Results 31 to 56 of 56
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2019-02-25, 11:45 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2014
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2019-02-26, 03:32 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2010
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- Australia
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Re: Would you think GURPS or M&M is better for a relaxed superhero-themed game?
It's a problem because it's a massive amount of number inflation for no apparent benefit. If you need to have an insane number of points to cover something in a point-buy game then it raises the question of why you're even bothering to give them points rather than just saying you have x abilities. You're trying to shove a system to do things it's obviously poor at (something it sounds like the developers of the game themselves didn't realize).
Why would you trying to shove a square peg in a round hole, rather than just using a round peg that doesn't require bending over backwards to accomplish x, unless the square peg is the only system you are familiar with?Spoiler: Old Avatar by Aruiushttp://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q56/Zeritho/Koboldbard.png
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2019-02-26, 08:00 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2016
Re: Would you think GURPS or M&M is better for a relaxed superhero-themed game?
It's a mistake to assume GURPS (4e) is a "ready-to-play" system. The GM is basically required to make templates for players so that such problems don't happen. A really experienced group could go free-form well, but the GM should still be paring down the skill list to something appropriate for their campaign.
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2019-02-26, 02:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2013
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Re: Would you think GURPS or M&M is better for a relaxed superhero-themed game?
That's exactly right. On top of a curated list of skills, which is absolutely necessary for any GURPS game, the GM could even specify a number of points that ought to go to attributes vs those allocated for skills, as well as suggesting reasonable maximums and minimums for attributes, and a range to shoot for on their intended "go-to" skills to give players a better guideline for building the characters. It's easy to avoid the problems of min-maxing with proper GM preparation- and GURPS is definitely a system that requires more prep and guidance from the GM than "here's how many points you get, and here's ten sourcebooks you can look through to pick your skills".
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2019-02-26, 02:03 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2012
Re: Would you think GURPS or M&M is better for a relaxed superhero-themed game?
The benefit is there, at lower point scales. I would guess 1 to 5 points is a common range for points gained as XP per session.
l also think the Gurps designers did realize that not all gamers benefit from picking every single point themselves, which is why there are templates, a small book devoted to the creation of templates, wild card skills, published alternative rules for Gurps without character points (!), and probably more.
And, just so you know, there is nothing wrong with saying "pick 3 abilities, don't bother to calculate points", in Gurps. (I guess that's the Gurps without points rule, in a nutshell, but I don't know.)
Best regards,
Ts
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2019-02-26, 06:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2013
Re: Would you think GURPS or M&M is better for a relaxed superhero-themed game?
I find this objection baffling. Conceptually, GURPS is a points-buy system intended to cover the broadest possible range of settings ('universal'). Consequently, one uses few points to build a character in the 'human normal' range and many points to build a character in the 'superhero' range.
Nothing about that is 'obviously poor' or 'round peg in a square hole'. Nothing about the number 1000 is inherently 'massive' or 'insane'. Is the notion of currency inherently flawed because a pack of gum costs $1 and an automobile costs $20,000?
Of course, if using numbers leaves you aghast, you may of course go ahead and pick abilities if you like and work out the costs afterwards. Or not work out the costs at all. That's well within the capabilities of the system and an approach some GMs use.
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2019-02-26, 07:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2010
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- Australia
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Re: Would you think GURPS or M&M is better for a relaxed superhero-themed game?
That is all (except for the without points) considerably larger amounts of effort to expend for a campaign that is for people who making unusual powers (so they likely wouldn't be covered by existing example templates) and are more causal new players.
I have no issue with "using numbers". It's more using a mass of $1 coins to buy a car worth $20,000 rather than handling it through digital currency or at the very least currency of higher denomination, that I find ridiculous.
And yes, I am aware GURPS tries to be a universal system and tries to cover as much as it possible can in high depth. The issue is that trying to account for near infinite different scales of power in a high crunch system means that while it is manageable and theoretically handle different things, the further you go from the numbers the game was designed to function most efficiently at and the more things end up being just big numbers because "oh wow, this is insanely strong compared to human scale stuff". When I look at my copy of GURPS 4e, it even talks about 200 points and above being considered "High Powered" when gms should really be taking note of several different issues that can easily arise from players being powerful in it's system.
GURPS is a system that can try to mimic nearly everything, and in a way, it "Can". Assuming you use the right areas of the rules. But even it knows that things can get more difficult to run without higher levels of care and planning when the system gets to a certain degree of power.Last edited by Milo v3; 2019-02-26 at 07:16 PM.
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2019-02-26, 07:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2013
Re: Would you think GURPS or M&M is better for a relaxed superhero-themed game?
Well, since points are conceptual rather than physical units of currency, they are effectively digital. Neither the GM or players are handling a suitcase full of poker chips representing points.
Superhumans are insanely strong compared to human scale stuff.
GURPS is more of a toolkit than a system, so yeah it requires GM management to develop a setting. Higher power settings do require more management. I think that's inherent in a point buy system because you're going to need to work harder at balancing things.
This is both true and different from your initial criticism.
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2019-02-27, 12:43 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2010
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- Australia
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Re: Would you think GURPS or M&M is better for a relaxed superhero-themed game?
Unless you have a different entity handling the point spending, then you're still managing it point-by-point.
Superhumans are insanely strong compared to human scale stuff.
GURPS is more of a toolkit than a system, so yeah it requires GM management to develop a setting. Higher power settings do require more management. I think that's inherent in a point buy system because you're going to need to work harder at balancing things.
This is both true and different from your initial criticism.Spoiler: Old Avatar by Aruiushttp://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q56/Zeritho/Koboldbard.png
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2019-02-27, 08:32 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2016
Re: Would you think GURPS or M&M is better for a relaxed superhero-themed game?
If you want Supers with smaller point buys, the Savage Worlds Superpowers companion at least delivers on that. 80 point buy characters could probably go toe-to-toe with any animated version of Superman.
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2019-02-27, 12:38 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2015
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2019-02-27, 12:53 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2016
Re: Would you think GURPS or M&M is better for a relaxed superhero-themed game?
Well, I can say it handles super strength better since the lift weights table in the SPC scale exponentially rather than linearly like in GURPS 4e (though you could combo increased strength with the increased lift capacity powers).
But I can also say with confidence that High supers is easier and faster to run than GURPS is for me (I am currently in a 55 point campaign in Savage Worlds).
That being said, it's not Savage Worlds at its most elegant. Point buy supers is almost a different game and can easily lead to irrelevant builds costing the same as much stronger builds (Super body stats hero vs a shapechanging duplicator with extra action) and GURPS puts more thought into certain powers like shapechange or duplication than Superpowers companion Savage Worlds. And some Savage Worlds fans would complain that the crunch gets heavier, which is true for any high power Savage Worlds campaign (more complicated combat is more complicated. Who knew?).
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2019-02-27, 02:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2015
Re: Would you think GURPS or M&M is better for a relaxed superhero-themed game?
Okay, I guess I was thinking more of the overall dice mechanics and the such. GURPS* does really well when success rolls are in the 8-14 range, and the bonuses and penalties are relatively constant and in the small numbers. In the case of exceedingly high-point campaigns (or something like modern rifle combat), it can bog down into a case of 'okay, so because you sunk 200 points into your gun skill, the base chance of success is 25 or lower on 3d6, so automatic success (barring crit. fail), but there's a -15 penalty for range, +12 bonus for your scopes, -10 for relative velocity, +8 for super-X, -7 for extreme-Y, oh, and it's raining, so...'
*experience from GURPS 3e, may be outdated
Point being, some of the numbers in games like that can get so high, that they have greater influence than the 3D6 bell curve, and then the game becomes kind of a different game than GURPS fantasy or cliffhanger, where getting your skill from 13- to 14- feels like a real game-changer. I was just wondering if that happened with SW.
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2019-02-27, 02:46 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2016
Re: Would you think GURPS or M&M is better for a relaxed superhero-themed game?
I had that happen in a SW Sci-fi/magic campaign where everyone had unlimited money/gear/magic items (fantasy companion). Yeah the average roll of the party was a d12+2 and my big bad was rolling a d12+6 for things he was bad at.
Superpowers does not get like that until point buys much higher than ours. But the downside to Superpowers is foes should have super powers as well. I was able to challenge the unlimited money party with "d12+2" extras (rather than the normal "d6" extras). This is a downside for Savage Worlds because normally a GM does not need to prep mook fights to have them feel dangerous and fun.
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2019-02-27, 05:42 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2013
Re: Would you think GURPS or M&M is better for a relaxed superhero-themed game?
Not really. Say you buy 100 DR, you don't go "OK that's 1 DR, that costs 5 points. Now I will have another 1 DR, that's another 5 points. Now another one, that's 5 points..." and so on. You buy 100 DR for 500 points and then move on. You stated your concern that you don't use larger increments but of course you do use larger increments because you buy more expensive items.
You have yet to demonstrate anything 'stupid' about the number 1000.
GURPS requires significant GM work to make a superhero game or indeed most games. This is a feature not a bug. It can certainly be used for the purpose though. It's not bad at doing it.
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2019-02-28, 11:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2010
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- Australia
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Re: Would you think GURPS or M&M is better for a relaxed superhero-themed game?
There are still going to be many things that are going to cost 1 point, or require modifying things to figureout how many points each part of the ability will cost because of being modified since the abilities that are likely in the game as described are weird unique powers that might not be innately covered by unmodified powers.
You have yet to demonstrate anything 'stupid' about the number 1000.
High numbers aren't innately bad. High numbers for no real benefit from aside from "can be used with the rest of the universal system so you can mix and match to build your own thing" on the other hand.... I'm iffy on.
GURPS requires significant GM work to make a superhero game or indeed most games. This is a feature not a bug. It can certainly be used for the purpose though. It's not bad at doing it.Last edited by Milo v3; 2019-02-28 at 11:54 PM.
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2019-03-01, 12:38 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2008
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Re: Would you think GURPS or M&M is better for a relaxed superhero-themed game?
With 1000 points, the number of choices you have to make during character creation is insane, and you will need to use a spreadsheet to reasonably track all of them. Even just in the "walking invincible chick" bucket, if you decide 500 points for DR is enough, you now need to calculate how much for stamina, HP, you want, plus what skills you want, and how much you want to invest in each.
Decisions get harder the more choices you have to make (analysis paralysis), the more points you have, the more decisions there is, and the greater the opertunity to **** things up is. Say you really don't want to deal with the spreadsheets to build a GURPS character and just dump all 1000 points into DR. You're character is now useless in every situation where DR isn't the only feature you need, such as every combat you want to defeat any enemy in. (And any options that can bypass DR become stupidly unfair).
It is, in fact, a bug.
The more the system demands of my time as a GM, the less value I'm getting out of the money I spent on the books. Why should I use GURPS, if I could get good results with M&M, Masks, or a Savage Worlds system that doesn't require me take the role of game designer? And if I'm willing to be a game designer, why should I spend my time adapting the attempting-to-be-ultra-realistic GURPS engine to fit a realism-is-actively-detrimental genre, like superheroes?I consider myself an author first, a GM second and a player third.
The three skill-sets are only tangentially related.
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2019-03-01, 12:45 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2013
Re: Would you think GURPS or M&M is better for a relaxed superhero-themed game?
Things can cost one point and abilities will need to be calculated. This is not a crazy idea in a point buy system.
No, it's a bigger number because a bigger point character gets more points.
You're saying the GM should make things balanced? Yep agree. That's how GURPS works.
Powerful characters in a points buy system that goes from zero to hero, will need a lot of points. This is a feature, not a bug.
No, it will work fine...if the GM does the work first. So, they will need to make a bunch of decisions about which rules to use, and which not to use. For this kind of thing, I'd narrow down to using as few a skill modifiers as possible and switch on some cinematic options. I'd decide on max damage/max DR to apply to the game.
Then I'd either make character templates (or pull them from a book) or discuss the characters with the PCs and do the work in building them. Then run through what they can do until everyone is happy.
There's stuff to do there. At the other end, the players can jump in and start doing stuff. There can be very low crunch requirement for them and zero maths.
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2019-03-01, 01:45 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2018
Re: Would you think GURPS or M&M is better for a relaxed superhero-themed game?
Mr. Beer...
I can make any character from My Hero Academia at PL 10 with 150pp in under an hour (hell, likely in under 10 minutes for most characters like Rock dude and Sugar rush guy) with Mutants and Masterminds that all play completely differently from one another and are fairly balanced with each other.
Can you honestly say the same for GURPS super? Can you honestly tell me you could Stat up All Might with a thousand points in under an hour? Mt. Lady? Eraser Head? Bakugou? Because I think I could stat up all four of them in the time it takes you to finish one.
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2019-03-01, 07:39 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2016
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2019-03-01, 12:54 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2014
Re: Would you think GURPS or M&M is better for a relaxed superhero-themed game?
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2019-03-01, 02:33 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2016
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2019-03-02, 03:19 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2013
Re: Would you think GURPS or M&M is better for a relaxed superhero-themed game?
You're tackling a claim that I never made. I don't know any of those characters so I can't say how long it would take to stat them out but sure, if you want to win that hypothetical contest, go ahead, it's yours.
To reiterate: you can definitely use GURPS to run a superhero game. You can definitely use GURPS to run a relaxed superhero game which is easy for the players. It will take time and effort for the GM though, which I've repeatedly said.
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2019-03-02, 04:44 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2018
Re: Would you think GURPS or M&M is better for a relaxed superhero-themed game?
No, no... I'm giving a metric for crunch vs. results - The amount of time and effort a GM to run a game with an example from the genre.
You could easily replace MHA with Avengers or Justice League and the end result is that M&M is just easier to construct characters with on the fly for super hero games. I don't need templates for Superman's Impervious Toughness, because there is already a power for Impervious Toughness. As for his weakness to Kryptonite and Magic, there is already a complication to hand just that.
I'm assuming that a GM running a relaxed, rules light, game would be more inclined to a system that is specifically designed to make the process easy.
Why fret over how much more powerful Goku is compared to a guy at the gym when they are never going to be faced against one another? If you and I both agree that Goku is X higher then a standard strong dude, why not simplify everything to working within that metric?
Or, as Milo was saying, why work with pennies when Hundred dollar bills are available.
The accounting of point buy is perfectly fine and acceptable at a normal GURPS level, but you are using the wrong system if you have to overload the point buy to properly maintain the narrative theme, not to mention that it becomes exceedingly easier and easier to break the game when you start throwing out Points like candy.
The GM is a player too, and asking the GM to put their heart and soul into, essentially, homebrewing a gaming system based off of GURPS when M&Ms is an option that does the job better and has balance as a core feature is a pretty hard sell to me.
I agree that GURPS has more minutia of detail, especially at lower levels, but this is directly antithetical to the goal of the thread. Less Crunch, more Beer and Pretzels, m'thinks.
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2019-03-02, 05:12 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2013
Re: Would you think GURPS or M&M is better for a relaxed superhero-themed game?
Sure, if you want to plug and play, GURPS isn't the right system. I'm just saying, it can in fact be used for the stated purpose, with the caveat that the GM is going to be doing some work. I'd use it myself for this, rather than buy and learn MM, but I enjoy tinkering with crunch.
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2019-03-03, 10:18 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2006
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- Protecting my Horde (yes, I mean that kind)
Re: Would you think GURPS or M&M is better for a relaxed superhero-themed game?
M&M is ultimately better for superheroes, in no small part because superheroes as a genre convention don't run on minutia of detail. Nobody cares exactly how much Superman can lift, only that it is enough to emulate the comics, the exact value isn't relevant per se. Much the same nobody is worried if Cyclops' optic blasts are more powerful than tank 88mm canon but less than a 120mm artillery gun.