Review: GURPS Action 2: Exploits

Getting my biases out of the way first - I'm a GURPS fan, GURPS author, and the author of this particular book is my friend and frequent co-author Sean Punch. I'm not pretending to be unbiased, but I will at least endeavor to be fair.




GURPS Action 2: Exploits
by Sean Punch
50 pages
$9.99 on e23
Preview of the PDF

GURPS Action 2: Exploits is the second of a (as-yet) three book series. It is preceded by Action 1: Heroes and Action 3: Furious Fists.

Action, like Monster Hunters and Dungeon Fantasy, is basically a worked example of a genre or game style for GURPS. The Action books go through GURPS and set up all the possible options for how you'd want them to simulate an action movie. The first book in the series sets the stage with character rules; this one, like its DF counterpart, centers on how to run the adventure.

The nice thing about GURPS Action is that it isn't really a simplification of GURPS. It's a refinement of the rules for the specific case at hand. Without discarding GURPS rules it manages to provide a cinematic feeling version of those rules to use. A good example are Range Bands, used for the chase rules and for combat as well. Instead of figuring the distance in yards and then using the Speed/Range Table, you just decide on the range band (touching range is Close, for example, but sniper rifle distance is Long) and use the flat penalty for all attacks in that combat (or at least between those combatants). This approach de-emphasizes tactical combat and hex map maneuvering - which while very cool in a Tactical Shooting type game it's death to large-scale action-movie fighting. I like this enough that I'm going to grab it for my DF game for our mapless or map-light fights, where broad penalties and "you're in this hex-ish" is how I keep the pace up.

The chase rules make use of the Speed/Range table for bonuses, so it's easy and straightforward to assign bonuses. You chose your maneuver, your opponent chooses his, you make your rolls to see how it goes, and then have a contest of skills to see if the pursuer gets closer or further. And because character skill rules over reality in action games, it's merely hard but not impossible for a action hero on foot to run down a sports car in a chase through good rolls, judicious use of Lucky Breaks (basically a way to serendipitously place things you need in your path), and clever action. If you ever wanted to play out a Bond (or Popeye Doyle) car chase, Parkour your way through a cityscape to run down an acrobatic bad guy, or execute similar stunts, the chase rules are both easy and fun.

The single most useful bit of this book are the concepts of BAD and ACT. "BAD" stands for Basic Abstract Difficulty, and it's the net penalty to most rolls the heroes need to make in order to get things done. The more leverage the bad guys have, the more stuff they have going for them, the worse the BAD penalty is. The heroes counter this by using their skills to accumulate ACT, or "Accumulated Complementary Total." Rules for one teammate using a skill to help another (Complementary Skills, which I stole shamelessly and used in GURPS Martial Arts: Gladiators) encourage teamwork and action-movie style synergies. This is where Action makes it clear that it's more influences by Ocean's Eleven than by solo action hero movies - because gaming groups are generally a group, not a single action hero-playing hero and his hapless sidekicks.

So an "action movie" game can start with the bad guys giving a large penalty to any attempts by the heroes to get onto their base, stop their death ray/poison gas weapon/steal their loot/whatever. But the heroes can use their high skills against that penalty, and by securing successes whittle the penalty away. The players can always choose to just go for it, but the more cleverness they use in whittling down the BAD score the easier their mission will be. It lets you choose how much work you're willing to do to get the job done - you're rewarded for putting in some Mission Planning Montage Time, basically, but you can always cut right to the chase and just suck up the BAD as the cost of being a hero. Good stuff - nothing arbitrarily stops you but all the build-up in the movies makes sense and directly benefits those that do it. It even has fun little bits like heroes working for law enforcement or another overarching power needing to ask permission to act - and how it works when they ignore it and go ahead guns blazin' anyway.

The great thing about these rules, in my opinion, is that it makes both success valuable and failure fun - failing a roll doesn't end the game, it just changes the nature of the encounter or the level of threat. It's a really elegant matching of mechanics and genre feel, without feeling the least bit non-GURPSy. Skills matter, advantages and disadvantages matter, and at the same time play style matters. It reminds of a much-smoother version of the old Victory Games James Bond 007 RPG, meshed with the integrated and easy play that GURPS is capable of.

Overall:
Content: 5 out of 5. Everything you need to run a modern action game in GURPS, without the stuff you don't need.
Presentation: 5 out of 5. Well written and easy to follow, and speaks the language of the genre without getting in the way of clarity.

Overall: If you are into modern action games, and know GURPS, this is a great book to look at. Even if you don't know GURPS well it's a great look at how to put together an action plot that hangs together like a movie would without being a railroad. GURPS GMs can find a plethora of useful rules for running a game in a more streamlined, cinematic style. The chase rules alone are worth getting, and the book is packed full of good advice and easy to follow rules for making a fast pace game. Under-appreciated and highly recommended. I'm sorry it took me so long to get it.

Felltower DF NPC: Norman the Axe

Here is another of the NPCs from my DF Felltower game. Norman is based on the Squire template from GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 15: Henchmen. He's built on 125 points, and chose option 3 on the Melee Skill package option.

Norman the Axe

A cold, humorless but effective mercenary soldier. He's guarded caravans, worked for a guild-sponsored militia in Stericksburg, and took a single trip to Felltower. It ended badly, but he's still willing to take another trip into the ruins. Norman lost his mail armor on his one trip into Felltower, but has some heavy leather now as a replacement. His long-term goal is pretty simple - earn enough money to purchase a farm to retire to. His short-term goal is more simple - earn enough money for a sword, some replacement mail, and some better gear in general.

125 points

ST 14 HP 14 Speed 6.25
DX 13 Will 10 Move 5
IQ 10 Per 10 BL 39 lbs.
HT 12 FP 12
Dodge 9 Parry (Axe/Mace) 11+DB Block 11+DB

Axe (15): 2d+2 cut; Reach 1.
Large Knife (13): 2d-2 cut or 1d imp; Reach C.
Light Club (14): 2d crush or 1d+1 crush; Reach 1.

Traits: Bloodlust (12); Born War Leader 1; Callous; Code of Honor (Soldier's); Combat Reflexes; Easy to Read; No Sense of Humor.

Quirks: Really, really hates rust monsters.

Skills: Axe/Mace-15; Armoury (Melee Weapons)-10; Brawling-13; Broadsword-14; Climbing-13; Connoisseur-10; Fast-Draw (one-handed sword)-13; First Aid-12; Heraldry-9; Knife-13; Leadership-10; Shield-15; Stealth-13; Strategy-9; Sumo Wrestling-13; Tactics-10; Thrown Weapon (Axe)-14.

Gear: Axe; Backpack; Boots (Feet DR 2); Clothing; Gauntlets (DR 4, hands); Heavy Leather Armor (Arms, Legs, Torso DR 2); Large Knife; Light Club; Personal Basics; Pot Helm (DR 4, skull); Pouch; Small Shield (DB 2).

My Reading List Grows Out of Control

So my reading pile has expanded from one to a big pile of books almost overnight.

On my reading list, in no particular order, are:

GURPS Action 2
GURPS Martial Arts: Yrth Fighting Styles (a Banestorm-themed Martial Arts supplement)*
GURPS Locations: St. George's Cathedral*
GURPS Zombies*

Pyramid #3/58 - Urban Fantasy II (I wanted Sean's article on DF town traits)
Pyramid #3/60 - Dungeon Fantasy III

I also got Orcslayer because I needed to polish off a gift card, and although I have two copies I can't see why having it in PDF would be a bad thing, especially at $2.99. So I should re-read that just for old times' sake, but I don't hardly have the time.

Why not?

Because I also need to re-read GURPS Martial Arts: Technical Grappling, because there is a lot to digest in it, and I need to know it better for a project I'm working on.

And also because I have to read Swords & Wizardry Complete (I should find out how it works before I play, I suppose, not just cruise on half-remembered AD&D rules) and finish up reading Dungeon Crawl Classics so I can return it to the person who loaned it to me.

Nevermind my non-gaming reading, all of which must be done - my gaming hobby pays, but my non-gaming reading is job related. I guess I'll push my "books to re-read" pile off to the side for a couple of months while I work through this backlog.

* I am a credited playtester, proofreader, or otherwise credited reader on these. But although I read one completely, one partially, and a small section of another of these before release, it's nothing like reading the final version. So I really need to sit down and read these all again even if I've got some idea of what's in them already.

Tricks: Unkillable Monster

Another in my series on trick monsters - today, it's the ones you just can't kill off. At least, not easily.

Some monsters are tough beyond toughness. They just can't be stopped through the traditional methods of the dungeon delver and monster hunter - straight-up damage. Fire and the sword might slow these monsters down, but it won't keep them down.

Unkillable Monsters

These monsters just won't die easily. Lay in some linament, because your sword arm is going to be sore before you're through.

But unkillable doesn't necessarily mean invulnerable, although it can - some of the magic creations in Glen Cook's Dread Empire series were literally invulnerable, and could only be carried off so the weren't a proximate threat.

Literally Unkillable

These monsters can't be killed. Ever. Period. Nothing will drop them, or if it does, they instantly and immediately get better, like some monstrous version of Madcap. A good example of this is Cthulhu. Nuke Cthulhu, ram a ship into his head, whatever - you're just buying some time. They come back Phoenix-like to avenge themselves.

They may not even be able to be harmed. This might be sheer strength - a Rolemaster Black Reaver, for example - that makes damaging it difficult to the point of futility. Or simple immunity to damage.

Using these is tricky - they need be limited in some way, or at least foil-able, or they're simply not fun as well as not fair.

Limited Vulnerability

Some monsters can be killed, but only through a specific Achilles' heel.

The Sword-Spirit in Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 1 is one of these - it is both tough and only killable with a specific type of weapon. Or a specific weapon. They're cursed and thus are only vulnerable to breaking the curse.

Trolls can only be killed with fire or acid, although I know some read D&D's rules as saying if you kill them before they start regenerating they are dead, dead, dead. Where is the fun in that? Require the fire, I say.

Vampires can survive almost anything but sunlight and holy water.

And where do you even start on Demi-Liches?

The trick with these monsters is finding out what can kill them, and then using that to finish them off. It can be as simple as "magic weapons" or "fire" or as complex and fiddly as "a sword of silver, thrust into its heart under the light of a blue moon." Pretty much any monster that is unstoppable until you find its weakness is a Limited Vulnerability Unkillable Monster.

Repeat Performance

Some monsters can be killed, often with anything that would kill a normal creature, but get well afterward.

Typically the threat isn't that the monster is unkillable so much as requires multiple killings.

Some might have Extra Life and just get back up. Liches might have spare bodies to move to, gods might only have material forms you can mess with - but you're merely pushing the problem to another day.

Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 1 also introduces the "Psycho Killer" prefix, which pretty much makes killing the monster an exile in deja vue. The Golem-Armor Swordsman from DF is the same - you have to kill them more than once to keep them from killing you.

The Lord of the Maze in my own version of the Caves of Chaos is an Unkillable Monster. You can put him down, and the PCs have done so, but he keeps coming back. They have theorized his magic spear and armor are cursed and keep bringing him back. Whatever the truth, simply applying damage to him until he stops coming isn't the answer.

Death Transformation

One nasty version of this kind of monster isn't a monster that refuses to die or just returns, but rather turns into something else. These monsters essentially use death as a morphing trigger to come back, usually in a stronger form.

This can be return as undead, physical transformation, or ascension into some higher form. While monsters can die and come back weaker, that risks them being irrelevant - if you could kill their "tough" form, who cares about the weak form? Having them come back stronger means that there is a resource-crunch. You need to kill them, but have enough in the tank to kill them again once they're tougher.

If they transform unless killed, you have a time-crunch instead.

I had some of these in my last campaign. Inspired by a the GURPS Knack Tattoo rules, I had a group of nasty orc assassin who were inscribed with a zombie ritual - so they'd come back from the dead, immediately, as a form of super-zombie. If the zombie was slain, well, they had a Skull Spirit tattoo, as well - and a ghostly assassin would come to avenge them on their slayer 24 hours later. Killing them ultimately was the solution, but their original form was perhaps their weakest one.


Unkillable monsters can be fun, although they can equally be frustrating. Some players won't spend a lot of time trying to find their vulnerability or seeing is a second crack will finish them off. They'll simply try to find some clever non-death solution (Entombment, say, or walling them into a room). Keep that in mind when you use them - they invite an indirect solution. This in and of itself can be pretty cool!

Okay folks, what Unkillable nuances and tricks did I miss? Many, I'm sure!

Mini Basing: Flocking Tip

I posted this over on G+, but I decided it was worth repeating here.

Keeping the Flock On

One issue I've had with flocking/basing minis, is that the gravel, grass, etc. falls off over time. It is glue down but that's not sufficient when it comes to surface friction and just sheer aging.

So I have a two-part method to flocking bases for minis.

Step One: Flock

Coat the base with white glue (Elmer's, if possible, the cheap stuff is close but is often too watery, but see below). Dip the glue-coated base in the appropriate basing material. I may glue only sections, if I want a mixed base, or glue the whole thing and just stick on extra bits with additional glue. This provides a pretty solid base of adhesive for the flocking to stick to.

Step Two: Seal

Once the basing in Step One is dry, I mix a 50/50 water/glue mix and coat the flocking down with that. Basically I submerge the base in the 50/50 water/glue mix and then, once it has soaked through (it only takes 30 seconds or so), I take it out and wiped off the excess.

When that dries, it still looks the same but then has a nice hard shell holding it on. It's messy to do, but effective. The watery mix means the glue coats everything and gets into the cracks and gaps between gravel and sand and "grass" alike.

You can do the same thing with CA glue, at least for step one, but I find you'll need to repeat step 2 an extra time or two if you do so. CA glue is strong but lacks some side-to-side holding strength and will lose basing material sooner than flock embedded, basically, in a thin but continuous layer of white glue.

Give that a try next time you base with grass, gravel, or sand, and let me know how it comes out. It's held up pretty well for me when I have take the time to do it right.

Part II of PCs Spreading Malicious Rumors in Town

When I wrote the original post about the PCs in my DF game wanting to spread rumors in town I got a lot of feedback, really interesting feedback, too. I ended up having to explain some of the game's ground rules, as well. But I didn't just post it here, but also forwarded the link to my gaming group so they can see what I was thinking as well.

What do my gamers think?

Two of the four guys who've been discussing the rumor-spreading campaign responded (privately) to my concerns.

One pretty much said, if town being a safe base is a groundrule of the game, that's totally fine. He liked the idea of hiring people to listen for rumors for them/provide information, though, so that's probably going forward. I can't see the difference between "pay the sage to research the Lord of Spite" and "pay a bunch of barkeeps to tell me whatever they can find out about those cone-hatted cultists," either. Both fit into the creamy center of gaming goodness of my game - paying money to find out stuff to make fighting the target a lot easier on the PCs. Decide what you want to know, hand over the money, make a roll, the GM tells you what you find out.

To quote New Mike*:
"Every campaign has tropes and rules that everyone just accepts. Since this game is essentially a paper and pencil version of a roguelike, it makes sense that 'Town' is a nebulous place to recharge, buy stuff, and hear stories. We don't have to game out going to the blacksmith and special-ordering a new sword, because that's not the point -- we just roll some dice, get the sword, and move on to killin' orcs."

Old Mike** said he liked the town as safe base rule, and if rumor-mongering might jeopardize that it wasn't worth it. It was just a "I didn't think of it that way, let's not do it" kind of thing, sort of like what happened when I started thinking about how it would work.

What about the other two?

No answer yet, but neither is likely to press it. They'd also need to persuade both Mikes and I can't see that happening.

So in the end, it's not going to be an issue. I do have an idea for a DF-like mechanic for it if they try, but since we're all agreed that's not in the spirit of our game I won't need to roll it out any time soon.

And town can remain a vague base, where good and bad actors alike do whatever stuff allows them to get ready to be in the dungeon at the same time and cross swords. Which is where the real action of the game takes place.


* our game has two Mikes, and two Andys out of seven players. Original Mike brought Original Andy, and New andi brought New Mike. This is not unusual in my life, as I train Kachin Bando with 1d6-2 Kyles. It only tells me we need another couple of Mikes or Andys, that's all.

** Who might be younger than New Mike, just to confuse things.

Tricks: The Exploding Monster

Bombs are bad enough.

Francois: Do you know what kind of a bomb it was?
Clouseau: The exploding kind.
- from The Pink Panther Strikes Again

It's even worse when it's the exploding kind of monster.

Deadly Death Throes

While I refer to them as "exploding monsters" not all of them explode. Some melt in puddles of acid and take your weapon with them, some turn to stone, some do some kind of death blossom when finished off. In any case, it makes dealing a death blow to the monster potentially fatal, even if non-fatal blows don't otherwise harm you.

These kind of monsters are pretty straightforward - attacking them is fine, but killing them causes them to death a horrible backlash against their killer, or at least against those that surround them. Usually this takes the form of blowing up like the monster was made of thermite and nitroglycerine instead of flesh and blood.

Fans of Hardcore Diablo II will think about beloved characters who hit the wrong Stygian Doll at the wrong time and then had to stare at the screen showing their dead character.

Why do they explode?

There are broadly two types of excuses for a monster that blows up - physiology, and magic.

Physiology is the old "it's a big ball of toxic/noxious/explosive/flammable gas" monster, or "it's made of unstable negative energy," or the old "its blood is combustible upon exposure to air."

Magic explains the rest. The demon explodes because, well, f--- you guys for killing it. The witch has a dying curse. The draconians dissolve into acid for no reason you can tell. More technologically you have "it has a self-destruct device inside of it" or "we've got explosives!" - which for all practical purposes will work exactly like magic.

Variations

Most of the variations of this I've seen, used, or thought up vary the death throes, and include:

- Exploding

- Exploding additional effects (napalm, fragmentation, cold)

- Curse - either as bad luck ("It's bad luck to kill a wizard." - Malak), a disease, or a straight-up supernatural unhappy but temporary doom.

- Pool of Acid/Slime/Puke/whatever

- Death Blossom/Retributive Strike (basically, attacks everyone in an area for a few turns before dying)

- Poison gas

You get a split between fratricidal and non-fratricidal death throes, too. Some exploding monsters set off their friend's death throes, causing a huge series of explosions. This can be handy if you get one and kill off the rest, but equally it can be disastrous if you're caught in the overlapping explosions.

Non-fratricidal monsters have a more limited damage range. On one hand, you won't get the overlapping explosions bit. On the other hand, you can't use clever tactics and positioning to dispose of a bunch of them at once. The GM can get more mileage out of fratricidal explosions than out of, say, fratricidal curses or turning into pools of dangerous acid or poison gas clouds.

Using Exploding Monsters

The decision between fratricidal and non-fratricidal, as well as the nature of the death throes/explosion, is critical.

For a GM, the difference affects how dangerous the monsters will be. If each and every Giant Gas Bladder Monster explodes and kills all that surround it, it'll be a quick encounter either way if the monsters all hang out in each other's blast radius. If they attack with more spacing, they might not be a big of a threat. PCs will benefit from tactics and ranged detonation tactics. On the other hand, monster might deliberately deploy exploding monsters to soften up the enemy - send in the Poppers and then follow them with your normal troopers. Hard on the exploding monsters, but their lifespan is short, anyway.

On the other hand, with non-fratricidal monsters (say, mummies with death curses), the GM doesn't need to worry about how they deploy beyond any normal tactics. They simply won't bother each other with their deaths. But the PCs might need to worry more - 10 mummies means 10 curses. Is it better to space that out, or have one guy deal 10 finishing blows and hope it's easier to de-curse him 10 times (if he lives . . . ) than spread out the effects? Or if it's damage, do you sacrifice one to save many, or try to spread out the damage?

In my personal experience, exploding monsters are a lot of fun - they add a lot of tension to encounters. Equally, players will moan about them but monsters that explode feel more fragile (and often are more fragile), since so much of the threat is tied up in their death throes. In GURPS, they're much less hardy (explode at -1xHP, instead of a chance of death and automatic death at -5xHP). You get that "fighting a glass cannon" deals it/can't take it feeling. It makes for a shorter but high-tension encounter.