Occupational Template: Psychic Warrior

Occupational Template: Psychic Warrior

Another 150-point occupational template based on the eponymous D&D class. Something between the fighter, psion, and a little bit of the monk.

D&D Third-Party Material and GURPS

D&D Third-Party Material and GURPS

You probably know that D&D 3.0 came out with the OGL license that allowed third-party publishers to publish books for it, and the same thing happened with D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder (and D&D 5e too, I think, but I'm not really sure, I'm not intimately familiar with that iteration). Some see it as a boon, some see it as a bane. I have a large collection of various 3pp books for D&D and Pathfinder, and it's probably no surprise to anyone, but I've almost never used them. Why? Because most of it is absolute garbage in the mechanical sense - it was either underpowered, overpowered, broken, or simply unneccessary due to the system's specifics. However, some of the concepts I've found in those books are fascinating. Some introduce something new to the game, some expand certain niches or bring interesting details into the world that make it feel much more special and alive. At least when it comes to D&D, because I noticed a sharp decline in quality of 3pp material once Pathfinder came out. There's much more 3pp Pathfinder stuff, but it's so, so much worse (with some rare gems, of course). Oftentimes I open a pdf and become puzzled with the fact that people have had the audacity to sell that.

What's so great about GURPS is that you can take any of those fascinating concepts and adapt it to GURPS, preserving the flavor and expanding your game world, and it will make sense mechanically too. For example, if I were playing D&D and opened The Quintessential Druid by Mongoose Publishing, I'd groan and say that I would never integrate that into the game. Now, I open it and see so much potential! The entire Quintessential Series of books is a treasure trove of things to enrich your GURPS experience. The same publisher has other books series, such as the Encyclopaedia Arcane/Divine/Psionica. Then there's other big publishers, such as Green Ronin, Sword & Sorcery, Dreamscarred Press, and many smaller ones. You have so much material on your hands! This is something I love about GURPS - you're not limited to just GURPS books, you can use anything.

Occupational Template: Psion

Occupational Template: Psion

It's been a while. Here's a 150-point template based on the mentalist from GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 14: Psi but reworked to incorporate non-dungeoneering traits and other new stuff, including new disadvantages from GURPS Psis.

Code of Honor in D&D-style games

Code of Honor in D&D-style games

Code of Honor is an interesting disadvantage group as it more or less allows you to have a disadvantage that basically is a combination of quirks and/or limited aspects of other disadvantages. The other thing that is great about the Code of Honor is that it is a self-imposed mental disadvantage, and hence can be used for the Pact limitation. The complete list of all the published variants can be found in this forum post. In this post, I'd like to list and discuss some of them that are appropriate for D&D-style fantasy games and, maybe, add some new ones.

Monsters: Might and Magic Beholders

Monsters: Might and Magic Beholders

What I like about GURPS is that now I can not only grab D&D monsters, but also adapt monsters from other sources (of course, you can do that in D&D too, but it's much more difficult). So, let's convert beholders from Might and Magic VII. Those come in three varieties - floating eyes, gazers, and evil eyes. They differ from the D&D beholders in that they have electrical tentacles and different eye ray effects. They also look like brains, do not have anti-magic cones, and have fewer eyes. I also decided to make their movement different - their flight is powered by magic but has limited ceiling. In no-mana areas, they can slowly pull their bodies along the ground with their tentacles. And you know, I can see them as an offshoot of the D&D beholder race, coexisting with them in the same setting.

Monsters: Dungeon Magazine Demons

Monsters: Dungeon Magazine Demons

Browsing through the various Dungeon Magazine issues, I managed to find five demons that have not been printed in any other books. So, let's convert them for completionism's sake. Now I have converted all the 3.5 demo- ah, dammit, I forgot Dragonlance Campaign Setting and the demon lord aspects.

My experience with sci-fi games in GURPS

My experience with sci-fi games in GURPS

Another rambly rant post! In this one, I will analyze why so few of my sci-fi games have been successful, and why so many of them fell apart very quickly. This is going to be yet another "stream of consciousness" post, as there's no plan - I will just write what I think. I just hope that this self-reflection will help me get better, and it might be helpful to you too.

"How to be a GURPS Player?" or a guide on getting started

"How to be a GURPS Player?" or a guide on getting started

I realized not long ago that GURPS is not unapproachable or unfriendly towards new players contrary to what many people think (personally, I believe that it never was like that). There's enough guides, official or fanmade, for what books you need for certain games and what rules you need or do not need for others. There is a possibility that everything seems obvious to me because I have a lot of experience with GURPS, so I will try to consolidate all my thoughts and try to explain to a hypothetical newbie how to approach GURPS. I'll try to get into the newbie mindset (that's going to be an exercise in roleplaying) and provide guidelines or links for any problems I will encounter along the way. After all, we have the How to be a GURPS GM book, but no How to be a GURPS Player.