Templates and Loadouts

As I work through the details on my Alien Menace campaign, I find myself fretting about character templates and kitting up the fighters.

On the one hand, if you’re basically doing GURPS XCOM, it’s basically all about how good a trooper you are (a template), and the ever-cooler gear you get.

From a RPG and problem-solving perspective, toolkits and first aid and electronic devices come in very handy, and are a fairly indispensable part of a modern warrior’s carried load.

But those loads get pretty darn heavy. Ken Peters did a couple of great articles in Pyramid #3/55 and #3/57 (and other places, actually) about loadouts for modern warriors and what one could expect at TL9.

Thing is, I don’t want to bother.

I understand the raw value of templates. I will purchase and read with interest +Sean Punch‘s latest work on creating templates, likely this weekend. But I hate writing them, I hate coding them into GCA, and I find the entire process painful. Same thing with loadouts.

+Mark Langsdorf is on the right track with his post on Gun Closets and Supply Cabinets. This has triggered some ideas that I’ll work on.

In the meantime, I will be trying to come to grips with pulling GCA output into Fantasy Grounds (there’s a video that +Eric hil hit me up with that will likely tell me what I need to know), and generally trying to follow my own advice where it comes to “have this stuff prepared before the game starts. Because it’s T-9 days to the first Alien Menace game.

The players may not be ready, but I’d better be.

Oh: Links to already-done writeups or GCA files of nasty alien creatures are always welcome. Especially from certain tactically-based alien extermination games.