Are there any supplements that have revisited GURPS attributes?

[MrFix]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Yeah, this is more my concern (more the former than the latter - I'm alright with high-value characters having a broad level of general competence that increases with them, so long as they're still able to specialize in a few fields they intend to be experts in). The grizzled veteran with modest DX and high investment in several combat skills should be just as valid of a character as the young prodigy with high DX and modest investment in those same skills (which, combined with his high DX, gives him around the same absolute combat skill level), but the current rules highly favor the latter by means of simple point efficiency.

Main question is, why does a combat veteran have modest DX? Why is a combat veteran on the same level of points as a starting prodigy?

The same issue and the question as before. How'd he develop these skills without gaining even one point in DX? The issue here isn't that the new guy is that much better than the veteran because of his DX, it's the veteran that's worse than new guy because he did not realistically or properly develop as a soldier.

All of these sorts of arguments really just bring the question up again and again - why did this highly specialized person never gain any attribute points during his career, to the point where, despite being veteran, his point total matches a talented upstart?

If anything, the hyper-specialist is the unrealistic character, especially at lower point totals. At 50 points a normal person would have a broad enough, modestly leveled skill list, but hyper specialist would be all murder or all gambling or all science with nothing else, that's not a person. Buying 8 points in Guns is always cheaper than buying 1 level of DX.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by MrFix

Main question is, why does a combat veteran have modest DX? Why is a combat veteran on the same level of points as a starting prodigy?

For the main question, he likely gained a point or two (perhaps going from DX 10 to DX 12), but building the veteran with the same DX as the young prodigy fails to differentiate between them. It also results in bizarre results, like the veteran having only a few Familiarities (if using that rule), being in the same boat as the prodigy when his skills have to be floated to another attribute, lacking the Trained ST (if using that rule) one would expect of someone who has spent most of his life training and fighting, and so forth.

For the second, they exist in a campaign. Indeed, they may only exist in the mind of a single player who is building a character and deciding whether he'd like to play a veteran with decades of combat experience or a young upstart with lots of potential. GURPS has the tools to differentiate those two characters mechanically, rather than just relying on fluff, but currently that differentiation largely favors the young upstart over the veteran. I'd rather the player be able to make the choice without the mechanics favoring one over the other, at least as much as possible (obviously, a perfect system is unobtainable, but if you can modify the current system to get closer to what you'd like without adding too much complexity, I see that as a win).

[MrFix]

Originally Posted by Varyon

For the main question, he likely gained a point or two (perhaps going from DX 10 to DX 12), but building the veteran with the same DX as the young prodigy fails to differentiate between them. It also results in bizarre results, like the veteran having only a few Familiarities (if using that rule), being in the same boat as the prodigy when his skills have to be floated to another attribute, lacking the Trained ST (if using that rule) one would expect of someone who has spent most of his life training and fighting, and so forth.

For the second, they exist in a campaign. Indeed, they may only exist in the mind of a single player who is building a character and deciding whether he'd like to play a veteran with decades of combat experience or a young upstart with lots of potential. GURPS has the tools to differentiate those two characters mechanically, rather than just relying on fluff, but currently that differentiation largely favors the young upstart over the veteran. I'd rather the player be able to make the choice without the mechanics favoring one over the other, at least as much as possible (obviously, a perfect system is unobtainable, but if you can modify the current system to get closer to what you'd like without adding too much complexity, I see that as a win).

GURPS has an explicit way to differentiate these characters: point total.

In all books, all templates, GURPS states explicitly - each point total represents a specific level of power. That's why Basic Set's "Soldier of Fortune" template is worth 100 points, while SEALs in Vietnam "Navy SEAL" template is worth a whopping 240!

GURPS permits you to build any character, but it doesn't permit you to build any character on any point total, you know, no 10 point master wizards. You can read more about it on Basic Set p.10

So when a campaign featuring new adventurers at 100 points is joined by a veteran, it should be clearly understood that he is on the same level as other characters because he's wounded, debilitated, out of practice (his skills detoriated), etc. He was trained badly, or was in conditions where he fought, but not trained! A lot of these reasons are priced disadvantages! He was better, but he is not so anymore. If a player tries to bypass these sorts of boundaries, we reach the level of hyper-specialization, he starts putting more points into guns, into fighting, into whatever, and growing incompetent at cooking food, talking to people, etc. An extreme but famous example is "100 point character, 80 points into guns", that's hardly a veteran soldier, that's hardly a human being, but he is still better at murder than the guy with 15 DX.

So when you join a campaign that's quite obviously meant to display incompetent people such as children, making some kind of schoolyard hitman with Bow (Slingshot)-14 [16], Stealth-12 [8], Brawling-10 [1] on these 25 points and then complaining that another character is a match because he has 11 DX and 5 1-point skills... I'd be more bewildered by former than latter.

[RedMattis]

Since GURPS specifically notes that it is not a reality simulator I don't think it really matters how realistic (or not) the current main attributes are.

With that said, my favorite solution is to simply use Talents for skills and possibly just cut IQ & DX, or reduce their function to something similar to Will & Perception.

If you want to simplify things you could even let people have big 15-point or even 20-point Talents that cover most of what their character concept wants to do makes a lot of sense for encouraging specialization.

e.g. Talents with wide reach such as say: "Magic Swordsman [20 points/level] +1/level to all magic spells, bladed weapons (+ maintenance), athletic skills (swimming, climbing, ...), savoir-faire (military & academic), ..."

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Varyon

...like the veteran having only a few Familiarities (if using that rule)...

That's not bizarre at all. Most combat veterans of modern armies are only familiar with the weapons their military issued them with, and maybe a couple of enemy ones. Perhaps oddly, poorly equipped third-world militiamen and warlords' thugs probably have more familiarities, because they'll be seeing and using a more diverse range of gear.

[swampthing]

To the extent that applicable Talents provide an alternative to attributes, you might also benefit from checking out GURPS Power-Ups 3: Talents. The party tactician and veterinarian (or whatever) won't step on each other's toes so much if they get there by way of Talents rather than IQ.

[JulianLW]

Originally Posted by MrFix

GURPS has an explicit way to differentiate these characters: point total.

In all books, all templates, GURPS states explicitly - each point total represents a specific level of power. That's why Basic Set's "Soldier of Fortune" template is worth 100 points, while SEALs in Vietnam "Navy SEAL" template is worth a whopping 240!

GURPS permits you to build any character, but it doesn't permit you to build any character on any point total, you know, no 10 point master wizards. You can read more about it on Basic Set p.10

So when a campaign featuring new adventurers at 100 points is joined by a veteran, it should be clearly understood that he is on the same level as other characters because he's wounded, debilitated, out of practice (his skills detoriated), etc. He was trained badly, or was in conditions where he fought, but not trained! A lot of these reasons are priced disadvantages! He was better, but he is not so anymore. If a player tries to bypass these sorts of boundaries, we reach the level of hyper-specialization, he starts putting more points into guns, into fighting, into whatever, and growing incompetent at cooking food, talking to people, etc. An extreme but famous example is "100 point character, 80 points into guns", that's hardly a veteran soldier, that's hardly a human being, but he is still better at murder than the guy with 15 DX.

So when you join a campaign that's quite obviously meant to display incompetent people such as children, making some kind of schoolyard hitman with Bow (Slingshot)-14 [16], Stealth-12 [8], Brawling-10 [1] on these 25 points and then complaining that another character is a match because he has 11 DX and 5 1-point skills... I'd be more bewildered by former than latter.

This is my response too. If the old grizzled veteran is at the same point total as the FNG, that means he's just slower and will never be as good as the talented FNG. If being old and grizzly and a veteran means anything, then it should mean a higher point total.

However, there is one way I can think of to equalize these characters somewhat - and to represent the broad experience of the old grizzled veteran - and that's to let the veteran have Wildcard skills. A couple of levels of Fist! and Gun! are a lot cheaper than DX, and they also grant Impulse Points to spend, which could translate to the benefit of deeper experience. Wildcard competence eliminates familiarity penalties and a lot of other penalties that could be accounted for based on experience.

The veteran is still likely to have lower individual skill levels and lower DX, but he won't have any holes in his concept, and he'll be able to push the envelope more than the talented FNG. At 12 points/level for a bunch of skills, this is the way to model very broad competence, I think, especially if you incorporate the generous optional rules on Conditional Defaults and Using Wildcards Together.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by MrFix

GURPS has an explicit way to differentiate these characters: point total.

Assuming a grizzled veteran (modest attributes, high skill investment) and a promising rookie (high attributes, modest skill investment) who are at roughly comparable levels of competence (same final skill levels), is your stance that the former character should have more points (and thus the two are not appropriate for the same campaign, unless the GM and players are willing to have markedly different point levels amongst the PCs - which is a fine way to play for certain groups, but has no bearing on discussions of point efficiency), or that the former character should actually be built similarly to the latter one (with high DX and modest skill investment)? This post appears to be taking the former stance (more points), while your previous post appeared to be taking the latter one (similar character builds), so I need some clarity before we'd be able to continue this discussion.

[kenclary]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Assuming a grizzled veteran (modest attributes, high skill investment) and a promising rookie (high attributes, modest skill investment) who are at roughly comparable levels of competence (same final skill levels), is your stance that the former character should have more points (and thus the two are not appropriate for the same campaign, unless the GM and players are willing to have markedly different point levels amongst the PCs - which is a fine way to play for certain groups, but has no bearing on discussions of point efficiency), or that the former character should actually be built similarly to the latter one (with high DX and modest skill investment)? This post appears to be taking the former stance (more points), while your previous post appeared to be taking the latter one (similar character builds), so I need some clarity before we'd be able to continue this discussion.

(I know I'm not the person you asked.)

GURPS doesn't really have a nature/nurture split between attributes and skills. A grizzled veteran can have spent their grizzling years improving attributes, and a promising rookie could have a few high skills and moderate attributes. Points are a game abstraction. Attributes can represent training. Skills can represent talent.

[MrFix]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Assuming a grizzled veteran (modest attributes, high skill investment) and a promising rookie (high attributes, modest skill investment) who are at roughly comparable levels of competence (same final skill levels), is your stance that the former character should have more points (and thus the two are not appropriate for the same campaign, unless the GM and players are willing to have markedly different point levels amongst the PCs - which is a fine way to play for certain groups, but has no bearing on discussions of point efficiency), or that the former character should actually be built similarly to the latter one (with high DX and modest skill investment)? This post appears to be taking the former stance (more points), while your previous post appeared to be taking the latter one (similar character builds), so I need some clarity before we'd be able to continue this discussion.

Assuming that we're not talking about point level at which 'grizzled veteran' is an appropriate concept, like 275 points for a Navy Seal as per SEALs in Vietnam...

Then Grizzled Veteran (Disabled/Retired/Out Of Shape/Old Man/Beyond His Prime) should have relatively similar build to Promising Rookie. Prime Peak Condition Grizzled Veteran would be way above in points compared to Promising Rookie.

Aforemenioned Navy SEAL template starts off with 13 DX and 13 IQ off the bat and has no skills in which more than 4 points are invested. That technically makes characters produced by this template 'munchkin' characters that abuse attributes, but I digress.

So a Navy SEAL of a lower point level would organically deteriorate across the board, be it because of age, lack of practice (he retired so obviously he didnt go on any more black ops) and for any other reason, but he still would retain attributes above 10, and a few points in his various skills. He'd still be more or less the go to soldier at his power level. He would not drop all of his attributes to 10 and then buy up the skills instead, investing 8, 12, 16, 20 points in them etc.

'Promising Rookie' would thus have good physical abilities based on his youth and basics of combat training. Depending on background, specialization and player choice, there might be differences in what exactly these two soldiers do, but their competence and thus build is expected to be relatively on par. Veteran is losing his edge, slowly growing out of Navy SEAL template. Rookie is gathering abilities to be fit on Navy SEAL template (and thus become Navy SEAL, maybe).

And yes, it is perfectly fine if the only thing keeping characters apart is fluff. For example, it is totally official for Spiderman's Webslinging to be statted as "Flight, Only Within Certain Distance To Buildings", and the same way any other levitating ability can be statted, Grapple Hooking, Concrete Magnetism etc. GURPS fully endorses using the most point-efficient way to stat something as long as it allows the character to do things that the player wants him to do.