Hey all! does anyone have any insight or want to give me some advice on how to make like a cop/swat rpg. you know doing traffic stops, pursuits and like responding to callouts? that sort of thing? I want something like that. I'm a huge fan of GURPS SWAT and GURPS Cops back in the day. Would be cool to have that in this system.

To be honest, I think this is easy to adapt.

Use the modern setting as a refference.

But there are important things to know: know very well this reality. Procedures, equipments and vehicles.

This would help you to adapt the weapons and the regular equipments used in the operations as well as itens that the criminals should use in the daily operations and common place where they could stay.

Vehicles as well are something important, in my opinion. Sometimes a car chase or even using the car as a protection in some situations.

Definitely easy to do. You probably need a few more human archetypes. Use the equipment from Modern Setting, Social Combat should be common, so should chases and investigations.

You could probably add a few knowledge skills (Law, Underworld, Forensics, Tactical), remove astrocartography and alchemy.

For vehicle stuff I would use Riding for motorbikes/horses, Driving for Cars/trucks/boats, Operating for Helicopters and then remove Piloting as a skill. Add the talents for offensive and defensive driving.

Potentialy you could add an investigation skill, but Perception, Vigilance Knowledge and Streetwise covers it quite well.

Pump up the social talents, in fact all the talents, I definitely suggest looking at the Expanded Talent List for ideas.

You could also add the Duty mechanic from Age of Rebellion to represent your SWAT team's rising in the ranks.

You will need to define what failure means when you are rolling to find a clue that is needed to solve the mystery. You never want the players to miss crucial information, because it either grinds the game to a halt or makes you think up new and boring ways to reroll (which can still fail). Things like wrecking it for crime analysis or trial (if you are doing all of that), or maybe even time delays if your serial killer adheres to a tight schedule.

Failure regarding social interactions is a bit easier, since you can say that poor rolls still give information, but turn the witnesses hostile. If the witness is a mafioso, that is bad news.

55 minutes ago, player966703 said:

You will need to define what failure means when you are rolling to find a clue that is needed to solve the mystery. You never want the players to miss crucial information, because it either grinds the game to a halt or makes you think up new and boring ways to reroll (which can still fail). Things like wrecking it for crime analysis or trial (if you are doing all of that), or maybe even time delays if your serial killer adheres to a tight schedule.

Failure regarding social interactions is a bit easier, since you can say that poor rolls still give information, but turn the witnesses hostile. If the witness is a mafioso, that is bad news.

I follow the "three-clue rule" for this sort of thing. Never create a bottleneck where the players HAVE to pass some roll to get a crucial clue. Instead, think of three ways they can get that same information (e.g., searching the dumpster, asking the janitor, or tracking the raccoon that took the clue from the dumpster).

18 hours ago, SavageBob said:

I follow the "three-clue rule" for this sort of thing. Never create a bottleneck where the players HAVE to pass some roll to get a crucial clue. Instead, think of three ways they can get that same information (e.g., searching the dumpster, asking the janitor, or tracking the raccoon that took the clue from the dumpster).

If you're saying that none of those 3 actions would require a roll, I agree. The extra clues are for players who might not be used to thinking like a detective.

A Simple test (no Difficulty dice) for an average character (Characteristic of 2 and Skill of 3) still carries the possibility of not getting one success. It's about 4.5%, which sounds low but it's just a little less likely than rolling a 1 on a d20. And that never happens when you don't want it to, right?

8 minutes ago, player966703 said:

If you're saying that none of those 3 actions would require a roll, I agree. The extra clues are for players who might not be used to thinking like a detective.

A Simple test (no Difficulty dice) for an average character (Characteristic of 2 and Skill of 3) still carries the possibility of not getting one success. It's about 4.5%, which sounds low but it's just a little less likely than rolling a 1 on a d20. And that never happens when you don't want it to, right?

No, I'd still require a roll. This isn't Gumshoe, and players invest in skills and Talents because they want to see Triumphs come up and to beat the difficulty dice. If your players miss all three clues, you just need to improvise and throw them a freebie, like a dispatcher asks them to check out a disturbance at the address where the other three clues would have led. My way isn't the only way to do it, but I've found it works better in a roll-based system as opposed to Gumshoe's resource-management approach, where you can "spend" a point of a skill to get a clue.

http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule

Not sure if this article is where I first learned of the three clue rule but here you go.

22 hours ago, SavageBob said:

No, I'd still require a roll. This isn't Gumshoe, and players invest in skills and Talents because they want to see Triumphs come up and to beat the difficulty dice. If your players miss all three clues, you just need to improvise and throw them a freebie, like a dispatcher asks them to check out a disturbance at the address where the other three clues would have led. My way isn't the only way to do it, but I've found it works better in a roll-based system as opposed to Gumshoe's resource-management approach, where you can "spend" a point of a skill to get a clue.

You can avoid worries about improvising and freebies by making failure mean something other than not getting the clue. That's the whole point of Justin's system.

And you are misstating the way Gumshoe spends work. A spend is never required for a core clue, just for useful extras.

3 hours ago, player966703 said:

You can avoid worries about improvising and freebies by making failure mean something other than not getting the clue. That's the whole point of Justin's system.

And you are misstating the way Gumshoe spends work. A spend is never required for a core clue, just for useful extras.

My point stands. Using skills and talents is what players expect in this system and what they should get to do 9 times out of 10.

And reread that blog post on t he Alexandrian, especially "Corollary: Proactive Clues. " If your players are just not getting it, have something active happen to them that gets them back on the right track. In other words, "core clues" (in Gumshoe terms) can be given away but only as a last resort.

That said, what approach do you prefer for mystery-type scenarios, @player966703 ? Would you go with a Gumshoe approach and give away core clues without the players needing to roll for them? I've never run it that way, but I do appreciate the design goal of avoiding chokepoints. I'm just not sure how to use that approach without making players feel that their skill ranks and so on are superfluous.

I think there was a supplement for Gurps that you could find and download for Swat, They usual do have alot of information in those books.

Gurps does have some pretty good supplements.

SWAT

COPS

7 hours ago, SavageBob said:

That said, what approach do you prefer for mystery-type scenarios, @player966703 ? Would you go with a Gumshoe approach and give away core clues without the players needing to roll for them? I've never run it that way, but I do appreciate the design goal of avoiding chokepoints. I'm just not sure how to use that approach without making players feel that their skill ranks and so on are superfluous.

GUMSHOE is my system of choice, not only for mystery games but anything where information moves the play. Your worry about wasting skill ranks is astute, I tell most players a single rank in a skill means you are competent at it. It's rare to have a rank of 3 in an investigative ability.

If you like having to roll - and that's the strong point of Genesys - just make a failed test mean something other than the clue remains unfound. Even something simple like strain loss. I might use Threats to keep track of the bad guy's agenda, like after five Threats another body will be found.

Or a failure puts the investigators on to a red herring. Which in and of itself can be good as it can be used to eliminate someone they may have been considering and/or narrowing the potential options.

[Redacted]

Yeah, I really recommend the GURPS Swat supplement as I gives you everything you would need for doing this for GENESYS. Talks alot about negotiations and tactics for the Swat team and also gives situations for the characters to go through.

On ‎2‎/‎03‎/‎2018 at 5:43 AM, SavageBob said:

I follow the "three-clue rule" for this sort of thing. Never create a bottleneck where the players HAVE to pass some roll to get a crucial clue. Instead, think of three ways they can get that same information (e.g., searching the dumpster, asking the janitor, or tracking the raccoon that took the clue from the dumpster).

Or, just be as subtle as the actors in LA Noire in giving the PCs clues:

If you're squinting in an exaggerated fashion and looking about shiftily, you're lying.

If you look like you're trying to to defecate, then the player doubts you're being completely honest.

If you're neutral/dead inside, then you're telling the truth.