Something odd came up while I was helping a player create their character, he asked “What trait do I use to represent knowing someone’s dirty laundry? You know, blackmailable secrets nadf stuff.” I admit the first thing I went to was Favor + Ally, Contact, Patron and Completely Unreliable or Unwilling. But that seemed a bit […]
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Gamemaster’s Guidepost: Plot Points, Expanded
One of the often overlooked things in GURPS Powers (and there are many) is a small box on p. 192 at the top right of the page titled “GM Bribery.” In it, it describes a new way to reward players called a “plot point,” which are basically like character points but can be used to […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Benchmarking Modifiers
Figuring out exactly what a given modifier should cost that’s not in the rules can be extremely trying for any GM – much less a new GM. Here’s a couple of tricks I’ve learned over the years as both a GM, a game designer, and a writer. ……. Picking Over the Bones When it comes […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Player Psychology
I like to think of myself as a student of human behavior. What makes people tick. Why they do what they do. That sort of thing. I learned early on to detect minute changes in the moods of others and its stuck with me my entire life. Besides being useful in a fight or when […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Designing Realistic Characters
So how do you design a “realistic” character? Well, let’s start off by defining what realistic means. Realistic characters are more than just a pile of stats or skills. They’re a living, breathing personas that a player can easily don for the gaming session. Getting there can be tricky because each player is going to […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Metagame Traits or Impulse Buys?
“It’s all in the reflexes!” Maybe, most likely on your character sheet it’s “all in Ridiculous Luck.” GURPS has quite a few “metagaming” character traits that allow you (the player) the ability to influence a character’s outcomes. Call it Player Agency, “being the star,” or whatever – having these traits allow you to change the narrative […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: I’m On the Hunt and After You…
I read about this over on +Douglas Cole‘s blog and it got me thinking: Over on Google+ and the RPG Stack Exchange, +Jeff Demers was asking for help on how to set up a encounter where the players were being hunted. I’ve done this scenario so much in my twenty odd years of GMing I can do it […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Split Power Levels
GURPS fosters a play environment where all player characters are created equal. Where everyone has a specific budget for their character and all is right with the world. But what about having player characters with different point totals? After all, not everyone is created equal in the “real world” – some of us start out […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Master of None
Jack of All Trades is one of my favorite GURPS Talents and is among my favorite character archetypes. The everyman, with every skill is, after all, an awesome motif. Partly inspired by this post, I got to thinking how I’ve used Jack of All Trades in my own campaigns and what characters (PC or NPC) […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Starting Point Totals, Part Deux
In my previous take on this subject, I talked about how you might measure a campaign’s starting point total and touched briefly on cinematic characters and how they don’t exactly match up with the Basic Set’s listed total allotments. Today, I’m going to do something unusual and probably will cause a bit of infighting: I’m […]
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