From: bkoike@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Bryce Koike)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: GURPS: Multi-Genre Otherworld
Date: 15 Sep 92 18:29:12 GMT
Organization: University of California, San Diego

In article <1954q6INN2ri@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> jdale@cats.ucsc.edu (Jonathan Dale) writes:
>
>You do have to be careful balancing character power and NPC strength in a
>crossover game like this, but I certainly agree it can be done.  I did it too.

	Ah, glad I've got company!

	I suppose the biggest problems I had was dealing with
psionics (which I don't care much for...).  I had to actively churn
up psionicists and in the end I gave up.  Instead I started
terrorizing the psionicist with, "Aaron, something's poking at your
shields!" every hour or so.  Instead of making trouble, he started
to get somewhat paranoid and decided that having allies was a much
better idea than having slaves.
	The only way to deal with psionics is to either slap a hefty
Unusual Background on the character ("You're the ONLY psionicist in
the whole goddamn world.  Don't YOU think that's unusual?") or to
cook up psionicists to deal with the offending character.  I mean,
imagine AD&D if there was only one magic user in the WORLD and he
was in your party!
	In the second session, the weretiger decided to go vampire
stomping during the day (These are somewhat altered GURPS Vampires.
Silver can hurt them, but won't kill them.  They chortle in mirth at
crosses and garlic.  Sunlight's still pretty nasty for them,
though).  He knew one was in the basement of a school and decided to
go kill him.  Standing at the top of the stairs, he taunted, "Hey,
vampire, why don't you come out and get me, huh?"
	His eyes opened wide when the vampire replied, "If you
want."
	He never saw the vampire; all he saw was a cloud of darkness
creeping up the stairs in time to the vampire's movement.  Before I
had a chance to ask the player what he wanted to do, he said, "I'm
running away NOW!"
	Almost no combat in my game, mostly the players getting a
feel for the world and figuring out when they were totally
outclassed...("Uh, let's back off...") 

>I called mine Crossworld.  My party consisted of an Ancient Greek priestess
>with psi (but thought it was magic), a sorceress from Yrth, a necromancer
>using improvised magic from a different fantasy world, a modern day superspy
>with an invisibility device, a far-future Chambarra type martial artist,
>and the character Paul the Samurai from the Tick comic book.  It worked
>well; my biggest problem was that the players were all oblivious fools!
>(ie, they didn't realize that a demon had infilitrated the party for 3 game
>sessions, when it attacked them; one player was seduced but didn't bother to
>figure out who she was, or why it happened; etc).  I hope to start this one
>up again when I get back to school, with new players....  I've developed 
>six worlds for them to romp through and a background the first set of players
>never even scratched the surface of.

	Heh...all my players keep telling me that my game is a Torg
copy.  Funny thing is that I've READ Torg and the similarity ends
right after the multi-genre bit.  (None of this stormer stuff or
bizarre realities...if a barbarian confronts a guy in a battlesuit,
the barbarian will die...)
	Right now I'm cooking up a series of fairly nasty GURPS
Space "espisodes" to take place in one of the alternate earth's I
developed during the Otherworld game/stories...
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc