blind_mapmaker

blind_mapmaker, 5 days ago

@DarkestKale One of the best headings I've ever seen in an RPG supplement was called "The No-Growth Campaign". That's a perfectly fine play-style, but I also prefer the slow-growth campaign.

Numbers go up does not mean fun goes up, after all.

blind_mapmaker, 5 days ago

@DarkestKale Can happen with any system, I'd say. The more divested from reality the advancement is, the easier. With a modern-day setting and relatively short in-universe time-frames you'll notice this fast.

Sure it's easier if you do GURPS than say D20 Modern or PbtA, because mechanics are less obscured, but the main thing is we're so much more willing to believe that somebody can pick up a sword and be good with it after a couple of weeks when in reality it would be years and years of daily training. With a world closer to our lived experience that becomes much harder.

blind_mapmaker, 5 days ago

@RogerBW @DarkestKale
You're right, Rev. Roger BW. Though I think the problem is not so much that the starting characters are incompetent, but that there's an ever-increasing arms race to "keep things interesting" instead of making the plots, characters, locations, motivations interesting.

The starting characters in most RPGs are about as competent as the local guard, but when they have bested (read: killed) a band of lowly goblins, they need to face something meaner and tougher the next time. And then they need to be tougher too.

Of course, part of the problem is that most RPGs are a little too obsessed with combat too. But that's a never-ending discussion

blind_mapmaker, 5 days ago

@RogerBW @DarkestKale

Just one more comment: Escalation of parameters has one further drawback in that it makes it harder for players who are not hardcore p&p folks. I usually have one or two players in my group that are not very into rules and combat. It a slow-change campaign they can hold their own, because things are more or less stable. Constant escalation and character-building homework would send them running.

Of course, stability can also be boring. Personally I run my campaigns more like TV shows where you gain maybe one new power every season and otherwise advance incrementally.

blind_mapmaker, 20 days ago

@fenarinarsa Drôle traduction du titre anglais. Merci pour partager!

blind_mapmaker, 26 days ago

@juergen_hubert @germany @folklore

To be fair, dwarves and potato cake sounds like match made in heaven.

blind_mapmaker, 3 months ago

@RogerBW @DarkestKale

Yeah, that was my big beef with the otherwise beautiful Castle Falkenstein setting. They exerted themselves finding reasons for things, but you really had to suspend your disbelief something fierce to enjoy it.

Best example I've seen lately is GURPS Infinite Worlds - Nightreign. Clear divergence point, horror and changes turned to 11, some magic and a lot of weird coping strategies (hallo salt poisoning).

Usually pays off to have a clear divergence point not too far from setting present-day. You can keep the historical figures and paint them in a very different light.

blind_mapmaker, 3 months ago

@bazkie Thanks, but we only really started when we they had their almost literal Wannseekonferenz 2.0. Let's hope we can keep it up and take the street back and then the parliaments.

But it's good to know that resistance gets noticed elsewhere too.

blind_mapmaker, 3 months ago

@wikimediaDE @magnusmanske

Coole Sache an sich, aber wenn der top-gelistete Film unter "Female Directors" gleich Leni Riefenstahls Triumph des Willens ist, kommt einem doch schnell das Kotzen.

blind_mapmaker, 5 months ago

@juergen_hubert

Das ist natürlich im Einzelfall doof und solche Fälle werden gerne für Narrative der Art "Erbschaftssteuer ist ungerecht" herangezogen, aber wo will man sonst die Grenze setzen? Ich würde davon ausgehen, dass bei einem Erbfall vom Vater keine Erbschaftssteuer fällig geworden wäre, was schon einiges in Richtung Hypothek einfacher gemacht haben sollte.

Was das Einkommen an sich angeht, so könnte ich mir noch einen Kompromiss in Sachen Untermieter vorstellen. Wenn eine Oma ein Zimmer in der eigenen Wohnung für 250 € + NK vermietet und dabei Sanitär und Küche teilt, hat das Einkommen doch noch eine andere Qualität.

Ansonsten gilt das gleiche wie bei der Erbschaftssteuer. Diese Grenzfälle werden von neoliberaler Seite immer gerne zur Stimmungsmache verwendet. Fakt bleibt aber, dass immer noch ein Brocken Vermögen vererbt wurde, der - langfristig gesehen - Sicherheit und besseren Lebensstandard ermöglicht. Nur ist es halt im Gegensatz zu den meistens Erbfantasien mit eigenem Kapitaleinsatz verbunden. Das ist nicht illegitim.

Was die Steuervorauszahlungen angeht, so kenne ich mich damit nicht gut genug aus. Klingt schon etwas viel, aber, wie schon gesagt, kann man Kosten auch wieder absetzen und dann sieht es schon etwas anders aus mit einer Vorauszahltung von 50%.

blind_mapmaker, 6 months ago

@Glorrion @Omega
Nice! Was für eine Infinite Worldline?
Bei uns steht homebrew #GURPS Fantasy (Setting und Regelmods) an und dafür geht der Tag heute drauf. Okay, etwas gezeichnet hab ich auch.

blind_mapmaker, 6 months ago

@Glorrion @Omega Oh ja, das klingt nach Einmischung von außen und Centrum hat keine Probleme mit Totalitarismus.

Edit: Trotsky nicht vergessen: Vielleicht will ja jemand eine Weltrevolution auslösen und die Spuren etwas vertuschen.

blind_mapmaker, 7 months ago

@cazabon Thanks for sharing. I was going to deal with that later, but thanks to you I caught it now.

I'm not even having a problem sharing my stuff with friends or such, but this is pretty much criminal behaviour on part of the corp.

blind_mapmaker, 8 months ago

@RogerBW @DarkestKale I generally agree, but I do like a bit more randomness than standard GURPS. Double Basic Speed + d6 is my house-rule (+ bonuses for Combat Reflexes etc.) That way fast guy is most often first, but not always. Not a fan of d20 + small bonus.

blind_mapmaker, 9 months ago

@jeremyrdyer @virtualbri Couldn't agree more. A nice bell curve does wonders for your crits too. No need to confirm anything in #GURPS when you roll 3d6 for a 3-4 crit (17-18 if you want to emulate D&D).

I wonder how many levers you need to jiggle to implement 3d6 into a D&D-type game. Mind you, it's still swingy on middling skill levels, but nothing like 8th level Rogue mentioned.

blind_mapmaker, 9 months ago

@mz4250 Nice work and cute characters!

blind_mapmaker, 9 months ago

@DarkestKale I whole-heartedly agree. Canned adventures lower the bar considerably and I probably would have never got into GMing without trying those first.

There are a few considerations - like making reasonably sure it's a good and not too complicated pregen (some companies do print GM complexity on the back-cover nowadays) and that the characters fit the adventure - you might have to make some up if it doesn't come with pregens. Oh, and doing a thorough prep has never hurt anybody who can afford the time spent.

As somebody who absolutely loathes video tutorials, having to watch a ton of surly people lay down the laws of good GMing would have turned me off being a GM for good. Thankfully it was the 90ies and there were no other resources but pregenerated adventures. 😆​

blind_mapmaker, 9 months ago

@RogerBW @DarkestKale

I feel it's helpful to have the option, even as a seasoned GM. We all have lives and time constraints. For newbies it's essential, though, especially when they don't come from a storytelling or writing background.

blind_mapmaker, 9 months ago

@DarkestKale @RogerBW Okay, "New players shouldn't make characters" is really a new level of awful that I didn't encounter before.

I get #GURPS being a bit overwhelming if you don't cut it down into bite-sized chunks, but I feel its reputation is a bit exaggerated. My general line is "the GM should talk with new players what is generally available and what they want their character to be like - then help them build it or build it for them with a lot of their input". But there's also the fact that unless you run a very tactically competitive game, GURPS is quite forgiving about suboptimal builds. There's no "oh, you forgot to take feat X at level 2 - that means you're screwed". As long as you steer away from some really weird edge cases (all average attributes, loads of skills, not very smart mage with just Magery 1), you should be fine.

That Genesys thing seems to be more of a "you need to really optimise at character creation to get a playable PC" kind of game. Those don't need to be bad, but they tend to expert knowledge / elitism and I am not a fan. Also I am not thrilled by six-page previews of 253-page books, especially when those pages say very little about the system unique...

blind_mapmaker, 9 months ago

@RogerBW @DarkestKale Thanks for the heads-up. Seemed to me the comments on DTRPG talked a lot about builds - analogous to D&D.

Not going to argue that some people don't do competitive character-building in GURPS either, but I feel there's more of an emphasis on what makes sense. Also the system does offer a lot of ways to make things less deadly and most of them quite affordable.

blind_mapmaker, 9 months ago

@DarkestKale That's exactly how I feel. Holding hands, but not to tight.

The short adventure idea is good, but I haven't done that yet (except for completely new groups), because folks generally have no time.

BTW, I hate the term "sub-optimal build" too. Those are often things that make a character more interesting instead of just a more powerful playing piece.

blind_mapmaker, 9 months ago

@RogerBW @DarkestKale Don't get me wrong. I love the build game. But for me that is more connected to building a magic system for a world, deciding which setting switches I want, whether I need new attributes, which cinematic options make sense and whether I should be making templates that CAN be followed but don't HAVE to be.

When it comes to characters I generally follow the players consensus. If one wants to play a psychic blueberry muffin and the rest want a standard Dungeon Fantasy party, the muffin will have to change to some degree. If they all just want to try out standard templates then no problem, less work for me.

I'm not above saying, "you really should take a talent if you want to be this kind of outdoorsy character", but if they only want to be good at tracking and navigation and a blundering idiot when it comes to animals and plants, I am not going to stop them. The campaign revolves around the players' and the GM's wishes, not about some ideal best-practises build.

blind_mapmaker, 9 months ago

@LeviKornelsen @elvenwizardking This. #Rifts was how I started doing #GURPS conversions. Even when we were 16 years old and it was just our second system, we quickly realised that there were different degrees to badly written rules. I don't think we ever got farther than three sessions into a campaign.

As for the setting, I used to love it for the aesthetics and the anything goes charm. I've only watched from afar, but lately it seems they are selling the Coalition States as the good guys even more. That's where I would draw the line. There were probably always Nazi fanboys playing it, but titles like "Coalition States: Heroes of Humanity" make me gag.

blind_mapmaker, 10 months ago

@Homebrewandhacking @angrynerdgirl @ttrpg I agree and I'd be interested about rates too.

The one time I hired a sensitivity reader it was a friend and I paid him privately, because going through work would have taken ages.. He wanted to do it for free since he's not a pro or even semi-pro, but I figured about 12 to 15 Euro per hour seemed fair and that's what we did.

I have no idea how to translate an hourly wage into word counts in this regard. Sensitivity reading seems markedly different from editing or copy-editing, but slogging though thirty pages of RPG manuscript still takes time, even if you only have comments on five spots.