Quote:
Originally Posted by Gollum
[...]If you don't already have a very good idea about how GURPS works, it is just a mess! What do all those abbreviations mean? What does every advantage or disadvantage mean? What do the brackets mean? What does those even more esoteric inscriptions like "(A) DX-1 [1]-12" mean? ... And so on ...
A newcomer will have to understand all that and, to do so, will ask the GM dozens of questions, just before choosing everything and making the good calculations to fit the good numbers ("20 points chosen from among ...", "-35 points chose from ...").
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Apollonian
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?
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Agreed! I when I use Character Assistant I end up using templates to group and simplify things as much as possible before printing out the characters. Digging through the skill lists is the worst part. Grouping skills by applicability would make the most sense, but determining what skill belongs in what group is a major effort (and there are duplicates!). For total beginners I would rely heavily on (!) skills to boil down complex blocks of skills into a single roll for everything.