Index |  G.P.A. | 

by Mark Damon Hughes <kamikaze@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu>

Copyright © 2000 by Mark Damon Hughes. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to print and use free of charge, but do not redistribute - always refer others back to these originals at <http://kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu/~kamikaze/GPA/>

Table of Contents

Introduction

Mediography

Feedback

Glossary

Registering

Aptitude, Trait, and Course Scores

Aptitudes

Traits

Courses

Financial Aid

Housing and Food

Credits and Standing

Stress

Hit Points

Improvement

Tests

Opposed Tests

Studying

Action Scenes

Attacks

Firearms

Damage

Weird Science

Tru Magycke

Setting

Appendix A: Weapons

Introduction

G.P.A. is a sci-fi/fantasy/horror roleplaying game about surviving university; it may be black comedy, or may just be telling it like it is, it's hard to know the difference anymore. This is not just any university, but university after the floodgates of magic and weird science are opened upon the world; university after everyone signs a liability waiver, and no more than half of all university students survive to graduation.

George Underwood Edwards University is the finest institution in the country. It may not be as prestigious as the Ivy Leagues, but GUE U teaches students the true meaning of competition and capitalism. You don't work harder because your GPA depends on it and your parents will be so disappointed if you don't get good grades, and you won't start out in quite as good a job. That's no way to motivate anyone. At GUE U, you work harder because your life is on the line. If you screw up in a lab, or don't watch what others are doing, you may kill yourself and everyone around you. If you don't think about the consequences before participating in a bioengineering senior's experiment, you may never again know the joy of walking down a street without people running and screaming in terror. If you don't read the fine print before joining an extracurricular activity, you may end up in the Campus Castrati Choir. Think. Study. Act. Survive. Now that's what motivation is all about.

Mediography

• Miskatonic University, from the stories of H.P. Lovecraft
• The Big U, by Neal Stephenson (which is now back in print! Hooray!)
• Finals, by Will Pfeifer and Jill Thompson (DC Comics/Vertigo 4-issue miniseries)
• Real Genius (movie)
• PCU (movie)
• Voodoo (movie)
• Scream II (movie)
• The Lurking Fear, from Infocom (computer game)

Feedback

Much of the source material is deliberately unrealistic, and was designed solely for game balance (the financial aid system, for instance, is complete bollocks realism-wise). Don't waste your time sending me email saying "That's not how it works!". Other praise or criticisms of the game design and setting info can be sent to <kamikaze@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu>.

Glossary

Registering

Creation of your Player Student (PS) is called "registering", and works by allocating Improvement Points (IP), as shown below:

1. Come up with a character concept, or select one of the archetypes below.
2. Declare your major.
3. Assign 150 IP among the six Aptitudes. These IP cannot be spent on anything except Aptitudes; if you don't want them all, you lose them.
4. Assign 50 IP to positive Traits. Likewise, these IP cannot be spent on anything except Traits.
5. Select additional Traits. If you have selected negative Traits, you have additional IP which may be spent on Aptitudes, positive Traits, or Courses.
6. Assign 100 IP to Courses. These IP cannot be spent on anything except Courses.
7. Roll on the Financial Aid table for starting funds.
8. Roll or select on the Housing table to determine where you live.
9. Record your initial Credits of 0, Stress of 0, and Standing of Freshperson.
10. Determin Hit Points.
11. Give the PS a name.
12. Arrive at GUE U.

The same process may be used to create other kinds of characters than just students, or the Prez may just make up numbers that seem appropriate.

Aptitude, Trait, and Course Scores

All three are actually rated from 0.0 to 4.0 in increments of 0.1; for game purposes, though, the score range is multiplied by 10, so they range from 0 to 40, in whole number steps. 40 is the maximum score for a normal human, but many students won't be normal for very long; for non-humans and post-humans, there is no upper limit.

Aptitudes

There are six Aptitudes: Charisma, Discipline, Intelligence, Creativity, Reflexes, and Build.

One IP will buy you one point in a Aptitude. At this time, all Aptitudes must have scores of at least 1 and at most 40.

Charisma: (Ch)

Friendliness, charm, social skills, manipulation.

Discipline: (Di)

Willpower, study habits for things you don't like, sanity.

Intelligence: (In)

Rational and post-rational thought, invention, technological ability, study habits in your own field.

Creativity: (Cr)

Artistic talent, intuition, luck, perception.

Reflexes: (Re)

Reaction speed, hand-eye coordination, running speed, videogame mastery.

Build: (Bu)

Musclepower, endurance, toughness.

Traits

Traits are distinguishing features about the character, either physically, mentally, socially, or in background. Almost anything can be selected, and Traits can be positive or negative. Positive Traits will give the character bonuses to various Tests, while negative Traits give the character penalties to various Tests, but the character gains additional IP whenever a negative Trait comes into play. The amount of the bonus or penalty depends on how broad the Trait is and the Prez's whim. Some Traits could be seen as neutral, with both positive or negative aspects; buy them as two counter-balancing Traits.

A good system for picking Traits, if you can't think of any offhand, is to come up with one Trait that explains or modifies each Aptitude score. If you have a Charisma of 35, perhaps you also have "Manipulative -35", indicating that you are almost physically unable to not meddle in other people's lives and use them for your benefit. Or perhaps you just have "Cute +20".

Positive Traits cost IP to purchase, at a rate of 1 IP per point in the Trait; negative Traits give the character additional IP to spend on Aptitudes, positive Traits, or Courses.

Courses

Courses are trained skills, knowledges, and abilities a character has. Go to your local university, and get a class schedule (they're probably available online these days). That's the list of Courses available. If you spend no IP on a Course, it has a score of 0 (F). Creative misinterpretation of the Courses will be used to determine which one any action is covered by; "Criminal Justice" might determine your firearms skill, for instance, unless your university has a firearms safety class.

Course numbers at GUE U are numbered Remedial (0-99), Freshperson (199 and lower), Sophomore (200-299), Junior (300-399), Senior (400-499), and Grad Student/Advanced/Independant Study (500+). For instance, English 100 might be English Composition, while English 423 would be Ontological Reinterpretations of Faulkner. Remember, those numbers have nothing to do with your score, they're just identifiers of the Course; a character might well have "English 100: 30 (B)" as a listed Course.

Every PS has already learned some basics in high school (though not necessarily what they were supposed to learn), thus the 100 IP available to spend. Go through the list of Remedial and Freshperson Courses, and choose which of those the character can "test out of" right up front. English 100 (or lower, if you want) to some level is pretty much mandatory if you want to communicate with anyone else. Phys Ed courses can be pretty handy. Freshpersons will almost certainly not have any Junior-level or higher Courses at the start, no matter how good you think you are at the time. If you're only 18 or thereabouts and you're reading this, take it from me, you really don't know jack shit, you just think you do; you'll learn better when you get older and find out you knew diddly-squat. Older people know a little more, but mostly that they don't know that much.

Financial Aid

Roll d100 on the table below. If you have a positive Trait that affects finances (rich parents, for instance), add it to the roll. If you have a negative Trait of that sort, subtract it from the roll.

All PS's have just paid tuition for their first semester. They have not yet purchased their textbooks or other class materials. They do not have a computer or any other valuable items of their own unless they buy them. They do have normal, second-hand, household goods, like a battered sofa or an old TV or a boom box. If the d100 roll was even, they have a credit card with a limit equal to $50 times the total roll.

Housing and Food

Roll d100 on the table below, plus any wealth Trait, minus any poverty Trait, or just pick whichever one you like.

Credits and Standing

The number of credits you have determine your class standing. It used to take two semesters to gain enough credits to go up to the next standing, but that's a laughably optimistic estimate these days, between extracurricular activities, financial demands, and the escalating difficulty of the courses and explosion of specialties in each field.

Stress

Stress is the mind-killer. Every time a finals deadline approaches, every time you have a crisis at work, every time your SO dumps you, every time you are cruelly reminded that you have no SO, every time everything you knew is made obsolete by a new innovation, you get more Stress; there are other sources, too. PS's start at 0 Stress, unless they want to start with more, because there's nothing more naive and oblivious in this universe than a Freshperson.

Whether or not a character gains Stress for any event, and if so, how much, varies depending on the situtation. Make a raw Discipline Test, with any modifiers the Prez thinks are appropriate. If the character passes, no Stress is gained. If the character fails, the character will gain 1d6 or more points of Stress. Then make a Stress Test. If the character "fails", there is no further effect. If the character "passes", the character gains a new "quirk"... Discuss appropriate phobias, obsessions, neuroses, and other disorders with the Prez, and select one. This is a new negative Trait, with a score equal to the character's current Stress at the time it is gained.

When a character reaches 100 Stress, it will likely either commit suicide, take a rifle to the top of a building and start picking people off (aka "suicide by cop"), be institutionalized, or become an evil cultist (but what if it already was a Young Republican?).

You can de-Stress by taking vacations (unless you go home for the holidays, in the case of some PS's), getting an SO and doing things with them, and otherwise relaxing or doing normal, non-college things. Generally, such events allow a character to recover 1d6 Stress per week.

Hit Points

Hit Points (HP) are used to measure how much physical damage a character can take. HP start out equal to the average of Build and Discipline. See Damage below for the effects of losing HP.

Improvement

Most characters don't remain naifsFreshpersons forever. Characters gain 1 IP every time one of their negative Traits comes into play and impairs them, and 1d6 IP every time they pass a major hurdle in life (passing a final, building a nuclear bomb in the basement, whatever turns you on). IP can be spent at the beginning or end of a session as follows:

Tests

The Test is the standard method of resolving any situation in G.P.A. The player states what the PS is trying to do. The Prez then decides which of the PS's Aptitudes, Traits, and Courses apply, and if there are any situational modifiers (these usually range from +40 bonuses to -40 penalties). The scores of all of these are added up; this is the Passing Score. The player then rolls d100; if they come up doubles (11, 22, 33, 44, 55, 66, 77, 88, 99, or 00), reroll them and add, and continue rerolling and adding if you get more doubles. If the die roll is less than or equal to the Passing Score, you pass. If it was greater than the Passing Score, you fail. A die roll of 01 always succeeds, even if the Passing Score is 0 or less, if the Prez agrees there is any chance at all.

High passing rolls may be more effective than low passing rolls, at the Prez's whim. For example, a character who has a Passing Score of 60 and rolls 59 has done better than if would 03 had been rolled. High failing rolls fail worse than low failing rolls; subtract the Passing Score from the failing roll to get an even comparison of how badly a failure is to a passing roll.

Opposed Tests

If a Test is opposed by another character, both make Test rolls. If one passes and the other fails, the passing one wins and the other loses. If both fail, they both lose; the one with the higher roll fails worse, if that matters. If they both pass, the one with the higher die roll wins and the other loses. If they tie, the one with the higher number of Credits wins, or some other arbitrary measure can be used to break the tie. There must always be a winner and a loser.

Studying

The main activity of students is supposed to be studying. [HYSTERICAL LAUGHTER] During a semester's time, a student needs to accumulate a number of Study Points for each Course being taken. See Improvement to purchase Study Points. When semester finals come around, make an Intelligence or Discipline (depending on whether you like the subject or not) + Study Points Test. You may not even take the final if you have no Study Points in that course. If the test passes, the student passes the course, and gains a score in that Course equal to the Study Points. If the test fails, the student fails the final, flunks out of the course, loses all of the accumulated Study Points, and gains a number of Stress points equal to the Study Points lost; many a student who fails too many courses snaps and goes postal.

Action Scenes

Most of the game can be played more or less "freeform", with occasional Tests to determine the results of actions. In some scenes, however, much more controlled pacing is necessary. Combat is the most notable of those, but the Prez can declare an action scene whenever desired. During action scenes, activity happens in Turns of 3 seconds each, using the following sequence of play:

1. Each PS involved determines what they will try to do this Turn, and the Prez does the same for all NPS's, NPP's, and NPNC's.
2. In order from highest total Reflexes + Creativity to lowest, each character reveals their action for the Turn, and the Prez determines which, if any, Test is appropriate for it, and what the results are.
3. Repeat this process with the next Turn until the action scene is over.

Attacks

Attacks, whether unarmed, with hand-held weapons, firearms, or other ranged weapons, all use the same system: make a Test to determine if the character hit, with the weapon's Accuracy as a modifier to the Passing Score.

If the other character had declared itself to be dodging or fighting as its last action, the attacker's attack Test is opposed by the defender's dodging Test. If the defender was doing anything else, it's an unopposed Test. If the attacker wins, the defender takes damage, based on the type of the weapon.

Firearms

Most modern firearms can fire as fast as you can pull the trigger ("semi-automatic"), and some (generally illegal in the U.S., but that may not stop some characters) fire as long as the trigger is held down ("autofire"). Each shot is rolled as a separate attack, at a -5 attack Test penalty for every round fired beyond the first, and each round that hits does full damage. No weapon may fire more rounds per Turn than the "ROF" listed on the weapons chart.

For example, if you're emptying the clip of a fully-automatic Uzi (ROF 10) into a convenience-store clerk, you can fire 10 times. The first shot is at normal accuracy, the second at -5, and so on down to the tenth shot, which is at -45.

Gunfire is very effective at "suppression", which basically means that when someone's firing a gun in your direction, you're too busy crapping your pants to do anything else. Whenever rounds are fired at a target near a character, the character must make a Discipline + Criminal Justice/Firearms Safety Test or be at a penalty to any Test, except dodging, diving for cover, running away, or pants-crapping, equal to -5 per round fired, though the penalty can never exceed -40. Being behind decent cover may allow a character to ignore suppression fire, at the Prez's whim and/or a raw Discipline Test. The penalty applies for one full Turn (i.e. until just before the firing character would act again).

Damage

Damage can be done by attacks and environmental hazards. In all cases, roll the number of six-sided dice shown for that attack. If any of them show "6", pick the die up, re-roll it, and add it to the total; you can keep re-rolling if you get 6's again. Thus, a punch normally does 1d6 damage, but if you roll 6 6 3, you have done 15 damage in a single hit. Damage done by weapons is so hard to predict, that a random system actually makes a fairly accurate representation. If you hit something vital, the target is injured badly. If you don't, you just piss the target off.

To determine where an attack hits, roll d100 on the table below. High attacks can be represented by rerolling any result of 75-00, low attacks by rerolling 01-30.

If an attack hits a location covered by armor, the damage may be reduced. Melee attacks hitting archaic leather armor or leather jackets are reduced by 25%, while those hitting chain or plate armor are reduced by 50%. Crossbow bolts and arrows reduce the armor's protection one step (50% to 25%, 25% to no reduction). Firearms penetrate both kinds of archaic armor with no difficulty. Any attack, melee, missile, or firearms, that hits kevlar is reduced by 50%. Even tougher armors may be developed by various weird science methods.

Damage is subtracted from the target's HP. When a character has fallen to 26-50% of full HP, all Tests are made at a -20 penalty as shock has started to set in. At 1-25% of full HP, the penalty increases to -40. When HP reach 0, the character falls unconscious. Finally, when HP reach a negative number equal to the character's full healthy HP, the character dies.

If a cutting or impaling weapon is used on a character (which includes firearms), the character begins bleeding, losing 1 HP per die of damage taken, per Turn, until the wound is bound up (just notch tally-marks at the bottom of your character sheet). Every minute, characters can make a Build - (# of points of bleeding) Test to naturally stop bleeding.

Hit Points don't tell the entire story - HP just represent shock, blood loss, and general trauma. Players are encouraged to viscerally describe the specific injuries they do or take. The perfect description is one which makes a player bolt for the bathroom, because then you know you've actually come somewhere near what violence is really like. No player, and only the most sociopathic characters, should ever be blasé about violence and bloodshed.

Characters in a real hospital heal 1d6 HP every day. Characters trying to heal up at home heal 1d6-(1d6/2) HP every day if treated by a Medical student, faith healer, boy scout, or other semi-dangerous quack, or 1d6-1d6 HP every day if untreated - yes, they can lose HP as the wound festers and infection spreads. If a character loses HP from "healing" three days in a row, the wound is gangrenous, and the infected portion must be amputated. Better hope it's not a chest or head wound, eh?

Serious wounds never heal completely - there's always a scar and some permanent tissue or nerve or bone damage. To reflect this, any wound that does 6 HP or more damage reduces a character's maximum HP total by 1d6 open-ended points (but not exceeding the damage actually taken in that wound), permanently! Additional HP purchased with IP later can raise it back up, but the scar remains.

Weird Science

There are two kinds of science in the G.P.A. world: "mainstream" science, and "weird" science. We already know what mainstream science can do; it's the year 2000, just look outside or read a newspaper, and that's it. Weird science is the science of pulp SF. Almost anything is possible with it, with a strange enough theory, a big enough budget, and a bright enough gleam in your eye. Unfortunately, most WS experiments and gadgets are not repeatable; once you've built something that breaks the rules, the universe closes that loophole up afterwards. There's a potentially infinite number of gadgets possible by making small variations in the theory of each, but mass production of WS gadgets is not possible.

To build a WS gadget, the character must have taken all of the appropriate mainstream science and engineering Courses and access to sufficient materials and tools. Lab space is nice, but most weird scientists do their work in basements, for some reason; perhaps it cuts down on ambient radiation.

The character must then work out the new theory - this will usually take a week to a month of work, 4-8 hours per day (hope you have enough time left for studying, sleeping, and a job - few weird scientists have SO's). The Prez will secretly make a Creativity + Weird Science Test for the character, with modifiers based on how powerful the gadget is, though plausibility of theory makes very little difference. If the player actually writes out the theory, the Test gets a +40 bonus. If the Test passes, the gadget will work when completed. If it fails, the gadget will just do nothing, explode, or do something entirely wrong, whatever most amuses the Prez.

Most WS gadgets should have the equivalent of 2-6 major components. Then, in order, assemble each component and make Tests for each relevant Course. In most cases, it will take a week or so per component, and if the parts for the components are purchased rather than "borrowed" or otherwise acquired, will cost 1d6 × $50 each. If any given component fails, the character will usually know immediately, and can work on it again, scavenging perhaps up to half of the parts from the failed attempt.

Once the entire thing is constructed, a final Intelligence + Weird Science Test is made when activating it for the first time. If it passes, congratulations, you have broken the laws of physics! If it fails, you have done something wrong - a passing Intelligence + Weird Science Test will allow the character to determine which component was designed on a poorly-conceived theory and redesign it (scavenging up to half the parts). If the diagnostic Test fails, the entire gadget must be scrapped and redesigned from theory up, with almost no parts scavenging.

The player of a weird scientist will have to spend a fair amount of time with the Prez negotiating what the exact effects will be. Bribing the Prez with food and booze is accepted practice.

Regardless of the effects, any time a character rolls doubles while using a WS gadget, the device will malfunction. If 00 was rolled, it may even explode. Merely malfunctioning gadgets can be repaired with a simple Intelligence + Weird Science Test and 1d6 × $10 in parts.

Tru Magycke

According to Aleister Crowley, "Magick is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will". But what if you don't have anyone named Will or Art around? Not to worry! Tru Magycke, as it is properly spelled, is simply a matter of finding the proper ritual for any desired effect, performing it correctly, and the magyckal effect occurs. Why, it's so easy a mere undergraduate could do it. Practitioners of Tru Magycke are called "Magyckians", but the "k" is silent.

There are many misconceptions about Tru Magycke. There are no "spell points" or other energy sources to it - the only real limits on performing magycke are exhaustion, the supply of mouse blood and other components, and the risk of miscasting the ritual. There are also no such things as fast-cast spells. Every ritual takes significant amounts of time to perform. One stereotype of cliché fantasy is true, however: Magyckians must keep magyckal tomes (though many prefer three-ring binders these days), from which they must "rememorize" each ritual before performing it; not because they magyckally forget the spell, but because the slightest mistake can cause a catastrophic failure.

First, locate the ritual desired. This will normally be assigned in class, and access to the Restricted Stacks of the library is kept under close supervision; only professors, seniors, grad students, and some very talented juniors are given keys. Most professors require the students to hand-copy the spell from the tomes onto vellum, on the basis that it helps the student learn the ritual, but an increasing number of students merely photocopy them.

Next, locate all of the material components demanded by the ritual; these can be extremely esoteric, and sometimes borderline-illegal, but are rarely expensive.

Finally, perform the ritual. This can take as little as a minute, up to 24 hours, and every step must be performed exactly as given in the ritual. Make a Creativity + Magycke Course Test. If you pass the Test, you succeed, and whatever the ritual does, it works. If you fail the Test, however, you have made a mistake somewhere. The Prez can 1d6 on the table below for a rough idea as to the effect actually produced, or just make something up.

Creating new Magyckal rituals is an extremely dangerous, time-consuming, and difficult process, and will be covered in later expansions.

Setting

Click on the image to view a parking space map of the GUE U campus.

Any resemblance between the map above and the campus of some other university is purely coincidental, of course.

More setting information and possibly some sample adventures will be revealed in later supplements, but frankly, there's little to say other than: it's a university. There are hostile townies surrounding it, and inside, cloistered academics completely out of touch with reality meddle in forces Man Was Not Meant To Know.

Appendix A: Weapons

Accuracy is the modifier added to an attacker's Passing Score when making a Test with that weapon. Damage is the number of open-ended six-sided dice to roll if you hit. Max. Range is the weapon's maximum possible range; for melee weapons, this is the reach for an average person; for non-melee weapons, apply an additional Accuracy modifier of -40 if you are further than half the Max. Range from the target. Ammo is the number of rounds in the weapon; note that in almost all automatic pistols, you can put one additional round in the chamber while also having a full clip, and it won't misfire while carrying it around too often. ROF is the maximum number of rounds you may fire in a Turn; if two values are listed with a slash, the first is for the semi-automatic version, the second is for the full-automatic version.

Remember, firearms are not sold in the University bookstore, but Mel's Guns'n'Ammo just down the street gives a 10% discount if you show your student ID!

Last Modified: 2000Apr19
Fixed damage rules so weapons are actually lethal. Oops.
Also, changed the really stupid original subtitle.