Fun Times Indeed

Random Writing Update: At this very moment Traith Harris has stormed a building full of hell-kin, suffered the flames of sorcery, and has the barrel of one of his revolvers between the teeth of the sorcerer. He intends on really really fucking shit up.

So today I decided to start converting my DnD campaign into GURPS and I have to say, its a bit of fun. I started with something simple, creating templates for the races. I started with the soulless and I've got to say that the rules and suggestions for disadvantages and advantages for them that I've compiled are extremely satisfying. I've given them most of the advantages/disadvantages suggested for the Robot Meta-Trait and they work very nicely. For instance, I've given them the -30 point disadvantage of unhealing, i.e. they do not heal and cannot be healed by any normal physical means. They can be healed by the Mechanic Repair skill though. You cannot do that in 4th Edition. They also do not eat (robot), breathe (robot), sleep (robot), or "wear out" (infused with preserving necromantic energies). Wear out is the robot version of aging. When I based the soulless on warforged my thought was that it fit the concept I had for the race of undead robots pretty well, using the GURPS rules I feel that the fit is pretty nearly perfect. This is a good thing.

The whole GURPS character creation system is insanely fun. Reading through all the advantages and disadvantages and quirks is interesting and a hoot. There's such a plethora of options to choose from that (within reason and points allowances) you can create anything you want. Part of what I love about RPGs in general is just plugging stuff in and picking and choosing talents/feats/etc and the GURPS set up is like some sort of mystical vista I was always seeking. I could literally create Keroen Skathos out of all this stuff, from his regeneration and unstoppable physical strength to his ability to jaunt through space (and to a lesser extent time). I mean, to play the Nel, all we have to do is up the points level of the campaign and say magic and psionics are The Gifts of Keroen and that a certain portion of your points have to go to certain abilities like Unaging and various resistances and regeneration. With the Thaumatology book we can even pick out a certain school or subset of magic that is the Gifts and say the rest is magic, or vice versa.

The beauty is that most of the 3rd Edition GURPS stuffs seems compatible with the 4th Edition GURPS stuff. I'm new to all this and I have read that this is not true of the guns and some other aspects, but at the very least it is a good source of inspiration and an idea to start out from. This means that there is quite literally a metric shit ton of material to work with for this game.

Cost/value analysis time: I compared some prices and page counts of the DnD and GURPS supplements (full prices, not deals on eBay or Amazon). The GURPS books tend to be more expensive, but also bigger. That said, the GURPS books weigh in at about fifteen cents per page and the DnD books go for about eighteen cents per page. I think. These only apply to sourcebooks, not core books. Both systems create really big core/starter/whatever set of books for a decent price. I intend on investigating this issue further in an attempt to sell Tony on the system. If there is a huge amount of meat to the books and not empty spaces and silly graphics for no good reason in the GURPS books, I don't think the cost will really matter to him.

I know the name GURPS, I've even looked at some books before, I don't know why I've never gotten all bent out of shape about it like this before. I think maybe I'm just looking for something new. DnD has always been High Fantasy, capital aych capital eff. Eberron can pretend its "pulp" or "noir" but it isn't. Its High Fantasy where they pretend that having mini-golems and alternate cosmologies and arcane economies makes them special. I've read some Eberron stuff and don't get me wrong, its as neat and cool as Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance. Its not breaking any molds though. Spelljammer broke a mold. Dark Sun came close. Planescape violated the molds and then burned them to the ground. As I was saying, I've been looking for something different.

I enjoy the fact that there is an empire of undead humans who have undead robots as their slaves. That tickles my insides and, ta-da, its different. Orcs in my campaign are the most advanced race around, not the stereotype they've been forever cast as. The elves of my world are either A) the descendants of a race of energy vampires or B) a race of bloodthirsty immortal Viking-esque cannibals. Different than ye age olde fantasy tropes.

Is my setting breaking any molds? I dunno. Nor do I particularly care. I made it the way it is because I like it that way. Is there too much wacky shit in it? Probably. Again, I did it the way I did it for a reason. I like it. I think with the GURPSystem I'll be able to do everything I want to do in my campaign without having to hammer it into the confines of 4th Edition. We'll see. Everyone may say "fuck you" if I ask them to change systems, and the group may fall apart anyways. Again, we'll see.

Music: Part 4 - Penny Arcade/PVP DnD Podcast Series 1