11-05-2022, 12:02 PM | #11 | |
Join Date: May 2007
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Re: Points without total
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As I understand it, the basic idea is "character points are used as normal during character creation, but completely ignored during subsequent play".
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11-05-2022, 01:51 PM | #12 | |||
Join Date: Jun 2018
Location: The Wired
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Re: Points without total
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This is the another reason I want to step away from the idea of point totals: I want to be able to include things like template-specific "package deals" whose balance I have weighed ahead of time, or even "limited-time offers" where instead of counting study-hours, you can buy skills for points at a discount for access to high-quality instruction. Quote:
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In the case of disadvantages like Enemy, the possibility of getting rid of them without the need to buy them off is actually an improvement. Relief from the disadvantage becomes a reward for defeating or escaping your enemy. If that's a trivial accomplishment, then the disadvantage shouldn't have been worth points to begin with. |
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11-05-2022, 02:08 PM | #13 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ronkonkoma, NY
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Re: Points without total
I once said this exact thing on this forum, and Kromm's response was basically, Where did I say that? He didn't think maintaining point totals was all that important.
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11-05-2022, 03:14 PM | #14 | |
Join Date: Jun 2018
Location: The Wired
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Re: Points without total
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This isn't just a special case. This is how point totals work in GURPS. If you gain disadvantages in play, your point total is reduced by the corresponding value, and this sometimes results in characters very different from the sort you end up with if you give a player 100 points and the discretion to spend them how they like. To answer your question: discretion. The difference between a 100-point PC and PC built on 100 points is discretion, and it's a big one. Going the other way, you can also end up with advantages that aren't part of your planned build, and that you might not have chosen yourself because they wouldn't have synergized well enough with what you already had to be worth the points. My contention is that unspent points have an implied value that goes away when they are spent, and that this value is the only one that really matters. |
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11-05-2022, 03:25 PM | #15 |
Join Date: Jun 2018
Location: The Wired
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Re: Points without total
You don't need to keep track of point totals of individual characters to do that. Just give them (starting point budget)+(average point reward per session)×(number of sessions).
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11-05-2022, 04:54 PM | #16 | ||
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Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Southeast NC
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Re: Points without total
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As to the other question of using in-game currency to fix a problem that netted you meta-game currency, I've always taken disadvantages as something that the PC will not or cannot easily fix. If you take Blindness and purchase cybernetic eyes during the first session, you've given the GM permission to impose 50 points worth of "this is why you didn't get them earlier" (like unreliable cybernetics that cause you to suffer chronic headaches and estrangement from your anti-cyber luddite family).
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11-05-2022, 06:21 PM | #17 | |
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: Snoopy's basement
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Re: Points without total
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I am trying to understand what you mean by not using character point totals. I don't know what it's used for that you would avoid by not using it. Last edited by Donny Brook; 11-05-2022 at 06:29 PM. |
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11-05-2022, 07:28 PM | #18 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ronkonkoma, NY
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Re: Points without total
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For example, a newly created 100-point character has 100 points of things the player wants, while a long-played 100-point character might have some of those points in useless or suboptimal traits because of things that have happened to them, traits that the player didn't choose. So, one asks, what do those 100 character points actually mean? I don't think the question is a useful one. It doesn't really matter after character creation whether your character is really "worth" the character points it's built with. Your point total is, at most, an administrative index for the value of your Allies, etc. There is no other game-mechanical reason you want your point total to be anything in particular. |
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11-06-2022, 03:55 AM | #19 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Points without total
I don't keep count of number of sessions.
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11-07-2022, 12:14 PM | #20 |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Points without total
I've always considered the rule that you lose points from your total from Disadvantages gained in play to be a bad one. A [125] delver who recently lost an arm to a monster is still a [125] delver, and his shiny new One Arm Disadvantage is worth exactly [0]. This is because getting rid of a Disadvantage requires that you both a) do something that would logically get rid of it (have a healer regenerate your arm, kill off your enemy or convince him/her to leave you be, etc) and b) pay back the points it initially gave you. Writing One Arm [-20] implies you got points for it, but if you gained it in play you absolutely did not gain points for it, and charging you points to get rid of it isn't fair. This can also avoid issues where your Ally/Enemy needs to either be weakened or start showing up less frequently because you lost an arm. On the flip side, Advantages gained in play should similarly be worth [0] and have none of the plot protection purchased Advantages enjoy - the GM can't (or at least shouldn't) just kill off an Ally you purchased in order to heighten drama or similar, but an Ally you gained for "free" in play is fair game.
As for killing an Enemy being an acceptable means of getting rid of that Disadvantage, it's honestly quite easy to create an Enemy who both a) is a significant thorn in your side and b) would be easy to kill off. Disallowing that kind of Enemy removes a lot of Enemy concepts - Elijah Price ("Mr. Glass" from Unbreakable and Glass) certainly wouldn't work as an Enemy. But to make them feasible, killing them needs to have some significant ramifications. Maybe having murdered your foe becomes a Secret. Maybe law enforcement is actively seeking you out for said murder, replacing that Enemy with another. Maybe your foe had setup an illegal fund that, in the case of his/her death, would put a bounty on your head (similarly replacing one Enemy with another). Of course, even with a formidable Enemy, it's just a bit of high-risk gambling on the part of the player - set yourself up with a high-value Hunter Enemy (who specifically wants you dead) to get some extra points, set the frequency of appearance high enough said Enemy will likely show up within the first few sessions, and hope you can kill him/her. If you succeed, that's an extra pile of points you got. If you fail, you're dead, so you need to make up a new character... and with only a few sessions passing, you probably aren't very far behind the other characters in terms of capabilities, even if built on the same initial number of points. Personally, I'd say keeping track of the point value of starting Disadvantages is worthwhile if such Disadvantages could potentially be removed during play, but not tracking anything else is probably fine (aside from perhaps noting what Advantages/Disadvantages were acquired for "free" during play, to know what does and doesn't have a degree of plot protection). For Allies/Enemies, I could see any of three general options (or permutations of them) in play - the Ally/Enemy doesn't improve, the Ally/Enemy improves proportionally to the PC (an Ally built on 25% of the character's points gains [1] for every [4] rewarded to the PC, an Enemy built on 150% gains [3] for every [2], etc), and the Ally/Enemy simply improves equally to the PC (which will narrow the gap between them as time goes on). This would just be for points awarded at the end of sessions; improvement through study and/or traits gained for "free" during play wouldn't have an impact (although it may be appropriate to give the Ally/Enemy some "free" traits as well).
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GURPS Overhaul Last edited by Varyon; 11-07-2022 at 12:18 PM. |
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