High Power GURPS: Where lies the problem?

[Hopkins Vioreo]

Whenever I search for GURPS limitations, one key aspect keeps popping up: GURPS doesn't do High Power campaigns very well. I would like to know, from those who already attempted it:
1- Is it true?
2- If so, what exactly "breaks" within the system?
3- Are there any tips to ameliorate the problem?

[whswhs]

After the publication of GURPS Supers, I ran a campaign, Sovereignty, based on one of my proposals in it. We had five player characters built on 1600 base points each (one player dropped out after he was unable to come up with more than 900 points of traits!). I was mostly satisfied with it; I discovered a couple of things I needed to handle differently, but the campaign lasted for two years and came to a satisfactory conclusion.

[Kesendeja]

The only problem I've ever had is skills. At a certain point characters can even do everything reasonably well, or what they are specialized in almost perfectly.

Personally the wide array of skills is less annoying. But I've learned to work with the problem and have no problem with high power games.

[zoncxs]

1 - Not true.
2 - The thing that breaks the system are the players.
3 - Don't focus on point cost but on powers. Have your players tell you what they want to do and YOU work with them to build it, making it balanced with the other players.

I had a supers game where each player cost completely different. One was barely 300 pts and another was almost 1000. This was because of what they wanted, and I was the one that made the powers for them to make sure no one tried to munchkin and I knew how it worked.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Hopkins Vioreo

Whenever I search for GURPS limitations, one key aspect keeps popping up: GURPS doesn't do High Power campaigns very well. I would like to know, from those who already attempted it:
1- Is it true?
2- If so, what exactly "breaks" within the system?
3- Are there any tips to ameliorate the problem?

Played and ran several high powered campaigns, from Supers to epic fantasy and SciFi.
High point totals can allow very odd and possibly implausible builds (depending on the setting). For example powerful superpowers also allow for extremely high skill characters which may not fit a particular setting.
Even more likely with cyberwear or magic as powers systems, the points to enable those features can encourage high skill characters who have skills in excess of plausibility.
A good answer to this is "Buckets of Points" simple limit how many points can be spent on certain things, possibly based on archetype or role.

High point totals involve more math. Spreadsheets or software such as GCA or GCS can help here.

Some people think it does not do Supers well, in particular Bricks. I disagree though. There are almost no Marvel or DC characters you cannot build in GURPS for example. Some of the more powerful ones simply cost many thousands of points but I am fine with beings like the Silver Surfer, Thor, Quasar, Superman, etc costing an outragous amount.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Some people think it does not do Supers well, in particular Bricks. I disagree though. There are almost no Marvel or DC characters you cannot build in GURPS for example. Some of the more powerful ones simply cost many thousands of points but I am fine with beings like the Silver Surfer, Thor, Quasar, Superman, etc costing an outragous amount.

The physically strongest character in Sovereignty was Nemesis, who had base ST 20 and Strength +10/+100 (Divine, -10%; Super-Effort, +300), which together used up roughly a third of her point budget. That allowed her Basic Lift of 180 lbs. on a sustained basis and 2880 lbs. with extraordinary effort. Her Thrust damage was 13d with extraordinary effort, but she also had Power Blow against worthy foes, which let her build up to 39d.

I suspect that with half against as many points she could have been comparable to the powerhouses you mention. At least for the Byrne version of Superman; the Silver Age dude was over the top.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by whswhs

The physically strongest character in Sovereignty was Nemesis, who had base ST 20 and Strength +10/+100 (Divine, -10%; Super-Effort, +300), which together used up roughly a third of her point budget. That allowed her Basic Lift of 180 lbs. on a sustained basis and 2880 lbs. with extraordinary effort. Her Thrust damage was 13d with extraordinary effort, but she also had Power Blow against worthy foes, which let her build up to 39d.

I suspect that with half against as many points she could have been comparable to the powerhouses you mention. At least for the Byrne version of Superman; the Silver Age dude was over the top.

And using Know Your Own Strength you can get the over the top lifting ST with a more reasonable damage output.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by whswhs

The physically strongest character in Sovereignty was Nemesis, who had base ST 20 and Strength +10/+100 (Divine, -10%; Super-Effort, +300), which together used up roughly a third of her point budget. That allowed her Basic Lift of 180 lbs. on a sustained basis and 2880 lbs. with extraordinary effort. Her Thrust damage was 13d with extraordinary effort, but she also had Power Blow against worthy foes, which let her build up to 39d.

This is fine, but for those of us who worked through our need for four-colour supers gaming via Champions, it can't but feel like a tortuous fudge. Logarhythmic lifting ability coupled with linear striking damage just handles four-colour supers so much more elegantly.

The lack of a dual HP track in baseline GURPS also messes up a proper four-colour feel for me. Games end up with too many glass cannons or weird three-figure-hit-point builds.

None of which says that GURPS can't do "high powered" at all. Four-colour supers is merely one sort of high-power game. But high-power games do, I think, demand some close supervision of character creation by the GM.

(I mean, okay, so does Champions when your players are more interested in "winning" than in the source genre....)

[Donny Brook]

The are challenges to be aware of. To summarize comments above and add a couple:

1-Omnicompetence. With enough points in skills and high attributes characters can seem too good at too many different things. This problem appears even at moderately high point totals around IQ in particular. Usual solutions involve "point buckets" and skill caps. More radical solutions involve raising the cost of IQ, or having incrementally higher costs for everything at higher levels.

2-Cost/value of ST. It seems very expensive to reach levels of strength seen in certain genres where tossing cars, bending tank guns, or smashing star ships are portrayed. This makes it particularly difficult to emulate characters who are very strong AND anything else. The official solution provided in Supers (super effort) feels awkward to implement and is still not a good match for many genres.

3-Scale-to-scope issues. Upper limits of physics that the GM doesn't want tested or overthrown can be attained with high point totals. For example, a specific level of Area Effect can encompass the entire known universe.

4-Technology. Making characters who can match the feats of existing and plausibly predictable technology can be challenging balance problems. For example, emulating gun damage is expensive, but since no mind control technology exists powers that provide it can seem very cheap for their benefits.

5-Survivability. At high point levels, many abilities make the normal human levels of hit points trivial in comparison to the dangers imposed.

I my opinion much of the foregoing discussion is not so much a problem of GURPS not handling high power, but GURPS not handling hogh power in line with certain genre expectations or common plot/script evasions that a writer can use that a GM cannot. Silver Surfer should hit hard enough to literally knock Wolverine's skeleton out of his flesh, but that doesn't happen 'because'.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

The are challenges to be aware of. To summarize comments above and add a couple:

1-Omnicompetence. With enough points in skills and high attributes characters can seem too good at too many different things. This problem appears even at moderately high point totals around IQ in particular. Usual solutions involve "point buckets" and skill caps. More radical solutions involve raising the cost of IQ, or having incrementally higher costs for everything at higher levels.

This is relatively easy to solve, I find - extremely competent characters should be presented with problems worthy of their time, and the 'mundane' ones just assumed to be solved - charge them some time to work on the problem, and move on. Tony Stark and Reed Richards don't worry themselves with problems that seem trivial to them, unless they want something to relax with over a cocktail. They work of problems that are difficult even for them - the ones merely brilliant researchers and engineers can't solve.

In the RAW the invention rules state amazing inventions require skill-21+ and have a -22 penalty (and more if it's a truly novel invention and/or of a higher TL). Also, brilliance and skill don't bypass the time requirements or the costs (except in that higher skill means fewer failures and thus less wasted time and money).

So there's whole area where near super-human levels of skill are required.

For more day-today adventuring, I encourage players of highly-skilled characters to use their skill to do things in a rush when it makes sense, and that soaks up skill while providing a benefit. Encouraging players to make use of high skills levels for more than just getting huge margins of success (though that can be useful too) makes them interesting. Possibly still troublesome for a GM if the players are inventive, but at least they aren't just boring 'always succeed' things.