New to Gurps: Lots of questions!

[umbraldragon]

Where do you start? I'm a bit overwhelmed even after reading the quick start and browsing through the basic set characters book. So I have some assumptions already:
I have to create my own campaign world. I would use 150 points to build characters.

The Genre would be Dark Fantasy, Sword and Sorcery with a Sandbox type setting using a gritty style. I would like to include humans, elves, dwarves, halflings as character races. I also would like to include some basic tropes like warrior, wizard, thief and their sub classes (more or less).

I had a friend tell me he wanted to play a thief/assassin/agent that could use limited "shadow magic" to move without being detected. I really just started figuring out the system yesterday literally and I said, "I don't know, but I'll find out and get back to you on that."

So what I'm really asking here is there a step process you use to set up a campaign world, characters and their powers?

Lastly, I really want to get into this system and use it. I like it a whole bunch and I am glad I got it for Christmas! (4th edition Basic Set characters, and campaigns)

Thanks in advance for any suggestions or tips you have to make this easier!

[Apollonian]

Originally Posted by umbraldragon

Where do you start? I'm a bit overwhelmed even after reading the quick start and browsing through the basic set characters book. So I have some assumptions already:
I have to create my own campaign world. I would use 150 points to build characters.

The Genre would be Dark Fantasy, Sword and Sorcery with a Sandbox type setting using a gritty style. I would like to include humans, elves, dwarves, halflings as character races. I also would like to include some basic tropes like warrior, wizard, thief and their sub classes (more or less).

I had a friend tell me he wanted to play a thief/assassin/agent that could use limited "shadow magic" to move without being detected. I really just started figuring out the system yesterday literally and I said, "I don't know, but I'll find out and get back to you on that."

So what I'm really asking here is there a step process you use to set up a campaign world, characters and their powers?

Lastly, I really want to get into this system and use it. I like it a whole bunch and I am glad I got it for Christmas! (4th edition Basic Set characters, and campaigns)

Thanks in advance for any suggestions or tips you have to make this easier!

Step one: get How to Be A GURPS GM. It will help enormously.

Step two: The GURPS Dungeon Fantasy line will help by providing you immediately with racial and professional (i.e., warrior, wizard, etc.) templates ready to play. They start at 250 points, but you could use Dungeon Fantasy 15: Henchmen for 125-point templates. The line also has plenty of monsters. If you want, you can pick up the Dungeon Fantasy RPG instead, but you said you already have the Basic Set for GURPS.

Step three: If you want to really delve into building powers - like, say, a limited shadow magic system based on being stealthy - pick up GURPS Powers.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by umbraldragon

I had a friend tell me he wanted to play a thief/assassin/agent that could use limited "shadow magic" to move without being detected. I really just started figuring out the system yesterday literally and I said, "I don't know, but I'll find out and get back to you on that."

Step One: Find out exactly what sorts of Powers he wants. What he wants right now, and what he wants to build up to. This makes your job so much easier.

Step Two: Build what he wants right now, leave the other Powers for later. Also, let him know you might have to modify the Powers he has now if they aren't doing what both you and he want.

Step Three: Profit(?).

[khorboth]

Welcome to GURPS!

If you have the budget for more books, I'd recommend getting Fantasy before Dungeon Fantasy. It sounds like you are interested in putting your world into play and Fantasy has lots of good ways to do that. I also highly recommend Gurps Character Assistant. It is a little clunky and a little unstable, but does a great job of simplifying character creation & maintenance.

More helpful things:

A decision you need to make fairly soon is what kind of magic you want to use. The magic system in Characters is totally playable. It's expanded in Magic. There are lots of alternatives in Thaumitology. Or you can use advantages to mimic magic effects and charge fatigue for them. Or you can have most magic users use the standard spell system while odd powers such as your shadow magic guy has powers which require fatigue to operate.

As to where to start... Like with any new system, start small. Run a few one-shots. Play with it. Things will blow up in your face and you can come back here to ask what went wrong.

The biggest thing with GURPS is to remember that it's a big toolbox and it's up to the players and GM to limit what does and doesn't fit into the game.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Step One: Find out exactly what sorts of Powers he wants. What he wants right now, and what he wants to build up to. This makes your job so much easier.

Step Two: Build what he wants right now, leave the other Powers for later. Also, let him know you might have to modify the Powers he has now if they aren't doing what both you and he want.

Step Three: Profit(?).

So true. The theme is fine, but the details are what mattered. Gurps can do what you want, but it won't fill in the details for you. So Imagine your world: what does the magic look like? what powers it? how specialized are mages?

Choosing your "magic" is important. You can use the core magic system, or you can use "Powers", which is mostly just the advantages section of the characters book doing cool things. Or there are a half dozen other magic systems.

[Apollonian]

Some further thoughts: Have a campaign-and-character-creation session with your players. Get together over pizza or whatever and decide what kind of campaign you guys want to play, and who wants to play what. Start small and get bigger, like with evileeyore's example of building powers. If your group wants to do dungeons, you know to start putting together a dungeon for the first session; if they'd rather do Fafhrd and Grey Mouser shenanigans in a gritty fantasy city, you can start planning out the thieves' guild, the night watch, and the grimy slums adjoining the Wizard's Palace that needs to be burgled; and so on.

Bring character templates. Two reasons: This helps set expectations ("I as the GM think that fighters can do THIS, and wizards can do THAT, and elves are this nimble while dwarves are this tough") and gives the players guidance ("I want to play a sword-and-board fighter, so I'll take the Knight template with these options..." "I want to be a thief with shadow magic, so I'll go with the Thief template, but I want to downgrade some skills so I can afford to buy the shadow magic.") And, of course, it speeds up character creation.

Naturally, this means you need to build the templates ahead of time. You're going to find that a lot of the work running GURPS comes before play, but it pays off in play; once you get going, things are pretty smooth. That said, for your first session of actual play I recommend keeping it simple and not expecting to get a lot of play actually finished, especially if you're going to throw in a couple combats.

I recommend Dungeon Fantasy instead of Fantasy because DF is ready to go; you can just drop it on the table, build characters, and start playing. Fantasy is more toolkit, and you'll have to make more GM choices before you start play - though it is very helpful if you're building your setting from the ground up. (Of course, you can just get both if it's in your budget.)

Speaking of combats, they tend to be surprisingly lethal. This might be what you want if you're going for gritty, but bearing in mind that GURPS character creation can take a while... you might want to softball it for a little while so everyone gets used to the system. Maybe have a few henchmen NPCs die horribly to warn the players.

[trechriron]

I would start with 250 points, and limit Disads to 50 points. This creates well-rounded characters that are fun to play. For whatever reason, our experiences with 4e have shown lower point characters need to be SUPER focused and feel somewhat less consistent (in our opinion...). GURPS has a breadth of skills, and it makes sense to have some "hobby" or background skills that support your "main" skill choices. If you want a less supernatural game, consider limiting WHAT characters can put points into vs having a lower point total.

I never allow 50% of starting points as disads. It creates a mess when trying to design a campaign around that many issues. It's also way off base compared to most RPGs (who can barely be bothered to include disads, to begin with). I have had the best luck with 50 points. I generally allow everyone to take a "monster of the week" or "mafia ninjas that hate you" generic enemy which also makes session planning easier...

Don't create a list of everything you will allow for the game. It's too big. Go through and pick out the stuff you DO NOT want and then share that list. If you don't have the chops yet to create templates, I would (at a minimum) come up with some generic "role" write-ups to steer character creation.

Don't start with every combat option. Just start with the basics and add things in you want as you go along. The game plays just as good with dials turned on as you go.

Don't worry about someone "breaking" the game with a character build. Just state up front that if you feel something has ruined "the power curve" of the game you want to run, you reserve the right to discuss with the offending player and come up with a solution. GURPS is not a binding legal agreement based on the holy words of the author. It's a toolkit RPG optimized for tinkering/tuning so participants can play the kind of game they want. Don't let anyone bully you with all the options into playing a game you don't want to play!

Also, something I do with any new game I'm learning; consider putting together a one/two shot with GURPS lite and kick the tires on it with something simple (save some children from the kobolds, rescue the farmer's prized pig from his rivals...). Then you can tune up things to better fit your style for the "real" game.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by umbraldragon

I had a friend tell me he wanted to play a thief/assassin/agent that could use limited "shadow magic" to move without being detected. I really just started figuring out the system yesterday literally and I said, "I don't know, but I'll find out and get back to you on that."

Thanks in advance for any suggestions or tips you have to make this easier!

This one isn't very hard even with only what you've got.

This character concept isn't very hard at all. Start with Dex 12 and IQ 12 then go higher if you have the points. ST and HT aren't as important but 11s in both of those are pretty useful. That's already 100 pts so we're going to have to keep the rest of this simple too.

Buy appropriate looking Skills like Stealth trying for at least level 12 in those. Maybe 20 pts worth.

To cast spell you usually need Magery. Level 1 is 15 pts and produces a basic mage. Then go to p.149 of Characters and look at Light and Darkness Spells. You want Darkness and Blur but to get those Spells you have to learn Light and Continual Light first. that's 4 Spells for 4 pts at IQ+Magery (13) at level 11
That's 139 pts.
.
Level 12 is good here too. Your options are 20 pts for another pt of IQ and that's quite useful or 10 pts for another level of Magery or 2 pts in each spell. Try the Magery and you're at 149 pts so you'll probablyneed some Disadvantages for more pts.

The Magery 2 lets you go a few more pages into Characters and the Movement College. From there take Apportation and Lockmaster for another 2 pts. now you can move objects without touching them and magically open locks.

That is 151 pts so you definitely need those Disads. You can get 25pts easily without hurting the character very badly. Taking too many Disads is a common rookie mistake. Then add 5pts of Quirks.

Now you can take 29 more pts of Skills, Advantages and/or Spells to round out the character.

[A Ladder]

Originally Posted by umbraldragon

Where do you start? I'm a bit overwhelmed even after reading the quick start and browsing through the basic set characters book. So I have some assumptions already:
I have to create my own campaign world. I would use 150 points to build characters.

The Genre would be Dark Fantasy, Sword and Sorcery with a Sandbox type setting using a gritty style. I would like to include humans, elves, dwarves, halflings as character races. I also would like to include some basic tropes like warrior, wizard, thief and their sub classes (more or less).

I had a friend tell me he wanted to play a thief/assassin/agent that could use limited "shadow magic" to move without being detected. I really just started figuring out the system yesterday literally and I said, "I don't know, but I'll find out and get back to you on that."

So what I'm really asking here is there a step process you use to set up a campaign world, characters and their powers?

Lastly, I really want to get into this system and use it. I like it a whole bunch and I am glad I got it for Christmas! (4th edition Basic Set characters, and campaigns)

Thanks in advance for any suggestions or tips you have to make this easier!

I typically sit down with each player and ask them a bunch of questions to figure out what attribute levels they want, which skills they want to be good at, and any special abilities they want (to be built with advantages).

How many disadvantages are you allowing? I suggest no more than -50.
Assuming a max limit of -50 this would give us 200 points worth of abilities to buy.

So, thief/assassin/agent that uses "shadow magic".

First, how do you want magic to be in your game? Use advantages? Use the basic magic system?
Second, how does your player see his shadow magic as? It could be easily as making it as Invisibility ( Can Carry Objects, No Encumbrance +10%; Magical -10%; Costs Fatigue, 1 FP per minute -5%). This allows him to vanish from sight and make a small amount of items he's wearing invisible as well but can be countered by "anti magic" stuff and he must pay 1 FP per use.

How intelligent, perceptive, agile, strong, tough, etc. does your player see his character? Based on his answers you just fill out his ST, DX, IQ, HT, HP, Will, Per, FP. I suggest giving about half of the point budget to attributes and secondary characteristics.

Let's say, he wants to be a smart/tough assassin, versus an agile one. We could give him ST 10, DX 11, IQ 13, HT 11 and think about making something higher if there is more points left over.

Then I would ask him what skills he wants. Take a look at the skill list starting on page 301 to get an easy look at what options to use. Maybe he uses his intelligent assassin to impersonate people, sneak into locations, and poisons his targets. I would suggest options from the following:
Acting, Area Knowledge, Blowpipe, Camouflage, Carousing, Disguise, Fast Draw (poisons), Fast Talk, Forgery, Heraldry, Holdout, Interrogation, Lockpicking, Naturalist, Observation, Poisons, Research, Savior-Faire (Nobility, Servant), Search, Shadowing, Shortsword, Sleight of Hand, Stealth, Streetwise, Tracking, and Traps.
This gives an array of skills so that he can find out information on his targets, impersonate servants or visiting nobles to get inside locations and bring contraband (read: poison) with him and deliver it undetected. He also has a weapon skill in case he gets caught and needs to stab someone quickly. Have your player spend the most points on skills he sees critical, just enough to get up to attribute level on basic skills, and only 1 point on what he thinks are back up skills.

Then with whatever leftover points you have take a look at any other things he wants. More shadow magic, like seeing in the dark? or how about some smuggling contacts to make sure he can get poisons and good disguises? How about a face that makes people trust him? Some charismatic aspect? Add those to some more Advantages, such as Night Vision 5 and Honest Face.

Now go through the disadvantages. What aspects of the character is limiting on how he can act? What are things that make play harder for your player to play his character? Is the assassin obsessed with revenge? paranoid about being poisoned himself? Does he do this out of obligation to thieve's guild that will kill his family if he doesn't do their bidding? Maybe he's callous and poor. Go poke around the disadvantage section till you get enough points to offset what you bought about to get to 150 (in my example, -50 worth).

Go through equipment based on the TL and starting wealth and BAM! you're done.

[johndallman]

There's a lot of good advice above. One thing that's often helpful for a new group is having a trial play session, to try out the combat system and get used to the characters' capabilities without having plot depending on them.

For example, that thief/assassin character probably ought to avoid fights with town watchmen in armour, because even if they're on a lot less points than him, armour will limit the damage he can do to them, and being outnumbered is deadly. But the player will understand that a lot better if he's been through a trial fight against them and seen what happens.