Wednesday, April 26, 2017

GURPS Lite in the Classroom, Session #3

For the previous session, see here:

GURPS Lite in the Classroom #2


Rules explanations:

This session I got to explain Impaling damage, Cutting damage, Crushing damage (at least in brief), Stunning, defenses, and Damage Resistance. That's quite a lot to go over.

I went over it as needed. I didn't explain anything that the player didn't need to do, but I did tell him the rolls of the opponent (but not why) and then rolled against them.

Play

We started with the still-nameless PC jumping out at the sleepy orc guard with a shiv. He didn't have Knife skill (oops, my bad) so he defaulted it to DX-4 for an 8, and missed. The orc stumbled back and drew his sword. Nameless chased him and stabbed, but the orc failed to parry him and took 3 impaling damage and was Stunned and fell back against the wall. Nameless stabbed him again, this time for 4 impaling, and the orc had to roll HT to stay up - he rolled a 13, and failed.

The orc was too tired and confused and foolish to call for help. This left Nameless in the hallway. He took the orc's sword, made sure he was really knocked out, and saw he was in a corridor going right about 20' to a door, left as far as he could see, lit by torchlight. There were more cell doors but they were open. He checked the door and found it padlocked. He thought about kicking it down but decided it was too noisy, so he went and got the keys.

Sure enough, one let him in. He pulled a torch off the wall and searched the room. His Search roll was so-so, so it took him a few minutes to find his equipment and get into it (mail, shield, sword, pack, personal basics, etc.) and determine the other things were old and uncared for.

He headed back and to the left. There he found a T-corridor with doors. He started to the right but heard what might be voices. So he went left. He passed the doors and found another T, and heard booted footsteps. He moved as quickly as he could move while being quiet (which called for a Stealth check, made by 2) and found the corridor sloped up. He eventually made his way to the base level of what his experience told him was a tower, with spiral stairs up.

We cut it there - it's hard to get a lot done in a 10-15 minute slot in a classroom and I can't spare any more.

Notes:

I ran the orc as a weak orc assigned crappy duty, so he was ST 11, HP 13, HT 11. 14 injury was enough to make him check for consciousness and he failed! The dice helped me out, here - we rolled on the table and I announced the needed rolls before I made them. Yet the orc with Broadsword-13 and a ready weapon got shiv'ed a couple of times and went right down.

It's fun watching someone strain to express what they want to do, and then pull it off in a way I can clearly understand. That's great English practice. My Japanese would be better if I could play RPGs in it, for sure. We'll see where this goes.

5 comments:

  1. Hello !

    Long time reader, first post ^^. I really like your blog, and I'm a fan of GURPS - it was my first RPG, and I started as GM (oh, the pain), but I love it.

    So, great blog all around (even though I don't have the fascination on "modules" and "old-school" and stuff - France seems to have a vastly different base there) !

    For what I gather, you're teaching English in Japan, right ? Aren't there some RPG players that you could game with in your area ? There seems to be an RPG community in Japan, so ...

    Anyway, nice to see you introduce someone to GURPS, keep up ! :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for reading and for commenting.

      I am teaching English in the U.S., not Japan, these days. I almost exclusively teach native Japanese speakers who live here temporarily.

      Delete
    2. Damn it, and I knew it even (somewhere in my memory), I just got carried away ^^ .
      Nonetheless, that's a good way to teach :)

      Delete
  2. What did you do at school today?

    I shanked a Orc

    Ok...

    But, I did it in English!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And I got paid to GM. Sounds weird but role-playing is a normal language learning tool. Putting orcs in just makes it fun where usually it's kind of lame.

      Delete

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