Estimating Animal Template Costs

Having made the Generic Beast Template, I wondered how useful it would be for quickly estimating animal costs, especially for advantages like morph and allies.

When estimating, we'll be looking at the ballpark cost, simply picking the appropriate lenses, the correct strength, and possibly adding one or two extras for animals with really unique traits. Ideally, our estimate will be just a few points over the actual cost.

Robots as Spaceships: Walkers and Power Armor

So what is the difference between a combat walker and power armor? They seem to be a simple continuum starting with simple armor that strengthens the user and ending with giant mecha. Its not that simple though, and the more I've worked on making power armor and walkers work in Robots as Spaceships, the more distinct the two things become.

• Power armor is worn, Walkers are piloted. 
•  Power Armor only needs to bear its own weight and not get in its bearer's way. Walkers need to bear the weight of the pilot.
• Power Armor must have its knees, elbows, shoulders, and hips in the same location as its wearer. Walkers can have these locations in the same places, but often do not.
  

Of course, art breaking that last rule is not exactly uncommon, but we can call that cinematic, and judge if it is a walker or power armor on a case by case basis.

The Generic Beast Template

Sometimes in Gurps, the point value of an animal matters. The most common culprits are allies and alternate forms, but other situations may need point estimations as well. Estimating animal template costs can be hard, especially on the fly. So here we present the generic beast template, for help mostly in estimating animal costs.

This template isn't meant to represent any individual animal. Instead, its meant to represent a starting point from which to estimate and calculate other animal costs. We are focusing on costs here. Ideally, you should already have a stat block in mind. Gurps Campaigns has some, and Gurps Animalia has more. (Gurps Animalia is an top notch resource, and there is more Gurps stuff on that site). If we don't have an existing stat block, we can still use this template as a decent base, but it will take a bit more work.

Mounted Combat: Taking a Step

A while back I ran an old west sample combat that involved a lot of horses, and a lot of shooting from horseback while moving. One rule we noticed is that "If you are controlling a vehicle or riding a mount, take a move maneuver to spend the turn actively controlling it". But what if you aren't actively controlling your mount? what happens then? A trained warhorse has a lot more initiative than a motorcycle, and is both able and willing to make its own decisions. And they don't exactly stop moving just because their rider is no longer spending all of their energy moving them forward. We ended up allowing players to use their "Steps" to send subtle adjustments to their mounts.  Here is our system:

Robots as Spaceships: Winches

The whole robots as spaceships line was started by my first attempt at cyberpunk, which learned very much on "cyber" and didn't do much with the "punk". The game had a heavy focus on machine combat in very urban environments. When I was designing different robots, I had this image come to mind of a robot firing a gun through a skyscraper window while suspended from a cable.

The cable and grappling hook are somewhat cinematic, with the most famous user of them being Batman, but robots that go up and down sky-scrapers exist today, primarily to wash windows. They typically are hung on the skyscrapers by some other means and then start moving around. 

This is a spaceship system to do that...

Metatronic Generators In Low Tech Settings

Historically, I've always looked at Metatronic generators funny. They provide a direct translation from points to cash, and that often gives funny numbers. The base version also has this weird assumption that you will be using electricity baked into it, and they're generally based off of Psychotronics, which are intentionally an area of weirdness. 

 I just realized that I'm using them for a TL1 fantasy game.

Not intentionally, but the more I look at the "Magic System" the players have access to, the more I'm convinced that it can be usefully expressed in terms of Metatronic generators. So what's the system, and what settings do I use to make Metatronic generators useful at TL1?

Robot Brains: The Skill Budget Model

In Gurps, perhaps the simplest way to give AI's skills to give them skills for being functioning minds. Which is to say, just like any other character. The skills are an intrinsic part of who they are. They can learn new skills the same way any other mind does, by studying, practicing, and through hands on experience. They can no more download a new skill than a human can purchase one in the form of a book.