Bureau 2 Office

This is the standard layout for a Meta-teams office and facilities.

Scale 5 foot squares

The facility has 7 bedrooms for the team or permanent residents and 1 small bedroom for the office manager on duty. The entrance anteroom is decorated as suits the local area and acts as a small museum and public greeting place.  Good for student field trips!

Office Area

This is staffed 24 hours a day and is a place for people to interact with the Bureau, including submitting complaints, damage claims, requesting support, or just passing along information. During business hours one or two clerks are available to handle the load and an office manager or clerk is on premises at all times.

Team Area

The assigned meta-humans have  7 private bedrooms, share a common bathroom, and two meeting rooms.  One near the entrance is more relaxed and can accommodate guests. It includes a small and large table, numerous chairs and sofas and a fireplace. It even has a small group compute that can run a wall projector.
The second meeting room includes file storage, small pool and operations computer.

MASK Bureau 3

This bureau is the official liaison to civilian and government agency's at all levels with the exception of law enforcement and military agencies. It works heavily with FEMA, the CDC, and city or state authorities when they request emergency assistance.
Meta-human agents in Bureau 3 do not have law enforcement powers but may still work with a city's defense team. They are typically trained in First-Aid  and serve the role of first responders and help out with disaster relief, depending on their abilities.

Employees

This is a sparsely staffed branch and staff consists primarily of people with strong organizational and communication skills. They coordinate with several agencies at all levels of the government and the public during emergencies but most of the time they are just doing paperwork and monitoring.

Volunteers

Because this is primarily an emergency relief agency they rely heavily on volunteers. State offices are based in capital cities, with local district offices where needed. Generally coastal cities, flood prone areas, and large rural areas prone to disasters such as wildfires will have a small office.

Volunteers are expected to be on call and respond as needed so are in a database and call list.

MASK Bureau 2

This branch of MASK is charged with law enforcement and agents are expected to be of the highest ethical and moral standards.

Bureau 2

Working with the FBI, state and local law enforcement this is really the most public face of MASK.

Meta-humans assigned here are under strict ethics and reporting guidelines.

The standard meta-human agent has: 

Advantages: Code of Honor (Police) [-1 or -10]; Legal Enforcement Powers [10]; Police Rank 2 [10].

Disadvantages: Duty (-15) [-15].

Skills: Area Knowledge (City) IQ/E; Criminology IQ/A; Law IQ/H; Leadership IQ/A; Professional Skill (Law Enforcement) IQ/A; Writing IQ/A

Those who have a high profile often have Status 2 as well.

They can typically draw upon the following equipment while on duty.

City Staff

The typical team for a major city includes 3-5 meta's and a small complement of support staff.

Duties include full support of local law enforcement and emergency services, including functioning as police and first responder's.

Teams are assigned based on local needs with a goal of diversity in capabilities. Ideally they include a strong man for recovery efforts, speedster or movement specialist for pursuits, and a tactician who can think quickly on their feet. The meta team is in the federal chain of command but respond to the local chain of command where no conflict occurs.

Review of GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 20: Slayers

This latest volume in the Dungeon Fantasy series comes in at 23 pages for $6.
Some of the material was already published in Pyramid magazine but its a lot of new stuff as well, also nice to have it in one place. Rascally its a splat book for those delvers who are specialized at defeating Demons, Mages, or the Undead.
Each slayer type gets its own chapter with a template and a nice set of abilities to do take out their foes.

Demon-Slayers

4 pages of demon slaying, most of the ideas are what a person familiar with GURPS would come up with but there are a few odd birds they are unlikely too.

Heroic Reserve has an unusual boost, several spell like abilities, and some of the other boosts are nice. 

Mage-Slayers

A lot of the same ideas in chapter 1 but with a different twist, and Magic Resistance gets a nice new modifier. As some of this material appeared elsewhere this offered little new to me, but not everyone has the magazines and other DF books these appeared in.  Also there is new material here, and I like the format.

Undead-Slayers

Also at 4 pages like the previous chapters this covers slaying undead and adds some new material.

Slayer Gear

The final chapter has some gear to support not just dedicated slayers but those going after the above type of foes. My highlight topic of the chapter was Talismans, but there is a nice set of items and ideas here.

Summary

A nice quick easy read that can add some interesting options to your DF campaign.

Blessed, Energy Reserve, and Magic Resistance all got a short but potentially very useful twist that can be used in a variety of settings, not just Dungeon Fantasy.

Definitely worth the $6 :)

Other Reviews on this Book

Blind Mapmaker

Getting Started with GURPS

GURPS is the oldest RPG that has remained in business and owned by its creators. First published in 1986, it was not the first RPG, the most well known early RPG was Dungeons and Dragons by TSR but they went bankrupt and were bought by Wizards of the Coast and then later in 1998.

Most RPGs are class based and tied to a specific setting. GURPS is point based and designed to work in any genre, any setting. This can be kind of intimidating as there is an incredible volume of available books and since many are not ted to specific settings a new GM may have trouble deciding what to use. That topic comes up a lot on the GURPS Forums and is also addressed by this blog.

So how do you start?

The Players

As a player you do not need any books, though I recommend certain free books,
GURPS Lite is a free streamlined set of rules. It tells you all you need to know to play (or even run) most games. Since it also lists most skills and advantages it also helps you in building your character.
GURPS Combat Cards can be printed and cut up for use at the table. You have more tactical options in GURPS than most games but remembering them all takes at least a few games. The cards explain the maneuvers  and have all the rules so no need to pull out a book.
GURPS Martial Arts Technique Cheat-Sheet These are advanced moves for the skilled combatant.
GURPS Skill Categories is a list of the skills in GURPS Basic organized by categories. This is useful when building a character so you know whats available and dont miss any skill important to your character concept.
GURPS Magic Spell Charts is for the default GURPS Magic system and is really only useful for spellcasters. Spells are learned as skills (meaning you dont forget them, just cast the ones you know as often as you want. As long as you have the energy! And if you run out of energy an hours rest will have you back up to almost full power!

The Game Master

The GURPS Basic Set (2 books) $54.90 for the set in digital format, hard copy also available. is all you really needto run a game in any setting or genre you want.  Or you can choose a Powered by GURPS book for a setting and the section of the rules needed to run it

Powered by GURPS books include Discworld Roleplaying Game, Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game, Vorkosigan Saga Sourcebook and Roleplaying Game, plus a few from Third edition such as GURPS Traveler and GURPS Prime Directive.

Once you have rules you need to choose or build a setting.

I list GURPS settings here  and if you want to build or convert a setting I list books organized by genre that are helpful. Also GURPSLand is another blog, and has a nice pretty list

Basically GURPS has several genre or world building books such as Action, After The End, Fantasy, Horror, and Space that will help you build your world and setting based on the feel you choose.
After that you just add what you want when and if you need it.
Dont like the feel of the default magic system? GURPS provides several others to choose from and even books like GURPS Thaumatology that help you design your own.
Want equipment catalogs? Pick your tech level and choose the books that suit it.
Want to build your own spaceships? GURPS has a series of books and Pyramid articles covering pretty much everything.

Summary

The sheer volume of available GURPS books (and typically one new one each month) can be intimidating.  But really the players just need a free book to get quickly up to speed and the GM just needs the two Basic books Characters and Campaigns for most purposes.  But if you want more detail and options for a particular game there are a lot of choices, but again none are required.

This blog and others, as well as the Steve Jackson Games forums will help you find what you need before you spend your first dollar!

Player Surveys

Inspired by this post https://www.ravensnpennies.com/gamemasters-guidepost-framing-your-preferences-part-i/
So first the categories...
Combat
Interpersonal Relationships
Morality
Subterfuge
Mystery solving
Conspiracies
Heroic Deeds
Exploration
Growth in personal power

The Rating system
0 - Happy and prefer if it never comes up.
1 - I want it very rarely, 1 in 5 games.
2 - I want it rarely, 1 in 4 games.
3 - I want it now and then, 1 in 3 games.
4 - I enjoy this and want it frequently, 1 in 2 games.
5 - I really enjoy this and want it in every game.

So players pick each category they have an opinion on and rate it.
Players can also add categories.
This can help the GM adapt the game to the players preferences.

Why GURPS is actually easier to play than Pathfinder

I started a Pathfinder game last month and doing research by reading material to see what my character could do now, and potentially later I found that Pathfinder is actually harder to play,
I dont mean the combat so much, they are comparable in that GURPS is far simpler if you want it to be but if you want detailed combat with tactical choices GURPS gets more involved. Though I like the choices and fights can be done without checking a single book if you know your weapons and choices.

The character building is what I was surprised by. Old D&D you pretty much added a proficiency and HP as you leveled up, maybe some new spells depending on class. Pathfinder adds variety (which I like) but uses a Feat and skill system where you get new choices at certain levels. Trouble is your limited in choices and amounts and some require others as prerequisites.  Choose the wrong thing and you may never be able to get a specific desired one.

In GURPS which is point based instead of class and level based you have two character design techniques.
1) Normal is pick from whatever is allowed in the campaign that you have the points for, This lets you customize in a wonderful way but can be overwhelming and lead to decision paralysis.  You have so many options, it can be tough to decide what to choose.
2) Professions use templates with shortened lists, so similar to a class system but more choices are available. This makes building pretty quick as each profession is designed for a certain party role and the most important abilities are required in the template or at least strongly suggested. Good templates offer lenses or a paragraph describing subtypes to help the player choose.
As you gain experience you add items from the template and ignore other options. That helps protect party niches and roles.

Summary

GURPS is frnt loaded, meaning you do most of the work in the beginning, Pathfinder is back end loaded meaning you start really simple and add later. This makes GURPS more complicated when starting (Though that is reduced if you use templates) but your more adaptable as the game goes on and you can choose more freely. Pathfinder you pretty much need to plan ahead and have far less choices that will make your character unique and special.