Re: Open Source Gaming


Jeffs wrote:
Rob Kelk wrote:

Second, aside from setting-specific items which have never been in basic
rules no matter who publishes the game, what does the Fourth Edition
Basic Set not contain?

Orthodox Judaism has an interesting concept called "kosher." The
relevance here is that if X is not kosher, then anything X touches is
not kosher (I'm not OJ, so pardons if I get the theology incorrect).

In the context of 4E, this means that if a single rule _anywhere_ in 4E
conflicts with a single rule _anywhere_ in a source book, that entire
source book is suspect. (Perhaps you've never been involved in a
situation where a player used a rule from one book and the GM used a
rule from another book...and they conflicted. If so, you've been very
lucky, or have had/been a GM with sole access to the books)

Not quite. A source book that contains a lot of background data is
still very useful. However, if you are using something designed for
one edition, and you are playing the game under rules for another
edition, then you have to expect to have to adapt things.


For example: the thing that got me annoyed enough to consider changing
systems was the maneuvers list. There's enough in there to take up
10-20 pages (I don't have 4E in front of me)...but you still need to
buy (if you don't have it) _Martial Arts_, since the maneuvers list is
incomplete. But there's also a rules change: the point costs are
different. So now my _Martial Arts_ book is suspect, since I don't
know what other rules changes there have been.

Or, you just have to work to adapt the old rules to the new. SJG
admitted that book that are very "crunchy" in nature, i.e. ones that
relied heavily on the existing rules such as the Compendium books and
expanded on them, would become effectively worthless. They never hid
that fact. And the changes in the point costs come as no surprise to
anyone. The use of 1/2 points for some things was a bit contrived to
start with, and very unusual for an RPG in any case.


As another example: the shotgun rules have changed. Which means that
_High Tech_ is now suspect. That's two of the books I used most
commonly, both of which are now (to use another term from Judaism,
which I might misspell or misunderstand the theology of) traif.

However, not necessarily all of High Tech is suspect. A few numbers
are likely to need rework, some stats may need to be refigured for many
items, but most of the information is likely to remain the same.
Again, you need to expect changes, and rework the stats for the new
rules..


The fact that two of my books are now suspect leads me to wonder if the
rest of my books are also suspect. So my entire investment in 3rd
edition source books is now of dubious value.

Jeffs

Some are, most are not. You can figure that the Compendium books are
not going to work in GURPS 4e, as well as GURPS Magic and a few others.
Your general background books are going to work for the most part.

If you are ambitious about it, you can always create an adaptation for
your books to 4E, and submit it to SJG for sanity checking,
publication, and general availability. This could be as simple as a
few general changes that affect everything, such as a simple formula
for a change to ranges, or as complex as recomputing NPCs' skills and
costs under the new rules as well as new stats for different
encounters, creatures, and weapons.

Mark Sebree

.

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