More roleplaying questions and answers

Hello again. I have some more questions for you, if that's all right. I've mentioned before that I'm useing GURPS, and you've mentioned that you prefer it to other systems. I've run into some difficulties with combat and magic. I find that the basic combat system is too simplified to hold player interest for very long, and yet the advanced combat is a little too detailed and cumbersome. I think the best way to go is to find a medium between the two.

The way that I would do it is to use the simplified rules but required called shots for everything besides wild swings. Once the player get used to called shots you can introduce things like feinting, all-out attacks and defenses, other cool stuff.

At first your players may bitch and moan. However, they will soon appreciate the varied types and amounts of damage that skilled shots gives you.

For example, if I have a skill of 15 and I spent 8 points to get there, why wouldn't I stab that stupid henchman in the heart? It's a negative four and gives me a x3 mutiplier! If three points of damage gets through his armour than he just took NINE points of damage!

I want to maintain the strateigic elements of movement in combat, but lose the option to aim for sepcific body parts. How do you run GURPS combat?

I enforce the called shots. It didn't make sense for someone skilled NOT to call a shot. How do you aim and not pick a spot on the person that you are aiming at? If the player doesn't call a shot then roll off the random table. How many times will a player hit someone in a foot before they start calling shots? This is something that I struggled with when teaching my wife to play.

Any house rules that simplfy or make things easier?

House rules huh? Please bear in mind that most of these have become standard rules in 4th ed.

1. I switch strength and health for the purpose of hit points and fatigue. A skinny weak person is much easier to beat down than someone built like the Rock.

2. when a combat skill gets to level 16 you get an extra attack with that skill. Thus a swordfighter with a 16 sword skill gets two attacks per turn with their sword, but not with anything else or in combination with anything else unless it is also at level 16. Every eight levels grants another extra attack.

When using a ranged weapon like a bow, you need to have the bow skill at 16 AND Fast Draw Arrow at 16 in order to fire two arrows per turn. Or throw two daggers or whatever. However, this excludes aiming so there goes all the bonuses for weapon accuracy and the like...

Also, the way ranged attack rolls are calculated is the book I'm using (GURPS Basic Set, Revised Third Edition) are a little too cumbersome for my tastes. Is there an effective way to simplify this process without overpowering ranged weapons?

3. I rarely use the ranged weapon charts. I just apply a negative. If it's an easy shot, I give it a -1 or 2, if it's hard I give it a -4, if it's really hard I give it a -6 to -8. I add in a -2 each for darkness or cover.


4. I build characters based on their background stories. I don't worry very much about the amount of points spent on each character. If the character is a veteran knight, they can't be made on 100 pts. They'd be hard pressed to make that character with 150 pts. 200 pts would be about right.


This cuts out a lot of munchkinism BTW. If you (the GM) makes all the PCs based on the player's background story and description, and if you discuss and limits things with the player (No Chuck, you can't play a Predator in a fantasy campaign - real player question-), then you will not have any Munchkins characters starting off. After the campaign starts someone may try to Munchkin out, but you have control over what they get and how they get it. Makes it a lot easier...


If someone wants to play a mage that has spent 10 years studying magic, then you could give them a lot of spells even if it cost more points. Of course, someone in that kind of environement would lack other skills like merchant, streetwise, or flirting which could make for some amusing roleplaying...


5. I make reading and writing a skill. Just because you can speak spanish doesn't mean that you can read it. Every language that the character learns they must learn to read and write as well. The literacy advantage is too general and I toss it.

The magic system is also much to complex for my liking. Maybe I just misunderstood how it works in my reading, but it looks as though it has been made so that it can be very useful, but only to those that spend large amounts of character points towards it, making if close to impossible for a beginning character to have any use for magic other than lighting fires and other similar tasks. Would you mind briefly explaining how magic works?

Outside of the cost for Magery and a high IQ, most people only spend a point or so on each spell.

4th edition Magery:

5 pts Magery - the innate ability to cast magic

10 pts Magery - add +1 to all spells

15 pts more per level - additional +1


I also add a magery bonus to detect magic (i.e. magery +3 adds +3 to alertness for that purpose).

Instead of having a few spell from each college, the PC can get multiple spells in one college to start with. If the PC spend six points to get spells in the fire college, then they can have exploding fireball. Which they can use to light campfires if they REALLY wanna show off and don't mind staring forest fires...

Magic in Gurps is only limited by fatigue. Once a mage knows a spell, they know it. There is no memorization needed beyond learning the spell. This makes mages extremely powerful.

For an example of the difference, a D&D mage spends 10 minutes per level of the spell memorizing said spell. A high level mage can spend the entire day just memorizing spells. In Gurps, that same mage can cast any spell that they have ever learned at any given time assuming that they have that fatigue (or mana stone) to power it.


By way of comparison, a person who wants to be an expert swordsman will spend 60 points or so on their Dex, and 30 points on their strength (so that they can do more damage when they hit). This gives them a 15 dex and 13 strength. To raise their swordskill to 16, the minimum for a swordmaster, will cost them 8 more points. Of course, what swordmaster doesn't have Combat Reflexes? That's another 15 points. They probably also have high pain threshold or toughness, but I won't go there.

That's 113 points just on becoming a good swordsman, without anything else added in.

A mage worth their salt will have an IQ of 15 (60 pts) a health of 13 (30 pts) and magery level 3 (35points) After that initial cost of 125 points it only cost them 1 point per spell. But that's if you want the best mage available. You can easily lower the IQ or magery level and start with less points.

I would make a beginning mage with a high IQ. But I would start my magery at 5 pts for a starting mage or 10 pts for a mage with some training. Experience points would buy more levels of magic as my character grows and becomes a more powerful mage.

Please remember, these are starting characters. They will suck at first, comparatively speaking.

I think I have some ideas as to what my game world is going to end up like. I want to explore ideas of morality, good and evil, perceptions of good and evil, etc.

The best way to do this is through the use of religion. If you make religion a major part of every character and of the story itself, then you can explore these ideas that you have.


Tech Level 3, low-mana world (magic is uncommon, but accepted, only those with innate ability can use it, etc.).

I use normal mana (less math involved with figuring spell effects and fatigue) but make it so that players must start with at least the basic level of magery in order to cast magic, they can raise the level later. I figure that maybe one person in every 10,000 can do this. That makes mages rare, but not unheard of, and very cherished. Of course, that also means that magic schools are non existant and spell books have to be found in order to learn new spells. This gives you control over what spells the characters know.

Another thing that I do is to divide magic. In my world there are two types of magic. Elven, which includes nature spells, healing, and other "good" magic and Demonic which incorporates Necromacy, mind control, and other "evil" spells. There are some crossover spells like enchantment and the like as well.

In order to cast Elven spells, characters must be able to read and speak the Elven tongue fluently. They must do the same for the Demon Tongue as well.

The nation (or world, maybe?) that the PCs are in is ruled by a republic that upholds basic rights, such as freedom of expression, racial equality, etc. This government is loved by its people, and hailed as being just and representative of the people.

As the PCs adventure, however, they slowly realize that this government is not all it seems to be. There are many unjust, wrong, and evil things that the gov't not only encourages, it also funds and organizes. The people think they control the government, but in fact it is in the hands of a few powerful individuals. The maginitude of the crimes the government commits will slowly escalate until, at one climactic point, they have to choose between joining the government or working to overthrow it.

Wow, this is very reminiscent of both Star Wars and America right now... Pretty interesting..

If they choose to join the corruption, the PCs will be ordered/forced to commit acts of increasing wrongfulness (is that a word?) until they are removed by ambitious underlings, be it by assassination or political mischef.

Remember, it's never too late for redemtion. Try to leave a way out for them. Even Darth Vader redeemed himself in the end (and thus fullfilled the prophesy).

If they decide to lead a revolution, they can be crushed by the government or they can succeed and expose the corruption to the populace. This corrupt goverment is mostly beneficial to the general populace, and the moral question of whether it should be removed will run throughout all this.

This is gonna be a three campaign cycle. You are going to have to plan this out well in advance but you will have to be very flexible in the way that you run the games. I would use an open ended book format and a linear timeline to keep yourself organized.

The timeline is just that. A timeline showing when things will happen and what things have happened in the past. These are major events. You can have more than one time line. (one for the characters, one for major events, etc).

The book format is much like a novel. This is how I write adventures.

I start with a chapter name. Something really short that reminds me what the chapter is about. Each chapter is one short adventure. Everything that is needed for the adventure is there including NPCs. An extra copy of each is at the end of the chapter as are any maps that I used so that I can reference them later if the PCs go back to that abandoned monastery to hole up for a while or something.

I also include any information that I wanna drop in (forshadowing) for future adventures. The timeline helps here as well.

As an example, I once ran a campaign for my wife and her sister. My wife played a mercenary with some training but minimal talent with magic. Her sister played a talented and skilled mage who grew up sheltered. They were both trained by the same mage (which is how they met).

My wife's character received a letter stating that her uncle had died and requested that she come for her inheritance. She decided to go and brought along my sister in-law, Anita. They also brought along a 14 year old NPC named Ashley.

That adventure was called Inheritance. Ashley was the forshadowing.

They made it through that first adventure and the one that followed just fine. Anita got messed up a couple of times, Kat (my wife) killed a lot of bad guys, they rescued a princess, and met another PC played by Mike (now Anita's husband).

The next adventure was called Princess. The rescued princess had to talk a lot to the PCs. One thing that she had to mention was the small gold ring that she wore. This ring would later to prove her identity to her brother and father, thus exposing the witch who had kidnapped her and taken her place.

The next adventure was titled CSI.

They finally got back home to the city that they started from and regaled their master, the Sorceress in Silver (Lady Silverymoon), with stories of their adventures. She decides to reward them with dinner at a fancy resturaunt. They leave Ashley behind as she is still only an apprentice while the other two are considered Journeymen.

While they were at dinner, someone broke into Silverymoon's house, stole her mage's staff, and rituallistically tortured and murdered young Ashley.

The players were heartbroken and PISSED! We actually had to stop playing so that the girls could cry it out and even Mike was mad at me. None of them realized that the only reason Ashley was there in the first place was to kick off the thrid adventure with her murder!

I had two antagonist in this adventure and I had a lot of clues to keep track of. I also had timelines for the Drow elf (murderer/theif) and the Vampire (who had bitten and subjugated the elf and ordered him to steal the staff). This was a cool advneture...

BTW Anita named her newborn Ashley.

If the PCs do succeed with their revolt, one of the neighboring, barbaric nations will seize the opportuinity of a powerful nation is shambles and invade. This could provide opportuinities for PCs to perform in more tactical, strategic international conflict commanding soldiers rather than small skirmishes involving themselves. However, with the government in shambles it is likely that the PCs' nation will be captured and enslaved.

Or it could lead to the PCs founding their own nation in the remnants of the republic. Much like what happened with Russia. If one barbaric nation attacks, others will. But they must also guard against attacks from their neighbors as well. None of them can afford to send their entire military. Not even half.

That gives the PCs a chance.


The public could turn against the PCs, with their view changing from admiration of the heroic rebellion to scorn of the "anarchist scum" that indirectly caused the enslavement of many people. Obviously, this campaign requires that the PCs have very strong morals. I plan on presenting questions like "Is doing evil now justified by the good that will result from it?" and "Should we destroy an evil organization if it helps a lot of people?", and I also plan on encouraging retrospective consideration, like "Was what we did really the right thing?".

The way I do this is through an NPC (or rarely another player who have really good morals themselves. My friend Dawn is very religious and does this well) acts as the groups conscience.

One time I turned my friend Dan's character into a woman, had her raped and impregnated, and then gave him the moral choice: Do I turn myself back into a man, thus killing the child, or do I go through with the entire pregnacy, have the baby, and then turn myself back into a man? He chose to have the baby.

I plan on creating several nonhuman races for this world, I don't want to use the common fantasy races. Any ideas, tips, or tweakings I should make? Thanks for your time.

I love this part! I make up a seperate culture for each race based on their lifespan and the common idea of what they are like. For example:

Orcs raise their children in pits and don't them enough food for all of them to eat. Eventually the weaker ones die off and the strong get more food. When they reach the age of adulthood, the orcs take two children out, tie their left wrist to each other with only two feet of slack and give them each a knife. The victor is an adult and the loser goes in the stew pot.

As you can see, orcs in my world are strong, viscious brutes. They respect only the strong and take what they want by force. They cannot be negotiated with or reasoned with. They aren't stupid either, they have the same intelligence as a human. My players all fear orcs.

Elves are a mixture of ancient Japonese art, philosophy, politeness, dress, and martial abilities combined with the Apache Indian religion, strategy and tactics, dress, and family unit. Apaches raise their children as a village. The child calls every woman mother, ever man father.

They also see no differences between men and women. Elves are a nation of individuals with no ruler. Everyone is allowed to speak and to decide for themselves what they will do. If given a task, the elf with the most knowledge or experience takes charge. Elves are not ambitious at all.