Divinely Empowered Animal Allies

Here’s a GURPSDay gift for everyone!

Dungeon Fantasy 5: Allies is a pretty great book if you’re looking to get some back-up with a little less independence than if you went shopping in Dungeon Fantasy 15: Henchmen. Specifically, it offers up three sets of options: Summonable animal allies for Druids, humanoid divine servitors for Clerics and Holy Warriors (with nature themed options for Druids), and Familiars for any spell-caster. Each group has its own characteristics, and it gives several templates very flavorful options.

Poké Ball not included

Characters with (Un)Holy Might also have the option of taking an animal companion instead of a divine servitor. It’s treated as a summoned friend instead of a random summoned creature, but your holy hound is otherwise identical to an ordinary animal. In other words, boring! This post establishes rules for making your furry friend a true gift from above, and provides three templates to really establish how different they are from an ordinary animal.

First, we apply the following template, which represents the special restrictions inherent to spirits on the mortal plane:

Divine Beast: One -10 point disadvantage which should either be the same as the moral code for Holy Might OR Social Stigma (Excommunicated) [-10]; Dependency (Sanctity; Very Common; Constantly) [-25]; Unnatural Features 1 (Varies depending on divine nature) [-1]. [-36]

Class changes to Servitor of Good OR Demon, and becomes vulnerable to Banishment.

Then, apply one of three mutually exclusive templates below. All templates are 62 points including the Divine Beast meta-trait. This raises the value of most animals to 125, or 75% of a starting PC’s value. They are generally bought as Ally (Divine Beast; Built on 75%; 12 or less; PM, -10%; Summonable, +100%) [12] or (15 or less) [18].

Bears, Great Cats, Insect Swarms, and Timber Wolves will become 100% allies (Available on a 12 or less for 19 points, 15 or less for 29 points. Wolverines become 50% allies (12 or less for 8 points, 15 or less for 12 point).

Without further ado, I present your three Divine Beast upgrades

Spectral

A spectral animal companion is only barely tied to this world. It is surrounded by a bright nimbus of light, is always capable of attacking insubstantial foes, and can invoke a supernatural sense of fear in enemies without affecting allies (alternately, use the Awe or Confusion tables from Powers as appropriate).

Basically, this

Once per day it may become insubstantial, taking gear (but not riders) weighing up to light encumbrance with it, for up to ten minutes. While insubstantial it additionally may chose to turn itself and its gear invisible to the material world at the cost of 1 FP per minute. This does not hide it from other insubstantial creatures or threats on the Astral Plane.

Spectral: Blessed (Ghost Weapon) [15]; Divine Beast [-36]; Illumination [1]; Insubstantiality (Can Carry Objects (Light Encumbrance +20%, Limited Use 1/day -40%, Maximum Duration 10 Minutes -50%) [24]; Invisibility (Light encumbrance +20%, Costs 1 FP per minute -5%, Limited use 1/day -40%, Maximum Duration 10 minutes -50%, Must be Insubstantial -10%, Switchable +10%) [10] Terror (Selective Area +20%) [48]

Travel Spirit

This animal companion is intended to serve as a means of conveyance to fight spiritual battles. It is fast, completely tireless, surprisingly strong, a skilled acrobat, has a natural sense of direction, and can even run across thin air if spurred to half of its full movement. If skills overlap with those already on template, combine the point totals and readjust. Note that this template is restricted to animals potentially suited for riding. Use one of the appropriate templates below.

Travel Spirit (Boar, Great Cat, Stallion): Absolute Direction [5]; Divine Beast [-36]; Doesn’t Sleep [20]; Enhanced Move (Ground) 1 [20]; Lifting St +10 (No Fine Manipulators -40%, SM+1 -10%); Walk on Air (Must move at least half move -20%) [16]; Acrobatics +1 [8]; Jumping SX+2 [4]; Mount DX+2 [8]

Hound/Timber Wolf: As above, but change Lifting St +10 to Lifting St +8 (No Fine Manipulators -40%, SM+0 -0%)

Giant Eagle: SM+1 (3 points saved on base ST); Enhanced Air Move +1.5 [30]; Doesn’t Sleep [20]; Remove Quirk: Fatigues  easily under loads [-1]; Lifting ST +14 (SM+1 -10%) [38]; Aerobatics +1 [2]; Mount DX+2 [8]

What could go wrong?

Shark: Amphibious [10]; Doesn’t Breathe (Gills -50%, Affects Others +50%) [20]; Doesn’t Sleep [20]; Increased Air Move [4]; Flight (Cannot Hover -15%) [34]; Aerobatics DX-1 [2]; Aquabatics +1 [1]; Flight HT+0 [2]; Mount +2 [3]

This enhancement allows the (Un)Holy shark to swim and fly equally well, with a move of 16 in both mediums. It cannot hover in flight and must move at least 4 yards each second. It can breathe air, and can grant its rider the ability to breathe underwater.

Wise

If your animal decides it needs a manservant, that's not on me

Wise animal companions have an IQ of 11, +2 to Will, and unchanged Perception. They can speak perfectly in their native tongue, are fully literate (but may have trouble turning pages), and blessed with both Common Sense and the ability to meditate and receive otherworldly guidance. The last ability gives them +1 to reaction from followers of your religion. However, Wise animal companions will demand to be treated with all the respect granted to the fully sentient, and resent being treated as dumb animals.

Wise: IQ+5 [100]; Will-3 [-15]; Perception -5 [-25]; Blessed [10]; Common Sense [10]; Divine Beast [-36]; Increase Native Language to Spoken (Native)/Written (Native) [+4]; Remove Cannot Speak [15]; Quirk: Refuses to be treated as ordinary beast [-1]

The Last Word:

I think all of these lenses are fun and a nice boon for players look for a hybrid between an animal companion and a divine servitor. The Spectral lens is a nice combination of flavorful and potent options for both combat and exploration. The travel spirit turns eagles, boars and great cats into viable mounts. Since stallions are already built to be mounts, they become terrifyingly fast. Flying sharks are just straight terrifying.

Mechanically, the Wise lens has the least going for it, as it does little but turn the animal into a full-blown NPC. GMs should emphasize the ability to use good tactics and show helpful initiative. Common Sense and Blessed lets the Wise animal serve as a direct conduit to the GM advice, which can be helpful for a character (or player!) that lacks wisdom themselves.

All in all I’m very fond of this concept, and I could see throwing together a few more lens options in the future.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Feedback for GMs and Players

In my offline DnD group, we recently wrapped up a 6 month campaign. It was a great ride, with a lot of action, intrigue, fun background, and player impact. It was even more impressive because it was our DM’s first try at the big chair. He put in a massive amount of elbow grease into both his world-building and his session-running skills, and he introduced a feedback mechanism that I found I found intriguing and haven't seen elsewhere.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Here's how it works. After play is finished, the GM holds as many of the players as possible. Then they ask each player to give them the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly from the session they just played.

The Good: Specifically, this is what the GM did that worked the best. It could be a fun fight, a great plot twist or game mechanic that was introduced, or a fun and well-acted NPC. Or it could be how a table issue from last time was fixed, or how the GM handled having more or fewer players than expected. Just tell the GM what you liked about how they handled the session. If someone else has made some praise that you agree with you can back them up on it, or you can choose something else that was fun to talk about. Hold off on praising the other players for just now.

The Bad: Now it's time for constructive criticism. If the GM needed to brush up on some rules, if the pacing was weird, if someone got unfairly hosed, now is the time to talk about. I would say it’s occasionally fair to bring up other players here, if someone was grossly disruptive. Ultimately, that's on the GM to police. The important thing is that complaints are about specific things the GM can address. Again, you can choose to endorse or reword previous complaints if you want, or come up with another one.

This might be a slightly more accurate title

The Ugly: What about the players?! Give credit where it's due your one of your fellow players for something awesome and/or hilarious they did in character. There are just two rules: Don't vote for yourself, and don't repeat other player’s Ugly moments. If someone has praised Bob for the way he saved the party with a well-timed fireball, throw it out to Amy for RPing how shocked she was that Bob from Accounting was actually a wizard. Or maybe how Bob passed the fireball off to the police officer as “swamp gas” later in the session.

Player Moments: Our traditional follow-up, where the GM gives credit to each of the players in turn for something cool they did. This can reinforce Ugly moments that the player might have been awarded, but we usually used this for a more measured assessment of the best parts of how everyone played. In particular, this lets the GM talk up something good that a newer or quieter player did very well that the other players might not have noticed.

Assessment

Yummm

This is a great example of how sandwich feedback works. What's the sandwich method? Simply put, when you give feedback you start with positive notes, then cover criticism and things that should be done differently, then finish up with more positive feedback. Talk about cool stuff the GM did, talk about what the GM could have done better, talk about something cool another player did. Done wrong, it comes across as insincere and unable to get to the point. Done right it places a fair amount of emphasis on the both the good and bad. Play with good people and they should have no trouble doing it right.

It also forces players to think about and discuss GMing issues and the actions of other players. By putting everyone on the spot, it forces players to articulate both what they liked and didn’t like about the sessions. Conflict-avoidant players have a socially-mandated “excuse” to voice concerns and malcontents are forced to acknowledge what they do like about the game. The GM gets a chance to acknowledge and respond to player concerns. And everyone’s forced to think about how hard it is to get GMing “right”.

So, how does this work in practice? Quite nicely in my experience. We did this with a really large group (7-9 players on a typical day), and the large size worked to our advantage for once, as it was easy to identify which Good and Bad nominations were widely agreed with and which were just individual preference. It also led to players keeping an eye out for good moments to award an Ugly to another player. Scaling it down to a small party (say four players or less), I would encourage players to bring up any Good or Bad moments on their mind.

What are the downsides? Well for one thing it eats up time. If a lot of players have a tightly defined amount of time to play in, you might be better off just playing instead. And the focus on what the GM can do to make the player experience better is going to wear on some GMs.

The Ugly and the MVP

I know some GURPS GMs like Peter Dell'Orto and Christopher Rice have their players decide on an MVP who wins a CP bounty to encourage good play. How would that interact with awarding players Ugly moments? Well, I wouldn't recommend turning The Ugly into MVP nominations. The latter tend towards consensus, while the whole point of the way the former is constructed is to recognize multiple players.

One possibility is to hand out MVP after the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. This reminds everyone of the cool stuff that happened during the session. But that might turn Ugly moments into defacto MVP nominations. I  think it's a better idea to award the MVP first, and then reserve The Ugly for funny bits and great roleplaying by all the players, and awesome stuff that players who weren't MVP did.

The Last Word

So, should you start recognizing the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly at your table? That's ultimately up to you. It absolutely requires a GM that is attentive and interested in player feedback. If you feel like your table already has a good feedback culture, you definitely don’t need to start a new ritual. But I'd strongly recommend this tool for a GM who is new or feels that they need to level-grind their Session Running skill.

Everyday Carry for PCs

Introduction

When new players start to build a character in GURPS, one of the first questions they usually ask is "what skills should I take?". The GURPS community is all over that, usually with a link to two excellent list of "everyman" skills prepared by the estimable Dr. Kromm, one being for adventurers and one being for normal people in the modern world. And they really are great. But in my experience one of the next questions that new players ask is "what gear should I take?". I don't feel like we've done as well at answering that systematically.

That's partly because the question is really, really hard to answer generically. A Dungeon Fantasy hack and slash, an Old Western action one-shot, and a campaign about Ultra-Tech TL11 galaxy-trotting tourists have hugely different technology available and very different player goals. There's no one gear list, and all the decisions are subject to non-obvious facts about the technological and social context. So there's not much common ground.

For this post, what I'm going to be doing is adopting the principles behind Everyday Carry, or EDC. Everyday Carry is a philosophy based on knowing what you need and always having it on you. It emphasizes preparedness, self-sufficiency, and keeping vital gear close to hand. The terminology is mostly used by engineers, survivalists/preppers, and the kind of gun owner that uses the word "tactical" like punctuation. The underlying philosophy is practiced every old janitor or grandmother you know that always seems to have whatever you need in their bag. In short, it's an excellent lens to look at a PC's equipment lens through.

In the list below, I'm going to go through eleven needs that most PCs eventually wind up having. You don't need to carry gear to meet all of them, but you should have a good reason to skip addressing any of them. Finally, I'm going to address genre-or role specific equipment that might be essential in the right game or that one person in the party should be carrying.

The Big Eleven

1. Weapons: Tabletop RPGs have their origins in mass combat simulators. Even GURPS started off as an arena fighting game called Man to Man. The point is that most games are going to be somewhere on a sliding scale between “combat is the majority of every session” to “combat occurs every few sessions”. Even if you’re supposed to be a non-combatant or spell-caster, make sure that you have some way to usefully deal damage.

So what kind of weapon should you be carrying? That's far outside the scope of this article (but might be something I'll touch on down the road). So let's just consider stopping power vs wearability. Stopping power matters because the ultimate point of combat is to kill or incapacitate enemies, not to annoy them. It's hard to say how much stopping power is "enough", but as a rule of thumb, you don't want to be putting out much less damage than you're facing. Wearability matters for logistical reasons (can you climb over a wall with that?), social ones (Will the guards let you through the wall's gate with that?), and concealment (will the guards find that when they pat you down?). Balance according to campaign needs and your role in the party.

2. Light Source: Caves, basements, or outside at night. Eventually, your character is going to need to worry about seeing the nose in front of his face. At low Tech Levels you'll need to carry a candle, torch, or lantern and this category will overlap heavily with fire-making, below. In modern times you can substitute a flashlight.

"Revved up like a Deuce/Another runner in the night"

Some characters may have the natural ability to see in the dark, or simulate such though magic or high technology. That's a massive advantage, because they can sneak in the darkness without giving away their position, and stage fights so that enemies suffer lighting penalties while they do not. However, bright light may still be useful to blind enemies, signal allies, or ward off animals and supernatural threats. Get creative.

3. Communication: In low-tech societies, communication mostly occurs face to face, or through letters, and this category doesn’t have much to it. You should still give a thought to signalling. Carry a whistle can communicate that you’re in trouble to your party members, or maybe use a signalling mirror or smoke signals to convey messages over long distances.

If you have access to instantaneous communication at a distance via magic or technology, things change fast. If all of the PCs are in constant communication, scouting and coordination can reach amazing levels. And then you can contact friends, allies, and authority figures to really mess with your GM. AND in a TL8+ setting, you can access the internet for essentially any information you might need, on the fly. If you can buy a phone or radio, do so. And strongly consider a laptop if your character is at all research oriented.

4. Tools: Potentially the most varied category. Specialists might carry lockpicks and other thieves tools, a mechanics toolbox, a sonic screwdriver, or anything else to take technology apart and put it back together again. Any character can benefit from carrying a small knife or a multitool, and historically some variation on such has been one of the single most common items in anyone's pockets. A blade or a simple tools can be very useful for many things, including as a weapon of last-resort.

Occasionally mightier than the sword

5. Record-keeping: You can fulfill this need by carrying pencil and paper. Or carry some chalk if you fancy writing on walls. This allows your character to make notes and give or leave notes for NPCs. If you’ve ever hunted for something to write down a phone number on, you know how important this is. But at higher Tech Levels you can really have fun with this. Cameras can take pictures of people, activities, and documents which can be used to blackmail NPCs or bring them to justice. Video and audio recording can do that even better, and computer storage can let you copy reams of data without an NPC realizing anything. But at the very least, you want pen(cil) and paper.

6. Food and Water: You want enough of this so that when the GM asks "did you eat?" you can say "yes", and not worry about it. How much is enough is going to vary depending on the setting. In a real rough and ready setting, you may want to give consideration to water purification and line and snares to catch food, while in a purely urban game you can live on fast-food and the occasional protein bar. Just don't be the idiot that starves when the GM asks if everyone remembered to buy rations.

7. Fire-making: In my experience, most PCs are going to need to light something on fire at some point in their life. In GURPS, fire-lighting equipment is considered part of Personal Basics, but make sure you've got this covered on your sheet. Flint or magnifying glasses work, matches or lighters are better. Of course if you're the Human Torch or a fire wizard, you might not have to worry about this.

8. First-Aid: Yeah, your party may have a dedicated healer. That doesn't mean you can ignore this. What if they get taken out? As a rule of thumb, more than half of the party should have the skill and hopefully the equipment to provide basic healing. This can be some loose bandages, a wand of cure light wounds, or a full-on crash kit for a specialist. The form doesn’t matter, as long as you keep your fellow PCs from dying.

9. Another Weapon: Yup. Combat is such a huge part of so many campaigns that we’re doubling down. Your PC should be carrying more than one weapon, and the second should fill a need that the primary one doesn’t. If you’re an archer or a pistolero, get a blade. If you carry an axe, pick up a sling. Or get something that exploits a different monster weakness (see below).

Included in High Tech!

Concealability is also very important here. The difference between a successful PC prison escape and an embarrassing failure is in the number of PCs that can steal or smuggle in a weapon. If your first two weapons aren't concealable, get a third that really is.

10. Money: Money is magic. Money buys everything above, and more besides. At some point, the GM is going to force to you to fork over your hard earned treasure to buy incidental goods and services, or bribe an NPC. Make sure you have liquid funds on you to do that. In small and large denominations, if your GM is a stickler about that.

11. Personal touches: You're playing a character, not a block of stats. Gear is just as much a valid way to express personality as anything else on your character sheet. A religious icon, a love letter, a deck of cards (which can see a lot of use, incidentally) or flask or pack of cigarettes can all tell you something about a character. A small item or two doesn't have to cost much or weigh you down, but it says a lot.

Other things to consider:

Grenades & Area Denial Attacks: This is a broad category, including everything from explosives and grenades to smoke bombs to jars of grease to caltrops and bags of ball bearings. There are two defining characteristics: The first is that all of these are intended to attack a large number of foes by killing or injuring them, distracting them, or inconveniencing them. As such, they can alter the course of a fight, with huge payouts if placed correctly. The second is that the mindset behind them is distinctly non-civilian. If you're carrying these around, you're either entiring openly hostile territory or terminally paranoid.

Rope: A lot of old-school RPG players have a rope fetish that would make a shibari expert blush. It’s useful stuff if your PCs need to do any mountain climbing, prisoner restraining, or lashing stuff together. However contra Samwise Gamgee, it's not something that every PC needs. Duct tape can fill the last two needs in a modern setting, and handcuffs will work even better for prisoners.

The "combat ready package" for holy water. 

Monster Weaknesses: Garlic, holy water, silver bullets, cold iron knives. If you're fighting monsters with specific weaknesses of this kind, you should be packing, and preferably in a combat ready package.

Shelter: This is so close to the base of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs of needs that it's often hand-waved. But if you're going into rough country on foot or hoof, you'll want a way to keep the rain out and body heat in. This is going to be bulky, so look for good equipment to save on weight.

Navigation: Maps are great. PCs in modern and ultra-tech settings might be able to rely on their smartphones, but in other circumstances you're going to want some solid paper maps, and maybe some compasses and or even more advanced navigational gear if you're really going exploring.

Tracking and Surveillance: For PCs in the world of espionage and mysteries, it can be seriously useful to have a whole host of tiny electronic devices that record and broadcast location, audio, and video information. But don't forget that hacking a bad guy's cellphone can get you most of that. In a fantasy setting this might be replaced by a scrying pool or Magic 8-Ball. 

The Last Word:

I should emphasize at this point that I'm not offering a complete list of everything you should carry. If your GM is handing out useful exotic equipment, or you have a need for certain bits of gear or MacGuffins, then you should by all means carry them, even if it means leaving behind something listed here. The specific case trumps the general advice.

Likewise, I'm not saying that a character with a gear list that doesn't check off all (or any) of these boxes can't be useful and effective. Jackie Chan always seems to get by with just his fists and a lot of improvised weapons after all, and you may very well have an interesting and effective character concept that would never carry a weapon. What I'm providing here is a list of needs that you should think about filling, or think about why your character doesn't seem to want. Ultimately, the story is about the characters you bring to the table, and the gear is at the bottom of the character sheet for a reason.

Introduction

Going to air just in time to make Douglas Cole’s GURPSDay recruiting month goals, it’s Johnny 3d6! So what is this blog actually going to be about? Well, I’m a regular player of Steve Jackson’s Generic Universal Roleplaying System, or GURPS. It’s a dice-based tabletop roleplaying game in the vein of Dungeons and Dragons, but with rules flexible enough to accommodate anything you can imagine, from dragon-slaying knights to telepathic snails seeking to reclaim their homeland with the power of wuxia Snail-Fu.

Specifically, my blog is going to mostly talk about GURPS, with some posts about tabletop RPGs in general, and a few discussions of other tabletop systems I happen to play. I’m anticipating two main “bins” of content:

• Session Recaps. I’m currently playing in Mr. Insidious’s Prohibition Mobsters game, and I’ve been meaning to blog about that as a way to publicize what we’re up to and help myself keep notes on the twisty conspiracies and huge number of NPCs. I may also be blogging about the Aeon C-Team Agents of Aegis campaign I’m about to start playing with Christopher Rice and some other great players. Or anything other game that comes across my plate.
• General GURPS/RPG Discussion. I’ve done a decent amount of playing GURPS and teaching other people to do the same, and come to develop opinions about how to go about constructing characters, what kind of play maximizes group fun, and so on. So I've got some things I want to yell about.

And of course there may be some other content if I come up against a set of GURPS rules I really want to talk about, feel compelled to talk about DnD or some other system I play, or find some useful software for roleplaying that I want to discuss. The future is full of possibilities.