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Old 10-20-2018, 03:34 PM   #11
malloyd
 
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Originally Posted by evileeyore View Post
Why is that some how necessary?

I do it my way so when I do point accounting on their sheet at some later time down the road I don't end up saying "Huh, they've lost X number of points". Or if a Player accounts for themselves and forgets they spent some amount on Points for Cash during chargen they don't say "Hey GM, I forgot to write down or spend 12 points somewhere along the way!"
Why is it necessary to write down your point total?

If you don't, or don't at least track of how many points you earned, then you don't know how many points everything on your character sheet "should" add up to and hence can never do that calculation to detect that discrepancy. If you are tracking the total for some reason, you must think it matters for something, and for some of those it might matter how you compute it.

I personally don't think it's a very meaningful number, so I don't see any strong reason to prefer one scheme over another, but there are people who believe that comparing point totals is good for something, and if you think that you really do want those totals to be path independent.
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Old 10-20-2018, 03:50 PM   #12
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But maybe (probably!) there's a good argument for the "reduce character value" method that I'm not aware of.
I think this is wise because I believe that the Point Total at the top of the character sheet is just supposed to represent the current value of the character in terms of his aggregate traits both positive and negative.
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Old 10-20-2018, 04:02 PM   #13
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I haven't fully developed this scenario in my mind yet, but I believe the confusion here in general is in trying to account for character points in a similar formal way as professional accounting.

Professional accounting is based on double-entry bookkeeping using a variety of accounts in order to keep an entity's assets and equities in balance.

Even though you are juggling this bookkeeping in your head when you are assigned an starting allotment of character points and then spending them, GURPS probably doesn't require such formality for a simple character. Although there is nothing to stop you from implementing it.

However, if you want to do this balancing with character points when converting them to cash, I believe you would need a similar technique for balance when during play your character spontaneously acquires disadvantages or advantages and also when earning character points.
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Old 10-21-2018, 12:24 AM   #14
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Why is it necessary to write down your point total?
If you don't care how many points a Player has spent into their Character, why are you handing out exp at all? Just tell them to spend as they wish...
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Old 10-21-2018, 05:51 AM   #15
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If you don't care how many points a Player has spent into their Character, why are you handing out exp at all? Just tell them to spend as they wish...
Because you only care about controlling the rate of growth. Handing out a limited number of points each adventure and only tracking how many unspent points you have on hand, not the total sum, works perfectly well. For that matter you can even have a sum at the bottom of a spreadsheet and still not have an issue. In order to have the discrepancy issue you actually have to keep track of points two *separate* ways, once from adding up everything on the sheet and once independently tracking how many you started with and have handed out, so you can tell they disagree with each other.

I guess if your players keep the only copy of their character sheets and can't be trusted not to add some points you didn't award you might not think that's a distinction, but in that case nothing prevents them from adjusting both numbers however they like even if they write down two sets, right?
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Old 10-21-2018, 12:47 PM   #16
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In order to have the discrepancy issue you actually have to keep track of points two *separate* ways, once from adding up everything on the sheet and once independently tracking how many you started with and have handed out, so you can tell they disagree with each other.
Well, no. I track how many have been handed out. I also occasionally do a point audit of the sheets, mostly because I have a couple Players who can't be trusted to do math or be accurate in adding points to their sheets.
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Old 10-22-2018, 07:23 AM   #17
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The logic is pretty simple:

If you spent points and they change your character's abilities forever, you adjust your point total.

If you spent points and get something temporary – like money or gear you could spend, lose, or have stolen or confiscated not through the actions of gods or magical wishes, but by those of ordinary NPC merchants, thieves, or guardsmen – you don't adjust your point total.

It's like when you spend character points on Praying (Exploits, p. 90): Points are permanently sacrificed for temporary gain. They don't increase your point total.
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Old 10-22-2018, 07:51 AM   #18
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To clarify Kromm’s point, by the actual rules of DFRPG (and GURPS), earned character points do not increase your point total. A [250] character who earns [6] points becomes a [250] character with [6] unspent points. If they spend [5] on gaining Ambidexterity, they become a [255] character with [1] unspent point. If they use that last point for Divine Intervention, they become a [255] character with [0] unspent points.

Hence, points spent on something temporary do not add to your total. In order to be consistent with this sort of accounting at the introduction of points for cash, starting point totals have to be “reduced” compared to the campaign baseline. The character’s points aren’t actually reduced — they were never really a [250] points character, as they never spent all those points.
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Old 10-22-2018, 09:54 AM   #19
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But there's nothing in the game that cares about how many points you've spent on your character or have available right? So this is just an academic inquiry?
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Old 10-22-2018, 02:56 PM   #20
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But there's nothing in the game that cares about how many points you've spent on your character or have available right? So this is just an academic inquiry?
Exactly so.
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