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From: dunc...@umd5.umd.edu (James Duncan)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp
Subject: GURPS Supers Review
Keywords: GURPS, Supers, comics
Message-ID: <4995@umd5.umd.edu>
Date: 11 Jun 89 18:03:59 GMT
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Lines: 87
Posted: Sun Jun 11 19:03:59 1989
Well GURPS Supers is out now. Looks pretty good. I believe you can
model just about any of the popular comic characters found in your
favorite comics. You may have to argue over how many points to
build them on though. There are more meta-rules in this book then
in the GURPS system in general. There is a great deal of flexibility
and lots of good base rules for powers and super skills.
GURPS Supers is 112 pages in length. It is 'perfect bound' format.
The cover is really nice - a giant robot ram-headed minotaur is wielding
a lamp post as a club. Atop a building is a super firing some sort of
energy blast at the minotaur. A scantily clad female avenger flashes
from the minotaurs rear and stops in mid flight poised in front of it,
leaving a firey trail in her wake. There is a crunch car on the street
below and a couple of fleeing innocents. So much for the cover description.
The book is written by Lloyd Blankenship and is edited by Steve Jackson.
The approach taken is summed up by the sub-title: 'Super-Powered Roleplaying
Meets the Real World'. The rules are geared more towards modern realistic
style comic genre like that found in New Universe, Batman, the Watchmen,
and the Wild Cards novels. There are numerous options and notes given to
permit the traditional four-color comic style genre though.
The book is organized into seven chapters plus an index and a supers
campaign plan sample. After the Introduction the following chapters
are presented: 1. Characters, 2. Super Abilities, 3. Heroes, 4. Villians,
5. Combat, 6. Super Campaigns, and 7. Campaign World. The Characters chapter
indicates some of the types of characters one finds in the comics and which
can be designed using Supers. This chapter also details what character design
entails - basic personality choice, determining the origin of the characters
super powers, deciding on what goals and motivations the character possesses,
choosing the characters appearance, choosing Powers and other abilities,
determing level of wealth and social status, and a host of other things
which make your character a well rounded 3 dimensional being and not just a
bunch of stats. Chapter two describes the game mechanics of Super powers and
gives a VERY extensive list of super abilities - Powers and Super skills. This
chapter also includes a section on Gadgets and devices. Chapter three is a
list of sample characters from the U.N.'s metahuman ( GURPS' term for a SUPER )
police force. Seven characters are listed. These characters are based on 500
points which is the recommended level for a four-color comic style campaign.
Each character is fully detailed on a single full page. The characters
presented are Black Pearl ( an aquatic Super ), Dwarfstar ( a dwarfish Brick ),
Flamin' Jane ( human torch type ), The Fox ( non-metahuman, highly skilled
fencer ), Nightflick ( a good guy vampire ), Rebel Yell ( a southerner with a
voice that creates sonic booms ), and Rockman ( a mild mannered, intellectual
Brick ). Villians, the fourth chapter in the book, details seven of IST's
chief villians. These villians are: Blue Demon ( a metallic otherworldly
creature ), Chemico ( a chemical cretin ), Darkshell ( a powersuit encased
bad guy ), Icepick ( a real 'ice princess' ), Kodiak ( the bear-bodied boy
who shifts into this form when angry ), Mount Fuji ( Super sumo wrestler Brick
with a death wish ), and Necron ( Super powered wizard ). Chapter five
details Super Combat and Feats. In this chapter we get modification of the
encumberance rules to deal with the reductions of speed of high spped supers.
Also covered are extended rules for slam damage, knockback, collisions, thrown
objects snd throwing damage, Contests of Power, and super attack/defense.
There is a nice section on Cinematic martial arts - movie and comic style
Hand-to-Hand combat. This includes new skills and optional rules on increased
numers of attacks and defenses. There are also optional rules for doing 'stun
damage' rather than real damage and for reducing the amount of damage supers
deal - some real damage done and some stun damage done - for those who want
to decrease the amount of 'unreality'. Chapter six contains notes on designing
a Supers campaign. Chapter seven gives a background for setting up a supers
campaign. This is an altered history which explains the existance of Super
powers in the 'real world'. Some of the ramifications of Super powers are
also examined - high property insurance rates due to damage done by supers,
changes in laws and law enforcement, ect. Details on Super teams and Super
organizations are also given. There is also a Timeline indicating the course
that history has taken.
Overall, the book looks to be a nice piece of work. It is a fine addition
to the GURPS line. There are very few errors and typos - but there are a few.
The psionics system has been revised and it is recommended that the one
presented here be used throughout the GURPS system replacing the one in GURPS
BASIC III. I'd recommend this to any GURPS fan who is into comics and Super
Heroes/Villians.
As a final note, I don't expect this product to compete against Champions
except in the case of GURPS gamers who have been waiting for GURPS Supers who
may have been drawn to Champs if Supers didn't exist. I expect that the number
of Champions adventure supplements sold to increase greatly since I'm sure
GURPS players will be looking for new source material until SJ Games fills the
void. When I was at the game shop where I purchased Supers - Dream Wizard's
in Rockville, MD - I noticed that there is a ton of stuff for Champions.
BTW, which Champions book is the one to get to start a Champions campaign?
Champions I, II, or III? Do you need them all to be up to date? I ask this
more from the perspective of a GURPS GM who is searching for source material.
I have Star Hero but I doubt this is enough to understand all the notation
found in Champions supplements.
Jim Duncan
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From: ccas...@pyr.gatech.EDU (Keith 'Badger' Vaglienti)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp
Subject: Another GURPS Supers Review
Keywords: ooo ick
Message-ID: <8513@pyr.gatech.EDU>
Date: 13 Jun 89 03:10:59 GMT
Organization: The Banzai Institute
Lines: 141
Posted: Tue Jun 13 04:10:59 1989
Well, I thought I'd post my $.02 worth about GURPS Supers. James Duncan has
already posted why he thinks this is a good system and Martin Terman has
written a comparison between GS and Champions.
I'm afraid my opinion of this game isn't as high as James and Martin's
apparently are. When I read, in the introduction, that GURPS Supers was
"the first 'super' roleplaying game in which the characters are more than
combat machines and lists of powers" I began to have my doubts. It made me
flashback to an old issue of the Dragon in which E. Gary Gygax proudly
proclaimed that he was going to make an AD&D movie which was so good it would
put Conan to shame. Still I pressed on, willing to give the game the benefit
of the doubt, and found that I had pretty much wasted my money. These are some
of the blatant problems, IMHO, that I found with the game.
They introduced a new disadvantage called Jinxed. What Jinxed does is make
everyone around you, friend and foe alike, take penalties on any rolls made
by the GM. I don't like this one for several reasons. First and foremost among
my complaints is that this gives you points but puts the disadvantage on the
people who will be around you the most, mainly the other PCs. This seems to be
asking for trouble. Its hard to believe that there aren't going to be hard
feelings when the presence of this disadvantage comes out. At the very least
I expect the PC will be kicked out of the group. Despite this I know people
who would take it, at its highest level, because it wouldn't effect them. In
fact, it would give them an edge in any fight since it affects foes. I also
don't like their rationalization for it affecting foes. Did it never occur to
them that Polymepheus was an imbecile?
Next we come to the super advantages. The first thing that I notice is that
all super advantages, except growth and shrinking, are always on unless you
take an enhancement, switchable, that lets you turn it on and off. The reason
for this is totally incomprehensible to me. With so many of the super
advantages being things you probably want to be able to turn off on occasion
why force everyone to do the extra adjustment. Why single out growth and
shrinking? As far as I can tell this would seem to just cause confusion.
Even the people at SJG don't seem to understand this rule as one of the
characters in GURPS Supers, Flamin' Jane, has Body of Fire (Only When Flying)
but she hasn't bought switchable on her Flight. Hence her flight is always on
and so is her body of fire.
Having a costume that is unaffected by your powers, for example, a costume
that isn't destroyed by your using your Body of Fire power, costs 20 points.
I guess I'm dense because I don't see why this is more valuable than, say,
4 levels of Body of Ice. Martin commented that he thought that this was a
very useful thing to have and wondered how you would simulate this in Champs.
I don't know about other people but I've always done it by asking myself a
very simple question. Do I or the player want to deal with the problems that
the character will have if his costume is destroyed by his using powers? If
the answer is no then we don't worry about it and say the costume is made of
Marvel's infamous unstable molecules. If the answer is yes then the character
has a clothing problem. In no case do I make the player pay points, especially
a significant number of points, just to keep his clothes on.
Increased Density, oddly enough, give the character greater resistance to
bullets, which do crushing damage, but don't affect arrows which do cutting/
impaling damage. (Could someone explain to me the rationale behind bullets
doing crushing damage while arrows do cutting/impaling damage? I don't
understand that at all.)
Immortality confers the powers of Instant Regeneration, Immunity to Disease,
Immunity to Poison, and Unaging. Unfortunately this would appear to be the only
place that Immunity to Disease is mentioned so we have no idea what this does.
Unaging, by the way, is the marvelous power of being the same age for all of
time. It costs a mere 60 points. In a campaign based on a genre where most
characters die from old age I know that this is certainly worth the points.
(Insert sarcasm here.) Being perpetually 20 is such a wonderful advantage that
its worth more than such inferior powers as Regrowth which allows you to
regrow lost limbs. Personally I've always given my PCs this for free if its
within their conception since its not going to do them a lot of good in the
campaign and can create some interesting personality dynamics and other
interesting happenings for the character. (See the movie Highlander if you
don't know what I'm talking about.) BTW, this wonderfully useful power has
a special enhancement that allows to age in either direction at 10 times the
normal rate. Just think, you can go from 20 to 30 in one year. I know thats
going to be worth the points.
Under Enhancements we've got a lovely little number called Homing. This lets
you have an attack that automatically hits. Of course the target still gets
active defenses such as Missile Deflection but how many people actually have
a rationale for that. Are you Mr. Superspeedster? Capable of running at near
light speed? Your primary defense is that you're real hard to hit? It doesn't
matter because with this little number I can hit you no matter what.
Power Groups are a good idea to introduce new gamers to the genre but for
anyone with a little experience they are too special effect oriented. Given
that Chains of Ice and Chains of Earth have the same cost and are described
in the same way is it really necessary that we have two seperate powers
(excuse me, I should have said super skills) to represent two different
special effects? There are minor differences but I don't think they warrant
two seperate powers.
GURPS Supers strikes me as what you get if you average Champions with DC
Heroes. I find absolutely nothing in this game that warrants the totally
unsupported, and highly arrogant, statement in the introduction. I might
use it as an introduction to gaming in a superhero world but I certainly
wouldn't continue to use it once my players had some experience.
I found this game to be too biased towards certain types of characters.
Particularly characters with powers that wouldn't destroy their costumes
and characters with powers that wouldn't be a disadvantage if always on.
Its also hard to get characters of the average power level that you find in
comic books. I believe somewhere in the book it mentions that you have to have
a strength of 80 to lift 1 ton. Thats ridiculous. While I understand that the
people at SJG want a relatively low power campaign I don't want them writing
the rules so that I'm forced to do things their way. If I wanted that in a
system I'd still be playing D&D. I got the very distinct impression that the
people at SJG don't have a very high opinion of superhero RPGs and just
churned this product out in order to capitalize on the market. Thats not the
sort of attitude I want from the people who design the games I play. They
give you all of the correct buzzwords and none of the meat if you know what
I mean.
I don't know if this product is indicative of the general quality of work
from SJG. Given what I paid for it I'm not likely to throw away any more money
on other GURPS products on the off chance that they are better. I'm certainly
not going to change over from the Hero system on the basis of this. I'm not
saying the Hero system is perfect. I know its not. However, unlike GURPS,
Hero has given me a meta-rules toolbox that I can use to build what I want.
Though its been largely unchanged since it first appeared on the market I find
that Hero system is still better than all the competitors and imitations that
have appeared since then, IMHO. My only regret is that they are currently in
the process of fixing what isn't broken and I don't think the results are going
to be too good.
My only connection with Hero games is that until very recently I ran what
had to have been one of the oldest campaigns in Atlanta, it having started
almost immediately after Champions appeared in the local gaming stores. In
many respects I consider my current Champions campaign a continuation of the
old one, it just has all of the dead wood cleared away.
---
"Nobody gets out of here without singing da blues."
---
Keith "Badger" Vaglienti
Georgia Insitute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,seismo,ut-ngp}!pyr.gatech.EDU!ccastkv
In no way should my remarks be considered to reflect the opinions and/or
policies of the Georgia Institute of Technology. Put another way, its-a
not my bosses-ah fault, monkey boy!
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From: dunc...@umd5.umd.edu (James Duncan)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp
Subject: Re: Another GURPS Supers Review
Keywords: ooo ick
Message-ID: <5019@umd5.umd.edu>
Date: 14 Jun 89 23:44:42 GMT
References: <8513@pyr.gatech.EDU>
Reply-To: dunc...@umd5.umd.edu (James Duncan)
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Lines: 280
Posted: Thu Jun 15 00:44:42 1989
In article <8...@pyr.gatech.EDU| ccas...@pyr.gatech.EDU (Keith 'Badger' Vaglienti)
writes:
|
|Well, I thought I'd post my $.02 worth about GURPS Supers. James Duncan has
|already posted why he thinks this is a good system and Martin Terman has
|written a comparison between GS and Champions.
What I (James Duncan) wrote was a review based on my first read.
I said it looks good. I still stand by my statement after looking into
the rules in much greater detail. I will get a definitive answer after
I have run a campaign using Supers. The rules are presented in a clear
effective manner - for the most part. I am fairly certain I will have
little trouble crafting a campaign using these rules.
|I'm afraid my opinion of this game isn't as high as James and Martin's
|apparently are. When I read, in the introduction, that GURPS Supers was
|"the first 'super' roleplaying game in which the characters are more than
|combat machines and lists of powers" I began to have my doubts. It made me
New authors sometimes overstate their enthusiasm. So he went
a little overboard on the bragging. What he should have said is that
GURPS Supers is perhaps the first super roleplaying game which emphasizes
roleplaying rather than combat machines. More on this later.
|They introduced a new disadvantage called Jinxed. What Jinxed does is make
|everyone around you, friend and foe alike, take penalties on any rolls made
|by the GM. I don't like this one for several reasons. First and foremost among
|my complaints is that this gives you points but puts the disadvantage on the
|people who will be around you the most, mainly the other PCs. This seems to be
|asking for trouble. Its hard to believe that there aren't going to be hard
|feelings when the presence of this disadvantage comes out. At the very least
|I expect the PC will be kicked out of the group. Despite this I know people
|who would take it, at its highest level, because it wouldn't effect them. In
|fact, it would give them an edge in any fight since it affects foes. I also
|don't like their rationalization for it affecting foes. Did it never occur to
|them that Polymepheus was an imbecile?
This is why it is a disadvantage. As a member of a super team
do you really want to be constantly causing problems for your friends.
The GM only makes a limited number of rolls but some of them are quite
significant. Who wants to be around someone who constantly causes bad
luck. Enemies will show up more frequently when you are around. Peoples
reactions to the group will be worse.
I agree with you concerning Polymorpheus, but the are correct
about Ullyses. His friends never seemed to return from voyages with
him.
|Next we come to the super advantages. The first thing that I notice is that
|all super advantages, except growth and shrinking, are always on unless you
|take an enhancement, switchable, that lets you turn it on and off. The reason
|for this is totally incomprehensible to me. With so many of the super
|advantages being things you probably want to be able to turn off on occasion
|why force everyone to do the extra adjustment. Why single out growth and
|shrinking? As far as I can tell this would seem to just cause confusion.
Growth and shrinking are two things which are almost always
turned on and off. I can't think of a single SUPER who is very small
and is ALWAYS in that form. There are quite a few who are large and
always remain that way, but there are far more who change size.
|Even the people at SJG don't seem to understand this rule as one of the
|characters in GURPS Supers, Flamin' Jane, has Body of Fire (Only When Flying)
|but she hasn't bought switchable on her Flight. Hence her flight is always on
|and so is her body of fire.
This is a limitation. She has the advantage Only When in Flight!
She gets no benefits from the advantage when she is on the ground where
she would find it the most useful. Where do you most expect her to fight
hand to hand - when she is soaring above the ground with her high speed
flight or on the ground slugging it out with bad guys? Her limitation
means she will fight best when airborne but she is most likely to be attacked
hand to hand on the ground. If some big lug tackles her she needs to take-off
before she flames him. If she had taken Switchable she could turn the ability
on and off at will.
|Having a costume that is unaffected by your powers, for example, a costume
|that isn't destroyed by your using your Body of Fire power, costs 20 points.
|I guess I'm dense because I don't see why this is more valuable than, say,
|4 levels of Body of Ice. Martin commented that he thought that this was a
Perhaps this is because you are overly concerned with combat
effectiveness. GURPS emphasizes roleplaying. There are social ramifications
to flying about the city in the nude. You would probably get arrested, you'd
definitely attracted lot's of attention - even more than you'd normally
attract due to flying. Reputation of a super would be questioned by the
well meaning members of the moral majority - can't have our kids emulating
the decadent nudie supers. Having a Body of Ice isn't illegal, indecent
exposure is illegal hence the reason for Costume being worth more points.
In a society where nudity is acceptable the cost for Costume should be
greatly reduced - costing perhaps 50 to 75% less.
|Increased Density, oddly enough, give the character greater resistance to
|bullets, which do crushing damage, but don't affect arrows which do cutting/
|impaling damage. (Could someone explain to me the rationale behind bullets
|doing crushing damage while arrows do cutting/impaling damage? I don't
|understand that at all.)
Well I agree that Increased Density should affect both arrows and
bullets. Bullets do crushing damage due to the type of wound they make
and how they transfer kinetic energy to the body. I don't recall what
the studies were that they used to come to the conclusion, but the topic
was well researched. I may be able to locate the sources. I once wondered
this too but after reading some of the material I have to agree that bullets
do crushing damage - usually a hell of alot of crushing damage.
|Immortality confers the powers of Instant Regeneration, Immunity to Disease,
|Immunity to Poison, and Unaging. Unfortunately this would appear to be the only
|place that Immunity to Disease is mentioned so we have no idea what this does.
Hmm, why do you say this since Immunity to disease is in GURPS Basic.
Remember the base rules are in GURPS Basic. GURPS Supers is NOT a complete
game! You need GURPS Basic III ( GURPS Basic II + GURPS Update ) to properly
use GURPS SUPERS.
|Unaging, by the way, is the marvelous power of being the same age for all of
|time. It costs a mere 60 points. In a campaign based on a genre where most
|characters die from old age I know that this is certainly worth the points.
|(Insert sarcasm here.) Being perpetually 20 is such a wonderful advantage that
|its worth more than such inferior powers as Regrowth which allows you to
|regrow lost limbs. Personally I've always given my PCs this for free if its
|within their conception since its not going to do them a lot of good in the
|campaign and can create some interesting personality dynamics and other
|interesting happenings for the character. (See the movie Highlander if you
|don't know what I'm talking about.) BTW, this wonderfully useful power has
|a special enhancement that allows to age in either direction at 10 times the
|normal rate. Just think, you can go from 20 to 30 in one year. I know thats
|going to be worth the points.
You are correct that according to GURPS rules having Unaging at
age 20 makes no difference, but having it at age 50 makes a BIG difference.
No HT rolls to maintain your attributes. Personally I think that GURPS
rules on aging are FAR too lenient. That's why in my campaigns geezing -
ah aging - rolls start at age 30. I make players roll to maintain all
attributes except IQ starting with age 30. After all, how many Pro
athletes in very vigorous sports are still in peak condition after
getting this old. Certainly adventurers typically take as much abuse
as professional athletes do. In my campaigns it would be worth the
listed value, in most GURPS campaigns Unaging is much too pricey unless
you are over 50 or the GM plans to skip years in between adventures.
Remeber some GMs don't strictly deal with linear time scales for gaming
out a campaign.
|Under Enhancements we've got a lovely little number called Homing. This lets
|you have an attack that automatically hits. Of course the target still gets
|active defenses such as Missile Deflection but how many people actually have
|a rationale for that. Are you Mr. Superspeedster? Capable of running at near
|light speed? Your primary defense is that you're real hard to hit? It doesn't
|matter because with this little number I can hit you no matter what.
All Powers need to have counter attacks or else there is no game
balance. Homing takes care of Mr. Superspeedster who can't be touched by
any physical attack. Incidentally, Mr. Superspeeder still gets his active
defense so if he obtained a decent part of his move by buying Increased
Speed he still has a very good chance of avoiding being hit. A move of
12 would give you a reasonably good chance of dodging attacks without the
need to wear armor. Also Homing is expensive to buy.
|Power Groups are a good idea to introduce new gamers to the genre but for
|anyone with a little experience they are too special effect oriented. Given
|that Chains of Ice and Chains of Earth have the same cost and are described
|in the same way is it really necessary that we have two seperate powers
|(excuse me, I should have said super skills) to represent two different
|special effects? There are minor differences but I don't think they warrant
|two seperate powers.
They are just examples of the Generic Binding skill given nice
user-friendly names. Webs are used in another example as yet another
example of this skill. They could have just provided templates and given
no list of skills at all, but this is not a very good way to write a
manual which is intended to assist the GM.
|GURPS Supers strikes me as what you get if you average Champions with DC
|Heroes. I find absolutely nothing in this game that warrants the totally
|unsupported, and highly arrogant, statement in the introduction. I might
|use it as an introduction to gaming in a superhero world but I certainly
|wouldn't continue to use it once my players had some experience.
Well I don't know enough about either Champions or DC Heroes to know
what this statement means. However, GURPS Supers does appear to hold true
to its title - super powered roleplaying meets the real world. Also since
it is GURPS roleplaying is emphasized. GURPS adventures are not just typical
slugfests. They can be, but this would wast more than half the material
presented in GURPS books. Good GURPS adventures allow for the use of a wide
variety of skills not just the ones dealing with combat. They encourage
character development and roleplaying interaction. GURPS' system
disadvantages, advantages, and quirks help to make believable well-rounded
characters with plenty of 'hooks' for a GM to use to advance the storyline.
|I found this game to be too biased towards certain types of characters.
|Particularly characters with powers that wouldn't destroy their costumes
Powers that destroy costumes tend to be rather potent or at the
very least belong to vary potent Power groups. If you have a power that
is destructive to your costume buy the Costume advantage. If you don't
things get interesting, and sometimes this makes for a great campaign.
|and characters with powers that wouldn't be a disadvantage if always on.
|Its also hard to get characters of the average power level that you find in
|comic books. I believe somewhere in the book it mentions that you have to have
Not if you spend 500 points and take 100 points in disadvantages.
I do think the normal The Fox is a tad anemic. He is fixable though.
Add in a high acrobatics skill and give him Kevlar body armor including
a face mask and he could survive on the streets. As he stands any
gun totting street punk would blow him away.
|a strength of 80 to lift 1 ton. Thats ridiculous. While I understand that the
I don't have my rules with me so I am not sure this is the case.
Regardless, this is a compatibility issue. Strength as an attribute
is handled the same throughout the system. Besides, I definitely
don't want someone listed as only three times as strong as the
average man tossing Toyotas around.
|people at SJG want a relatively low power campaign I don't want them writing
|the rules so that I'm forced to do things their way. If I wanted that in a
Your not. Up the points permitted and play at whatever power
level you want.
|system I'd still be playing D&D. I got the very distinct impression that the
|people at SJG don't have a very high opinion of superhero RPGs and just
|churned this product out in order to capitalize on the market. Thats not the
Wrong. They like reality. They are more intune with the new wave
of comics with the realistic touch - real violence, damage that
has to be dealt with, social issues like racism, medical and
environmental concerns. This is why they licenced Wild Cards
- the series of SF novels in a shared universe where Supers
become part of history.
Besides, Champions has a lock on the four-color super powered
adventure. Incidentally, you are wrong about SJ Games hating
Super RPGs since back in the days when Steve Jackson owned
the Space Gamer Champions was one of the favorite topics.
I recall one article in which Aaron Allston described the
Space Gamer staff Champions campaign. I gather from the
description that the campaign was low powered. More fun that
way. Gaming Superman has to be terribly boring.
|I don't know if this product is indicative of the general quality of work
|from SJG. Given what I paid for it I'm not likely to throw away any more money
|on other GURPS products on the off chance that they are better. I'm certainly
|not going to change over from the Hero system on the basis of this. I'm not
|saying the Hero system is perfect. I know its not. However, unlike GURPS,
|Hero has given me a meta-rules toolbox that I can use to build what I want.
|Though its been largely unchanged since it first appeared on the market I find
|that Hero system is still better than all the competitors and imitations that
|have appeared since then, IMHO. My only regret is that they are currently in
|the process of fixing what isn't broken and I don't think the results are going
|to be too good.
Well if you were thinking of switching - which from the sounds of it
you weren't - then this is not the product that would do it.
Champions is the best of the Hero system. If you want to have a
reason to change try GURPS Space or GURPS Magic. If you find the
Hero system meets your needs than there is no reason to switch.
As to why the Hero System is changing - how about economic
necessity. No one wants to keep buying the same set of rules
over and over again. GURPS has a big advantage in a very minor
area - packaging. It is the one thing that loyal Hero fans
consistantly gripe about. The other thing that turns people
of to Hero is inconvenience. Meta-rules are great but it's
a royal pain having to spend weeks just to generate a simple
list of basic spells or powers. I understand that Fantasy
Hero for instance has no spell list. Adding this would
greatly improve the products market appeal. After all,
most people have a finite amount of time ( in most cases
very finite ) to persue gaming. I would prefer working
on the story line and campaign development rather than
being required to develop game mechanics. Hero has the
ability to satisfy both types of gamer, can you blame
them for trying?
Jim Duncan
|Keith "Badger" Vaglienti
Path: gmdzi!unido!mcvax!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!husc6!rutgers!apple!vsi1!steve
From: st...@vicom.COM (Steve Maurer)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp
Subject: A guru's history (was Re: Another GURPS Supers Review)
Message-ID: <2227@vicom.COM>
Date: 17 Jun 89 23:15:18 GMT
References: <8513@pyr.gatech.EDU> <5019@umd5.umd.edu>
Reply-To: st...@vicom.COM (Steve Maurer)
Organization: Vicom Systems Inc. San Jose, Cal.
Lines: 40
Posted: Sun Jun 18 00:15:18 1989
Keywords:
Jim Duncan:
> Incidentally, you are wrong about SJ Games hating Super RPGs,
> since back in the days when Steve Jackson owned the Space Gamer,
> Champions was one of the favorite topics. I recall one article
> in which Aaron Allston described the Space Gamer staff Champions
> campaign. I gather from the description that the campaign was
> low powered.
Yes, this is in fact the origin of my motto.
SJG, like Hero Games, had (and perhaps still does have) an "open
gaming night", where various RPGs were played, including playtesting.
Aaron brought Champions to SJG, and it ended up one of the most popular
games being run there. So much so that Steve Jackson eventually had
to say "no running non-SJG games here" because the Champions game was
seriously interfering with getting the playtesting done.
Eventually, other people in the same area started playing Champions
too, but they kept coming to Aaron for rules questions. It this legal?
How much of a Limitation is this? What about this Advantage? This
kept happening so much, that he ended up yelling: "Look guys, I am NOT
a Champions guru". When they found out about it (from Aaron, who did
Autodeul-Champions), this so amused the Hero partners, they made their
own mottos to fit Aarons: "Well I'm not a guru either", "Where's the
guru?", "What's Champions?". (You can see some of this in Champions 2
on the front page).
Some time after George told me this story, I caught George on a
Champions rules point (yes, even world-famous game designers sometimes
forget their own rules), and he told me I really was an expert.
"A GURU?", I asked.... which provoked some laughter. Since then, I
started calling myself the long-lost Champions guru.
Steve Maurer
"I AM a CHAMPIONS guru"
p.s. Actually, I forget rules just as often as anybody else does
- as has been pointed out to me on many occasions.
Path: gmdzi!unido!mcvax!ukc!strath-cs!glasgow!alex
From: a...@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp
Subject: Re: A guru's history (was Re: Another GURPS Supers Review)
Message-ID: <3122@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Date: 19 Jun 89 21:51:01 GMT
References: <8513@pyr.gatech.EDU> <5019@umd5.umd.edu> <2227@vicom.COM>
Reply-To: a...@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson)
Organization: Comp Sci, Glasgow Univ, Scotland
Lines: 27
Posted: Mon Jun 19 22:51:01 1989
In article <2...@vicom.COM> st...@vicom.COM (Steve Maurer) writes:
> SJG, like Hero Games, had (and perhaps still does have) an "open
>gaming night", where various RPGs were played, including playtesting.
>Aaron brought Champions to SJG, and it ended up one of the most popular
>games being run there. So much so that Steve Jackson eventually had
>to say "no running non-SJG games here" because the Champions game was
>seriously interfering with getting the playtesting done.
Quibble: isn't it the case that only AA's Champions campaign was
chucked (for the above-stated reason), rather than all Not Invented Here
products? (Or possibly "all Champions campaigns", which likely ammounted
to much the same thing at the time.) Hence the description of the same as:
"The only campaign to have been thrown out of the SJG playtesting seesions
for being _too_ popular".
If this alternative version tramples on anyone's "Steve Jackson is an
other-game-company-(especially Hero!-)products-hating agent of Satan"
conspiracy theories, I'm profoundly sorry. :-)
On the original subject of GURPS Supers (which I'm abstaining from the
brewing flamefest over on the mundune grounds that it's not available
here yet) whatever became of GS author L[l]oyd Blankenship? Is he now
net.accessless, or just very quiet?
--
Alex Ferguson.
ARPA: alex%cs.glasgow.ac...@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk USENET: a...@glasgow.uucp
BANGNET: ...!mcvax!ukc!cs.glasgow.ac.uk!alex JANET: a...@uk.ac.glasgow.cs
"You mean you could have walked the galaxy and you simply never bothered?"
Path: gmdzi!unido!mcvax!uunet!lll-winken!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!bbn!milli...@bbn.com
From: milli...@bbn.com (Walter Milliken)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp
Subject: Re: A guru's history (was Re: Another GURPS Supers Review)
Summary: Loyd is off the net
Message-ID: <41705@bbn.COM>
Date: 20 Jun 89 17:47:16 GMT
References: <8513@pyr.gatech.EDU> <5019@umd5.umd.edu> <2227@vicom.COM>
<3122@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Sender: n...@bbn.COM
Reply-To: milli...@bbn.com (Walter Milliken)
Organization: BBN Advanced Computers, Inc. Cambridge, MA
Lines: 14
Posted: Tue Jun 20 18:47:16 1989
In-reply-to: alex@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson)
In article <3...@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>, alex@cs (Alex Ferguson) writes:
>On the original subject of GURPS Supers (which I'm abstaining from the
>brewing flamefest over on the mundune grounds that it's not available
>here yet) whatever became of GS author L[l]oyd Blankenship? Is he now
>net.accessless, or just very quiet?
>--
>Alex Ferguson.
Loyd is off the net, since he went to work for SJ Games. He's been
trying to do something about that -- either hooking SJG up to Usenet
somehow or hooking up his home PC (I think). So far, it hasn't
happened.
---Walter