Points per each Game Session? What is average or normal?

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

You could just start the new character at the same level as the surviving ones.

That's certainly what I've always done and what I always recommend when asked. If someone dies and restarts, or a new player comes along, I just slot them in at around the average point total of the PCs. I'm sure there's some way to exploit that, but I don't much care . . . starting new characters at near-incompetent levels and asking the rest of the team to be okay with that feels like punishing everyone, which is always a worse thing than letting one person get away with an exploit.

[RGTraynor]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

You could just start the new character at the same level as the surviving ones.

Sure, a lot of tables do that.

But in that case, why bother with details of XP awards at all? Just hand out 3 pts to everyone, each and every adventure. Whether the players show up or not. (After all, why "punish" players who miss sessions?)

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

If you're airily unconcerned with point disparities, you should be equally unconcerned about point similarities. Why shouldn't the brand new character have the same number of points as the ones that have been played for a year, regardless of where the old characters started off? That's just a point disparity in their starting points, after all.

Because I believe in achievement and excellence. I don't automatically declare that the PCs win every combat; they have to play it out, make good decisions, utilize sound tactics. They are not guaranteed to solve every adventure. There are obstacles they need to overcome, and vicissitudes they need to survive. They have to earn it.

And they do that as individuals as well. I see no reason at all to penalize the players who are engaged and active in favor of the ones who sit in the back staring at their electronics or focused on their knitting, or to tell the veterans that their hard work and time-in-service means nothing. (And seeing that giving individual awards to individual players is what's set forth in RAW, it's scarcely indefensible.) See, those are the people I'm more concerned about ******* off than the ones who don't care all that much.

[Slackvain]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

You could just start the new character at the same level as the surviving ones.

We do this at my table, if someone dies we let them make a new character at the same point value as everyone else.

[Kesendeja]

I've always believed that characters should be within a reasonable power dynamic with each other. You're going to get variations just by how people build characters.

That said, I believe wholeheartedly that it's unfair to start a new character, be it from the death of a previous one or a new player joining, at a disadvantage point wise.

Also, I've found, at least in my games that can run 4+ hours every other week at times, that keeping the points grouped together still allows for a lot variations. I've just taken to rewarding them in other ways, like refreshing an extra Impulse Point now and again. But that works for us.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Qoltar

Question for both GURPS GMS/reffs and the writers and designers of the game system :

What is the 'normal' number of points award for each game session?

Two?

Three?

When do you give more? When do you award less than usual?

-Ed C.

I talk about it a bit on my blog. But I also have guidelines depending on the campaign too.

For my current game AEON (modern supers):

Experience Point Guidelines for Aeon Campaigns
A rough guideline of character advancement in my campaign

• For showing up for the game: 1 point.
• For good roleplaying, within the original concept of the character: 1 to 5 points per play session.
• For poor roleplaying, ignoring or violating the stated personality or objectives of the character: -1 to -5 points.
• For metagaming and/or ruleslawyering: -1 to -5 points to all points otherwise gained.
• For successful completion of the mission, or progress toward its completion in a multi-session adventure: 2 to 4 points.
• For partial failure, or significant setbacks in a multi-session adventure due to PCs making bad decisions (bad die rolls don’t count!): -1 or -3 points.
• For disastrous failure of the mission: -4 or -5 points.
• For an extremely clever action or solution to a specific problem, as long as it is in character: 1 point per character per action.
• For a character journal for one episode (up to 500 words: 0.5 points per 250 words.
• For a character portrait (of any PC): 1 points.
• For each additional page of expanded character history: 0.25 points per 250 words.
• For other fiction written about your character: 0.25 points per 250 words.
• Game Bounties (this is doing things for me for the game itself, like you creating a template I need done, working on a map, etc. I will send out emails and you guys can decide if you want to do them or not): 1 to 20 points.

Originally Posted by Kromm

That's certainly what I've always done and what I always recommend when asked. If someone dies and restarts, or a new player comes along, I just slot them in at around the average point total of the PCs. I'm sure there's some way to exploit that, but I don't much care . . . starting new characters at near-incompetent levels and asking the rest of the team to be okay with that feels like punishing everyone, which is always a worse thing than letting one person get away with an exploit.

I do this mostly, but for some campaigns you start where you start. Others it's "You start at average minus 20-25 points."

[Dalin]

Originally Posted by RGTraynor

But in that case, why bother with details of XP awards at all? Just hand out 3 pts to everyone, each and every adventure. Whether the players show up or not. (After all, why "punish" players who miss sessions?)

After decades of trying various different XP systems in my GURPS games, I've settled on exactly that. My last campaign earned usually three points per session. Sometimes a session might be worth more if it was longer or if the players completed a major story arc or someone played brilliantly. For each session I noted the point value of the campaign. We started at 250 and ended at 430ish. If a PC died or a new player joined, they created a character at the point level of the campaign. The players are all great role-players and responsible adults who attempt to show up for every session. When life gets in the way, they miss out on the fun, but their character keeps up with the rest of the group.

This isn't about worrying about hurt feelings or point disparities. (At these point levels, a few dozen points either way still feels balanced.) It just simplifies the bookkeeping and keeps the focus on the fun stuff.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

I do this mostly, but for some campaigns you start where you start. Others it's "You start at average minus 20-25 points."

I agree on "a little less than the ongoing characters", simply because a character designed with, say, 450 points, tends to be a bit more efficient than one designed on 250 with another 200 added in small increments.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Kesendeja

I've always believed that characters should be within a reasonable power dynamic with each other.

I think that's key. Perhaps surprisingly, my reasons have zero to do with not hurting feelings or other social dynamics. They have entirely to do with making my job as GM easier:

I dislike having to fiddle with challenges to make sure everybody from low person to high person on the power scale "fits in."

Am I good enough GM to do that? Yes. I've run games for 43 years, for so many players that I've lost count, across dozens of game systems, in pretty much every genre, at a huge range of power levels. I am entirely capable of it.

But I don't want the extra work. The GM's job is already a complicated, many-faceted one. One thing being an experienced GM has taught me is that a good GM minimizes their workload – sometimes through efficiency, sometimes through transferal to players, sometimes by cutting nonessential tasks – so that they can be more "in the moment" with their players and more fun. Frankly, matching challenges to a broad spectrum of power levels is a nonessential task.

So . . . I don't use character points as a system of rewards and prizes. I use them as a timescale: a measure of how far the campaign has come from its starting point. More powerful PCs let me play with more challenging foes and situations, which is fun for me and keeps me "in the moment" with my players.

And that all means I just keep the PCs at around the same power level, whether they're originals, late joiners, or replacements, and regardless of roleplaying level. Obviously, I prefer good roleplaying to bad, and any roleplaying to none, because that's also fun. I can't honestly say that I've ever had players who don't try to roleplay, though. Most complaints from GMs who claim they have that problem sound like, "My players are having hurting wrong fun because they don't roleplay the way I would."

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Dalin

. When life gets in the way, they miss out on the fun, but their character keeps up with the rest of the group.

This isn't about worrying about hurt feelings or point disparities. (At these point levels, a few dozen points either way still feels balanced.) It just simplifies the bookkeeping and keeps the focus on the fun stuff.

Quoted for truth. The reward of attending a game session is having fun. The purpose of giving out cp is to keep the character growing in response to his environment and the player's desires.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Dalin

This isn't about worrying about hurt feelings or point disparities. (At these point levels, a few dozen points either way still feels balanced.) It just simplifies the bookkeeping and keeps the focus on the fun stuff.

Exactly this.

It feels – I don't know? – manipulative to muck about with rewards to ensure that people do or don't do certain things. On an intellectual, emotional, and social level, people get out of the game what they put in. They don't need me handing out affirmations and validations, nor dishing out reprimands.

If someone's fun is tuning in only for fights and action, and playing their character as a rook on a chessboard . . . well, fine. That doesn't have to be my fun, but I don't need to take away their fun because of that.

If someone's fun is talking in a different voice and "becoming" another person . . . well, fine. That doesn't have to be my fun, either – and I don't need to take away their fun because of that, either.

The list goes on. My feeling is that using points as a tool to craft players in my image is imposing my values on them. It makes me an old-timey, adversarial, control-freak GM.

Because as the GM, I get out of the game what I put in. If I put in toxic behavior, I get a toxic game. If I'm supportive of everyone, they support me and I have fun. Simple.