View Single Post
Old 12-30-2017, 08:06 PM   #8
Icelander
 
Icelander's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default Re: Realistic Point Gains

Quote:
Originally Posted by Evadam View Post
Yes, I calculated that buying those disadvantages off would cost 19 points, if she had to pay for her attributes, then that would cost her 406 points, but since that would make for average characters having to pay 319 points just to reach tens, I have not counted those*.
[...]
*I have been thinking of charging 1/3 of the attributes cost to develop a character from infant to adulthood, since it comes that an average character following average education gets to gain around 100-120 points over 15 years "((150/200)/4)*42*15=118.125" and the development from infant to tens reach 319 points, so that would turn to 119 points ought to be paid at fifteen.
The rules for points that correlate with time spent on learning are guidelines and real people can learn much slower or faster, not to mention that some things worth points in GURPS can be gained incredibly fast* and some people need to work extremely hard at gaining traits, possibly never managing to reach skilled amateur levels.

I'm fairly certain that the learning rules weren't meant to be used for every minute of a character's life, from birth onward, but if you do, I think you should certainly account for the fact that a lot of the time until adulthood is going to be spent on learning to be a functioning person, gaining around 10 in Attributes, accumulating normal defaults for someone of your culture and getting Cultural Familiarity and Native language.

Cultural Familiarity is actually a good example of a trait where the time to gain it correlates not at all with the learning rules. Despite costing only 1 character point, it can take years to develop and usually only by living in the culture. You absolutely cannot learn it in a couple of weeks of intensive training or even a semester of academic studies.

*Losing Reluctant Killer, gaining Combat Reflexes and adding points in combat skills could be the result of one gunfight which marked a person for life. And a higher Wealth level, Status and a multitude of Contacts can result from a single successful business trip as a young genius investor meets an angel investor who introduces him around, ending up with offers from several technology giants to buy out his company. Spending points gained through 'adventuring' is every bit as realistic as using a rule where every 200 hours sometimes equal a character point and quite a bit more realistic than believing that 1 character point always equals 200 hours of study.
__________________
Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!
Icelander is offline   Reply With Quote