GURPS BrOSR Progress Update

GURPS BrOSR Progress Update

You may know that my current project is to make GURPS compatible with the BrOSR playstyle. It may seem like a fool’s errand to some, but it isn’t to me. I haven’t posted anything in a relatively long while, mostly due to life getting busy, but that doesn’t mean that I’ve been idling on this front. I’d like to tell you about what’s been done and what still needs to be done. So, here’s my progress report.

Review: Brozer - Island of War and Winter

Review: Brozer - Island of War and Winter

In the online TTRPG discussion circles, you may hear the term “Braunstein” being thrown around. You may have heard that Braunstein was the precursor to D&D and tabletop RPGs in general, and that Blackmoor was first labeled “a fantasy Braunstein.” However, it’s much more difficult to understand what it is and how to run one. At least, it was until last year there was a very important release – Brozer: Island of War and Winter. I believe that it deserves much more publicity than it did, so I’d like to give you a quick rundown and review. For the most part, my ramblings are pointless because Brozer is free, and you can simply download it and read it yourself.

Food and Supplies in GURPS and ACKS

Food and Supplies in GURPS and ACKS

Before a party of adventurers sets out to clear out a wilderness area or dungeon, they have to buy enough supplies for the trip. The same thing is required when an army marches to war, but on a larger scale. How much do supplies cost in GURPS? This is actually a surprisingly difficult question despite resource management being such an important part of the game. I’m doing this topic for two reasons. First, I ran into this when calculating ACKS Battle Ratings for GURPS creatures, so it needs to be settled. Second, in my current game, one of the player characters is a food mage, and the question of supplies has arisen multiple times.

"GM, I don't know what to spend money on"

"GM, I don't know what to spend money on"

“I don’t know what to spend money on.” How many times have you heard this complaint from players? How many times have you seen GMs asking for advice on how to deprive the player characters from money? How many times have you seen the game devolve into the characters scrounging for copper coins just because otherwise they would have no motivation to adventure, because once they get rich and have nothing to spend money on, there is no reason for them to go out into the wilds? I’ve seen plenty of that and, to be honest, I’m guilty of some of that too.

Is Sorcery even a system?

Is Sorcery even a system?

In the comments, I've been asked why I dislike Sorcery despite having written hundreds of spells for it, and it made me realize that I forgot to post a transcript of one of my videos here on this topic. Here's my rant about why I think Sorcery isn't a system and isn't good, and I don't even talk about people ignoring or misunderstanding rules and then blaming Sorcery for it - this is not my problem, but their problem.

Combat Scaling and Abstraction

Combat Scaling and Abstraction

Back in the day, I made a video about why I love crunchy tabletop RPG systems, where I explained why I enjoy such intricacies as weapon composition, partial armor coverage, optional hit locations, one-second turns, and other game mechanical intricacies that make GURPS so fun for me. However, I do understand that, in certain ways, granularity can limit you and sometimes even produce quite strange results that do not make much sense.

Morale Rules in GURPS

Morale Rules in GURPS

As I’ve been on an AD&D and ACKS binge lately, I noticed some mechanics that rarely are present in the more modern systems. Well, ACKS is modern, but you get my point. One of such mechanics is morale. Not long ago, I wrote a post about Fright Checks where I actually managed to miss something important from DFRPG, and fear is somewhat related to morale. Generally speaking, one of the complaints about combat being too long in any system is that many GMs seem to insist that all fights must be fights to the death, and that NPCs or monsters never flee or surrender. PCs never fleeing also is a thing. Thus, I would like to explore the morale rules in GURPS.

Rule Zero, RAW, and GURPS

Rule Zero, RAW, and GURPS

In the past couple of weeks, the online RPG discussion was focused on a contentious topic – Rule Zero and playing RAW. Walls of text were written, videos recorded, feelings hurt, etc. Even Rob Kuntz got involved. From observing it all, I found out that people have very strong opinions about Rule Zero and playing RAW, that many people are incapable of logic reasoning, and that there is a lot of dishonesty and arguing in bad faith. However, the discussion was mostly in the context of D&D, and when it comes to GURPS, things works slightly differently. That’s why I’d like to explore the gamemastering chapter of GURPS Basic Set and some other GURPS books to show you what the books say on this topic, and, of course, provide my own opinion.

Dungeon Exploration Turns

Dungeon Exploration Turns

In my effort to bring various rules and procedures from ACKS and AD&D over to GURPS, I reached the dungeon exploration procedure. However, it hinges on two other sets of rules that are barely present in GURPS - encounter distance and dungeon exploration rate. How fast do you move in a dungeon? And why is this important?

In GURPS, a typical human has Move 5, which means that he can move 5 yards per second. This is not his maximum speed, however, as sprinting would allow him to move 6 yards per second. Now, do you walk at the highest speed possible without breaking into a run? There are people who actually do, but most people walk much more slowly (sometimes too slowly, especially in hallways, stairwells, or other narrow passages). Your Basic Move is your running speed as per p. B17 and p. B354. Per p. B354, paced running is half your sprinting speed. For a regular human described above, this is 3 yards per second. Even paced running drains your FP, so your normal movment rate is probably below that.

The hiking rules (p. B351) are generally considered way too optimistic, and it is preferred to use the rules from GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 16: Wilderness Adventures. These say that under ideal circumstances, your hiking speed is your Move / 4. For a regular human, this is about 1.25 yards per second. If we google real world walking speed values, we'll see that the norm is about 1.42 meters per second or 1.55 yards per second, which is pretty close.

So, where am I even going with this? When the player characters are exploring a dungeon, they are usually running around at maximum Move without running out of FP. As a result, when they leave the dungeon, you may realize that only a few in-game minutes have passed. This is quite similar to a conventional D&D adventure that takes 3-4 in-game days and sees the characters advance from level 1 to level 7 in that timeframe. You'd think that GURPS Dungeon Fantasy or Dungeon Fantasy RPG would have more information about movement rates in the dungeon, but they don't (or I'm blind). This is doubly funny considering that they do talk about one of the character being a mapper. Imagine drawing a map while running.

However, there is the Tactical Looting article from Pyramid #4-1. It says that if you're actively searching for traps and concealed or secret doors, you move at Move 1. If you're passively searching for all of the above (your rolls are at -2), you move at Move 2. Paced running is impossible in a dungeon, but normal running is. To maintain group cohesion, running is done at the sprinting rate of the slowest member, and every 15 seconds you must roll against HT or Running to avoid losing 1 FP. You still can spot traps while running, but at -5.

In AD&D, dungeon exploration uses 10-minute turns and 1-minute rounds, with movement rate being 5 times greater than usual when following a known route or map, or 10 times greater when the party is fleeing from a danger. I'll be honest - the first time I was introduced to the concept of a "dungeon exploration turn" was the playtest of D&D 5e, back then known as D&D Next. I read that and thought that it's a great idea, but in the final version, it got dumbed down and reduced to a single sentence saying that in a dungeon environment movement happens on a scale of minutes. It was exactly the same in D&D 3.0/3.5 - the 1-minute movement was mentioned but nothing else.

So, why am I still going on about this inconsequential thing? Because, in my opinion, it isn't inconsequential. Using set time intervals, such as 10-minute turns and 1-minute rounds, makes timekeeping much easier, and keeping strict time records is important. For example, a torch burns for one hour, but do you really count the number of seconds your combat took and subtract it from every torch? Most buff spells and potions last either 3 minutes or 30 minutes. More often than not, it means that timekeeping is a chore and most GMs just handwave durations of spells and light sources, making them meaningless and/or arbitrary, and that takes away from one of the most important aspects of dungeon delving - resource management. How can you manage your resources if their expenditure is arbitrary?

Would introducing dungeon turns and rounds solve this? For example, ACKS II also uses 10-minute turns and 1-minute rounds for dungeon exploration. Most dungeon activities can be done either hastily in a single round or methodically in a single turn. This made me realize that GURPS supports this too. Everybody knows the Time Spent modifiers from p. B346. The only problem is that taking 8x the usual time gives a +3 bonus and the next step is taking 15x the usual time for a +4 bonus. This doesn't mesh well with transforming a one-minute action into a ten-minute action, but you can just round it up and say that taking 10x the usual time gives you a +3 bonus. Thus, instead of different activities taking different amounts of time, you can devise how big of a bonus or penalty a roll should have if performed in one minute or ten minutes. This would make the system less discrete, but in this situation it's for the best, in my opinion.

You can also see that this turn structure also would dovetail nicely with existing durations. Torches burn for 1 hour, and that's 6 turns. Most spells last for 3 minutes or 30 minutes - and that's 3 rounds or 3 turns. Lockpicking takes 1 minute without a penalty or at +3 if you take 10 minutes. Each turn of rest lets you recover 1 FP. Random encounter checks are done once every X turns. When the combat ends, you just round it up to a minute. Doesn't it all just make sense now? In other words, you have to start thinking not "how long does this activity take?" but "how much of this activity can be performed in 1 or 10 minutes?" Honestly, it feels like I'm reinventing the wheel and that this should've been the standard that for some reason isn't followed nowadays. Maybe I'm missing something - a couple of important but not obvious moments, or a couple of braincells. I'll have to try it out.

Fear in GURPS

Fear in GURPS

Adventurers often encounter things and situations that would terrify a regular person. The rules for fear in GURPS are quite interesting, but at the same time questionable. I would like to discuss this topic in more detail to make sure I understand everything correctly.

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.

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.

Random Encounters in GURPS

Random Encounters in GURPS

You all certainly are familiar with the random encounter tables. These could be wandering monsters in the dungeon, or random wilderness encounters. Do we have such tables and rules in GURPS? We actually do, but they are pretty well hidden.

An Ode to GURPS

An Ode to GURPS

I’ve been quite negative towards some of the recent GURPS releases, so let me talk about something positive – why I love GURPS.

GURPS-ACKS Conversions: Why?

GURPS-ACKS Conversions: Why?

You probably noticed that lately I’ve been interested in ACKS – Adventurer, Conqueror, King System, and that I’ve even written some conversion notes. I have been asked a question – why am I doing this? Here, I’d like to give an extended answer.

Building in GURPS

Building in GURPS

As you all know, in order to be a man, one has to plant a tree, build a house, and father a son. GURPS doesn’t seem to have rules for fathering sons or planting trees, but it does have rules for building houses. And why stop at building a house, when you can build a wall around it, then turn your house into a keep, and then add a barbican and guard towers? This topic yet again is inspired by ACKS II domain management rules that require a domain ruler to have a stronghold of a sufficient cost to be respected by those who live in his domain.

Life's Price Tag in GURPS

Life's Price Tag in GURPS

In my pursuit of a perfect monster statblock, I found something that isn’t covered that much detail in GURPS – the price of a creature. The animal section of GURPS Basic Set has prices for some of the more common domestic animals and guidelines for adjusting them for training and exceptional stats. The same book later has rough guidelines for pricing slaves. However, this is not enough for me, as I’d like to delve into the minute details. I just want to find a way to calculate a price for a captured monster.

What would a perfect monster statblock look like?

What would a perfect monster statblock look like?

I’ve done a lot of work writing up monsters for GURPS, be they D&D conversions or something else. Because of that, I got to see many types of monster descriptions and statblocks from different systems and editions. Many times, I could not find some piece of information either on the statblock or in the description, and I had to consult other sources. This made me think – “What would be the perfect monster statblock?”

Differences Between DFRPG and GURPS

Differences Between DFRPG and GURPS

            In this post, I will go over Dungeon Fantasy RPG: Adventurers and Dungeon Fantasy RPG: Exploits and compare them with GURPS Basic Set. I will ignore DF-specific new rules and focus on differences between the books. I will also ignore templates and focus on the rules only. Some of these changes can be easily backported to GURPS and used as errata.

I was wrong about darkness penalties in GURPS

I was wrong about darkness penalties in GURPS

Not long ago, I delved into the rules that dealt with invisibility, darkness, and illumination in GURPS. Also, a few days ago we had a new book released – GURPS Tactical Shooting: Extreme Conditions. Inside that book, I found a single line that made me realize something – I’ve been wrong all along! The said line is the following: “Once the target is spotted, the maximum penalty is ‑4 (per p. B394), as the shooter knows the position of that foe within one yard.” Now let me explain why this is very important!