I think that in order to get the kind of game play I want in Galactic, I'm gonna have to step down off my no-prep soapbox and take a new stance. That, ladies and gentlemen, is easy prep.
Some stuff, really, is just better if it's done without people having to sit and wait, even if it only takes 15 minutes. I think I can get it so that it's that little.
How it'll work, I think, is you play a chapter, and then you set up the next one. Everyone decides what this and that world are like and the players name the conflicts they're stepping into.
Then between times the GM whips up NPCs and their relationships, and that ain't really a lot of work, but sometimes it needs a wee bit of incubation time, rather than a forced exorcism while everyone's waiting.
Now I'm off to work on encumbrance rules for my Under the Bed supplement.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
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Now I'm off to work on encumbrance rules for my Under the Bed supplement.
The real question is if you have rules for using firearms underwater!
The think that's great about Dogs-like GM prep is that it's still such a good algorithm that there isn't as much of the traditional sorta GM guesswork/magic to make things "click". It's more of a steady machine to crank in order to result. (There's still art and skill to it, of course, but it's still much easier.)
You crank up the Sin and its consequences until you get Situation. So in Gal, are the R-Maps alone going to be the think you crank up until you get Situation? (I wonder - are Factions perhaps one of the thinks to crank up in order to create Situation?)
Oh! Prep at the end of the session! That's excellent!
Does that mean, and this isn't facetious, that all games start with a single kicker (or a pick list)?
Maybe a table, "I'll take... lessee... a Rebel fleet, a friendly alien, and a villainous politician,"?
Encumbrance in UtB is easy: if you're Strong, you can carry everything! If you're Weak, you can't carry anything! If you don't have either, you can carry 1.6 kilos of soft materials, or 2.2 kilos if it's rigid. These are referred to as the Weight Index for that type of material. If you're not sure which category something falls into, hire someone to be a GM for the duration of the argument. Throwing those materials is .67(Wi)*9.8m^2/abs(45°-(angle thrown)). Your toy can deadlift 2.6*Wi. If throwing a gun at Superman, he will inexplicably duck even though the bullets didn't hurt him. If throwing a javelin (or javelin-like device, such as a gearshift), the distance is multiplied by 1.1. If you've converted UtB to GURPS, remember that 1 kilo is 2.2 pounds and 1 meter is 3 feet, 3.13 inches. Degrees remain the same. A hogshead is equal to 63 Imperial gallons Imperial, or 75.66 gallons US. When firing through more than 1.8 hogsheads of water (or similar liquids with a Viscosity Index of 1 — see card 37 for a table of Viscosity Indexes), the projectile will are you still reading this what's wrong with you. Ricochet is negligible, multiplying its Damage Rating by .42 and multiplying its range by .995.
Does that mean, and this isn't facetious, that all games start with a single kicker (or a pick list)?
Kinda. Together you figure out the basics of the setting, like what kind of world is it? Jungle? etc. What's valuable on the world? Who lives there, and so on.
Then the player says "I want the crisis to be human vs. human," and adds a few specifics to that.
Then the GM makes up NPCs that fit the crisis and setting. If it's a sparsely populated swamp world, and the player wants human vs. alien, you have some constraints over what they'd be at odds over.
Awesome.
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