CTech Mecha via GURPS Spaceships

Well, I've had CthulhuTech for about a week now and I've been fiddling with GURPS 4e stuff to convert over.

In the interest of not infringing on any copyrights, I'm not going to go into deep detail on my conversion, but I can at least give my basic observations to help any readers that might be interested in running CTech in GURPS.

• CTech seems to be largely Tech Level 10 in GURPS terms, with some things only at Tech Level 9. Arcanotech provides superscience energy generation and gravity manipulation.
• Mecha can be built with some effort using GURPS Spaceships 1, 4, and 7. I picked up Spaceships 3, too, but it doesn't have much use for this unless you're planning on doing actual space battles.
  
• Remember that the Spaceships Size Modifier is mass-based; a mech is probably going to be about half as tall as the Spaceships Size Modifier suggests. That puts the NEG's main battle mech (the Broadsword) at SM+5 in mass (and thus, spaceship design) terms, but SM+4 in height (and combat) terms.
  
• You may need to tweak the stats on Spaceships missiles and the Robot Legs component to get the proper genre emulation.
• You'll need to work out how you want to handle normal GURPS combat time versus the Spaceships combat time. There are a variety of threads on the official GURPS forums about this. It seems to work best to give full (twenty-second) rate of fire per twenty seconds, letting the user divide the shots however he wishes, rather than trying to convert to a per-second rate of fire, which results in some oddities when applying the Aiming rules.
• If you have an old version of GURPS Spaceships, make sure you check the errata on ballistic weapon damage, or you'll have the smallest gun shells punching huge gaping death-holes in your sixty-foot mechs.
• For oversized melee weapons like hyperedge blades, I suggest using the GURPS Supers rules for huge improvised weapons to get something roughly similar, convert to the appropriate damage type, and apply templates like Superfine Blade (from GURPS Ultra-Tech).
  
• Alternately, check out the house rules of 'Reverend Pee Kitty' for Heavier Weapons for Stronger Characters. I think the physics are a bit weird there, but the end result is still a very usable system that lets you scale up human-size weapons for the mechs.
  

Anyway, just my thoughts. I haven't got to the point of testing this out yet, just been building, converting, and doing thought experiments.

On a side-note, GURPS Spaceships is ridiculously fun. Just designing the ships has this sort of crazy abstract RPG space legos feel. I mean, the example ships in the supplements include thinly-veiled ripoffs of TIE Fighters, the Enterprise, and even a TARDIS. And they all work.

Giant Mecha and Sleeping Squid-Gods

I just picked up CthulhuTech yesterday. It was an impulse buy; I'd come to the local gaming store to see if they had any goodies for free RPG day (got an Exalted adventure out of it) and, while looking through the shelves, found this game.

It looks pretty awesome. Not a fan of the game mechanics as such, and I've heard the expansions are kind of iffy, but the setting at least as outlined in the core book is great. It's Call of Cthulhu + Evangelion + Guyver + Robotech, with various other things thrown in. It cost me about $30, but it's probably possible to get it cheaper via Amazon or something.

The art is very good. They have some of it posted in full color over at Cthulhutech.com.

In a way, CthulhuTech seems to be a combination of multiple games, which aren't exactly intended to be played together. There's the mecha games... either using mechwarrior type mecha or the impressive Evangelion types (called 'Engels'). There's also the Guyver-inspired Tagers, which sort of remind me of a combination of the Venom symbiont from Spider-Man and the old World of Darkness werewolves. The game has rules for personal scale combat, skill use, and even sorcery as well, and supposedly the first expansion covers psychics.

It looks like the ideal way to use this game is via conversion. Rather than using the 'Framewerk' system that the game uses, I'd run these different mini-games with different systems. Any of them look like they could work with GURPS 4e. Personal scale stuff would also work well with d20 Modern (with a dash of d20 Call of Cthulhu thrown in, of course!), and Tagers seem like a great fit for the new World of Darkness rules.

I'm Not Dead

I really am still here, despite the apparent lack of posts. I've been updating the old 'Why They Lost...' post instead of posting new things, recently, so if you're following the blog you may want to go and check on that post every couple days until it's truly finished and I can get on to other stuff. Or you can just wait, if you don't care about that. Either way, it should be done soon and normal posting will resume.

Half-Started Projects

So, any of you few that read this blog...

I've been posting and will continue to post a variety of things, including ideas for games and game systems. For instance, the oath system in the previous post, the vague setting outline before then, or the bits on rul-skaath.

If anything stands out as interesting, or you see something you think you might use, say so! I can write quite a lot more, and better quality, when I know I'm doing it for someone.

Bound in Word and Wonder

In mythology, fairy tales, and fantasy stories, the idea of a magically binding contract occasionally shows up, generally when dealing with powerful supernatural beings. An old witch sets a strange and impossible task for a child, but must let him go free when he somehow accomplishes it. A man bargains with the devil, trading away his hope for an afterlife in exchange for wealth and power in this life. A wizened little gnome promises to return the stolen child only if the mother can guess the gnome's name. However it works, there is something magical about these kinds of arbitrary mystically enforced rules. They reinforce the meaningfulness of even trivial interactions, and they give an air of storybook wonder to what could otherwise be dull tasks.

The idea of binding oaths and bargains is explored in many games. As far as I know, White Wolf's Changeling: The Lost is the first to really codify these agreements into an actual detailed system, though I'm sure others have come before. As such, the system I'm proposing here owes a lot to that game. My system is generic: the specific details will need to be filled in to fit whatever system it will be used with -- in my case, most like Ars Magica, Exalted, Changeling, and GURPS.

The Components of an Oath
Each oath is constructed from several components. Each component has a rating describing how significant it is, with a number associated with each rating:

• Trivial (0)
• Minor (1)
• Moderate (2)
• Major (3)
• Mythic (5)

Each component is also described as 'positive', 'negative', or 'neutral.' Positive components add to the value of the oath, negative components subtract from it, and neutral components don't actually affect the oath's value at all. Oaths should generally sum to a total value of zero, excepting special rules to the contrary (some games might allow fairy lords to have positive-value oaths, or require oaths with demons to have a net negative value at some level, etc.)

Personal, Dual, and Group Oaths
A personal oath is the simplest to build; you just set the components together, make sure they add up to zero, and you're done. Many systems and settings either won't support personal oaths or will penalize them somehow, though, since they're lacking the aspect of interaction that is most of the purpose of magical oaths.
A dual oath is probably the standard; an agreement between two individuals. To build it, you design each individual's side of the oath as a separate oath and make sure the durations match and there are no contradictions. When one character breaks the oath, the other one involved has his end of the oath nullified as well but does not suffer any punishment for breaking an oath (since he didn't break it.)
A group oath works like a dual oath, except that when someone breaks their end of the oath, provided there are still at least two people sworn to it and the oath still makes sense, the oath is not nullified for the remaining characters. For instance, if a group of characters swear an alliance to each other and one turns traitor, the traitor suffers the punishment and loses the benefits of the oath, but the rest of the group is still bound to the alliance to one another.

Duration
Every oath requires a single Duration component, defining how long it lasts. Duration has a variable value; sometimes it is considered positive, other times negative, and sometimes neutral. This depends on the other components of the oath. If even one component states that it treats Duration as positive, it is a positive component. If no components treat duration as positive and at least one describes it as negative, it is negative. Otherwise, it is neutral.

• Trivial Durations last no longer than a quarter of a day. Examples include: 'until sunset' (on an oath sworn at noon), 'an hour', 'the length of a sunrise' (about two minutes; the time it takes the sun to go from showing only a sliver to fully crossing the horizon), etc.
• Minor Durations last up to a week. Examples include: 'until Sunday', 'when the sun has twice risen and fallen'.
• Moderate Durations last for a long while, but significantly less than a year: 'for an entire lunar cycle', 'until the next solstice', 'forty days and forty nights', etc.
  
• Major Durations last for long but finite spans of time. Examples include: 'until your child is born', 'for a year and a day', or even 'in a decade's time'.
  
• Mythic Durations can be truly impressive: 'until the day you die', 'unto the seventh generation', 'for three centuries', etc. At this level there's no real limit to the duration, and oaths can even be set to last forever (provided nobody breaks the oath, of course.)

(part II, detailing 'Challenges', to come later)

Thoughts on a new game...

It's amazing the inspirations that come when performing some otherwise mindless activity, like walking on a treadmill or taking a shower afterward. I had some thoughts on a game... a sort of rough fusion of concepts between Paranoia, Dungeon Keeper, Dwarf Fortress, Exalted, and Angband.
The player characters would be monsters from the dungeons -- goblins, imps, dark elves, etc. -- that somehow had the same spark of potential that adventurers have, able to gain levels and such without limit. They would be sent on missions by the ruler (or rulers?) of the vast dungeon-world they live in. Stuff like gathering resources, recovering ancient relics, rescuing lost mining expeditions, repelling treasure-hunters from the surface, raiding settlements of rebel monsters that don't submit to the overlord, etc.
I haven't figured the system yet, at all. These are just thoughts on the setting.

The Heart of the Hero

In the Realms of Men, some individuals are blessed with inspiration, potential, and raw determination that far exceeds that of their brethren. These few become adventurers, heroes, champions and kings... well, those that survive. At first they're no more skilled, intelligent, or powerful than any other, but over time they learn and grow, never reaching a plateau where their improvements must cease.

The Dark Gifts

Even in the Shadowed Depths, among the many inhuman kinds, this spark occasionally emerges. It still provides the same potential for boundless improvement... but it grants a little more than that. By ancient pacts and terrible sorceries, the three great powers of the underworld -- the Viles, the Lords Cthonic, and the Goblin King -- have worked a change upon how that spark manifests in their minion races. Each of these powers grants one Gift to the blessed one, one special power or feature that lets them stand apart from others of their kind.

The Viles

In modern times, the beings that rule the Heavens beyond the Realms of Men are known as the Celestials, angelic beings of peace and light and nobility. They were not always so. At the dawn of time, the Celestials were united only in their beauty, power, and immortality, but all had their own interests and agendas. And their own religions. When the many worshipers of Beauty and Light and Truth organized into a single religion, they cast out their 'lesser', 'inferior', and 'sinful' cousins, banishing them deep beneath the earth where the inhabitants of Heaven would not have to look upon them.
These banished creatures are known as the Viles. The name was originally an insulting title given to them by the ones who banished them, but later claimed by the fallen Celestials as a title of honor: a Vile is one who is true to himself and loyal to himself, with none of the pathetic arrogant nobility of serving some intangible 'higher power'. Some are horrific monsters, embodiments of a love of fierceness and strength. Others are dark but beautiful, shadowed beings that still recall their former lives as the angels of heaven. Many take both forms.
The minions of the Viles are imps and evil spirits, monsters crafted and formed from the tortured dead souls of mankind's most detestable examples.

The Lords Cthonic

The world was created long ago, by the collective effort of the Celestials (even those who later fell to become Vile) and perhaps the aid of some greater, more distant being or beings. Everything that exists comes from them.
Or, so the priests would have you think. The truth is, little by little, perhaps once every century, an otherworldly thing creeps in through one of the dark corners of the world where nobody's watching. The Celestials patrol the Heavens, and the Realms of Men have their own inhabitants, but in the darkest realms such as the depths of the oceans or the deepest tunnels of the world, these creatures can enter the world unmolested.
Some are harmless. Little many-legged crawling things, impossibly-colored funguous growths, or lumbering, mindless beasts. But not all of them. The range of power is incredible, and many of these things dwarf even the grandest Celestials in their power, though their intelligences and priorities tend to be quite alien and incomprehensible. These nightmare-creatures are known as the Lords Cthonic. The Father of Dragons. The Ocean of Slime. The Skittering Horde. The Great Eye.

The Goblin King

Nobody's sure what the Goblin King is. He is clearly something supernatural, able to work great sorceries and often appearing in different forms. He rules over the monster-men and armies of the Shadowed Depths; the highest authority among the cities and the roving tribes of that dark realm, to whom all the chieftains and mayors and lords report to.
Some think he is merely one of the Viles who didn't quite fall as far -- hence his sometimes fae appearance and his greater willingness to rule in a organized and almost benevolent fashion. Others think he was once a human hero, who achieved near-divinity in his adventures into the dungeons, until he eventually carved out a kingdom with himself as god-king over its monstrous inhabitants. Still others think he might be one of the Lords Cthonic, a monster from beyond the world, just more human-seeming than the others.

Why They Lost

Recently, I posted a list of twenty-four different games I play or have played in the past, ranked from those I like least to most. I didn't, however, say much on why they're in the order they are. This is the first post on that topic, covering the games I listed as being the least interesting.

#17 -- All Flesh Must Be Eaten

What it is:
All Flesh Must Be Eaten, often abbreviated AFMBE, is a game using the Unisystem game system, also used for other games including Witchcraft, the games set in the Buffy The Vampire Slayer universe, and something I've never heard of called Conspiracy X. I have no experience with the rest of the Unisystem but understand it's well-liked in general.
The game itself is basically the game for playing zombie survival horror, and it's most notable for including a zombie creation system from which the GM can easily build any kind of zombie he wants to use, ranging from slow-moving B-movie jokes to blindingly fast, wall-crawling, intelligent hunters. It wouldn't take much work to re-skin the zombies as monsters of various sorts, either.
Why I dislike it:
To be honest, I'm just not that into zombie survival horror. And if you're not a huge fan of zombie movies and zombie games and the like, this game doesn't have a lot to offer you other than a sort of incomplete generic system. Also, in the event that I do want to run a survival horror game, I think I'd either use GURPS for customizable and gritty mechanics, or Call of Cthulhu for the general doomed-ness 0f it all and the simulation of stress, terror, and emotional fatigue in the Sanity mechanics.
Why you should (maybe) buy it anyway:
It really is a decent game for handling zombies, and the rules are simple enough to teach to people. It comes in a single, small, easily portable book. It's very good for one-shots and short campaigns. It doesn't cost a lot. And every true geek has a zombie apocalypse survival plan he'd love to test out, so you can get a lot of enthusiasm from the right group of players with this game.

#18 -- The Wheel of Time Roleplaying Game (d20)

What it is:
The Wheel of Time Roleplaying Game is a d20 system game set in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. It was written long before the series was complete (I think it's still being finished, in fact, taken over Brandon Sanderson after Jordan's death) but it's accurate up to maybe halfway through the books, which is easily sufficient for gaming with.
Why I dislike it:
It's d20, and yet it fails at one of the things d20 tries its hardest to excel at: game balance. And while it's interesting to see the magic system from the books codified in game system terms, the D&D-esque system of spell levels and spell slots is a very poor fit, even with the more flexible variant this game presents.
Why you should (maybe) buy it anyway:
It's the Wheel of Time game. As far as I know, there isn't another one. If you're really into Wheel of Time anyway, and you use the d20 system, you can get a few decent games out of it, maybe even a campaign. I don't like messing with licensed settings because it often feels like all the important stuff is already being done by main characters, but if you don't mind throwing out the continuity or staying to smaller-scale heroics, it is a very detailed world.

#19 -- Ars Magica, Fourth Edition

What it is:
Ars Magica, one of the most interesting games I've played. Set in a version of medieval Europe where the supernatural really exists. The player characters are magi in the Order of Hermes, an organization of powerful wizards. Really, a good game, and it would rank higher on my list if Ars Magica Fifth Edition weren't so much better.
Why I dislike it:
Well, the obvious first; Ars Magica 5e has been out for long enough now that it's just as richly detailed as 4e, and it's significantly better designed. 4e feels clunky in the same hard-to-explain way that the older editions of D&D felt clunky. It has a great many arbitrary, ill-defined rules and contradictory examples. The ideas present are amazing, but the implementation is lacking something. I got one or two good games out of Ars Magica 4e, but I had to house-rule far too many things to make it work.
Why you should (maybe) buy it anyway:
It's free. No, really. Atlas Games released the core book of Ars Magica 4th edition back when 5th edition came out. I think the idea was advertisement, in the form of: 'here, look at this awesome game. You can have it. There's a better version of it out now, if you don't mind paying a little.' As far as I know, you can still go to atlas-games.com and download the .pdf version of Ars Magica fourth edition, completely legal.

#20 -- Tri-Stat dX

What it is:
A generic point-buy system sort of distilled from Big Eyes, Small Mouth, the 'anime' RPG. The dX in the name comes from the dice mechanic, which is based on the genre and power level of the campaign (so you can run Tri-Stat d6, Tri-Stat d10, etc.)
Why I dislike it:
Bad mechanics, mostly. Lots of good ideas, and as a point system it's simpler to work with than GURPS, but... any pretenses of balance are an illusion, most of the point values seem pretty arbitrary, and the rules really only work within a narrow band of power: if you run a d12 game, weak characters don't work right, and if you run a d6 game, it's hard to differentiate between more skilled characters.
Why you should (maybe) buy it anyway:
Last I knew it was free, though it might be hard to acquire now that Guardians of Order is gone. Still, though. Not gonna recommend this one. If you want Supers, there are games that do that better. If you want a point-buy chargen, GURPS is tons better for it. If you want a game with an 'anime' feel... well, I'm not sure, but Tri-Stat never really felt very 'anime' anyway. You might be able to pull something anime-esque off with a cinematic system like FATE.

#21 -- d20 Modern

What it is:
Third edition D&D in the modern day! d20 rules, but more of an 'action hero' setting than one with wizards and swordsmen and such. That's all there is to it, really.
Why I dislike it:
It's d20, which I've acquired a distaste for after several years of struggling with the same errors in the rules. And for what it does (modern, somewhat cinematic, possibly with magic or psi added in) I get better results using GURPS or World of Darkness.
Why you should (maybe) buy it anyway:
It's not quite free -- ideally you'd want the actual book -- but the System Reference Documents are out there somewhere, free to reference and perfectly legal. You can get a good sense of what the system's like without having to invest much into it, so you don't need to take my word on whether it's a good system or not. Anyway, it's also pretty well-made for a d20 product and you can run a pretty good game with people that are already familiar with 3e or 3.5e D&D, without having to teach a new system. Pick up the Urban Arcana supplement, and you can even run what is effectively 'D&D Modern', which has a kind of charm all its own. Seriously, if GURPS and WoD didn't make this so redundant to me, it would be much, much higher on my list of games.

#22 -- Star Munchkin

What it is:
A parody game making fun of Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, and any number of other sci-fi series and settings. Star Munchkin is also a card game, and this RPG is its d20 incarnation.
Why I dislike it:
d20 again, with all the usual complaints. In addition, this being a joke game, no real effort was put into balance, and the jokes aren't even all that funny.
Why you should (maybe) buy it anyway:
Unlike its cousin, the D&D-esque Munchkin, the jokes conceal an actual usable game. It's cheap, easily portable (the books are much smaller than the standard RPG book size), and it is kind of funny. You can probably get a good game or two out of it before your group decides to lynch you. Also worth noting is that it, bizarrely, actually has a fairly decent system for custom-building star ships that might be worth a look. If you find it in a bargain bin or something, it won't hurt to pick it up, just don't spend too much money.

#23 & #24 -- Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Second Edition, and GURPS, Third Edition, respectively

What they are:
The games that got me into gaming. My first two RPGs. Not the oldest of games, but old games nevertheless, from the ancient days when dinosaurs roamed. AD&D 2e was my introduction to RPGs, and GURPS was my first serious foray into something outside of the typical D&D dungeon-crawling fare.
Why I dislike them:
They're old and clunky, and newer games have developed that do what they did, but better and more smoothly. I actually recommend GURPS 4e for both, personally, with the Dungeon Fantasy .pdfs if you want to run something that feels AD&D-esque.
Why you should (maybe) buy them anyway:
I won't really argue that these should be bought; I mean, good luck even finding them. That said, there's something to be said for the old clunky charm of AD&D, so picking that up if you see it might not be a bad idea. I can't in good faith recommend picking up old editions of GURPS, but the supplements are many, often relatively cheap even now, and pretty good reads and references even without the rest of the system.

The Games I Play

I got started in roleplaying with an old and worn 2e AD&D starter set - the intro thing without the full rules, with flimsy little paper books - bought from a friend back in middle school. Ran a game or two for my friends, then kind of let it be until, miraculously, I discovered the actual 2e AD&D books for sale in a bookstore.

From there, I've gone on to run and play so many games.

I thought it would be interesting to list those games, starting with those I like least or am least willing to run or play, and working up to my favorites. It's hard to place some of these games exactly as my interests fluctuate from day to day, but I think it's a good first attempt. I may write some posts later to evaluate the pros and cons of each game. Note that some of the games rank poorly on this list only because there is another game that does better; for instance, GURPS 3e is the last on my list not only because there are so many things I dislike about it, but also because I love GURPS 4e so much more.

24. Generic Universal Roleplaying System (GURPS), Third Edition

23. Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Second Edition

22. Star Munchkin

21. d20 Modern

20. Tri-Stat dX

19. Ars Magica, Fourth Edition

18. The Wheel of Time Roleplaying Game

17. All Flesh Must Be Eaten

16. Paranoia XP

15. Dungeons and Dragons, Third Edition

14. Maid

13. Blood of Heroes

12. Call of Cthulhu d20

11. Scion

10. Vampire: The Requiem

9. Iron Heroes

8. Arcana Evolved

7. Genius: The Transgression

6. Geist: The Sin-Eaters

5. Nobilis

4. Exalted, Second Edition

3. Changeling: The Lost

2. Generic Universal Roleplaying System (GURPS), Fourth Edition

1. Ars Magica, Fifth Edition

You may notice a curious absence from this list; I have yet to play 4e D&D. From what I've heard of it, it's not really the kind of game I'd be interested in, and buying into it with all the books it has and is likely to gain will be expensive. I'd rather save the little money I have for games I'm more certain I'll like.