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Old 10-14-2016, 09:15 AM   #11
Wavefunction
 
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Default Re: Least genre most low powered GURPS game that you have run?

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Originally Posted by lachimba View Post
I've long considered an 'Ordinary f&^#ing people' campaign with 25 point PCs no powers, no magic.
This kinda makes me want to run a super gritty game where the players are basically trying to become Batman, but having to face the realities of a non comic book reality.
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Old 10-14-2016, 09:18 AM   #12
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Default Re: Least genre most low powered GURPS game that you have run?

My 62pt (starting) campaign was definitely genre, kitchen sink fantasy RPG genre!

I don't think I have ever run non genre RPG
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Old 10-14-2016, 09:28 AM   #13
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Default Re: Least genre most low powered GURPS game that you have run?

Like others, I am somewhat confused as to what 'least genre' actually means in this context. Is something that can be classified as multiple genres more or less 'genre' than something which falls squarely into one specific genre, like noir or pulp?

As for the point value, I've played in one one-shot game with 25-point characters. It was a zombie survival game. As for games I've run myself, I don't think any have been below 100 points in 3e, 150 points in 4e.

For 'low-power', 'mundane' or 'beginning adventurer' games, I actually prefer to work with players in choosing the specific traits of characters instead of just limiting point value. Point value, per se, is a terrible way to judge whether a character is appropriate as a beginning character, realistic or suitable to a given campaign. It's a lot more important to look at what the points are spent on.

It's not unrealistic, cinematic or supernatural for people to be in good shape and smart at the same time. In fact, in real life, there's a positive correlation between athletic ability, popularity, academic success and income later in life. That's probably because some things help with all of these, including genes for robust health, having plenty of good nutrition early in life and mental discipline and informed confidence.

Unless something like overcoming disabilities or being helpless in the face of adversity is the theme of the campaign, I don't especially see a reason to force players to make their characters average* or even below average. If they want their characters to be good at some field of endeavour, I don't really want the trade-off having to be the characters having to be less capable than their players at many things.

Most media with protagonists that purport to be ordinary people actually shows them being able to succeed at adventuring tasks with some regularity. That, in GURPS terms, usually means having skill 12+ in a lot of adventuring skills. Being able to tolerate or even survive the things that most protagonists in fiction routinely breeze through, no matter how 'ordinary' they are supposed to be, generally implies HT and Will of 11+ too.

*While normal people can rise to extraordinary challenges, the average response to hardship, pain, danger or stress is avoidance or panic, not heroism. In a truly dangerous, challenging life-and-death situation, most average, untrained, normal people do not contribute anything useful toward their own survival, let alone help anything else effectively. This does not mean that the average person is incapable of learning effective responses to some forms of crises, but in GURPS terms, that kind of preparation often leads to Attributes and Secondary of 11+, some Advantages and Perks and multiple skills at 12+.
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Old 10-14-2016, 09:47 AM   #14
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Default Re: Least genre most low powered GURPS game that you have run?

Well, the goal was to see our hapless Zeroes . . uhm, Heroes, get eaten by housecats or otherwise have issues appropriate to low level RPG characters

Usually we do 300pt characters who can, by leveraging their competencies, usually brute force some solution to overcoming their incompetencies

62pt characters . . . . not so much
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Old 10-14-2016, 09:51 AM   #15
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Default Re: Least genre most low powered GURPS game that you have run?

Note - even 62pt characters can clobber housecats with some armor. Armor is super powerful vs housecats and other critters which lack the power to get through it
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Old 10-14-2016, 10:01 AM   #16
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Default Re: Least genre most low powered GURPS game that you have run?

Lost in Dreams is the closest you'll get with me. Characters where 110 points and it was a world-hopping game, but that sounds higher power than it was.

Characters were built as "normal" people. 10 points were to be put in "Utterly flavor" skills. like chess, video games, three kinds of musical instruments, and profession (fire extinguisher maintenance). I explicitly forbade things that would make characters too rounded at dealing with their challenges.

Then I dropped them in a variety of worlds naked. And we very much got the "Normal Person out of their depth" feel. Not because point values were low, but because they designed ordinary people, not professional adventurers.
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Old 10-14-2016, 01:55 PM   #17
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Default Re: Least genre most low powered GURPS game that you have run?

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Originally Posted by Wavefunction View Post
This kinda makes me want to run a super gritty game where the players are basically trying to become Batman, but having to face the realities of a non comic book reality.
You could build them as on 200+ points and they would run into enormous problems being caped crusaders in an unforgivingly realistic setting. I mean I could be wrong but I think a team of an Olympic athlete, an ex-special forces operative, an eccentric millionaire and a Nobel winning scientist (for example) would find the whole vigilante thing pretty challenging.
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Old 10-14-2016, 02:17 PM   #18
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Default Re: Least genre most low powered GURPS game that you have run?

Ive used least genre in this sense to imply no magic, no powers no scifi etc

I fully understand that power level and genre are to different qualities of a campaign.


So not an ordinary people in a fantasy session. Or on the other end axis not a highpowered group in an ordinary world.


One thing I like about GURPS is an ordinary combat with 5 points in Guns and related techniques and perks or perhaps a little more in martial arts can be very interesting as opposed to other games that can make a high powered PC butchering hordes of monsters abstract and boring.

I just wondered if people have run games like that with no supernatural no gimic (we are secret agents etc) just ordinary people struggling in their lives. Perhaps having a martial arts competition at their dojo one session then a car race against some hoons in another and a shootout at their convenience store in a climactic finale.
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Old 10-14-2016, 03:05 PM   #19
sir_pudding
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Default Re: Least genre most low powered GURPS game that you have run?

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Originally Posted by Icelander View Post
Most media with protagonists that purport to be ordinary people actually shows them being able to succeed at adventuring tasks with some regularity.
I'm fairly sure that a lot (most maybe) of media with ordinary people doesn't have them even attempt adventuring tasks. Where's the adventuring tasks in a typical situation or romantic comedy or in a mainstream fiction novel?
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Old 10-14-2016, 03:40 PM   #20
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Default Re: Least genre most low powered GURPS game that you have run?

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You could build them as on 200+ points and they would run into enormous problems being caped crusaders in an unforgivingly realistic setting. I mean I could be wrong but I think a team of an Olympic athlete, an ex-special forces operative, an eccentric millionaire and a Nobel winning scientist (for example) would find the whole vigilante thing pretty challenging.
If I wanted it to be comedic (and yes, you can do comedy in a hyper realistic setting) I'd go for 25 or 50 points, and the challenge would be evading the law after their inevitable failure to defeat the villain. If I wanted it to be semi-serious I'd go 200+ points. That said it depends on the level we're talking about, to be a 'superhero' in your immediate neighborhood, just requires a tough guy with some combat experience. Being Batman requires a lot more.
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