Connecting point total to what you can buy with it.

[Malfi]

Yes I am envisioning a campaign a everyone is supposed to have access to powers. So at 1000 points maybe not everyone is actually psionic with a power talent of 8, but one might be a wizard with magery 8 and another a brawler with super strength.

In 1000 point superhero game I am not sure Hawkeye, Batgirl and Catwoman should be that different. I mean they are all supernormals and since they have no supernatural powers they will propably spent a lot of points in their physicals, because dex, iq and ht are awesome.
On the other hand if you have mr fantastic, invisible girl and the thing you will certainly end up with different characters. In such a game I don't see a reason to put that kind of unusual background. Thinking about even your unusual background will stop the players from having 20's in their stats but from having 15's.
Also I find interesting that you could accomplish the same goal without charging unusual background but making the maximum of attribute(s) 25 or 30 as the Supers book suggest. I guess it depends on how over the top you want your supernormals to be.

All that said in my suggestion if you want people to not max all their attributes you could also have a max for total points spent in attributes.

[Black Leviathan]

95% of our games are below 200pts. At 100-125pts characters require very little oversight or restriction. When you have enough points to chew gum and walk at the same time and another few hundred points to spare you can do some very unbalanced things in GURPS. It's not that GURPS becomes broken t higher point levels but it requires more oversight.

[Malfi]

I guess the official solution to high point games is that the players are very precise and specific about what their character can do and THEN they work with the dm to build on that vision with all the tools GURPS gives you. If you do this the game ends up being much more balanced. If you just build the character using the tools GURPS gives you to create the best possible combinations then yes problems arise.

That said my approach does inject a more objective framework that I think fits certain kind of games and genres, so I could see it as a way to lessen the oversight needed.
As an aside you could have different parameters depending on how the Gm sees the game progressing. One could allow power talent 10 at 1000 points and another increase its limit to 5 from 4 at 1000 points.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Malfi

I guess the official solution to high point games is that the players are very precise and specific about what their character can do and THEN they work with the dm to build on that vision with all the tools GURPS gives you. If you do this the game ends up being much more balanced. If you just build the character using the tools GURPS gives you to create the best possible combinations then yes problems arise.

That said my approach does inject a more objective framework that I think fits certain kind of games and genres, so I could see it as a way to lessen the oversight needed.

What you say is partially right for my campaigns, but only partially. I did considerable oversight in a 75-point campaign about 14-year-old magically talented boys enrolling in a medieval university with a Faculty of Magic; being an active GM who works with players on appropriate character creation is part of my approach at any point value, from 50 to 1500.

[Kromm]

I think that in campaigns where the GM says, "Here are the ground rules. Go make characters!", it becomes important to set caps and limits. I'm still not sure those have much to do with power level. The GM might have good reasons for saying, "You have 500 points, but can't spend more than 120 points on basic attributes, or have any attribute above 15 . . . or spend less than 250 points on powers." Or for saying, "You have 200 points, but 150 of them must be spent on a basic-training template that sets attribute minima of ST 11 [10], DX 13 [60], IQ 13 [60], HT 11 [10], and pays for most of its advantages and skills with points from mandatory Duty, Enemy, and Secret." I could see the first suiting an "ordinary Joes suddenly get super-powers" campaign, the second being fine for an "elite black-ops" game.

However, I've never run a campaign where I said, "Go make characters." Even when I take the time to define the permitted powers and abilities, or to create a set of mandatory templates, I insist on cooperatively building the character with the player. I'm not a control freak; I just don't want the game to be less fun for that player (who may well create a PC that can't do anything, even survive, in the campaign I have planned) or the other players (who might not appreciate being upstaged at every turn by Joe Optimax, Niche Invader™). If I could change one thing in the GURPS Basic Set, it wouldn't be rules, organization, or graphics – it would be to add a prominent note that character-creation is normally done in collaboration with the rest of the gaming group, especially the GM.

[Black Leviathan]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I think that in campaigns where the GM says, "Here are the ground rules. Go make characters!", it becomes important to set caps and limits..

I'd freely admit I'm more on the controlling side of the spectrum of GMing. When it comes to characters above 250pts I feel like I'd be more comfortable asking players what super human abilities they want and statting them out myself and allow the players to buy skills and advantages/disadvantages/Quirks with about 100 of those points.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Kromm

However, I've never run a campaign where I said, "Go make characters." Even when I take the time to define the permitted powers and abilities, or to create a set of mandatory templates, I insist on cooperatively building the character with the player. I'm not a control freak; I just don't want the game to be less fun for that player (who may well create a PC that can't do anything, even survive, in the campaign I have planned) or the other players (who might not appreciate being upstaged at every turn by Joe Optimax, Niche Invader™). If I could change one thing in the GURPS Basic Set, it wouldn't be rules, organization, or graphics – it would be to add a prominent note that character-creation is normally done in collaboration with the rest of the gaming group, especially the GM.

I approach the matter the same way, though it seems to me that Kromm and I run very different sorts of campaigns. I have to say I took it so much for granted that that was the best approach that it simply didn't occur to me that anyone would let players go off and build their own characters without consultation or verification until I saw other people talk about doing this.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I have to say I took it so much for granted that that was the best approach that it simply didn't occur to me that anyone would let players go off and build their own characters without consultation or verification until I saw other people talk about doing this.

I've taken it for granted for a few decades myself . . . since around the mid-1980s. I dimly remember playing AD&D back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when it seemed to be traditional for people to just show up with character sheets. It was the arguments about whether they fudged things – and the lousy, unbalanced game play in groups where nobody cared to call out the obvious cheaters – that led me to make character-creation a collaborative process done in front of the GM. I'd love to say that our hobby is full of honest people, except that there seems to be something about gaming that brings out a competitive, win-at-all-costs mentality even in games that are solidly cooperative, and I've witnessed this among my dearest gamer friends, whom I'd otherwise trust with my life.

[Malfi]

I guess you also could say go ahead and make characters in a Dungeon Fantasy game, or any GURPS game where player options are equally well defined.


Thinking more about the whole thing here are some more sample parameters for a normal people get supernatural power and begin to develop them:

Singular supernatural advantage costs including limitations/enhancements.

Points--Max advantage cost
200-----30
400-----50
800-----85
1000---100
1600---150
2000---175
3000---250
5000---350
10000--600

I would hope this urges players to diversify in their advantages, instead of throwing all their points in one advantage.

This so they don't go for the max of every attribute

Points--Max total spent on abilities
200----150
400----225
800----350
1000---400
1600---500
2000---600
3000---750
5000---1000
10000--1500

I also would like to have a kind of power corrupts effect going on, without making it a bad deal to gain points. So the disadvantage limit increases at higher points. Maybe this could also function a source of challenges at higher points? Or will it make the game unplayable?


Points -Max or even min in disadvantages Average individua disadvatage cost
200----50------------------------------------5
400----70------------------------------------6
800----100-----------------------------------7
1000---110-----------------------------------8
1600---140-----------------------------------9
2000---150-----------------------------------10
3000---200-----------------------------------11
5000---250-----------------------------------13
10000--350-----------------------------------15

The average individual disadvantage cost is to avoid ammasing small 5 points disadvantages, that may have very little effect in play.



Perhaps my take would be better applied for points spent on a specific power instead of points spent in general. Since gurps points do not represent power at least not exclusively.

[Maz]

Originally Posted by Malfi

Singular supernatural advantage costs including limitations/enhancements.

Points--Max advantage cost
200-----30
400-----50
800-----85
1000---100
1600---150
2000---175
3000---250
5000---350
10000--600

I would hope this urges players to diversify in their advantages, instead of throwing all their points in one advantage.

The problem with such things is that it encourages some players to try to see "how much can I get within that limit". For instance. It's not impossible to create a power that can kill most of the human population on earth with 50 pts. *cough M.U.N.C.K.I.N. cough* (Note AFAIK thie power in the link isn't even entirely correct, which leads to another problem. Players might not do things right!)


So it might lead to powers that do not fit the game at all, but now you have to argue that "yes they stayed within the rules, but not the spirit" and so you might just state from the start that powers have to be build to fit the theme of the game and approved by the group (not just the GM).


My point is just the same as what everyone else say: "point value" is not a good benchmark for powerlevel.