Princess Template

[Jelsa23]

I'm going to be playing a princess in my upcoming game and I'm struggling to figure out what m advantages/Disadvantages to give her. She is a half elf and will be the one to become queen after all is said and done. Her father has aged to around 72 and her mom is a young full elf who will be taking the throne from him until either her or her brother becomes queen/king. She also serves as a sort of diplomat by going to other countries and negotiating trade and other stuff and hosts diplomats at her home when they come to visit, such as hosting events and balls to welcome them. We are using any and every resource out there as far as books go and we are building our characters on 250 points and 75 points in Disadvantages. We don't know anything about the world thus far, other than that it is ruled by an Empress (not my character's mom) and that they have colonized this new land within the last 30 years. My GM said he'd ignore rules about cost of livng as far as status goes, but there is upsides and downsides to wearing your status on your sleeve, and keeping your identity a secret or not. I pretty much have chosen her skills and attributes, which I have 44 points in skills, 15 in spells, and 145 in attributes
How would I go about spending the rest on advantages and Disadvantages? What would you guys recommend? TIA!

[Infornific]

I'd assume you'd need to buy Status and Wealth to match your position as a Princess - check with your GM for what's appropriate. It sounds like the character is going to be the "face" of the party with a focus in social skills. In that case, Empathy is useful to read people, Charisma and Voice are useful for influencing people. The Smooth Operator Talent is useful if you want to be good at a wide range of social skills. For a more narrow focus, you might check what cheaper talents are available that affect Diplomacy - Talker is a very good deal for a Diplomat if your GM allows it. Appearance is a bit cliched but is also useful for boosting social skills. I'd also check with the GM to make sure you've got the right range of skills to both read people and influence people.

Beyond that, Cultural Familiarities and Languages might be useful - again check with the GM for what's available and important in the campaign.

[Icelander]

We are using any and every resource out there as far as books

That... might not work the way you want it to work.

D&D is more or less all published for the same setting, with the same assumption of genre, metaphysics and playing style. Any differences between individual settings or campaigns tend to be so minor that players and DMs routinely assume you can just use any rules from any published book and it will work fine together.

GURPS is a toolkit designed to let you play any campaign you want to play. It does mean, however, that the players and the GM have to clearly communicate what they want to play and make sure everybody is on the same page about that.

You can make a Princess of Equestria who is a talking pony from a kids' show, a historical Japanese princess from the Heian period using 枕草子 as your primary source and absolutely no cinematic, exotic, supernatural or ahistorical traits, an action-fantasy Princess Gwenhwyfar from mythic Romano-Celtic Brytain, who can match swords with both King Arctus and Launcelot du Lac, as they fight over her affections, and the Saxon invaders.

Or a more modern sort of English princess, whether a tragic Sloane Ranger fleeing paparazzi or a Hollywood starlet in a love-hate relationship with them, either sort can come with, or without, former SAS bodyguards and a semi-official status in a Very British Conspiracy to Defend the Realm from Beings Outside Time and Space.

Your princess can have a starship and her own AI companion implanted in her personal cyberbrain. She can have the power to stun people with a witty quip and leave danger behind by swinging on a chandelier, as long as it sounds cool and fits the scene. Maybe she uses a sniper rifle from a distance or prefers dual disintegrators from up close. She might use Action! rules liberally, Wildcard skills and Impulse Buys or exist in a world without magic, speed of plot or protagonist plot armour.

Frankly, not all GURPS books are aimed at the same kind of campaign and I can't really imagine how I'd go about using all of them at once. You'd have to define some sort of baseline reality and then there could be sidereal realities with different rules in each of them. I'd suggest narrowing the concept down a bit. What sort of world, what TL, whether there's cinematic contrivances in effect or if reality might ensue if PCs do dangerous things, what kind of genre conventions, if any, do you want, etc.

'All of them', in GURPS, really is quite a lot of possibilities.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Jelsa23

I'm going to be playing a princess in my upcoming game and I'm struggling to figure out what m advantages/Disadvantages to give her.

Depending on the campaign, "princess" might just be a title rather than a job description. Take a look at the templates for GURPS Historical Folk (available online) and This Thread using the Diplomat and Ruler templates/lenses as a base.

She's going to have whatever skills and attributes are expected for a noble female in her culture, which will inevitably include Leadership and Savoir Faire. SF skill can be minimal given the substantial bonus she gets to the skill due to her Status. As an heir to the throne she is likely to have multiple Allies or Ally Groups and many other social advantages (Status, Wealth, etc.) unless there's some good reason she doesn't have those traits (e.g., overthrown kingdom, being fostered in a far-off land for her own safety, poor kingdom/other national priorities, etc.) Inventing the concept of "Courtesy Status" (i.e., Status that's worth just 1 point/level but provides almost no benefits of real status) would work for an exiled character.

If you're using Dungeon Fantasy/GURPS Dungeon Fantasy as a base, she will have many "knightly" traits even if she's not actually a Knight. As a diplomat, her go-to influence skill will be Diplomacy possibly with Intimidation or Politicis as backups. Other useful skills will be Area Knowledge, Geography, Politics, Psychology and Riding.

Depending on how "Disney Princess"/"Galadriel" you want her to be she might also have traits like good Appearance, Charisma, Empathy, Voice, Talent (Allure, Animal Friend or Smooth Operator) which are also extremely good for Diplomats. In a DF campaign a variant of the Bard template might suit a diplomat best, with elements of Knight, Mage and Scout as an homage to her human, elvish and noble origins. OTOH, she might not be THAT sort of princess allowing you to have all manner of fun playing against type in the spirit of Princess Fiona from Shrek and other fictional or RL royal antiheroines. Something like Voice of Command from the Girl Genius comics/GURPS Girl Genius would be suitable for the sort of princess that Doesn't Put Up With Crap From Anyone. Again, that's similar to some of the Bard and Knight power-ups from Dungeon Fantasy.

Enemies are a traditional, extremely severe, disadvantage for any high level noble heir. Code of Honor and/or Sense of Duty also go with the territory as do Duties (Non-Hazardous and Otherwise).

In any case, envision the character and her proposed role in the group as well as the reason why she's having adventures with a bunch of scruffy randos as opposed to engaging in duties of state and generally being regal. The GM might have some good ideas as well, since having such a politically important character in the group will tend to naturally skew adventures towards them. Initially, it might be better for her to be stripped of most of her social advantages to boost her attributes, skills and inherent advantages and to allow her to better fit in with your usual pack of PCs. Invent whatever setbacks you want to justify lack of access to traits (shipwrecked, stranded in a foreign country that's being overrun by invaders, kidnapped & home planet got blown up, etc.) and then spend earned experience points to "regain" them using the Heir advantage from GURPS Basic.

[Varyon]

Status and Wealth are typically going to be the only things you can count on, and even then there may be cases where the character doesn't really have much of either (consider Helen of Troy, who didn't really have any power or wealth of her own but was rather a prize for whichever king her father decided to marry her off to). You - and the GM, unless they are allowing the players to design parts of the setting - will need to come up with what it means for this character to be a princess.

[martinl]

As others have noted, you basically need to determine what being a princess gives you in the context of the game you are playing, and then buy that.

But you need to consult with your GM.

I say this because the kind of stuff most RPG adventures are made of are grossly inappropriate for folks with "Heir to the Throne" in their title. Folks like that use their wealth and power send other people on adventures, they don't risk a succession crisis by going on one personally. Since this is an unlikely course for a PC, odds are the GM has plans to send you on an adventure regardless, one that lots of money and political power can't solve for you.

Perhaps your Princessiness will be a valuable tool on that adventure. In that case, define it as GURPS advantages and disadvantages and pay for them.

But if not ... "Technically a Princess and Heir to the Throne of Bratwurstia, and it gets me absolutely bupkis" ... is a fun quirk.

It is also possible your GM hasn't considered the repercussions of having someone who can call on an army and hire another one in their campaign, so asking is a doubly good plan.

On the ... fourth? ... hand, perhaps your PC is a rebel. They're going on an adventure incognito, but if things get really bad they reserve the right to go full royal. This is complicated, but I just recommend buying all your power at full price in this case, since "It only use this if I need it" is a -0% limitation.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by martinl

On the ... fourth? ... hand, perhaps your PC is a rebel. They're going on an adventure incognito, but if things get really bad they reserve the right to go full royal. This is complicated, but I just recommend buying all your power at full price in this case, since "It only use this if I need it" is a -0% limitation.

I'll admit this is a bit of a stretch, but one option here is to make note of what problems the character will encounter - in the form of Disadvantages gained (Duty to the kingdom, Enemies, etc) - if their secret of being a princess comes out, turn that into the Secret Disadvantage, but then rather than taking it outright, take it as the Temporary Disadvantage Limitation on the abilities that risk exposing the character. So maybe your character is Filthy Rich [50], giving +1 Status for free, and has a further +3 Status (total Status 4) for [15] in her guise as a noblewoman. But she also has two levels of Multimillionaire with (Temporary Disadvantage, Secret: Princess -10%) for [45], giving her another +2 Status (total Status 6) for free. So she can go about normally with 100x Wealth and Status 4, but dipping into her further funds (a total of 10,000x Wealth) and/or capitalizing on her Status 6 means her secret is at risk of exposure, and unless she can prevent said exposure, she'll permanently gain [-20] worth of relevant Disadvantages. The difference between this character and one with the full Secret Disadvantage is that a) the former character automatically triggers the Secret when using the Limited ability (in this case, increased Wealth), while the latter doesn't have any abilities that are so-limited but simply has a ~10% chance each session of the Secret being triggered. Note the above puts "princess" on the level of "Utter Rejection" - despite the name, this is about the exposure causing largely-irrevocable changes to your life. "Imprisonment or Exile" can also fit, if the royal family is likely to try to force you back into your tower (or whatever) or hostile forces are intent on capturing you for ransom, while "Possible Death" is right if powerful people (like, say, the current claimant to the throne, if you have a more legitimate claim) want you dead.

[DeadParrot]

What kind of campaign world? Traditional fantasy i.e. Middle Ages stuff. Current year like UK Royalty. Future like Traveller Nobility. The type of princess will depend a lot on the setting. Very unlikely that your middle ages 1/2 elf would have skill in Pilot(Starship) while one from Traveller's Regina could well be fully trained in starship operations. Much like current era British Royalty are expected to do their part in the military or similar.

To borrow from Game of Thrones, is she more like Arya or Sansa? Those are two rather different type of princesses. Answering this question will go a long way toward answering what advantages/disadvantages you might want.

[Donny Brook]

You will need a definitive statement from your GM to know what level of status this princess needs. If she is formally recognized as the heir, I suggest one level of status less than the ruler. If she is just one of several possible heirs, two less might work.

You indicate she will be doing diplomacy. If this involves a formal position within the governmental apparatus, then she should have bureaucratic rank based on how many people answer to her in the heirarchy. Divide the number of underlngs by ten is a workable rule-of-thumb for rank level. But she may not be part of the bureaucracy and so may not need Rank. Consult your GM.

Other useful Advantages for such a character are Charisma, Empathy, Language Talent, Luck, Eidetic Memory, and a Talent that covers some of her core skills. And of course, a princess should be Beautiful.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

You indicate she will be doing diplomacy. If this involves a formal position within the governmental apparatus, then she should have bureaucratic rank based on how many people answer to her in the heirarchy. Divide the number of underlngs by ten is a workable rule-of-thumb for rank level. But she may not be part of the bureaucracy and so may not need Rank. Consult your GM.

That seems a bit over the top. It would give a Rank 8 character 100,000,000 underlings. There are only 16 countries whose entire populations are that large! Practically, this would be like having the entire working population of Brazil belong to one hierarchy.

A better guideline, to my mind, is 5:20:100:500:2000:10,000:50,000:200,000.