Q: Building a mechanical companion
Aug 18, 2014 10:14:03 GMT -8
Post by yeknom on Aug 18, 2014 10:14:03 GMT -8
GURPS newbie here. Maybe you heard my email on HJRP1214. I am forcing myself to learn the system by taking a bunch of characters from my Fate game and trying to translate them into GURPS equivalents. I decided to start with the most complicated character, the engineer/tinkerer.
Surprisingly, the character himself is actually not that difficult to build. I have fantastic players that came up with really interesting quirks, and his was one of the most detailed in terms of skills. Most of them translated well. However, his biggest aspect is that he has built a mechanical clockwork tiger, sort of like a familiar or animal companion. I decided to give the character an Ally advantage:
- Point total of 100 (same as character) = +5
- Appears
constantly (No roll required), = x4
- Minion (IQ 0 or Slave
Mentality), +0%
Total cost: 20 points
As for the tiger machine, that's proving to be rather difficult. I'm using the GURPS Character Sheet software (see this link), and I can apply some templates like Machine and Quadruped from the Basic Set, which are really helpful. However, when I drop the intelligence to 0 (to make it a minion according to the Ally advantage above), I gain a whopping 200 points! Do you think this the correct way to start building this thing? I'm not sure how to outfit this new character sheet when it comes to attributes and skills. (Although I did think to give it fangs and claws.) Strength? Dex? Health? Any suggestions would be helpful. There is an example robot character in the Basic Set book, but it seems to be more of an independent kill-machine that's not very animal-like.
As a side note, even though I'm not sure how to flesh out this machine character sheet, it is still much less of a headache than it was in Fate. Trying to guess how to add it into the game while keeping stunts and abilities balanced seemed very "iffy" in Fate.
Surprisingly, the character himself is actually not that difficult to build. I have fantastic players that came up with really interesting quirks, and his was one of the most detailed in terms of skills. Most of them translated well. However, his biggest aspect is that he has built a mechanical clockwork tiger, sort of like a familiar or animal companion. I decided to give the character an Ally advantage:
- Point total of 100 (same as character) = +5
- Appears
constantly (No roll required), = x4
- Minion (IQ 0 or Slave
Mentality), +0%
Total cost: 20 points
As for the tiger machine, that's proving to be rather difficult. I'm using the GURPS Character Sheet software (see this link), and I can apply some templates like Machine and Quadruped from the Basic Set, which are really helpful. However, when I drop the intelligence to 0 (to make it a minion according to the Ally advantage above), I gain a whopping 200 points! Do you think this the correct way to start building this thing? I'm not sure how to outfit this new character sheet when it comes to attributes and skills. (Although I did think to give it fangs and claws.) Strength? Dex? Health? Any suggestions would be helpful. There is an example robot character in the Basic Set book, but it seems to be more of an independent kill-machine that's not very animal-like.
As a side note, even though I'm not sure how to flesh out this machine character sheet, it is still much less of a headache than it was in Fate. Trying to guess how to add it into the game while keeping stunts and abilities balanced seemed very "iffy" in Fate.