{"id":2472,"date":"2016-01-21T13:48:17","date_gmt":"2016-01-21T21:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themook.net\/gamegeekery\/?p=2472"},"modified":"2017-05-04T14:54:22","modified_gmt":"2017-05-04T21:54:22","slug":"streamlining-gurps-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themook.net\/gamegeekery\/streamlining-gurps-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Streamlining GURPS, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Happy Thurpsday<\/em>, and welcome to another weekly dose of GURPS-y goodness!<\/p>\n

Today I’d like to share a few more thoughts on streamlining your games to go along with last week’s post<\/a>\u00a0and some<\/a> of<\/a> the<\/a> others<\/a>\u00a0I’ve posted previously.<\/p>\n

First, let’s talk about NPCs, particularly those of the “Kill the PCs!” type.<\/p>\n

Player Characters in GURPS are, generally, made of pretty stern stuff. They have HT rolls to avoid unconsciousness and death, a full menu of maneuvers available to them, and even “Extra Effort” options they can use by spending FP (pp. 357).<\/p>\n

It’s important to remember that not all NPCs are created equal. I tend to break enemy combatant NPCs into four broad categories:\u00a0Fodder, Seasoned, Lieutenant, and Boss.<\/p>\n

A common way to tweak these categories of bad guys is by varying their gear — so, Fodder get leather scraps for armor and pointy sticks, Seasoned get sturdy armor and weapons, Lieutenants get good armor and weapons (often at the PCs’ level), and Bosses get enchanted plate and man-portable mini-guns (sometimes in the same game). You can also adjust their attributes and skills to reflect their threat, power, and experience.<\/p>\n

Let’s not overlook, though, the fact that\u00a0not all rules have to apply to all characters.<\/strong> The PCs themselves will all, presumably, be utilizing the same rules, the baseline of the campaign (though, some characters may use rules that others don’t, like a lone wizard in a group of warriors). But for NPCs, that doesn’t have to be the case. There is no reason the Fodder Kobolds on Level 1 of the dungeon need to be making HT checks all the way down to -5xHT; it’s just more work for the GM for no real return in improving the game.<\/p>\n

I’d recommend something like:<\/p>\n