03-15-2018, 08:51 AM | #101 | |||
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: 25% of Starting Points
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Which is also why Terminally Ill (In 10-15 years) is not allowed as a Disadvantage that gives any points back. Point costs aren't measuring hypothetical capability in the far distant future, from the perspective of the players. If they were, all mortal characters would be worth negative points, because eventually they die, lose all Advantages and all Attributes reach 0. GURPS character points don't measure potential, inborn worth, ability or anything else actually present in the context of the campaign world. They solely measure player choices during character creation and aren't designed to measure anything else. As such, nothing that can't at least potentially be an Ally, Dependent, Enemy or similar really makes sense expressed in terms of point value. And those traits use their own rules, where it is absolutely valid to have PCs spending points to buy off their Dependent Disadvantages as their children grow up and perhaps replacing them with Ally Advantages. Quote:
If they are, then how can it be unrealistic? You really don't think that there is huge gap between the capabilities of a typical infant and a typical adult as adventurers? You don't think that playing the adult will give a player more choices, more abilities to affect the campaign world and a better chance of success against adcenturing challenges? You really think that given the choice, the average player would not opt for the adult over the helpless infant as their character in a typical GURPS campaign? Remember, that's the only thing character points are supposed to measure, the desirability of traits to players for their characters in a GURPS campaign. The points don't exist outside the context of the gaming table, they aren't abstracted representations of anything that exists in the game world. The traits themselves are, but the point values are simply a character creation and advancement system for players. Quote:
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Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela! |
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03-15-2018, 09:51 AM | #102 | |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Meifumado
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Re: 25% of Starting Points
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Also, buying a maturing child as a higher level NPC is only one option, but it's not necessarily the only option. Consider Batman and Robin. If Robin were an Ally, not another PC, Batman could buy him at the level he's worth at 8 or 10 or 13 years old. Then when Robin matures and becomes worth more, Batman has two options. He can pay more to have a higher level Ally, as Robin has gained some experience. Or, he can let Robin move on to become an independent Nightwing or whoever, and replace him with a new young Robin, worth the same value as the original Ally advantage he paid for. Batman can go either way, but he doesn't have to spend points on having a better Ally unless he wants to. Also consider- why would Batman have to pay for Robin's "potential"? We don't know that Robin's potential will be realised- he could become a paraplegic, he could evolve into a full-fledged hero, or he could become an Enemy. The only important thing to Batman's character sheet is Robin's current worth as an Ally to Batman.
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Collaborative Settings: Cyberpunk: Duopoly Nation Space Opera: Behind the King's Eclipse And heaps of forum collabs, 30+ and counting! Last edited by Daigoro; 03-15-2018 at 09:54 AM. |
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03-15-2018, 11:11 AM | #103 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Buffalo, New York
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Re: 25% of Starting Points
Allies have always been a bit of a pain in GURPS 3e and now in GURPS 4e. If you treat the NPC's as characters - who progress as if they were player characters, bound by the rules of player characters - then their development should be independent of GURPS dependent values or ally values. If a player earns 3 character points, then his dependent or ally also automatically gain 3 character points? SOmething in me rebels at that, sorry.
Imagine too, buying a patron whose worth is 1.5 times that of the player character? Next thing you know, if the player character started at 150 points, the starting value of the NPC is 1.5 x 150 or 225. Every 10 points the character gains, the NPC gains 15? Even if there is no credible reason in game play for the NPC to gain those points? In the end? Every GM will decide whether to hew to the RAW line, or make modifications in the rules to suit what they feel is acceptable for their own campaigns (hence, house rules). No one set of rules is worse or better in my eyes, which is why I try NOT to say "You're wrong to use those house rules" when ever anyone brings up their own set of rules. I try to say "I like that rule" or "Hmm, not my cup of tea" and hopefully add "But you can use it as you wrote it - its yours after all". At worst, I might offer a counter argument to the house rule and offer a way to perhaps (and I do mean PERHAPS) improve it, but that's the extent of it. For those of us who have used GURPS since MAN TO MAN first came out, we end up with the issue of being comfortable with GURPS CLASSIC, as well as having entrenched house rules we use despite the RAW - in addition to having to remember the rules as written! So, sometimes, we (meaning I!!!) might make reference to a house rule thinking it is the rules as written. That's why it makes sense to say "Sorry, My bad" and get over the feeling of embarassment. ;) |
03-15-2018, 12:43 PM | #104 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ronkonkoma, NY
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Re: 25% of Starting Points
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Come up with justifications if you like. During the Case of the Bejeweled Glove, Holmes's Ally Watson saves a rich socialite from a thug. Holmes earns five character points that session, so Watson does too. The GM gives Watson a three-point Reputation (Heroic savior of the helpless; all rich socialites in London) +2 and spends the other two points on his Boxing and Guns (Pistol) skills (which he used during the rescue). |
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03-15-2018, 04:25 PM | #105 | ||
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Hmm, looks like Earth, circa CE 2020+
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Re: 25% of Starting Points
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Quote:
Admittedly, they'll have more life experience at 30, but GURPS largely reflects that by them having more years to earn and spend points.
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GURPS Fantasy Folk: Elves My first GURPS supplement Top 12 Clues You're a Role-Playing Old-Timer My humorous (I hope) article that also promotes SJGames/GURPS Kerry Thornley: Dwarf Planet Eris, Discordianism, and The John F. Kennedy Assassination Without Thornley, there would never have been the Steve Jackson Games edition of Principia Discordia |
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03-15-2018, 06:39 PM | #106 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ronkonkoma, NY
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Re: 25% of Starting Points
No, but a child does have to do something to get that Strength increase from the GM: age. This is usually pretty easy to do...
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03-15-2018, 10:54 PM | #107 | |
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Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Southeast NC
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Re: 25% of Starting Points
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Who says kids today are underachievers?
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RyanW - Actually one normal sized guy in three tiny trenchcoats. |
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03-17-2018, 02:55 PM | #108 | |
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Hmm, looks like Earth, circa CE 2020+
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Re: 25% of Starting Points
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I design my significant NPCs like I do my PCs. I even liked an NPC so much I asked and got permission from a GM to make it my PC. EDIT: Loling with Stormcrow and RyanW
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GURPS Fantasy Folk: Elves My first GURPS supplement Top 12 Clues You're a Role-Playing Old-Timer My humorous (I hope) article that also promotes SJGames/GURPS Kerry Thornley: Dwarf Planet Eris, Discordianism, and The John F. Kennedy Assassination Without Thornley, there would never have been the Steve Jackson Games edition of Principia Discordia Last edited by Alden Loveshade; 03-17-2018 at 03:00 PM. Reason: Loling |
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03-17-2018, 07:26 PM | #109 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Buffalo, New York
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Re: 25% of Starting Points
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If you ever want to have a sobering thought or ten? Visit some of the older cemeteries. My wife enjoys the hike for Watkins Glen, and always spends time at the cemetery by the Indian Trail. One of the grave markers looks like a miniature DC Monument. On its four sides, are multiple names of children. I don't believe even one of them made it past 15, and all died within a matter of years of each other, some the same year. Again, something that our generation of people have not had to endure thanks to not only reliable food production, but also medical science. Hell, I'm lucky I survived when I was born - as I was an RH baby, born 5th of five. But not for total blood transfusion when I was born, something that was lacking prior to the 20th century - I too would have perished before my first month's existence. On that note... simply aging was not so simple sometimes. ;) |
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03-17-2018, 08:55 PM | #110 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ronkonkoma, NY
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Re: 25% of Starting Points
The POINT is that the GM grants you the effects of maturing automatically, because this is a change that happens to your character in the game, just like he'll automatically give you the One Arm disadvantage if you lose an arm in the game.
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