This post is thanks to Faodladh, who made a comment on my last post on this subject. In GURPS, it's very common to target specific hit locations. For skilled fighters run by skilled players, they often target a very small handful of optimal locations. You get eye shot guy, neck slicer guy, I only shoot the vitals guy. It's not always that realistic - the vitals or eyes or neck are always targetable? You can go for them over and over again. So let's say you want to limit the options. Option 1: Minimum Effective Skill 10. Like Deceptive Attack, attacks aimed at a specific location must have a ..read more

I had a stray idea for a rough, gritty rule for cascading defenses. Instead of resetting the penalty for multiple defenses on your turn, do not reset it unless: - you spend a full second without using any defenses or, optionally - you spend a turn doing Evaluate This is a simple, but very nasty rule. Being outnumbered and unable to take a breather - to step back and just reset - means your defenses will eventually be whittled down. Good ways to trigger the first is to use Move and clear the battle area, a classic swashbuckler move. Allowing Evaluate means you can stay in the fray, but no ..read more

We played yesterday, Session 191, and I had a few more notes I'd forgotten yesterday. - the PCs fought a bunch of slicer beetles. I found it easier to just do TOTM, as they call it, winged ranges, and tracking the monsters by hand. I didn't bother to put all 20 of them into the turn tracker, make sure each token was rotated properly, etc. I just did it on note paper. I may do that for true fodder encounters. I was hopeful one of them would roll a 3 or something and lop off someone's hand or foot, but none of them did so. The PCs rattled off about a dozen criticals during the fight. You know ..read more

Date: April 14th, 2024 Weather: Sunny, warm. Characters Chop, human cleric (308 points) Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (297 points) Thor Halfskepna, human knight (310 points) Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf martial artist (255 points)      Darkspire the Inscrutable, human apprentice (125 points)      Harold, human guard (~80 points) The PCs gathered in town, gathered rumors, and headed out to Felltower itself. The goal was simple - gain the loot from the trolls slain last time, and then . . . explore around. They managed to hire Harold, a ..read more

Links for Friday! - This is the kind of playset I want to play on. Gaming - D Day Gold Beach - Love Holloway illustrations like this one from B5 Horror on the Hill. - Game on Sunday, finally ..read more

Thanks to Rob L for sending this one to me: Black Company RPG in Development The folks who did Delta Green are doing a Black Company RPG. Interesting. There was a D&D3.5 one done about 20 years back. I'd still play a BC game with GURPS myself. but I'm interested in seeing how it's done in another system. You need to have extremely powerful folks (Dominator, Lady, the Taken, various monsters), heroic above-the-norm types (Bomanz, say, probably Raven, definitely lots of the Rebel generals), and lots and lots of normal folks, many without the baggage of a conscience (most of the characters ..read more

I have resumed playing Fantasy General as General Marcus. I think I have two battles left. My current one should put me just outside the Shadowlord's fortress. There is a little side penninsula I ignored, which I'm hoping I can keep on ignoring. In video games, though, one never knows. In WWII the Allies just encircled those "fortress" cities the Nazis set up in France and left them until the war ended. In video games, you might have to clear them before you're allowed to attack the main fortress. The battle before the last, then, is going on. It's nasty. Rough terrain, spread out objectives ..read more

There is a Bundle of Holding for the GURPS-based Discworld RPG: It's $14.95 and nets you the Discworld RPG - normally $30 alone - plus Low-Tech and Fantasy Tech 1. I'm not sure why those two, except that they kinda fit. Whatever the reason, it's a good price for either DW or the two accompanying books, so if you're missing DW or missing those two or all three, it's a good way to fill out your collection. If you're in, click here ..read more

Sunday is about Felltower, and I think we're playing next week. So I spent it doing a little maintenance. - I re-familiarized myself with some of the areas I think the PCs may go to. - I updated a few modules on the VTT. - I did a little work on the Felltower file itself, just cleaning up some junk that's crept in. Keeping the whole dungeon as one big file has lots of upsides but also some issues with notes that aren't important anymore. Unless something is blatantly wrong (spelling error, rules page reference error, etc.) I just use strikethrough text to indicate something changed. That's ..read more

- Wayne's Books has a post up about "The Game" - the way the designers at GDW resolved the shift from Twilight:2000 to Traveller: 2300 AD. The Game - The Defense Policy wonk-in-training that I was in college looks at this and thinks of the consequences of an invasion of Taiwan. The game in me - who's been around longer - see this and thinks, can I play? Wargaming an Invasion of Taiwan (BTW, the Wall Street Journal explainer videos are in general really excellent.) - This Grognardia post made me realize that while I know a number of gamers at work, they're all female. My client's daughter ..read more