Possible additions to the GURPS ruleset

[ronnke]

I have not looked into the scripting of the rulesets, etc, so this is directed at those that know, more specifically spyke as he developed the GURPS ruleset.

I have played a few games now using FG, and there is one thing that has been a bit of a annoying. It is great that you can drag and drop amounts onto the character HP and it reduces that HP, but when that target has some DR then it basically makes the drag and drop useless.

So my question is, how difficult would it be to make it such then when you drag and drop onto character HP it works as it does now, but if you also drag and drop onto the character DR then it reduces the the HP by the amount less the value of the DR?

[Spyke]

Looks like I'm going to have to keep an eye on this forum!

So my question is, how difficult would it be to make it such then when you drag and drop onto character HP it works as it does now, but if you also drag and drop onto the character DR then it reduces the the HP by the amount less the value of the DR?

Firstly this would fall into the realms of character sheet automation, which, by my understanding is ruled out by the SJG Online Policy, so the short answer is that I don't think we can add it.

The longer answer would be that this would be hard, as the character sheet would need to have a lot more intelligence built in with regard to hit locations and where you layer armour or natural DR. When you drag the damage you'd need to drag it to a particular location.

There's also the issue that the damage rolled is in many cases not the damage inflicted. A lot of attacks in GURPS vary the number of hits taken by the type of damage, depending on how much basic damage penetrates DR.

For example if Dai Blackthorn slashes his foe and rolls 5 cutting damage with his knife, but his foe is wearing DR 1 leather armour, in FG you've got a 5 showing in the chat window. But if you subtract the 1 on dragging to the character sheet the automation would also need to know that the cutting damage was then multiplied by 1.5 rounded down, and that the HPs should be reduced by 6, not 4.

And then there are other complexities, like knockback, which only inflicts damage if nothing penetrates the DR!

Sometimes I'm glad of the Online Policy and the areas of automation that are ruled out!

Spyke

[Spyke]

Please use this thread for any more ideas. I'm sure there are lots of things I ought to be building in to help us!

There are also enhancements to the interface going on in the D&D rulesets that I want to reflect in the GURPS ruleset at some point, particularly Encounter groups to help set up combats.

Spyke

[ronnke]

After my original post, I was trying to think of a simple interface in which you could handle the cut, imp, pi+, etc damage types. The only thing I could come up with was that you had a different box or icon to drag and drop onto.

I do however agree, it might come close to violating the online policy. It is still a grey area as FG is at no point a "computer game". Perharps you/community should submit a formal request to SJG to develop the GURP ruleset. If it remains a free distribution, I am pretty sure they will not have a problem with it. There is no harm in asking.

As for ideas for features to the ruleset:

• In the combat tracker have a drop down list that allows the GM to set the PC/NPC posture. ie Standing, crouching, kneeling, crawling, laying down, sitting and flying. These could also be state icons like the "Friend", "Neutral", and "Hostile".
• In the combat tracker have a drop down list that allows the GM to set the status of the PC/NPC. ie Normal, mentally stunned, physically stunned, total surprise, unconsious, dead. It will also require a box next to the status field where the GM could record the number of turns the said status is in effect.
• In the combat tracker have a drop down list which lets the GM set important PC/NPC actions that might have a persistant effect over the turn. ie Concentrate, Wait, Aim, Evaluate, All Out Attack, All Out Defense.
• In the combat tracker have a box in which the GM can record the 'Shock' penalty for a PC/NPC.

Those above features would free the GM from having to record anything on a notepad. You could in essence freeze a game mid combat and take it up again at a later stage. Not to mention it makes the GM's job a hell of a lot easier.

[marcus_egan]

I'm still blown away at how awesome the combat tracker is but the additions above would be amazing.

I have a plan to track important information like this with the existing capability but to have particular fields for it would be great.

[Spyke]

I've just got back from a long haul flight, so I'm a bit too tired to answer this one in full at the moment, but just a quick note to say that I'd really like to see that sort of functionality in the tracker as well. I'd ideally like to be able to get a label to appear on the linked token on the map as well. We used to have no way to code that, though. I'm not sure if recent enhancements to FG will help there.

But having somewhere to set flags at least in the tracker makes sense, even though at the moment only the GM would see them (but I guess that's true even in most face-to-face games). I'll give it some thought.

With regard to the online policy, I think we are getting to the point where I should approach SJG at least to get a better understanding of the parameters of what's allowed. The best way to support this though would be for us to build up a community of active users, so that the approach has some visible weight.

Spyke

[johniba]

In my opinion, this policy from SJG might only lead to people migrating to other generic systems, when using fantasy grounds and other vtt's

I for one have looked into others, even though I like GURPS

I seriously do not see why we could not have it.

[Spyke]

In my opinion, this policy from SJG might only lead to people migrating to other generic systems, when using fantasy grounds and other vtt's

I for one have looked into others, even though I like GURPS

I seriously do not see why we could not have it.

However, we do have the online policy and we need to work within it. Whether SJG have called it right for their business or not is a different matter.

I do believe though that full automation isn't the wonder that it's generally held up to be. I once wrote a full automation of GURPS 3e for GRiP. We played with that for a while until Steve Jackson asked me personally to remove it from distribution as it violated the online policy.

I've also played with my FG ruleset with no automation built in, and the games do not run noticeably less smoothly without it. Just like in a face-to-face game, you get to know your key skill levels, and so roll 3d6 against them without needing to look them up. With full automation you tend to always go off to your character sheet, find the relevant line, then double click on a particular icon.

As I covered above, applying damage in GURPS is best done by the human brain, there are just too many variables to code this reliably.

Where automation really helps is in rolling for damage when you strike with a weapon, but with FG every player can set up their weapons on the hot key bar very easily anyway.

Yes, if the online policy didn't exist we could give the ruleset a lot more GURPS intelligence, but I'm not convinced that it would dramatically improve the ease of play.

What would be wonderful though, and a reason for pushing for an official commerical ruleset, would be reference tables for traits, spells, armour and weapons within FG itself, together with the key tables for the GM.

You can of course, add the latter for your own use using images.

Spyke

[ronnke]

Yes, if the online policy didn't exist we could give the ruleset a lot more GURPS intelligence, but I'm not convinced that it would dramatically improve the ease of play.

I agree. The ruleset as it is now is basically all that you really need to play GURPS over FG. The combat tracker features I listed above would seal the deal for me as a GM.

The only automation which could be handy, is for the character sheet and tracker to recalculate move/dodge based on current HP and FP levels.

After playing a game over the weekend, a feature I would love to see is the proper calculations of scale on maps. So when you for example put a pointer on the map (and the hex grid is present), it calculates the pointer size in hexs and not feet as it does currently. Even better would be the option to set map scale to whatever, and then calculations are made from that.

Eg.
1 hex = 1 yard (a 3 hex pointer will read 3 yards)
1 hex = 10 miles (a 4 hex pointer will read as 40 miles)

[Spyke]

I'll have a think about all these, and where I feel they fall with respect to the online policy.

The scale one may be a request for the FG2 developers, rather than the ruleset. I'm not sure that rulesets have access to the scale label itself. I'll take a look.

Spyke