Subj : Re: Tabletop war and roleplaying games
To   : Arelor
From : Commodore Clifford
Date : Sat May 13 2023 07:27:00

Valid points... I'm not a fan of some systems because of levels.  I
really hate the concept of levels and I really hate the way "hit points"
tend to work, which is another reason I'm a big fan of GURPS.

I mean, sure... all those systems have a rule like "well, if something
happens that is obviously fatal, you're dead".  But let's face it, you're
going to have a hard time as a DM pulling that without argument.  For
most people, getting shot in the head tends to be pretty fatal.

But there are real life exceptions where the universe had other plans.

So the concept of someone just sitting there taking hit after hit after
hit and just laughing it off, until they're finally killed by a 1 point
hit from a little girl smacking their big toe with a hammer just doesn't
work for me.  (And again, people might say there are asterixs everywhere
in that, but we know how it tends to go in practice).

And the amount of source material is amazing.  Just got the "marketing
mail" yesterday.

They have a book/module for so many little things to give you as much, or
as little detail as you want.  So to say that the GM has to do a lot...
really depends.  There are a lot of resources out there that you can just
slap together.

Now for anyone who really wants to take it seriously, I highly recommend
one of the character generator/maintenance apps out there.  Saves a lot
of time.

But then again, at the end of the day, I'm not really trying to be the
sales rep for SJG... And it's not the only system I play.... I'm going to
take a serious look at the OpenD6 as well.  Not to mention I have tons of
little "Indie" systems that are kinda cool.

One of my favorites was actually designed by a game company in Cleveland
OH (I'm about 30 min southish).  We met at Gencon to play one of their
games called "Spacers" (think 50's 60's sci-fi B movie genre RPG) and
then later played one called "CrawlSpace".

So imagine this as an RP genre.  Your "character" is an "actor" in a
horror film (naturally a low-budget sub-B flick).  This has some really
great possibilities as death just means you get "Darrened" into a
different part.  One time when my "character" "died" unnecessarily in the
"movie" I pitched a royal diva fit and insisted that "Steven Rynn does
NOT die as an AFTERTHOUGHT!" and "made the director rewrite the scene".

Another player was kind of stumped as to what his character should do
next in the movie and ended up just shouting "LINE!!!!" and the GM felt
compelled to spoon feed the solution to the problem.

The game system is so simple as well, and based on a deck of cards since
the guy was originally designing some of these while serving in the army,
where a deck of playing cards was always available but a dice set might
not be.

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