Where's my GURPS? [GURPS Thread]

[Inglenook]

Strangely, I really like all the separate skills and their varying difficulties to learn. It feels somewhat more realistic that a person would have knowledge in an individual religion (that might give a default to related religions). Compared, of course, to D&D's Knowledge (Religion) being a great big blob of abstract religious knowledge.

I also like that it reinforces the lethality of fighting and makes it more worthwhile, perhaps, to spend your points on skills that let you cleverly sidestep combat.

If that's not your cup of tea, though, combining skills would be pretty easy, I think.

[Erik von Nein]

Entirely true. The argument by itself doesn't separate gurps from other games. But gurpS is a "system". That does separate it from some more rigid games. That's why I think "just change it" is a valid defense for a system that gives you lots of rules options to choose from in the first place, and even contains design advice for more rule options in additional books.

Fair enough, I suppose. I might have just been judging it from the sheer volume of skills they printed. It's inevitable that a classless system would do that, anyway, as that's the only real way to distinguish one character from another.

Re: Explosive formulae

It should help to do these kinds of calculations in advance, say, while procuring the explosives. Then you don't get distracted during the action. It also ensure that you actually buy the right amount of C4.

Yeah, I just don't like them. Hah. But, no, it's just something I'd have to tolerate.

Re: Detailed skills

The subtle differences can become important in some cases. What's the difference between a Private Eye and a Police Detective in terms of the skills? Or what about a game where the entire group are infantry soldiers? Gurps actually has enough detail to make them unique.

Yeah, I'm playing in an Infinity campaign right now where we're all using templates and specialties with the only real difference being skill selection. I suppose if attributes weren't so freakishly expensive (well, for our point buy level, anyway) attributes could make people more distinctive. Like I said, though, it's inevitable with a classless system where skills are the only differentiating mechanic, aside from advantages and disadvantages.

Maybe I'm just looking for something that isn't there with GURPs and I just can't put my finger on it.

Except "Use Wildcard skills" wasn't "Just change it", but an answer inherent to the system. For some people this wouldn't even be a change because they already use Wildcard skills plus a smattering of 1-pt skills or perks. It's simply taking the (personal) best from the many options in gurps.

Haha. Fair enough. I didn't catch that for some reason (being 7 in the morning with 3 hours of sleep might be why), so that was a nonsense reply.

Re: Parry/Dodge

It took me a while to understand the second part ... So you want a Defense skill, that determines all of Dodge/Parry/Block. Hmm, I guess that could work, but you would introduce a new skill instead of using the existing ones.

Also, it would remove the differences between Captain America (= block) and a backflipping Black Widow (=dodge) in terms of defense. And there are just so many situations where blocking or parrying also works for people you want to protect, while everyone has to do their own dodge. I like to be able to model those differences because they come up in movies etc.

There's also a difference between not being hit (successful dodge/bock/parry) and being so tough that attacks don't hurt you (lots of armor). That distinction also seems useful to me. In light of this, one can see block or parry as a mid-point between these two extremes, or a half-hit.

Well, it's more I'd like a single defense skill that can be context dependent. I suppose block/parry/dodge does that, but it's scattered and requires different investment to improve. Maybe introduce perks/advantages that do more or less the same thing. But that's moving into territory where you'd have to fundamentally change rules.

I've got no real problem with armor, aside from occupying a weird "wear this for bonus HP" position.

Games can and do abstract away from all this and still end up being fun. But one aspect that makes gurps gurps is the very detailed second-by-second resolution of combat that actually tries to model what would happen in real life (or a movie). A movie about boxing doesn't just show you "He got hit somewhere somehow because he didn't somehow not get hit.". It shows you where and how you got hit and that the "hittee" tried to move back and to the side but wasn't fast enough.

Well, even their version is pretty abstracted and weirdly superhuman. Dodging bullets in general is pretty outside the realm of reality, especially in reaction to someone firing at you (especially someone you aren't even facing). I'd prefer a fair amount of abstracting, mostly because "like reality" is something very difficult for dice-and-paper games to portray. If they gave you an easy abstracted combat system with good narrative flexibility (which GURPs does have some of, most certainly) I'm happy. The designers won't have to worry about conforming their particular rules set to reality and leave it up to the players to determine their own particular brand of what should or should not happen in a game.

That's not to say GURPs isn't flexible, because it is, it's just weirdly not at times and has bits and pieces I just personally dislike. It probably didn't help that I was coming off D&D and had it billed as "easier, more realistic." And then body armor protects against elephant guns and steel doors are unfazed (admittedly a rules error) by massive amounts of explosives. Hah.

Eh, I'm still giving it a go and trying to get a good handle on it. I'm just annoyed by certain aspects. I'm so far really digging the idea of Infinity, though.

Not as much as I am repeating myself because I'm repeating myself. ;)

Ts

Repetitious statement is repetitious?

[Ts_]

Well, even their version is pretty abstracted and weirdly superhuman. Dodging bullets in general is pretty outside the realm of reality, especially in reaction to someone firing at you (especially someone you aren't even facing).

Because this comes up once in a while: A dodge is not something you do in reaction to a gun being fired. It is in reaction to someone threatening you with a gun that you start to "jump around" randomly (within your hex) to avoid being hit. If you're not aware that you should be doing evasive maneuvers, you get no dodge. If you're tied down or someone is holding a gun to your head, you get no dodge. If you know there is an attacker with a gun, but don't know where or aren't facing him, you get a hefty penalty to dodge the attack. (-4, I think, like defending against an magically invisible attacker.)

Admittedly, the game seems to suggest that you wait for the shot and then dodge because the defense roll is made after the attack roll. This is often not the correct interpretation for a dodge, though. But rolling the dice according to what's actually happening (constant evasive maneuvers) would require rolling dodge every turn in case someone wants to shoot at you. That would just be too much trouble.

(Somewhat relatedly, there was a discussion on the SJGames forums a while back where someone wondered about staying in the actively dodging combat mode all the time, even when walking through the mall, to avoid being hit without getting a defense roll ... The answer was that doing so all day long would quickly fatigue the character. Even 10 seconds of active battle cost fatigue points.)

It probably didn't help that I was coming off D&D and had it billed as "easier, more realistic." And then body armor protects against elephant guns and steel doors are unfazed (admittedly a rules error) by massive amounts of explosives. Hah.

If you mean the TL 8 (=modern) body armor with trauma plates, those seem to be really good. The High-Tech book mentions that they are meant to protect against rifles, so maybe they work mostly as intended? It also says that the plates become cracked when hit and could be treated as ablative DR (somewhat like bonus HP) if the style is gritty. So if you like to die more often, tell that your GM. ;)

But honestly, there are regular debates on the gurps forums about the exact values and rules for this armor and that weapon. The published values probably are all wrong to a certain extent, but I am somewhat confident that they are mostly okay relative to each other. (With the exception that medieval weapons do too much damage compared to guns ... ) That's nitpicking on a high level, though, I think.

Eh, I'm still giving it a go and trying to get a good handle on it. I'm just annoyed by certain aspects. I'm so far really digging the idea of Infinity, though.

Then I better stop spoiling your experience with long novels.

Regards
Ts

[Chemiisan]

Before I sleep, I'd like to add something to this whole 'C4' and 'Stealth v. Camo' argument.

GURPS is really not a system about realism. If it were, we'd have a lot more trouble. GURPS is a system about balance, and creating balanced characters and effects. If C4 ALWAYS blew down the steel door, then you could have nothing to stop them from blasting through the dungeon. In the same respect, you don't want to weaken the C4 to being useless when compared to it's real life counterpart. By using life as a model, we create balance because- let's face it. C4 doesn't destroy everything, just as humans can't carve metal with their bare hands and ants can't lift up cars. Some things are flat out impossible, and most of the non-magitech parts of the GURPS system reflect that. Heavily.

In another word: Simplicity is not always better. It's far easier to apply a defined skill with a specific purpose than a loose skill that sometimes bleeds in to other skills. How far does generic stealth in D&D stretch, you wonder? Can you make others stealthy? If so, should you focus lots of points into stealth to make others stealthy always, and your teammates forget about the skill altogether? by dividing it clearly like that, we also don't make costume artists for an idol master thieves. Yea, we need complexity to avoid the specifics (and munchkins).

Oh, good night.

[Cybren]

Well, even their version is pretty abstracted and weirdly superhuman. Dodging bullets in general is pretty outside the realm of reality, especially in reaction to someone firing at you (especially someone you aren't even facing).

You don't (this is GURPS so obviously this is asterisked with a big USUALLY) get active defense rolls against attacks of which you are unaware. So if someone was shooting at you and you didn't know it, you cant try to dodge it. At any rate, dodging guns in GURPS is moving your body out of line of sight with the firearm, which isn't unreasonable, especially when you consider 1) dodge is usually pretty low unless you're a super cool kung fu backflipping ninja, 2) most "real world" gunfights have stupidly low hit rates and 3) players dislike getting shot in most games

[Chambers]

Side topic: Hellboy Sourcebook and Roleplaying Game

This is actually the only GURPS book I've ever owned and I bought it because it was a Hellboy RPG. That was many years ago and I've since lost it (but recently ordered it again from Amazon, huzzah), but I recall that the book was very well done, both in terms of flavor and mechanics.

From a Hellboy fan perspective I felt that it did justice to the source material and that the mechanical options and choices they presented in book would allow someone to make a B.P.R.D agent that was cool and effective. I haven't played a lot of GURPS, so take my observations of the mechanics with a grain of salt.

[Knaight]

2) most "real world" gunfights have stupidly low hit rates

Most real world gunfights involve at least one side that consists almost entirely of people with no firearms training, no combat training, and the sort of aim you'd expect from this in a stressful panic inducing situation. It's also often dark, full of stuff in the way, with people firing off lots of bullets at once. Even without dodging, GURPS makes this sort of thing difficult.

Then there is suppression fire, which sometimes gets calculated into the hit rates, where lots and lots of ammunition is put into an area that isn't necessarily supposed to actually hit anyone, where the main idea is to prevent movement.

[Kaun]

When you stat block minor NPC's, like guards or bandits etc, how do you do it?

How far do you go with them?

see i was thinking to keep it quick and simple i might just do something like, stat out the main stats then just list something like (+1 melee skills, +1 Defensive skills, +2 perception, +1 sense motive) add some armor and basic weapon damage details and leave it like that.

How far do you go with minor npcs?

Example stat blocks if you have them handy would be awesome.

[Inglenook]

This can be helpful in a pinch, I suppose. Just keep generating until the stats don't make you go "WTF?!" This is for monsters, but you could probably adapt it to NPCs with a little work. This thread has some ideas for making a custom generator using Inspiration Pad Pro, I think.

And on the official website there's a printable NPC card if that's your thing. And if I recall correctly, the old GURPS Character Builder program had an option to randomly generate stats? Pity they didn't add that functionality to GURPS Character Sheet, which is by far the best program out there for character generation.

I've never GMed, so random generators is the only advice I can give.

ETA: I just realized how truly hideous the official GURPS website is. Good Lord.

[DigoDragon]

When you stat block minor NPC's, like guards or bandits etc, how do you do it?

Generally I'll write some index cards that give me only the 7 basics I need:

Name
Strength score
Perception score
1-3 Combat skills
Weapons equipped
Armor worn
Current HP

Rarely would I need anything else for a minor NPC. If something comes up outside that stat block (Like a knowledge skill check), I'll make it up on the fly. If it comes up Regularly, then I'll make a note of it on the index card for consistancy.

[Urpriest]

On the topic of whether you can just assign numbers to things in GURPS vs. other systems:

The reason you can't just assign appropriate numbers to monsters in D&D 3.5 and call it a day is because players have means to interact with the base stats of said monsters, through things like debuffing and shapeshifting. Shapeshifting and other minon-grabbing abilities in particular mean that you need not just base stats, but the resources (HD, in a D&D context), used to acquire them.

4e, by contrast, got rid of the ability to debuff base stats and (almost all of) the ability to grab monster abilities, and as such DMs are encouraged to just make up relevant numbers, and indeed there are online calculators that facilitate doing so.

Which brings me to the discussion on GURPS. I had the impression that GURPS has both PC abilities that can affect monster base stats, and shapeshifting abilities explicitly dependent on point counts. Don't both of those things mean you need the complete stats for any monster you create?

[Ts_]

I had the impression that GURPS has both PC abilities that can affect monster base stats, and shapeshifting abilities explicitly dependent on point counts.

True.

Don't both of those things mean you need the complete stats for any monster you create?

Depends. You need to imagine your monster of course, that's really the first step. I think that a lot of people on the (sjgames) gurps forums aren't in for the perfectly balanced encounters, so they can live with a rough idea of the monster stats that they pinpoint and expand when needed. (Which is a bit of counterintuitive when you recall that gurps lets you create the heroes with a ton of details. But that's because PCs will deal with many more different situations than monsters, imho.)
Also, even if there are "perfect" stats for an average Orc, who says that this particular Orc must have the exact same abilities as all the other ones? Even within a single encounter, Orcs can have subtle differences without the stats being "wrong".

Also, you can't really create "mechanically wrong stats". While the stats are interlinked, all secondary values can be bought up and down independently. By choosing "mismatching" values of, say, ST and HP (which are by default equal), you're just affecting the point total, which the GM doesn't care about anyway.

This is all for fine for general combat purposes, I think. However, for spontaneous shapeshifters one needs to a know point total, as you pointed out. The usual recommendation is to let the player of the shapershifting character do the detailed work. It usually doesn't take much to see if a shape is within the general point budget of the shifter. Depending on world-design, such flexible shapeshifters might even shift into "non-fire breathing dragons" or "really powerful birds" instead of the regular forms to make best use of their point budgets.

Some other super-abilities can also be troublesome: For example, any kind of Modular Power with a wide set of possibilities ("all elemental attacks" or "body-affecting afflictions") require either some guesstimation of the total cost (my preferred way) or some rules-checking. Again, I'd just let the player handle it. For attacks one might determine the desired enhancements and then buy as much damage dice with these enhancements as possible. Of course, it helps when the player has some prepared sets of interesting enhancement combinations.

Regards
Ts

[Kaun]

Ok Gurpist's, let me pick your brains about this one;

I have a player who wants to play a character based of the anime series Bleach. Before any Bleach fans start asking me questions regarding nitty gritty parts of the show, i haven't seen it, so i don't know.

Anyway, long story short he wants a semi intelligent magical soul sword thing as an ally.

So far we are a bit unsure on ow to do this. Building an ally using the advantage is easy enough but how do you do a points to stats calculation on a sword/any inanimate object?

Is there a better way of doing it?

Sugestions or advice please!

Is my question clear? bahh need more coffee.

tldr - how to make a self aware sword using the ally advantage, or any other advantage for that matter.

Thanks in advance.

[Lamech]

I would make the "intelligent" part contact or contact group. That's what the sword does right? The character can ask it questions and get answers. If he can do anything else with the sword, give him those advantages. Then add the correct gadget limitations on the advantages and the contact. Oh and its a sword, but that's more of a special feature he gets for free as long as its not too fancy. (I suppose it could be sig gear...)

Now you could do it as an ally. Its a whole pack of disadvantages and advantages (I can come up with a fairly good list if you want), but it will come out in the area of -400ish points. Which means the ally now has 400ish points to spend on doing cool stuff before it even breaks the 0 point mark. That's sort of a problem if the sword is say 25 or 50 points. You can totally do it, but a sword with 400 points of useful abilities can be a bit unbalancing to wield when it only costs 5 points to have.

[Madara]

Ok Gurpist's, let me pick your brains about this one;

I have a player who wants to play a character based of the anime series Bleach. Before any Bleach fans start asking me questions regarding nitty gritty parts of the show, i haven't seen it, so i don't know.

Anyway, long story short he wants a semi intelligent magical soul sword thing as an ally.

So far we are a bit unsure on ow to do this. Building an ally using the advantage is easy enough but how do you do a points to stats calculation on a sword/any inanimate object?

Is there a better way of doing it?

Sugestions or advice please!

Is my question clear? bahh need more coffee.

tldr - how to make a self aware sword using the ally advantage, or any other advantage for that matter.

Thanks in advance.

Don't use the ally advantage. You're better enough treating it like a gadget advantage. In the show, the actual weapon's intelligence does just about nothing besides internal training sequences, besides, the sword is flavored as being part of the character. So if anything, make it a "Perk"

[Kaun]

Now you could do it as an ally. Its a whole pack of disadvantages and advantages (I can come up with a fairly good list if you want), but it will come out in the area of -400ish points. Which means the ally now has 400ish points to spend on doing cool stuff before it even breaks the 0 point mark. That's sort of a problem if the sword is say 25 or 50 points. You can totally do it, but a sword with 400 points of useful abilities can be a bit unbalancing to wield when it only costs 5 points to have.

Yeah the way we have been looking at it so far makes it a little on the unbalanced side. I think originally he had it purchased as a "slave like ally that was always there with 150% cp" and the cost to him was around 40cp.

Don't use the ally advantage. You're better enough treating it like a gadget advantage. In the show, the actual weapon's intelligence does just about nothing besides internal training sequences, besides, the sword is flavored as being part of the character. So if anything, make it a "Perk"

I'm not familiar with the gadget advantage and my google-fu has fallen short, how does that work and how could i use it?

[Madara]

I'm not familiar with the gadget advantage and my google-fu has fallen short, how does that work and how could i use it?

Pretty much write up the advantage as normal, but take off from 10-40% if it can be stolen, and take a bit off if it can't be replaced. I suggest doing the Breakable limitation for the gadget, but make it temporary. So maybe normal advantage -10% for being breakable, but it can be "repaired" in a day. This is still irritating for combat(Which makes it a proper disadvantage), but I think it reflects the show/manga properly. And I don't think it can be stolen. If it can, you could probably take off 30% in addition to the breakable.

[Chemiisan]

Pretty much write up the advantage as normal, but take off from 10-40% if it can be stolen, and take a bit off if it can't be replaced. I suggest doing the Breakable limitation for the gadget, but make it temporary. So maybe normal advantage -10% for being breakable, but it can be "repaired" in a day. This is still irritating for combat(Which makes it a proper disadvantage), but I think it reflects the show/manga properly. And I don't think it can be stolen. If it can, you could probably take off 30% in addition to the breakable.

Signature Gear is particularly useful for this, actually. It will keep it from being permanently broken or permanently stolen (It even says the Game Master must replace it), as well as allowing for the actual weapon itself to evolve. As for the price, I'd treat it as a single Ally worth more than 150% of the character's points with Minion and a frequency of Constantly. After that, apply the migitators and enhancements based on its effects. If it has a cone radius damage but can't hit in close quarters, apply it. This ally type is more than enough points for any given weapon, and the fact that the weapons themselves are notoriously unreliable until the character warms up to them doesn't hurt either. I would take care to note that the minimum cost for a Signature Weapon is 20% of the original price, but there is no maximum cost.

EDIT: Summonable (+100%) would be a better replacement for Minion. In this case, Minion is free since Summonable acts as Slave Mentality.

EDIT2: Looking at the actual cost for these things, it's a wonder how that characters in the show aren't overpowered. I'd probably just create them as <50%, mostly because you can take huge chunks out of their ST, DX and HT (about -400 points). Since they are nonhuman, you can do this and base their HP off of their Will, which I guess represents their spiritual power. So, base cost 16 for your swords. Have a fun time turning this into an advantage.

[jindra34]

EDIT2: Looking at the actual cost for these things, it's a wonder how that characters in the show aren't overpowered. I'd probably just create them as <50%, mostly because you can take huge chunks out of their ST, DX and HT (about -400 points). Since they are nonhuman, you can do this and base their HP off of their Will, which I guess represents their spiritual power. So, base cost 16 for your swords. Have a fun time turning this into an advantage.

Don't give HT penalties to items. Given that HT represents roughly how well it resists attempts to break it by slow use of force, and how well it resists all sorts of effects that would bend, break, or change it thats a bad thing to ever have low. Also will have Injury Tolerance: Homogenous, Immunity to metabolic hazards, no manipulators and no legs of some kind. Also remember to buy its HP back up. Otherwise one strike from anything and its gone. The net loss is still pretty close to -200 points.

[Ts_]

I'd also vote for a combination of Gadget Limitation (page B116) and maybe some Contact for the sword's spirit because it seems easier to model a sword like this.

However, an Ally should work as well with a bit of care. The problem of items as Allies has been discussed before, and one proposed solution is given here: http://www.mygurps.com/a_allies.html

Two points to take away from that (without the houserules to fix some of the point crooks from selling ST,DX,IQ):

a) Allies are NPCs. They are ultimately statted and controlled by the GM (but not always in practise). There is no reason for the GM to fill the -400 points of the Ally with "good stuff". Also, an Ally can and will get into trouble or be upset about the actions of the PC. That's what Allies do.

b) Any abilities an otherwise inactive Ally grants the PC, like shooting laser beams from a sword, are effectively abilities of the PC and therefore the PC has to pay for them! These are discounted with the "Granted by Ally -40%" limitation because they only work if the Ally is nearby. (Similar to a gadget limitation.)

Regards
Ts

[Kaun]

Thanks guys!

This is really helping me get my head around the build mechanic's.

Ts_ that article is awesome thank you!

So apparently ally abuse is a common thing .

[jindra34]

So apparently ally abuse is a common thing .

Yes it is. And it should be no wonder when at everything but the bottom point area you can spend just a fraction of your point total to get something that is always around and is more powerful than you could have been.

[Madara]

Yes it is. And it should be no wonder when at everything but the bottom point area you can spend just a fraction of your point total to get something that is always around and is more powerful than you could have been.

No kidding. Just make a ton of self-destructing creatures with 1hp and a ton of speed. They cost very little, but you use an advantage of your to duplicate them or something.

In fact, most GURPS advantages can be abused. Some moreso than others, Allies being at the top of the list.

[TalonDemonKing]

GURPS Thread? GURPS Thread!

Alright; so I was last here about a year ago, but I felt a disturbance in the force yadadada; so here I am. People asking about GURPS. People wanting to play GURPS. People struggling with GURPS. You want to like the system, but the system is crunchy. I am here to help!

I've GM'd many games for GURPS, Supers, Dungeon Fantasy, a bit of Sci-fi, modern day stuff -- And as with all GMing, it takes a bit of refinement before you can run the system properly. Gritty realism is the default setting for most of GURPS, but what I run is usually cinematic; think D&D or FATE. The best thing I can tell you about GMing a cinematic(D&D/FATE) GURPS game comes from a TV show many of you will be familiar with. Specifically:

Everything is made up, and the points do not matter

Players aside(More on this later), you should rarely, if ever, have a full character sheet for any NPC. There's simply no need to -- Character creation in GURPS is very, very detailed; part of the attraction to the system. That being said, that level of detail isn't needed for about 90% of encounters. When you make an encounter; you build top down, rather than bottom up. Specifically speaking, the entire encounter matters, rather than what the capability of a single piece. Personally, I've been dividing the enemies into relative power groups: Minions, Lietus, Champions, Bosses.

What is a Minion? Specifically speaking, a Minion is fodder. A body to fill a hex/square; something to get into the way, to buy time for stronger baddies, or to make players feel truly heroic(or evil!) by being able to stand up againt many foes. What does a minion look like, on paper?

The Minion

HP: Pfft
Other stats: Eh..
Relevant Weapon skill: 10
Damage: A mighty prick
Active Defenses: What are those?
Passive Defenses: Lacking
Other skills: 6

(Please note that I'm being specifically vague; as a 150pt realism detective game is far different than a 500pt save the world supers game)

What is this a character sheet of? Goblins, Orcs, Killer Robots, Stormtroopers, Mafia boys, Ninjas, Pirates, Bats, Bears, Wisps, Whatever! The flavor of the mook is what's appropriate: That they're plentiful; Dangerous as a horde, and fun to chew through for the players. What you're looking at is going to be the base template for the mooks out there. You can add interesting abilities to the mooks (Explodes on death with poisonous fumes for Fungi; Revives after a few rounds for Skeletons/Zombies, Maybe has a second weapon skill for basic soldiers like a sling or a crossbow).

How many points are these guys? Who knows. I sure don't. And neither do my players. Well what about the vague stats? They're vague for a reason. If I'm running a supers game; mooks with guns will deal about 1d+3 pi+ to 1d+6 pi+ because thats what my players will be able to handle, without being killed by them. In a Dungeon Fantasy game, it might be 1d+1 CR for zombies punching, or 1d+3 CUT for Orcs with Axes. The damage should be relative to your player's average defenses -- Tanky players will be able to take more or shrug off minion hits completely, while squishy players will actually find their damage threatening. What if my players use non-standard attacks, such as Intimidation or Seduction? Thats what these guys are for:

Lieutenant

HP: Respectable
Other stats: Respectable
Relevant Weapon skill: 14
Leadership: Respectable
Damage: Respectable
Active Defenses: 10
Passive Defenses: Respectable
Other skills: 10

You'll see that theres an extra stat in that block, compared to the minion: Leadership. Leadership doesn't have to be bonfied leadership -- It could be intimidation (Get back to fighting; maggots!) or religious (For the glory of the Goddess!); or whatever -- It's the skill that keeps the minions in check. If a player tries to reason with the mafia boys, intimidate the orcs, or hack the killer robots; this skill is what they're going up against. I wrote down 14; but as with anything, this needs to scale. Players should be challenged by the skill, but not be unsurmountable. The same with straight combat -- They should be able to take weak hits easily, dish out damage, but ultimately lose to the players. A Lieut and a handful of minions should be a challenge for any player, but remember that not all players are equal on the fields of combat. Lieuts+minions shouldn't be equal to players: For that, there are Champions.

Champions

HP: Soak
Other stats: Respectable
Relevant Weapon skill: 16+
Leadership: Strong
Damage: Strong
Active Defenses: 12
Passive Defenses: Respectable
Other skills: 12+

If you've ever played the Diablo series or any game like that, Champions would be the monsters that are 'MOLTEN ARCANE JAILER'. Seriously. GURPS is modular enough where you can just take any set of stats, and paste them onto any character, and it'll sort itself out. These 'Lens' (What would be Molten, Arcane, or Jailer in the above example) can be applied to anything; it's basically a self-contained set of related abilities. For this example, I'll use a bear; but I've done this with Mooks being injected with super serum; Solidiers recieving boons from their Gods; Oozes learning new abilities; etc etc.

A Bear, by itself, is about the strength of a Lieut. Not too strong, but it'll still maul a face off if not dealt with. So lets say this bear accidently swallows a magical artifact of the Lightning King. The players have to retrieve it, so we'll make this a challenging fight that the players should overcome, but can force a 'bad ending' (retreat, death, loss of artifact) if they take it lightly. Right now we're working with the concept 'BEAR', 'LIGHTNING', 'KING', and 'MAGICAL ARTIFACT.'

Bears are simple, I believe GURPS even gives a stat block for them. Bears have claws, so lets make use of the LIGHTNING aspect by giving them bonus lightning damage to their melee (Innate attack 2d Burn Melee Attack modifier(C), SURGE). Now their claws deal electrical damage. Lightning comes with Thunder, so we'll give him a Thunderous Roar (Affliction(Causes Deafness), Hearing based, HT-2). King, in an animal, makes me think something big, so we'll increase his size and strength (ST+5, SM+3). Finally, Magical Aritifact implies some sort magic, so we'll give him some Magic Resist (Magic Resist +3).

You've gone from Bear to LIGHTNING BEAR KING in a very easy step -- And the best part is that whenever you create a Lens, it's reusuable. Replace Bear with Sledgehammer Mook, and you got some sort of cracked out Mook with an electric Sledge hammer. Replace King and Lightning with 'Body of Stone' and you'll have an animated bear statue. If the Lens is weak enough, you can even apply these to Lieuts or Minions as a way to shake up the battle field.

Bosses

Actually stat this guy out.
HP: Soak-y
Other stats: Respectable
Relevant Weapon skill: 16+
Leadership: Outrageous
Damage: Deadly when doubled.
Active Defenses: 14+
Passive Defensess: Unsurmountable by minions.
Other skills: 14+

Bosses are the only characters you should be running full character sheets for. These are your act finishers, your campaign toppers, your Big Bads (Or maybe his second in command). This is Knight Atorias, this is Mecha-Hitler, this is that damn Lich who's Phalacerty you wear around your neck. This is the three-phase fight with falling terrain and a chase sequence. These guys you should fully stat out; but you shouldn't worry about the points. Go hog-wild. I believe my last boss topped out around 8000~ points, where the party totalled less than 1500. There isn't much to say here that has not already been said, but what's been stated assumes that this boss fights alone. If they're accompanied by their Champion, or any other pieces on the board, make sure you take that into account for the encounter.

Players

Players are the only exception to the rule. Their points do matter; as it's a way of balancing them between themselves. All players should have fun, as well as be effective in what they do, so You, as the GM, should be aware of that. Some players are Munchkins, so you'll have to stomp out anything they may try to put together (Innate attack at 53 points can wipe out eveything in the known universe). Allies, Contacts, Contact Groups, can be commonly abused, so be watchful of that. Also be wary of Snatcher; which can ruin a campaign with enough points into it. Players should have a good spread of skills, from combat viable to non-combat viable. If you need guidelines, look into Dungeon Fantasy 1 for some templates around 250pts that show a good 'character classes'. Modify as nessicary. Allies are good for Ranger/druid/wizard familiars, but limiting the power to 25% of the character's points is a good way to hamstring the advantage.

I'll also suggest scrapping some rules:

-FP Below 1/3rd should not reduce players dodge/move, as some players will use this as a resource.
-Malfunction. I really only use this in critical failures or weapons out of the characters mental grasp (Higher tech level, alien technology, highly magical).
-Dodge/Block/Parry. Blocking can be done more than once per turn, you can block/parry bullets with the right skill (Precognitive Parry). There are some fiddly rules with multiple dodge/block/parry per turn; I just use a -1 per attempt after the first until it's your turn; per active defense. This namely allows gunslingers and sword & sorcery to exist on the same playing field, which may or may not fit your campaign.
-Look into Cinematic rules. If players want to use them, allowing it as a perk doesn't hurt in most cases. Try to avoid bullet proof nudity unless you want your entire game to be full of exhibionists.
-Action points. Give players 5~ or so points to basically spend throughout the game, allowing them to make re-rolls or take extra turns. It really helps the heroism with being able to 'pull through' using those points.
-Merge rolls together -- No one wants to roll Quick-Draw Arrow, Bow skill, Spell Arrow, and Fireball every turn; this can all be accomplished by rolling under their *lowest* skill. GURPS Martial Arts has more on rolling multiple skills on one roll.

Finally; some quick notes about running Dungeon Fantasy in GURPS
-Players, when first introduced, will want to run a 'class' or something 'class like'. Use templates to get a large chunk of it down, but give them more points than the template costs, to allow them to personalize the character.
-Magic characters are pretty much strong using RAW; so there isn't much need here. Hybrid classes may find themselves a bit strained for points, so using advantages to replicate what they want in Magic can be cheaper.
-Melee types should be aware of things like Ruse, Beats, Counter-Attcks, Deceptive attacks, Acrobatic Dodge, All-out attack, All-out defense -- GURPS Martial Arts is an amazing book for this reason; as well as providing Techiniques that act as the Melee's 'Spells'
-Warlords(4eD&D) and Bards can be replicated using advantages, but it may be cheaper and prefered to use Techniques for their respective skills (Leadership/Musical Instrument).
-Enchantments, RAW, can be weak depending on how 'Epic' you're running the campaign. +1 or +2 damage is okay for 'common' enchantments, but a +1d burn is alot more appealing.
-Fast Draw, Heroic Archer, Gunslinger, and Spell Arrow/Bullet are useful for Arcane Archer/Arcane Gunslinger types, allowing at least one attack per turn and imbuing them with spells. No one wants to spend a turn reloading.
-Move and attack Technique buy-off. I cannot stress this enough. It's in the martial arts book, but it basically allows you to buy off the Move and Attack penalties so that you can freely move and maul people.

Thats about it -- If anyone wants to pick my brain or ask questions, I'll be reading!

[Manwhoisthisman]

So, there are things I love about GURPS, and things I don't get about GURPS. I love the flexibility in character creation and I love that generally there is effort in the game design to align common sense and mechanics. Unlike some games, with GURPS I've never had players arguing about the plausibility vs mechanics of dodging a multiple-cell-flame-sphere (fireball) without cover (though an RPG of any sort cannot be blamed for the type of people that play it).

Some things I have encountered are unwieldy however. GURPS doesn't do shrinking well. It scales damage by a fraction, which is quite frankly terrible (1/60 of 2d is awkward). I've gone through the trouble of house ruling up a table based on the same damage scaling ratios but applied to something that makes sense to scale -- basic lift, and derived ST from that. I've heard in 3e there is a GURPS Gulliver's Travels or some such that handles this, but I've not seen it.

There are also things that I'm periodically stumped about, like Lightning Calculator/Intuitive Mathematician. Ok, lets face it, math is rarely sexy in real life, it isn't getting much sexier in a world of fiction. But what is this 2 (or 5) pt advantage doing replacing an entire skill (several skills if specialization is used)? The page suggests nowhere that skill is required to solve these differential equations near instantly. Does this mean that the character forgoes the skill roll (it seems yes), or do they still roll and just get the result faster (get a wrong answer very quickly)? I can do that without and "advantage"! I just don't know, not that it has ever really been an issue.

[Dingle]

As far as I know, Lightning Calculator/Intuitive mathematician merely allow you to use your mathematics skills without the usual equipment requirements and possibly also in less time.

[Chemiisan]

As far as I know, Lightning Calculator/Intuitive mathematician merely allow you to use your mathematics skills without the usual equipment requirements and possibly also in less time.

A more technological campaign could find some good use for this. In terms of targeting, a player could make the argument that he gets a bonus to throwing with his robotic character- that is, robots should never miss if they are intuitive mathematicians and have a clear idea of what's going on.
Perhaps a better use would be the bonus to Gadgeteering it offers. In the Concept and Prototyping stages, a good Game Master would give several points bonus for the ability to skip math rolls, and time should be greatly reduced if used properly. Aside from robotic characters and gadgeteers, technofuture campaigns would definitely need space pilots to have this trait, as well as most player character handymen and engineers (the engineers are player characters for a reason; they rule at their jobs). Finally, it could be a justification for high levels of wealth. Being a master accountant for a multinational or an robotic age stock broker can make you quite the rich fellow.

[Chemiisan]

Sorry for the doublepost, but I need to make a thread-head note:

I'm going to be gathering links for new players to use, including the lite gurps edition and several links to books, combat, so on so forth. Here's what I'm asking for from you:

List 3 sourcebooks beyond the basic set that are a must-have for Game Masters. I'll give the top 5 a space in the books section.

If you have any links to free and or helpful GURPS supplements, like the GCS Character Sheet Generator, please tell me about that too. I want to ensure he list is thorough and that new GMs can find supplements quickly.

[jindra34]

3 beyond Basic Set. Outside of Powers and Martial Arts, not sure if any are really recommendable all the time. But at the least a setting book (Space, Supers, Fantasy etc.) is a good idea.

[Knaight]

A more technological campaign could find some good use for this. In terms of targeting, a player could make the argument that he gets a bonus to throwing with his robotic character- that is, robots should never miss if they are intuitive mathematicians and have a clear idea of what's going on.

I'd actually use artillery as an example of this - you've got the earth's gravitational field, which can't be treated as linear over the distance, the acceleration vector of the target over what isn't a flat plane, the effect of wind, and a known muzzle velocity. Figuring out the precise angle needed to fire and hit the target involved quite a bit of math, and under normal circumstances essentially needs to be done by a computer, as doing it by hand produces a result that is no longer useful once it is done. With Lightning Calculator though, the character can crunch the numbers, and make the shot.