Are quirks officially counted as disadvantages?

[Mark Skarr]

Personally, I do not count quirks toward the disadvantage limit. Why? Because I don’t. I feel that by taking and playing quirks, the players are adding value to the game, and giving them points is a reward.

Are quirks as disadvantage points RAW? Yes. Do I care? Not so much. It’s five points. Five points! If I’m being such a stickler over five points I really need to look at my priorities (or in the case of MonkeyFist’s Rapture game, the point values were very important metagaming clues for us)

I use a disadvantage limit for several reasons:
#1, It puts a cap on the starting power level for my players’ characters.
#2, It reduces the likelihood of having caricatures instead of characters.
#3, It encourages players to use their points more efficiently.
#4, It encourages players to focus on the disadvantages they want to play as opposed to ones they just want for points.

Now, I don’t go set in stone that a disadvantage limit is 50%, but I’ve found that it’s a safe place to start. My GURPS MegaDenver: The Fall of Greenpeace game is about to start with 850 point characters with a -150 point disad limit because I don’t want to see characters with -425 points in disads . . . which would be ridiculous. I’m not saying that you can’t have a realistic, dynamic, interesing and useful character with -425 points in disadvantages . . . but I’d really look long and hard at the character before I said “yes” to it.

Also, I don’t stick, hard-and-fast, to the limit. Tell me a story and we’ll see where that takes you.

[Langy]

But that's a totally impartial statement! I can see how a majority practice can be an implied recommendation on the part of the majority, but on the part of the authors I can see only a passive communication of what people new to GURPS can expect.

Sorry, but no. It's also very obviously a passive recommendation on the part of the authors, else they would have said something like 'but we do not recommend using disadvantage limits' or 'disadvantage limits are purely optional and GMs should only use them if they have trouble with games in which no disadvantage limit is used'.

Disadvantage limits are part of the basic assumptions of the game. Yes, they're optional, just like almost any other aspect of the game like the existence of hit points - but they're a recommended aspect of the rules, especially for new GMs with no experience with GURPS.

I highly doubt Kromm and co. actually wanted most new GMs to read through that section and say 'nope, that doesn't look like a rule for me'. If that isn't the case, then it's a recommendation.


Saying 'most people will find doing X to be better than doing Y' is a recommendation for the general case, period. It doesn't matter that the author isn't 'most people' - he's still reporting what most people prefer, and if he didn't intend people to look at that and say 'well, maybe I should try doing that' then he should have made it clear that he didn't want people to do that.

[hal]

Page 120:

RESTRICTIONS ON DISADVANTAGES

Your GM might wish to “cap” the extra points you can gain from disadvantages; see Disadvantage Limit (p. 11). This limit applies to
the total points you can get from all traits with negative point costs,
from Chapter 1 (reduced attributes, low Status, etc.) or the list below. Mandatory disadvantages assigned by the GM don’t count against this
limit.

Note that as has been stated, it isn't even a recomendation strength level to utilize 50% of starting points as the cap for disadvantages, or that disadvantage caps are even REQUIRED. MAY is not the same as SHALL. As a consequence, as Ze and others have been stating throughout this thread, disadvantage caps are OPTIONAL.

[Langy]

Yes, disadvantage limits are optional, but having one at all is recommended for most games.

I've never, ever said that it's recommended that you set a disadvantage cap of 50% of character point total. I've also never said that disadvantage caps are required. I said they are recommended in the Basic Set, and that is rather clear.

'Recommended' and 'optional' are not mutually exclusive.

They aren't anywhere on the same level as other explicitly optional rules like bleeding or blow-through. Neither of those are recommended for most campaigns - disadvantage limits are.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by hal

Page 120:

RESTRICTIONS ON DISADVANTAGES

Your GM might wish to “cap” the extra points you can gain from disadvantages; see Disadvantage Limit (p. 11). This limit applies to
the total points you can get from all traits with negative point costs,
from Chapter 1 (reduced attributes, low Status, etc.) or the list below. Mandatory disadvantages assigned by the GM don’t count against this
limit.

Note that as has been stated, it isn't even a recomendation strength level to utilize 50% of starting points as the cap for disadvantages, or that disadvantage caps are even REQUIRED. MAY is not the same as SHALL. As a consequence, as Ze and others have been stating throughout this thread, disadvantage caps are OPTIONAL.

"Recommended" doesn't mean "required". And while that is neutral phrasing, the phrasing on page 11 isn't.