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Old 03-14-2018, 10:43 PM   #91
evileeyore
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Default Re: 25% of Starting Points

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Originally Posted by trooper6 View Post
So...how do you make a pre-made adventure for GURPS when my GURPS and your GURPS are so fundamentally different?
You make it for a genre treatment, like AtE, DF, MH, Black-Ops, etc.
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Old 03-14-2018, 11:54 PM   #92
David Johnston2
 
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Default Re: 25% of Starting Points

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Originally Posted by hal View Post
Because players can have characters who become parents. Because children can become player characters if enough campaign time passes. .
Not likely before they reach relative maturity
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Old 03-15-2018, 12:51 AM   #93
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Default Re: 25% of Starting Points

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Originally Posted by RyanW View Post
Look at it another way:

Hobo Steve, for 5 points, can get a 1d Burning Attack, 1 DR, or a 25 point Ally.
Superguy, for 5 points, can get a 1d Burning Attack, 1 DR, or a 2000 point Ally.
I think I see it that a 25 point ally is as useful to Steve as a 2000 pt one is to superguy, so that's actually a like for like comparison in terms of 100% ally to 1d burning attack.

But then there is a question about is a 1d burning attack as useful per points for either one! (especially if I'm citing the "well superguy faces 2000pt challenges and Steve faces 25cp challenges" arguement)

Where the question of proportionality comes in is that both a 100% of cp ally and a 1d burning attack are both a much more significant investment for 25cp steve than for 2000cp superguy


but that all said I don't know, there are a lot of feedback loops here, and given how varied traits that are brought by cp are, it tough to draw hard and fast relationships between spend and effect.

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Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
They can but at that point you are no long speaking in terms of multiplying power. Assuming the GM is designing the character, (which they should because its their character) then while the player will have asked for, say, an ace pilot, or a rich and beautiful love interest, or a rat-sized spy, most of the points should be invested in making a complete character that happens to have the desired trait.
Hmm I guess I;d argue having access to traits you wouldn't otherwise have can be a force multiplier in terms of effectively tackling challenges, but I realise that is a pretty abstract point! Your hyper competent computer hacker mate might save the day one day or they might end up being entirely useless another!

Last edited by Tomsdad; 03-15-2018 at 08:06 AM.
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Old 03-15-2018, 01:06 AM   #94
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Default Re: 25% of Starting Points

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... Otherwise, how do you account for a non-adventuring child gaining 100 character points from age 5 to age 10? <shrug>
Honestly in GURPS terms? As part of the 0 pt human species lens that includes "altricial young, 15 years development time" ;-0

But less flippantly I don't, or rather I'd treat both the same as a child growing to physical maturity will happen whether they adventure or not or earn cp or not. Basically this just isn't an aspect of human development that is best suited to be described with cp.

The only time it's worth noting at all is if you are running an adventure where you have child PCs starting with the same cp total as adult PCs, where the child PC gaining a free 70cps+* worth of stat's over time would be a direct advantage over their physically mature party members.



*depending on what disads came with being child of that age (many of teh normally cited ones might not apply in many adventuring scenarios)

Last edited by Tomsdad; 03-15-2018 at 01:15 AM.
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Old 03-15-2018, 01:21 AM   #95
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Default Re: 25% of Starting Points

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Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
Not likely before they reach relative maturity
In a HARN campaign, my wife purchased “heir in a bottle” potions in order to choose when her character would have children. Other noble women did the same (npc wives of pc knights). By the time the campaign was placed on hold, players were looking to secure suitable mentors for sons to squire to, as well as accepting children to foster in their own homes. One of a set of twin boys was promised to the Elves to train in magical studies. Alliances were already being formed as people sought favors and perhaps favorable treatment by the player character acting as a sheriff of a Shire (shire reeve) in what amounted to the power of a baron without BEING a baron. The one character earned the gratitude of Harn’s Elven people by rescuing a king long thought cursed for all eternity. There was a LOT of history made in that campaign, and more than a few interactions between children and adults (including one episode that helped an NPC become enamoured of a PC knight enough to fall in love and eventually marry the PC.
So yes, children matter in my campaigns. A damsel in distress gets the attention of certain of my players attention. Children in distress gets my wife’s attention. And an Irish accent delivering the line “Lass, best ye be getting down from yer horse and give up pretending to be a warrior, lest I be spanking your fine derrière with the flat o me blade after pulling you off” is enogh to waken the fighting ire of my wife.

People make GURPS their own for their campaigns. Some never use children in their campaigns. At -70 just for stats for ordinary children, 25 points may be too high. What makes a hero sometimes, isn’t their overall point total, but in what they attemp to do with what they have. Bringing this back to the OP’s original point, the high costs of social advantages such as friends, allies, etc - raise the cost of mundane children or even adults, to high values over 25 points.
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Old 03-15-2018, 02:02 AM   #96
David Johnston2
 
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Default Re: 25% of Starting Points

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Originally Posted by hal View Post
In a HARN campaign, my wife purchased “heir in a bottle” potions in order to choose when her character would have children. Other noble women did the same (npc wives of pc knights). By the time the campaign was placed on hold, players were looking to secure suitable mentors for sons to squire to, as well as accepting children to foster in their own homes. One of a set of twin boys was promised to the Elves to train in magical studies. Alliances were already being formed as people sought favors and perhaps favorable treatment by the player character acting as a sheriff of a Shire (shire reeve) in what amounted to the power of a baron without BEING a baron. The one character earned the gratitude of Harn’s Elven people by rescuing a king long thought cursed for all eternity. There was a LOT of history made in that campaign, and more than a few interactions between children and adults (including one episode that helped an NPC become enamoured of a PC knight enough to fall in love and eventually marry the PC.
So yes, children matter in my campaigns.
I didn't assert they didn't. But not everything that matters needs to be designed with points
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Old 03-15-2018, 07:35 AM   #97
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Default Re: 25% of Starting Points

The issue of children is why I give them a 'maturation' pool of CP to children according to their age. Infants have a pool of 290 CP, 5-year-olds have a pool of 160 CP, 10-year-olds have a pool of 60 CP, and 15-year-olds have a pool of 0 CP. The fact that they have a pool of CP they cannot access except through growth is balanced by the fact that they can grow without effort.

Exceptional children might just be benefiting from early maturation, as a surprising number of exceptional children seem to become average adults (girls are notorious for reaching their adult ST before boys). 5-year-old child with IQ 12 might be a genius compared to their peers, but they might just have reached their adult IQ 12 before their peers, meaning that they will just be bright as an adult. Of course, early maturation might be advantageous, though I think that it balances out, as early promise turns into bitter disappointment when the character becomes an adult.
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Old 03-15-2018, 07:57 AM   #98
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Default Re: 25% of Starting Points

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Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
The issue of children is why I give them a 'maturation' pool of CP to children according to their age. Infants have a pool of 290 CP, 5-year-olds have a pool of 160 CP, 10-year-olds have a pool of 60 CP, and 15-year-olds have a pool of 0 CP.
That is your houserule. It's not how GURPS works.

Note that Allies and Dependents change in point value relative to the PC with these traits. Their capability to do so doesn't cost any points, it's just a feature of NPC point values being meaningless and irrelevant except in relation to PC traits which depend on them.

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TThe fact that they have a pool of CP they cannot access except through growth is balanced by the fact that they can grow without effort.
No, it really isn't. Theoretical character points that provide zero benefit to the character until a length of time that most campaigns never reach have passed are not worth the same as points that can be spent anywhere, any time, on any trait available in the campaign.

You're free to use any houserule you want, but I can't see any reasonable argument for how this is even remotely balanced. If it was, there would be equally valid reasons to choose getting 290 character points to spend at character creation and having 290 character points locked away at character creation, unusable and useless unless the character survives for 15 years, which in my experience would take around 15-100 years of real time to game out for the other characters in the campaign.
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Old 03-15-2018, 08:25 AM   #99
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Default Re: 25% of Starting Points

If a GM wants to do it differently, they can just have them benefit from early maturation or just give them 60 points from age 10 to age 15, whatever they choose. If they want a 10-year-old to have reached their adult potential, no one is stopping them other than themselves. I just use the maturity pool as an accounting mechanism, as it does not matter in GURPS whether points are spent or unspent for determining character points, as just giving every human being in existence 260 points from birth to age 15 just seems unrealistic to me.

It also means that the change in the point values of children occurs more due to the acquisition of advantages and skills rather than maturation, allowing for easier accounting for Allies, Dependents, Enemies, and Patrons. A 100 point character who takes a 25 point 5-year-old child as an Ally (12-) for 2 points would have to spend 2 points to keep their Ally over the next 5 years using my method because both characters will gain an average of 25 points (becoming 125 points and 50 points respectively). Without a maturation pool as an accounting mechanism, the adult character would have to spend 18 points to keep them as Ally (12-) to keep their Ally over the next 5 years because the adult character would only gain 25 points while the child character would gain 125 points due to maturation and normal character advancement (meaning that the adult character would be 125 points and the child character would be 150 points).
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Old 03-15-2018, 08:33 AM   #100
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Default Re: 25% of Starting Points

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Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
Not likely before they reach relative maturity
Why not? I've run more than one campaign where the PCs were adolescents. And what if I decide to run a Johnny Quest campaign, for example, with a mixed party of kids (not even adolescents) and adults? GURPS is a "generic" and "universal" system, right?
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