When you fully realize that the game can be run with and is actually geared toward full disclosure, the main consideration in whether or not to keep aspects hidden from players is what your players are looking for from the experience. Some players will enjoy having access to behind-the-scenes information and crafting optimal drama around it. Others like to be surprised and to see the world bits and pieces at a time.

@Pixie So. That's sorta the problem. I full well understand that it works, but. I also understand my players pretty well. :X

@LymiaAluysia lucky you

@Zachiel Sorta comes naturally when you've played together for several years.

@Pixie From my experience in our previous campaigns, I can say pretty confidently that my players do like digging up the world in bits and pieces. Moreover, a lot of the player driven drama we end up having involves players hiding information from each other too.

@LymiaAluysia I'm not sure when this discussion started, so forgive me if this has been said already, but have you discussed Fate's capabilities with your players?

@Pixie Elaborate?

@LymiaAluysia Nothing wrong with laying out the pros and cons of both manners of playing, especially if you've been playing games that didn't really give you the option to share character-unknown information with your players (or at least didn't textually recognize it).

You can just flat out tell them that you can make aspects known up front and explain why this is helpful (being able to orchestrate things you might not otherwise, being able to invoke and compel aspects when needed), or you can leave some hidden to be discovered through play (thus allowing them to engage in digging up the world and hiding things from other players).

@LymiaAluysia Sorta comes naturally for other people than me, maybe. Or maybe I know what they want, but I'm not able to deliver.

@LymiaAluysia I've been off for a little bit, but I'm pretty sure I'm the GURPS-y-est person who frequents chat. Feel free to ping me if you've got simple GURPS questions like that.

The simple answer to your question is that yes, your Magery will end up being 2 points per level. However, One College is ridiculously limiting, and Song means that your spells can never really be used stealthily.

Also, GURPS makes a few low-level simulationist assumptions that are never called out directly, but will probably come up in a worldhopping game.

For example: A person with a gun fighting a person with a bow or melee weapon will pretty much always win, unless the person with the lower tech weapon has some kind of significant defense.

Let me grab my copy of Characters, and I can give you some numbers about weapons with low Recoil.

@Pixie Not explicitly. I've introduced Fate before, but, I'm not sure all of my players really understood that part of Fate well.

@LymiaAluysia It'll likely take some time for it to click since it's a different type of system from the more traditional games. But being explicit about it and offering a choice could be helpful.

@trogdor - I wonder if bringing my player here would help you or other people making her the right questions to understandd what she wants from her character. Provided she likes the idea of having an extendend conversation in English, that is.

@Pixie I guess my question is how far the expectation of "open information" goes.

mm mybe?

Okay, so, example: A TL 6 Auto Pistol (2d+2 pi, RoF 3, Rcl 2) being fired at 10 yards (-4 to hit) at a skill of 15. An average roll (11 on GURPSs' 3d6) means that you hit, and deal your 2d+2 pi damage, which translates to an average of 9HP of injury to a non-armored target.

What about what NPCs you aren't near you are doing? The motives of NPCs who are rather ambigious?

@DuckTapeAl What happens when you start hitting more than one shot?

As I understand it, you just end up doing double or more damage?

Yup.

A roll of 13 isn't so out there.

But in that circumstance I describe, you need to have a roll of a 9 or less for 2 hits, and 7 or less for 3.

Anydice says it's a ~40% chance to roll <=9

GURPS combat, especially modern combat, is super deadly.

Sounds about right.

@LymiaAluysia I wouldn't think these things need be revealed unless your group is really into the idea of very open information. Aspects are a specific mechanic, and not everything significant about a character/NPC/location/etc. has to be an aspect. If you don't want to use it for invokes and compels, it doesn't need to be an aspect.

@LymiaAluysia basically Pixie is right, as far as I am concerned it doesn't hurt to tell them upfront that Fate, as a system, is designed to let your players know pretty much everything. it doesn't mean they have to choose that playstyle, but it should not hurt to bring it up as an option and possibly work towards it

Also remember that armor is pretty common, which matches real-world expectations.

keep in mind, this doesn't mean ANYONE knows what exactly will happen at the end of the campaign or even each session

@Pixie Oh. Does open information usually refer to relevant aspects always being known, and not anything more than that, usually?

in my current Fate campaign, we already know what our eventual goal is, and a lot of what is going to happen during the move towards that goal

@trogdor I personally don't think it's very compatible with the kind of campaign we usually run, at least. What sorta genres is this sorta playstyle approprate for?

but even our GM doesn't know what exactly the end of that particular goal is gonna look like when we get to it

@LymiaAluysia Well, it certainly can be more than that, but I was speaking more in the context of aspects being an important consideration because they are part of a core mechanic, invokes and compels.

@LymiaAluysia Genres? as in sci fi/ fantasy stuff like that?

Yeah. I don't have any intention of hiding aspects per se.

Beyond that it's fuzzier.

hiding aspects isn't a great idea, unless you are only hiding certain ones

@trogdor Yeah, if one is hiding them, I would only ever hide certain ones.

@LymiaAluysia as far as genre, if I understand your question correctly, genre is practically not a factor in Fate. though I would suggest that if you are running a horror game it be something else

@Pixie exactly, like that one really helpful or ignorable NPC being the main bad guy for your current arc

@trogdor Heh, yes. Some players I know would much prefer not to know that kind of information.

if you see that one wrong aspect that could be blown

@trogdor Hrm. I can see what you're getting at then. Isn't that standard in RPs? I would... at least hope that the players know what their end goal is.

yes true

From what I've seen on some PBP forums, pulling a twist like that is a good way to kill a game.

but we already know, for example, that something pretty specific is gonna go wrong when we are in our spaceship heading towards that weird thing that is moving towards the sun

@LymiaAluysia it certainly isn't for everyone, I was just trying to give an example, the point of which was to say that if your group prefers not to know some things, you can keep some things from them

at least till they figure those things out themselves in game

@LymiaAluysia Oh, also, remember that you get a Dodge against ranged attacks, which is going to be an 8 (25%) for most characters. But basically, a skilled shooter is going to be able to quickly kill a non-armored enemy. A shooter with a pistol will probably average 9-10 damage per round, and will be able to do up to 27 with a single round of shots. Double that for an assault rifle.

@DuckTapeAl Eeesh. What could you potentially mitigate TL disparities like that? The worlds I'm planning (and the acceptable PC range) basically goes, like, from TL4 to TL11.

@LymiaAluysia You really can't, without just telling your players that they can't use modern weapons on a low-tech world. GURPS is intentionally simulationist, and in real life, guns are super dangerous when someone is trying to kill you with one.

That's where people pull out the "conserve the timeline" and "Prime Directive" cards to give reasons why your TL11 adventurers are using spears.

You can make high-tech versions of low-tech weapons, if that would work for your setting.

I think a more relevant question might be how could you get more supernatural worlds to play nicely with a TL9 or so baseline. I, unfortunately, can't just pull a prime directive plot point.

Do skills for using weapons not have TL restrictions?

Depends on the weapon.

If someone is building a spear to be used by a low-tech person, they'll probably make it usable for low-tech people.

I'm pretty sure that most weapon skills don't have a TL anyway, so you're just using the standard TL penalty, which is less harsh.

@DuckTapeAl Ah, the Star Wars approach to scifi.

@trogdor Yeah, I definitely understand that. I'd... definitely need some planning to figure out how to even put together a test session for us to figure out if we like more player knowledge along those lines or not.

They suggest in one of the TL sidebars that most high-tech versions of low-tech things just use familiarity penalties, rather than the higher TL penalties.

@LymiaAluysia I honestly fully understand, personally I had some trouble actually accepting this kind of play style myself. most of my RPG experience before Fate was D&D

But practically speaking, a game with TL4 to TL 11 PCs should mechanically be a game with TL 11 PCs, some of which use one or two quaint, low-tech skills.

I'm pretty certainly nobody wants me to just spoil major plot points, but... On a lower level like that, I'm not so sure how they'd react.

And it definitely sounds like something worth trying

yeah, you don't need to spoil major plot points

Yeah, giving it a shot can't hurt if they're on board for it.

but even so, on that lower level, having knowledge of peoples aspects, for example, felt really weird at first, I experienced it myself.

High TL is just too much of an advantage to overcome without seriously bending the rules, because of how simulationist the game aims to be.

@DuckTapeAl Mind, this is going to be another try at an old campaign that sorta fell apart due to scheduling issues. Last time, we didn't really, like, have bronze age PCs and higher tech PCs, more like... hrm.

Well, let me pull up my last try's sheets and try to summarize it.

The other way to deal with it is to throw away equipment entirely, and make everyone buy their weapons as powers.

Way more balanced that way.

Equipment, spells, and powers are balanced on their own curves, but there is no real balance between them.

Doing 4d of damage at a shortish range costs about 15 points as a power, ~10 points as a spell, and basically nothing as equipment.

Last time, I got an engineer from a pre-singularity transhuman setting, a mad scientist from a Girl Genius-esque world, a mage with a flavor along the lines of... tribal magic themes or something like that, a pirate from a world with a lot of oceans and... I'd imagine it'd have some sorta heavily split TL from how the player described it, and... I'm not even sure how to summarize this.

Yeah, with that big of a disparity, removing the ability to purchase equipment and replacing it with advantages is probably the best idea.

It's a lot easier to police, and powerful abilities actually cost something.

Cap damage at something you're comfortable with and seriously restrict enhancements like Rapid Fire and Explosive, and you'll probably end up with characters that can operate on the same scale.

Mind, combat won't be a primary focus, and the enemies when combat does happen probably won't be from the worlds themselves.

But, like, it's going to happen.

A buddy of mine in a low-power supers game capped damage at 2d, and made it so the primary way of making more powerful attacks was with the Cosmic enhancement.

@LymiaAluysia That may be true, but if one guy can do 4d pi+ with an RoF of 10 and a Rcl of 3, the guy with the TL4 spear that does ST+1 imp is going to feel like his combat skills are less important.

Yeah. :/

And then some joker casts Missile Shield.

Am I reading this wrong? Or is it really basically Immunity to Ranged Attacks.

What college is it? I'm having trouble finding it.

Protection in the magic sourcebook.

Ah, don't have that one on me. Is it a Blocking spell?

Oh, no, it's Duration.

Yup, it's basically Immunity to Ranged Attacks.

But it costs 5 FP, so it's sort of costly.

Isn't a minute way longer than any individual combat's going to last?

Way, way longer.

1 round is 1 second, so a minute is 60 rounds.

The longest combat I've ever seen was about 30 rounds, and that was mostly because one side was running away, literally crapping themselves, and the other side was bound to its location.

Fights sure seem fast for a system aimed at simulation.

that does seem a little fast

I mean, just a couple more seconds would seem,... more realistic

From what I've read about real combat, most real fights with real weapons are over in under a minute.

yeah, but just one second to aim and fire your gun, for example, in an accurate manner?

Yeah, with serious weapons "first blood" is often also "someone just lost interest in fighting anymore."

seems like 2 at least is a better approximation

What are you even supposed to do

Guns are generally balanced on the idea that a skilled shooter at about 10 yards can hit a non-moving man-sized target once per second.

I'm not exactly saying it should take like, 6 seconds to do

If you get hit by a mage who charged a missile for 3 turns?

Non-moving as in, not running around.

yeah,.. but that's what I am saying

@LymiaAluysia Die, probably.

most people would, in fact, be running around in a fight

or taking cover

Seems surprise is nasty overall whether you're using magic or higher TL equipment.

doing neither is idiotic, or at least means you were ambushed badly enough that you probably already lost anyway

@LymiaAluysia Yeah, but that mage was basically standing still going "IF YOU LET THIS HIT YOU, YOU'LL DIE" at the top of his lungs for 3 seconds.

@trogdor You can also take an extra 3 seconds to Aim, which gives you bonuses and can negate the penalties for cover and moving around, if you can pull it off.

ah

ok, that makes a lot more sense then

That's up to 3 seconds, right?

Yes.

You get your Acc in second 1, and then +1 for each extra second.

Up to double your Acc in bonuses, IIRC.

"Simulation" in RPGs is often used to mean "simulating real-world physics," but usually the systems to which it's applied are actually simulating layperson understanding of real-world interactions as filtered through media representations rather than through personal experience or real-world training.

1 second is, admittedly, a little longer than some people give it credit for.

But really what it boils down to is that if you get hit by a modern rifle, you're taking enough damage to go down in one shot, so it's more a game of "who rolls a 5 first" and less about real accuracy.

you do still have to hit though

that's why people don't typically use muskets anymore

Also, I guarantee that there's a GURPS supplement half written by people with real-world military experience with much more detailed and realistic rules.

they did a lot of damage, but they really were not great for you when you missed your first shot

Since that's basically their entire business model.

Also, a big part of the reason why the FBI confiscated their computers that one time.

lol

wow, that happened did it?

They were doing a book that included stuff about simulating hacking, and were speaking to actual hackers to get realistic information.

The FBI thought that they were writing a guide on how to hack into computers.

Steve Jackson nearly went to jail.

Apparently, the FBI never gave back the computers that they confiscated, either. :)

Frankly, that was less down to the GURPS's folks dedication to accuracy and more attributable to the FBI's total ignorance of what actually constituted a digital threat.

Sure.

yeah,... the FBI has never seemed as competent as they should be ever since I became an adult

not quite as much out of not catching some people they should have as "catching" some people they probably really shouldn't have

But while I've no doubt GURPS consults experts on the subjects they're mechanising, as anyone who's seen a film with consulting experts can attest that's not always going to be result in great accuracy in the final product. The public wants its media-informed truths, like what a gun sounds like.

Hey, @Wibbs: When dealing initiative, do you redeal each round, or just at the start of combat?

Start of each round

Do you reshuffle after each round, or are the dealt cards just out of the deck until you hit a joker?

ninjad :p

:P

But only when a joker is dealt, and not any other time?

yeah

Thanks.

np :)

Anyone know a good place to get really cheap dice? The best I can find is the Pound O Dice at about 25 cents per, and I was wondering if there was anything cheaper.

@DuckTapeAl mixed or id d6 only ok?

Mixed. D6s are pretty easy to come by, but I'd like to have an option for getting a bunch of dice for a Savage Worlds game if I end up using that system, and SW uses a full set of polyhedrals, minus th ed20.

@DuckTapeAl Hrm... how powerful are melee weapons in higher TLs?

@DuckTapeAl is that coz you have loads of d20s from other games?

@LymiaAluysia There are a few nice ones in Ultra-Tech, but by that point, the ranged weapons are way better. For any given TL that allows guns, guns are going to be the best weapon in a GURPS game.

coz you need them for some rolls

in SW

But not, like, all the time, right?

yeah

mainly for rolling on tables

injury, fear, crits on vehicles

I've got a couple d20s, but I'd like each player to have their own set for normal play.

that kind of thing

cool

if you do choose to run with it, I'd strongly suggest a one-sheet or two so you and the group can get used to the system before you homebrew anything

One-sheet?

I'm only like halfway through the book, so I haven't run across that word yet.

free short adventures you can download off of the Pinnacle games website. I linked to the page in my answer to your Harry Potter question

Aha.

It's interesting how often the designers in SW seem to justify their design decisions.

@DuckTapeAl You mean explicitly?

Yeah.

Are the decisions in need of justification?

Like, in the paragraph on how you use the lower of Fighting and Riding skills on horseback: "This makes it important for cavalrymen to actually be able to ride well!"

It's generally not stuff that's unclear or weird, just random insertions of information that make it clear that there are like, people writing this game, and that sometimes they want to tell the players why they made a particular design decision.

It's a refreshing bit of informality after a decade of D&D.

Aye, I always value RPG manuals that talk about design philosophy and gameplay intent.

My 6th Ed Call of Cthulhu has a quite excellent entry on the roles the developers expect the players and GM to take.

(On the other hand, the SG-1 RPG dedicates lots of print to unsupportable and outright incorrect assertions about why their chosen system engine is best for the franchise material.)

lol

that was like watching a train wreck, except I was in the train

@DuckTapeAl It also makes the book genuinely interesting to read

also of note, the examples given in the book are really, really crucial to understanding the system

@DuckTapeAl something else for you and your players peginc.com/freebies/SWcore/Combat%20Survival%20Guide.pdf

its a great summary of combat tactics and will help get you out of the D&D mindset

note that its not been updated to the deluxe version of the rules and is missing a couple of options such as Pushing

@BESW -- amen. many folks have a strong allergy to actual reality showing up in their RP

@Shalvenay ... dude, you're saying that like you're chastising people for feeling that way, but we've gone down this road so many times explaining what's going on here. take your grief about it elsewhere please.

having "a strong allergy to actual reality showing up" is not what's going on and you should know that by now.

@doppelgreener -- out of curiosity, what would that issue look like?

ding

Kind of RP-related but not necessarily something I know would fit the main site... anyone know of a MU* client that lets you theme/skin it? ANSI colors on black background mess with my eyes. (This is the same reason that I really don't like playing roguelikes without a graphical interface.)

yeah, I don't know why MUDs default to using a telnet interface with no TERMCAP set and no line editing support to speak of

have they ever heard of readline or libedit before?!

That is a bit above my level, but MUDs are pretty antiquated. However, clients need not be. Unfortunately, it seems like, beyond MUDs with a custom web interface, they tend not to be. :P

I found one that lets me change the colors, but I think no automap... it's not like I haven't hand-mapped before, but it's a pain when there are clients that do it for you. xD

Ah, MUSHclient does have this feature. Its interface is not my favorite, but that'll be a fallback. I need to investigate Mudlet and see if it's just not mentioned on the site or something.

because I tried a MUD a while ago, and I never got in partly because I couldn't enter a decipherable description via the default interface

also: evil idea: next cryptogram I make for some sort of RP: take the text as ASCII, feed it through DES with a random key, then base64 encode the ciphertext with . and , as the extra characters, and insert random spaces

Oh good, Mudlet does allow me to do this. Maybe this is a standard enough feature that they just don't tend to mention it in features lists or show it in any screenshots.

Which makes sense, because these colors are eye-burning.

Avast!

@Shalvenay A simple repeating XOR should stump pretty much every player you are likely to have. :P

@LymiaAluysia I've still got half-finished notes on an XOR dungeon where doors being open or closed provide the inputs and doors being locked or unlocked are the outputs.

Sounds fun.

The trick is a) making it something I can keep track of easily as part of play, and b) designing it so my programmer players are challenged but my theatre players aren't left in the dust.

@Shalvenay Don't confuse a strong preference for escapism with a congenital inability to have any other experience.

@BESW-- yes, that XOR dungeon doesn't found something. and thanks for the note :)

should we have a separate tag for Pathfinder Unchained btw?