Wizardry: Shining South Spells I

Wizardry: Shining South Spells I

It's been a while since I've converted any spells, so let's switch gears and do some spells from Shining South.

Arcane Sensitivity is a perk-level spellcaster detection spell.

Circlet of Enervation is basically the same as Enervation points-wise, but is more efficient in terms of FP usage. However, it balances that out by requiring an expensive focus and a rather rarely-used skill.

Coral Growth can be used to expand a piece of coral into a structure.

Daltim's Fiery Tentacles is a fiery variant of Evard's Black Tentacles.

Darsson's Chilling Chamber is similar to Cool, but has different range, duration, casting time, and area of effect shape. I think it is justified to be a separate spell.

Darsson's Fiery Furnace is the inverse of the previous spell.

Dispel Fog destroys natural and supernatural fog in an area.

Easy Trail is a spell appropriate to druids, clerics of nature deities, and wu jen. It allows moving unimpeded through undergrowth.

Mass Entropic Shield is a mass version of Entropic Shield.

Mass Jump is a mass version of Jump.

Fiery Vision is essentially a variant of Scorching Ray that uses a different skill to hit and requires no gestures.

Kyristan's Malevolent Tentacles is yet another variant of Evard's Black Tentacles.

GURPS as a BrOSR Toolbox: What Works, What Doesn’t, and Why I Haven’t Quit

 GURPS as a BrOSR Toolbox: What Works, What Doesn’t, and Why I Haven’t Quit

I've been running my BrOSR-style game for almost a month now, and the experience has prompted some introspection. Was GURPS the right choice? Why am I playing GURPS in the first place? What's missing? Why is GURPS like this? Eloquence isn't my forte, but I'll try to explain my thoughts.

GACKS AAR: Session 3

GACKS AAR: Session 3

Between session 2 and session 3, I recruited eight players to control the various factions in the game. I wrote up some order resolution and rumor-posting rules, such as GOSS and SEEN, and while diving headfirst into running this sort of game without proper preparation felt daunting, I think I'll be able to handle this. Let's see what happened in the world both faction- and PC-wise. I will avoid giving out any information that isn't public.

GACKS AAR: Session 2

GACKS AAR: Session 2

Between the sessions, I recruited a faction player to run the goblins. Certain events transpired that I will not elaborate much here to avoid revealing non-public information to the players. However, we had another session with the players, and it was a hilarious trainwreck.

Herb Gathering

Herb Gathering

One of my players wanted his character to use his Naturalist skill to find some valuable herbs to earn some money. This prompted me to investigate the rules and finding that there's no out-of-the-box solution to this somewhat simple request. As a temporary ruling, I ruled that this is similar to a job roll for the gatherer - this worked for that purpose, but what if the character wanted to find something more concrete? Let's see.

GACKS AAR: Session 1

GACKS AAR: Session 1

All right, now that the groundwork is all done, I began my in-person GURPS game that borrows a lot of ACKS procedures to see if GURPS can support a BrOSR-style game. It has been a long journey (that still isn't complete), and I've been very excited to give it all a try. I have five players whose only TTRPG experience is D&D 5e and one GURPS game that I ran for them to showcase the system. Despite this, they seem to have had zero problems understanding how 1:1 time works, and all the other BrOSR concepts as well. So, it's time to bring receipts!

BrOSR Game Preparations

BrOSR Game Preparations

I've been rambling about BrOSR for quite a while already, mostly about how such games could work in GURPS, and what is required to run one. At this point, between existing GURPS books, my own blogposts, and posts by the Addled Antillectual, there isn't that much left to do. Right now, I'm running a faction in a D&D 5e Braunstein game - the Shattered Skies (the sequel to Drakonheim) - and it's been a great experience. While I am enjoying the game, I'm also taking notes and studying the way Serious DM is running the game, because this is extremely important to me, as I'm planning to run something similar in the future, but on a lower scale (probably within 2 or 3 months from now). In the meantime, I found an in-person GURPS group in my backwater for whom I ran a short conventional game to familiarize the players with the system. And now we are preparing to play an in-person BrOSR-style GURPS game. This forced me to come down from the hypothetical scenarios that the system would need to cover and think about what I really need to at least start. Starting is the most important thing - I should be able to patch any holes as we go along. This is doubly important because aside from the aforementioned short conventional game I ran, I have no experience running GURPS in person. Thus, I decided to document my preparation process, because it might be helpful to others (yes, you) and to myself as well. It's very likely that I will get some things wrong, but I'll learn from my own mistakes.