Divine Favor, Pulling Rank, Agency, and Investment

Divine Favor, Pulling Rank, Agency, and Investment

GURPS Powers: Divine Favor is something like proto-sorcery. Despite the "proto" part, it feels more like a magic system than a raw framework. The gist is basically the same - you have a "base" advantage, and your learned spells/prayers are taken as alternative abilities. The difference is not only in the flavor, the way spells/prayers are constructed, but most importantly in that base advantage.

Making Sense of the Great Wheel Cosmology

Making Sense of the Great Wheel Cosmology

I always loved the D&D Great Wheel cosmology, even though nowadays it makes “players” go “aaaaah, I have to keep more than two things in mind, my brain can’t handle it, help me, this is too complex!” I think what D&D 4e did with it was a criminal offense. The Great Wheel has a rich history, both in-universe and in a meta sense, because things changed a lot between editions, even if you pretend that 4e never existed. Karilan, my homebrew setting, uses the Great Wheel cosmology as well, but with all the aforementioned changes and inconsistencies, this doesn’t say much. In GURPS, the cosmological structure actually sometimes matters, as certain spells and abilities take penalties based on a “planar distance.” Thus, a post is required that will set everything in stone and fill the gaps with headcanon.

Snakes, Hexes, Reach, Height, Oh My!

Snakes, Hexes, Reach, Height, Oh My!

Oh, dear... There's something that's been bothering me for a long while - snakes. The way they work in GURPS just isn't intuitive and, to be honest, convoluted and poorly explained. More often than not, rules just don't make sense. Serpents of Legend and Combat Writ Large (Pyramid #3-77) made some things clearer, didn't explain other things, and raised new question. So, it's time to consolidate the rules and patch up the holes to the extent of my abilities.

Review: GURPS Thaumatology: Chinese Elemental Powers

Review: GURPS Thaumatology: Chinese Elemental Powers

In my opinion, “magic-as-powers” is the best way to represent supernatural powers in GURPS and also is the most GURPS way. GURPS Powers is an essential book that discusses this topic in great detail. Despite this, GURPS doesn’t have many worked examples for some reason. You only have two – GURPS Psionic Powers and GUPRS Thaumatology: Chinese Elemental Powers. I already made a video/post about why I do not even consider Sorcery a magic system, and much of the same applies to Divine Favor. There’s also GURPS Powers: Totems and Nature Spirits, but it feels… undercooked. It has some nice bits, but I consider it a very weak book overall. GURPS Thaumatology: Chinese Elemental Powers is a book that people rarely even mention, but it has been on my to-do list for quite a while. I was postponing it despite the requests I was getting because I was afraid I won’t be able to do it justice. So, let’s finally talk about it.

My Introduction to Tabletop RPGs

My Introduction to Tabletop RPGs

Today, I watched a video on Tenkar’s Tavern OSR channel where the host told a story about how he got introduced to the tabletop RPG hobby, and it made me think about my past – how I got introduced to the hobby, and how many people I introduced to the hobby. So, let’s reminisce!

Unique Racial Skills in GURPS

Unique Racial Skills in GURPS

GURPS is very customizable, and you probably know that. You can build almost any ability that you can imagine by using the framework of advantages and modifiers. However, there is a part of the system that GMs seem to be more reluctant to touch – the skills. The long skill list intimidates many players, but excites some of them, including yours truly. But even with such an exhaustive list, sometimes you find that something is missing. There are no guidelines for creating a new skill, and that’s understandable. I mean, how would you even write such a guideline? I guess you could turn a heavily limited advantage into a skill, but that wouldn’t always work. Aside from the commonly available skills, GURPS also has power skills that are tied to certain abilities. However, there is something that I’ve never seen mentioned – racial skills.

Wizardry: Frostburn Spells III

Wizardry: Frostburn Spells III

Conjure Ice Beast is a summoning spell that conjures an ice construct with some special abilities. I'll have to update/rework the actual lens, but the spell will not change.

Conjure Ice Object creates an object made of ice, but unlike Minor/Major Creation, it doesn't require a sample and is not limited to objects normally made of organic materials.

Control Temperature was split into Cool and Warm a la GURPS Magic. I already made these spells as druidic spells, so here we have the arcane versions.

Crack Ice shatters an area of ice, but does not affect ice creatures (unlike the original spell).

Crunchy Snow is complicated. There's one thing that GURPS lacks - irresistible afflictions, so such spells are very difficult to build. For example, take a look at Nightingale from GURPS Sorcery: Protection and Warning Spells - it's incredibly convoluted. If I were to build this spell are a variant of Nightingale, I'd end up with a spell that is very expensive, extremely situational, and that doesn't work like mundane crunchy snow. I can't use Control Snow, because snow is a solid, and hence I'd have weight-based limits. Control Sound with limitations is more valid, but ridiculously expensive, because "Sound" costs 20/level. However, if I say that "Snow Crunchiness" is a Rare category of "energy", then I get a spell that is much more affordable and consistent with the crunchy snow crunch from GURPS Tactical Shooting: Extreme Environments. Yes, the statblock looks scary and is six times longer than the spell's description, but the spell itself is quite simple.

In Defense of Fantasy Kitchen Sink Settings

In Defense of Fantasy Kitchen Sink Settings

GURPS is a very setting-dependent system. The setting and the game’s premise define what options are available to characters from the myriad provided by the books. This is why there is no generic “GURPS game” even though “generic” is in the name of the system, and this is also why it can be difficult to provide any character-building advice unless a lot of context is given. GURPS has many different published setting books with different levels of depth and detail – some have multiple books written about them, and some are merely paragraph-long elevator pitches in the midst of text. However, GURPS is a generic and universal system and hence can be used to play in any setting, be it something you came up with or something published for another system. GURPS Adaptations has a lot of good info on how to adapt other settings.

Weapon Breakage Variant Rules

Weapon Breakage Variant Rules

You probably know that the rules for weapon breakage in GURPS Basic Set (even with expansions from LTC2) aren't perfect. People complain about them a lot. Personally, even though I don't like some parts of them (for example, the fact that they work completely different from rules for Striking at Weapons), I always used them. Pyramid #3-87 has the Broken Blade article that makes the rules for weapon breakage much more involved. While I like that approach, it does require some extra homework (working out breakage thresholds for all the weapons) and extra rolls, which is something many people abhor. A friend approached me and said that his GM is buttmad about the Basic Set weapon breakage rules and that he'd like something like simplified Broken Blade. However, as we were fiddling with those rules, I had another idea - why don't we unify the rules and instead of using different damage rules for different objects we apply Damage to Shields (p. B484) to weapons?