Character guides

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by thalcos

I leave off the "(12 or less)" information on most disadvantages, except for things like Contacts or Enemies. I found this information added too much noise that confused players.

I add it as (6) or whatever the number is for self-control rolls, and FoAs in dis/advantages when the player needs to know. I don't ever toss "or less" onto the sheet, even when making sheets for others; if they have to roll against a number, it's always expected to be "at or under" anyway.

[namada]

Originally Posted by Gollum

Rather than templates, which are fine for players used to GURPS (because they know how things work and, thus, can go very fast with them), for totally beginners, I prefer using character examples, that is, characters for which everything is already chosen and calculated.

Templates are great. Your bulleted list makes for significantly easier readability certainly, especially for folks with certain problems, but there's nothing wrong with them as they stand in published material.

Racial Templates are usually fixed, so they're as easy as any other game's racial mechanics - just pick what you like.

Character Templates, on the other hand, are just Character Classes With Choices*. Honestly, character templates were one of the best things introduced to my GURPS 3E games, no qualifications, just - simply - ever. They cut character creation time down by at least half, for folks that had hard times making decisions or weren't as versed in the rules as much as the other folks at the table. It's just too bad it took SJGames another 3 years after I introduced them to my table (the very first time that I ran GURPS, btw), as a house rule, to actually publish their first one...

*Then later, for whatever it's worth, I find out about:

• Rolemaster & it's character class system, which looks nearly the same as GURPS' templates - and has been around since 1980 (IIRC)
• Champions (or HERO system) & it's Packages, which looks nearly the same as GURPS' templates - and has been around since 1983 (?, idk)

Well then, publicly at least, between the examples above, not even mentioning later developments, let's just say that I think the folks over at SJGames are, just a bit, overly inwardly-focused.

[mook]

I feel like the more the GM is "willing" to take on her own shoulders, the less the players have to concern themselves with and can just enjoy the story and characters (I'm primarily discussing one-shots and intro games).

The default GURPS character sheet works best when everyone will be keeping track of more or less the same amount of data dump.

The Phoenix sheet for GCA is a glory to behold, and contains everything! But I wouldn't let a new player anywhere near it for fear they'd get overwhelmed and fall prey to the tired "it's too complicated" silliness (though I should mention, you can make Phoenix a lot, lot simpler in the options).

My pre-gen characters for GURPS one-shots these days look like this. Anyone showing up at an RPG table can probably find anything they need, and if they can't, the whole sheet can be explained in like 30 seconds. The caveat is, the GM tracks the lion's share of stuff, but that's hardly a bother.

None of this directly ties to templates, since my one-shots all use pre-gens, but tangentially my point being, I agree -- the simpler the presentation for new players, the better.

[Kale]

Originally Posted by mook

My pre-gen characters for GURPS one-shots these days look like this. Anyone showing up at an RPG table can probably find anything they need, and if they can't, the whole sheet can be explained in like 30 seconds. The caveat is, the GM tracks the lion's share of stuff, but that's hardly a bother.

Those look amazing! Very well laid out with easy to access information. How do you handle "Spell!" for the wizard though?

[Black Leviathan]

I built templates a lot but not for every game. I like the way template corrals players into the theme more than the ease of character generation but having faster character creation is also good. A big part of what I do is supplying a rich variety of racial and misc templates to help keep characters from being defined by their main template.

My players don't have much trouble understanding templates. Other than a few misunderstandings about having to specialize in some skills or that secondary attributes that are improved in the template can be higher than the main attributes, they're able to make characters without many questions. I give them a copy of the templates to look through in advance and I give a whole session zero to get characters completed. My new players are typically new to Roleplaying games and I pair them with a seasoned GURPS player to help them make characters.

I think there's a small hurdle to getting templates and once you're over it, you're over it.

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by martinl

Note that you shouldn't give this one to new players because it is a place where GURPS and modern English usage diverge.

Yes, you're right. The problem is exactly the same with the French word "honnêteté".

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by thalcos

If you want to check out my convention-ready GURPS adventures with those pre-created characters, check out my blog: 1shotadventures.com

They are great! Thank you very much for sharing them.

And I fully do agree with everything else you wrote in your post, of course.

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by namada

Templates are great. [...]

Of course they are! But reading and using them requires a quite good knowledge of GURPS (or someone who can explain everything, step by step, including all those "esoteric" abbreviations*...).
___
*Which are really useful too, once you are used to them: they save place on the sheet and even reading time, because you immediately recognize them, as if they were ideograms.

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by mook

My pre-gen characters for GURPS one-shots these days look like this. Anyone showing up at an RPG table can probably find anything they need, and if they can't, the whole sheet can be explained in like 30 seconds. The caveat is, the GM tracks the lion's share of stuff, but that's hardly a bother.

Awesome. Thank you very much for that great work!

[namada]

Originally Posted by Gollum

Of course they are! But reading and using them requires a quite good knowledge of GURPS (or someone who can explain everything, step by step, including all those "esoteric" abbreviations*...).
___
*Which are really useful too, once you are used to them: they save place on the sheet and even reading time, because you immediately recognize them, as if they were ideograms.

I don't see how it's any more difficult than say D&D and all its abstractions that need to be explained to a first-timer. I mean, wth is Rage, Smite, or Lay on Hands, anyhow?

At least much of GURPS' terminology has a real-world correlation, and in my experience, even if people don't know the exact mechanics of what they're looking at, they'll get the gist of what the thing is. When it comes to teaching people GURPS, I have a far easier time teaching it to total Roleplaying Noobs, than trying to teach it to people that have played D&D-based computer games, and trying to get them to unlearn D&D while also teaching them GURPS. That's more of a problem in that 90% of the new folks I do encounter have a history in D&D fiction & computer games, and it's the unlearning bit that's tough for them.