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Old 03-23-2018, 12:03 PM   #11
mlangsdorf
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Austin, TX
Default Re: Adventurer Characters, SEALS and Sykes

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Originally Posted by tanksoldier View Post
I don’t know. Would he?

If your player presented Lord Droopy as his character, but said “ Droopy is going to stay home for this adventure but sends Sir Cutsalot, his bodyguard, in his place...”

There’s also the aspect of being able to send Sir Cutsalot on this adventure, Maester Magicman on the next, and Brother Humblepie on the one after that...
My current game has each player with 2 characters, and they can play 1 character on any given adventure thread. It lets them tailor the team to different expected challenges and handle more different challenges at the same time, like when the cavalry general and the high priestess pursued a defeated foe while the ogre priest and nymph ambassador went into the swamps to recruit some lizardmen allies.

It's not quite 1 PC with 4 allies who adventure instead of the PC, but its similar.
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Old 03-23-2018, 04:24 PM   #12
VonKatzen
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Default Re: Adventurer Characters, SEALS and Sykes

Something I like to do in D&D games is 'domain games', which are pretty much all about having money, status, rank, contacts and allies. Doing so in GURPS is ridiculously easy for a 150-200pt character, where in D&D it tends to be the province of high level characters.
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Old 03-23-2018, 04:31 PM   #13
Anthony
 
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Default Re: Adventurer Characters, SEALS and Sykes

There's a tendency to inflate the skills of real world people because of a desire to make them appear competent relative to typical PC skill levels, as opposed to competent relative to average person skill levels.
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Old 03-23-2018, 04:41 PM   #14
VonKatzen
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Default Re: Adventurer Characters, SEALS and Sykes

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There's a tendency to inflate the skills of real world people because of a desire to make them appear competent relative to typical PC skill levels, as opposed to competent relative to average person skill levels.
That's also true. I remember the 3e Who's Who that gave Aristotle an IQ 18. My ass. Nobody has an IQ 18 and until super genetic engineering and mechanical psychomods show up in TL10, nobody ever will. GURPS in general is far too generous with what are believable, human-level attributes. I think 15 is already pushing it.

Likewise for the Great Generals with their 18-21 Strategy. This ignores factors like luck, particular weaknesses of the enemy that were vulnerable to exploitation, etc. Alexander faced a collapsing Persian empire with backward technology, Napoleon faced an imploding Holy Roman Empire, Caesar faced a bunch of barbarians and strife-riven armies torn apart by civil war. These guys may have been good generals and field commanders, but there's no reason to make them ubermensch.

A lot of the GURPS limits are appropriate for fantasy and television, but not realistic human beings, even world-renowned experts and specialists.

The SEALS are a good example of this, too. The example characters have multiple 15s in their various combat skills. But IRL SEALS sometimes got their butts handed to them by peasants with AKs - their skill levels weren't actually that much higher than the opposition, though their overall spread of skills and access to/experience with high tech stuff certainly gave them an edge. There's a tendency in a lot of RPGs to make special ops soldiers into death machines, when they're very often just somewhat better and generally more reliable/mentally tough than your average combat grunt. Lots of killer commando hardasses IRL will get wasted by being slightly outnumbered without an escape route, though acting as a group, with surprise, they are incredibly lethal and can take zero casualties in operations.

It's much more a matter of planning and getting the right advantages for the operation rather than being 'outright superior'. Part of this I suspect is because many players do jack-all recon, research or planning and super-attributes are required to keep them from being killed by their own stupidity and laziness (as real special ops often are when Intel drops the ball). In real life a whole lot of effort and time is soaked up in investigation and planning, which most players just refuse to bother with. In all the games I have played in or run only about 10% of them actually involve the characters even explaining their abilities to other party members, much less finding out what's in a fortress before they blithely march in. Being able to know what you can count on your squad members to do is a huge part of real world operational success that gets chucked out the window for brevity/speed of play by both GMs and players.

This is a major reason I favor 'realistic' gameplay, it forces players to use their brains instead of their dice.

Last edited by VonKatzen; 03-23-2018 at 04:56 PM.
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Old 03-23-2018, 09:14 PM   #15
tanksoldier
 
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Default Re: Adventurer Characters, SEALS and Sykes

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If Lord Social Skills is personally a lot less awesome than the other PCs, but has a lot of Allies, that doesn't cost all that much in terms of character points, because, really, the Allies have the spotlight, not the player.
I don't know. I've been playing around with GCA and some of the social advantages. A 250 pt character who is Wealthy, Status 3, has 6 75% allies available on a <12 and has Claim to Hospitality 5 (vast network) can still have a reasonable social skill set AND self defense capability.

I think that would be a pretty powerful PC.

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adding NPCs that have a reasonable, logical reason to have an interest in the outcome really ought to be free as well.
...but these NPCs don't have an interest in the venture's outcome. They have an interest in the Droopy's welfare... not the same thing. Lord Droopy's 6x 187.5 pt armsmen are going to be significantly capable characters in their own right, and owe a lot to to Lord Droopy... and owe little or nothing to the other PCs.

Last edited by tanksoldier; 03-23-2018 at 09:30 PM.
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Old 03-24-2018, 12:35 AM   #16
VonKatzen
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Default Re: Adventurer Characters, SEALS and Sykes

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Originally Posted by tanksoldier View Post
I don't know. I've been playing around with GCA and some of the social advantages. A 250 pt character who is Wealthy, Status 3, has 6 75% allies available on a <12 and has Claim to Hospitality 5 (vast network) can still have a reasonable social skill set AND self defense capability.

I think that would be a pretty powerful PC.
As a player I very much like playing the warlord/cult leader type. Because it's how anyone trying to accomplish large scale change would act, regardless of their actual motives. GURPS realistically reflects how useful tons of allies, contacts, wealth and skills like Administration, Teaching, Strategy and Tactics are - but prices them very cheaply.

By putting points into being able to convince, lead, and train men I can make myself vastly more effective without handicapping myself very much. There are very few circumstances where having more people and the money to support them wouldn't make sense, even if you intend to go there yourself. After all, Caesar sometimes fought in battle - but he wouldn't have gotten very far in Gaul without a legion.

I know a lot of players don't do this - a lot of players don't do research or plan, as I said above - but I very much like to do recon, research, planning and gathering henchmen. These abilities feed into each other, just like flight and super-strength, to make a very effective character. Unlike flight and super-strength they don't cost very much.
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