(Starting) Situational Disadvantage

[sir_pudding]

I'm still trying to figure out what the point of giving several times the total number of points you are going to be able to earn in the campaign and then putting the characters into point debt for them is. How is that any different from just not giving out any CP rewards?

[MatthewVilter]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I'm still trying to figure out what the point of giving several times the total number of points you are going to be able to earn in the campaign and then putting the characters into point debt for them is. How is that any different from just not giving out any CP rewards?

I agree, I think that point needs to be clarified.

[The Benj]

I'd give people some leeway, but mostly I'd get them to balance Advantages with Disadvantages or unspent points.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by MatthewVilter

I agree, I think that point needs to be clarified.

I imagine the OP may have expressed himself clumsily on this point. Meant to write one thing, but actually written another.

[BaHalus]

If every player is in the same boat, than it essentially is a zero point feature, isn't it? Giving more points is simply increasing the campaign total points.

An unnavailable advantage for a single player could be a potential advantage or a feature that he will pay when he gets access to.

Hmmm... a group with a Beggar, a mid-class guy and a rich playboy. the sole survivors of a disaster in a remote place. The beggar would be getting points for a disad everybody has, and the rich guy would be paying for an unnavailable advantage.

Maybe everyboy should start with dead broke and pay half the points for the potential advantages or pay nothing at all until they reach civilization again (but where the milionaire will get the points to pay for his fortune? a point debt maybe?)

[MatthewVilter]

Originally Posted by BaHalus

If every player is in the same boat, than it essentially is a zero point feature, isn't it? Giving more points is simply increasing the campaign total points.

An unnavailable advantage for a single player could be a potential advantage or a feature that he will pay when he gets access to.

Yep.

Originally Posted by BaHalus

Hmmm... a group with a Beggar, a mid-class guy and a rich playboy. the sole survivors of a disaster in a remote place. The beggar would be getting points for a disad everybody has, and the rich guy would be paying for an unnavailable advantage.

Maybe everyboy should start with dead broke and pay half the points for the potential advantages or pay nothing at all until they reach civilization again (but where the milionaire will get the points to pay for his fortune? a point debt maybe?)

Yeah, I would go with maybe ~20% of the cost for the wealth advantages to start. Later, on return to civilization the millionaire could go into point debt or suffer a psychotic breakdown (his wife left him, taking half his money, while he was gone and after living a life of adventure the responsibles of day to day life are too much) and pick up disadvantages to match the points he gains in wealth.

[Otaku]

I really think the situation needs to be more fully explained. As opposed to some "new" mechanic, a lot of this sounds like "GM needs to define what Wealth levels mean for and are possible in the setting."

Once I know that, I have ideas for handling this.

[Henchman99942]

The listed (Starting) Situational Disadvantages were variations involving starting out without any money. This is not the same as taking the "Dead Brok"e Disadvantage because it ONLY refers to your ability to access your wealth. You could have ALL your starting money AND your wealth fully intact when you got back home, you simply started out in a situation* where you could not access it. It was just a way to employ a new and fun (I think) plot mechanism, throwing the players for a loop, and giving them SOMETHING for their troubles (The 1 day adventures worth of points to start with)

I have seen people working out wealth home rules that had starting money separate from wealth. This really wasn't that. It was meant as a category for ANY situational disadvantage. Maybe you start out Cursed... Or with an injured limb (1 month to heal)... Or ANY limited time problem that ends up either being solved by the PCs or solves itself in the end. Maybe countering this disadvantage with 'open use' Character Points isn't in the spirit of the GURPS system. Maybe equipment bonuses (when they got back) or reputations or other specific advantages would be more appropriate.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by Henchman99942

The listed (Starting) Situational Disadvantages were variations involving starting out without any money. This is not the same as taking the "Dead Brok"e Disadvantage because it ONLY refers to your ability to access your wealth. You could have ALL your starting money AND your wealth fully intact when you got back home, you simply started out in a situation* where you could not access it. It was just a way to employ a new and fun (I think) plot mechanism, throwing the players for a loop, and giving them SOMETHING for their troubles (The 1 day adventures worth of points to start with)

I have seen people working out wealth home rules that had starting money separate from wealth. This really wasn't that. It was meant as a category for ANY situational disadvantage. Maybe you start out Cursed... Or with an injured limb (1 month to heal)... Or ANY limited time problem that ends up either being solved by the PCs or solves itself in the end. Maybe countering this disadvantage with 'open use' Character Points isn't in the spirit of the GURPS system. Maybe equipment bonuses (when they got back) or reputations or other specific advantages would be more appropriate.

In any given game session many of a PC's advantages and disadvantages won't come into play. Wealth isn't relevant in every game session, neither is Claustrophobia, nor Amphibious nor Zero-G Tolerance.

If you're feeling a need to give players more points to build their PCs when they aren't able to use every bit of every advantage every single session, then that's an indication that you need to increase the point level of the PCs in your campaign.

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I'm still trying to figure out what the point of giving several times the total number of points you are going to be able to earn in the campaign and then putting the characters into point debt for them is. How is that any different from just not giving out any CP rewards?

Can you rephrase that question for me? Obviously an answer I give reflect what myself and GMs I knew who allowed for point debt did, but it may be illuminating.

As I understand your question right now, there is hardly any difference: allowing an obscene amount of "point debt" for a campaign where even role-playing well (3-5 points per session) and surviving the whole thing still won't pay off your debt is just having no CP rewards and a higher starting point total. For campaigns where the debt is likely to be paid off before a character is permanently removed from the game, it usually was only justifiable with house rules like being allowed to cash in unspent CP to "buy down" results of Success Rolls.

Have played in a few GURPS campaigns with that particular house rule, I think as a group we averages spending a CP per session on it, making it CP debt an actual drawback.

Re-reading this thread (might just be me but I found the phrasing kind of confusing, even though I regularly use parenthetical expressions), I can see allowing for some sort of circumstantial Limitation for certain Advantages or Disadvantages. The idea is you're decreasing a character's short term capability/odd of survival in exchange for more CP back (and thus long term capability/odds of survival). I don't think it would apply to a GM that by fiat starts players with such a thing except perhaps as a bookkeeping measure ("You're all 150 point characters but you're beginning the game with temporary, situational Disadvantages that will resolve themselves one way or another by the end of the first adventure, so your challenges will be appropriate to 125 point characters.")

The big problem for allowing such things as "Temporary Starting Disadvantages" is setting. Starting out recovering from a serious injury (e.g. "Begins game with -5 HP") is quite serious in a realistic, low TL setting, but not a huge deal in a typical dungeon crawl where a friendly mage or cleric can heal you easily... or in a Supers game where you yourself have a high level of Regeneration or 20+ HP.

When it comes to Wealth, this thread just reminds me that I don't like Starting Wealth and "Earning Potential" to be the same thing (the latter really doesn't strike me as appropriate for an Advantage unless success rolls pertaining to wealth generation are so arbitrary that they are being skipped).