Character Creation - handing out skills?

[briansommers]

I'm just getting into GURPS - so very new to it all. A bit overwhelming but wow what a system!

How do you all deal with beginning skills at CC?
do you just assign enough of build points and let the pc by it from zero? (From the ground up, so to speak).

or

do you give a basic set of general skills for free at a base level?

or

something else.
Thanks

[Varyon]

The default is that you give the players a budget, which they can spend on whatever - Attributes, Advantages, Skills, Techniques, Perks, etc, and get points back for Disadvantages and Quirks - and go from there (although many campaigns you'll have some traits off-limits - no Magery in a setting without magic, for example - and in any case it's a good idea to review characters before starting play).

Naturally, that can sometimes be... overwhelming, for new players and new GM's alike. A good option in that case is to offer - or outright require - that characters build their characters off of premade templates. The GM can make such templates themselves, or find them in various books. A few GURPS lines of books have some "full character" templates (that is, templates that you can build a character with, not just a starting point) that are designed to work well within that genre/setting and alongside each other. It may be worthwhile to start with those if you're finding building characters from scratch to be overwhelming. Those book lines are:

Dungeon Fantasy: This is intended for campaigns in the same genre as Dungeons and Dragons, Diablo, and so forth.

Action!: This is intended for campaigns in the same genre as action movies - be they heists, spy thrillers, or just straight shoot-em-ups.

Monster Hunters: This is modern day fantasy, with an elite team hunting down and killing vampires, liches, etc. Meant to emulate things like Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Dresden Files.

After the End: Postapocalypse. Mad Max, Fallout, Horizon: Zero Dawn / Forbidden West, etc are all emulated here... although I'll note that last one involves civilizations that are a bit different than AtE typically assumes.

If you don't want to use those, there's also the Templates Toolkit line of books, that discuss how to make templates and give examples. Or just give it a shot yourself - there are examples of templates in Campaigns that may serve as a good jumping-off point for you.

Of course, if templates aren't your thing, there are certainly other options. One of the Pyramid articles suggested using "Buckets" of points - rather than "Here's [250], and you can have up to [-50] worth of Disadvantages, have at it," you can give them specific amounts of points to put in different areas, like [100] for Attributes, [75] for Advantages, and [75] for Skills/Techniques... or divide things up into Combat/Social/Knowledge, or however you'd like to divide things.

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by briansommers

I'm just getting into GURPS - so very new to it all. A bit overwhelming but wow what a system!

How do you all deal with beginning skills at CC?
do you just assign enough of build points and let the pc by it from zero? (From the ground up, so to speak).

or

do you give a basic set of general skills for free at a base level?

or

something else.
Thanks

I let the players pick what they wish, but I get some freebies points to spend on "collorful" skills, skills that wont have much use in the game but that can bring more life to the character.

For example:
Player building a mage, picks "core skills" - Thaumatology, Occultism, Symmbol Drawing, Hidden Lore etc

10 extra points EXCLUSIVELY for him to pick:
Phylosophy
Math
Savoir Faire (Vampiric Court)
Etc

If I dont wanna give 10 extra points, I just subtract from their total - ie if they start with 100, I let them spend 90 in whatever and 10 only in "flavour skills".

But I usually give the points. Between 10 to 20, just to "flesh out" the character and not turning them into the "heroes of a single trick".

If you do that thou, make sure to have those NOT be "core" skills - ie skills ESSENTIAL to their role.

Let the Martial Artist have Phylosophy and Savoir Faire (Dojo), let the Thief know a few games, the Warrior know some Sport and the Paranormal Teacher have a hobbie (like being an Arts' critique). But to NOT include Hidden Lore (Demons) for the Mage or Hypnotic Hands for the Martial Artist, those are "core" skills.

[Polydamas]

Especially for new players or for campaigns where the characters are all part of an organization, it is common to use Templates (GURPS Characters chapter 7). Most GURPS setting and campaign-style writeups such as Banestorm or Action have examples.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by briansommers

I'm just getting into GURPS - so very new to it all. A bit overwhelming but wow what a system!

How do you all deal with beginning skills at CC?
do you just assign enough of build points and let the pc by it from zero? (From the ground up, so to speak).

The default way is to decide how many cp Caracters in the Campaign should have and give that number to the Player.

For example, the GM ecides that this will be a "gritty" game where characters are pirates in Port Royal int he year 1662 and ccharacters will be built on a base 150 character pts.

The player decides that his character should know how to fight so he takes one of his pts and puts it into Brawling and this gives him Brawling Skill at a level equal to his Dexterity. Ih he thinks this isn't high enough he spends more pts to raise that Skill score.

After he adds Skills lie Wrestling, Knife, Shortsword, Guns(Pistols) and Gunner(Cannons) he wonders if it wouldn't be cheaper to raise his Dx istead of raising all those Skill from Dx-1 (what he gets for 1 pt) and this is accurate.

So he also spends character pts on Attributes like Dexterity and he even buys Advantages like Ambidexterity so he can have a Cutlass in one hand and a Pistol in the other so he could sue either one (but not both) on his Turn.

He also selects Dsiadvantages whihc add character pts rather than subtracting them. He could tkae those pts and buy more Skills, attributes and/or advantages though the primary use of Dsads should probably be to define his characters personality. Is his pirate Greedy? Most were.

[briansommers]

Thanks, this is very helpful.

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Of course, if templates aren't your thing, there are certainly other options. One of the Pyramid articles suggested using "Buckets" of points - rather than "Here's [250], and you can have up to [-50] worth of Disadvantages, have at it," you can give them specific amounts of points to put in different areas, like [100] for Attributes, [75] for Advantages, and [75] for Skills/Techniques... or divide things up into Combat/Social/Knowledge, or however you'd like to divide things.

That's what I always do. I set an amount for Attributes, another for Advantages, another for Skills and I let them use the points from Disadvantages freely anywhere they wish to "boost". I find it to be more balanced this way. But after that I also give some freebies for what I call "Flavor Skills", which are things I'll probably never role but they are happy to know they have it "So professor... About that poltergeist... Huh? Oh, sorry, I was admiring that piece of sculpture... Did you know that this a babilonian statue that you have here? Where did you get that?... Err I dont remember professor, but what about the Poltergeist?"

[Refplace]

The most satisfying way is to have the GM create a list of "everyman skills" that everyone should at least put a point in. Describe what the campaign is about well enough that players have an idea what to build for, include in this things that are encouraged and things that are off limits.
You do not have to get real specific here. For example, in a modern day setting with no super powers, magic, etc you would say No Magic, TL skills and gear are at TL9, nothing with the Supernatural or Exotic tag/icon.

Then give a budget and let them go at it.
You'll want to review each character and perhaps try to focus players on niches or make sure they cover everything that the campaign will need.
Some overlap is ok, even recommended but you wont want everyone to be built exactly the same.
GURPS How to be A GM supplements are good. Other than that pick supplements that fit waht your going for and remember that the W23 store offers a free preview PDF that includes the Table of Contents which gives you a good idea what's in it before buying it.
And definitely feel free to ask here. Also my blog .is aimed at newcomers, just go to the GURPS Landing Page or look under gaming labels to the right.

The big thing to remember and spell out to the players is that GURPS is front loaded. That means most of the character building is done first so that's going to be the hardest and most time consuming part of the game.
Instead of randomly rolling a few things and making one or two choices you figure out what you want in the beginning and build on it later.

[Vikingv]

Pretty much everything that has already bee said, except I don't recommend you 'require' players to adhere exactly to a Template.

[Donny Brook]

You might find the free downloadable pdf "GURPS Skill Categories" to be useful. I certainly have.