From: laird@think.com (Laird Popkin)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: Re: Thanks Loyd!
Date: 15 Oct 1992 16:11:09 GMT
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: django.think.com

In article <911087e.48.719101974@ace.acadiau.ca> 911087e@ace.acadiau.ca (JOHN ANTHONY ENZINAS) writes:
>In article <1992Oct14.165136.20056@rchland.ibm.com> seurer@rchland.vnet.ibm.com (Bill Seurer) writes:
>>-- 
>>I think you have missed the difference between the two kinds of GURPS
>>supplements.  There are the ones like Space, Magic, and CyberPunk which
>>are truly "generic" in that they don't describe a world but rather how to
>>make one and what tradeoffs there are.
>>
>>Then there are "worldbooks" like Fantasy which do describe a specific
>>campaign.
>>
>maybe: 
>space at least gave example governments, as well as methods for creating 
>starships and and planets (the latter being rather useful). anyway it did 
>contain enough for a world.
>magic although i have not read the book sounds like a rule book. sort of 
>an enhancement and expanation of the basic rules.
>cyberpunk did not even have as much fleshing out as space. for example no 
>real rules for law enforcement, no example corporations, no rules for 
>corporation size or reasources, and other minor lackings. it
>basically told them: here, read these cyberpunk books and model your 
>campaign on them. but it did not tell you how! this is my biggest complaint.

Things such as corporations are modeled as 'Patrons' which are covered in
the Basic Set, where there are also rules on how Law Enforcement works, and
even some (simple) rules on how trials work.  For a corporation, decide how
powerful it is, and how often it will come to the character's aid, and
write it up as a Patron, the same way you do for organizations helping PC's
in any other genre.  Some examples would have been good for "atmosphere", I
suppose, but GURPS Cyberpunk is a book on how to handle computer hacking
and body modifications (e.g. "cyber" limbs) and so on -- that is, all of
the material you need (with the Basic Set) to run a Cyberpunk campaign in
your own setting.  For example corporations, people, and other background
material for specific "cyberpunk" worlds, look in books such as Terradyne
(a Cyberpunk/SF future world, where "the Company" controls all access to
space) or the (not yet released, sigh) Cyberworld.

>another minor thing that irked me was the fact that in baic gurps a very 
>heroic human has 100pts. in cyberpunk a low level character has 150 pts
>the extra point are not necessary in any of the other world books. what are 
>the extra points for?

Various GURPS books suggest different point ranges as being typical.  For
"heroic normal" campaigns (e.g. Fantasy) 100 points works well (though I've
seen people playing anywhere from 50 to 150 point starting characters in
GURPS Fantasy).  In Supers, 250 points is a typical starting point value,
again depending on the campaign.  In Special Ops and Martial Arts, it's
suggested that 150 point characters work well, and that's the same range as
Cyberpunk.

Why?  Well, it's a matter of the characters typical to the genre.  In
Cyberpunk books, you have lots of people running around with cyber
implants, great skills at hacking, and so on, so in order to survive,
characters are further from "normal people" than, say, typical fantasy
characters.  That's not to say that you can't play 50-point cyberpunk
characters, any less than you can play a 50-point special operative or
martial artist, of course, just a guideline for what's typical of the
genre.

>--johnny vague

-- Laird
-- 
- Laird Popkin, Thinking Machines

Connection Machine: Massively parallel supercomputer.  Also a cool black
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