One thing that I pretty much always do in all games I run is building player characters “to the concept” vs. “on a point budget.” As you can imagine, this threw some of my players in my Aeon campaign for a loop. Matter of fact, one player said: “Wait, you want me to build this […]
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GURPS101: Illusion-Casting
“Are you ever not going to fall for that?”— Loki, The Avengers (2012) The Illusion advantage (GURPS Powers, p. 94) is probably one of those things that should have been in the Basic Set, but wasn’t. Illusion as Pieces Parts:So what does Illusion do and how does it do it? This requires a Concentrate maneuver to […]
Continue readingGURPS101: Powers Negation and Mimicry
My small circle of Aeon players (well, it’s not really small anymore – there’s like 20 of them) have been providing lots for me to chew on recently. It has put me in a position where I have to really look at the rules for character traits when trying to create new superpowers. One thing […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Someone Always Has to be the Nazis
Over on Facebook there was a thread talking about being the bad guy and eventually someone chimed in “Someone Always Has to be the Nazis.” Think about that for a moment. Someone always has to be the Nazis. That’s…pretty damn profound if you think about it – at least for storytelling and game design. Let’s […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Decomplicating Combat
As it oft times happens to me, a conversation can inspire a whole blog post. In this case a conversation with +Kyle Norton is the huckleberry. He asked “How do you deal with something like someone with Extra Attack 2 and Altered Time Rate 4 or a necromancer with a horde of minions?” And it’s really a […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Playing With High Point Totals
Sigh. Ok. The following blog post is going to sound equal parts preachy, derisive, and ranty (the last is my favorite dwarf from Snow White – he looks like Lewis Black and is just as pissy). For that, I’m sorry. I’m pretty sure I’m going to manage to offend someone out there who believes that […]
Continue readingGURPS101: All-Seeing Eyes
The Clairsentience advantage is one of the most underused and overrated of the “information-gathering” traits GURPS has to offer. This is most likely due to it’s high cost (50 points) and low range (starting range is a mere 10 yards). Clairsentience as Pieces Parts”So what does Clairsentience do and how does it do it? Requires you Concentrate for one […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Optional Rules for Terminally Ill
In GURPS there’s a disadvantage for seemingly everything. Are you nuts? Take a Delusion! Do you take damage when exposed to green rocks from space? Take Weakness! And so on and so on, GURPS is modular enough that you can represent just about any sort of negative (or positive!) trait with a little ingenuity, even inevitable death. […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Super-ST Options
One thing that has come up in my Aeon campaign is Super-ST and how it does what it does. One of my (few) house rules is that Costs Fatigue is worth more – I just use PK’s version because it works better. But the discussion of why Super-ST should be discounted more because of that houserule […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: The Adversary
One of the things that shocked me the most when I was talking perspective players for Aeon was the completely lack of knowledge regarding using the rules for having a Adversary (see p. B493). Mind you, it’s only a couple of paragraphs, but when I first read GURPS 4th edition this was a eye-opening passage. The thought that […]
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