New to GURPs; not sure where to start

[Johnny Angel]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Another big, big thing about characters with skills in the 12-15 range with firearms is that the range penalties and hit location penalties (which you may want to do without at first; just call all shots to the torso for a few sessions) are HUGE.

The penalty to hit someone in "the torso," which is a no-penalty location, from 20 yards is -6. At 100yds it's -10. So Joe Soldier with Guns(Rifle)-12 with a rifle firing without aiming at a target 100yds away cant' even take the shot (his modified skill is less than 3) and roll the dice. In order to make it count, he must spend one or more seconds taking the Aim action (adds the weapon's Acc rating for rifles +3 to +6), possibly with All-out-Attack(Determined) for another +1, and Bracing for another +1. Even with all that, the net skill for this shot with Skill-12 is (12 - 10 + 4 +1 +1) 8-, which is about a 1 in 4 chance to hit.

This is utterly realistic, but will throw many gamers for a loop, being used to rather higher hit chances.

The OP mentioned he'd been in the millitary; range and qualification shooting is done on a known course with no one shooting back at you; GMs would usually assign a large BONUS to rolls, on the order of +3 to +7, for stationary targets in conditions where your life is not at stake, which all of a sudden makes Joe Soldier with Guns-12 shooting at 300yds (-13) but at a large bonus for being in known and not life threatening conditions (+7) with all that Aim and AoA and Braced stuff with an M16 (Acc 5 +1 AoA +1 Braced = +7) have a net skill of 12 + 7 + 7 -13 = 13, or 5 in 6 shots hitting the target.

The point is that the gunfire rules actually do fairly well against real targets in combat conditions; if the shooter wants to act like it's NOT combat...well, an assault rifle hit to the torso averages 17.5pts of damage. One hit and you're visiting KO land. :-{

That makes sense. I have experience with both range shooting and actual real life fire fights, so I'm aware that there are some differences.

One interesting thing to mention which is a little off topic does deal with target and range shooting though. Studies have been done which seem to indicated that the ratio of shots fired to enemies killed has gotten better in the modern era. One of the reasons for this is due to the fact that pop up targets on ranges are now made to look more like actual human bodies; over time, repeated firing at human-looking targets makes the mind more capable of dealing with firing upon actual human beings. Likewise, with MILES gear and simunition rounds, it's possible to play war games in which you have two teams of live people simulating killing each other. At least that's my experience with being in an infantry unit.

You're right though; firing ranges are very ideal conditions compared to a battlefield.

[blacksmith]

Originally Posted by Johnny Angel

What I was trying to say in my earlier post was that I was considering not having those "faults" available. Dwarves might not like elves, but I would expect my players to roleplay that on their own and not have the GM (me) tell them how to roleplay their character. After all, it is their character.

Sure, but if he insults the elf prince and gets thrown in the dungeon instead of invided to the feast, sure it is in character, but he misses out on a lot of things because of that.

[Johnny Angel]

Originally Posted by blacksmith

Sure, but if he insults the elf prince and gets thrown in the dungeon instead of invided to the feast, sure it is in character, but he misses out on a lot of things because of that.

Yeah, but it would have been that player's choice to act in such a manner. What I've been trying to get across with the discussion of minor mental quirks is this: I feel that minor things such as a character having some sort of person bias against a certain group should be mainly fluff. However, after getting some feedback, if a player where to choose those things as disadvantages and get characters points for them, I would then enforce it. I typically like the personality of a character to be the player's choice though. That personality may be guided by background info and fluff that I give out pertaining to how my gameworld works and how various races perceive each other, but the player could just as easily decide that his or her particular character has a different world view than the typical view of that character's race. Again, as I said, after getting feedback on how those things work, if the player were to gain mechanical benefit from having disadvantages or quirks (i.e. by choosing to actually apply a point value to them) I would then enforce their character behaving in a certain way. However, if a player notes a certain personality trait for their character without assigning a point value to it (just having it as fluff and background info) I wouldn't be strict about it.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Johnny Angel

However, if a player notes a certain personality trait for their character without assigning a point value to it (just having it as fluff and background info) I wouldn't be strict about it.

I disagree strenuously with your characterization of a hatred of this or that group of people as "fluff," but that's neither here nor there. I quote your last sentence because that's what GURPS wants you to do anyway. Disadvantages are for things which are prominent enough that they can inconvenience the character even if the player doesn't want them to at any particular moment. They are not intended to describe every last facet of a character's personality. A dwarf, for example, can easily dislike elves but not so much that he can't work with them. In that case, the character shouldn't be allowed to take the disad (it doesn't require him to do anything inconvenient, so it's not truly a disadvantage), and the GM should not push the character to act intolerantly nor punish him if he does not. What you're doing is how it's supposed to work.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

I disagree strenuously with your characterization of a hatred of this or that group of people as "fluff," but that's neither here nor there. I quote your last sentence because that's what GURPS wants you to do anyway. Disadvantages are for things which are prominent enough that they can inconvenience the character even if the player doesn't want them to at any particular moment. They are not intended to describe every last facet of a character's personality. A dwarf, for example, can easily dislike elves but not so much that he can't work with them. In that case, the character shouldn't be allowed to take the disad (it doesn't require him to do anything inconvenient, so it's not truly a disadvantage), and the GM should not push the character to act intolerantly nor punish him if he does not. What you're doing is how it's supposed to work.

In fact, if the Dwarf in question badmouthed Elves at every opportunity, but would do whatever was necessary with them that he needed to do, this might be an Odious Personal Habit which causes him some Reaction Roll issues, and thus influences his in-game world enough to matter. Or if he just makes sarcastic or joking comments about Elves, but is good-natured about it (so much as one can be a good-natured racist, as it were), perhaps that's only Quirk level behavior. So you can go anywhere (if at all) from 1pt color Quirk to 15-pt crippling disad, depending on how the player (and the GM) feel about that particular psychosis.

[blacksmith]

Originally Posted by Johnny Angel

Yeah, but it would have been that player's choice to act in such a manner.

Yes, and it was the players choice to take intolerance. He played his character well and you penalize him for it. He he had compromised the character concept he would be rewarded.

Disadvantages are a way to reward people for making flawed characters.

What I've been trying to get across with the discussion of minor mental quirks is this: I feel that minor things such as a character having some sort of person bias against a certain group should be mainly fluff.

So you would only accept quirk level intolerances not disadvantage level intolerances. Where someone will refuse to serve them, but not go out of their way to hurt them?

However, after getting some feedback, if a player where to choose those things as disadvantages and get characters points for them, I would then enforce it. I typically like the personality of a character to be the player's choice though. That personality may be guided by background info and fluff that I give out pertaining to how my gameworld works and how various races perceive each other, but the player could just as easily decide that his or her particular character has a different world view than the typical view of that character's race.

He will still generally get reacted to as if he had the disadvantage. After all if his race is known to hate some other race, people will react to him in that way regardless of how he personally feels. So it turns from an intolerance to a racial reputation for the character.

[Johnny Angel]

Originally Posted by blacksmith

Yes, and it was the players choice to take intolerance. He played his character well and you penalize him for it. He he had compromised the character concept he would be rewarded.

Disadvantages are a way to reward people for making flawed characters.



So you would only accept quirk level intolerances not disadvantage level intolerances. Where someone will refuse to serve them, but not go out of their way to hurt them?


He will still generally get reacted to as if he had the disadvantage. After all if his race is known to hate some other race, people will react to him in that way regardless of how he personally feels. So it turns from an intolerance to a racial reputation for the character.

I bolded the part that I'm responded to. No, I would allow people to take those disadvantages if they wanted to do so. I think people are understanding what I'm trying to say the opposite way of how I'm intending it.

A player would be free to choose higher levels of racial tolerance for which to get points for. If they were getting points for it, then, yes, I would enforce it. If they're getting points for it, then I enforce it. They're voluntarily attaching a mechanical value to a background trait. If they feel that an intolerance they have is such that it is a disadvantage, then, yes, I would take a more stern hand in enforcing it.

However, I wouldn't require a player to take a disadvantage and/or a quirk for every part of their personality. If a player wanted to roleplay a minor dislike of elves or a dislike of horses or a dislike of green beans (or whatever) without attaching a mechanical value to it, I would allow that. They wouldn't gain any character points for it; it would simply be a background trait which is part of their character.

Whichever route they decide to take, the rest of the world would still react to them in an appropriate manner. The only difference is that in one instance the player would be choosing to attach game mechanics to it which would invite more DM control of the character; the amount of control depends upon the severity of the intolerance. In the other instance the player would not be attaching game mechanics to it, and, as such, I wouldn't be quite as strict about it; I would keep it in mind as a personality trait and expect to react to situations in the game according to how they detailed their character's personality, but I wouldn't make a die roll to determine if they eat their vegetables during the elf king's banquet.




I'm not saying that racial intolerance isn't a serious issue. There seems to be some belief that I don't feel that racial intolerance is a serious issue. I'm not saying that at all; bigotry and racism are very serious issues. If somehow you got a different message out what I've been discussing...well...I don't know what happened; obviously something was lost in translation. I'm not even talking about severe hatreds or racism or anything like that. I only used the elf/dwarf example because it's a common fantasy ideal.

All I was saying is that I generally expect the group I play roleplaying games with to roleplay the personality that they come up with for their character. Even when we play D&D, we roleplay. The Dragonborn Paladin of Kord and the Elven Infernal Pact Warlock in my current D&D 4E group often don't get along due to the warlock nearly accidentally killing the paladin during one of our first sessions of this campaign. Both of the players roleplay the bit of a fued which has developed between the two characters, but the DM doesn't roll against the paladin's will defense to see if the Paladin is allowed to heal the warlock.

Now, on the other hand, if we were playing this same campaign under GURPs, and the paladin took a 15 point intolerance of the warlock character, then, yeah, I'd say the DM would be justified in giving the paladin some sort of penalty if he didn't play out the dislike of the other character. However, if the dislike was nothing more than the paladin's character sheet saying "doesn't trust the warlock" without any point value (0 points) being attached to it, then I wouldn't expect the DM to be strict about it.

[Johnny Angel]

To sum up what I was saying about in game racial intolerances and similar things: I would rather have a character's personality be the product of the player's imagination than be the product of game mechanics.


Now, what I was trying to say originally when I had said I considered doing away with those disadvantages: A player would be free to have his character be a total prick during his interactions with a particular race if he wanted to define his character that way; likewise a player would be more than free to have his character constantly fawning over the members of a particular race, but I don't necessarily view those two things as being worthy of points. If that's how they want to roleplay their character, they are free to do so, and the NPCs and the rest of the game world will react in a manner which fits that character. I would rather have a player build a character's personality from his imagination and how he sees the character rather than thinking "well, if I say my character has a murderous hatred toward dwarves I can get 15 points for it, and if I say that my character gets uncontrollably horny around goats I can get 15 points for that too." I expect the group that I regularly game with the roleplay their characters in a manner which fits their characters simply because that's the personality of their character; not because there are points values attached to personality traits. That's just my expectation of the people I game with because that's how things are now with the games that we play.

Now, with that being said, and to repeat what I've said many times by now. If a player insisted upon attaching a point value to a trait, then, yes, as a DM I would actively enforce it. However, I don't feel that I would need to do that because the group that I regularly game with roleplays now, and they consistantly roleplay the personalities of their characters.

[Extrarius]

There seems to be a disconnect - you expect players to role play disadvantages, but repeatedly mention that you don't want to enforce them. If they're going to play them anyways, you don't have to enforce them.

The game mechanics can be descriptive instead of prescriptive, and that meshes well with your explanation. If a player wants their character to always be racist, they take the full disadvantage. If they want their character to be occasionally racist, they take a quirk version. Either way, they get to play exactly what they want, and the character itself isn't changed any because the character was going to be that way regardless of the system.

The only possible problem I can see with using disadvantages descriptively (vs prescriptively) is that once you put the disadvantages that match the character onto the sheet, the character can't change behavior at will because the behavior is documented. If the character is supposed to change at some later time, the player will have to use earned CP to buy off the disadvantage.

[trooper6]

I got the impression that Johnny Angel was just talking about his hesitation to put Intolerance: Elves in a racial template, because he wouldn't want to for that on his players, and his preference for have quirk level intolerances in racial templates.

I didn't get the impression that he was against players voluntarily taking disad level intolerances and then expecting them to upkeep that side of the bargain.