[Character Creation] How many have used point buckets?

[simply Nathan]

I plan on bucketing Disadvantages if I ever run a campagin - up to -20 points total claimed from reduced Attributes and Secondary Characteristics, -10 points mandatory from player's choice of "I'm a good guy" traits like Honesty, Sense of Duty, and Code of Honor, -20 more points from other Disadvantages (which are allowed to overlap with the previous bucket for someone who wants a -15 Code of Honor or very strong Honesty or whatever), and -5 points from Quirks for a total of up to -55 points.

[kirbwarrior]

I've only done mandatory buckets with Super campaigns to force the characters into certain directions (most recently, 300pt characters made from 100pt mundanes and 4x 50pt 'powers').

As for myself, my and another player will often 'start' with what we want to spend the most points on, as a halfway point to the bucket (the main four being attributes, dis/ads, skills, powers). And I might 'bucket' as a guideline to myself. But it's actually quite hard to hit exact numbers on purpose because some traits have modifiers and skill costs are a little unwieldy.

[zoncxs]

I am actually using the bucket system for my current game. For me it helps prevent munchkinism and gives my players a better idea of what type of game and characters they will play.

I have it as follows:

150pt characters with -25 in disadvantages.

Spend 50 points on advantages, attributes, and secondary characteristics or a profession.

40 points on mundane advantages, attributes, and secondary characteristics.

A further 35 points on the above, use any leftover points for skills.

Choose 10 of the following skills: (followed by a short list of 15 skills)

15 points on the chosen skills or spent on other skills.

25 points on skills that fit your profession.

[lvalero]

In my DF campaign I use different "bucketed templates" for the different character classes. Each template has buckets for

- Primary Attributes
- Required advantages for the class
- Optional advantanges
- Disadvantages
- Race
- Required Skills
- Rest of Skills (Includes increasing any required skill)

Not every bucket has a "fixed" amount, but some have a range of points. For example the "Paladin" has 100 points of in the bucket "Required advantages" (Sanctity 2 [10], Paladin 2 [20], Destiny of Hero [40], Proficiency in a weapon [15], Charisma 1 [5], High pain threshold [10]) but he has a range of 60-80 points in "Optional advantages".

In this example, the "Optional advs" for the paladin are 60-80 from this list:

- damage ST +1 or +2 [5/lvl]
- 1 lvl more of Paladin [10]
- 1 lvl more of Sanctity [5]
- additional HP up to ST/2 [2/lvl]
- additional FP up to HT/2 [3/lvl]
- Fit/Very Fit [5/15]
- Hard to kill [2/lvl]
- Hard to subdue [2/lvl]
- Fearless [2/lvl]
- Between 0 and 60 points of the list of advantages marked as "Common advantages" and/or "Paladin advantages".

This method has worked well for my group.

[kirbwarrior]

I was talking with one of my players and they remind me of a peasant campaign, where everyone was 20pts, had to get exactly 25pts of disads, 20pts of a power, and spend the rest however. Not something I would usually do, but it was super fun.

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by Anders

How many of you have used the "point bucket system"? What were your experiences with it? I'm thinking about using it in the future and I would like to know your thoughts.

Anymore I use either this or Character Templates almost exclusively. It makes things easier to put together in a lot of ways. And I encourage not just buckets, but buckets within buckets. Something like: "50 points in skills, at least 10 in physical, 10 in mental, and 10 in social, and not more than 25 in combat/weapon" is not an unreasonable balance.

Originally Posted by philosophyguy

I've used point buckets in several campaigns. I found it very useful for two kinds of situations in particular. The first is new players: point buckets make it easier for the players to make the array of choices manageable. It's a lot quicker to decide how to allocate 100 points in attributes and 50 points in skills rather than 150 points among everything.

I think that buckets helps immensely with new players. The biggest complaint everyone seems to have about GURPS is that "you need a sliderule to make a character." Not only is that assertion just wrong, but new players being thrown into character creation with no guidance is likely one of the biggest reasons why people come by this belief (only reinforced by the plethora of supplements which add character creation rules, and not helped by the GURPS Vehicles grognards). Giving players useful guidance, if not actually using character templates, fixes almost all of these problems.

If you look at my second-favorite RPG system, the WhiteWolf Storyteller one, one thing you will quickly notice is that the whole character creation system is essentially buckets within buckets. You have X, Y, and Z dots to fill in for primary, secondary, and tertiary attributes, all you need to do is decide which of Physical, Social, or Mental will be in those categories. Then do the same for Skills, Talents, and Knowledges. Pick a Clan/Tribe/etc., and then you simply add the pre-defined "super" powers to the character. Selecting Backgrounds is the only place it doesn't give you a pre-defined list of traits to choose from, but you still only have a limited number of dots to start with. Then you get a few more dots to fill in the Virtues, Humanity, and Willpower. You can literally make a Storyteller character in about 3 minutes by just filling in the dots, then a couple more minutes to select a clan/tribe/etc. and backgrounds (and you should usually have a good idea of what those will be before you start). It's one of the simpler character creation systems in RPGs.

Originally Posted by philosophyguy

The second scenario where point buckets shine is with powers/supernatural abilities. Point-equal characters aren't balanced, so rather than fiddling with balance issues I can give the characters points for their "base" character and then give them a second bucket they can tap for magic, psionics, cinematic advantages, etc. That way, all the characters have a comparable foundation - their base attributes and skill levels will be in the same ballpark.

I almost always do this with Supers style games. Again, this helps people direct the points into a reasonable distribution instead of concentrating too heavily on one aspect of the character or another. This gets a little finicky when some of the traits crossover (how much does Super-ST count as an Attribute vs a Power; is Wealth a mundane advantage or a Power, etc). However, it's just a matter of ironing out the wrinkles.