Judo Throw house rule

As written, Judo Throw has two mechanics in GURPS. One is attack-based, the other Quick Contest-based. Not liking two systems for one thing, this is how I've been running this in my DF game:


Offensive Judo Throw

Two attacks are needed:

1) Grapple successfully.
2) Attack to throw. If you hit, and the opponent fails to defend (with any legal defense), your opponent falls.

Defensive Judo Throw

One Parry and one attack is needed:

1) Parry using Judo.
2) Step into close combat and Attack to throw. If you hit, and the opponent fails to defend (with any legal defense), your opponent falls.

And that's it. Essentially, if you have contact with a foe from a parry or your own grapple, you can attempt a throw. It's always an attack. Any defense is valid, but generally if you have grappled a foe you've restricted a lot of defense options (Shields are a liability in close combat, Parry is an issue in close combat for many weapons, you can't Retreat while grappled, etc.) Offensive throws are, in practice, a little easier because you've stepped in close combat already and grappled, nullifying most defenses or at least limited them.

But that's it - one method for both throws.

There were/are Pathfinder novels?

I see that I'm like four years late to this, but I had no idea these things even existed until I found this on the "free books" pile at work.



I grabbed it. I don't know if I'll like it, but at least two of my gamers will give it a read.

More notes on Cold Fens 3

Here a few more notes from our last game session, Cold Fens 3.

Oops. The PCs finished off the bandits, and then killed off the wounded. Right after that, they realized they had no way to identify a) the missing Count's men sent to rescue the kidnapped townspeople or b) the missing townspeople. By the time they searched their enemies and realized the swordsmen had matching weapons, matching armor, matching tabards (albeit worn a bit), and matching symbols on their clothes . . . they'd already murdered the wounded.

They'd find out later, when they brought back the swordsman's leader's sword, that the wielder was Sir Balzar, a knight in the employ of the count. His family payed full price for the sword, and the PCs probably didn't mention how they found it.

Oops.

Double Oops. The PCs finished off the wounded before they realized we needed to finish the game session and they needed to get the heck out of the dungeon . . . but didn't have time to find food. But they needed some.

Nice GM time. I told them I could assume they questioned one of the fatally wounded and got him to cough up the location of the food stores.

So, naturally, they had all sorts of additional questions for the guy. Nope. One benefit per freebie. Had they remembered first, and didn't get this as an "it's late and you clearly forgot" gimme, they could have done whatever they wanted.

Bandit Survivors? There is probably about a half-dozen left. Two spearmen escaped, it's possible at least four archers escaped, and there is at least one wizard. What will happen with them? Hard to say.

Insect Swarms. Just to make my life easier, I've abstracted nuisance encounters. Biting flies and mosquitoes, rats that gnaw at your feet in the dark, spiders that bite, etc. - they show up on the wandering monster table as a big chunk of it (in fact, only 2 in 6 of the rolls are for remotely dangerous encounters.) When they show, it's either 1d-2 or 1d-3 of FP damage. That's it. You can't recover those FP without food and rest, representing a toll of alertness draining and blood loss and misery and tiredness. Most of the time this doesn't do anything, but the group always has people down a few FP and you never know when that'll come bite you.

Plus it conveys the feeling of how much it sucks to get through a swamp, over and above actual lethality. Deep down, I've always thought the Wandering Damage Table was actually at its core a good idea, and implemented it in this manner for nuisance encounters.

DF Game, Session 61, Cold Fens 3

April 26th, 2015

Weather: Chilly, clear.

Characters (in the dungeon): (approximate net point total)

Adventuring:
Asher Crest-Fallen, human holy warrior (270 points)
     Koric, human guard (~70 points)
     Orrie, human guard (~70 points)
Bjorn Felmanson, human barbarian (252 points)
El Murik, dwarven cleric (260 points)
Gerald Tarrant, human wizard (254 points)
Hannibal the Flammable, human wizard (254 points)
Rahtnar the Vegan, dwarven martial artist (254 points)

In Swampsedge:
Galoob Jah, goblin thief (256 points)

We picked up in Swampsedge. The group gathered some rumors, include one that certain patches of swamp water will turn you undead (prompting a lot of unsafe sipping of water by Gerald), one about how it was unseasonably misty, cold, and foggy in the swamp, and two words - Swamp Apes. Oh, and root-men. Man-like root monsters.

Cold Fens summary preview

We played another session of DF Cold Fens. It took a long time to wrap up, so I don't have time to write a summary tonight.

But:

- a nearly disastrous start took a toll on the PCs, with missed Survival rolls, Boating rolls, and accidentally camping next to a "swamp cow" (read, "catoblepas") lair. Oops.

- Two words: Leaping leeches.



- they met Rahtnar, whose player came late, at the temple. He had smooth sailing with excellent Boating and Survival rolls and no random encounters.

- a knock-down, drag-out fight with the bandits.

- Asher actually rolling better than minimum damage on two rolls!

- actual teamwork and formations!

- a profitable trip.

A long but fun and exciting session.

Gene Wolfe, and GURPS New Sun

I saw this article linked over at Akratic Wizardry. I rarely post about fiction here, because this is my RPG blog - it's got to have some immediate and direct connection to gaming, like detailing a cool dungeon or, better yet, having a game book attached to it. This post has that.

Sci-Fi’s Difficult Genius

It's about Gene Wolfe, know for his New Sun books and the Latro books (I know of two.)

Shadow of the Torturer is a book I remember starting, and then halting, and then re-starting. I brought a set of the series with me to Japan, since I found it much easier to concentrate on dense works when I surrounded by a non-English language. To this day when I think of scenes from "New Sun" I have them connected to vivid memories of certain places in Japan - reading in my apartment, reading while waiting for a train in Aizuwakamatsu, reading while sitting in school between classes. I wouldn't read the fourth book in the series until I returned to America, when I was able to track it down. I'd shortly after pick up the Latro books, and enjoy them as well.

I didn't find those books by chance, though.

I wouldn't have picked these books up, or persisted in them, if it wasn't for GURPS New Sun. I read that book back in 1999, but I couldn't make heads or tails of it. But it provided a useful incentive to read the New Sun books. I'm a credited playtester on the book, mostly due to just relentless reading and rules checking. I didn't know the New Sun, or Gene Wolfe, at all when I did that. My role was just making sure the implementation was sound.*



GURPS is precisely the right system to express what's encountered in the New Sun series. It's probably an odd place to play a game, given the very closed nature of the story. But the spooky, creepy, and unsettling elements of the story (such as the alzebo and the notules) are there in GURPS terms to port elsewhere. The stylish elements (Terminus Est, the Torturer's Grip, the odd high-tech gear) are ready to steal as well.

GURPS New Sun is one of the few 3e books I keep out and ready on my scarce shelf space. It's something I will suddenly feel inspired to pull down and look at, just like my copies of the Wolfe books.

So go read that article. And if you haven't, take the time to read the deeply fascinating New Sun books. You may not love them, but you're unlikely to regret giving them a go.


* Something I did for Planet of Adventure, too, which meant I read the whole series with an odd sense of deja vue. It's often extremely useful to have someone familiar with the rules but not with the material, because you simply read what's there without preconceptions of what you think it implies.

More Russian Knightly Combat. On Ice.

When I posted that M-1 craziness, I forgot to post some real Russians in armor whacking people.

No sword? No problem.

Remember, it's club, club, club, drink, kill with a bucket. I didn't see either of those M-1 dudes doing that last bit, and I'm not sure how you have a truly Russian battle without a little drinking out of buckets.


I just love the happy music playing when the Russian heroes are flailing away at the Teutonic Knights.



(No subtitles on that one, sorry)

If you've never watched Alexander Nevsky, take the time and do it. It's one of the finest, if not the finest, works of Sergei Eisenstein's canon. You'll finish it and want to repel Nazi invaders of the Motherland. Not only that, but it's got a stark, sharp match with the Sergei Prokofiev score. And if you've seen Conan the Barbarian and marveled at the evil looking bad guys and excellent musical score, this is a good one to look back on.




In my opinion neither would have happened without this - there are a lot of unspoken homages to this masterpiece in that one. Maybe not this one, though. It just goes to show, if you're going to steal, steal from the best!