Quote:
Originally Posted by Gollum
[SIZE="2"]Rather than templates, which are fine for players used to GURPS (because they know how things work and, thus, can go very fast with them), for totally beginners, I prefer using character examples, that is, characters for which everything is already chosen and calculated.
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I think that one of GURPS's biggest flaws is readability, tbh. I know that at least one of my players looks at a standard template block and all she sees is a jumble of meaningless words and numbers. Your solution of the plain text, largely bulleted list is one I like a lot for readability. If I implement it for my own games, I might split up skills by category, but I don't know... there's something to be said for pure alphabetical order as well.
Compare a GURPS sheet to a World of Darkness or D&D sheet. There's a lot more information jam on to the GURPS sheet. Detail is one of GURPS's strengths, but that makes graphic design and information presentation even more important to avoid overload. I feel like the GURPS veterans on this board tend to take it for granted; they've already mastered it, why can't everyone else?
For example, consider a skill - let's say First Aid. How many pieces of information does that have when it's on a standard character sheet? Name, difficulty rating, cost, relative level, absolute level. (And the player should know what it allows their PC to do, but that's usually fine as a reference.) Multiply that over the 20-50 skills a typical PC might have and it's a lot more clutter on the sheet. The WoD version has two items: Name and level.
It'd be possible to run GURPS skills like that, I think; the GM would have to get used to calling out the base attribute for every skill rolle they requested, but "First Aid, +1" certainly looks prettier than "First Aid (A) (IQ+1) -13 [4]". It's also the kind of thing where you might need or want to keep a master sheet with all the numbers and data on it, and then an "at-the-table" sheet that is much cleaner and easier to use in play. It'd be a really nice option for GCA.
So I guess that's a player guide that I should work on: A guide for a new player to turn a jumble of words, abbreviations, and numbers into a clear sheet for playing a new game.
Some others I'd include:
Kromm's list of
Skills Every Action Hero Has, and related lists of skills for appropriate campaign styles, annotated to explain why these skills are required or recommended. (Kromm's list isn't particularly relevant to Regency romance, for example.) Obviously the trait picker is really handy for building these guides.
Benchmarks, for players who want to build their own PCs or at least understand what a particular number means in context. This is already baked into GURPS, but I'd reference
Kromm's post here, and also point out the oft-overlooked "+4 to skill for routine tasks" modifier. And then, depending on the campaign, some abbreviated example characters for a couple of power levels or roles that PCs can be compared to. ("I want to build someone that could go up against/be Young Conan/Darth Vader/Jay and Silent Bob/Dana Scully - how many points should I have and what should my skill levels be?") It's something that's obviously covered by templates as well, but see above text about walls of text.