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I don't know why I woke up at 5 with a weirdly urgent need to figure out AD&D mages followers, but, that happened.
Turns out mages don't get followers. So that should have been simples.
But it does say they can have just a few henchmen or apprentices, which seems more like what I was thinking on anyway. ( Read more... )
GURPS doesn't limit you, if you want to buy contacts or allies or ally groups. Buy as many as you have character points for. But as ever the blank page ability to do anything doesn't give you much framework to think which specific thing, so, I poked rules I haven't used since long ago.
DnD assumptions for things like distribution of magery or how many characters are above level zero are interesting too, but mostly so I can argue with their math.
GURPS social advantages stay with your publicly perceived identity, and list the example of a demon possessed Duke, who keeps all their kudos as long as nobody knows.
Which is pretty much what Eobard did to Wells.
He also gets his physical stats and advantages.
But I'm always interested in what he did and did not get mentally and emotionally. How much of Wells got copied over? Was he faking everything or did he get memories too? Sometimes I think canon is clear one way or the other and then I remember Eo is a lying liar who lies. Plus time traveller memories both do and do not change with the changes to the timeline, which has to get super unstable if you're from a future that's in doubt. There's a lot of plausible Eo!Wells and Eobards who have really good reasons for being unstable or distinctly different from other moments of themselves.
GURPS rules are a lot more tuneable and have favors and patrons and contacts and allies and acknowledge that your adventuring party looks like it counts but doesn't, basically because free will. NPCs can be bought super loyal, PCs can do their own thing. So the game mechanics of henchmen don't translate to stories because they're all the same level of free willed once a single writer gets hold of them.
But it's still sort of handy to turn relationships over and see what game mechanics fall out.
... still, probably more handy to have got more sleep.
Turns out mages don't get followers. So that should have been simples.
But it does say they can have just a few henchmen or apprentices, which seems more like what I was thinking on anyway. ( Read more... )
GURPS doesn't limit you, if you want to buy contacts or allies or ally groups. Buy as many as you have character points for. But as ever the blank page ability to do anything doesn't give you much framework to think which specific thing, so, I poked rules I haven't used since long ago.
DnD assumptions for things like distribution of magery or how many characters are above level zero are interesting too, but mostly so I can argue with their math.
GURPS social advantages stay with your publicly perceived identity, and list the example of a demon possessed Duke, who keeps all their kudos as long as nobody knows.
Which is pretty much what Eobard did to Wells.
He also gets his physical stats and advantages.
But I'm always interested in what he did and did not get mentally and emotionally. How much of Wells got copied over? Was he faking everything or did he get memories too? Sometimes I think canon is clear one way or the other and then I remember Eo is a lying liar who lies. Plus time traveller memories both do and do not change with the changes to the timeline, which has to get super unstable if you're from a future that's in doubt. There's a lot of plausible Eo!Wells and Eobards who have really good reasons for being unstable or distinctly different from other moments of themselves.
GURPS rules are a lot more tuneable and have favors and patrons and contacts and allies and acknowledge that your adventuring party looks like it counts but doesn't, basically because free will. NPCs can be bought super loyal, PCs can do their own thing. So the game mechanics of henchmen don't translate to stories because they're all the same level of free willed once a single writer gets hold of them.
But it's still sort of handy to turn relationships over and see what game mechanics fall out.
... still, probably more handy to have got more sleep.