BRP Skills Level Advancement for GURPS

[Moebius]

For the last several months I've been doing a lot of game system research of sorts. I've visited True20, Savage Worlds, Pathfinder, WEG's D6 system, etc. For a long time I believed the Chaosium Basic Roleplaying System was the one for me. Eventually that infatuation died down, and I've recently fallen in love with GURPS again. I've been loving what I've seen in the Lite booklet. We'll see if it sticks.

In the meantime, I was left with some aspects of the BRP system that I really like. The character advancement system was probably the coolest part of the rules, IMO. Can this work for GURPS? I can monkey around and try to come up with something, but I'd rather not reinvent the wheel if a variant or home-brew system is already out there.

BRP is a d% roll under system. Basically, if your character attempted and succeeded to use a skill during play the player would put a check by that skill. At the end of the session the player rolls d% for each checked skill, trying to roll HIGHER than the skill level. If they do, they get to raise the level. Something like that.

[aesir23]

Many GMs only allow skills that have been used during the adventure to be improved with earned points, so that is a similar effect.

I would think it would be easy to duplicate this. You could even do it directly, (roll over your skill on 3d6 (or d20!) and you get a point towards improving that skill), if you wanted.

It would probably lead to fast improvement, and skills attempted from default would either have to be exempt or sky-rocket quickly, but it's definitely workable.

[Ronnke]

Such a system would basically rule out the ability to intentionally build a character to master skill levels and above. There is also the likelihood that during character creation players will deliberately min/max attributes, advantages and spend nothing on skills, because they know that after a few sessions they can get lots of free points by doing default skill rolls. You also might get a situation where all players in a party are pretty uniform, as they are all making rolls on the same types of skill. Mages will also be a riot as they spend time building their spell levels for free.

It probably works well in BRP, but for GURPS I see it leading to lots of imbalance in characters.

[sir_pudding]

GURPS does have a similar rule for learning new skills under pressure (such as when you attempt a skill at default in an adventure) requiring an IQ roll (B. p 292).

[Rasputin]

I've thought about the same thing at times. If the player rolls at the end of the session (or when CPs are doled out) against all skills for which the roll was made AND there was no bonus to the roll for task difficulty (something mostly unaddressed in CoC, aside from the first Keeper's Companion) and this roll fails, one of the CPs given out goes into that skill. This may not necessarily raise the level, of course; wait for more points. This would shut out a whole bunch of choice, though it would likely make for faster advancement.

[jacobmuller]

BRP, pardon - very filling.

Go for it - end-game skill fail checks, 17-18 is always a fail so even masters can advance eventually. Extar cp as rewards for rolEplaying to allow other advances.

Counter to the negatives:
RQII was all about rapid character advancement; it was what DF is emulating - players versus GM, kill monsters, grab loot, have a hoot, roll-playing. RQIII got into role-playing.

Re the players who'd Munchkin the system - in BRP, character generation is primarily random, including available skills and experience. Players are allowed to reject outright hopeless cases (STR3!).

BRP Love of my life, starting with RQII... But then there were so many situations not covered by BRPRAW that GURPS3eRAW detailed, and then came 4e.

I've been mulling over GURPSifying the whole of BRP, which is pretty much RQIII without the RQ. I've seen it done to Albedo and liked the result.

[Moebius]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

GURPS does have a similar rule for learning new skills under pressure (such as when you attempt a skill at default in an adventure) requiring an IQ roll (B. p 292).

Thank you for pointing this out. I believe this will satisfy my BRP need in a very cool way.

I thought about how trying to wedge the rule into GURPS could cause rapid growth. The above ruling fills that without the lurch in skill level.

[jacobmuller]

With regard to the experience gain, you can apply an IQ check to it too: crit success gain 2cp, success gain 1cp, fail 0cp, crit fail -1cp; RQIII held the possibility of misinterpreting experience.