Loot in GURPS??

[Crakkerjakk]

Originally Posted by Sniperkitty

So how else do I (or you) reward players? how do you yourself make sure not to give a gift that is worth much more than you expected?

I start low with points and high with loot. You can't take away points, but can always give them power-ups later, and you can always destroy (confiscate by police/fall over cliff edge/captured by enemies) gear you've given out.

My general guideline is 2 CP per session, plus an extra for any of exceptional roleplaying, badassery, or being entertaining, and generally roughly an extra 5 at the end of any sort of mini-arc or major goal accomplished.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Sniperkitty

5. I don't know whether i should give my 135 point starting players one of those backpacks to start with, or wait till 200 points, or 250, or ... you get my point. at what level is a certain item appropriate? THAT'S the biggest thing i need help with.

You've likely got this already but there's really no such generic mapping.

It's not at all unreasonable on the one hand to run 25-point stableboys who've wound up with the gear of high-level D&D type adventurers, street people who've been abducted by aliens to drive gigantic mecha, or a handful of working stiffs who fly a tramp starfreighter.

On the other hand, superheroes for instance tend to be demigods who don't generally use gear or get it as rewards. The heroes of the Belisarius Series are downright mythical, in a not-overtly-supernatural sort of way, but even their signature gear is at best very fine mundane equipment. Most modern-setting film heroes don't seem to operate on a level-appropriate loot basis.

[Onkl]

For me, giving out loot comes down to experience. When I first switched over from AD&D to GURPS I was having a hard time and didn't know where to start. The more I played the more obvious it became what my players wanted, needed and what they would benefit from the most.

You have already received a lot of valuable information and all the points I would made have already been made. For any D&Desque campaign it is "de rigeur" to read through the Dungeon Fantasy series.

Start with DF1 and the equipment in there. This will get you through your first sessions without any problem. Once you've mastered this basic loot, have a look at DF6 and it's artifacts and start modifying these to your liking. Setting a price for these items isn't necessary as these items (at least in my hack and slash game) won't be on display at yer olde magick shoppe - in my games, artifacts can only be aquired by successfully completing missions or by defeating a boss monster.

So, all I can really advise you to do is to just play the game and get a feel for it. For me, this was the only way to give out the right loot. Now, after more than 30 sessions of Blut & Schätze (translates to "Blood and Treasures", what my game is called) giving out loot doesn't give me headaches anymore. For me it was only experience that helped me get where I wanted to be. Also, this is not only true for giving out loot, but also for character progression, what ads/disads to allow in a campaign, how many cp to award... heavily depends on the flavour of the campaign.

So my advice is: Just do it and learn as you go!

[Obirandiath]

Originally Posted by johndallman

It isn't all about physical stuff that the characters have. Let them feel they matter in other ways.

They can gain reputations, rank,or other social advantages; many of those can be given them by NPCs who are grateful to them. To make those interesting, the GM has to play their effects: Alice, who is married to the Duke's second son, and has thereby gained +2 Status, should always be treated much more politely by NPCs than Bob, who is a notorius drunkard (-2 reputation). But to make that matter, the GM actually has to have the NPCs act that way.

They can also do things that matter: avert wars, or win them; drive out monsters and thus provide rich new farmlands; all sorts of things that are more worthwhile than just killing monsters and taking their stuff. But the GM has to make it feel worthwhile, in a fantasy game.

While I agree with this wholeheartedly, I found that my players did not. For example, after the completion of a significant story arc I rewarded the players with the chance to gain knighthood and increased Status. When they found out that the +1 Status costs 5 points (i.e., I was not just giving it away for free), less than half the party wanted it. Since I try to keep the rewards small (3 points a session with a point of two at most thrown in as bonuses), I felt that a 5-point bonus was way out of proportion.

This is all to say that you have to know your players and know what it is that they will consider rewards. The fact that I felt the opportunity to increase Status was a great boon did nothing to make them feel the same way. However, some groups would be happy to receive such a reward for quest completion. The GM's job is to know those differences in gaming groups - not always the easiest thing, as I found out.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Obirandiath

When they found out that the +1 Status costs 5 points (i.e., I was not just giving it away for free), less than half the party wanted it. Since I try to keep the rewards small (3 points a session with a point of two at most thrown in as bonuses), I felt that a 5-point bonus was way out of proportion.

It isn't necessary to charge the PCs for such rewards, and you probably shouldn't. See "Traits Gained in Play" on B.291.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Jerander

For simple, easy loot with prices attached, check out the Magic Items volumes (here, here, and here). They are for 3rd Edition GURPS, but most should be directly portable without too much trouble.

These fail the OP's criterion of being built out of modular and freely combinable Enchantments. Each magic item in those volumes is a very speshul case all of its own.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Sniperkitty

So how else do I (or you) reward players? how do you yourself make sure not to give a gift that is worth much more than you expected?

I don't know about you (or him), but I don't reward the players, because the players do not exist. They are metagame entities, living outside of the reality of the world in which the game takes place.

The player characters, however, can be rewarded by NPCs (non player characters)
for in-character reasons ranging from the logical ("this fellowship of warriors helped me with several major problems, so I'm giving them a lot of gold rings and silk cloth") to the eccentric ("this ill-dressed vagabond has red hair of a hue that I find particularly pleasing in this noon sunshine, so I'll offer him the use of my south wing of my summer palace, between Easter and midsummer, for the rest of his life").

The PCs may also actively pursue things that they want, be it titles, or mundane objects (gear or valuable goods) or specific magic items. Or they can, magic system permitting, make their own magic items. Or their own equipment. In many worlds, smiths capable of making Very Fine swords are rare, so it can be useful to be able to make your own. In other worlds, finding smiths capable of making even normal-quality mail is difficult, so again if you can make your own then that could be useful.

[Jerander]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

These fail the OP's criterion of being built out of modular and freely combinable Enchantments. Each magic item in those volumes is a very speshul case all of its own.

I was responding to:

Originally Posted by Sniperkitty

...and lists of common, cool items?

TL;DR- how do I reward my characters w/ loot?

"Common" and "cool" being relative terms...

[ClayDowling]

Originally Posted by Sniperkitty

So how else do I (or you) reward players? how do you yourself make sure not to give a gift that is worth much more than you expected?

Make sure the players feel like their characters are heroes. Their actions should have an effect on the game world, in small ways or large, depending on the scale of the game you're running. Treasure means little when compared to saving the orphanage.

[gmillerd]

I would use the same items from D&D in Gurps, its trivial to pillage other systems for items and frankly make them much much better when you do so.

Having made a lot of D&D characters, I am always pained when doing so (race, roll stats, class, skills, feats, spells/abilities, gear ... grind my levels). There isn't much you can add to that mix to make the character better, people put a lot of stock in shiny objects to compensate. More so than they need to in Gurps.

Frankly a lot of the 'book of magic gear' or 'module with appendix of magic gear' is going to fall flat once you figure out how to tool your own characters, work magic, and forge some items.

In Gurps (raw) itemization has a lot more value than in D&D (difference between a sword sword and a battle axe is ... staggering, difference between .22 pistol and .50pistol is staggering), and personalization has a lot more going for it in Gurps as well.

This all has a lot to do with the odd notion that characters can actually craft (items or spells or skills or styles) in Gurps, where in other systems its an afterthought and those crafted itrems are actually usable.

So a brainy gadgetteering goblin in Gurps with a pet robot, an 'anytool' weapon thingie and a gizmo(4) tool bag ... that's trivial to create and play (play balanced) in Gurps. In D&D that would likely be an abomination, a campaign wrecking character (even if the play style fitted the character). In that the character produces items as a gimmick and is 'classless'.

Similarly Gurps handles vehicles, ships and similar "yucky stuff" out of the box and is "balanced" accordingly, seems like it doesn't really relate to the D&D comparison. But it does in that your characters can impact things naturally, using the same system they do for everything else. You want to drive (bike, model-t, f1 racer, pod racer, etc), yeah you can do that, you could also make, fix, modify, etc those things.