Bonus Post: There's a Sale!

Hello, dear Psi-Wars reader!  I sometimes hear my readers comment on how they like and/or use my material "but don't have as many books as" I do. And I do use a lot of books, and part of the reason I do that is because those books are simply great, of course, and to show how you can use existing resources to create your game.  Thus, it's my intent to sell you the books you don't have, because ultimately this blog seeks to support GURPS. The problem is, of course, that books cost money.

Well, today, they're a bit cheaper!  As extra incentive, I've compiled a list below of particularly useful books that come up often in Psi-Wars, all of which are on sale!

• GURPS Basic: Obviously, if you don't already have this, this is where to start
• GURPS Ultra-Tech: This book is your golden standard for any sci-fi game, and Psi-Wars definitely makes extensive use of it.
• GURPS Space: This book doesn't see that much use in Psi-Wars, and you can live without it, but if you want to build your own campaign material, it's a great place to start!
• GURPS Spaceships: This is your system for space combat and for designing new ships
• GURPS Spaceships 2: Traders, Liners, and Transports contains details on tramp freighters like the Dark Horse and yachts like the Taj Mahal.
• GURPS Spaceships 3: Warships and Space Pirates contains all the warships you'll need for Psi-Wars
• GURPS Spaceships 4: Fighters, Carriers, and Mecha contains all the fighters and carriers you'll need, from the Starhawk to the Typhoon!
• GURPS Psionic Powers: If you want to use psionics in psi-wars, you'll need this book!
• GURPS Psi-Tech: Not strictly necessary, but some of the psionic technology I refer to can be found here
• GURPS Psis: Also not strictly necessary, but interesting for grab-and-play psionic packages.
• Psionic Powers is a subset of Powers, but Powers is still useful if you want to understand some of the optional rules I've implemented.
• Need more communion?  Check out Divine Favor
• GURPS Action 2: Exploits Psi-Wars is built atop the Action Framework, thus you'll need this book to make sense of a lot of my rules
• GURPS Action 4: Specialists Not strictly necessary, but I use this to build my Psi-Wars templates.
• GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 16: Wilderness Adventures Not an Action book, but I'll use this later to work out some rules for handling adventures on worlds.  An excellent book.
• GURPS Bio-Tech: Strictly optional, but some of my medical rules derive from this, and its chock full of alien ideas.
• GURPS Aliens A 3e book, but if you're hunting for Alien ideas, this is a good place to start
• GURPS Aliens: Sparriels Looking for excellent 4e translations of the above?  Look no further than this series (only one book thus far)
• GURPS Martial Arts You want Forceswordsmanship?  You'll need this book.  Chock full of the details on all my optional rules and a variety of my perks
• The Power Ups series is full of good books, but two I often use for Psi-Wars are:
• Powers Ups 2: Perks
• Powers Ups 3: Talents

GURPS isn't the only thing on sale.  While Pyramid subscriptions aren't on sale, issues are!  I use lots of Pyramid articles, but here's some highlights

• Every Tech & Toys issue is useful
• Tech and Toys I
• Tech and Toys II
• Tech and Toys III
• Tech and Toys IV
• For Psionics, check out
• Psionics I
• Psionics II (Which contains the article, Mind and Body)
• The following issues of Pyramid are just generally useful:
• Space Opera
• Monsters in Space (Something I'll get into more in Iteration 5)
• Alternate GURPS (For building your own vehicles with GURPS Spaceships)
• Dungeon Fantasy (which contains even more divine favor rules!)

This is by no means exhaustive, but if you need a Psi-Wars shopping list, this is a good place to start.

EM Guns Feedback Part 2: G-Verse Variants

So, last post, I offered the context of G-Verse, for those who need to know how the setting works and how games played out.  I've also tagged my Andromeda Incident After Action Reports from ye olden days if you want to go back and look at them.

Now, for the actual feedback.  How did G-Verse actually play and how would it play out with Pulver's suggestions?

EM Guns Feedback Part 1: The G-Verse Context

Steve Jackons Games recently put out a call for feedback regarding EM guns and their damage and performance, specifically in comparison to ETK guns (Edit: There was a miscommunication, it was in comparison to ETC, because ETK guns are ridiculous and nobody should use them).  Now, lots of people have already busted out some math and done some comparisons, but that's not really what they're asking for, and that makes sense.  I'll believe that Pulver is totally great at math and has already worked out the models necessary for his design.  What he needs is actual play, seeing how it works in a game.

Alas, I am not running anything with gauss weaponry at the moment, nor do I think I could spin one up in the near future.  I can do the next best thing, though, and see what the changes would do in a game that I already had that used gauss weaponry.

Psi-Wars is not my first foray into GURPS sci-fi.  Really, it's probably my fourth or fifth exploration of what makes sci-fi works in GURPS, and one of the reasons I've been posting about sci-fi in GURPS is precisely because it can be so tricky if you don't handle Ultra-Tech right.  Psi-Wars keeps technology at a minimum to keep innate character abilities front and center, but half the fun of sci-fi is playing with cool toys.  My last sci-fi campaign, G-Verse, really focused on detailed use of technology. I tried to blur the lines between action thriller, military sci-fi and cyberpunk in that players could and should geek out over their equipment.  In that campaign, I solved my abilities/tech dichotomy by minimizing crazy abilities and maximizing how cool your tech was.

One thing that became clear to me in that game was that technology exists within an ecosystem.  Sometimes, someone will ask why NATO uses the round it does, given its terrible stats in GURPS, and GURPS players will respond that NATO doesn't use GURPS as its guide for appropriations.  But more to the point, the round was chosen based on assumptions about what other people would be wearing and the role it would play on the battlefield and how the logistics of the round would work.  It's not a round all by itself, it's a round interacting with armor, competing rounds, and living in a context of politics, economics and infrastructure.

I think one of the reasons Pulver is asking for "actual play" is that he needs to see this larger interaction.  Given that G-verse used gauss weapons in a world full of competing weapons and armor, that makes it a good choice for examining what those changes would make to my ecosystem and how it would play out in my campaign.

In part 1, I introduce the basics of how G-verse works, including a look at the weapons, soldiers, tactics and context of the setting, so you can find your footing.  In part 2, I'll look at how my current model already worked, and then see Pulver's proposed changes would have interacted with the setting and see what ETK weapons would do to the setting.

GURPS-Day Cross Post: So you wanna play in a game, huh?

Hey, it's November, and this month, the GURPS blog selected "Community" as its theme.  Being a good member of the blogging community, I'd like to join in.  Originally, I wanted to talk about one of my favorite topics: legacy, and contrast it with the murder-hobo straw man.  But, after some discussions on GURPS Discord (You guys hang out there, right?) that inspired me, I remembered an old topic I wanted to talk about, especially since I've taken up playing in a GURPS game.

The world of RPGs brims with advice to GMs about GMing, and that's hardly surprising.  For one thing, GMing takes a lot of work, and thus there's a lot to discuss, and a lot of people want to learn to GM better.  For another thing, us GMs tend to get really good at planning, thinking and writing, and thus we're more likely than, say, a more casual player, to write about what we know.  But being a good player is just as important as being a good GM, and it's a topic that doesn't get much attention.

So that's what I want to address.  How can you be a better player?

Iteration 4 - The Final Playtest

Starlight sprang back into view with a strange, eye-watering blur as Jenna Skyrunner slowly pulled down the throttle on the hyperdrive of the Grey Morning and revealed a planet, brown and desolate. She smiled.

“I told you I could get you there.”

Dun leaned over the console of the spy vessel and marveled at it. “Old Maradon. I didn’t believe it could be found anymore.”

“Not if you follow those old star charts. Hyperspace has changed a lot since then. You have to know its ebbs and flows, like I do.” The blond flashed Dun a fetching smile. Alas, the other two people who had just stepped onto the small, compact bridge of the corvette held his attention..

Novina wore a modest, priestly gown crafted of violet silk that flowed around her body, bunching enough at the waist and hips to remind those who looked upon her that she was, in fact, a woman, with long sleeves that hid her hands. A ribbon the same color as her robe bound up her platinum-colored hair. Her gaze met Dun’s, and she smiled warmly before she remembered her position and averted her gaze back to the planet. She folded her hands into sleeves and stepped beside Dun.

The other woman owned the ship. Leylana finished gathering her hair into a smart pony bun and bound it up with band. To Dun’s surprise, she wore not haute couture, but a form-fitting battle-weave jump-suit, with a jaunty utility belt and some sturdy boots. She answered his raised eyebrow with a scoffing smile “I can be practical, Mr. Beltain.” Her eyes flitted from Novina to Dun, noting their closeness and Novina’s covert smile.

Novina’s raised her soft voice, her introspective tone suggesting she murmured more to herself than to her compatriots. “Alexian Command once controlled a million warships from their headquarters on Maradon. I’ve read texts that spoke of grand spires and breathtaking gardens. It seems all that is left now are bones of a dead world and endless deserts.”

“Not completely.” Leylana cooed smugly. She produced the small fragment of technology she stole from the dying Willow Star. “This is an old Alexian security key, and it’s keyed to the Maradon Headquarters. If that still exists, then we should be able to access its old databases and find...”

“A throneship.” Novina whispered, awed. She tilted her head, making swift mental calculations, connecting her knowledge of history and future history with this singular point. “You mean to use me to destroy the Empire.”

“Don’t sound so accusing. When I’m done, you’ll be a queen.”

Vesper Tane 3.0, the Ultimate Dark Space Knight

Vesper Tane serves two purposes.  First, of course, he's going to be our big bad for our final playtest.  We don't need to stat out a big bad, of course.  We can just declare what they have, and to an extend I'll do just that: He's gathered a band of Empire-hating, revolutionary pirates to his cause and, of course, he has both M'elena's loyalty and her heart.

But I also want to get a feel for whether or not 300 points is enough.  One way to do that is to look at a more expensive space knight.  At 350 points, Vesper was already a fairly convincing space knight, but what might a space knight look like at 400 points?  If I continued, I'd probably go into what a 500 point space knight looked like, but if I'm honest, it would likely be more of the same: more Communion, more Psionic powers, more Martial Arts.  There's plenty to explore in those, of course, but I don't see what 500 points would show us that 400 points doesn't already.

So, what does 400 points of space knight look like?  Well, in addition to the Communion powers he gained last time, we've added Psionic Force Swordmanship, which is what I wanted him to start with.  He's not actually any better with the Force Sword, as most of his skill has focused entirely on mastering his now considerable TK of 12, giving him a TK-Control of 18, with Beat at 20 and Jam at 15, giving him a rather nuanced power.  I've removed TK-Tether (his force sword now does that automatically) and replaced it with Grip Mastery.  I've also given him Contact-TK, to explore the idea of that as a perk.  This means when he's not using his TK, he can have +3 to his ST "for free."

Dun Beltain 4.0, Space Knight of Humble Origins

At last, Dun benefits from the new Space Knight template.  In some ways, he looks more like his first iteratation template than the other two iterations.  He's dropped all of his security elements, regained his psychic danger sense (and added Visions (Dreams)).  I've given him his Lost Alexian Force Sword, meaning he currently wields the coolest force sword in the game thus far.  We also know the name of his Space Princess: Novina.  And for his power-package, I've given him martial arts, and chosen to expand more fully into the Defensive Form, making him a master of the buckler.

I've immediately noticed a problem: To precognitively parry and block, you need two separate skills.  That's unfortunate.  So, I've replaced it with a Precognitive Defense, which seems plenty to me.  He can now precognitively block, parry, and bounce shots back at his opponents.

The net result is a definite boost in the already highly competent Dun.  He enjoys defenses in the range of 16, 100 points of DR and Danger Sense, as well as a really awesome sword.  He's definitely a space knight.  Compared to Vesper or Rafari, he lacks a real understanding of what he's doing.  He has only minimal meditation and philosophy skills and largely untapped Psionic potential, and no training in Communion.  This is likely going to be true of most starting space knights, as a space knight has enormous possibilities for growth (which is why their templates don't get Experienced power-ups), so a "master" space knight is probably closer to 500 points in value.