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Old 06-20-2017, 04:59 AM   #1
Poppyseed45
 
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Default Ever run a game at a high point total (500, 750, 1000)? How'd it go?

(Cross posted on r/gurps on Reddit for extra commentary)

One of the things we often talk about in GURPS is how it does or doesn't work at higher point totals (say, demi-gods and angels walking the Earth or whatever, cosmic supers, the like). Has anyone run or played in a game at that level? How'd it go?
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Old 06-20-2017, 05:47 AM   #2
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Default Re: Ever run a game at a high point total (500, 750, 1000)? How'd it go?

I had a 600/500 point monster hunters game I ran last winter. 600 points of templates or standard builds +100 points. We had a lot of fun, and we may return to it later this year.

Proper combat challenges were hard, and the players could accomplish a lot. I had an easier time challenging them on the hunt than in combat. They also enjoyed being such uber-powerful beings.

I ran another game where you could either build on 1000 points with limited skills, Or you could be 600 points with limited exotic abilities. The Game was called "God Slayers" and was a sort of Mythically themed ISWAT game. There was a lot more combat in this one. The PbP game lasted long enough to complete one adventure. Not a bad run, all things considered.

The problem with high point games (including both of the above, with different players) is usually the one player who ruthlessly optimizes his character. In low point games the result is a character who is really good at one or two things, and its tolerable for the other players. In high point games such a character can represent half or more of the power of the party. So I'd say its not gurps itself that breaks down at high point levels, but point based-character creation.

I have plans for an ISWAT game that may reach into that range. This time you get 300 points to build your skills, talents, and non-powered advantages, and then you have to present a power set and we'll look at it without regard for points. High versatility (Such as an RPM mage) will be discouraged.
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Old 06-20-2017, 06:00 AM   #3
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Default Re: Ever run a game at a high point total (500, 750, 1000)? How'd it go?

I ran a 2000-point supers game. It was fun, but I did find a couple of house rules necessary:
-adjusting upwards the cost of a few traits (Allies, Morph)
-simplifying some aspects of combat (e.g. instead of rolling 100 dice for damage, we'd roll 1 die and multiply by 100)
-rescaling the damage and DR of heavy military weapons (I think there's a slight problem with HP being proportional to the cube root of mass, whereas damage from explosives and such scales to the square root)

Would I do it again? I've been thinking of a gritty reboot of that campaign, since such things are a mainstay of the genre. Definitely the versatility of Gurps character creation really shone in that campaign, but combat particularly felt a little too clunky until I started throwing out rules I didn't need.
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Old 06-20-2017, 07:36 AM   #4
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Default Re: Ever run a game at a high point total (500, 750, 1000)? How'd it go?

Most of my campaigns have been lower powered than that, ranging from 75 base points (Worminghall, 14-year-old magic students) to 300 (The Foam of Perilous Seas, demigods sailing the Pearl Bright Ocean). But Sovereignty had characters built on 1500 base points: a nearly indestructible supersoldier, a force manipulator, a telepath/telekinetic, a shapeshifting dragon, and an angel. There were some difficulties—I had to give their supervillainous adversaries high Will to avoid the telepath short circuiting every fight, and the player of the supersoldier was resistant to spending any points on anything but combat effectiveness—but mostly relatively minor ones; the campaign held everyone's interest and built up to a dramatic finale.
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Old 06-20-2017, 09:53 AM   #5
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Default Re: Ever run a game at a high point total (500, 750, 1000)? How'd it go?

My starting point total is usually 600-650 points.

That's pretty much the point value required for action-adventure protagonists in modern media if you aren't handwaving a lot of challenges away and liberally coating them in PlotArmor.

Being able to routinely succeed at many different adventuring tasks such as hand-to-hand fights against multiple enemies, intricate social intrigue, battlefield trauma medicine, acrobatic parkour scenes, infiltration, high-speed car chases, counter-surveillance, technological intelligence gathering, SERE, vehicular jury-rigging, free climbing and demolitions just isn't cheap, especially not if it is done by a mundane person with reasonable limitations on Attributes* and no access to Modular Abilities.

*I limit normal biological humans to 15 in Attributes other than ST (and ST 20 without Special Exercises). Games where there exist justifications for improvement above that might allow raising them, either using Special Exercises or Unusual Background.
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Old 06-20-2017, 11:07 AM   #6
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Default Re: Ever run a game at a high point total (500, 750, 1000)? How'd it go?

I've run a supers game where characters were in the 1000-1500 point range, but I built the powers. They built the 150-point normals and drew power sets out of a hat. It worked well because I built the supervillian powers around the superhero powers. Mundane challenges were trivial and fun because of it.
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Old 06-20-2017, 11:21 AM   #7
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Default Re: Ever run a game at a high point total (500, 750, 1000)? How'd it go?

I found 1000pts to be a good level between too powerful and not powerful enough.

Lots of limits were put in place to stop too much OTT.

The damage was left full max a la splatter punk.
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Old 06-20-2017, 11:41 AM   #8
Mark Skarr
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Default Re: Ever run a game at a high point total (500, 750, 1000)? How'd it go?

All the time. Normally, our point total is right about 750. We play a lot of supers games. Using the suggestions from GURPS Supers on Power Levels (pg 18-19) tends to work quite well. I, also, mandate a minimum level of Injury Tolerance: Damage Reduction for a supers game (the minimum is usually /3). After several issues with the very first game where it was simply a suggestion, I haven’t had any problem with players objecting to it.

Additionally, for supers, instead of using “Strength and Super-Strength” from GURPS Supers, I use LogST from “Knowing Your Own Strength.” Pyramid 3-83. It makes bricks affordable.
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Old 06-20-2017, 12:06 PM   #9
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Default Re: Ever run a game at a high point total (500, 750, 1000)? How'd it go?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Icelander View Post
liberally coating them in PlotArmor.
Awesome term of the day.
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Old 06-20-2017, 02:32 PM   #10
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Default Re: Ever run a game at a high point total (500, 750, 1000)? How'd it go?

Our 500 pt Supers game went just fine until someone dumped most all their points into an autofired cosmic energy blast that could blow up a city block.
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