Newbie GURPS GM Seeking Advice

[Crakkerjakk]

Originally Posted by Gef

Archers can't use this trick, so they need guards, which means that a bow, firing every fourth turn with aim, actually has a lower rate of fire PER MAN if each archer has a shield bearer.

Why can't archers use this trick?

[Xplo]

Originally Posted by NMatuzic

My main problem, though, is I'm used to gaming systems with clear structure and levels when it comes to characters. I'm finding it hard to wrap my mind around how powerful a character feels using a certain amount of character points.

Two things to keep in mind: first, when you're working with classes, you can be reasonably sure that any character will be balanced and appropriate for your game, and classes tend to have built-in niche protection. GURPS doesn't do that, so you'll need to keep a closer eye on chargen to make sure that the characters people are making are appropriate for your game (no meek scholars in a hack and slash game, no street thieves in a game about courtly intrigue) and that they have the appropriate skills and abilities for the kind of character they're supposed to be, and you'll have to enforce niche protection yourself (if you care about that sort of thing).

Second, when you're working with levels, characters tend to get better at everything at once: they get stronger attacks AND they hit more often AND they get better defenses AND they get more HP AND they tend to acquire higher status AND they learn more special abilities AND they get more uses per day AND AND AND. In GURPS this isn't automatic and players tend to improve the skills and abilities they use the most (like a fighter who spends all his points on buying up his favorite weapon skill). If you want players to spread their points around so that they improve everything at once, it may help to provide them with a wide variety of challenges (so that they'll realize that it doesn't help to be too overspecialized), or point out that there are other ways to improve your character than just getting good at one thing; for instance, the aforementioned fighter could learn Tactics, Strategy, Leadership, and Administration if he wants to lead soldiers, or improve his outdoor survival skills so that he can live in the wild if he has to, or buy up Status, Reputation, Wealth, and Contacts if he wants to be a social climber, etc. Or he could just learn how to use more weapons, which will come in handy when they all get captured by slavers who make him fight other gladiators using whatever weapons they give him...

[Gef]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

Why can't archers use this trick?

In the game, the reason is because of the rule on pop-up attacks. As to what it's based on in terms of real-world physics, I would have to guess that it's because the archer has to hold his bow-string under tension, while the crossbowman has a mechanical device to do that for him. Once he's cocked the crossbow, he's no longer pulling against 150#. It is historically accurate as far as I know; google "pavise".
GEF

[Gef]

If you design your own fantasy templates, keep them as cheap as you can, limit IQ and DX mods to +/- 1 over human, 2 at the most for really special cases, and make sure they include something that a human can't have, either an exotic advantage or a disad that won't count against the limit on individual disads. If templates are expensive relative to starting cost, they leave no room for customization. For supernatural abilities, EITHER use spells to model them for all races OR use advantages, but don't mix and match, until you have plenty of experience running both kinds of abilities to see why I made this suggestion.

And speaking of disads, if I buy IQ 15 for 100, then lower Per and Will back to 10 each for -25 each, I still have average Will and Per, and a big edge withh all IQ-based skills. Certainly, there are people like this, brilliant but absent-minded and meek. The catch is, reducing Per and Will count as 50 points against the disad limit. If you don't enforce this, you will skew the system toward extremely high skill levels. You may see bang stats referenced in these forums:

IQ! = IQ+1, Per -1, Will -1 for net 10/level
DX! = DX+1, Speed -1/4 for net 15/level
HT! = HT+1, FP -1, Speed -1/4, for net 2/level, what a bargain!

Bang stats are okay in templates you design and actually a good part of the reason to buy a template, but outside of that, I highly recommend enforcing the rule on disad limits until you get the hang of things.

For character design at this stage, do not allow Weirdness Magnet, powerful omnipresent enemies, or anything else that basically requires you as the GM to do a load of extra work. Also, do not allow scads of overlapping disads. For instance, "Honesty" is really "Code of Honor: Obey the Law" and shouldn't get full credit if combined with another CoH. Think about all the strictures in the proposed personal code and then price it accordingly. Likewise do not allow an endless stack of reaction penalties: They hate me because I'm a monster, and because I'm ugly, and because I stutter, and because I'm shy, and because I have an Odious Habit of eating them, but at least I have no other character defects!

Do enforce social consequences. For instance, if I'm a wizard with Magery 3, a dozen spells at skill 15, and a large energy reserve with which to cast them, you might reasonably require that I have Comfortable Wealth and Status and/or Social Regard, whatever is appropriate to accomplished wizards in your game world. If I have combat skills at 16+, you might demand that I have military rank, or maybe an outlaw reputation.

We all know people, and we can't represent everyone of them as a contact. Otherwise, every salesman would be a superhero because of his networking skills. That said, do require every player to define some relationships, even if it's not in game terms. For instance, healthy but unwealthy parents of a grown son might not really count as patrons or dependents, but that doesn't mean that the character would be indifferent to news of them.

GEF

[Nosforontu]

Keep in mind also as you run the game differences between d&d and Gurps will show up, quite probably in ways you don't quite expect. A few differences to keep in mind.

1: No built in requirements for the D&D magic item Christmas Tree. While Gurps characters will certainly appreciate magic items or fantastic items they are a lot less dependent on them as they level up. A gurps character is much more defined by his character sheet than by his equipment sheet. High quality mundane items in Gurps last a lot longer on a characters equipment sheet than they do in D&D.

2: Related to number 1 treasure in general is a bit less of a campaign driver in Gurps than in D&D their is no Wealth by level that characters are measuring themselves against and its lack creates less pressure to reset the characters equipment list every couple of sessions. Also keep in mind that starting wealth for characters might vary significantly between P.C.s depending on what starting wealth advantages/disadvantages they select.

3: Assuming low access to supernatural/exotic advantages P.C.S tend to remain essentially human even if they are tend towards the heroic tier. Mundane threats and enemies that could have killed them at the beginning of the campaign might still be able to do so months into the campaign with a lucky hit. Combat as has been mentioned before is deadly in Gurps and even encounters with simple animals like a pack of hungry wolves or a wild boar can be appropriately deadly.

4: Character niches can blur and to a certain extent probably should blur in Gurps, depending on how two characters spend their points a "wizards" skill in quarter staff might be as good as the parties "fighters" skill in broadsword (for that matter the wizard might prefer to learn broadword or pole arms himself).

5: Damage matters a lot more in Gurps you have a much smaller injury threshold (of course you also tend to take less damage in Gurps as well). Wounds and knockdown are very real possibilities, and even simple damage can give you shock penalties pushing you at a greater disadvantage to your actions.

[Gef]

Originally Posted by Nosforontu

Also keep in mind that starting wealth for characters might vary significantly between P.C.s depending on what starting wealth advantages/disadvantages they select.

So, is it fair for the rich kid to outfit the other PCs? Is it fair for the PCs who sank all their ponts into combat stats to thus have the kind of fine weapon that only great wealth can buy? Absolutely, because as Matron "Mama" Morton sang in the musical Chicago, "The system works, the system called...reciprocity."

GEF

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Gef

So, is it fair for the rich kid to outfit the other PCs? Is it fair for the PCs who sank all their ponts into combat stats to thus have the kind of fine weapon that only great wealth can buy?

The Basic Set explicitly recommends that this not be done. For good reason, I believe. Doing it the other way invites people to go all munchkin with character creation.

Bill Stoddard

[Fnugus]

Originally Posted by NMatuzic

Originally, I had planned on running a D&D campaign, beginning at level 1. Essentially, I guess, I'm asking how many character points in GURPS would give an approximate feel of similar power levels as 1st level D&D characters? I was thinking of using either 75 or 100 points, with a max of 25 or 50 points of disadvantages. Does that sound about right?

About 100 points for level 1 characters are a fair game (I think it's been said before, though). I did a level 1 DnD (3rd ed.!) Fighter conversion a while back, using the 100 points limit, set up as a typical GURPS Occupational template (here. I think it illustrates the level quite well.

Originally Posted by NMatuzic

Secondly, I would also like some advice on nice amounts of point rewards to keep the characters slowly but steadily improving over time?

Since DnD level progression is quite fast, I'd recommend going with the standard 1-5 points GURPS suggests, averaging 3 per session. It usually gives the players the ability to raise one skill one level per session, thus adding slowly to their power, while still giving them the option to save points for DX og IQ or ST on rarer occasions.

Also, in GURPS Fantasy (p. 114), there are a lot of pre-made occupational templates that makes both PC and NPC creation a lot easier (and faster), so you might want to acquire that book even before game-start as a guide. (You can, if you want to keep it simple, use the templates and discard the rest of the book, though)

[NMatuzic]

Nice! Thanks for all the advice so far people, keep it coming if you have something more to add.

I like the idea of running some test combat, to get used to the system. I had planned a character building day before the campaign even started, so I'll be able to run it at that (probably before character generation, so people can have an idea what can be done).

I had been given the tip of being very involved in character generation as the GM, to ensure a decent balance. I'm pretty confident in the maturity of my gaming group, and that they'll avoid the min/maxing path- but then, gamers always surprise GMs in ways they never predict. Nevertheless, I'll be there to make sure balance is maintained.

Many of the things I'm hearing about GURPS is very pleasing- I like natural growth of characters, I like the feeling of mortality, I like as a GM to create encounters on "feel" not by points and rules.

As for transcribing character levels, I do understand that's not how GURPS works, I was just after clarification for a similar starting point. After that, I'm not fussed how things progress too much.

From what I'm hearing, 100 points with max of -50 disads is sounding like the right spot, so I'll be sticking with that. I've been trawling through the books and created a few racial templates to fit the races in my game world, ranging from around 20-30 points max. I don't think that's too much of a chunk out of a character's points (it's well under what the rooks advise) and only slightly changes them, but hopefully with enough character to set them apart from humans.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by NMatuzic

I like the idea of running some test combat, to get used to the system. I had planned a character building day before the campaign even started, so I'll be able to run it at that (probably before character generation, so people can have an idea what can be done).

Don't do this, though, with their built characters. Rather, give them a moderate length combat, no more than an hour of play time, with pregens, to give them an idea of what they can do with what stats, skills, and equipment. That way they'll be better able to decide how they want to build their actual characters.

Do a solitaire combat on your own first, so that you kind of know where the rules are. That inspires confidence in the players (and in you!). You might even want to draw up your own flowchart of what you do in what order.

Bill