Cost of HT.

[Flyndaran]

In the Star Trek RPG I have, everything is about skills with species abilities and attributes coming in a distant second.

[Culture20]

Originally Posted by Xplo

Trek is an example that, if anything, suggests to me that the typical person has higher IQ than whatever hypothetical everyman is the GURPS default. I mean, they've got young men and women in the Academy readily learning superscience.

The irony of the setting being that the Eugenics Wars resulted in a highly successful engineered human genome, but any further specific tailoring was taboo.

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Culture20

The irony of the setting being that the Eugenics Wars resulted in a highly successful engineered human genome, but any further specific tailoring was taboo.

I would not called the genome that came out off the eugenics war highly successful given it results in a strong proposition to both paranoia and violence to the point of their social group keeps imploding.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Personally, I don't think it would be nice for mediocrities to be just as qualified to be omnicapable polymaths as the actually gifted.

Not "to be omnicapable"; just to be capable at their particular niches.

GURPS leans heavily toward the omnicapable polymath as the build for just about every concept. Very rarely do I see more than 4 points in a skill. "Highly trained" people just have great stats (unless of course you add rules just to force the builds to cost more CP with stat caps or separate attribute/skill pools or whatnot).

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Not "to be omnicapable"; just to be capable at their particular niches.

GURPS leans heavily toward the omnicapable polymath as the build for just about every concept. Very rarely do I see more than 4 points in a skill. "Highly trained" people just have great stats .

It probably has to do with fictional models. There are very, very few characters in any sort of fiction who have average ability overall but very high ability with only one or two things that are Skills in Gurps terms.

There might b a few but they are very obviously NPCs in game terms. They wouldn't usually make good PCs either.

Surprising competence in areas not trained in is also very common. Piloting of never before seen vehicles or fighting with never before seen weapons. Raising and leading armies for completely no-military characters too.


Even when seen in things like Trained By a Master training sequences long and intensive training usually nets rewards in multiple Skills and even Primary and Secondary Attributes.

[martinl]

Originally Posted by MagnetoHydroDynamics

Therefore, I propose that HT should be 15 CP per level. You get a lot of bang for your buck in just raw HT rolls, and 7 CP per level serves to justify it.

What do you think?

Several people have explained why the package deal exists, and for the record, I agree with most of what they say.

But I think the following also needs to be said: Tweaking points vs. utility in GURPS is highly situational and probably not a good use of your time.

Notable exceptions:
A. You are fixing something that is actively broken and painful in a game you are actually running.
B. You are designing a new ability.
C. You find that sort of thing fun. (This applies to a lot of us here. Still applies to me, somewhat.)

CPs are a fun part of GURPS, but worrying about them too much gets in the way of the RP part of the RPG.

Imagine you're playing Legos with your friends with an agreed upon $150 budget. Is it more important that you have the most bricks? Or the biggest final toy? I think you'd do better to make something fun and cool that fits in with what your friends are building.

Similarly, it is probably not worthwhile to make house rules where bricks that are $0.50 on list count as $0.75 for the budget. Makes things needlessly complicated, unless it applies for one of ABC above.

[Nereidalbel]

Originally Posted by Xplo

Trek is an example that, if anything, suggests to me that the typical person has higher IQ than whatever hypothetical everyman is the GURPS default. I mean, they've got young men and women in the Academy readily learning superscience. In which case, you might prefer that people buy multiple levels of IQ and treat skills almost like techniques since that seems to be more true to the setting.

They're also at a higher TL. What our first-year college students learn today would have been reserved for the most gifted of students 400 years ago, after all.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

GURPS leans heavily toward the omnicapable polymath as the build for just about every concept.

Not entirely. If there is one skill you want to be badass at, raising it through the roof makes sense. However, once you reach 2-3 skills you probably want to take stats.

[Not]

Originally Posted by Nereidalbel

They're also at a higher TL. What our first-year college students learn today would have been reserved for the most gifted of students 400 years ago, after all.

You mean Latin?

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Culture20

The irony of the setting being that the Eugenics Wars resulted in a highly successful engineered human genome, but any further specific tailoring was taboo.

Star Trek evolution is nothing like that of the real world. "Improving" society naturally leads to better, healthier, smarter, etc. people. irrespective of genetic alteration.