Pyramid: Q & A

This article originally appeared in Pyramid #1

Q & A

GAMING QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Pyramid will take questions on any game system, not just SJ Games material. We understandably receive more questions on our games than any other.
When you send us questions about other systems, they may take a while to turn around; we're getting the other companies to help us. Allow two or three issues for a reply.

GURPS

1) GURPS Space pretty much establishes FTL travel in terms of Parsecs per day, and the various Space Atlases map distances in Parsecs. Why complicate Supers/Space crossovers by having the Super Power of Hyperflight give characters FTL speeds in lightyears/day?
2) The teleport spell suffers penalties as distance increases. Do you follow the planetary surface or a straight line? Specifically: a mage teleports from your office in Austin to Sri Lanka, a place reasonably close to the opposite point on the planet. If the answer is "straight line", the distance is around 8,000 miles costs the caster 11 energy and has a skill penalty of -8. If the answer is "planetary surface," the distance is around 12,000 miles and the energy cost is 12, while the skill penalty is -9.
S.D. Anderson

Norwalk, CA
1) GURPS Space, in dealing with vast distances, uses parsecs. This also makes it easier for the enterprising GM wishing to use modern-day astronomical maps; in our albeit-limited experience, many use a parsec-based scale. GURPS Supers, which by habit of the genre deals mostly with Earth-based campaigns, uses the more familiar light-year for short distance adventuring.
With a minimum investment of 175 points (without any enhancements or limitations, or putting points into Astrogation) a character could travel through space, unaided by technology, one lightyear every day. On a Supers scale, this isn't all that much, and we assume the character has a bagel stuffed in his shorts to eat along the way.
With such a short range -- compared to the average starship -- Supers' hyperflight is best measured in light-years.
2) Either teleportation occurs on the grid of mana enveloping a planet's surface, or the planet can be considered a giant ball of mana, which can be moved through three-dimensionally, at no additional penalty for going up or down; GM's discretion. Also consider whether or not the mage in question would know that the planet's round!
-- Loyd Blankenship and Derek Pearcy

CAR WARS

1) Do weapons such as a TwL remove points of metal armor with their damage bonuses? For example, 2d6+6 for the TwL would remove 1 point of metal armor, plus whatever is rolled on the dice: right or wrong?
2) Can jet engines be put on any vehicle (i.e. the Batmobile)?
3) Can armor be recycled?
4) How is data stored onto a cube? Could a character's death (what he experiences in his mind, not just filming with a camera) be stored? What would happen to another character who jacked up with this cube?
5) How is Combat Football played? What about other sports?
6) If armor can can be bought for a cybertorso, the effect is just added D.P., right? What about arms and legs — how are these targeted? How may a character's head be targeted?
1) Metal armor loses 1 point for every physical "6" that is rolled on a single die; a 5 on one and a 1 on another is not a 6 for purposes of damaging metal armor.
2) Jet engines can't be put on an auto. The Batmobile would have jump jets, not a jet engine.
3) Yes; undamaged armor can be moved from vehicle to vehicle. We approve of recycling.
4) Data is stored holographically. The rest of your question bends towards the metaphysical — if we knew, we'd be making a lot more money than we are now. If you're looking for some interesting speculation, we suggest checking out Brainstorm from your video store.
5) For over ten years, people have written in either asking for the rules for Combat Football or with their own version of the game. We've never printed rules, but imagine regular football with guns. As for other sports, most libraries have rulebooks for all the major sports and — you may not believe us — there are even several magazines dedicated to sports.
6) The cybertorso is a variant rule. There are no provisions in Car Wars for targeting individual body parts. If you want more realistic individual combat rules, wait for GURPS Autoduel, Second Edition (a shameless plug).
-- Chris McCubbin and Derek Pearcy

The original Pocket-Box Car Wars and Deluxe Car Wars both had a rules stating that flamethrowers could not be front-mounted on a vehicle and fired while the vehicle was moving forward without it taking damage, and that anti-tank guns were prohibited from being side-mounted on non-oversized vehicles.
These rules were not published in the Car Wars Compendium. Are they still applicable?
No, those rules are obsolete.
-- Chris McCubbin

Article publication date: June 1, 1993

Copyright © 1993 by Steve Jackson Games. All rights reserved. Pyramid subscribers are permitted to read this article online, or download it and print out a single hardcopy for personal use. Copying this text to any other online system or BBS, or making more than one hardcopy, is strictly prohibited. So please don't. And if you encounter copies of this article elsewhere on the web, please report it to webmaster@sjgames.com.