What GURPS needs... now

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by kmunoz

The fact that "character generation session" is even a thing is part of the problem.

I can't fully disagree with this. One of the things I love about the Storyteller System/World of Darkness is the utter simplicity of character creation. I can hand you a character sheet and walk you through basic character creation very quickly, and all the information the player needs is on the sheet. Other systems such as Call of Cthulhu have a similar, though slightly more complex, character generation setup with the character sheet containing all the important information you might need for character creation.

This would never work for GURPS because the skill list is so much larger. Storyteller has, what, 30 skills broken into three groups? Call of Cthulhu has about 50 skills. GURPS has something like 300 skills, *NOT* including required specialties, optional specialties, or techniques.

However, once those skills are down on the character sheet it is no more complex than CoC or WoD.

Originally Posted by kmunoz

But boy do I wish character creation didn't require algebra, an astrolabe and higher order physics.

Good thing it doesn't.

The most complex math in character creation involves multiplication and division, and then only in a couple places - calculating Basic Speed is the main one, though setting levels of attributes or (dis)advantages as well as optional use of Modifiers does require some multiplication as well. The rest of character creation requires nothing more complex than addition and subtraction. These are all 3rd grade math skills.

Originally Posted by kmunoz

"Character generation session" is death.

I can *begin running* a D&D *campaign* 30 minutes after the group first sits down, Day 1.

This is a direct result of a D&D character being based on a couple stats and a couple skills while GURPS has many options. If you want to run GURPS with that level of simplicity simply replace all of the skills with about 30 Wildcard skills (heck, nick the list from Storyteller), remove almost all advantages ("fighters" get their choice of Luck or Combat Reflexes, Mages or Clerics get Magery or Power Investiture), and remove disadvantages completely. Spells will use Wildcard skills too. And everybody get one of each of their primary weapon type and a set of Leather Armor.

You will get a character about as simple as your average D&D character, with just about as much depth. Of course, in doing so you remove almost all of the customizability of GURPS.

Originally Posted by kmunoz

And I play with kids (ages 11-14) as well as adults (ages 41-44). I can't expect half of my gaming group to be able to do the math required to make a complex character. And that's even with one of the kids being an actual, frightening genius. Even she can't generate a GURPS character using just pencil and paper, if she wants to play anything other than a meathead with an axe.

You're far overstating your case, in that I know it's not really true. What people have a problem with is adding large columns of numbers - they are essentially lazy (and I'm using "lazy" in a non-pejorative way here; people have an aversion to doing this for whatever reason). Unfortunately, if you want to play a game which includes 300 skills, where a character might have 30-40 of them, it's going to require adding a bunch of numbers together unless you drastically change the number of skills and their cost structure. The same goes for Advantages and Disadvantages to a lesser extent.

Originally Posted by kmunoz

The day some young upstart game designer manages to pull off D&D style character creation/development with the universalism and realism I find in GURPS is the day I leave GURPS. Characters are a chore in GURPS, and chores are *not fun.*

The problem is that this will probably never happen. Adding options to character creation necessarily increases complexity - not complexity as in rocket science but complexity as in long grocery lists. And a good chunk of the genericness and universalism of GURPS comes from all the options it offers.