HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: scgk@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Simon Kinahan)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: Re: GURPS Vampire?????????
Keywords: NO NO NO NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Date: 20 Nov 92 14:34:36 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Edinburgh

In article <83879@ut-emx.uucp>, dfn@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (David Nalle) writes:
> In article <BxKL7C.HH2@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> durrant@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (unkno
> wn) writes:
> >       GURPS Vampire?????????????????????????  White Wolf--how could you do
> >such a horrible thing??????????  The Storyteller system is by nature a system
> >without an emphasis on mechanics and dice rolling--a godsend to players like
> >me who enjoy the ROLE playing much more than the ROLL playing.
> 
> Really?  I've always felt the exact opposite.  The so-called 'storyteller' 
> system savages the idea of roleplaying in an unforgivable way.  The mechanics
> are dictatorial and intrusive, forcing decisions on the players and denying
> creativity and imagination.  Plus the system is full of glitches and design
> mistakes and heavily burdened with pretentious BS.  Sure, the rules are fairly
> simple, but that doesn't make them any good.  My feeling is that if you're
> going to have only a few rules, they ought to be DAMNED good rules.  
> 
  This is not true at all, we can play for hours without using the dice and
can keep playing out a situation with the GM out of the room. As long
as the GM has the spirit of the thing right Vampire/Werewolf/... can work
of very well.
  It is true that the game mechanics are horrid though although the skill system
(minus combat) is not to bad.
  And the author's  viewpoint is so heavily built into the game you cannot 
separate the two.
 But what the hell, its fun to play, thats what matters.

-- 

Simon Kinahan        "Only in our dreams are we truly free,
scgk@dcs.ed.ac.uk     the rest of ythe time we need wages. "
                          -- Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
From: sos@oz.plymouth.edu (Steffan O'Sullivan)
Subject: Re: Bell vs. Linear
Keywords: bell linear
Organization: Plymouth State College - Plymouth, NH.
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 00:26:57 GMT

fks1@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>i was just wondering at people's opinions on bell curves
>vs. linear resolution.  

>which would you prefer?

Bell.

-- 
  - Steffan O'Sullivan		         sos@oz.plymouth.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
From: durrell@pinball.arcade.uiowa.edu (Bryant Durrell)
Subject: Re: Vampire vs. Hero vs. Gurps etc...(Long!)
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 02:35:11 GMT
Organization: University of Iowa

In article <1992Nov19.211701.8920@news.columbia.edu> jhk6@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (John H Kim) writes:
>	Vampire, in contrast, has the ST set a difficulty *and* a number 
>of successes required. What is the difference between a higher difficulty 
>and a higher required number of successes? It is not clear. 

Sure it is.  The difficulty number is how hard it is to succeed at 
all.  The number of successes determines how well you succeed.  
Sometimes a marginal success won't get you very much, so you need
more than one success on the roll.  I don't find that I require 
that very often; your milage may vary.

Bryant
durrell@chop.isca.uiowa.edu
From: bell@beethoven.cs.unc.edu (Andrew Bell)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: Re: Character Detail
Date: 18 Nov 92 21:15:38 GMT
Organization: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

In article <1992Nov17.173458.28067@oz.plymouth.edu> sos@oz.plymouth.edu (Steffan O'Sullivan) writes:
>bell@beethoven.cs.unc.edu (Andrew Bell) writes:
]>sos@oz.plymouth.edu (Steffan O'Sullivan) writes:
]>>We *are* balanced in that we all play
]>>interesting characters that we want to play - and GURPS *does* allow
]>>you to do that very well.

]>GURPS doesn't -- ignoring the rules allows you to do that.  

>Strange, I could have sworn I'd made some interesting characters that
>I've enjoyed playing.

Let me clarify my statement.  What I meant to say is:
]>GURPS's point allocation system doesn't -- ignoring the rules allows you
]>to do that.

Now, I took your comments...

]>>I *like* the GURPS PA system, though I confess I don't really
]>>play GURPS as GURPS anymore.  I've drifted into SLURPS: Simple,
]>>Laid-back Universal RolePlaying System.  I don't worry about point
]>>balance, and neither do the people I play with.

...to mean that you didn't actually use point allocation at all, just
took skills and stats as appropriate, and didn't worry about the
calculations.  If this is not the case, my apologies for the
misunderstanding.

However, the remainder of my previous post still stands: even if
GURPS's system does work for you, it doesn't work for everyone.
Its failures are most noticeable with the high stats vs. high skills
situation (where it's "cheaper" to have a high stat than high skills),
and things like purchase bonuses and eidetic memory.  "Balancing" the
cost between things like DEX and STR is not nearly so important, since
it will vary from campaign to campaign which is more valuable.
Brow-beating the GM to change costs for all is probably the best way
to handle problems of the latter type...:-)

   -Andrew "master of the treppenwitz" Bell
bell@cs.unc.edu

P.S. And yes, I have been spying on your games. :-)


  

Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
From: ratinox@splinter.coe.northeastern.edu (Richard Pieri)
Subject: Re: RPG's That Belong on Every Gamer's Shelf
X-Posting-Software: GNUS 3.14.1 [ NNTP-based News Reader for GNU Emacs ]
Reply-To: ratinox@meceng.coe.northeastern.edu
X-Signature-Virus-Protection: Version 1.51
X-Get-A-Clue: Have two, they're small.
Organization: 3WA, Boston Office. Or Nu Meta Chi. Take your pick.
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 14:43:56 GMT

>>>>> In article <1992Nov21.122458.23999@afterlife.ncsc.mil>,
>>>>> acadams@afterlife.ncsc.mil (Arthur C. Adams) writes:

ACA> 1) AD&D: Not so much for quality, but because it's something
ACA> almost any gamer will be familiar with. It's also really good for
ACA> pick-up games.

Not on mine :-). I pride myself on never having "grown up" on this one.

ACA> 2) GURPS: Good for genres oriented on character's skills, like
ACA> Espionage. Also very well supported.

Enh. I don't care for all the number crunching (and I happen to like
crunching weird powers under HERO--go figure).

ACA> 3) Hero System: Good for genres oriented towards character's
ACA> non-"human" abilities, like super-heroics, or gadgetry oriented
ACA> S.F. and Espionage.

Yup.

ACA> 4) The Storyteller System: Best game system for ROLE-playing, as
ACA> opposed to ROLL-playing.

Agreed.

ACA> 5) Ars Magica: Because I love it.

Never played it, either. I do have the 2nd editon, tho :-).

Add Amber and TORG.

--Rat
||||| | | | |  |  |  |   |   |    |    |    |   |   |  |  |  |  | | | | | |||||
Northeastern's Stainless Steel Rat          ratinox@meceng.coe.northeastern.edu
And now we meet again, for the first time, for the last time.     --Dark Helmet
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
From: fks1@ellis.uchicago.edu (Scaramouche)
Subject: Bell vs. Linear
Summary: which is better?
Keywords: bell linear
Reply-To: fks1@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 22:52:38 GMT

'lo.  i was just wondering at people's opinions on bell curves
vs. linear resolution.  In terms of rolling for a success at
an action - regardless of the mechanic - or rather assuming you
have to roll above x to succeed, which would you prefer?
thanks.

Scaramouche 


-- 
>>>-----------------------------------------------------------------------<<<
"It is human nature, I suppose to be futile and ridiculous"
"If the windmill should prove to formidable, I may see what can be done
           with the wind."            -Scaramouche (fks1@midway.uchicago.edu)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
From: dagibbs@quantum.on.ca (David Gibbs)
Subject: Re: RPG's That Belong on Every Gamer's Shelf
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 92 03:59:21 GMT
Organization: Quantum Software Systems

In article <1992Nov21.122458.23999@afterlife.ncsc.mil> acadams@afterlife.ncsc.mil (Arthur C. Adams) writes:
>FIVE GAME SUPPLEMENTS THAT BELONG ON EVERY GAMER'S SHELF:
>(again, in no particular order)

1. Cults of Prax : (Chaosium, RQ II) - To show how religion
should be described in a FRP supplement.  (NOT with combat stats!)

2. Trollpak: 	(Chaosium, RQ II) - To show how a non-human
race should be handled in a FRP supplement.  This gives enough
detail to run an all-troll character campaign well.

Can't think of other impressive ones off the top.
-David
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
From: jackal@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Philip R Hammar)
Subject: Re: Medieval Pain-in-the-Arse
Organization: HAC - Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 14:05:31 GMT

In article <1e2j8rINN9kb@charnel.ecst.csuchico.edu> tdunn@ecst.csuchico.edu (Tim Dunn) writes:
>mr_peanut@triryche.UU.NET writes:
>>Hello.  I am posting for the very first time.
>
>>What can I be that will irritate the poor GM and still fit
>>right within all his standards for the game?
>
>Hm?  This is flame-bait if I've ever read it.

	Let me turn up the heat a little by making some unsubstatiated
assumtions about mr_peanut's character.

	There is very little that irritates me more, either as a player or
as a GM than a player whose sole purpose is to have a character, who by its
very existance, must dominate game play.  Whether it is a moor travelling with
a bunch of christian knight, the half orc who hangs out with elves, or the
simpering, ne'er-do-well who is always getting into trouble, diverting the 
group from participating in the meat of the campaign.  Not just a
pain-in-the-ass, but the ass itself.  I can't stand it when someones ego 
needs to be stroked like that.  Man, I hate when that happens.

			Have a good one,
			Phil
From: durrell@pinball.arcade.uiowa.edu (Bryant Durrell)
Subject: Re: Vampire vs. Hero vs. Gurps etc...(Long!)
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 23:48:54 GMT
Organization: University of Iowa

In article <1992Nov20.052922.19507@news.columbia.edu> jhk6@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (John H Kim) writes:
>durrell@pinball.arcade.uiowa.edu (Bryant Durrell) writes:
>>jhk6@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (John H Kim) writes:
>>>	Vampire, in contrast, has the ST set a difficulty *and* a number 
>>>of successes required. What is the difference between a higher difficulty 
>>>and a higher required number of successes? It is not clear. 

>>Sure it is.  The difficulty number is how hard it is to succeed at 
>>all.  The number of successes determines how well you succeed.  
>>Sometimes a marginal success won't get you very much, so you need
>>more than one success on the roll.  I don't find that I require 
>>that very often; your milage may vary.

>	I can think of several examples right off the bat. Jumping, for 
>one: this is a contradiction in the rules - the rules for Jumping on page 
>144 say that the difficulty of a jump is almost always 3, and that you jump 
>4 feet horizantally for every success. In the example on page 159, they say 
>that in order to make a long jump, Elucid must roll against a difficulty of 
>6 and get at least one success. 

(I'm not going to reply to every one of these, since I think the 
principle is the same in each case.  I do not argue that this 
mechanic is The Best, I merely point out that it works for me and
how I interpret it.)

I see this as:  it's very easy to jump four feet horizontally.  If
you want to do more than that, you'd better get more than a marginal
success.

>	The same example also requires someone to make *two* difficulty 9 
>successes in order to catch a thrown torch, using this same number of 
>successes mechanics. 

Again --get a marginal success and you caught it, but you caught
it by the wrong end.  Ooops.

All I can say is that I don't find it very hard at all.  Whether (to
go back to something I deleted before I realized I wanted to talk
about it, sorry) you want to set the difficulty at 4 and require 7
successes, or vice versa, depends on your conception of the task.  
If it's easy to get started on something but you need to work on it
for a while, or you need to do a lot better than the bare minimum,
then it's a low difficulty number and a high number of successes.
Hard to do, but you only need a slightly better than average 
success?  High target, low number of successes.

It splits up the concept of how difficult something is to do and 
how well you need to be able to do it, which is pretty rare in RPGs.
Normally, both of those concepts are subsumed into a single roll.
It's a matter of personal preference whether you want to trade the
slight added complexity for the flexibility (what a slanted way to
put it.  heh).  I compare it to the tradeoff of one attack roll
modified by some defense factor vs. a defense and an attack roll.

Bryant
durrell@chop.isca.uiowa.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
From: sos@oz.plymouth.edu (Steffan O'Sullivan)
Subject: Re: Character Detail
Reply-To: sos@oz.plymouth.edu (Steffan O'Sullivan)
Organization: Plymouth State College - Plymouth, N.H.
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 06:45:07 GMT

bell@pooh.cs.unc.edu (Andrew Bell) writes:
>
>Incidentally, I don't feel that GURPS has a truly "good" point allocation
>system, because either they don't believe that character balance is the
>ultimate goal, or because they keep forgetting it.  Stefan, Loyd, which
>do you think it is?
>
Got me.  I *like* the GURPS PA system, though I confess I don't really
play GURPS as GURPS anymore.  I've drifted into SLURPS: Simple,
Laid-back Universal RolePlaying System.  I don't worry about point
balance, and neither do the people I play with.  If you do, then I can
see how you'd be frustrated with GURPS - characters won't be "balanced"
with each other, whatever that means.  Certainly not every character
will be as "powerful" as the next character - fortunately, that's not
an issue in my group.  We *are* balanced in that we all play
interesting characters that we want to play - and GURPS *does* allow
you to do that very well.

Come to think on it, though, I don't know any system that will create
very diverse individuals with talents in radically different areas that
will be perfectly balanced with each other.

-- 
  - Steffan O'Sullivan		         sos@oz.plymouth.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
From: jhk6@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (John H Kim)
Subject: Re: Vampire vs. Hero vs. Gurps etc...(Long!)
Reply-To: jhk6@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (John H Kim)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 21:17:01 GMT

mhickey@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu (No One Of Importance) writes:
>Vampire stresses that it is a game of stories, not die rolls. 

	Then why can't they make the die rolls easier and faster, rather 
than the complex, non-intuitive mess that they are now. 

	I liked Ars Magica alot because rolls are simple and fast. It 
takes very little time to make a roll - the GM sets a difficulty, and 
then the player rolls one die and adds three one-digit numbers. It 
is easy for the GM to figure out what difficulties should be, and what 
the likeliest results are. 
	Vampire, in contrast, has the ST set a difficulty *and* a number 
of successes required. What is the difference between a higher difficulty 
and a higher required number of successes? It is not clear. It has the wierd 
results of Difficulty 10, and *lots* of different mechanics described. I 
have also found that counting up the various d10's can take a while. 

	All this can often lead to more time being spent on die rolls and 
rules, which I think is contrary to the intent of the Storyteller system. 
I like the background and the *intent* of the rolls alot, but the mechanics 
are time-consuming and confusing rather than simple and easy, which I think 
they should be. 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Kim                    | "Nostalgia ain't what it used to be."
jhk6@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu | "The future's not the same anymore."
Columbia University         | "What the hell's wrong with my langauge."
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
From: dv52151@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (RedSwordTarga)
Subject: Re: Vampire and GURPS
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 01:41:31 GMT
Keywords: Vampire, GURPS, stereotypes

durrell@pinball.arcade.uiowa.edu (Bryant Durrell) writes:

>blocked the basic idea.  I know where the flaws are; I know where to
>work around them.  It's worth it for the attribute plus skill 
>mechanism, which I will defend as a brilliant idea forever, even if I
>admit that the form in which it was realized is faulty.

One small comment: The attribute plus skill mechanism has been done before
although it's been in systems that didn't have the enormous commercial  
success that Vampire has had, or at least appears to have had from the
volume of traffic you see about it. Cyberpunk did stat plus skill a
long time ago. 

Axly

********************************************************************************
*   Axly      *  "Is Axly tough? Yes. Talented? Yes. Brave? Oh, certainly.     *
* Red Sword   *   He is also erratic, irresponsible, accident-prone, and a     *
*   Targa     *   constant threat to public safety. The trick is to keep him   *
*             *   pointed in the right direction. "                            *
*             *         -Niki                                                  *
********************************************************************************

Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
From: jhk6@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (John H Kim)
Subject: Re: Advantages
Reply-To: jhk6@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (John H Kim)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 17:19:57 GMT

In article <By0rEt.GGn@access.digex.com> (Joseph Dziekewitz) writes:
>jhk6@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (John H Kim) writes:
>>>Besides, if you want to allow great mages without high IQ, just lift the 
>>>maximum on levels of magery.  Nice and easy, no fuss, no muss.
>>
>>(Again being picky, but this is also unbalanced as hell). 
>
>You'd probably want to put costs on a curve, as for IQ.  It could become
>balanced.

	Well, yes, but it is not as "nice and easy" as just saying "lift the 
maximum on magery". It takes some fuss and muss @-). 

>>
>>	Stat explosion is unneccessary in any case. GURPS only has a few 
>>of these unstated 'sub-stats': Fatigue, Will, Perception, Hit Points, and 
>>Dodge. 
>
>In a sense, every skill in GURPs is a sub-stat.  Thus, sub-stat explosion.

	But that doesn't complicate things either. In fact, it simplifies. 
Now you just have a unified cost for different skill levels instead of 
calculating from DX/IQ. 
	I'm not saying this is neccessarily the best - I like something of 
the intuitive relation of stat-based skills. However, I do think it should be 
more expensive to buy up DX/IQ relative to skills, based on my observations 
of typical characters (who often would cost not much different with higher 
stats and the same skills). 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Kim                    | "Nostalgia ain't what it used to be."
jhk6@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu | "The future's not the same anymore."
Columbia University         | "What the hell's wrong with my langauge."
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
From: dburgdor@cwis.unomaha.edu (Darryl Burgdorf)
Subject: Re: RPG's That Belong on Every Gamer's Shelf
Organization: University of Nebraska at Omaha
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 19:18:58 GMT


(I'm really beginning to hate the mail receiver on the UNO system .... If
someone sends mail without a sig, odds are I end up with no idea what their
address is .... )

I got mail from "Wayne Wallace at University of California Riverside" in which
he questioned my comments in this thread about Champions.

I said that the mechanics weren't bad if you didn't mind spending an entire
evening on one battle.  OK, that may not be the system's fault.  The GM who
ran the game I was in suffered from several traits in GMing that I really
didn't like, it may be that he just didn't know how to run Champions combat
effectively.  But there were several cases where a small battle took up most
of an evening, and at least one large fight that stretched out over THREE
weekly game sessions.  

As to the complexity of the character creation, it has nothing to do with not
liking the math.  (And for the record, I'm a liberal arts person.)  The problem
comes not from any difficulty with the numbers, but from the fact that there
are, in most cases, upwards of half a dozen different ways in which one can
buy virtually the same set of powers.  You end up having to spend hours trying
out different options and "tweaking" the numbers to come up with the best
method to use for any given character.  (Either that, or you find out later
that you wasted x number of points by buying something the "wrong" way.)  I
also dislike the extent to which the rules and powers are subject to differing
interpretations.  The game tends to be far too subjective for my taste; more
than once, I spent several hours putting together what I thought was a good
character only to be told that even though certain rules MIGHT mean what I
had thought they meant, what they ACTUALLY meant was something else.  (OK, to
an extent, that was also a flaw in the GM .... but it only became an issue
because the game system is ambiguous enough to allow it.)

With a good GM, I'm sure Champions can be quite fun.  But then, with a good
enough GM, ANY game system can work. 

	Darryl


(And my apologies for posting this here .... I would have responded to him in
e-mail, but for the missing address.)


 /------------------------------------------------\
 | dburgdor @unmcvm.unmc.edu or @cwis.unomaha.edu |
 \------------------------------------------------/
From: sos@oz.plymouth.edu (Steffan O'Sullivan)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: Re: Character Detail
Date: 17 Nov 92 21:50:54 GMT
Reply-To: sos@oz.plymouth.edu (Steffan O'Sullivan)
Organization: Plymouth State College - Plymouth, N.H.

gharris@jade.tufts.edu (George W. Harris) writes:
>
>	Steffan, you should read what you're replying to before being snide.
>When you don't, you look like a fool as well as a jerk.  Much better to just
>look like a jerk (I should know :-{)> ). 

I looked carefully, George.  Andrew claimed I could not make an
interesting character that I enjoyed playing by following the GURPS
rules.  Period.  Rather than risk losing my temper by denouncing such
an outrageous slam on a system I play (I'm learning, George :-), I
chose to answer as I did.

I will respond more accurately now, though: 

Although I admitted I have slackened up on strict rules interpretation
in the last few years, *all* of my characters - and those of the people
I game with - are made according to the GURPS rules without bending
them at all.  The rules I bend have to do with speeding up the playing
pace, not the character creation.  I never said which rules I was lax
on - Andrew merely assumed I meant character creation, and asssumptions
are often dangerous things to make.  (The voice of experience, here.)

To imply that *any* system isn't capable of creating interesting,
enjoyable characters is frankly an unprovoked slam of the greatest
magnitude I have yet seen on the net.

-- 
  - Steffan O'Sullivan		         sos@oz.plymouth.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy