Checking stuff out, this time Play by Post

A Friend, asked me about where to find a place where he can just Play by Post. He's, like me, in GMT/UTC+8 or 12 hours advance to PST. Since most gamers (by a very big margin) are in US time zones he had some trouble looking for a place to play.

Like many other gamers, he wants to play but really can't find the time. Still the drive the play is so strong he actively sought Play by posts. Another thing we talked about is how he likes to try out other games, like a buffet, try out different genres and settings and play with many others. With work days can pass pretty quickly and an adventure quickly escalates as he can go through his daily routines.

+Tim Noyce runs a few games in Role-play online. I found it useful to know and maybe get some of my older gaming friends out of the hobby with kids to check it out lolz. (like a PUSHER lolz, their wives are going to be pissed at me)

Edit:
+Jason Packer recommends myth Weavers as a source.
+Dall Hall showed me Storium, it seems they will be coming out with an App.

keeping this in my notes.

What I would want out of a PBP RPG APP?

An play by post app would actually save time and worry for the GM

Design Goals

• Micro-RPGing. basically an app that allows me to quickly type out my activities and actions.
• Add another layer to Character banter, allow them to talk in voice, but have events and actions part of the conversation. 
• Organize, even create a timeline or narrative anyone can follow. 
• Coordinate with other Artists for collaboration.

Features.

• Quickly be able to separate Speech, side comments, and character actions. 
• Scene Tagging
• Have Emoticons Slots for the character's reactions. (connect with artists or allow players to add their own art)
• A matrix for combat, who is threatening, attacking, and defending against who. 
• Scheduling, Alerts, coordination, and various Activities. 
• Library access of Materials and Wiki. They can add or search the campaign wiki. 
• Organize the Timeline and Export events in SCRIPT (comic or movie) format so that easy to follow. 
• A way to coordinate with Artists and tools to add your own personal art and ideas into the narrative. 
• A way to juggle multiple campaigns. 
• A small market for the participants to donate, gift, and pay for services and content. 

GURPS City Stats notes: Total Revenue for Low Tech

Some Low Tech prep Notes. TL:DR low tech economics is very unfair, and learning it makes me appreciate the present and look out for mistakes that repeat the past.

Military Budget Factor is CS p.9 makes up a percentage of the Entity's Revenue equal to MBF*2. Basically CR 6 (wartime) budget means that the Entity is channeling everything (100%) to Military while peacetime CR6 is about 40% of the revenue generated by the entity.

Note that people don't really get paid monthly because the number of transactions over time increase inefficiency and the total cost of transaction (look up transaction velocity). So typically you really would be looking at Annual Incomes instead of monthly incomes. Actually in GURPS mass combat it is really MUCH better to look at things in annual.

Taxation in Low Tech. 

Monopolies and Price Control are effectively a form of taxation. (practiced even up to now, and in the Philippines practiced until the end of the 19C ). The Incomes in GURPS is just the "take home", since the incomes in the basic set values still was enough to buy food and very basic basics. In low tech 75% of Income of struggling wealth went to Food and a Lord won't get much out of their tenants after this. Typically taxes were already extracted before any payment to the farmers, simply because its harder to chase after a farmer that got too much compensation and its better to err on the lord's coffers.

Basically the Income of the Peasant (Status -1) is not what is taxed from him, but this is his take away.
If you are measuring any low Tech holding, you measure it by the number of FAMILIES not individuals because: of a population 20% is are the adults able to work, and 80% are those unable to do full work load (Children and Old people). Even women were not fully counted as "working adult" although when their husbands, sons, brothers, or fathers are forced into fighting for their lord it still doesnt change the required work output.

Total Revenues is equal to Population * 0.2 (to get the adult population and the number of families) * 0.5 * Struggling income.

Boils down to Population * $30 * 12 months

In Low Tech its what ever is the average Income. In the end it doesnt matter, its all $300 because if its a Slave it does work as any other person but only gets to take home $120, if its a Serf he only gets to take home $300, if its a landed freeman then he still pays about the same tax as the Serf. Higher and Higher status pay less and less taxes relative to their wealth, and then there is corruption. So its easier to count everyone as Struggling or $300 like in Building Low Tech landscapes.

Households

Its better to look at things as house holds. its easier to fudge the demographics this way for many purposes. Divide by 5 and use the Pop value or Household value.

Looking at an entity like a Home

The simplest way to look at Entity finances is breaking it down into: Housing (includes House keeping) and Security Force. Low Tech entities is typically CR6! (since DND confuses medieval with wild west america, its has created this impression of "freedome" lolz which is really not the case). If not the Lord, even his security advisor (wife, brother, aged father etc...) would implement measures to prevent controlled substances and goods from going into the wrong hands.

40% Security Force. This means take a Region, calculate revenues based and use that to budget the Security force.

the rest is either Pocketed. Converting Revenues to "Cash" half the value.

Housekeeping aka Administration

This is money that goes into the Community in the form of infra, walls, roads. forum, market, employed civil servants etc... The GM sets these values, since they can be very variable he needs only to roll or make up his mind. As a rule of thumb the GM can set the following Values.

50% on administration which has a loss to corruption equal to the Chief Administrators Skill minus 15 * 5%. So a Skill 12 typically suffers corruption of 15%. (the GM should make talented administrators Rare, Taken, or severe drawbacks ex. a skilled administrator but of a minority ethnicity).

Once you get the Net value of Administrative Budget, roll for how many years. 2d*2  and add another die when you roll a 6, and every time you roll a 6. This is the value of the "Built Up Infra. Typically work is measured in man days, use $300 divided by 20 which is $15 equals to the man days.

Example.
Cibotus aka Apamea (Phygia) (a region and feif; with a town at its center called Cibotus)
Population: 1,600 housolds

Physical and Magical Environment
Terrain: Mountain, Coast, Lake
Appearance: Attractive (+1) Hygiene: +1

Culture and Economy
Language: Greek          Literacy: Broken
TL: 3
Wealth: Average          Status: -2 to 4

Political Environment
Gov't: Oligarchy
CR: 6 (Corruption -1; Administrator-12)
Annual Revenues: $2.88M (minus 0.432 lost to corruption)
Military Resources (annual): $576K DB:*

*2d-1d
rolled 6, 4, 4 = +4
Some old roman fortifications still exist.

Population. 

Lets look at regions instead of Towns or Cities, because it's easier. In Medieval Demographics made easy population density divide the values in square miles by 2.6 for Metric kms. 11C Anatolia would have made the recovery since Justinians' plague at 28/sqm.

Take your Regional Center, the town, city or market village, and multiply it by 10. That's your population for the region.  Cibotus would be around 800 people or 160 homes, a large village. By the Fortification roll, maybe one built over an old greek or roman port a few hundreds years old.

working back, about 285 sqkm region.

Quickly Build Full Time Starting Security Force. 

Most forces are Levies, so what you end up doing is really taking your military budget and looking at how many "full time warriors" you can field. Basically these are people who can serve full time. 

Your Levy Force is your Population * 0.075 (75% all males able to fight). Just keep this in the notes. 

Step 1: Take your Population * 0.006

This is the number of people that can serve, and most probably perform work as warriors. 

Example (Cibotus) 48 people or 5 elements rounded up. 

Step 2: 

a) either roll the number of elements in the table 5x OR 

b) choose what will fit your budget. 

if what you roll is up out of budget, assume they were there for the day

Roll 3d6 (roll as many times as you have elements)

3-6 Pikemen $144k

7  Bowmen $96k

8 Light Infantry $96k

9 Heavy Infantry $96k

10-13 Medium Infantry $72k

14 Poor Average Heavy Cav $240k

15 Light Cav $240k

16 Medium Cav $360k

17 Horse Archers $288k

18 Gain an extra roll. 

Example.

$576k 

a) I chose to budget: Light Cavalry, 4x Medium Infantry = $528/576k

b) I chose rolling:

13, 12, 10, 11, 11,  x5 Medium Infantry  

all in budget.  

lets try another round

11, 13, 9, 10, 5

Med Inf, Med Inf, Hvy Inf, Med inf,  Pikemen

Step 3 the Levy. 

Levy is made up of 0.0075*Pop. Use the same table to roll up the levy force. 

60 or 6 Elements. Roll 6x

6, 17, 10, 14, 11, 12

Pikemen, Horse Archers, Med Inf, PA Hv Cav, Med Inf, Med Inf. 

So basically Cibotus looks like a back water region, with just Medium Infantry as a standing force, but on closer look they are many Landed Cavalry men (the dice odds are less 10% for cavalry men in the levy, this region has 2 out of 11! a very good roll). its easy to fail an Intelligence analysis check when scouting this region and assessing its opposition. 

With the extra money, consider getting mounts, draft team or Naval Elements. $216 can afford Large Boats $12k eachor a Light Galley at $168k annual. 

final notes. 

Full time force is 5 elements. Levy is 6 elements for a total of 110 people at about 1.3% of the population. The Male adult population is about 20% so thats 1.3 : 20 are fighters. of course more can be made into warriors, but that will be at the expense of productivity. 

War Beneath Heaven S02 E08

• We began with some Office Drama. Merle has a falling out with Thomas. Cheng Dao has been riding the HSS hard and Thomas burned out left Speedy in charge. First day on the job, Speedy feels the pressure and is juggling a ton of tasks: fitting out the new underground network, talking to suppliers and clients, putting out fires and researching on the Devourers. Everyone else is busy with their own thing.  
• The guys had to do a counter attack. But they have so many problems and lacking manpower. They went with the vampire Sergie and Dimitri. They had to find the base of operations of the Devourers. They did after torturing the captured mage, many of the normal people had some residual trauma from the events that transpired: A mage with cockroaches moving around his body and that talks about unspeakable horrors and a crusading vampire Enforcer that spoke of god's purifying fires. Tasha did not like where HSS was headed, and told Speedy they better have a talk after this, as she brought a badly infected mage to one of their black market doctors for healing. 
• When they arrived they meet Eashu, who prevented them from tripping the alarms. A hunter who was aligned for their cause. They find a long way around into the base, using the Hunter whose been casing them for a while manage get in deep. They encounter a variety of obstacles, mountain-side hike, garbage and more garbage, darknessm 5cm mosquitos that cause really bad rashes. the place used to be an old school, but has been made a dump site. Old Banyan trees crawl and engulf all the structures and garbage is shaped by its inhabitants to create a labyrinth. 
• They settle on a stealthily going into the main passage way. They took out a couple of guards. They go in deeper shift their focus to go in underground. They avoid the wounded and the other logistical needs of the mages. There they detect the water reservoir, and head there as the smell of garbage and rot grows. They found the edge, a pier, filled with stacked pallets filled with an orgy of swarms. 
• Speedy's connection was gone, but before it petered out, he was coordinating with Fish about how to place the bombs. A frustrating alert came in, 10 missed calls and a garbled message of help from Jeni with a time stamp 10-20 minutes ago. He considers pulling out, but manages to arm the bombs and asks the vampire to place them. 
• They observe on the water mountains of garbage and condensation forming clouds within the massive hollow enclave. They eventually notice the occupants of the Pallets: people, who are tied down while the Swarms consume them. Sergei do not alert these barely living vessels as he wished their suffering to end with the satchels of god's wrath placed in the foundations. When the preparation was complete, Speedy decided to exit out stealthily. 
• Sergei and Eushu saw these signs, of something looking through these clouds and of voices speaking in the buzz of swarms and rumble of the earth. Dimitri collapses to his knees. Speedy is in a position where he has no leadership to rely on, no way to see the views of his team vs his own with more objectivity. Sergei summons his Nightmare steed and places Dimitri on it, he scales it and leads with a powerful example. 
• Swarms move to oppose them, but the 2,000 pound steed and lance break through. Speedy can keep up but Euahu cannot. Speedy has to make a call, and his hesitation and conscience closes the opportunity as Sergei plows and breaks through the swarms and their weakened defenses. Speedy and Eashu look for a way out, and find clues to what awaits Haven with the devourers's and their plans. They find the hovels of hundreds of families, quickly marched into what they saw as pallets for feeding the swarms. The find the sky and themselves near a cliffside. A sentinel is alerted, a huge creature surrounded by swarms. Sergei and Dimitri catch flashes of bright light in the darkness from the direction of the city. 
• Speedy is again reckless with the flashbangs and manages to knock them all out. The wake up, their vision returning with the good fortune that they woke up before the creature is in full strength and Eashu lashes out at it... with much futility. In desperation, Speedy activates the explosives.
• The mountainside falls into a depth they cannot see and the earth moves and buckles, and eventually throws them off their feet. They face the city, the Heights, and see fires and pillars of smoke in HSS locations. A dragon with great outstretched wings from kilometers away rains fire into the Heights. 

game is in the next two weeks, the 29. everyone gets 2cp +3cp to give to everyone else.

I had 4 new players ask to join, with only Fej committing and alerting me what time he will arrive. The others reinforce my very high fall out statistics.
I had to kick out players not part of the game anymore because it interfered with my calculating if I go overboard. 

Mass Combat Templates with load Outs

Making a bunch of templates for this long project I had for years. Basically its GURPS Low Tech Lite, for my own uses. So basically have a GURPS lite with enough details for a campaign and for low tech. Trying to do each professional template at this level of detail. It appears that the booklet is about 80pages (currently at 30 pages thats been proof and so much more to type and prep) of letter size in Liberation Sans 10.5.

My philosophy is done enough to start ASAP. I know people are busy, expecting anyone to read anything that would eat up 5 minutes is too much these days lolz (snif). Here even a newbie GM can just cut and paste things and start right away. So here is a piece of the chapter in Professions. So basically key units of Mass Combat will be represented and various types of Agents (social focused professions like Courtiers, Bureaucrats, Charismatics/Politicians, Thiefs and Scoundrells).

I had some breakthroughs particularly keeping the format pretty nice and being to index everything. I keep trying to have in mind that people would just need to cut and past with little alteration. If they bother to read the Notes they will understand why the skill levels are of this way so that they can change it according to their own needs and expectations.

More importantly I guess is that It focuses on some Medieval Demographics in stats. You will see a lot of 10s and working with the assumptions that 1:100 has at least 10 in ST, DX, and HT. If you adhere to those demographics then Manpower is in short supply and valuable. At the same time you will notice a bunch of other things about population demographics that paint and interesting scenery for the setting... for me at least.

The template does not fill up all the points. I kept a 60pt budget for skills and 35 to 60 for advantages. People have TALENTS and are gifted in a narrow field. Players can splurge their remaining points that make the character heroic or round out the character.

Mass Combat Notes is for Advanced Players and GMs. basically they want to zoom in and out in the Scale they are playing. There will be a map for this purpose and demonstrations. I cannot emphasize the importance of Demos. Demos make what looks complicated simple.

Heavy Infantry

40 / 100 points

Heavy Infantry is the term for warriors that fight in an organized close formation. Because of their manner of fighting, they often rely on medium to large shields.

Template Notes

This heavy Infantryman below, begins play with a shield and skilled in either shield wall. They all have shield of 14. Their primary weapon skill is 14, and secondary weapon at 12, and ranged weapon at 12.

Heavy infantry is typically armed with Spears as their primary weapon. Axes/Maces were common in much more ancient eras, Swords in more later eras.

Long Spears, Heavy Spears, and Pole-Arms were used by Pikemen and Halberders respectively. They are a kind of heavy infantry, with the former using slung shields to allow them to wield the spear two handed, while the other relies on heavier armor. Typically these variants rely on Teamwork Perk instead of Shieldwall.

Typically Heavy infantry is a blocking force or a slow moving, coordinated, and determined attacking force. Their range weapon is to add shock and disrupt their main engagement for the day.

Attributes [0]: ST 10 [0]; DX 10 [0]; IQ 10 [0]; HT 10 [0]

Secondary Characteristics [0]: Damage 1d-2/1d; BL20lbs.; HP10 [0]; Will 10 [0]; Per 10 [0]; FP 10 [0]; SPD 5.00 [0]; Move 5 [0].

Social Background [0]: Primary Language (example: Greek) Speak/ Comprehend (Native, Fluent) [0]; Greek Read/Write (None) [0]; Innumerate [0].

Advantages [30]: Wealth: Above Average (x1.5) [5]; Warrior Talent 2 levels (Hiking, Tactics, Survival, Soldier, Savoir-Faire: Warrior, Running) [20]; Combat Reflex [15]; Patron (Duty, Hazardous Freq-12) [0].

Disadvantages [-50]: • -50 points choosen from among Callous [-5]; Code of Honor (Soldier) [-10]; Obsession (self-control-12; long term goal) [-10]; Intollerance (against one people or class) [-5]; Secret (worth being exiled or shunned) [-10]; Greed (self-control-12) [-15]; Bloodlust (self-control-12) [-10]; Social Stigma (Minority) [-5]; Disicpline of Faith (Ritualism) [-5]; Odious Personal Habits [-5]; Nightmares (self-control-12) [-5]; Flashbacks, Mild (3/3d6 on any stressful event) [-5]; Phantom Voices, Annoying (3/3d6 on any stressful event) [-5]; Post Combat Shakes (self-control-12) [-5]; Selfish (self-control-12) [-5].

Primary Skills [33]: • Choose between Shield Wall Perk, Weapon Bond Perk, or Team Work Perk; • Choose a Primary Weapon: Spear (A) DX+4 [16]-14, Axe/Mace (A) DX+4 [16]-14, Shortsword (A) DX+4 [16]-14, Polearms (A) DX+4 [16]-14, or Broadsword (A) DX+4 [16]-14; Shield (E) DX+4 [12]-14; Hiking (A) HT+1 [4]-16;

Secondary Skills [19]: • Choose a Secondary Weapon: Spear (A) DX+2 [8]-12, Axe/Mace (A) DX+2 [8]-12, Shortsword (A) DX+2 [8]-14 (or Broadsword-2), Polearms (A) DX+2 [8]-12, Knife (E) DX+3 [8]-13, or Broadsword (A) DX+2 [8]-12 (or Shortsword-2); • Choose a between Throwing Axe/Mace (E) DX+2 [4]-12, or Throwing Spear (E) DX+2 [4]-12; Soldier (A) IQ [2]-12; Wrestling (A) DX [2]-10; Survival (Forest) (A) Per [2]-12; Tactics (H) IQ-2 [1]-10; Savoir-Faire (Warrior) (E) IQ [1]-12; Running (A) HT-1 [1]-11.

Background Skills [8]: Area Knowledge (Homeland) (E) IQ [0]-10; Farming (A) IQ+2 [8]-12.

Sample Load-Out

Light Encumbered

[body] Regular Clothes $240; 2lbs

[head 3-4; face 5] Light Plate Pot Helm,(DR4) $210; 2.7lbs

[neck 17-18] None

[torso 9-10; groin 11] Light Scale Front (DR3F; -1 vs cr) $160; 8lbs

[r. arm 6-7 ; l. arm 12] None

[hands 15] None

[r. leg 8; l. leg 13-14] None

[feet 16] Shoes (DR2*) $40; 2lbs

[Shield] Large Shield $64; 10lbs

[Primary Weapon] Fine Balanced Spear $280; 4lbs

[Ranged Weapon] x2 Javelin $60; 4lbs

[Secondary Weapon] Long Knife $120; 1.5lbs

Pouch (holds ceramic water bottle 1L 3lbs; $3) $13; 3lbs

Light Cloak $20, 2lbs

Total Cost: $1,207

Total Weight: 39.2lbs

Setting Notes

It takes a level of professionalism to train heavy infantry. Often they are made up the smallest land holding station (Freemen, Citizens, Sergeants, ) the weaker the civiliztion's logistics the more they self equip wealthier each soldier has to be, while the more organized the civilization they become more uniform, professional, and provide the basic war-making necessities.

The Background Skills of Heavy Infantry reflects their status, a land owning farmer who delegates the labor to tenant farmers who are either serfs or slaves.

Mass Combat

In GURPS Mass Combat, this defaults as Poor Average Heavy Infantry. 

Networking in the Gamer Mindset Part II

Contact Ally Freq-6

Depending on how the GM arbitrates Freq-6 MOST contacts in the real world fall into this category! Imagine that contact you can talk to once a month if you know it won't bankrupt your Favor balance. No one likes dealing with someone who is not self sufficient and can FILTER the leads they get, also people get negative reaction when presented a "under cooked" (hilaw in Tagalog) lead. If you think things half baked then you cannot bring that to a business or professional contact seriously (over dinner where you ask about it and what their opinion is but never in a serious proposal like fashion). 

Free Contacts

The GM can even give you "FREE" Contacts and Allies that are accessible once or twice based on your back-story (the GM rolls their skill level in secret), these people can be contacted maybe at the same frequency or more IF you pay or you can give them something in return in the future. 

Off the bat the GM can give you a generous number depending on the backstory word count and how many RP situations are in the character's story which is strongly correlated to the amount of people your character can feasilby interact with. Then with as many Positive reactions as reasonable with your character.

The more extra Curricular with your characters the more circles he is able to tap. Imagine Gaming Circles and related Hobbies like Wargaming, LARP, Anachronistic Simulation, and a bit farther out Airsoft/Paintball or Milsim games. Now if you really play often and go to the events often enough you meet A LOT of people... if you don't sound to much of a user asking what they do and their contact information, and have the presence of mind to get their contact information without being creepy then cool.... also the presence of mind to write down notes about the interaction... that's hard. 

Contacts with Terrible Reputations

Lolz this should be tackled, people with terrible reputations will basically tell you otherwise. Rarely are people truly rational when it comes to these things: 1) no one directly says Ill of someone if they are professional because its unprofessional to do so (if they tell you then be worried about how quickly they talk about you with other people); 2) the Terrible Person will Fast Talk and Lie their way towards getting connected or asking a favor - Promises are Cheap as spit. 

ANECDOTE TIME lolz. 

I know one particular scoundrel that exploits the benefit of the doubt and initial talks when it comes with professional engagements. If you call the contact information of an entity, someone will answer and send a representative - some small representatives represent a lot of people and various interests and not just their company. This scoundrel basically gets various representatives and make outrageous claims of their Interest in a project... to the people who don't do due diligence this is a remarkable claim and like SPAM and Phishing done often enough with a large enough target market will snag some people in their moment of weakness (the more desperate one is the more one is in their moment of weakness). 

Due Diligence should have a Tricky mechanic. Exploit last word in Rules if the player did due diligence, if they have it as a Perk, make it eat up their time... if they have it as a perk with a dedicated Analyst and A contact on retainer then well they enter any event with intelligence. As the GM the question is: "What information is the PC going into this situation". As a frustrated biz person steeped in theory and the academic I always see opportunities I miss and those that I am not in a position to exploit too often... which cycles the frustration. 

Strangely even in "Professional Circles" and even in some Financial Due Diligence firms.... they don't do due dilligence as frquently as you'd expect with if you had the same resources. So I find myself curious when a professional firm that can afford the manpower and should have the habits fail to do their homework. You know when you have that resource, you can even delegate the Connect-the-Dots with the PA who works with the same information and ask the PA to do the analysis for the higher ups with you just doing the editing and the higher critical thinking function (Basically Thomas in War Beneath Heaven when he works with Jeni)... although too soon your PA will learn Intelligence Analysis and might get bored and leave for greener pastures lolz... but such man power concerns are for a discussion of Modern Day Patron-Client relationships.

Maybe as a Due-Dilligence habit once a week just do basic notes recap of all contacts made in the past week... that sounds like a lot of work lolz. 

GURPS Magic Notes 19: Ghouls

Haven has undead, and its constantly growing population (as it shelters african refugees and lacking of reproductive health care, almost %3 population growth) makes it one of the best places to be if your an undead who needs to harvest human goods.

Ghoul, Lesser

Ghoul is a term being used to describe any Sapient undead. By sapience, this means IQ6 and above. By undead, it means a creature that does not function in a regular biological metabolism - instead they are magically biology. An undead is petty much like a machine, it just works with a differently from the regular biological type. 


Ghouls can be created with the Lich Spell, or a custom Create Ghouls spell (Setting specific Spell) which is much easier to cast. Mages undergo this transformation to allow them to tap into more power and to be able to pursue their magical studies. Its very useful because they can tap into a lot of energy by storing it as HP. So building up HP is a priority as it allows them to cast spells they couldn't do so before as regular mages.  


Hidden Lore (Undead) (IQ/A)

Default: Occult-7, Necromancy Path-4, Hidden Lore (Mages)-4, Thaumatology-6

The most basic understanding and fundamental principles “Undead” or what is essentially, magic powered organisms.

Hidden Lore Skill Feats:

1. Induction or deduction of an Undead’s Nature and capabilities. the more subtle, the more difficult.
2. Name Examples of Undead in occult lore and their cultural lenses. Factual knowledge of undead. Photographic Memory helps.

Appearance

They are more pallor humans, there are only very subtle clues to their being. Their lacking of normal human habits: eating, drinking, and sleeping can show in their demeanor. (this is a fun subtle detective work that would be great for players). They don't sweat, which can be a give a way in certain seasons.
They can eat and can taste food, but it gives them no satisfaction and it exists undigested. 

Ecology of the Ghoul

Ghouls have to actively find life force where they can. They can be very sociable because of such need to be around humans and other mages. They will drain life with skin contact.  

Their hunger cycle is 12 meals (1HP per meal) a day or a meal every 2 hours. Young ghouls can mildly intoxicate humans, a by product of their new physiology when they feed on them.  Although they still need to roll self control vs uncontrollable appetite to prevent them from binging. Binging merely sates them early for the day but any excess HP is useless. Getting control over the appetite tends to be the first lesson they learn. Hunger for life force worsens after ever hour past two - a -1 to self control for every hour. Its easier to think about it as eating, you can pig out that will delay hunger for a longer time but you still get hungry after a number of hours. The most sustainable way is to space out and meet the hunger cycles (pretty much like dieting). 

Ghouls work in highly crowded areas and with a lot of other people, they can access. In close proximity they wear make up and use avoid prolonged touching because it gives away their nature. Airconditioned areas, in Haven's emerging BPO industry, creates a great excuse to have such conditions.  

They can live dual lives since they have no sleep. They can work hard in the day and party all night, since it will keep him near precious sources of life force. Ghouls have no fatigue, which makes them perpetually mentally alert. 

Because the Ghouls Life drain ability is an infectious attack, and there is a limit to the carrying capacity in the population, Ghouls (Mages, and Vampires) cull the undead population. There are professional ghoul hunter mages who look out for outbreaks of undead. Even the undead know that they are dependent on human population so they tend to police their own quite ruthlessly. 

Hunger

Ghoul hunger can be dangerous and transformative. Hunger for many ghouls (even vampires) can cause them to be feral and this is something of a concern for both the undeads and the mages. 

Increased Consumption multiplies the damage taken from Hunger. Ghouls suffer 4HP damage per day of hunger (or 1HP per 6 hours). They heal at their usual rate of drain (1HP per second). Hunger also exacerbates uncontrollable appetite and other personality elements with self control factors (bad temper, blood lust, selfishness etc...) or inflicts it even if the ghoul has bough it off. 

Infectious Attacks

The ghouls life drain can cause it to create a Ghoul if it kills its victim with it. if this happens, typically enforcers find out, and they will take care of the ghoul that cannot control itself. Eventually ghouls get their appetites under control (about 30 points into the template) and they are able to blend in.

Magery

Because of Unkillable 2, Injurious Magic Power, and Immune to Pain, the Ghoul can burn up to, in theory, HPx11 for spell casting. more Powerful ghouls with ST20 or tons of HP can do more. Finally able to create lasting enchantments without followers, although still dependent on life forces. 

Why other mages don't need to go through this method is because Familiars and Followers can grant the mage FP. Its only for Anti-social mages (lolz), and those who like the "solitude" of being such and who don't want to be bothered with messy relationships of being a patron and dealing with clients.

Still being Sociable is a great advantage to a ghoul, for reasons previously discussed. Its not like they can't walk around in the day. 

Ghoul, Lesser
Template notes
Modification Options

• They can gain spell like magical powers because of their magical nature.  

0 point

Attribute Modifiers [10]: ST+1

Secondary Characteristic Modifiers [24]: HP+2 [4]; Per+4 [20]

Advantages [186]: Does not Breathe (B49) [20]; Doesn’t Sleep (B50) [20]; “Life Draining Touch” Leech (P96) (see below) [22]; Immune to Metabolic Hazards (B81) (poisons, disease, sickness) [30]; Immune to Pain (B81) [15]; Injury Tolerance (B61) (unliving) [20]; Night Vision 9 (B71) [9]; Unaging (B95) [15]; Unkillable 2 (Achilles heel, Head Destruction -50%; Hindrance, Silver or Magical Weapons still present in the system, -25%) [25]; Unusual background (Magically Zeroed) [10].

Disadvantages [-220]: Dread (Pentagrams, Wards, Antimagic) [-10]; Dependency (B145) (Ambient Mana) (Constant, Common) [-50]; Increased Consumption (B139) (12HP a day, needs to feed every 2 hours; Starving causes 4HP per day of damage) [-20]; Infectious Attack (B140, B50) (When slaying someone with life drain) [-0]; Restricted Diet (B151) (Common - Life Force, via Steal Vitality or Innate Attack 1HP toxic, 1HP is one meal) [-10]; Secret (“Veil”; on threat of death) [-30]; Supernatural Features (B157) (Pallor, No Body Heat) [-15]; Uncontrollable Appetite (B159) (12) [-15]; Unhealing (B160) (Partial, Must use Life Drain or Leech) [-20]; Vulnerability (B161) (Occassional, Silver x2 damage) [-20]; Vulnerability (B161) (Rare, Magic x4 damage) [-20]; Vulnerability (B161) (Common: Fire x2 damage) [-30];   

Features:

• No FP
• Antimagic Spells or Effects that drain Energy drain HP

• Life Drain Leech Options (P96)
• Default Life Draining Touch [22]: Leech (Contact Agent, -30%; see Affliction for Follow Up) [18]; Affliction (B36) 1 (Follow up Attack to Leech +0%; Causes Tipsy, +10%; Contact Agent -30%; Melee, -30%; Accessibility, only humans -10%; roll vs HT+1) [4];
• Tipsy, -1 to DX and IQ, and -2 to self control rolls. (B428)
• [+1 cp] Drunk, -2 to DX and IQ, and -4 to self control rolls. (B428)
• [+2 cp] Causes Euphoria, -3 to DX, IQ, self control rolls. (B428)
• see B36 for various other conditions, and B428 afor their results.
• Malediction Slow Drain [+23] Leech (P96) (Malediction +100%; Reach +40%; Takes Extra Time 6, 1 minute per HP drained -60%) [45]. this ability lets the ghouls drain someone in a distance without touching.  
• Buy-off Pallor, they can use make up to hide much of their appearance.
• Buy-off Increased Consumption and even get Reduced Consumption.
• No limits to the amount of HP, ST, and Ablative or Semi-Ablative DR (DR 1, 1 point; reduced every 1cp; heals at the same rate as HP) the character can buy.
• They can buy advantages that  augment their magical ability like: they can have a much higher magery (20), mana enhancer,

Design Notes

Ghouls are better as Rogues or Wizards. Their toughness is against mundane threats, they still take damage but can come back thanks to unkillable 2. They are much better as mages, and using their Necromancy spells for Battlefield recovery.

Vampires are tougher than Ghouls, but ghouls walk around in the day. Playing a ghouls means being smart about the "smart" advantages like not-needing sleep or immunity to disease and poison.

GURPS Magic Notes 10: Energy Reserve and Extra Fatigue; Modular Abilities and Magery

Edit: I just got Powers
Energy Reserve is in GURPS Powers p.119. Its basically build in from Fatigue Points. I first heard about this in the forums. If you don't have GURPS Powers, you can just use extra Fatigue Points, with an accessibility limitation: Only for Spellcasting is in GURPS Magic p. 15 in the Box.

Capped energy Reserve to 15ER or 9cp when discounted.

Limitations for Fatigue or Energy Reserve*

• note Weakened or Half Power B110  
• Only in Emergencies (and Half power unless Emergencies)
• (GM's call) Aspected to a College/Path (B67)
• Granted by Familiar (B38)
• Pact (B113)
• Nuisance Effect (B113) like side effects when using the power. Either flash backs, supernatural special effects, or many other creative inconveniences that can be dangerous in the wrong time. 
• Flashbacks any time the character taps from this FP. 
• Preparation Required (B114) pretty awesome, its like "powering up". My call is that, you have to performing the Preparation before you can begin to recover again. 
• Example. Killian meditates for a minute to gain start recovering 10FP in the the start of the day. After 20 minutes he has fully recovered. If he uses these all up, he has to meditate 1 minute to start "recovering" again after 20 minutes.  
• Gadget Limitation (B116). Its basically like a Power Stone that you paid points for. But it is not limited to the Stone, it can take other forms. It would be interesting all the other combinations of limitations you can have. 
• Example. Killian's has his father's watch, an old model from the war. But before he can use it, he has to make it tell the right time (preparation 1 minute -20% limitation). 
• Limited Use (B115). After you used it up this power a number of times that day, you won't recover this "energy" until the next day.  Basically take the Pool and multiply it by the number of times per day. A pool of 10, that can be used 2x a day is a Pool of 20. After the character goes through a total of 20 points that day (after resting), he cannot use the power until the next day. 
• Takes Recharge (B115) instead of regenerating at the rate you recover fatigue use the time multiplier (x2, x5, x10). 
• Trigger (B115) like nuance effect it may be a little bit steep of a trigger. Enemy wounding the character would much more risky than the character having to inflict a wound on himself to access the power. 

*obviously I can't put limitations from Powers.

Side Note.

Modular Abilities vs Thaumatology

Modular Abilities (B72) can break my current magic system. Basically, I can take 80% worth of limitations and move around my points to paths I would need. At 80% limitations, that would be 0.6cp per modular CP points.  Note that its easy to stack up the limitations, although ONE interesting limitation is that by Super Memorization, you need something to memorize from. One needs an external "drive" lolz. The only precedent of how many Pages a Spell is can be found in the Make Scroll Enchantment Spell. A 250 power enchantment spell is a freaking book. This will fairly balance this out, a bit. So using a spreadsheet, take the College and all the Power Costs and add them up. Typically 50 spells, at about a very high variability in power levels. 

A simple experiment. Thaumatology IQ+10 is 48cp. With 48cp I have 78 modular character points for Spells. This would grant me a Thaumatology IQ+17 or Path/College of IQ+19. 

So to prevent this, I will have to change the costs 15 points initially and 10 points modular point. This would grant of 22 modular points. On its own it may look small, but if the mage already had points in a Path he may use the points to bring up spells like a technique at 1pt at a time, even more versatile if he can do it after a minute.  

The reason I went to increase the point cost is if you look at the Preparation Required, its easy to get -80% with just an 1 min to 1 hour of study, spells only, and something like Limited use. 

So yeah, GM's out there hopefully you will catch this "Bug" lols. Even in a Low Magery Game you can imagine how powerful it can be. Note the "Source" and "Focus" of the power "Super Memorization" the player has to explain how he got it. Its easy to just ban it for magic or just use the power cost I propose. 

DnD like mages will fall under this category. I'm tempted to use this combo in a Dungeon Fantasy game since its a 250 point character. In such a game.