Are there any supplements that have revisited GURPS attributes?

[MrFix]

Originally Posted by Emerikol

It seems like everybody has a houserule which tells you it's probably an issue in some way. I've not played GURPS enough at this point to judge for myself personally but my long experience with min/maxers makes my spider sense tingle.

I do think though that any houserule does not fit all genres and GURPS is a multigenre game so that may be why they made the choices they made. Meaning if they made one particular choice it would favor one genre over another and they don't want to do that. It really does boil down to the type of game you want. I do think many GMs are blindsided and don't get the game they want because enough thought was not put into how attributes will work for their game.

For my fantasy game, I will limit improvements to any attribute after initial creation. Not to zero but to some percentage of what you took originally. I do not think you can turn a dumb person into a genius. On the other hand, you can improve and broaden your general knowledge. So there is a balance.

Since not many skills depend on HT and ST, I'd tend to allow a more broad rule on those. For IQ/DX though I'd use what I said above.

It's less of an issue and more of a meme at this point. New players come to the game, they see various old players talk about it, they start believing it like it's gospel. You yourself admitted to be an example of it - "lots of people dabble into it, that means attributes are an issue."

A critical look at it though and you can see it's literally just moving points around and doesn't help anybody.

Too many are demanding to be able to make an ultra-skilled swordsman who is still DX10. Or Ultra-heavy lifter who is still ST10. The game lets you do that, but it's obvious that this is not how a human being operates, and it's rather impossible to not develop broadly before you reach that sort of specialization.

All official templates advocate for you to buy attributes first and foremost, so literally playing the game as written would brand you a min/maxer and munchkin - that's nonsense.

And, in the end, the whole shebang is happening because investing heavily into skills is not 'point efficient', like the supporters of it absolutely need every single point to be counted and effective, ESPECIALLY against other PCs. It's not even about making sure your character is capable of doing things you imagine him to, it's pure optimization and the REAL min-maxing.

GURPS demands attributes to be a big part of your character, but they cost points and these points are 'wasted' if you are not broad enough of a person to take advantage of them, so a lot of people seem to demand the ability to simply dump points into Murder, Run Away and Talk Smack without touching attributes at all, and also making sure that players who do touch them are disadvantaged.

How is making attributes less relevant and making characters that are "10 ST, 10 DX, 10 IQ, 10 HT, 80 points into guns" the GOOD thing? At least attributes enable defaults, so that you can say that your character isn't living his entire life Shooting Bow [20] and Surviving (Woodland) [24] and could actually, maybe, remember a folk tale (History IQ-6), tie a knot (DX-4) or turn the deer he shot down into leather gloves (DX-4).

[Donny Brook]

I see quite a few characters and templates that seem unrealistic in the narrowness of the skill list. Characters who purport to be normal for their setting but have, for example, with NO Savoir Faire, or NO Carousing, or NO Swimming, or NO Driving, Riding, Teamster, Bicycling, Writing, Math, Games, Sports, Hobbies, Animal Handling... absolutely nothing learned from parents or community before becoming adventurers.

In short, I think the desire to hyperspecialize in skills is at least part of what people see as a 'problem' with attributes.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by MrFix

It's less of an issue and more of a meme at this point.

I mean, if you ignore the people who have actually encountered problems with it during character generation, sure. I will agree that one shouldn't simply take it on faith that it's a problem, regardless of whoever else has an issue with it - one should design characters and, ideally, run a campaign or three to see if it's actually an issue at one's own table. While I don't really have any GM'ing/playing experience (outside of a brief aborted zombie apocalypse campaign), it is an issue I've run into with some frequency when designing characters - I very frequently would start with a character for whom the concept calls for some level of DX, and where the final build ends up at +3 or more to DX above that (going from average to exceptional, exceptional to amazing, amazing to peak human, peak human to beyond human, and so forth). In theory, I could fluff things to say "Oh, this guy's actually just exceptional, the DX beyond that just represents a lot of training in DX-based skills," but high DX mechanically does not work that way. Perhaps in play the difference wouldn't be apparent enough to make a difference but, well, Training is a really simple "fix."

Originally Posted by MrFix

Too many are demanding to be able to make an ultra-skilled swordsman who is still DX10.

Err... an ultra-skilled swordsman is actually cheaper to make with modest DX than high DX. DX 10 [0] + Broadsword 20 [40] costs markedly less than DX 19 [180] + Broadsword 20 [4]. DX being more efficient comes into play when the swordsman is also skilled with a shield, in unarmed combat (Brawling and Wrestling/Judo), with a bow, with a proper battlefield weapon (like a halberd or other polearm), with sneaking, with riding a horse, and so forth, provided those skills are meant to be above 12 (E), 11 (A), 10 (H) or 9 (VH) - that is, if at the character's intended DX level (we're using 10 here) they are above the Default+6 [4] level. The problem with that is that you don't need very many skills for the efficiency issue to come into play - at 3 skills it's a values judgement (there are pros and cons to either choice), at 4 skills higher DX is generally preferable ([15] is cheaper than [16], at least if you want the associated +0.25 to Basic Speed anyway), and at 5 or more skills higher DX is pretty much always preferable.

Originally Posted by MrFix

All official templates advocate for you to buy attributes first and foremost, so literally playing the game as written would brand you a min/maxer and munchkin - that's nonsense.

The official templates are built the way GURPS pushes you to build characters, yes. Our whole point is that GURPS pushes you to build characters in this way, even if the character concept calls for a different build method. Naturally, GURPS not being a perfect system (such a thing does not - can not - exist), it's unfortunately true that sometimes there are character concepts that just... won't work, or at least won't be as effective in the same role as other character concepts. However, I see no reason to dissuade people from finding solutions that will work - there's nothing wrong with improving GURPS for one's own use, after all.

Originally Posted by MrFix

GURPS demands attributes to be a big part of your character, but they cost points and these points are 'wasted' if you are not broad enough of a person to take advantage of them, so a lot of people seem to demand the ability to simply dump points into Murder, Run Away and Talk Smack without touching attributes at all, and also making sure that players who do touch them are disadvantaged.

I don't think anyone's intent is to discourage attribute-based builds, but many of the solutions that have been proposed over the years do indeed go too far and do just that. My Training suggestion is meant to make attribute-based and skill-based builds equivalent, rather than favoring one over the other.

Indeed, that's how I came up with the pricing. Training (Physical) started life as Training (DX). It's priced the same as +1 DX [20] combined with -0.25 Basic Speed [-5] (the combination of which is often called "DX!"). The advantage of Training (DX) over DX! is that the former increases relative skill level, so that it comes into play when floating to another attribute (or just floating to 10), when determining if one qualifies for damage/Trained ST bonuses, and so forth. The advantage of DX! over Training (DX) is that it improves defaults, has cases where DX is rolled against (such as keeping one's footing after being shoved back), and it comes into play when other skills are floated to DX - Training (DX) won't help you fit into tight places when doing repairs, but DX! will.

Training (Mental) started life as Training (IQ), which would have been [10]/level, just like so-called IQ!, for the same reasons as above. I disliked the two versions of Training having different prices, however, so I decided to have it also cover Per and Will skills (Per and Will are two attributes where buying them up is still a good idea even if you lack any related skills, as they tend to be rolled against directly). This made the name more appropriately be Training (Mental).

Eventually, having Training (DX) and Training (Mental) irked me enough for me to opt to go ahead and shove HT-based skills in with the former to make it Training (Physical). I really don't consider this to be a problem - improving related skills is at best a tertiary benefit of boosting the powerhouse attribute that is HT, so having that as a "gimme" for Training (Physical) is not, I feel, unbalanced.

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Characters who purport to be normal for their setting but have, for example, with NO Savoir Faire, or NO Carousing, or NO Swimming, or NO Driving, Riding, Teamster, Bicycling, Writing, Math, Games, Sports, Hobbies, Animal Handling... absolutely nothing learned from parents or community before becoming adventurers.

The background knowledge/skills one acquires as part of "being an actual person" are largely what Defaults are meant to represent. That said, someone who didn't bother learning any of the above beyond Default would indeed likely be a strange person.

[MrFix]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I mean, if you ignore the people who have actually encountered problems with it during character generation, sure. I will agree that one shouldn't simply take it on faith that it's a problem, regardless of whoever else has an issue with it - one should design characters and, ideally, run a campaign or three to see if it's actually an issue at one's own table. While I don't really have any GM'ing/playing experience (outside of a brief aborted zombie apocalypse campaign), it is an issue I've run into with some frequency when designing characters - I very frequently would start with a character for whom the concept calls for some level of DX, and where the final build ends up at +3 or more to DX above that (going from average to exceptional, exceptional to amazing, amazing to peak human, peak human to beyond human, and so forth). In theory, I could fluff things to say "Oh, this guy's actually just exceptional, the DX beyond that just represents a lot of training in DX-based skills," but high DX mechanically does not work that way. Perhaps in play the difference wouldn't be apparent enough to make a difference but, well, Training is a really simple "fix."



Err... an ultra-skilled swordsman is actually cheaper to make with modest DX than high DX. DX 10 [0] + Broadsword 20 [40] costs markedly less than DX 19 [180] + Broadsword 20 [4]. DX being more efficient comes into play when the swordsman is also skilled with a shield, in unarmed combat (Brawling and Wrestling/Judo), with a bow, with a proper battlefield weapon (like a halberd or other polearm), with sneaking, with riding a horse, and so forth, provided those skills are meant to be above 12 (E), 11 (A), 10 (H) or 9 (VH) - that is, if at the character's intended DX level (we're using 10 here) they are above the Default+6 [4] level. The problem with that is that you don't need very many skills for the efficiency issue to come into play - at 3 skills it's a values judgement (there are pros and cons to either choice), at 4 skills higher DX is generally preferable ([15] is cheaper than [16], at least if you want the associated +0.25 to Basic Speed anyway), and at 5 or more skills higher DX is pretty much always preferable.



The official templates are built the way GURPS pushes you to build characters, yes. Our whole point is that GURPS pushes you to build characters in this way, even if the character concept calls for a different build method. Naturally, GURPS not being a perfect system (such a thing does not - can not - exist), it's unfortunately true that sometimes there are character concepts that just... won't work, or at least won't be as effective in the same role as other character concepts. However, I see no reason to dissuade people from finding solutions that will work - there's nothing wrong with improving GURPS for one's own use, after all.



I don't think anyone's intent is to discourage attribute-based builds, but many of the solutions that have been proposed over the years do indeed go too far and do just that. My Training suggestion is meant to make attribute-based and skill-based builds equivalent, rather than favoring one over the other.

Indeed, that's how I came up with the pricing. Training (Physical) started life as Training (DX). It's priced the same as +1 DX [20] combined with -0.25 Basic Speed [-5] (the combination of which is often called "DX!"). The advantage of Training (DX) over DX! is that the former increases relative skill level, so that it comes into play when floating to another attribute (or just floating to 10), when determining if one qualifies for damage/Trained ST bonuses, and so forth. The advantage of DX! over Training (DX) is that it improves defaults, has cases where DX is rolled against (such as keeping one's footing after being shoved back), and it comes into play when other skills are floated to DX - Training (DX) won't help you fit into tight places when doing repairs, but DX! will.

Training (Mental) started life as Training (IQ), which would have been [10]/level, just like so-called IQ!, for the same reasons as above. I disliked the two versions of Training having different prices, however, so I decided to have it also cover Per and Will skills (Per and Will are two attributes where buying them up is still a good idea even if you lack any related skills, as they tend to be rolled against directly). This made the name more appropriately be Training (Mental).

Eventually, having Training (DX) and Training (Mental) irked me enough for me to opt to go ahead and shove HT-based skills in with the former to make it Training (Physical). I really don't consider this to be a problem - improving related skills is at best a tertiary benefit of boosting the powerhouse attribute that is HT, so having that as a "gimme" for Training (Physical) is not, I feel, unbalanced.



The background knowledge/skills one acquires as part of "being an actual person" are largely what Defaults are meant to represent. That said, someone who didn't bother learning any of the above beyond Default would indeed likely be a strange person.

1) I never said it wasnt cheaper. I explicitly said it was cheaper and thus attracted min-maxers who do want to only have this specific skill very high because they know they'll be rolling it multiple times per session, and to deal with other PCs being more broadly-skilled, they would advocate for attribute nerf. They always compare themselves to other PCs and how optimized/on the level they are.

2) Build method and character concept have very little in common, and I already explained to you that two completely different characters can have the same exact build, because the system first of all encourages, officially, to stat things in the cheapest way possible. And second of all, the system is limited by it's books, it cannot contain 100% of your imagination in it the way you want it to.

Nobody is upset that in The Other Game you MUST have high INT to be a wizard, but for some reason peope are very upset about similar situation in GURPS. You expect the game to be more than it is - a collection of rules to organize and direct roleplay.

3) Can't comment much on that

4) Defaults are very much NOT background skills your character has. Basic Set officially equates it to 'having an idea how something works from TV'. This is obviously not the case with 12 years of basic schooling, or even as basic as study to get driver's license.

[kenclary]

I don't think it's an issue at all.

It does make it harder to implement a class-based system, for example --- a class wants to be competent within a specific niche, incompetent (or so) in other niches, and each class niche is sufficiently broad that it's point-wise more efficient to raise attributes than to raise every skill in the class.

Of course, that mostly means that, when bolting a class-based system into GURPS, you need to adjust how attributes and skills are bought, or how they relate, etc.

Then again, class-based systems are terrible (and level-based systems are worse), and GURPS isn't class-based at its core, so it's not an issue with GURPS ;)

Another take is that is that attributes and skills, like anything else, break down a bit (in terms of realism) when you use very high CP totals. But then, by "realistic" standards, most attributes higher than 16 are basically supernatural or cinematic, anyway --- so it makes sense that you'd get supernatural/cinematic results like seeming-omnicompetence.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Originally Posted by kenclary

Of course, that mostly means that, when bolting a class-based system into GURPS, you need to adjust how attributes and skills are bought, or how they relate, etc.

It's probably telling that when systems like D&D let you determine you ability scores via buying, rather than randomization or pre-set arrays, the cost for scores goes up and/or there are hard caps.

[Kromm]

I'd like to weigh in on two points:

1. As has been stated, GURPS attributes do not distinguish nature from nurture. It's a conceit of the system that highly trained people with many skills that depend on an attribute will have higher values of that attribute to reflect having trained in all that stuff. Indeed, the most realistic way to improve an attribute is probably to study a bunch of skills based on it until reducing all of those skills by one level and shoving the points that saves into the attribute raises the attribute by one level, thereby giving the same final skill levels. So . . . your Navy SEALs or whatever probably do start with higher-than-average attributes (say, 11 or 12) owing to a rigorous screening process, but will likely end up with even higher scores (say, 13 or 14) through intensive training, and it's impossible to distinguish what's nature and what's nurture in the resulting character.

2. Defaults represent not just applying innate gifts to solve problems you've never trained to solve, but also all the stuff you pick up during the course of living life (this is why you get no default for skills unknown to your society; see p. B173). Again, there's no nature vs. nurture distinction. This means that for characters with high attributes justified through either being good raw material or having had lots of training, defaults are "good enough" for background skills. If a typical person has Area Knowledge, Housekeeping, and a few Hobby Skills at 10-11, Driving and an Influence skill at 9-10, etc., then some heroic type with DX 14, IQ 14 has defaults of 9-10 in all this stuff and is no less typical . . . they don't need to clutter their character sheet with a long list of minor skills, and in fact it's kind of silly when they do spend points and end up with Area Knowledge-14, Housekeeping-14, Driving-13, etc. and are better cab drivers and maids than people who are actual cab drivers and maids!

All of the above is intended behavior, deliberately baked into GURPS. If you dislike it, then as others have pointed out, you're heartily encouraged to go buy GURPS Power-Ups 9: Alternate Attributes, which is an entire toolkit for disagreeing with GURPS's assumptions about these things, and which shows all its work rather than hand-waving details. And if you specifically want to distinguish nature from nurture more, I'd also point you to the Talents as Training rules in GURPS Power-Ups 3: Talents.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by MrFix

1) I never said it wasnt cheaper. I explicitly said it was cheaper and thus attracted min-maxers who do want to only have this specific skill very high because they know they'll be rolling it multiple times per session, and to deal with other PCs being more broadly-skilled, they would advocate for attribute nerf. They always compare themselves to other PCs and how optimized/on the level they are.

I've not seen any indication of that in this thread. From my reading, the issues raised have been a) a somewhat-nebulous concept that "it's too cheap" (that is, fear of people using it to min/max, not min/maxers complaining it makes their min/maxed characters not sufficiently superior to the others) b) my own issue, that raising attributes gives mechanical differences from raising skills the make certain character concepts cost more than others for the same effectiveness, and c) ErnhamDJ's issue, which appears to be that raising attributes is so effective that everyone is one of DX guy/IQ guy, specialized to the point of being a poor fit outside of specific situations (like someone with DX 10, Broadsword 20, and little else), or inefficiently built and thus overshadowed by the generalists (or the hyerspecialists in their specific fields).

Originally Posted by MrFix

2) Build method and character concept have very little in common, and I already explained to you that two completely different characters can have the same exact build, because the system first of all encourages, officially, to stat things in the cheapest way possible. And second of all, the system is limited by it's books, it cannot contain 100% of your imagination in it the way you want it to.

For the first point, I've explained how increasing attributes and increasing skills to get to the same level have different mechanical effects, even if ignoring point costs for the exercise. You may continue to apparently insist that a character who has DX 16 and several skills at DX+2 due to natural talent and one that is built with DX 16 and several skills at DX+2 to represent a great deal of training with those skills both work fine, but that doesn't change the fact that when the characters have to float those skills to their more modest IQ 10 (say, to perform immediate action on a jammed rifle), the one who is just naturally dexterous and trained for a few months at that skill is no worse off than the guy who has spent over a decade honing that same skill.

As for the second, GURPS is not restricted to the published books. It's not a series of holy texts where any alterations will bring down the fury of a vengeful god. Houserules are a perfectly fine addition to it, so I see no reason to discourage such a "heresy."

Originally Posted by MrFix

Nobody is upset that in The Other Game you MUST have high INT to be a wizard, but for some reason peope are very upset about similar situation in GURPS. You expect the game to be more than it is - a collection of rules to organize and direct roleplay.

GURPS isn't That Other Game, and honestly, being able to build a wizard who isn't a genius would be a pretty good option for a Generic, Universal system. And... that is an option in GURPS (uncapped Magery works with the default system, Imbuement skills can instead be based on DX, Spells as Powers doesn't require any controlling attribute, etc), which is part of what attracts people to it (some of which are upset with TOG, which is why they look for something better).

Originally Posted by MrFix

4) Defaults are very much NOT background skills your character has. Basic Set officially equates it to 'having an idea how something works from TV'. This is obviously not the case with 12 years of basic schooling, or even as basic as study to get driver's license.

See "Everyman Skills" (Pyramid #3/65). This is a list of common tasks anyone is expected to be able to do, with modifiers that make it so required rolls are against Attribute+0 for those performing at default, Attribute+4 for those with [1] in the skill. Basic education (technically, it says elementary education, but my interactions with people indicate many don't retain a lot of those skills beyond an elementary understanding - consider the show Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?) and typical driving are explicitly included, alongside quite a few other things. As I noted, however, most people will have at least some of those skills above default - for me, I'd say I've got Swimming, Driving, Bicycling, Writing, Math, and a few Games/Hobby skills at at least [1], but probably rely on defaults (with some Advantages/Disadvantages skewing things a bit) for the rest.

[swampthing]

Originally Posted by Emerikol

It seems like everybody has a houserule which tells you it's probably an issue in some way.

I don't see how that's something that you could possibly know about everybody.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Kromm

1. As has been stated, GURPS attributes do not distinguish nature from nurture. It's a conceit of the system that highly trained people with many skills that depend on an attribute will have higher values of that attribute to reflect having trained in all that stuff. Indeed, the most realistic way to improve an attribute is probably to study a bunch of skills based on it until reducing all of those skills by one level and shoving the points that saves into the attribute raises the attribute by one level, thereby giving the same final skill levels. So . . . your Navy SEALs or whatever probably do start with higher-than-average attributes (say, 11 or 12) owing to a rigorous screening process, but will likely end up with even higher scores (say, 13 or 14) through intensive training, and it's impossible to distinguish what's nature and what's nurture in the resulting character.

I have no issues with the fact GURPS generally doesn't bother to distinguish between nature and nurture - someone who has ST 12 due to natural gifts and one who got there through a dedicated exercise regimen shouldn't really be mechanically distinguishable (although it may be appropriate for the latter to have some relevant skills), and the same would be true for any attribute. As I've noted, my issue here is that increasing, say, DX to represent having trained in various related skills fails to account for relative skill level. Someone who has DX 10, IQ 10, and Guns (Rifle) 15 has extensive training (Attribute+5 [16]) with a rifle, and can float to another attribute (to identify problems with the weapon, adjust the sights, etc) quite readily - he's similarly at 15 when floating to IQ. Someone who has DX 13, IQ 10, and Guns (Rifle) 15 may well be meant to have similarly extensive training with a rifle to the above character (but has DX 13 instead due to also having similarly extensive training with several other DX-based skills), but when it comes time to float to IQ he's at a marked disadvantage, rolling against only 12 (the same as someone with DX 10, IQ 10, and Guns (Rifle) 12), as mechanically he only has 1/4th the training (Attribute+2 [4]) as the DX 10 guy.

To be clear, I'm not saying the GURPS authors dropped the ball here - this is something of a niche application, and 90+% of the time in play, I expect the above two characters will behave just the same when using their rifles. I'm just saying there's room for improvement for those of us who want it (I think Training does a good job here, although I may want to take another look at the bit from PU3 to see how it compares).