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Old 07-11-2020, 12:27 AM   #1
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Favorite Character Build

I was just curious about people's favorite character build to play in GURPS? I prefer highly social characters (and I like using highly social characters as NPCs). For example:

Seducer/Seductress [250]

Arributes: ST 12 [20]; DX 12 [40]; IQ 12 [40]; HT 12 [20]

Advantages: Allure 4 [20]; Appearance (Beautiful/Handsome) [12]; Empathy [15]; Luck [15]; Independent Income 5 [5]; Indomitable [15]; Sexy Pose [1]; Status 1 [0]; Voice [10]; Wealth (Wealthy) [20]

Skills: Dancing (A) DX+4 [2]-16; Erotic Art (A) DX+4 [2]-16; Make-up (E) IQ+4 [1]; Sex Appeal (A) HT+12 [8]-24; Singing (E) HT+8 [4]-20.

With 55 CP from Disadvantages and Quirks, they build can be useful in the majority of genres. With Sex Appeal-24, they can short-circuit the brains of the vast majority of people attracted to their gender/race, which is probably the majority of members of the opposite sex. In a TL8 setting, they earn $5,000 a month with Independent Income 5, allowing them to live comfortably regardless of their real job.
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Old 07-11-2020, 07:53 AM   #2
Rupert
 
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Default Re: Favorite Character Build

Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
I was just curious about people's favorite character build to play in GURPS?
It depends on the genre. In high combat SF games I generally like to play professional soldier types, often snipers. In fantasy, some kind of flexible warrior-wizard type or educated soldier or duelist - the sort of person that can drop annoying trivia and sometimes useful facts whilst in the middle of a duel or brawl.
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Old 07-14-2020, 09:51 PM   #3
justsell
 
Join Date: Sep 2013
Default Re: Favorite Character Build

In my small group, we either play Supers or DF, but are on a fantasy kick now, so its been years since we've played Supers.

My favorite in this system is a nymph Swashbuckler. It does everything I want really well.
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Old 07-14-2020, 10:05 PM   #4
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: Favorite Character Build

I could see that working out very well, though the attention that they attract (pun intended) could be problematic.
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Old 07-15-2020, 03:46 AM   #5
coronatiger
 
Join Date: Apr 2018
Location: Trondheim, Norway
Default Re: Favorite Character Build

I currently enjoy playing finesse fighters, with high DX and relatively low ST. Valuable skills: Acrobatics, Bow, Karate, Knife and Stealth. With high DX, I often go for other athletics skills, like Climbing, Escape, Jumping, Riding and Swimming, too.

Add some flavor skills, and you're good to go. Mattea has Body Language, Dancing, Erotic Art and Sex Appeal, while Nuur-Karif has Acting, Detect Lies, Disguise, Esoteric Medicine, Fast-Talk, Holdout, Naturalist, Poisons, Religious Ritual and Theology.

When I want a change, I often choose to play a mage. I love the way GURPS lets you customize and build a unique one. Helmer was an outcast within the guild, a hermit (with guild membership) who so strongly believed that rodents generated mana that he took a penalty to spell rolls when he though no rodents were near. Consequently, he always carried a few rats, mice and squirrels around in various pockets. Krupik was a dwarven engineer, focused mainly on the Earth and Making/Breaking colleges, and of course Measurement.
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Old 07-15-2020, 04:54 AM   #6
Ultraviolet
 
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Location: Århus, Denmark
Default Re: Favorite Character Build

I've played GURPS since around 1990, first things we played was fantasy, because we came from D&D, MERP etc.

SF was the next fad, but eventually I ran into a group where we played either primarily specops/mercenary. I think I tried most shooter types: machine gunner, sniper, grenade launcher, CQB.

But what really stuck was Cliffhangers, and there I have a clear favourite: Globetrotting adventurer (explorer/archeologist/treasure Hunter), who has an excuse to go anywhere. Also, with sufficient skills and courage (or overconfidence) to climb/jump into the action. Finally, a brawny type with good ST, simple brawling and a little wrasslin' - no high kickin' styles for me.
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Old 07-15-2020, 05:20 AM   #7
Anders
 
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Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
Default Re: Favorite Character Build

I like playing good guys, generally warriors. Charitable, Compulsive Generosity, True Faith, Higher Purpose (Fight Demons/Undead) - the lot.
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Old 07-15-2020, 09:32 AM   #8
oneofmanynameless
 
Join Date: May 2012
Location: New Hampshire, USA
Default Re: Favorite Character Build

My favorite characters I've ever played have been fairly diverse sorts. It does depend on the campaign and the level of competency the campaign expects, but also the group, who I'm playing with and what sort of characters they decide to play. But here are a couple of them (from memory):

I had a Victorian mh guy who used used effect shaping Path/book magic with 5 paths, had Lore! with 36 cp in it, had a contract with a wolf spirit that effectively made him a werewolf who was in full control of his nature and could command other wolves / do a bunch of mysticism stuff, and was a pretty effective Apache inspired guerrilla warfare using a rifle, with hatchet and knife or judo as backup, parkour, stealth, observation, tactics, tracking, and wilderness survival stuff. Also had a bunch of social advantages, like wealth and status and rank, although he was also oblivious and socially inept. 635 cp character. He was a delight to play. He was basically the group commander, but they were constantly having to hold him back from talking to people.

In an urban fantasy game we've been playing for years now my favorite character was intentionally incompetent at being an adventurer. She was a talented but inconsistent artist who couldn't decide on whether she wanted to be a street photographer, a fashion designer, an artist (via drawing), or a singer/songwriter, and couldn't decide whether she was more interested in the genres of noir, old world occultism, or retro-futurism. She had the wealth and status and contacts to get into almost any of those fields, and would impulsively decide on one and then quit in favor of something else halfway through, until she got frustrated about things and ran off to southern france to drink and lounge in the sun with her friends. I designed her to have a ton of skills that would actually be useful once the game started, as the game starts with the characters waking up to magic in the world and she actually has a ton of skills that are good for ritual magic plus a ton of social skills and a couple urban survival style skills from bumming it a couple of times, and even some skills like stealth and shadowing as cinematic interpretations of street photographer techniques. It ended up working perfectly to create a unlikely hero that best suited a support position for the group but fit that position very well and was a lot of fun to RP.

I also had a seducer type character, like the one @AlexanderHowl posted in the op, only much lower powered (just about 100 cp) for an entirely RP focused game that took place at a school for superheroes. She had a secret that she grew up in a brothel. I used her skills to make drama and provoke interesting reactions from the other players (carefully and in innocent non-offensive ways), and her ultimate objective was actually just to get a boyfriend and have a happy end. Also incredibly fun, although it wouldn't have worked without a gaming group that was on board for the RP drama.

Another character I deeply loved was a very competent forensic medical examiner with degrees in mortuary sciences, internal medicine, and psychology who had developed a minor reputation within the scientific community for his work exploring scientific reasons why people might see ghosts, exploring the angle from various angles including psychological ones as well as other theories about intuition and forensics, etc. All of that before he learned about the existence of magic and that he had a talent for necromancy. Probably the most clearly intelligent character I've ever played. He somehow managed to be charming and charismatic despite his pretty creepy topics of interest, mostly through a combination of intelligence, confidence, leadership, and altruism. Loved that guy.

Finally, I had a character who was a world jumping gypsy dancer girl with story-telling/tattoo themed magic powers, from enthrallment style stuff to illusions to buffs... all typical bard stuff but with the twist that it was all tattoo themed so the illusions started as tattoos that would morph into the illusion she wanted before going off into the world (she also had a magic pen that let her draw tattoo art in the air to make an illusion at range), or enthralling people via her illusions, or giving temporary tattoos that granted powers. It was great. I wish I'd known as much about gurps then as I do now because there was a bunch of stuff I wanted to do with her tattoo powers that I couldn't figure out how to do, like amplify her allies abilities. But oh well.

Last edited by oneofmanynameless; 07-15-2020 at 09:59 AM.
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Old 07-16-2020, 05:20 AM   #9
Prince Charon
 
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Join Date: Dec 2012
Default Re: Favorite Character Build

Generally, I tend to play magic-users, psychics, and sometimes gadgeteers, and occasionally mix them up.
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Old 07-16-2020, 10:49 AM   #10
Donny Brook
 
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Default Re: Favorite Character Build

I've played in a variety of genres. My characters are diverse in terms of niche and race, but usually male. On a subtler level I guess there are some commonalities:

-an unusual or convoluted backstory,
-strong attention to gear, and often have Signature Gear,
-high effectiveness in the narrow function of their niche,
-decent effectiveness in some secondary non-niche function, and
-a gimmick of some kind.

I will often enter play with non-niche attributes slightly lower than what others might accept in order to afford the latter two items, relying on in-play bonus points to build them up.
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