Gritty Low Tech Urban Fantasy Campaign Recommendations.

[Pmandrekar]

If you are a member of the Madison, WI area Thogwar Gaming group, please avoid reading this thread!

I'm looking to run a campaign where my players start out as low level rogue types (Think Teenagers in the streets of a low tech city). They're a small group of criminal gangs who are going to climb their way through the streets of a large medieval city.

What point values would you run this game at? 150 pts, -75 pts just seems to be a bit overpowered.

I'm going to allow them to have some advantages that protect the characters (One level of Luck). I'm running this in 4th Edition GURPS, but not using the Dungeon Fantasy rules. (Again. Not looking to make this too cinematic for the action).

The PC's are likely to start out with no armor, daggers, or clubs to start with.

Recommendations? Has anyone run something like this? I have, but it was in 3rd Ed (and about 15 years ago now).

Best,

-P.

[whswhs]

When I ran my Worminghall campaign, the 14-year-old PCs were built on a base 75 points with up to 37 points in negative traits. I had worked this out to let them buy Magery 0, Legal Immunity 1 (as clergy), and typically IQ 11 and a little Wealth and Status, counterbalanced by Social Stigma (Minor); it left them room to have acceptable stats and a few skills, so that they could survive adventures, though not adventures of dungeon crawl lethality.

My feeling is that 50 points represents an average talented teenage adventurer; 75 points works if they have something extra like magic; 100 points should be reserved for destined heroes. And that's particularly the case for the kind of campaign you describe, which sounds pretty streetlevel. But build two or three sample characters and see if they can be skilled enough so they won't be caught stealing and punished harshly.

[tanksoldier]

Recommendations

Read the Thieves' World novels.

ETA: Your thieves' socioeconomic counterpart, the squire, at age 15 would have been training at war for several years by this point and would be expected to take his due place on the battlefield. A 15 year old squire is probably a 150 point character.

[Dustin]

125 and -25 sounds like it might be a good fit. -75 is a *lot* of disadvantages to keep track of - you're getting into Alcoholic Albino Berserker territory if anyone takes all -75.

[scc]

Originally Posted by Dustin

125 and -25 sounds like it might be a good fit. -75 is a *lot* of disadvantages to keep track of - you're getting into Alcoholic Albino Berserker territory if anyone takes all -75.

I feel there's a story here.

[Pmandrekar]

Originally Posted by tanksoldier

Read the Thieves' World novels.

ETA: Your thieves' socioeconomic counterpart, the squire, at age 15 would have been training at war for several years by this point and would be expected to take his due place on the battlefield. A 15 year old squire is probably a 150 point character.

I've read the Thieves' World Novels. Thanks. As to the Socioeconomic counterpart, true, but that same squire would have access to all sorts of training options that my "You all met at the orphanage" heroes wouldn't. So, I'm not looking at 150 point characters.

Best,

-P

[Pmandrekar]

Originally Posted by whswhs

When I ran my Worminghall campaign, the 14-year-old PCs were built on a base 75 points with up to 37 points in negative traits. I had worked this out to let them buy Magery 0, Legal Immunity 1 (as clergy), and typically IQ 11 and a little Wealth and Status, counterbalanced by Social Stigma (Minor); it left them room to have acceptable stats and a few skills, so that they could survive adventures, though not adventures of dungeon crawl lethality.

My feeling is that 50 points represents an average talented teenage adventurer; 75 points works if they have something extra like magic; 100 points should be reserved for destined heroes. And that's particularly the case for the kind of campaign you describe, which sounds pretty streetlevel. But build two or three sample characters and see if they can be skilled enough so they won't be caught stealing and punished harshly.

Thank you Bill. That's very helpful.

-Paraj

[hal]

How long term do you hope the campaign will last, and as GM, what are your end game goals? Do you plan on "down time" and if so, how many character points can they expect to use during the down time (if any)?

If you expect to game weekly, at a rough average of say, 3 points per session, after 10 weeks, the character will be worth about 105 points excluding any in game disadvantages or social advantages gained through role playing.

As a suggestion? Build some npcs using the same limits as you want to impose upon the players and see if you would want to play them as characters for yourself. If the answer is yes, then offer them up as potential pregenerated characters. If no, then try directed additional character point packages you feel are essential for their characters - right down to extra contacts and allies of necessary.

If you want to have fun with the pregens? Give everyone a pool of extra points, allowing them to bid on those pregens they wish to use. The more they bid, the less that remains to customize the pregenerated characters. This way, you give them all niche roles within the game.

Just a thought

[Kelly Pedersen]

Another alternative, besides reducing the point totals, is to establish some firm guidelines on point expenditure - that is, specify that [X] points can only be spent on certain appropriate traits, while others are more flexible. For example, with "gritty, street-level teenagers" being the goal, you could give everyone 150 points, but specify that 75 points could be spent on anything, 50 points could only be spent on social advantages that a street kid could plausibly have (Contacts, Allies, Patrons, maybe a level of Rank in local organized crime), and the remaining 25 could be spent on "how have you survived this long" traits, including increased HT, Resistance to Disease, and meta-advantages like Luck or Serendipity.

I'd also suggest making whatever disadvantages you feel constitute "teenager" (reduced attributes, Social Stigma (Minor), possibly reduced Status) not count against the campaign disadvantage limit. That will let everyone fit into the basic campaign frame, and still have enough disadvantage options available to make them feel distinct from one another.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

Another alternative, besides reducing the point totals, is to establish some firm guidelines on point expenditure - that is, specify that [X] points can only be spent on certain appropriate traits, while others are more flexible. For example, with "gritty, street-level teenagers" being the goal, you could give everyone 150 points, but specify that 75 points could be spent on anything, 50 points could only be spent on social advantages that a street kid could plausibly have (Contacts, Allies, Patrons, maybe a level of Rank in local organized crime), and the remaining 25 could be spent on "how have you survived this long" traits, including increased HT, Resistance to Disease, and meta-advantages like Luck or Serendipity.

I'd also suggest making whatever disadvantages you feel constitute "teenager" (reduced attributes, Social Stigma (Minor), possibly reduced Status) not count against the campaign disadvantage limit. That will let everyone fit into the basic campaign frame, and still have enough disadvantage options available to make them feel distinct from one another.

I think that may not be necessary. When I ran the Worminghall campaign, with only 37 points for negative traits, I required Social Stigma (Minor) for everyone, but that was only -5 points, though I strongly recommended ST -1 for -10 points, as these were teenage boys.. The remaining -32 or -22 points proved move than enough for distinct characterization:

(Adda) Acrophobia (12) -10, Sense of Duty (Kin) -5, Social Stigma (Second-Class Citizen: Welsh) -5, Distinctive Appearance (Chubby, Redheaded) -2

(Alex) Bloodlust (12) -10, Curious (12) -5, Secret (Utter Rejection: Raised by Dragons) -10, Sense of Duty (Foster Kin) -5, Habit (Swears in Draconic) -1, Proud -1

(Matthew) Compulsive Generosity (9) -7, Delusion (The chivalric code applies to me) -5, Social Stigma (Second-Class Citizen: Illegitimate) -5, Truthfulness (12) -5

(Nicholas) Code of Honor (Gentleman) -10, Curious (12) -5, Overconfidence (15) -2, Skinny -5

(Rhys) Impulsiveness (12) -5, Odious Personal Habit (Hyperactive, -1) -5, Sleepwalker (12) -5, Social Stigma (Second-Class Citizen: Welsh) -5, Distinctive Appearance (Pale Eyes) -1, Likes Dragons -1

You can see that there was room enough to give each of them a couple of significant disads, and that most of them had a couple of quirks to round things out. That made for good characterization without turning them into piles of neuroses or vices. And even at that level it was making them somewhat extreme characters; behavioral disads ARE extreme. You could get enough for characterization just with quirks.

Certainly if you're going for 150-point characters, which by common convention allows 75 points in disads! I think that may be seriously over the top for teenage boys. Admittedly, if Paraj goes for the low end, 50 points, you could have -5 points for Social Stigma (Minor), -5 points for Code of Honor (Stooled to the Rogue), -10 points for Enemy (Police) or Secret (Utter Rejection), and -10 points for -1 ST; but with 100-point characters, there would be 20 or 30 points for freely chosen negative traits, which is easily enough. (Or as a compromise, you could have the negative ST not count toward a disad limit, since they'll eventually lose it through simple maturation.)