Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with
a loose linking theme. This time it's a grab-bag of alternative and
house rules for GURPS.
Pointless Monster Hunting (Christopher R. Rice) removes
character points from the Monster Hunters templates, just as
Pointless Slaying and Looting did for the Dungeon Fantasy setup in
the last Alternate GURPS issue. Of course, it still has "slots", which
are basically lumps of ten character points, but I suppose if you have
the sort of player who wants to pick a few package deals off a short
menu (D&D-style) rather than fine-tuning a specific character this
might answer your needs. Medium quality, low applicability; this
doesn't have anything to say to me or most of my regular players.
Designers' notes here.
Knowing Your Own Strength (Sean Punch) redefines the strength
characteristic to be logarithmic: each +10 ST multiplies Basic Lift by
ten, and intermediate values are calculated accordingly. So a
character with ST 20 is ten times as strong as a normal human. This
has some problems at the low end of the scale (where tiny creatures
can't hurt each other), but makes ST-based attribute rolls much more
sensible for stronger PCs. High quality, low applicability; it's
interesting but I don't see myself using it.
Eidetic Memory: Playing With Health (David L. Pulver) attempts to
make the the health characteristic more important: it bases Perception
on HT rather than IQ, and bases mêlée combat and related skills on
Speed×2 (i.e. the average of DX and HT) rather than DX alone. High
quality, medium applicability; I'm more likely to try this than the ST
changes, particularly since there tends to be a drift towards
maximising IQ in the games I play in and tun.
Schrödinger's Backpack (Douglas H. Cole) is a variant of preparation
rules: rather than writing down every single thing you put in your
backpack, you define a cost and weight of "stuff" that you're
carrying, make a Scrounging roll (or other relevant skill) to find the
thing you're looking for, and deduct its cost/weight from what's left
in the pack. The higher a proportion of the remaining cost/weight it
will take, the lower your chance of getting it. Specialised packs can
only be used with a particular skill (e.g. Hiking) and for things
relevant to it, but get a +2 bonus. Medium quality, medium
applicability: I have no immediate plans to use this but could easily
see myself dropping it into a game.
Possessions Under Control (Timothy Ponce) looks at the Possession
advantage through the lens of GURPS Martial Arts: Technical
Grappling. Yes, really. You have Trained Will, which is willpower
that gives a benefit to resisting possession, and someone trying to
take you over builds up Mental Control Points which gradually decrease
your ability to control your own actions, and can be spent to get
particular advantages. Exorcism becomes an outside attempt to regain
control. High quality, low applicability: unless I ran a game about
possession I can't see myself wanting this much detail.
Random Thought Table: A Different Side of Dice (Steven Marsh) looks
at using non-transitive dice for GURPS success rulls. Steven's done
similar things before (e.g. using d4+d6+d8 rather than 3d6) and I
confess I can't really see the appeal compared with good old
modifiers.
There's not much here I'm planning to use, but it gives me ideas for
things I might well drop into a future game. Pyramid 83 is available
from
Warehouse 23.
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