For Create Object you need to know how to make it, for Duplicate all you need is something to duplicate even if you don't know how it's made.

I'd like to ask of you all, what you think of a game concept that I've slowly been developing for a while.  First, I have to admit that the setting is based largely on the Eidos video game "Thief".  I myself tend to shy away from games based on movies, books or video games, usually on the assumption that the GM is merely trying to "play" the video game.  I also realize there's a big difference between a text adventure and an immersive sensory experience like a video game.

As I’ve been rereading some of my stuff lately, I see that it’s becoming quite extensive and wonder if I may be going too far.  Personally, I am actually sort of turned off sometimes by a game that has too much set up.  My concern is usually that I won’t remember enough of it to really incorporate the setting into my posts, or that I’ll simply skim over parts of the material if it’s really long.  As a player I don’t like to be generic in a specific setting, as I feel that’s sort of an affront to the GM.

So, my questions are – how do you all feel about lengthy setting information?  Do you really read through and remember abundant setting details when they’re given?

Are any of you familiar with the game I’m referring to?  There isn’t anything in the game which I’m working toward that players would need to know from the video game - all pertinent details are provided.  I know that people who know the game would of course pick up on it much faster, but I’m also interested in seeing how others can “get into” the feel of the game just through the information I prepare.

Of course players don’t necessarily need to know every NPC’s name and history, so I am trying to focus on the “feel” of the setting.  Also, it’s not that I expect to be totally disappointed if my future players don’t completely meld with the details I give, but I could just as easily run the game with less set up if the consensus seems to be against long, drawn out backgrounds.  My only fear would be the possible similarity to any number of other generic fantasy settings without enough particulars from the video game.

Thanks for any input you can offer.

-Snowmantle

Done well, like it sounds you're doing, it doesn't matter where the inspiration is from. We ran a campaign that started out based on a TV ad...

As far as too much background, there isn't such a thing IMO, as long as you don't force it on people. It's nice to able to go look up stuff, but it's gotta be where you don't have to do it. Some beginning background is required reading, that's inevitable, but the common knowledge of the PCs should be on a post or site that can be looked up at leisure. Also, if the PCs aren't from there, it'd be derailing your whole premise to require knowledge their characters wouldn't have. Sounds to me like you wouldn't be doing this, but that's one of my peeves wih that sort of setup.  GM: OK, everyone knows King Zooba is the evil mage. PC: But my guy is from the south Bronx Jungle 3000 miles from here and just got here yesterday-

But basically, I think the more time a GM puts in, the better the game. This coming fom someone who doesn't put in much time prepping, and started a game without a real premise...  ;-) Hopefully, the players like it ok, though- maybe I'll go ask... I do put in more time during the game, though.

I had an interesting idea, that I would admittedly not allow PCs to use just because it's so wicked. But just for the sake of argument, I was wondering how you'd interpret a couple of rules leading up to this idea, and see if you thought it actually met all of the rules except the "because I said so" one.

#1: Can a lesser wish (wish, greater wish) be used to influence a HT roll required by a spell? It says it can't affect the actual magic, but I think this would be allowed, because it's a physical effect, not a magical one. Sprt of like the dodge roll required by a missile spell. (See the spell Conduct Power in the Grimoire.)

#2: If this is allowed, then the HT roll required by conduct power (draw power) can be automatically successful.

#3: There is no maximum for conducting (drawing) power if your HT roll is made.

#4: If you find a large enough power source (volcano, the sun, a supernova), you can do quick and dirty enchantment for just about any energy cost, even at low tech levels. It would be no big deal to do 50,000 cost items. Of course, having both the mage and the item in a volcano causes unique problems in and of itself, but we can presume someone with this ability can deal with that.

I've been trying to find a way for cheap enchantment (NPC or GM only type of thing) and pretty much think I may have outdid myself. It appears to me, this really should work if I didn't disallow it, which I think I must. We can't have flying castles cost less effort than was intended for a flying knife, now can we? The real down side is, PCs could easily use this, also. It wouldn't be too horrible if only 1 or 2 people in the world could do it. I may just make an NPC who can do something similar to this "In a mysterious way" that no one else can duplicate. I mean, them castles gotta fly, right? ;) Then again, the slow & sure way might be best, but it seems so unlikely that a group of 25 mages would all know the same (tons of pre-reqs) spells at a high level AND spend six years or so working together to build something. I might just tweak the group casting rules a bit for enchantments- the PCs won't be using a boatload of people for enchanting during a lengthy casting, so I should be safe there.

What're your thoughts?

I believe Lesser Wish can effect any roll, except for the actual skill roll to cast a spell. Most anything else should be fair game. Other GM's could disagree.



Yes.



The maximum would be however much power the source can provide in one second. Each second you exceed your safe maximum requires another HT roll, which could take a lot of Lesser Wish spells if you intend to be there for a while. :P



Cue screeching halt. First, remember that distance midifiers apply. A sun, or a supernova, would be way too far away to work; and a with a volcano it would have to be erupting, and you'd have be pretty much IN it along with whatever you're channeling the power to. Also, it's a bit of a stretch to use the energy to power enchantments; unless I grossly misread the spell, the energy your conducting is used to power machines.

Sure, in a sci-fi setting, a mage on a dangerous planet could use a volcano to charge their ship's power core and fly off. But I, personally, wouldn't allow it to conduct mana. If you rule it can conduct mana, then you've stemmed off into house-rule areas, which means the limits are pretty much up to you at that point.

Gurps Techomancer had some ideas on this topic, as have the variously published "u-mana" rules, which essentially stick it to you if you abuse he passage of power.

So, basically, it'd work, although there are various official rules that say "you can't do that because it's unbalancing (a.k.a. I said so)". I did think of ditance penalties, but didn't mention them; also wondering about the various spells that mitigate those, like wizard eye etc, butnow we're getting into a lot of spells 'on' and a bigger minus. Draw Power says that the mage can draw power and have the mana available for him to use, not just on machines. This would imply he could use it for anything, although I do agree that I think my house rule is most likely going to be "not for enchantments".

To top off this idea, think of a mage with 12 HT and magery 3. He can use a ST 10 powerstone to cast that lesser wish... if he used the draw power spell. He'd only need a 27 MW powersource. Considering waterfalls count, the largest hydroelectric power plant is 22,400 MW without even using the whole efficiency, and since it's technically an enchantment, and we all know my new house rule on that, now, I guess maybe that's a good rule... ;)

thanks for your input, everyone.

I think it's best use is for enchanting, how else to explain common magic items when many items take years of work even for a team?

You could change the each enchantment takes a whole hour rule, or allow for mass enchantments of items. Then you could make hundreds/thousands of flying knifes for the same cost/time as the castle.

yea, it looks like I overlooked the part about an hour per point (It is each point, right? Gotta go look that up the minute I'm by my book.) For 50,000 points, that's 6 years without a break... ;)

An hour per 100 points of enchantment. Do multiple mages reduce the time as well as splitting the energy cost?

If not a limit on Q&D enchantment is how long you can stay awake.

Hmm.. I'll have to look that up, I think it would... the other rule (slow & sure) mentions man-hours specifically.

Yea, that brings it down to around 20 days. Much better, but IMO, you'd still need to stay awake for a month straight. Need to look into that... Maybe it's not so bad a rule after all. Quite a bit of oddities involved getting it just right...

A point on the supernova idea aswell: A supernova is a one-off event that is likely to be happening very, very far away.  By the time the light from such a supernova reaches the player, (ie the player can actually see the supernova), the event itself is probably long finished.

Stumbling out to the darkness, she clears away the cobwebs, climbs upon her soapbox and prepares to speak.

"I must say this. I’ve tried to keep my feelings to myself and muddle on but it’s simply not working.

I miss 3rd Ed!"

Agreed, I've been trying to find a game of it for a while now, to no avail :( I never really got into 4th ed, so instead its been looking to new systems for me - been playing a bit of dnd 3.5 and shadowrun 4e has been fun, but id still love a good game of gurps 3e.

*grin* It must be a sign of age ... that, or third editions just were the best.

I don't like D&D4 (well... 3.5 is only "better" because I played it longer, I personally don't like any d20 system very much), I don't like Shadowrun 4 (with SR3 being the pinnacle of evolution - any previous versions were meh at best) and GURPS3 will always have a place on my (decrepit) bookshelf in the front room basement.

Supernovas:

Don't forget, you're limited to the amount of energy you can transfer based on the mage's HT. You could transfer that much, if your mage a HT of around 20,000...

However, I've decided in my campaign, that magic is too costly and takes too lpong for some things, and have devised a method similar to that to bring it down. One the PCs do not have access to. It, in effect, is a gate getting that volcano to the point of use, which is powered by the same spell that supplies mana, and also is linked to protection from the energy source, also powered by the same spell. This tends to limit the power coming out, but it's a GM-only thing, so it's pretty much unlimited only because I said so. I haven't thought out the exact particulars as far as rules go, but the point is, I'd expect that sort of thing to way reduce the cost of magic items. (Again, in my campaign, only 1 mage's guild knows how to do this, and they tend to charge going rates for excessive profit, instead of reducing the price. The PCs may be in a position later to request some items from that guild, but they'll never be getting the method to do it themselves.)

It's good to know I'm not alone. Now the question is what to do, what to do?

In case anyone wondered what I meant by ex-mib. Here's the official explanation about MIBs off the Steve Jackson Games web site.

"The Men In Black are the volunteer arm of Steve Jackson Games. In the guise of normal, everyday game enthusiasts, they subtly promote awareness of SJ Games products and help to further the agenda of the secret masters. They also do blatantly obvious things like run SJ Games products at conventions, talk them up at game stores, and encourage other gamers to join the fold."

A health scare and RL forced me to resign as an active member a couple years ago. I still get MIB mail though. :)

Maybe it’s time for me to GM again? But is there enough interest here on RPoL?  It would be a low level 3rd Ed game of course. Middle Ages. No magic, no psionics.

Input?

I also still prefer 3rd edition. But to get to the nitty gritty

- how low is low-level ?
- basic plot? IE middle ages shopping circles are just as boring as modern malls. Would we be set up with an adventurous outlook in mind?

I'd certainly be interested in a GURPS 3E game, and I'm down with no magic or psionics.

 


Thanks for asking. This is a work in process but here’s a little of what I've got.

Low-level would be 100pt characters, 45 and 5.

As for the basic plot I'll give you chapter 1's working title. "Rumors of Wars." The game itself will carry a different name.

Like all good games I hope this will become a long running campaign. But as I stated, this is just a work in process. It's not ready for the Game Proposals, Input, and Advice forum yet. However I am open to questions.

Count me in.

Personally, I think the revisions to the 4E rules are good. I  like some of the inconsistencies that were fixed.

That said, all of the books seem to stink compared to 3E. Biotech and Space- not one racial template! Sure, they're practically tomes on creating them, but basically, they just say 'Use the advantages in the character book', and go on into population geography, or biochemistry equations, or something. Whih might be useful for creating custom PCs, but stock races or quick NPCs aren't even mentioned.

It seems they went this way with all of the books. No concrete templates, just instruction manuals on how to make one. Which is why there's all sorts of '3E aliens converted to 4E' on the net. There aren't any in 4E. The only books that have these are the equipment ones, like high tech and ultratech. Even then, they have them all mixed up so it's a pain to find anything. Want a laser? Good. Find the TL you want first. Then, find the weapons section. Then, the laser section. Now, make sure you didn't stumble into the gatling / squad weapon section. Sure would have been easier to have a combined table for everything. (Too outdated, we did tht for 3E?)

What do you mean? 4e Biotech has racial templates.

In reply to pesterfield (msg #29):

OK, Biotech was thge one I didn't read all the way yet. I might have missed them, but I really was hoping for aliens. I'll need to look at that one again, though, I couldn't find them looking through it quick. (Maybe it's just bad organization, like the Ultratech book.)

How would you do teleportation of someone else in GCA?  I was thinking about taking Warp and then adding a +100% modifier.  Is there a better way to do it without using the Psionics book?

(Ignore this, it was meant for the 4e discussion)
This message was last edited by the player at 17:02, Wed 10 July 2013.