JaySn said:
I'm rather curious, Awor, what were the main differences between GURPS and special, other than an extremely short development time and age of existence?
Combat in GURPS:
1. Damage - weapon damage higher than in Fallout, much lower HP, unpleasant stuff happening at negative HP.
Crippling damage based on damage thresholds - more than two damage points at an eye and you're blind, damage over HT/2 cripples leg, etc.
More subtle hit locations - you get stuff like distinction between head and brain, torso and vitals, which allows skilled characters to aim for more damage instead of depending on luck on critical hits.
Location based damage multipliers - brain hit is 4x basic damage (after going through skull's DR) with automatic knock-out roll, vitals is 3x damage.
Working AP/JHP ammo types.
2. Attacking - default attack is snapshot - it gives -4 to hit. You need to aim for one round to not get that penalty and get accuracy bonus from a weapon. There's opportunity fire.
3. Generally the game is manoeuvre based. Look at this screen:
http://www.duckandcover.cx/official/gur ... fall11.gif
http://www.duckandcover.cx/official/gur ... fall05.gif
http://www.duckandcover.cx/official/gur ... fall07.gif
Note how in the right part of the interface there's a field with name of manoeuvre:
"Aim", "Move" and "Step and Attack".
They have different effects on what you can do in a turn with various modifiers.
GURPS also has stuff like various positions but I doubt Fallout would have it, taking in account the limited amount of space for animations. Generally, GURPS is a semi-realistic system which is based on tons of research while S.P.E.C.I.A.L. is pretty arbitrary.
4. Character creation - it's point-based with lots of points and advantages and disadvantages - the first take points while the latter give points. The advantages and disadvantages were implemented in game.
Here's what Vault 15 was like in GURPS: Fallout according to a design document published in Swords & Circuitry: A Designer's Guide to Computer Role-Playing Games:
Interesting stuff:
Radscorpion may appear only in the night if the player is unlucky.
It was possible to fall down ladders with a failed Dexterity roll and suffer damage, characters with fear of darkness would have to do Will rolls to go down. Characters with a fear of height would get a negative modifier to the roll.
Level1:
There are additional messages and rolls for the characters that fear darkness.
All the comments about the functions of various rooms were displayed after passing an Area Knowledge (Vault) tests.
Main entrance tunnel caved-in due to natural reasons (the PC will determine that the collapse looks natural and no explosives were used after passing an IQ test).
Airlock was opened (not destroyed)
There are six flares in a compartment in the Airlock.
There's one mole rat near the airlock (I won't list ordinary rats, but they are there)
There are two "stimpatches" in a wall container in the Emergency Medical Lab. There's another wall container that is empty.
Elevators don't work - there are ladders and the character needs to climb up them (which makes much more sense than descending on a rope - in Vault 13 Command Centre is on the top). It's possible to fall down with a failed Dexterity test - putting a flare at the base of the ladder makes the test easier. A character with Intuition stat that passes an IQ test will get a hint about it.
Level2:
There's a room with a pile of bones on level 1 - PC may notice a medi-kit under a bed after a passed Vision test.
In another room there's an empty opened wall container - a box of 10mm JHP ammo lies on the floor below that container.
A room farthest south has a chair that faces an empty wall. PC may notice that there's a key in a crack of that chair after passing a one time Vision test when entering the room.
Level3:
There are 3 mole-rats in a Meeting Room.
There's a tunnel in the wall through which rats enter the Vault which can be noticed after passing a Vision test. Blowing it up stops rats from gradually reappearing when the player leaves the vault and gives the PC one Character Point.
There's a mole rat and a single locked cabinet in the Storage room. It can be opened with a key from the living quarters. It contains four 10mm AP and four 10mm JHP ammo boxes.
There's an Uzi hidden behind a pile of rubble. Passing an Area Knowledge (Vault) test gives a hint about it to player.
Learning that removing the rubble that buried the way to the Command Centre is impossible requires passing an IQ test.
Determining that the whole Command Centre itself is buried requires a critical success at that test.
Two large mole rats guard the rubble.
It's possible to attempt to repair computers in the Central Core - trying to do it shows that the internal hardware has melted due to extreme heat and pressure. There are two mole rats in the room.
There's a holodisk with a log entry on the floor. It contains an information that the water-processing chip of Vault-15 has failed in the 2067 and that the Vault was abandoned when the water reserves reached 2%.
There was some accident when powering down the Vault which caused the log to end abruptly.
There's nothing of value left in the library which is communicated to player when PC passes a vison test.
There's a lot of mole rats there. Also, I like how they thought about stuff like fear of heigh and fear of darkness and how the stats and skills can give hints about where to find loot.
So, the game awards players directly with Character Points not with experience.
Increasing a skill may cost from 1/2 to 24 Character Points depending on its difficulty and skill level. The higher is your skill level the more expensive it's to increase.
