[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Captain Joy

Get an application that allows you to make GURPS characters. The official Steve Jackson games one that runs on Windows is GURPS Character Assistant. The unofficial and free one that runs on anything is GURPS Character Sheet.

Last time I checked, GCA was extremely well supported with data files for almost every official GURPS supplement ever published. Or at least every 4th Edition one.

Is it needed? In theory, it's fast and easy to make a GURPS character, so you can do it by hand. In practice, I always find myself tweaking, raising and lowering points in skills, again and again and again, back and forth, to try to match a budget. The OP's players may also appreciate it if he has a character creation aid on his computer for them to use.

Also, I always want a character creation aid, no matter what RPG system is used, no matter how simple it is (although I find actually simple RPG systems to be not worth using). Because it's always faster with a computer than without, and I'm a speed optimization freak. If the system in question doesn't have such an aid, I'll make one with a spreadsheet, just a quick-and-dirty one.

So I'll say that buying GCA is a good investment. Even more so for a new GM who will benefit muchly from getting a feel for how character creation works, very much including from a players' point of view, doing it on a finite point budget. It helps create both empathy and sympathy for the player situation, and better enables him to assist his players once it becomes time for them to make their characters.