Quote:
Originally Posted by ericthered
I wouldn't use the same number for all point levels. I'd use a different limit for each campaign. The appropriate range of attributes depends very much on the setting and genre.
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Very much this!
In a campaign about highly trained but nominally realistic agents in the modern world, the PCs eventually hit 400-500 points but DX, IQ, and HT were capped at 15 . . . and in fact nobody much went past 13. In a couple of heroic fantasy campaigns that
started at 150-200 points, I didn't bother with caps and some players scraped together the means to
enter play with scores of 15-16.
Caps are a question of genre and setting, not power level. Power level determines a practical maximum (i.e., what players can afford), which isn't the same thing at all. I could set caps of 20 in a 100-point campaign and that might conceivably have no impact on game play because people would take forever getting there for want of points. I could set caps of 15 in a 300-point campaign, which would be relevant right out of the gate, channeling players toward alternative uses of points.
The same logic applies to other traits, though it's harder to see for, say, advantages.
What's most interesting is the
interaction between caps and power level. If caps are low but power level is high, points end up spread out across more areas, which results in generalist characters with broad training; if caps are high but power level is low, players who want extreme characters out of the gate will sacrifice everything to get as close to the relevant cap as possible, which results in specialist characters with no backup abilities. The former works really well in games about elite operatives who have similar basic training, and who are expected to be able to fill in for one another; e.g.,
GURPS Special Ops. The latter suits heroic adventuring parties where each PC has a unique niche and has to be supported by their allies; e.g.,
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy.