The Beauty of GURPS

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by whswhs

On one hand, sure. I've run a campaign where all the characters were built on 1600 points (and one player dropped out because he couldn't come up with even a thousand point build).

But on the other, Alexander seemed to be endorsing the idea that you need 250 points to create a competent and playable character, even in a realistic campaign, at least as a subordinate assertion. And I think that provides an overly narrow view of what GURPS can do, one that excludes the option of running relatively low-point campaigns. I've found that to be a viable option, so I wanted to speak up for it.

I generally start at 125 points. I'd like to go lower, at some point, but my players always push back. :)

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

I generally start at 125 points. I'd like to go lower, at some point, but my players always push back.

I'd had players who'd signed up for "you're all students in the Faculty of Magic at Worminghall, aged ~14." They were willing to go for 75 points and build up from there.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

I generally start at 125 points. I'd like to go lower, at some point, but my players always push back. :)

I'd push back myself ;) After doing 4th since it came out, I've generally found that 200pts minimum just makes for better campaigns (with about 1200 being the max starting point but I mostly blame that on my lack of skill as a GM). Note that is with my houserules, that might translate better to something like 175 in RAW.

[AlexanderHowl]

Yeah, 125 CP is rather weak for most campaigns. In most of my campaigns, the victims are built with more CP than 125 CP. I mean, five dependable friends/relatives of equal value are 50 CP in Ally alone, and I imagine that most people have that many dependable friends/relatives. In my own case, I can always depend on my parents, my brother, my fiancee, and three friends from my previous home, and they can depend on me, and I am not a terribly social person.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Yeah, 125 CP is rather weak for most campaigns. In most of my campaigns, the victims are built with more CP than 125 CP. I mean, five dependable friends/relatives of equal value are 50 CP in Ally alone, and I imagine that most people have that many dependable friends/relatives. In my own case, I can always depend on my parents, my brother, my fiancee, and three friends from my previous home, and they can depend on me, and I am not a terribly social person.

An Ally is "wholly reliable" and 10pts in an equal value Ally is a 12 or less. I don't know if Ally is even a realistic advantage, I'm not sure I've met someone who is "wholly reliable" to anyone, especially in the context of roleplaying where the default assumption is being on some adventure. Most people seem to be like PCs, at least in how Ally describes them; They have their own hidden goals, ethics, and motives, which might not coincide with your own. I can see someone having one Ally; trusts implicitly, travels together, fights back-to-back, share rations in hard times, and trades watch at night. That's likely that one person you actually think you can trust and I've seen far too many of those be one-sided. The idea that someone could have five of those sounds like a super power and the 50pts only helps that. Further, that 12 or Less is pretty high, most people have pretty rigid schedules that being able to escape 75% of the time seems optimistic.

Now, the friend perk absolutely describes a lot of people, someone you can rely on to give you a bed for the night. I think most realistic people have some amount of Claim to Hospitality.

[AlexanderHowl]

I also have several people who would fit under the 1 CP Friend perk. I do not think that it is a superpower to have several people who would be willing to help you to the degree as described by Ally. In fact, I would argue that humans evolved to create such strong bonds within groups and that it was only within the last twenty years that such strong bonds have become proportionally uncommon among people we call 'friends'. After all, modern society calls people whose only connection is through messaging on the Internet 'friends', when real friends are the people who are willing to lend you rent money or take care of your kid for a few days with no warning when you are in a bind.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

I generally start at 125 points. I'd like to go lower, at some point, but my players always push back. :)

my campaigns often start in that zone... but I usually have campaign advantages that make the true total higher.

Lost in Dreams characters were built on 110 points... but then had a 163 advantage package.

Banestorm atlante characters were built on 130 points, but social advantages were free, and most characters had 50 or more points in wealth, status, and rank.

Lawmen of Borlo characters were built at 120 points, unless you got a racial template that gave well over 50 points of advantages mostly replicable with technology for 5 or 10 points

Space Warriors characters were built at 130 points, but then had 135 points of advantages and attribute boosts added on.

So I think I like having skill and Attribute budgets in the 120 point range, but potentially adding on a pile of advantages.

I've also gone well over that when the concept called for it. 250 points are for action style games without powers. Dreadstormers is built on 380 points. I've run Monster hunters where you start with either an extra template (usually an inhuman) or an extra 100 points. And Godslayers had 1000 points of mostly powers as one of the character building options.

[Gumby Bush]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Yeah, 125 CP is rather weak for most campaigns. In most of my campaigns, the victims are built with more CP than 125 CP. I mean, five dependable friends/relatives of equal value are 50 CP in Ally alone, and I imagine that most people have that many dependable friends/relatives. In my own case, I can always depend on my parents, my brother, my fiancee, and three friends from my previous home, and they can depend on me, and I am not a terribly social person.

But--and I'm sure we've been over this ground before--NPCs aren't statted with mundane allies, dependents, enemies, etc., so they don't count. Interestingly, this means that many characters are worth more as PCs than NPCs, but hey, you want to be a main character, right?

In some campaigns, the fact that you nominally have 5 equal point "Allies" doesn't matter--you've been sucked through a Banestorm, trapped in a haunted house, or whatever, such that their appearance is really "On Divine Intervention Only." In a globetrotting game they're more like low appearance Contacts. Also, if I bought all these allies, contacts, etc., then I am hilariously un-optimized as a PC. Like, why did I buy these social traits (and not, say, some more practical ones?), Flexibility, and some combination of Absent Minded, Single Minded, and Eidetic Memory?

At any rate, I find 150 is fine for the right group and the right campaign--granted, it can be comedic. Some campaigns expect a bit of social disconnectedness, too, like many DF or DF-inspired campaigns, as well as some After the End or Action sorts of games. I haven't done 125, but that's more to do with wanting give in templates than actual concern about power level.

In a game focused on progression and learning, like Bill's, I could easily see starting lower. IQ 13, Magery 1, 15 points in other advantages (Eidetic Memory, Craftiness 1, and +1 to Per or Will maybe?), 30 points in disads, 10 points in skills, 5 starting spells: 75 points.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I also have several people who would fit under the 1 CP Friend perk. I do not think that it is a superpower to have several people who would be willing to help you to the degree as described by Ally. In fact, I would argue that humans evolved to create such strong bonds within groups and that it was only within the last twenty years that such strong bonds have become proportionally uncommon among people we call 'friends'. After all, modern society calls people whose only connection is through messaging on the Internet 'friends', when real friends are the people who are willing to lend you rent money or take care of your kid for a few days with no warning when you are in a bind.

The bolded almost always comes at a huge cost. 'Fair weather' friends have been a huge problem for probably thousands of years. And that last part is my point, I don't know of anyone who would 'reliably' do either of those for anyone.

Originally Posted by Gumby Bush

But--and I'm sure we've been over this ground before--NPCs aren't statted with mundane allies, dependents, enemies, etc., so they don't count. Interestingly, this means that many characters are worth more as PCs than NPCs, but hey, you want to be a main character, right?

I've been treating people as PCs for the purpose of being able to apply rules to them. And I agree, NPCs do get off scot free with their allies, those cheaters.

[Alden Loveshade]

In regard to point totals, GURPS does allow you to run games with very low to very high point totals. And you can even do that with PCs in the same game.

At a convention, a GM ran GURPS Easter Egg Hunt. Most of the PCs were kids with very few points (some I think were 0 or below). Players were still talking about the fun they had in that game several conventions later.

I was in a GURPS Carnival game at a convention where some PCs were quite capable--my PC wasn't. I quite enjoyed it.

I ran GURPS Gilligan's Island. Mrs. Howell, the naive ill-informed senior citizen socialite, didn't have nearly the same point total as the younger, stronger, know-it-all Professor. (Especially when you ignore her wealth as it was of no practical value on a deserted island). But my G.I. convention games always got a number of players, many of them returning.

Even in continuing campaigns, we've had one PC who had over double the points of another PC, and it worked quite well.

Something I've wanted to do for a long time is to play a sidekick to a superhero. In some game systems, something like that would be suicide. But it's fully doable in GURPS.