Challenge: Deliberately Miscost a Trait

[Hans Rancke-Madsen]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

That way, you're strongly encouraging your players to consider how the cost of some traits change after gamestart. "If I want this, I ought to grab it during character creation, because picking it up later will have a high opportunity cost."

It doesn't work out that way. Possibly because the two buy systems, points and in-game time spent, are too different to compare.

Besides, as long as players keep their min-maxing outside the gaming time, there's not really a problem unless one makes it one.

It's like there are two different worlds, with very different physics. The world of character creation, and the world of actual play (or post-gamestart).

So? "Paying for" decades worth of development in one go IS very different from "paying for" development a little bit at a time as one plays.


Hans

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Hans Rancke-Madsen

I should add that once a character is designed, points are no longer used. Advantages and disadvantages are added as the events of the campaign dictate and skill improvements depend on how difficult they are to learn. So in the Pulp campaig in Egypt mentioned above, improving Egyptology and Sinology would cost the same efforts.

This is a nice idea. I particularly like that this means it is cheaper to buy background stuff when creating your character.

[ErhnamDJ]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

But he passes judgement on a stick figure fully describable on 2 square inches of paper. If he says no, that stick figure never becomes an individual. When he says no, he's performing a character concept abortion.

I thought he was suggesting full character writeups rather than a short description. Something like an encyclopedia entry, which is then, after it is approved, turned into a GURPS sheet. I might be misunderstanding, though.

[ErhnamDJ]

Originally Posted by Hans Rancke-Madsen

So? "Paying for" decades worth of development in one go IS very different from "paying for" development a little bit at a time as one plays.

Right. You can start the game with Piano-20, but that will be incredibly difficult for your character to learn in play. That's the kind of thing that takes years and years of practice. And then you have things like Status and Wealth and Reputation, which are also difficult to acquire in play.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

. And then you have things like Status and Wealth and Reputation, which are also difficult to acquire in play.

Depending on your game of course. Reputation is one of the funnest things to give characters: "oh, you're on of the the guys who slew the dragon of greencliff" . Of course its not like they can't find massive treasure chests or marry princesses or get knighted either...

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

I thought he was suggesting full character writeups rather than a short description. Something like an encyclopedia entry, which is then, after it is approved, turned into a GURPS sheet. I might be misunderstanding, though.

It's difficult to talk about the game mechanical details of a character in a "writeup", yet those game mechanical details can serve to add a lot of flavourful individuality to the character.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

Right. You can start the game with Piano-20, but that will be incredibly difficult for your character to learn in play. That's the kind of thing that takes years and years of practice. And then you have things like Status and Wealth and Reputation, which are also difficult to acquire in play.

But if you want your character to be a versatile weapon user, you have to buy all the weapon skills prior to gamestart, because if you just buy your main weapon skill during character creation, it'll take forever to learn all the other secondary weapon skills in-play.

In order to succeed at that kind of game, the player has to wrap his head around some pretty odd notions, and I don't like that at all.

Edit: Also, Reputations should be very easy to acquire in play, for characters built in generous point budgets. By virtue of being high-competence, they can do amazing things, and realistically, the surrounding world ought to notice that. (Ideally, some of that noticing should happen prior to game-start, and that's exactly why I have the Auto-Fame rule in Sagatafl - your character automatically starts somewhat famous if he has high Attributes or very high Skills.)

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

But if you want your character to be a versatile weapon user, you have to buy all the weapon skills prior to gamestart, because if you just buy your main weapon skill during character creation, it'll take forever to learn all the other secondary weapon skills in-play.

Unless the GM feels that having a lot of weapon skills already translates into being quicker to learn new ones.

The time needed to learn a skill in my campaign depends on my estimate of what is realistic and/or what is genre appropriate.

[ErhnamDJ]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

It's difficult to talk about the game mechanical details of a character in a "writeup", yet those game mechanical details can serve to add a lot of flavourful individuality to the character.

This is one place where I think GURPS is slightly deficient. I would like to see some benchmarks for what the various skill levels represent. That is something I would expect to see from the GM before attempting such an endeavor.

Edit: Also, Reputations should be very easy to acquire in play, for characters built in generous point budgets. By virtue of being high-competence, they can do amazing things, and realistically, the surrounding world ought to notice that. (Ideally, some of that noticing should happen prior to game-start, and that's exactly why I have the Auto-Fame rule in Sagatafl - your character automatically starts somewhat famous if he has high Attributes or very high Skills.)

I am not familiar with your Sagatafl rules, but I do not like the sound of auto-fame. It is not realistic and it goes against characterization.

I also don't think Reputations should necessarily be easy to acquire. If you want a positive Reputation amongst all the noble houses of three warring kingdoms, it is not readily apparent how a character in the game world could acquire such a Reputation.

[JCurwen3]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

I am not familiar with your Sagatafl rules, but I do not like the sound of auto-fame.

I'm not sure about the details, but if it's automatic, I'd hope you could say "no" to it if you didn't want the fame, for no other reason than keeping a low profile. Or else I wouldn't like the sound of it either. People who keep their greatness to themselves isn't uncommon.