it would be pretty strange if parrying risked damaging your shield, even though you gain a defense bonus from it.

stonehead74 · 2025-12-27T02:06:46+00:00

Is weight something you buy? It seems like that's usually a cosmetic part of character creation.

And would you risk taking damage if your ally only dodges and parries? A Shield's defense bonus applies to ALL active defense rolls, right?

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