A Side View Takes Shape

I just finished Version 1.0 of the side view for my megadungeon. It currently contains 16 levels with the assumption that they will all have some degree of sublevels. I also made it a point to Jayquay the shit out of it. This might bite me in the butt if players decide to make a beeline for Level 15 or some silliness, but I think I can generally control the flow into the dungeon by knowledge of entrances and carefully placed traps, puzzles, etc.

Something that worries me a bit about the current side view is that I didn’t really leave much empty space. This is an issue that will likely bite me in the butt later on, and I know it. I am already considering remaking the map with more space. Always, always leave room to grow. But even with that said, I’m pretty pleased with the level of interconnectedness I have and am excited about making a few of these levels. Fun times are ahead indeed.

Eschew Sleep

2 / 4 / 6 / 8 / 9 / 11 / 13 / 15 / 18

Power: Dream Mastery.

Prerequisites: Dream Walking 1.

Your need for sleep slowly dissipates until you no longer require any. You require one fewer hours of sleep per day per level, for up to eight levels, at which point you no longer require any sleep. Ninth level is special in that it grants immunity to sleep-related effects.

Veiled Perception

35 points / 51 level

Power: Perception Mastery.

Prerequisites: Mystic Perception 1.

Activation Cost: 1 FP to activate; 1 FP per 2 minutes to maintain.

End of Pyramid Magazine

I just learned today that Pyramid Magazine, is closing down after the December issue this year. You can read the official announcement and discussion here, but I'll summarize:

• Pyramid Magazine was expensive to produce.
• It took up a great deal of SJGames' staff time to produce.
• It didn't earn enough money to support itself.
• It didn't benefit from collectors who wanted to get every issue.
• It wasn't perceived as providing official rules despite SJGames's intent.
• Money and staff efforts will be redirected toward putting out more official GURPS books.
• There are plans for re-releasing old GURPS products on print-on-demand.
• There are plans to update articles from old editions of Pyramid to 4th edition.

From this, it appears that GURPS itself is still going strong and will continue to be supported for the foreseeable future. This is good news. SJGames is simply streamlining their operation to produce more GURPS books - something I, for one, have wanted more than Pyramid issues as of late.

This isn't a knock against the authors in Pyramid so much as me finding it rare that there is an issue with more than one immediately useful article in it. And depending on the topic of the issue, none of them are useful. It would be more valuable to me as a consumer for an entire book on that one issue than six useful pages and 24 pages might never use. That way I can buy the books I need and know they go as far in depth into the subject as is necessary, as opposed to being constrained by word count and the need to leave space for other articles.

Naturally, your idea of a useful article differs from mine, and which ones should be turned into books differs, and therein lies the issue with Pyramid Magazine. I need issues about science fiction, and you need them about, for example, true crime drama. So if an article can be used for science fiction, I'm happy and you don't want to buy the issue. If it is about true crime drama, you want the issue, and I don't care about it. But if a GURPS Drama book is released, that would appeal to both of us, since you can apply it to true crime games and I can apply it to space opera.

Now you might say, "Hey! If Pyramid can have an article about true crime drama and space opera in the same issue, wouldn't you both buy it?" But consider this: a Pyramid issue cost 7.99 USD . That's 7.9 9USD for maybe 6 pages of useful content, on average. Compare that to Action 1 - Heroes, Action 4 - Specialists, Boardroom and Curia, City Stats, Crusades, etc. All of these cost 7.99 USD or less, and if you need information on that topic, these go into some serious depth. So you have to ask yourself, do I spend 7.99 USD on 6 pages of useful content or an entire book on a subject?

I guess what I'm getting at with this rambling prose is that while losing Pyramid is sad, it's not the end, and in many ways, it paves the road for more, better GURPS content. I optimistically look forward to seeing what SJGames does with the funds and manhours freed up by canceling Pyramid. 

Word of Command

25 points + 5 points / level

Power: Telepathy.

Prerequisites: Telepathic Talent 1.

Activation Roll: IQ.

Complimentary Skills: Body Language.

By pitching your voice and adjusting your speech patterns, you are able to speak directly to a person’s soul and compel him to action. Using this ability requires a full minute of Concentration on another person’s speech and mannerisms, after which you speak your command, which requires your subject both hear and understand. If your subject cannot hear you or cannot understand the language you issued your command in, the ability automatically fails. If your command is understood, however, you must then make a Quick Contest of your IQ versus your subject’s Will. Only range penalties apply, see Speed/Range Table, (p. B550).

Let the Mapping Begin!

I have begun mapping the megadungeon I'll be making for the game I hope to eventually run when life gives me back some free time. So far, I've drawn about 75 rooms across four levels/sub-levels and I'm trying to add at least a few rooms every day. I'm not stocking yet, and frankly, I'm not even sure where in the overall megadungeon these rooms are. I simply had an idea and decided I better put pencil to paper while the inspiration lasted.

Really, the first thing I should really do is get a side view map drawn, so I have something to work off of. I should probably get more of an idea of what this megadungeon is, why it exists, and so on, but that doesn't sound fun right this instant. So instead, I'm going to do what has me motivated and keep drawing rooms and reading modules.

Because potential players may be reading this, my posts about the megadungeon will remain vague and no maps will be posted. Hopefully, I'll learn something about mapping and make some posts on that, too. In the meantime, I'll just keep plodding along and see what happens.

Feet of Luck

17 points

Power: Fate Mastery.

Prerequisites: None.

For the next ten seconds, your feet just happen to find the best possible footing out of pure luck rather than skill, no matter how horrible the terrain is. This allows you to ignore all terrain penalties to movement speed, DX rolls, and DX-based skills for the next ten seconds.

Enhanced Skills: +2 to Climbing, Running, and Swimming; +2 to DX, Acrobatics, and Jumping rolls to stick landings or otherwise not lose your footing.

Statistics: Terrain Adaptation (Active, +300%; Maximum Duration, 10 seconds, -75%; PM, -10%; Switchable, +10%) [17].

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Mystical Powers Part 5 - Stat Block for Abilities

As I prepare to write abilities, it strikes me that I may need a template for making these easily parsed by player and GM alike. Now, I could use the format from GURPS Powers, but those are extremely condensed and don’t really explain how the ability is meant to function. I could also use the format from GURPS Psionic Powers, but again, this doesn’t really quite meet the needs for this set of powers. So I’m going to rely on both common sense and the precedent set forth in GURPS Thaumatology – Sorcery, GURPS Powers – Enhanced Senses, and GURPS Powers – Divine Favor. I’ll make my own!

What Are Dungeon Fantasy Monster Classes?

[Now updated with Krommtastic insight...]

A recent conversation with +Douglas H. Cole over at Gaming Ballistic, LLC. about monster classes in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy has had me reexamining how I deal with these. He was surprised that dragons count as Mundane monsters and spoke to Sean Punch about it while working on his upcoming DFRPG adventure, Hall ofJudgement, and what Sean had to say was something like this: Monster class is driven by which spells can affect a given monster.

Monstrous Senses

Today I’ll be talking about senses. As it stands, we have a few advantages and disadvantages that work well to describe different ways humans can or could perceive the world around them, but we start to run into problems when we try to extend these to animals. And if we can’t even stat up a dog’s senses, what are we missing out on when we make monsters?

“But senses aren’t what makes a monster deadly!” I hear you yell angrily at your monitor. That’s not entirely true. If a monster can spot you before you spot it, it can catch you unawares and unable to defend yourself – for one round, at least. And that can be enough to put you into a death spiral. What’s worse is that a monster in its natural environment will probably sense you just fine, even if you can’t figure out where it is!

“But I have smoke bombs that will block its vision!” you reply. Well, not all monsters use vision as their primary sense. What about beasts that smell as well as humans see? Or those with such amazing hearing that they can fight by sound alone? Maybe they can feel where you are based solely on your footfalls. See where I’m going with this? An easy way to give a monster an interesting and substantial advantage is to give it special(ized) senses. That means we need traits to describe them.

Mystical Powers Recap

Today, I’m offering a quick recap of what we’ve done so far before forging onward to creating individual abilities. This post will serve as a reference for rules, power modifiers, power talents, and power descriptions.

Next time, I will begin building abilities whole cloth. My goal there is to sufficiently flesh out the powers with useful, playable abilities to be able to begin working on one or more mysticism-based templates. I’m not sure how long this process will take, and I may decide to break it up into more frequent, smaller posts. I’ll know more for certain as I write them.

If you are just joining us or want to walk the road to this post, check out the Mystical Powers Index.

In the meantime, here is what we have so far for Mysticism:

A Corruption System for Starfall

A major theme that runs throughout Starfall is Corruption versus Purity. Within the setting lore, Corruption is represented by demons and the Maelstrom; while, Purity is represented by nature and Ananta. We have spent some time now working on mysticism and eschatology, both of which illuminate the side of purity. Today we take a break from that to investigate the other side of the coin – Corruption.

Mystic Powers Part 4 - Choosing Abilities Continued

Today we continue our delve into assigning abilities to powers. Last time, we built out Body Mastery, Projection, and Perception powers. Today, we will finish up with Dream Mastery, Fate Mastery, Telepathy, and Soul Mastery.

If you’re new to this series or just want a refresher, check out the Mystic Powers Index.

Today, we will continue using GURPS Powers, GURPS Power-Ups 2 – Perks, and GURPS Psionic Powers. Other books and series are mentioned, but not necessary to this discussion.

Four W’s (and an H) on Gaming Rewards

I was thinking yesterday about the many ways to reward players in an old-school dungeon delving game, and a few things came to mind. These boiled down to the basic five questions of any investigation: What, Why, When, Who, and How. We won’t tackle them in that order, but they provide a surprisingly good framework for this discussion.

What?

The main motivating factor in most such games is making your PCs more powerful, so basically anything that enables this can be a suitable reward. The obvious ones are cash, gear, and XP – or character points in the case of GURPS. But those aren’t the only options, especially in GURPS.