Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 04-16-2020, 09:56 PM   #1
clu2415
 
Join Date: Jun 2016
Default 600 point ISWAT Tips and Experiences

I知 planning a campaign of slumming angels, reformed demons, and pagan gods working for ISWAT. I知 fairly new to GMing GURPS. What advice do you have building characters for and running this type of campaign?
clu2415 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-17-2020, 03:12 AM   #2
Maz
 
Maz's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Denmark
Default Re: 600 point ISWAT Tips and Experiences

Quote:
Originally Posted by clu2415 View Post
I知 planning a campaign of slumming angels, reformed demons, and pagan gods working for ISWAT. I知 fairly new to GMing GURPS. What advice do you have building characters for and running this type of campaign?
600 pts is A LOT to work with in GURPS. And at the same time can feel like not nearly enough if you want to create a minor diety.

Figuring out how to build powers in GURPS so they represent what your actually after is a lot of work. It's a hole "subsystem" in itself. It can be much easier to just use the normal Magic system than try to build abilities with Powers.


First off.
Personally I would make some default templates for the characters. So a "demon has these and these stats and abilities" that's a default demon, that's what can be expected from a demon. Same for angels minor dieties and so on.

Then I would also make some benchmarks. How strong do you want them to be. How much DR do you want them to have? This is especially important if you want them to fight in a world with guns.
But the same for skills. It's easy to get skill of 30-40 with 600 pts. Do you want that?

How well-wersed are your players in GURPS powers? It's quite possible to create a world killing ability for under 100 pts if you have complete freedom to design your powers. I, as a GM, would either have the players describe what they want, and then design powers for them (to make sure they are balanced with each other) or at the veyr least co-create with the players.


Just because it's so important. You have to consider guns. In GURPS guns are freaking efficient and deadly. In urban-fantasy ficton guns are almost noneexitsent. It's usually explained by some "guns don't work well on demons/vampire/monsters"-hand wave. But you have to either outright ban guns or make sure the rules support it. Else you are quickly going to end up with a pack og supernatual beings tryig nto get the biggest guns they ca nget their hands on shooting rogue demons and fallen angels with LMG's and AK47s... and my guess is, this is not the mood you are going for.
Maz is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-17-2020, 08:03 AM   #3
NineDaysDead
Banned
 
NineDaysDead's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Default Re: 600 point ISWAT Tips and Experiences

Quote:
Originally Posted by Maz View Post
600 pts is A LOT to work with in GURPS. And at the same time can feel like not nearly enough if you want to create a minor diety.
Yes, 600 points is not that many points. All Attributes at 20 (and nothing else!) is 600 points, so Captain America is probably atleast 1,000 points


Supers uses this scale. I'm not sure I agree that 400 points is enough for individual human beings to be no threat.
Quote:
Wild Talents: 100-200 points. The heroes are normal human beings with one exotic ability or a group of related minor abilities; usually this supplements rather than replaces their normal skills. Best suited to a hidden heroes campaign (see p. 15) or one about nonadventurer metahumans (see Supers . . . but Not Super Heroes, p. 12). New heroes-in-training, who may have only one ability and no Talent, or one Talent and no manifested abilities, also work well in this power range.

Low-Power: 200-400 points. The heroes are better than any ordinary human being, and are well-suited to a street-level campaign or a game about advanced trainee heroes in a four-color setting. It can also work for a hidden or weird heroes
campaign.

Moderate-Power: 400-1,600 points. The heroes have several powers at fairly high levels; individual human beings are no threat to them, and they can perform quite impressive feats. This is suitable for a four-color campaign; in one about darker protagonists, the existence of beings at this power level may make the world a scary place.

High-Power: 1,600-6,400 points. The heroes are a significant threat to governments; dealing with them may be an important political issue. Good for a world-shakers campaign, or to weird heroes who spend most of their time dealing with alien dimensions and mysterious inhuman powers.
I'd suggest building slumming angels, reformed demons, and pagan gods racial templates to get an idea how many points you need.
NineDaysDead is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-17-2020, 08:09 AM   #4
ericthered
Hero of Democracy
 
ericthered's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
Default Re: 600 point ISWAT Tips and Experiences

I find that at point values that high, It works best to impose structure on the points, and to vary the number of points according to concept. Skills in particular can get out of hand, and strength can lag far behind. I like to give a number of points to build the "Person" (Stats minus strength, skills, disadvantages, talents, non-power advantages) and then build a set of powers that don't use nearly as strict point accounting.
__________________
Be helpful, not pedantic

Worlds Beyond Earth -- my blog

Check out the PbP forum! If you don't see a game you'd like, ask me about making one!
ericthered is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 04-17-2020, 11:24 AM   #5
Michael Thayne
 
Michael Thayne's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2010
Default Re: 600 point ISWAT Tips and Experiences

Quote:
Originally Posted by NineDaysDead View Post
Yes, 600 points is not that many points. All Attributes at 20 (and nothing else!) is 600 points, so Captain America is probably atleast 1,000 points
Assigning exact point values to specific fictional heroes is a bit of a judgement call. GURPS Supers has a transparent Captain Nationality template built with 500 points. 600 points is a lot if you are building something narrowly focused like a telepath or a mage using the standard magic system. That said, the abilities of fictional "gods", even minor ones, are usually not so narrowly focused even when they have a primary focus area like weather or whatever.

If you're really committed to only 600 points, I'd be looking at very minor deities or ones that have been de-powered because they've been "kicked out of the pantheon" or somesuch. You could take a look at GURPS Monster Hunters for inspiration預ll the inhuman templates are 200 points, which usually makes them much weaker than the corresponding NPC monster types, but this is justified by angels having been kicked out of heaven, vampires subsisting on animal blood, etc.

Aside from explicitly downpowering your gods, however, I can't see how to do a god worthy of the name on 600 points. 600 points is close to the bare minimum for a celestial in GURPS In Nomine, and that's a 3e book; a 4e version would have to use a higher point total. I'd consider bumping things up; 1000 points would probably not be too much for a credible god, angel, or demon.

Quote:
Supers uses this scale. I'm not sure I agree that 400 points is enough for individual human beings to be no threat.
It won't guarantee it葉here are lots of ways to spend points that don't make you that much more formidable in a straight fight傭ut a speedster can have DX 16 [120]; HT 12 [20]; Basic Speed +1.00 [20]; Altered Time Rate 1 [100]; Enhanced Time Sense [45]; Acrobatics (H) DX [4]-16 for only 299 points and will be pretty consistent about dodging attacks. 400 points might not be "god" level but it's a lot.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
I find that at point values that high, It works best to impose structure on the points, and to vary the number of points according to concept. Skills in particular can get out of hand, and strength can lag far behind. I like to give a number of points to build the "Person" (Stats minus strength, skills, disadvantages, talents, non-power advantages) and then build a set of powers that don't use nearly as strict point accounting.
I did something similar for a supers game I ran once. I wrote a 50-point "Information Age Hero" template that included stuff like Luck and Computer Operation that I wanted every PC to have. Then I created a set of 250-point "power packages" that represented different archetypes like "brick", "speedster", etc. Coincidentally, it was a 600 point game, same as OP is planning, so the last 300 points could either be spent on more mundane abilities or optional abilities associated with the character's "power package".

I've never done the thing of "fixed budget for mundane stuff, flexible budget for powers" but I see the appeal, given that the way GURPS prices superpowers can be wonky.
Michael Thayne is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-17-2020, 07:38 PM   #6
aesir23
 
aesir23's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Vermont
Default Re: 600 point ISWAT Tips and Experiences

Quote:
Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
I like to give a number of points to build the "Person" (Stats minus strength, skills, disadvantages, talents, non-power advantages) and then build a set of powers that don't use nearly as strict point accounting.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Thayne View Post

I did something similar for a supers game I ran once. I wrote a 50-point "Information Age Hero" template that included stuff like Luck and Computer Operation that I wanted every PC to have. Then I created a set of 250-point "power packages" that represented different archetypes like "brick", "speedster", etc. Coincidentally, it was a 600 point game, same as OP is planning, so the last 300 points could either be spent on more mundane abilities or optional abilities associated with the character's "power package".
Something I've toyed with for a future Supers campaign is letting my PCs build "ordinary joe" characters on pretty much any budget they want, having them play the first session that way, and then give them powers that ring them all to the same point total. So the 200 point FBI agent gets less in the way of super powers than the 50 point high school cheerleader.

For the OP, one thing that's CRUCIAL for high point total I-SWAT campaigns is having a good idea of the types of threats and challenges the PCs will face and communicating that to the players.
It's a situation where the players can build anything, and can face anything. And points aren't everything. You can build a truly badass giant robot for 600 points, but it's going to be pretty useless in an espionage, intrigue situation.
aesir23 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-18-2020, 08:31 AM   #7
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: 600 point ISWAT Tips and Experiences

Fallen angels, exiled demons, unacknowledged demigods, and the like are probably good at 600 CP.
AlexanderHowl is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
infinite worlds, iswat

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 10:14 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.