Random Old Stuff for 12/10/2021

Random old stuff for 12/10/2021

- Hurrah! I got this email from GMT Games:

We are pleased to announce that the game Fire in the Lake, 3rd Printing in your order number XXXXXXX (quantity 1 at price $59.00) has changed status to: Made the Cut We have numerous games in the pre-production queue and generally assign an exact charge date for each P500 game as they near 700 orders. Please keep an eye on the P500 section of the GMT website, which we will update regularly with exact dates for P500 charging and shipping.

Yay!

Now I get to watch a different web page for updates, this one:

P500

- Acoup has finally posted the next part of his "Fortifications" post series.

- I'm busily finishing the game of X-Com: Apocalypse I started a few years ago. I accidentally blew up most of a Marsec building and now they're my sworn enemies. Oh well. But I'm wiping out the Alien Dimension one building at a time. I'm enjoying the process.

- I'm away this weekend (intensive instructor training) - so you may see a post on Sunday for Felltower, but it depends heavily on my Sunday.

- I need to do a Top 10 myself, but here you go:

My Top 10 D&D Adventures of the Golden Age (Part I)
My Top 10 D&D Adventures of the Golden Age (Part II)

See you guys Monday, probably!

Why a cap of Stat+10?

I've written before about setting caps on defenses, skills, etc. in GURPS.

A cap of Stat+10 as a limit dates back to 3rd edition. But why 10? Why not more, like 12 or 15, or less, like 4 or 6 like Talents?

On my drive home from a skill-training event*, I was thinking about the way GURPS has centered around +10:

-The TDM chart ranges from -10 to +10.

- the highest non-range penalties tend to cap at -10 (eyeslits of helms, chinks of armor over vitals, cannot see)

- stats tend to cap at +10 over base (humans range up to 20 in ST, DX, IQ, HT in most genres)

- Trying to do a long task "instantly" is -10.

There are few examples of very high penalties that aren't range, stacked penalties, or some combination of both.

So having a skill cap at Stat+10 is well in line with that. It has a symmetry - a true prodigy (DX or IQ 20) or a true master (Skill 20) can absorb the worst penalty and still have a 50/50 shot of success. A prodigy with mastery (DX or IQ 20 and stat+10 skill) still has mastery even faced with that penalty. That's not unreasonable as the true maximum.

I think that means Stat+10 makes sense as a potential cap.


* Aka, martial arts class.

Gates, Scaling, and Power Levels

Just a quick thought as I let a few Felltower ideas stew around in my brain before I fit them in where they'll belong on the map(s.)

Felltower dungeon has a large number of gates - more than the PCs have found, and they've found a number of them.

Some of the gates are, basically, like dungeon levels. I made them, stocked them, and leave them to be found. The PCs might hit them "too early," and suffer a very high risk. They might hit them at just the right time, and have a risk and reward that matches their level. Or they might hit them "too late," and find a low risk but a reward that isn't really worth the effort.*

However, some gates are unabashedly gamey. I'll adjust their difficulty based on the power level of the group. You simply cannot overmatch the challenge behind it. You can undershoot it and get massacred, of course, but if you're more powerful than I expected I'll just ratchet up the difficulty level.

Is that fair?

Is that "old school?"

Is it "new school?"

Does that fit with the idea of putting down a sitation and letting the dice decide how it all goes?

I don't actually care.

I have an expected minimum level of toughness and reward for those places. I don't want to spend an exciting location, hand-picked foes, and an area of interest on the PCs going through them like a buzzsaw and sucking up some loot in the process.

I won't say which are which ahead of time. After, I might. The PCs have hit one of these "scaling" gates already, possibly more, and one that doesn't, possibly more.

Not a lot of real depth to this post, just a thought that might spark some thought or discussion. My game's only consistent aim is to be entertaining to everyone within a set of parameters.



* Some aren't like dungeon levels at all, and require something different than killing and looting.

Last 6 hours for Nordlond Bestiary!

Doug's latest Kickstarter is only 6 hours from completion:



It's not looking great for a jump to the next batch of pages, but it's at 176 pages. Get in while there is still time.

A Day to Go for Nordlond Bestiary

We're closing in on the last day for Doug's latest Kickstarter:



It is at 160 pages for the PDF and print book so far, and it looks good for 176 pages - Demons & Slimes. I'm looking forward to it.

I'm in for the PDF and the print book. I've waffled on the VTT pack . . . but I probably don't need it enough to justify $15 on it, and I tend to make my own quick reference notes. So $65 plus shipping for me. Want more GURPS-compatible monsters and another DFRPG book? Join us!

Disadvantage review for Felltower PCs

It was time this week for a good look at the PCs in the campaign to see who needs adjustment.

Looking at every else's disadvantages, they largely play them.

Gerry is a clueless, zombie-friendly team player.

Crogar is a cautious and methodical swamp-hater.

Galen is a bloodthirsty loner who hates city folk, doesn't own much, and doesn't care much except to stick by his teammates.

Wyatt is company-loving, arrogant, overconfident guy who won't turn down a fight, even when it's a bad idea.

Bruce is a hair-trigger tempered fist-happy savage with no regard for things like "common decency" or "clothing."

Aldwyn needed a little tweaking, though. His disadvantages had him as having Code of Honor (Chivalry) and being an upright, honorable guy. His actual play has him being an upright teammate but a ruthless executioner who'll take your head while using whatever unfair advantages he can get.

So Code of Honor (Chivalry) had to go. After a short discussion, Code of Honor (Soldier's) plus Bloodlust (15) seemed to way to go, instead. He's actually a little more bloodthirsty than that, but that's fine - he can control it when he chooses to pretty easily. He, like Galen, just probably won't choose to control it very often at all.



Periodically I like to look at the characters like this. Their disadvantages should reflect how they're played . . . and I generally prefer to modify the disads instead of modify play, within reason. You should read someone's sheet, quirks and all, and say, "Oh my, yes" not "I didn't know you had . . . "

I also need to spend some points on Varmus - he had 10 to spend. I'm currently reveiwing what he has vs. what his full-on Wizard template needs . . . and I'm aiming to bring him in line with that. A pure gamist perspective would be to get Magery 6 before anything else and then up Energy Reserve. That would make him the most useful to the other PCs. But would it make Varmus-as-Varmus the best wizard he could be, long term? Maybe not . . . and when Aldwyn hits 500 would it be nice if Varmus looked a lot like a 250-point wizard? I think yes. So I'm still deciding the best route to getting close to there.

And look for a post later this week - possibly Thursday or Sunday - with a Felltower-specific discussion of what the Code of Honor (Soldier's) means in play.

Saturday VTT thoughts

I looked at some of this video of Doug's, showing Foundry VTT support for his new monsters. Pretty neat:



But I keep thinking . . . I play a number of things not by the book. I play a lot of monsters off of variants. I have rules that aren't in any books at all.

The more computer support I get, the more I need to fight with the computer to make it do what I want it to do.

What I really need for a VTT isn't really tight integrated rules support.

I need:

- easy dynamic lighting and Fog of War

- easy range managment

- easy movement of icons

- easy addition and scaling of maps

- a solid random rolling system that doesn't give Roll20 bullshit like these rolls from Aldwyn last session:

(Seriously, look at that. Three rolls with three dice all the same - just column shifted.)

. . . and maybe a few little things.

I don't really want a computer game where I'm the GM, so much as a set of tools that just let me execute what I'm doing.

More than anything, I miss playing on the tabletop. The tools that would let me do that while taking advantage of cut-and-past monster replication, map uploads, and fog of war would be awesome. And yet the things I see that do the job better than Roll20 also integrate the rules "better," which isn't really a big help.

I might be asking for too much by asking for less. But I'm not really sure. It's why I hate Roll20 at this point but I don't seem to be in a big hurry to spend time digging into a new VTT. I will look closer at Foundry . . . but my desires are for something that is probably not around to be found.