Rewarding character points.

[Coinage]

Also, I was wondering if there was a way to model acquiring character points by salvaging the corpses of slain monsters. I was wondering if anyone had a good sheet or equation that would provide a good guide in rewarding character points. Roughly speaking, how many character points should be rewarded for killing a type of monsters. Should it be 1 character point rewarded per 100 character points a monster?

In Doom 2016, Doomguy (a.k.a. the Doom Slayer) is able to heal his wounds by killing demons via a "Glory Kill", a special melee action that instantly kills the enemy. I was wondering if it was possible to model this with GURPS.

[weby]

As for the first part: Mechanics to get character points should be balanced, but in the end it is up to the GM to decide on how they are awarded. GURPS does not normally reward such, but rewards of achieving goals are common.

My personal preference is play time based rewarding with bonuses for achieving story arcs.


As for second part:
As for healing after a kill, yes it is possible to model it with suitable accesibility to healing(affect self) or regeneration.

The accessibility value depends a lot on the campaign and how easy it is in effect to achieve.

In GURPS DOOM type game the accesibility would be fairy low value as demons are quite common and the low level ones are fairly easy to kill.

So as example the regeneration could be: Regeneration Very fast(-X% only for Y seconds after killing a demon), where the X depends on the campaign.

[shawnhcorey]

If you award points for killing monsters, then your players will concentrate on killing monsters. Award for what you want to happen in your games. Award for roleplaying. Award for when a player enhances another character's abilities. Award for achieving goals.

Don't award mechanically or your players will perform the mechanics and roleplaying will suffer.

[AlexanderHowl]

I would suggest a different mechanic for rewarding kills than character points. You could have glory points by awarded for difficult kills that could be used in place of character points for stuff like flesh wounds, second wind, bullet time, etc. I would suggest that they be only given for killing really difficult kills though.

For example, a glory point could be awarded in the following circumstances: killing a character built with 50% more character points during a solo fight, killing a character built with equal character points during the first turn of a solo fight, or killing two or more characters built with 25% less character points during the first turn of a solo fight. Anything less than that is not glorious, and I would not award glory points for safe kills under any circumstances (incapacitated enemies, unaware enemies, unconscious enemies, etc.). Of course, I would give them more glory points or relax the criteria if they faced more dangerous circumstances value (being outnumbered 5:1 by equal characters and still killing one enemy a turn would be worth one glory a turn despite violating the first turn criteria).

[Maz]

I award CP "per session" almost no matter what happens. sometimes I give a little bonus if it was an especially good session.


I can see the fun of a hack'n'slahs game where you get CP-per-kill - but listen to what Weby says.
If you do it though, you should not give CP based on the CP of the monster. CP isn't a measure of how deadly a monster or NPC is, and Monsters and NPC shouldn't be build on CP anyway.


Instead divide monsters into a few easy "classes" and award XP based on that.
for instance Minions, Standard, Elite and Boss.
Minions might require multiple kills to just gain one CP. Or might give none at all.

Then decide on a rough powerlevel (Ie. skill level + damage output + defense + toughness). For each category.

[evileeyore]

Since everyone else is poo-pooing the OP, I of course shall endeavor to the opposite...


If I were to decide to award exp this way I'd contemplate grabbing Pyramid - 3-77 Combat, figuring out the party's CER (Combat Effectiveness Rating) and the enemies CER and then giving exp on a ratio.

If the party is 1:1 with the enemy, 1 exp. Party is 2:1, 1/2 an exp*. Party is 1:2, 2 exp. Etc.

I'd probably then also give out exp for particularly challenging, er... challenges. Like tricky traps, difficult diplomacy, ridiculous riddles, and so on.



* I'd only give out whole exps. I'd think hard about whether or not I wanted to carry over fractions or just round up or down for the session.

[Brandon_Corey]

Take a look at Pyramid 3-72 - Alternate Dungeons. On page 36 you'll find a table rewarding people for killing things (you can restore some HP or FP, or even get permanent character points on a good roll).

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by shawnhcorey

Award for what you want to happen in your games.

QFT. Note that that means if you like the combat and monster slaying, you might well establish rewards for kills. That's not inherently bad.

My own groups generally awarded xp for story progress (learning things about the world; resolving conflicts -- which often enough but not nearly always means leaving bodies on the floor, sometimes regrettably; advancing through the plot when there is one), along with bonuses for roleplaying or particularly clever "moves" (ideas, an especially cool scene, some flash of insight that led to just the right solution). Sometimes those bonuses were proposed and voted by the players, not the GM.

Something around 5 CP per game session seems to be a common target. It's a workable limit. So if your awards come mostly from kills, look over the past few games, figure out how much killing is going on, and scale it to work out to about that number. Adjust up for down for relative power.

Unlike D&D, "levelling up" doesn't get more expensive as you gain xp, so there's not a reason for tougher, "higher level" monsters to automatically award more points. That's what the PCs are supposed to be fighting to keep getting their 5 xp. Instead, scale down the rewards for the mooks and hall trash that are no longer challenging or interesting to the characters.

[Humabout]

I dedicated a whole blog post to the Four Ws (and an H) on Gaming Rewards. To summarize a little, players will do what you reward them for doing. That makes rewards a powerful tool for the GM, since it preserves player agency but still guides players pretty strongly. So if you want them ti murder everything with an associated CP value, you're on the right track. As far as determining hat value goes, there is nothing by RAW for doing this. CP != power level, even for PCs. Monsters don't even have CP totals and, at least the ones from my collection, may have abilities that are extremely difficult to even model with CP. I won't tell you not to fully stat your monsters and use their point total to determine CP, but I will suggest you are likely going to waste a lot of time for fairly shoddy results based on how GURPS tends to work.

[Gnome]

I try to use CP to incentivize players to remember to role-play their disadvantages. PCs gain bonus CP when a disadvantage inconveniences them, or when it has the potential to do so. CP can be earned by rolling self-control rolls or by reminding the GM of GM-controlled disadvantages like Enemy, Weirdness Magnet, etc., or by giving the GM ideas for how such disadvantages should come into play.
I also give CP for mission success or progress toward adventure goals.