House Rules
⚀ Critical Successes
3-4 = always a critical success
5 = critical success if effective skill is 15+
6 = critical success if effective skill is 16+
⚅ Critical Failures
18 = always a critical failure
17 = critical failure if effective skill is 15 or less
Any roll 10 greater than effective skill
Turn Sequence
by Basic Speed and DX:
Stress and Derangements
GURPS Horror, pp. 141-142
GURPS Horror: The Madness Dossier, pp. 50-52
In addition to the Corruption mechanic (GURPS Horror: The Madness Dossier, p. 52), I'll be using the Stress and Derangement mechanics from GURPS Horror.
As Madness Dossier says, Fright Checks and Stress can be used to reflect SANDMAN agents’ encounters with the cruel and sanity-damaging aspects of the work they do. For “mundane" stressors (around violence, isolation, helplessness, and/or self, to coin a phrase) I’ll use the standard Fright Check Table on B360-361. For stressors triggered by History B/Anunnaki shenanigans, I’ll apply the Madness Tables on page 51 of Madness Dossier as an additional overlay.
As mentioned on page 51 of GURPS Madness Dossier, Stress is shed at -1 per hour of downtime in a Madness Dossier game, not -1 per 10 minutes.
I don’t foresee using Sanity-Blasting Stress Checks too often; you all are seasoned SANDMAN agents who have encountered History B at least once in some capacity before. But the rule of thumb in this game will be that if your character encounters something History B-related beyond what they've already encountered/their existing knowledge, and the event's or encounter's magnitude would also be enough to shake an ordinary human's foundations of reality to the ground, a Sanity-Blasting Stress Check will ensue.
Complementary Skills
GURPS Action 2: Exploits, pg. 5
This mechanic will allow members of the URIEL team to help each other on Skill rolls.
To use a complementary skill, simply roll against it. The result gives a modifier to the master skill: +2 for critical success, +1 for success, -1 for failure, or -2 for critical failure. This modifier is cumulative with others, such as equipment.
New Inventions
GURPS Campaigns, pp. 473-474
In 1973, Project SANDMAN has access to bleeding-edge tech years (but not decades) in advance of mid-to-late TL 7. To reflect this, on a case-by-case basis, SANDMAN engineers and boffins may be able to provide field teams early TL 8 tech (first half of the 1980s at the very latest) using the New Invention rules in Campaigns. Keep in mind that even agents' 90-point Patron may not be able to justify the cost and effort of developing and constructing a Prototype!
The Renshaw Method
and Languages
GURPS Horror: The Madness Dossier, pg. 13
It seems to make sense to allow for speed-learning of languages through Renshaw as well as skills. Given you can get four points’ worth of Skills through the Renshaw Method, a Sandman can also use a Renshaw slot from four hours of speed-learning to obtain four points of language skill. (Of course, a Sandman could also use speedier 1- or 2-hour Renshaw sessions to get only 1 or 2 points of language facility.) So all the following combinations are possible with a full four-hour Renshaw session:
Spoken (Broken-1), Written (Native-3)
Spoken (Accented-2), Written (Literate-2)
Spoken (Native-3), Written (Semi-Literate-1)
So, for instance, agents who might be dropped in a foreign country and need to use social skills to their utmost might elect to concentrate on Spoken language speed-learning to the detriment of their literacy, or elect for a balanced approach which will leave them fully-literate but with a bit of an accent.
Deploying Memes Corruption
GURPS Horror: The Madness Dossier, pg. 44
Corruption for using memetics reflects the memeticist becoming as unto the Anunnaki. The effective Power of a meme is determined after the deployment roll is made; the deployment roll will either modify the meme’s Power by +2 (critical success on the deployment roll), +1 (success), -1 (failure) or -2 (critical failure).
In the cases of successes and critical successes on the deployment roll, the meme creator suffers the meme’s original Power in Corruption; it just so happened that the meme “hit” better than expected on the drawing board. In the case of failures and critical failures on the deployment roll, the meme creator would suffer the meme's effective Power in Corruption; fewer people were affected and thus moral complications were lessened.
Skill Bonus Corruption
GURPS Horror: The Madness Dossier, pg. 52
For any skill covered by Business Acumen, Esmologist, Innate NLP, or Memetics, take +1 to effective skill for each 1 point of Corruption you add per attempt.
These Skills are, in alphabetical order:
Accounting
Administration
Anthropology
Body Language
Brainwashing
Current Affairs
Detect Lies
Diplomacy
Economics
Enthrallment skills
Esmology
Expert Skill (Memetics)
Fast-Talk
Finance
Gambling
History
Hypnotism
Intelligence Analysis
Interrogation
Leadership
Market Analysis
Merchant
Panhandling
Politics
Propaganda
Psychology
Savoir-Faire
Sex Appeal
Sociology
Strategy
Tactics
Teaching
Players must spend Corruption before a Skill roll is made. Players may also push further by spending more Corruption after a Corruption-aided roll; they have “opened the door” to Corruption and may continue to become As Unto the Anunnaki in their Skill roll attempt. This Corruption spent after the roll may turn a failure into a success, provide greater measure of success, or provide the character with a critical success.
Corruption may also be spent on Skill rolls having to do with Psi Use as seen on page 52 of the Madness Dossier book.
Mitch’s Use of Tarot Cards for Oracle Advantage
GURPS Characters, pgs. 72 and 196
Mitch Hort uses his Tarot deck as his omen for his Oracle Advantage. When using the Oracle Advantage on another person with whom he can converse, Mitch uses Fortune-Telling in the place of the usual Sense roll for discovering the omen. This reflects his use of the Fortune-Telling methods of "cold reading" to elicit personality traits or character experiences on which to use the interpretation roll (still an IQ roll). Other, ad hoc uses of the Oracle can utilize other broadly “sensory” skill rolls to find the omen before interpreting it.
Per-Session Abilities
Any PC with a special ability that can be used once per "session" can be used once in a given two-hour standard video session. PCs can also use such an ability once over the course of a downtime Discord text "intersession" between video sessions. If the downtime text intersession is especially lengthy, GM's discretion whether or not to make it count as two sessions and the once/session ability will refresh about halfway through.
Post-Mission 1
Point Reallocation
In an effort to get you all characters you’re comfortable with for the long haul, after Mission 1 is completed, you will be allowed to reallocate up to 15 points worth of Advantages/Disadvantages/Skills/Quirks. This will be the only time in the campaign you'll be allowed a free re-spec. Call it post-pilot recasting/a minor reality temblor. :)