Equal race point totals

[RyanW]

I don't have the numbers handy, but in the fantasy setting I've been cooking up, the elves are by far the highest point total of the playable races. That suits me just fine, as elf adventurers are nearly universally young and inexperienced. Elves tend to get more sedentary and contemplative as they age. These are also a semi-fallen elf race. The true high elves have all long since given up adventuring... or breeding.

[Ji ji]

An expensive race means:

- you have special powers, possibily high characteristics, barred to cheaper races (plus)
- you have much less free points for mundane stuff (minus)

So it is already balanced.

I can’t get the point of using GURPS rules to imitate the flaws of Dungeons & Dragons.

[AlexanderHowl]

I agree. Not every species of animal is equal, so why should a Pixie be equal to a Giant? The balancing factor is the points of the character, not the point value of their species, though I almost never allow negative value species (it is a negative characteristic after all, and I limit those for PCs to 50% of point value, so it becomes the only weakness for a PC).

[Extrarius]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

[...]though I almost never allow negative value species (it is a negative characteristic after all, and I limit those for PCs to 50% of point value, so it becomes the only weakness for a PC).

Depending on the kind of ads and disads the race has (presumably some that can't be selected separately from the race), it may be well worth it for a player to use much (but not all, presuming we diversity) of their "negative point budget" for a race worth < 0 points. Such a race needs to be well thought out and designed with this in mind, but so long as that is done, I don't see a reason to avoid races worth negative points.
Personally, I've never participated in a GURPS game with different races, but I would pick a few point levels like -25, 0, +25, and +50 (presuming around a +150/-50 point budget) and aim to make each race close to one of those values. If it works out that most races are around the same number, I might make a few "required lenses" that bring the few less expensive races up to th to the same cost, but I wouldn't start with goal of making them the same cost. If one race cost significantly more, such as a SM+6 Titan, I'd probably make a "young teen" version of the race for players to start as. For the SM+6 Titan, maybe they start as SM+4 and would have much less ST (but would still be immensely strong). Additionally, they would have some disads representing different kinds of impulse control problems that many youngsters have (perhaps with a few options for players to select from)

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Extrarius

Depending on the kind of ads and disads the race has (presumably some that can't be selected separately from the race), it may be well worth it for a player to use much (but not all, presuming we diversity) of their "negative point budget" for a race worth < 0 points. Such a race needs to be well thought out and designed with this in mind, but so long as that is done, I don't see a reason to avoid races worth negative points.
Personally, I've never participated in a GURPS game with different races, but I would pick a few point levels like -25, 0, +25, and +50 (presuming around a +150/-50 point budget) and aim to make each race close to one of those values. If it works out that most races are around the same number, I might make a few "required lenses" that bring the few less expensive races up to th to the same cost, but I wouldn't start with goal of making them the same cost. If one race cost significantly more, such as a SM+6 Titan, I'd probably make a "young teen" version of the race for players to start as. For the SM+6 Titan, maybe they start as SM+4 and would have much less ST (but would still be immensely strong). Additionally, they would have some disads representing different kinds of impulse control problems that many youngsters have (perhaps with a few options for players to select from)

I didn't even try for even multiples of some point value when I built my last batch of races, even though I do kind of like that sort of thing aesthetically. In this case, though, I had specific visions of what the various races were like, and my first priority was to pick things that fit.

My current campaign has two ghouls, based on -30 points; a nixie, based on -3 points; a selkie woman, based on 15 points; and a trollwife, based on 60 points. Things balance out. For example, one of the ghouls, Gansukh, has DX 14 and Trained by a Master, and has ten skills at 14 or above; in contrast, the trollwife, Sangmu, has IQ 13, Magery 0, and three skills at 14 or above—Scrounging, Survival (Mountains), and Survival (Woodlands). Things balance out.

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

humans all start with Will 18 to get to 40pts.

Originally Posted by Bengt

Being forced to spend 40 pts (or use your disad allowance to get rid of it) in Will feels like a pretty severe penalty unless the game is high points.

I tend to agree, mostly because it's too many points in one narrow area. I considered doing something similar for a Star Trek game I was working up, but my plan was to give humans a boost to their primary attributes; at 40 points I would have given them IQ 11 DX 11, which at least has the merit of being generally useful and something that most players would purchase anyways in a mid- to high-point game. At 50 points I'd probably package in HT 11, ST 11, and -0.5 to Basic Speed.

[AlexanderHowl]

Since baseline humans are the default race, they should probably have a point value of 0. Now, if you want another race to be the default race, just give them a value of 0 and base other races on their abilities. For example, if variant humans are the default race and they all have ST 12, DX 12, IQ 12, HT 12, and 30 points of advantages, then baseline humans would be a race worth -150 points.

[Phantasm]

I guess it would depend on the point value of the game, too.

In a 150 point game, a 100 point Ogre template would mean that "Ogre" would be the main concept of the character. Meanwhile in a 1500 point game, the same 100 point Ogre template is practically flavor, and you may even have an Ogre Mage at the same raw power as a a Human Mage or Pixie Mage-Knight.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Bengt

Having more points to do what you want with after picking a cheap race is one of the beauties of points buy systems IMO.

In general I do like it and usually just make the races whatever points they come out to without caring if it ends up with huge differences.

Originally Posted by scc

Giving humans however many points in luck based and other similar advantages might work, I've been wanting to re-tool DF along these lines for base-line player races.

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

I tend to agree, mostly because it's too many points in one narrow area. I considered doing something similar for a Star Trek game I was working up, but my plan was to give humans a boost to their primary attributes; at 40 points I would have given them IQ 11 DX 11, which at least has the merit of being generally useful and something that most players would purchase anyways in a mid- to high-point game. At 50 points I'd probably package in HT 11, ST 11, and -0.5 to Basic Speed.

I would have preferred Luck or Omnitalent, but the Will was nice because it was rolled maybe as often as combat defenses were.

Originally Posted by Phantasm

I guess it would depend on the point value of the game, too.

In a 150 point game, a 100 point Ogre template would mean that "Ogre" would be the main concept of the character. Meanwhile in a 1500 point game, the same 100 point Ogre template is practically flavor, and you may even have an Ogre Mage at the same raw power as a a Human Mage or Pixie Mage-Knight.

One thought I was having is "What is the average person value?". In a normal setting, 50 is a good number, but it's also possible to easily create basic people on 0 or less points. But if everyone had a race that was worth such an extreme amount, I wonder what the assumed baseline of a normal person should be.

[AlexanderHowl]

The average person of one race may be much more capable that the average person of another race. An average Yrth Troll is probably going to be a 200 point character (rounded to the nearest 25 point interval) while the average Yrth Orc is probably going to be a 0 point character (rounded to the nearest 25 point interval).