paradoxGentleman posted:When you say "optimized characters" and "rewards abuse of the system" do you mean stuff like "combat character takes social disadvantages because they are never going to matter to him"? That's a pretty basic example, but it works. One issue, though, is that the advice given is too vague to really be helpful. Not giving points for disadvantages that are not a problem in some way is all well and good, but how often does it have to come up to be a problem? It also doesn't address the real issue, which is that you are rewarded more for taking disads that apply as rarely as possible than for taking ones that apply regularly. It just shifts the boundary up to "ask your GM", which is not a reasonable thing to put on a novice GM. This also ignores things like "Cannot Use Time Machines" which I'm sure exist in at least one time travel splatbook, but which are effectively useless.
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Apr 4, 2015 17:45
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Captain Walker posted:It's partly my players, and mostly me. I'm frustrated that I bought all these 13th Age splatbooks I will never use. That came across in my post, it doesn't come across like that when I, y'know, talk to these people who are my friends. Sounds like you should talk to your group about what is and isn't fun for everyone 
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Apr 4, 2015 17:46
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paradoxGentleman posted:When you say "optimized characters" and "rewards abuse of the system" do you mean stuff like "combat character takes social disadvantages because they are never going to matter to him"? This guy understands gurps.
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Apr 4, 2015 17:46
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Captain Walker posted:It's partly my players, and mostly me. I'm frustrated that I bought all these 13th Age splatbooks I will never use. That came across in my post, it doesn't come across like that when I, y'know, talk to these people who are my friends. Dude I'm also the forever-GM with idiot players and the secret is that if you don't want to run a thing anymore you just go "well that was great, who's running something next week" and if nobody steps up then you play Mario Kart or something.
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Apr 4, 2015 17:47
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Captain Foo posted:Sounds like you should talk to your group about what is and isn't fun for everyone "I dunno what do you want to do? Oh, actually I kinda don't want to do that, I don't know what I want but most def not that." Lynx Winters posted:Dude I'm also the forever-GM with idiot players and the secret is that if you don't want to run a thing anymore you just go "well that was great, who's running something next week" and if nobody steps up then you play Mario Kart or something. I'll give Fallout Apocalypse World a go, and if/when that fails, no more GMing for me. it's me I'm the lovely useless chat thread traffic
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Apr 4, 2015 17:51
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Captain Walker posted:"I dunno what do you want to do? Oh, actually I kinda don't want to do that, I don't know what I want but most def not that." Suggestion: play Fiasco once, or take a break where you all do boardgames or something. Let yourself relax a little bit.
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Apr 4, 2015 17:53
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Captain Walker posted:"I dunno what do you want to do? Oh, actually I kinda don't want to do that, I don't know what I want but most def not that." It's hard to game with people you don't have normal social relationships with.
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Apr 4, 2015 17:54
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Captain Walker posted:
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Apr 4, 2015 17:55
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Effectronica posted:That's a pretty basic example, but it works. One issue, though, is that the advice given is too vague to really be helpful. Not giving points for disadvantages that are not a problem in some way is all well and good, but how often does it have to come up to be a problem? It also doesn't address the real issue, which is that you are rewarded more for taking disads that apply as rarely as possible than for taking ones that apply regularly. It just shifts the boundary up to "ask your GM", which is not a reasonable thing to put on a novice GM. This also ignores things like "Cannot Use Time Machines" which I'm sure exist in at least one time travel splatbook, but which are effectively useless. I think it could have better been phrased as 'disadvantages that will never meaningfully impact your character unless the GM specifically designs a situation for it to come up' instead of the vague 'never matter'. Basically a colorblind character probably will have the issue come up once or twice in some specific GM tailored 'the doors are red and green and only one of these doors leads out and the other leads to a trap' poo poo but if that's the only way the character would have to overcome his disability then he's obviously never going to actually be effected by it in 99% of the rest of the game. Plus it deals with the Time Machine problem too, yea no poo poo Og the caveman can't use a time machine, literally no one can in this world, Og will never have to unless the GM specifically says 'and suddenly there's a time machine buried in the ice! WHAT NOW OG?!'
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Apr 4, 2015 18:58
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Sion posted:Yeah, I'd say it was a crippling phobia by Indiana Jones standards. The rad, awesome swashbuckler brought low by invertebrates? SNAKES ARE VERTEBRATES
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Apr 4, 2015 19:14
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Snakes do not skate street. Halfpipes only.
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Apr 4, 2015 19:27
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Effectronica posted:That's a pretty basic example, but it works. One issue, though, is that the advice given is too vague to really be helpful. Not giving points for disadvantages that are not a problem in some way is all well and good, but how often does it have to come up to be a problem? It also doesn't address the real issue, which is that you are rewarded more for taking disads that apply as rarely as possible than for taking ones that apply regularly. It just shifts the boundary up to "ask your GM", which is not a reasonable thing to put on a novice GM. This also ignores things like "Cannot Use Time Machines" which I'm sure exist in at least one time travel splatbook, but which are effectively useless. Yeah, GURPS isn't particularly friendly to new GMs. It's a Toolbox Game, though. Part of the Game Master's responsibility is to pick and choose which rules and components, including advantages and disadvantages, to use. If you're doing a low fantasy Western, you shouldn't allow the players to take Innate Attack and firebomb everyone. That's how GURPS and other "universal" systems work. They include rules and doohickeys that probably won't work in every setting. No GM should be letting a character take Accounting unless they're in a setting where that'd be useful, and quite frankly, Falconry won't have much applications in the vast majority of games. Same with disadvantages. If colorblindness isn't going to disadvantage the player, it is a quirk at best. I can understand your critique in the context that the GURPS Basic Set doesn't make that part explicitly clear, and I can understand how GURPS's handling of disadvantages can encourage a type of play you don't enjoy. None of that means GURPS is a bad system. Also, Cannot Use Time Machines is a perfectly valid disadvantage when you're trying to escape time cops and have to rely on the natural rhythms of rifts. Of course, you might be one of those time cops, and you might be hunting down every last time criminal because you're Unique and don't want to be erased from existence.
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Apr 4, 2015 19:40
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Captain Foo posted:You're the worst poster here. He said, with no irony whatsoever.
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Apr 4, 2015 19:44
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Lord Frisk posted:He said, with no irony whatsoever.
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Apr 4, 2015 19:45
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Today this thread has taught me that there are people in the world who think snakes are invertebrates.
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Apr 4, 2015 19:50
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Nuns with Guns posted:Today this thread has taught me that there are people in the world who think snakes are invertebrates.
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Apr 4, 2015 20:00
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FactsAreUseless posted:Of course they're invertebrates, snakes don't have legs. You're an invertebrate. Because you're a starfish.
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Apr 4, 2015 20:08
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GrizzlyCow posted:Yeah, GURPS isn't particularly friendly to new GMs. It's a Toolbox Game, though. Part of the Game Master's responsibility is to pick and choose which rules and components, including advantages and disadvantages, to use. If you're doing a low fantasy Western, you shouldn't allow the players to take Innate Attack and firebomb everyone. That's how GURPS and other "universal" systems work. They include rules and doohickeys that probably won't work in every setting. No GM should be letting a character take Accounting unless they're in a setting where that'd be useful, and quite frankly, Falconry won't have much applications in the vast majority of games. Same with disadvantages. If colorblindness isn't going to disadvantage the player, it is a quirk at best. These issues aren't just a GURPS thing. L5R suffers from it too. It's not because of it being a "toolkit" or a universal system. They will replicate because of how you get a one-time benefit but a continuing penalty from taking disads, and how they give increased mechanical power for something that has varying mechanical weight.
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Apr 4, 2015 20:15
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Nuns with Guns posted:You're an invertebrate.
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Apr 4, 2015 20:15
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Lord Frisk posted:He said, with no irony whatsoever. Why would I be ironic about that?
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Apr 4, 2015 20:17
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You know, now I'm wondering if I started up a game whether I would even get any applications.
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Apr 4, 2015 23:22
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Weirdly, in the system that started this whole discussion about disads, they're a hybrid of both systems: You get a one-time benefit for them, and the 'strictly roleplaying' Savage Worlds hindrances like "Loyal" or "Hero" can get you bennies when you actually play them and they cause you trouble. The number of hindrances you can have is also sharply limited to one major and two minor, and don't give you that many points to purchase other stuff with. Taking all 3 gets you two stat bumps or 2 edges, or 2000 extra starting cash, or some combination thereof, so it's not really as abuse-prone as a lot of other systems, but it's also kind of a best/worst of both worlds.
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Apr 4, 2015 23:24
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Kwyndig posted:You know, now I'm wondering if I started up a game whether I would even get any applications. You might, but would your applicants get a game?
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Apr 4, 2015 23:43
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Kwyndig posted:You know, now I'm wondering if I started up a game whether I would even get any applications. You would but after 3 months and only two pages of posts on the PBP game thread you would say "gently caress it" and peter out.
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Apr 4, 2015 23:44
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Effectronica posted:It rewards players for abusing it. It makes optimized characters more likely to be dysfunctional in actual play. There are a number of disadvantages that exist, essentially, solely to be used for NPCs because NPCs are supposed to be built like PCs. The solution for these problems is "Ask your GM". I think this is a dumb fight but I would point out that if 'optimised' characters are dysfunctional in play, they're not actually optimal. New GURPS players often layer on disadvantages, but you really pay for the extra points you get in terms of how they cut into a character's game effectiveness when you take too many. Experienced players who want to make optimal characters usually stick to one or two small disadvantages. There's not so much overwhelming power in having Broadsword 18 and ST 17 if you enter a state of near-total depression every morning and are often compelled to stop fighting your enemies when they ask you to. It's in practise very difficult to abuse the Disadvantages system for increased game power unless you just ignore the rules. Most disads come with serious mechanical downsides that are set in stone by the system: alleviating their downsides, as you do by adding modifiers or improving your self-control roll, costs points. It's totally possible to make a lopsided chimera of a character by accident with GURPS, but that's a consequence of it being an open-ended toolset that is designed to accommodate anything. The weird, edge case disadvantages aren't designed to be used exclusively by NPCs: they're also designed to be taken by PCs in the rare case that they fill a need. I'm not so much of a fan of the system any more, but I think this point just doesn't hold. e: As for "disadvantages that never mechanically disadvantage you", those are called quirks and give you 1 point per. You can take up to five. Android Blues fucked around with this message at 01:02 on Apr 5, 2015 |
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Apr 5, 2015 00:59
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Lot of people posting GURPS love in here. Not sure if late april fools, or unironic.
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Apr 5, 2015 01:05
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GURPS is pretty good. I wouldn't use it for everything, but games in a modern setting that you'd like to feel tense and scary are served well by its high lethality and the general tone of its combat rules (where having a gun and some time to aim it is more important than how many points you put into "gun" when designing your survival horror protagonist, for example).
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Apr 5, 2015 01:11
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GURPS has some pretty good guidelines for its Disadvantages, even though I don't like that kind of stuff anymore. I think its biggest flaw is that they don't give those guidelines enough real estate in the book. It's too easy for people to skid across those and crash into a giant 50-page list of +10 garbage points. This is a problem many games have. On the other hand, I think Demon: The Fallen Player's Guide was a ridiculous farce. A lot of that poo poo was like homebrew trash for hyperspecific campaigns, and what guidelines I recall are the usual non-advice paragraph from most 90's games about "well, it's optional." If you wanted all of that poo poo in a WoD book, it should've been a big essay about how to design your own, not a giant list of really fiddly min/max-y bullshit. It felt very much like busywork to pad out word count. But, well, oWoD.
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Apr 5, 2015 01:37
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I'll have to check that out. I feel like oWoD was relatively refined by the time Demon rolled around, but the merits and flaws system was never a real system strength.
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Apr 5, 2015 01:45
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I liked GURPS but I don't know if I have the patience for it anymore. Gotta be in precisely the right mood for it, I guess.
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Apr 5, 2015 02:19
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Android Blues posted:I think this is a dumb fight but I would point out that if 'optimised' characters are dysfunctional in play, they're not actually optimal. New GURPS players often layer on disadvantages, but you really pay for the extra points you get in terms of how they cut into a character's game effectiveness when you take too many. Experienced players who want to make optimal characters usually stick to one or two small disadvantages. There's not so much overwhelming power in having Broadsword 18 and ST 17 if you enter a state of near-total depression every morning and are often compelled to stop fighting your enemies when they ask you to. This poster also gets it.
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Apr 5, 2015 02:21
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Elfgames posted:You might, but would your applicants get a game? 
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Apr 5, 2015 02:21
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Error 404 posted:Lot of people posting GURPS love in here. I don't like gurps, but it is good.
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Apr 5, 2015 02:22
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I wanted to learn gurps but the people I play rpgs with hiss at the mention of it
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Apr 5, 2015 02:25
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TheTatteredKing posted:I wanted to learn gurps but the people I play rpgs with hiss at the mention of it Why do they do that?
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Apr 5, 2015 02:27
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Because he plays with snakes.
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Apr 5, 2015 02:29
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It's pretty understandable to be leery of GURPS, it's like, gigantic and requires digestion. It's not as pick up and play as many of the hot systems these days, especially anything AW-derived which more or less runs on pure gasoline and can be picked up in twenty minutes of chatting.
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Apr 5, 2015 02:37
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Android Blues posted:It's pretty understandable to be leery of GURPS, it's like, gigantic and requires digestion. It's not as pick up and play as many of the hot systems these days, especially anything AW-derived which more or less runs on pure gasoline and can be picked up in twenty minutes of chatting.  On the flip side, one of the strengths of a (good) pbta system is strong genre emulation, which you don't even want in a universal system.
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Apr 5, 2015 03:08
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I think that GURPS having a reputation of being a beast of a system to understand comes from the misunderstood implication that you'll want to or should use many of its rules right off the bat, when in reality it's even an official product to reduce the core of the system down to a single page handout. It certainly took me a careful reading of the Lite rules (and confirmation in the GURPS thread) before I was able to figure out that you can run GURPS in Theater-of-the-Mind if you wanted to. === On a separate note, I'm familiar with Night Witches and World Wide Wrestling: what other notable PbtA games are there, particularly ones that try to tackle completely different genres? Is there a James Bond World? A Call of Duty World? A Star Trek/Wars World?
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Apr 5, 2015 03:30
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GURPS is fine mechanically if you want a detailed and crunchy ruleset, but good lord it's got issues with presentation. For a game as scalable as it is, it does a piss-poor job of actually showing how to raise or lower the complexity for your game. Also, statting NPCs the same as PCs needs to loving go, and even at its simplest you still have to do it a little.
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Apr 5, 2015 03:40
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