A Dungeoneering Fan, but a Total Gurps Newbie

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Well, one thing is that in at least some of the pre-3rd editions the relation between your XP total and your character level depended on your class. I'm not sure whether the idea was that characters should be used at around the same XP totals, around the same level, or what...

That would be all the pre-3rd editions AFAIK. There wasn't a strong assumption that one group of characters would always be together and thus have similar experience totals. The separate experience tables allowed tuning of the progression rates of different classes, which got used for lots of homebrew classes.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by scc

As for starting points, GURPS 3rd ed set it at 100 points, when GURPS 4th ed came around and many abilities increased in cost that was upped to 150 points, and when the DF line was launched with its 250 point templates that seems to have became the default standard, because it allows the characters to actually do things.

Looking just at my 4/e campaigns, I see that I've had starting point values of 75 points (Worminghall), 120 points (Dying Mars, Salle d'Armes), 150 points (Water Margin), 200 points (Tapestry), 240 points (Fixers), 300 points with a 70-point free package (The Foam of Perilous Seas), and 1500 points (Sovereignty).

Worminghall and Salle d'Armes were campaigns about students, respectively in a college of magic and a fencing academy; they were aimed at "talented but with more to learn."

Salle d'Armes and Water Margin both supported swashbuckling and had a lot of combat scenes; they also had an admixture of comedy.

Dying Mars and Tapestry had a primary focus on trade and exploration.

Fixers was about "consulting criminals" who weren't just "able to do stuff," but the elite of their respective professions (hacker, second story artist, face, driver, assassin).

Worminghall, Tapestry, and The Foam of Perilous Seas all had significant magic use. Worminghall used standard GURPS magic; Tapestry uses Path and Book magic; The Foam of Perilous Seas used a variety of magic systems.

The Foam of Perilous Seas was about heroes, spirits, and demigods; half the PCs were avatars of gods.

Sovereignty was about supers, not the most powerful in their world, but the high-end ones who got called in when the really powerful ones got out of hand.

I'm not sure this supports strong generalizations, but here are some weak ones: (1) GURPS worked acceptably and supported interesting play at every point value from 75 to 1500. (2) Around 100 points seems workable for characters starting a life of adventure. (3) Around 150 points seems to let characters "do things" fairly freely and be a bit larger than life. (4) 250 points seems to be the level of characters who are at the top in demanding, high-risk occupations, or are figures of legend. (5) All three of these power levels are common tropes in adventure stories; for example, the original Star Wars trilogy starts out with Luke as a beginning adventurer and Han as a bit larger than life, and by the end of RotJ they both seem to be closing in on "figure of legend." So I think you could use any of them, depending on what flavor you want.