Realm Powders

Realm Powders are mystic substances that grants simple and concrete powers to those who consistently use a specific powder. Over time, these substances infuse the partaker with the ability to see and interact with the "Realm", a version of the world defined by energy rather than by matter. Each substance has a unique and localized organic source, as well as a very specific combination of powers it grants.

Realm Powders are from my game "Murder in the Court", an aborted campaign about a murder in a fantasy version of the imperial Chinese court. While that game had issues that led it to end early, realm powders were not one of them. They served as our mystical element, and a lot of successful game-play was driven by what individual powders could or couldn't do, both in PC and NPC hands. I share it with you now, as an example of a "Powers System I've Used"

Spaceships Armor Table

 My Small Armor Table for Spaceships (really for robots as spaceships) has gained attention, and I've received a request for version that covers sizes more typical of a spaceship. And so I've built and now present a table of armor values for spaceships. It should make finding the armor values a lot easier. The image below is an easy reference, but the text version you can highlight, copy, and so-on, is here. 

The DR given is the amount of dDR per system of armor. Not the DR! See Gurps: Spaceships 1 pages 10-13 for more information on spaceships armor.

The weights follow the size/range table, which gives us three divisions in each size modifier. For more stats on spaceships of that weight, see Between SM's. 

The TL number is given because its useful when working with the "Boost" numbers for adjusting armor, also explaining the example armors that go up to a theoretical TL 15. The numbers I find myself checking the most are 6, which is basic Steel and thus the cheapest option, and 13, which is "Awesome Future Armor" in TL 10, which seems to be a great spot for Battlesuits, Mecha, and general space opera. 

I hope you enjoy building and flying your spaceships!

Rules I Don't Use, Replace, or Revise: Jumper

One of my favorite advantages in Gurps is Jumper. Jumping from one world to another is a central feature of the signature setting, Infinite worlds. Jumper lets you travel in time, journey to Hell,  reach the elemental plane of earth, explore a shadow version of a place, venture to alternate histories, and rule pocket dimensions. It is an exceptionally evocative advantage central to multiple subgenres. It inspired some of my first gurps characters, and it shows up on character sheets in my games today. 

Its also a jumbled quirky mess. Normally, I wouldn't bring this up unless I had a fix, but a conversation with other Bloggers has increased my willingness bring up the problem without proposing a finished solution.  We will look at the odd quirks in Jumper, some reasons for those quirks, and hopefully get a gut feeling for what a fix would look like. 

Process for building a Robot

After a few years of making tweaks to Robots as Spaceships, I think we've arrived at the end goal: the ability to make a robot from the spaceships book fairly simply and easily. Right now, all the pieces are there, but we need to put them together. What follows is a guide, but it will also serve as an index to all of those articles.

These are the steps for using Gurps: Spaceships (and a little bit of this blog) to build a robot in gurps:

Adventure Generation: Setting, Conflict, Position, Detail

Christopher Rice suggested writing something about how people write and prepare for adventures, and I thought I'd share how I generate my adventures, or at least my adventure ideas. I love coming up with ideas and scenarios for adventures, even if they aren't always complete until the game actually gets played. I have a fairly simple set of steps I use to generate ideas, and I actually follow them pretty formally: while sometimes I'll start with one of the later steps in mind, most of the time I quickly duck back and go through the steps.

PaverGuard Striders

Paverguard creates not only the most popular series of battlesuits in the xenospiral edge of colonized space, but heavier walkers as well. While their battle-suits keep you safe, their Striders allow you to exterminate the vermin that threaten your home!

Earlier, I wrote a post detailing a bunch of power-suits for use in a TL10 frontier setting with hostile alien beasts. In this post, I will be building the next step: TL10 combat walkers. These will be built using the method described in Walkers and Power Armor. 

Paverguard's strider series are quite a bit lighter than true mecha, but are still quite heavy and have cockpits rather than being mere suits, providing a huge strength boost and heavy armor. At weights below 3,000 lbs or so, Paverguard recommends its signature battlesuit line. (That's the natural point at which this armor method begins to be more effective than the battlesuit formula)

25 Space Cats

Part of Science Fiction is engaging our sense of wonder. What if something familiar was just a little bit different? Alien wildlife is an engaging way to engage our sense of wonder. Making new alien wildlife is difficult and simple at the same time. Changing its skin covering, eye count, mouth structure, and limbs are easy, but when you're on the spot or have done it a few times recently it can be tricky. 

Here, I present a list of Cat aliens. They're numbered for easy reference, as well as for use with random generators. Each space cat is different, and while they might specialize for an ecology or have additional capabilities, they should all be recognizable as "cats". They do tend towards wild versions of the creatures: its conceptually easier to convert a wild animal into a domestic one than vice versa. I should give credit to Mailanka for inspiring this with his post about Space Cats. I hope you find enjoyment and inspiration in this list!