Are there any supplements that have revisited GURPS attributes?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by kenclary

(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.

The issue with attributes representing certain types of training (I have no issue with attributes being bought up due to training them, of course) is that GURPS has a mechanical distinction between skill levels that are acquired via high skill and those acquired via high attributes (floating to another attribute, Familiarities*, qualifying for bonus damage/ST, etc). Indeed, "Relative Skill Level" (B171) and the following rules talk about an attribute representing "talent" and the relative skill level representing "training" or "experience."

*I notice I somehow lost my reply to Rupert (I intended to group it together with my reply to MrFix, but failed to do so), but the basics of it are that the Familiarity rules roughly match what one expects from the sort of "heroic reality" GURPS is largely geared toward, even if (as in the case of veterans of professional militaries only knowing the few weapons they trained with, thanks to stable supply lines, while irregulars being familiar with a wider range, due to needing to use whatever they can get their hands on) this sometimes falls short of actual reality.

Originally Posted by MrFix

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...

... why would you assume that? The only numbers I've listed in my responses in this thread were comparing two characters who had several DX-based skills at 16, with points invested in that alone ranging from [107] to [172]. The attribute/skill split really isn't much of an issue at low point levels, because you don't really have the points available for high skill (unless you want to hyperspecialize, anyway). With that clarification, do you feel that a) a Prime Peak Condition Grizzled Veteran and a young prodigy (perhaps "promising rookie" was underselling the type of character I was talking about) with comparable skill levels should be built the same way (so that the veteran is in the same boat as the prodigy when they have to float skill to a lower attribute) or b) the Prime Peak Condition Grizzled Veteran should be built with more points than the young prodigy with comparable skill levels?

[MrFix]

Originally Posted by Varyon

The issue with attributes representing certain types of training (I have no issue with attributes being bought up due to training them, of course) is that GURPS has a mechanical distinction between skill levels that are acquired via high skill and those acquired via high attributes (floating to another attribute, Familiarities*, qualifying for bonus damage/ST, etc). Indeed, "Relative Skill Level" (B171) and the following rules talk about an attribute representing "talent" and the relative skill level representing "training" or "experience."

*I notice I somehow lost my reply to Rupert (I intended to group it together with my reply to MrFix, but failed to do so), but the basics of it are that the Familiarity rules roughly match what one expects from the sort of "heroic reality" GURPS is largely geared toward, even if (as in the case of veterans of professional militaries only knowing the few weapons they trained with, thanks to stable supply lines, while irregulars being familiar with a wider range, due to needing to use whatever they can get their hands on) this sometimes falls short of actual reality.



... why would you assume that? The only numbers I've listed in my responses in this thread were comparing two characters who had several DX-based skills at 16, with points invested in that alone ranging from [107] to [172]. The attribute/skill split really isn't much of an issue at low point levels, because you don't really have the points available for high skill (unless you want to hyperspecialize, anyway). With that clarification, do you feel that a) a Prime Peak Condition Grizzled Veteran and a young prodigy (perhaps "promising rookie" was underselling the type of character I was talking about) with comparable skill levels should be built the same way (so that the veteran is in the same boat as the prodigy when they have to float skill to a lower attribute) or b) the Prime Peak Condition Grizzled Veteran should be built with more points than the young prodigy with comparable skill levels?

I don't know how I can explain it better. Let's try this.

At 100 points, a character is a young prodigy
At 275 points, a character is a Navy SEAL
Regardless of how they're built.
When you're running a game at 300 points, nobody there is a 'young prodigy', a rookie or whatever, it's a 300 point game!

Consult Basic Set 487.

At 100 points, the only way you can make a 'grizzled veteran' is by making him past his prime, disabled, or otherwise NOT up to the standards of 275 point template.
At 300 points, you can't make a 'young prodigy soldier' at all, whatever sort of character you put together will possess abilities those of a seasoned commando.

Point Total dictates available character concepts, Point Total limits character concepts you can play. Point Total sets the limit on character capabilities.

Regardless of how you fluff it, your character must fit the power level of campaign, so a proper soldier built with GURPS sanctioned templates will have a relatively same build regardless of whatever you imagine him to be - talented youngster or old man veteran.

P.S.:
I checked templates out in these books:
Action (200 points)
Action - Specialists (100-200 points)
Monster Hunters (400 points)
SEALs in Vietnam (275 points)

Virtually all templates rely on high attributes, with skills being given no more than 4 points each. With that in mind, I still find it kind of SUPER weird that officially published templates would be considered munchkin based on the widespread hate on relying on high attributes in GURPS community.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by MrFix

I don't know how I can explain it better. Let's try this.

At 100 points, a character is a young prodigy
At 275 points, a character is a Navy SEAL
Regardless of how they're built.
When you're running a game at 300 points, nobody there is a 'young prodigy', a rookie or whatever, it's a 300 point game!

That seems closest to option b, which essentially means you cannot have the two in the same campaign (again, unless it's one where the GM and players are fine with different point levels, in which case point costs are largely immaterial). Realistically, I agree you are unlikely to have a young prodigy and a peak-condition storied veteran who are nonetheless of comparable effectiveness, but I don't see why GURPS needs to be restricted to strict realism ("GURPS is not a reality simulator"). In fiction, there are plenty of cases where a young prodigy and a peak-condition storied veteran function at comparable levels (see: virtually any shounen manga ever written). I see a need to be able to emulate that in a Generic, Universal system. GURPS certainly doesn't do a poor job of this, but there's room for improvement.

Originally Posted by MrFix

Virtually all templates rely on high attributes, with skills being given no more than 4 points each. With that in mind, I still find it kind of SUPER weird that officially published templates would be considered munchkin based on the widespread hate on relying on high attributes in GURPS community.

Well, yes, because templates - particularly in Action and Monster Hunters (and DF, but you don't give any examples from that) - tend to strive for point efficiency, and buying up attributes is more efficient than buying up the various skills those templates rely upon to high levels individually. Nobody is debating that. The question is if this is a preferable result. Personally, I would prefer for the two options (modest attribute + high relative skill vs high attribute + modest relative skill) to be of comparable point efficiency, as I feel the benefits and drawbacks of each (once they're of comparable cost) to be largely a wash.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Personally, I would prefer for the two options (modest attribute + high relative skill vs high attribute + modest relative skill) to be of comparable point efficiency, as I feel the benefits and drawbacks of each (once they're of comparable cost) to be largely a wash.

Probably need to trim down the skill list, then.

[ErhnamDJ]

Originally Posted by FF_Ninja

Maybe this is as much a Skills question as an Attributes one?

Yes, absolutely. There are a number of problems with the way GURPS sells skills. And two of the attributes, DX and IQ, are really just skill bundles, so those two attributes (and the others as well, to a lesser degree) are involved.

The problems take a few types, but they all have to do with the incentives created by the pricing of the skills. The skills are sold in various ways, and given different prices depending on how they are purchased. Attributes, talents, racial skill level, direct purchases. These are all ways you can purchase skill levels, and they all charge different prices.

The first type of problem is the incentives this creates for characterization. In most cases, it's cheaper to build characters with higher attribute levels and very broad skills. This means that players are incentivized to build those sorts of characters rather than characters with only a few high skill levels, even if that is their concept. The prices convince people to play things other than the character they want to play. In my view, this is poor game design. The goal of a generic and universal game should be that you can play whatever character you like and that the prices are there to mediate power level between the player characters, not to convince players to choose certain types of characters instead of other types of characters.

It's like going to a restaurant that promises you can eat whatever you want, but when you get there you find that everything on the menu other than macaroni and cheese costs ten thousand dollars a plate. Sure, you can have whatever you want, but somehow every time you visit, you find yourself ordering... macaroni and cheese. Again. Even if it's not what you want.

I see this happen all the time in my GURPS games. Players come to me with some cool concept, but then when they're facing the incentives created by the trait pricing, they see that the game doesn't really allow them to play that concept.

Which takes us to the second type of problem with the skill pricing: all of the skills cost the same amount. Whether you're buying up the most useless skill in the game, Hobby Skill (Cup Stacking), or the most useful, Guns, you're still paying the same price: four points per level.

This is why the attributes create such bizarre incentives. They provide much, much more utility than you would get from buying the skills independently. If you just went through the list of skills and picked out five that you liked and raised each of those to a skill level of 20, you would find yourself much worse off than if you had just poured those points into either DX or IQ.

All of this encourages players to make either a DX guy or an IQ guy. Every character in GURPS is either DX Guy or IQ Guy. In a game which promises an infinite diversity of characters, you only really have the option to make two characters, with very few exceptions (the only other viable option is to make a character who ignores skills entirely, choosing to rely on other player's characters when skills are needed; after all, DX Guy and IQ Guy are always by your side).

This leaves certain concepts as basically impossible to play in this system. A rogue character, for instance, would have a smattering of skills from each of DX and IQ. But you can't do that in GURPS. The pricing of the skills, as dictated by the attributes, means that you have to choose to either focus on DX or IQ. If you try to take some of both, then you just end up worse off at each thing than the other players' characters. You're worse at your IQ-based skills than your friend's IQ Guy character, and worse and your DX-based skills than your friend's DX Guy character. You just end up bad all around.

My solution to these problems is to completely separate the skills from the attributes. In my house rules, skills are each sold individually. All of these problems are resolved when you only have the individual skills that you purchased. No one can overshadow the rogue, because the rogue is the only one who purchased the rogue skills. The wizard won't have them unless he also spent the points on them. And the same is true for everything. This gives players the ability to really make whatever characters they choose. And it's viable to take whatever skills you want, not just the best ones, because they're each given their own price per level to reflect their utility in the game. Hobby Skill (Cup Stacking) costs a lot less per level than Guns.

My house rules can be found on my blog in these two posts:

GURPS House Rule: Skill Pricing

GURPS House Rules: Attributes Without Skills

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

What about making attribute levels cost an increasing amount per level? If high attribute levels give too much for their cost, it sounds like the easiest fix is to increase their cost as they go up.

EDIT: Whoops! I mean just DX and IQ.

[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.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Originally Posted by Emerikol

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.

I'd wonder if it's a legacy issue, but since I don't know past editions of GURPS I can't speculate.

[Keampe]

Originally Posted by SilvercatMoonpaw

I'd wonder if it's a legacy issue, but since I don't know past editions of GURPS I can't speculate.

IMO no, it's issue with GURPS being universal. Not all rules should be used with all campaigns, indeed some are totally contradictory. If you're running an action cinematic campaign the rules as written are fine.

However, GURPS is a toolkit. You can customize your rules to fit any campaign you want and actually you should be doing this. Each campaign needs its own set of tweaks - be they house rules or published alternates - in order to function properly.

Your idea above of increasing the cost as the attribute (or skill) rises is a very good one and one that I use for more down to earth campaigns. For example with attributes the first point of increase (after character creation) costs X1 the second X2, the third X3 etc. It's a soft cap, really.

There's been some great advice for the OP in this thread and really the only thing I'd add to it is to clearly explain to the group what rules you are using and why. It'll save a lot of aggravation.

- Shane

[Inky]

I think what Varyon's saying is that it can work out more expensive to have a character who's just good with various sword skills, say, than to have a high-DX character who's equally good with sword skills and also equally good at archery, swimming, climbing, dancing, and even (unless she takes Ham-Fisted or similar) lock-picking and sewing. I haven't done the maths myself recently and don't know how true that is, but if so it does seem unfortunate.

Talents and/or Wildcard Skills do seem a reasonable solution to that (I seem to rememver, though I'm not sure - again, I haven't done the maths myself recently). Basic Set does say that Talents represent a "natural aptitude", but it also says that if there's an advantage that does the same thing mechanically as what you want but with different fluff, rename it and charge the same point value and carry on.