Sell me on GURPs, suckas.

[Lago_AM3P]

In my quest to find a replacement for D&D, I stumbled across the legendary GURPs. Fourth Edition.

This game seems really flexible and thorough in its character creation and mixes genres quite effortlessly, however, I am quite disturbed by the fact that this game doesn't even attempt to balance things.

Like, getting duplicates of yourself is dirt cheap. And making them all really hasted. If you want to go Naruto on your enemies then you are way superior to everything, it seems.

[PhoneLobster]

Thats steve jackson games right?

All their good work goes into munchkin these days.

[Username17]

OK, here's the deal on GURPS:

There is no game balance. Don't worry about it or you won't enjoy the game. The point of GURPS is that one person can play a chimpanzee with augmented intelligence in a space capable battlesuit, while another player is a musical charlattan magician, nd still another character is a vampire from an alternate timeline where all technology is based on steam and vacuum tubes. Also that the sourcbooks for those character archetypes re all written by people who are really passionate about the settings and genre and are filled with a wealth of interesting information (contrasted with, say, the tirade about Illumians from Races of Humans that I doubt anyone here has bothered to read in its entirety).

Of course, being passionate about steam punk gothic horror is not the same thing as having a solid grasp of the game mechanics that GURPS runs on - so it's filled with characters who can only be meaningfully opposed by weaponry from some obscure setting you may or may not have even heard of. Having some crazy damage multiplier is nice and all, but there are binary defenses in an explicitly modular and open ended game - so characters can plausibly min/max themselves literally out of the game world that other characters have put their sandbox.

---

In all honesty, I think GURPS makes a better collection of genre sourceboks than it does a game. The game itself is pretty simple to a point - but in reality I find it much too complicated and arcane in any campaign setting I've ever seen. I've never even heard of playing a game set squarely in just one setting (partly because there's almost always a game system out there that would do any one setting better), and while the game system survives multiple settings getting crammed together, storylines generally do not.

-Username17

[Crissa]

GURPS is a system where you can choose the amount of detail you want in the game.

However, game balance, power level, detail, etc are all pre-set functions - you must decide these before character creation. It's much like D&D where you say, 'This book, that book, and that book' but you must actually pick the sections out of the books, and write up your own campaign.

GURPS is only a set of tools, it isn't a game - unlike D&D. You can't take all the books, throw them at the players, and have a campaign. It takes planning, effort, and it can be alot of fun.

If you want to play vampiric bunnies destroying warren after warren against ninja and samurai clans of hares - GURPS has the tools to do it. But you are responsible for all the balancing.

Basically, you as a GM and players must write the background of your game before playing it. If psionics are in your game, you must choose which are available to players - if at all - and choose what level of hamstring you want to pull on their cost. GURPS assumes your GM is smart enough to say, 'This is unusual for the gameworld, it just plain costs X extra points'. In fact, the game has those rules written into it.

The pre-built settings a a blast, with Templates and Background books filling in the gaps you'd normally have to builod yourself. My favorite GURPS campaign setting so far is Traveller, as it allows you to be very skill-intensive and grognard about the creaky ships through space.

But honestly, GURPS isn't D&D - it's more raw that the d20 RAW. It's a framework, and tools, but there's alot of work before you have a campaign.

GURPS Lite is an option to start out quickly, but once again, you have to choose that level ahead of time.

-Crissa

PS: This is something me and Frank are highly opposites about, though.

[Hey_I_Can_Chan]

I can sell you on GURPS, but you're not going to like my methods.

GURPS is perfect for a low-powered game wherein you want only a handful of funky stuff to occur. Say you want to run a game wherein real-world-style secret agents oppose monkeys from space. GURPS has you covered. Say you want to run a Conan game wherein Conan's a kid. GURPS's got your stuff. Thieves' World and even Newhon are do-able in GURPS with minimal effort.

It is grainier than the Hero System, which makes it ideal for low-powered fantasy, Shakespearean (excepting The Tempest), and modern-day role-playing.

As long as there's no funky stuff in your game.

Because, then, as Frank and Crissa have stated, your game goes to hell.

You are writing all the background yourself (but you wouldn't be looking at GURPS in first place if you weren't planning on doing that anyway), but if the game you want is one that's grainy and modular, it's a solid system.

It's also one of the few systems wherein you can build a noncombat character and feel okay about it--because combat in GURPS is so deadly, your scholar might get lucky and punch someone through the kidney with his stylus just as the warrior might get unlucky and get his head lopped off (albeit in a nonrandom, non-Runequest sort of way).

I ran a GURPS gutterpunk fantasy game for 5 years based on the 3rd edition adventure "Caravan to Ein Arris," but near the end (as the PCs approached 1,000 points) "playing" became largely moot as the characters ran roughshod over everything I threw at them.

Oh, yeah, GURPS jumping rules are even more ridiculous than D&D's.

[RandomCasualty]

The main balancing issues with GURPS come from the GM being able to say "No you can't have that". And the GM has to be willing to do that quite a bit. Capping certain combat skills, disallowing certain abilities, and generally forcing characters to take noncombat skills as well as combat to round out their character.

Now, you can do all this with GURPS, the main problem is that the rulebook isn't of any help whatsoever. It doesn't list any sample guidelines for character creation, which frankly shocks me, because you'd think by now they'd have figured some formula. Something like "you're given 100 points, you can spend up to 50 on attributes, up to 25 on weapon skills/advantages, and so on."

But GURPS won't do that for you, leaving the whole character creation process in the hands of the DM.

Now, the plus side of GURPS is that it is deadly, so it's very difficult to make a character who is truly invulnerable, unless your DM lets you buy damage reduction, which in a fantasy campaign pretty much makes you immune to swords, especially when paired with armor (since they stack).

I agree with Chan about running GURPS for low powered games, as that seems to be where GURPS is really useful.

[Crissa]

Now, you can do all this with GURPS, the main problem is that the rulebook isn't of any help whatsoever. It doesn't list any sample guidelines for character creation, which frankly shocks me, because you'd think by now they'd have figured some formula. Something like "you're given 100 points, you can spend up to 50 on attributes, up to 25 on weapon skills/advantages, and so on."

But GURPS won't do that for you, leaving the whole character creation process in the hands of the DM.

This doesn't even make sense.

Did you skip the Templates and sidebars about power levels and genres?

-Crissa

[Username17]

GURPS assumes your GM is smart enough to say, 'This is unusual for the gameworld, it just plain costs X extra points'. In fact, the game has those rules written into it.

Yep. And this is ultimately my basic problem with GURPS. It's the Monk problem - powers are prorated in expense for being weird, not necessarily for being good,

The fact is that having an unusual power is by itself an irrelevent piece of information in determining how powerful or spotlight stealing your character is, and thus has no place in a fair point value system.

Monks suck. And characters in GURPS are essentially Monks all the time without knowing it.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1144698202[/unixtime]]
Did you skip the Templates and sidebars about power levels and genres?

While there were sidebars, they didn't actually say anything specific, and templates were more for newer players who didn't want to go through the trouble of individually picking all their abilities.

But I really didn't see any guidelines preventing some guy from putting all his points into str, dex and sword skill. Nothing specific anyway like "Starting characters can't have a skill higher than 17"

As for Frank's point, I think unusual background extra cost shouldn't be used so much because it's weird but more because it's extra powerful in your campaign world. For instance, teleportation is a lot more powerful in a world where they aren't expecting teleportation. That way nobody has counters for it and your teleportation is actually a big benefit because it surprises people. That warrants extra points. Also abilities like flight may warrant extra points in a fantasy world, but not in a modern setting like Shadowrun, simply because the ability is more valuable in one setting than another.

Though, I think GURPS needed another category that let you reduce commonplace abilities too. Like night vision shouldnt' cost very much in a futuristic setting where you can just go out and buy night vision goggles.

That's the main problem I saw with GURPS was the old equipment versus ability problem. In high tech settings, a lot of the abilities are a total waste of points. And that's the hard part about writing a universal RPG system. You really can't do so without a lot of variable costs depending on the setting and situation, and perhaps even the flavor of the campaign.

[Hey_I_Can_Chan]

The fact is that having an unusual power is by itself an irrelevent piece of information in determining how powerful or spotlight stealing your character is, and thus has no place in a fair point value system.

Oh, God, do I hate to say this, but I disagree.

The thing about GURPS is that how… spotlight stealing your character is is important. If you're the only Jedi in a A New Hope to Return of the Jedi environment, the game universe will--categorically--revolve around you. This makes you more important and gets you more screen time than everyone else, and that should cost more points.

Why? Because you get to play more. You get to fight Vader, you get to destroy the Death Star (should that be italicized as the name of a ship?), and a host of other crap that no one else can do. It's not because Luke has more points than anyone else but because he has the 50-point (or whatever) Unusual Background as a Jedi Knight that gives him this amount of pull in the game world.

Admittedly, that ain't balanced power-wise, but it is balanced time-on-stage-wise, and that's what GURPS is targeting.

The example used in an old GURPS book is if you were the only magician in 20th-century NY or something and this costs you an extra 100 points or whatever. That's not because that makes you that much more powerful than everyone else but because that makes you so much more different than anyone else.

…And, because of that, you'll get to play more.

I admit that a PC in a nonmagic game playing a Wiz1 probably shouldn't suffer an XP penalty--much less an LA--but his abilities mark him as different and, because of that difference, fundametally more interesting than, the rest of the PCs. This grants him more screen time.

Because he gets to play more, shouldn't he have some kind of extra cost?

[RandomCasualty]

1144709426[/unixtime]]
Why? Because you get to play more. You get to fight Vader, you get to destroy the Death Star (should that be italicized as the name of a ship?), and a host of other crap that no one else can do. It's not because Luke has more points than anyone else but because he has the 50-point (or whatever) Unusual Background as a Jedi Knight that gives him this amount of pull in the game world.

Well actually I would argue that Luke does have more points than everyone else. He can deflect blaster shots with his saber, plus has all kinds of crazy force powers. He's a great melee fighter, plus an expert pilot and was the only one capable of making the shot to blow up the deathstar.

While likely some of his points were invested in an unusual background, since nobody really expected force powers in that day and age, I still think he had more points than the rest of the characters, or at the very least had more points invested in combat skills. It's hard to gauge power in a GURPS sense, because you can be 800 points and a total crappy combat character, and you can have 100 points and be a virtual combat god. It all depends on how you want to spend your points.

[Username17]

Because he gets to play more, shouldn't he have some kind of extra cost?

The question of whether someone is balanced if they get more screen time and are less likely to have success with that screen time is an opne one. I personally would say that they are not. For one thing, in a cooperative storytelling game you don't get screen time in proportion to how weird your character is, you get screen time in proportion to how engaged you are as a person with the narrative. Admittedly, being the only minotaur character is a nice conversation piece that allows you to contribute anecdotes and dialogue in virtually any situation, but having an interesting and long-running love affair with another character could do the same.

Having weird abilities is just as likely to exclude you from the action as it is to put the action on your terms. Sure you've got telekinesis, but how's your computer hacking? Your starship pilotting? Well, we'll stash you in the cargo hold and call you when we need someone who can do... whatever it is you do. The ability to cast scorching ray is almost completely worthless in a Mechwarrior or Traveller scenario. It's weird, but the fact that i doesn't interface with the rest of the game world means that you can't do anything, not that you get to be the center of attention.

Being weird isn't enough. Having abilities that are weird and need to be countered is a power up. Having powers that are weird and are themselves counters is a power down. Having powers that are weird and don't interact witht the whole counters/counter-counters line of reasoning are essentially unaffected by being unusual.

-Username17

[Hey_I_Can_Chan]

The question of whether someone is balanced if they get more screen time and are less likely to have success with that screen time is an opne one. I personally would say that they are not. For one thing, in a cooperative storytelling game you don't get screen time in proportion to how weird your character is, you get screen time in proportion to how engaged you are as a person with the narrative. Admittedly, being the only minotaur character is a nice conversation piece that allows you to contribute anecdotes and dialogue in virtually any situation, but having an interesting and long-running love affair with another character could do the same.

True. But the narrative functions around those PCs who stand out from the relatively uncrowded field of everyday PCs. If everyone were a Jedi or a superhero (in the traditional sense) or a Master of Kung Fu, then everyone would reap the benefits of increased screen time. Because GURPS says everyone isn't, this make those who are inherently more powerful, thus more screenworthy. Who would you rather watch Princess Leia or Luke Skywalker, Cyclops or Wolverine, Chuck Norris or Bruce Lee?

Having weird abilities is just as likely to exclude you from the action as it is to put the action on your terms.

This is entirely GM-dependent, therefore not worth discussing.

The ability to cast scorching ray is almost completely worthless in a Mechwarrior or Traveller scenario. It's weird, but the fact that i doesn't interface with the rest of the game world means that you can't do anything, not that you get to be the center of attention.

If you were the only wizard in a Traveller campaign, would you seriously expect to get the same amount of attention as any other character would in a traditional Traveller campaign?

"Yeah," you might say, "because my points are equally allocated." But the GM has to allocate his own resources for dealing with your character… in which case you deserve--and the party deserves--more XP just for showing up as they get showing up for something they aren't used to dealing with.

Having powers that are weird and are themselves counters is a power down.

Why? If the Jedi Knight is the only one who can deflect the Dark Lord's force lightning how is this not a power-up?

It's a genre issue. If everyone is wacky, then there's no extra cost. If no one is wacky, then there's no extra cost. But if some PCs are wacky and others aren't then there's an extra cost to be wacky. How many Jedi are there in A New Hope? Wizards in Lord of the Rings? Superheroes in Superman II?

Different abilities give you different ways to problem-solve. This means the GM has to compensate for those. This also means you can do stuff no one else can do. That's important--even if the thing you can do is stupid (barely fight while blinded, make fireworks, yell really loud, etc.)--and costs extra points.

[RandomCasualty]

Well keep in mind that an unusual background can be worth zero points.

So if it's truly trivial and not worth anything, the GM doesn't have to charge you for it.

[Username17]

Why? If the Jedi Knight is the only one who can deflect the Dark Lord's force lightning how is this not a power-up?

Because there's only one Dark Lord and you might not ever encounter him. The ability to deflect blsters is extremely valuable because blasters are the only weapon of most of your enemies. The ability to strike incorporeal is essentially worthless because there's only 3 Force Ghosts in the setting and they are on your side. Being able to deflect Palpatine's force lightning is likewise worthless because there's only one Palpatine and you're never going to fight him because he already is killed in canon by Darth Vader so you know for a fact that your character isn't going to do it.

Deflect Force Lightning is a pretty cool ability in KotOR, because lots of people have Force Lightning. But in New Hope, there's only one guy with Force Lightning, the deflect Force LIghtning ability is extremely rare, and it's worth precisely dick.

How many Jedi are there in A New Hope? Wizards in Lord of the Rings?

That's a power issue, not a genre issue. A wizard in LotR is arbitrarily more powerful than everyone else. Gandalf is built on more points than Frodo or even Aragorn. He doesn't have to spend extra points on "being a fvcking wizard" - he just has large piles of bonus points where he can take on a Balrog in melee and noone else can.

The thing is that if you play a wizard in a LotR game, you don't get to be one of the angelic Wizards, you're just some human who uses Magic. Your curses and incantations are no more effective than Legolas' bow, and you shouldn't pay any more for it.

_frank

[dbb]

You know what else is really good for getting screen time? Being an effective character.

If "being wacky" means you get access to powers that are actually more effective for their point cost, then that's worth something. That is, if "being a Jedi Knight" means you get to buy Mind Control at a discount over what regular people pay for Persuasion, then okay. This, however, is a bad idea. It's essentially just like having a group agree that one person is going to play a hero and the other people are going to play his henchmen, except that it doesn't make that distinction explicit, and it relies on imbalances in the game system.

(D&D represents this by letting one person play the Druid -- oops, what I meant to say was, in theory D&D represents this by letting someone play a high-level character and others play lower-level characters. A game in which everyone has the same amount of points, but one or more ends up way better than the others, is hopelessly confusing and will intensely piss off people who don't understand that it works that way -- that's one of the reasons why 3E multiclassing sucks so badly.)

If your wacky powers aren't actually better than the rest of the party can get, however -- that's not a cost that needs to be handled in the game system. It doesn't necessarily get you any more screen time than having a deeply detailed background. Princess Leia doesn't get a lightsaber or an X-Wing fighter or Jedi powers and often doesn't even have a gun if she hasn't looted one from a dead stormtrooper yet. But she gets plenty of screen time anyway because she happens to be Princess of Alderaan (however that works -- she was adopted by a Senator and somehow became a Princess) and a key member of the Rebel Alliance.

True, being wacky might grant you a lot more screen time, depending on the DM. But it also might not, since just as there isn't anything keeping the DM from answering with a shrug and a grunt when you ask how people in the bar react to your being the only survivor of the disaster that claimed the lives of 100,000 people on Neimodius IV -- there also isn't anything keeping the DM from answering with a shrug and a grunt when you ask how people react to your being able to shoot laser beams from your bare hands. That's entirely up to the DM, and enshrining it in the game system with a fixed price is unwise, to say the least.

--d.

[RandomCasualty]

I can live with the unusual background thing.

What really bothers me about GURPS is how they hand out expensive disabilities for stuff like "Terminally Ill (1 year)"... Seriously, it's worth like 100 points I think. That's crazy. You suffer zero disadvantages right now, and are assumed to just die off sometime down the line, at which point you'll just make a new character. It's the same issues with white wolf and their "dark fate" flaw, only in GURPS you get a total assload of points. Pretty much a 50%+ boost to character power if you're relatively normal in point value.

That's really the only place in GURPS that I think they totally blew it balance wise. Not only are they nondisadvantages, they're super expensive non-disadvantages.

And of course, elves are paying large amounts of points to be able to live for 500+ years. Really really dumb.

Crap like that makes the whole unusual background issue look minor.

[erik]

I remember the disadvantage "Weirdness Magnet" with much love. It gave like 10 or 15 points, and its drawback was that you gave the DM easy plot hooks. Dunno if it made it into the latest incarnation of GURPS or not.

I find screen time often goes to the player that roleplays the most for it. If someone wants to play a silent type character, then they don't get much screen time. If someone wants to be an outlandish leader who is always getting into trouble, then they likely get more of the lime light.

As for:

those who are inherently more powerful, thus more screenworthy. Who would you rather watch Princess Leia or Luke Skywalker, Cyclops or Wolverine, Chuck Norris or Bruce Lee?

That is a really messed up list that doesn't seem to support your case at all.

I'd rather watch Leia, who is much less powerful than Luke, but has much more entertaining dialogs and is hot in a metal bikini.

I'd rather watch Wolverine, who in combat can't really compete with unfair eyebeams, but he is much more entertaining out of combat and also has the most lengthy, complex and ridiculous backstory ever... and Cyclops is a prick.

Between Norris and Lee I can't really decide. Neither is more crazy powerful than the other. I'd probably choose Norris since out of combat he is more able to hold my attention.

Being unfair in combat doesn't make you more screen-worthy, it just means you get to survive and ensure that your party survives.

[Hey_I_Can_Chan]

Because there's only one Dark Lord and you might not ever encounter him.

Oh, but you will. You have to because you have a metric assload of mitoclorians (i.e. an Unusual Background) and that means being able to deflect force lightning is a big deal.

Deflect Force Lightning is a pretty cool ability in KotOR, because lots of people have Force Lightning. But in New Hope, there's only one guy with Force Lightning, the deflect Force LIghtning ability is extremely rare, and it's worth precisely dick.

Again, I disagree. The story--your story--says, in essence, "I am among the last Jedi, therefore the emperor is interested in me." That means he's after you, darn it. You'll get your chance, and it'll be cool because you've paid the points to be unusual.

In a Knights game, everyone would play a Jedi (and be an idiot if he didn't), so there deflecting force lightning is just another skill. But in A New Hope it's a big deal--even if it's only used twice--because you're the only guy who can.

The thing is that if you play a wizard in a LotR game, you don't get to be one of the angelic Wizards, you're just some human who uses Magic. Your curses and incantations are no more effective than Legolas' bow, and you shouldn't pay any more for it.

Do we ever see a PC wizard in LotR?

You know what else is really good for getting screen time? Being an effective character.

Is Han an effective character? Yes. Is he a Jedi Knight and takes on Vader? No. He gets frozen in carbonite.

True, being wacky might grant you a lot more screen time, depending on the DM. But it also might not, since just as there isn't anything keeping the DM from answering with a shrug and a grunt when you ask how people in the bar react to your being the only survivor of the disaster that claimed the lives of 100,000 people on Neimodius IV -- there also isn't anything keeping the DM from answering with a shrug and a grunt when you ask how people react to your being able to shoot laser beams from your bare hands. That's entirely up to the DM, and enshrining it in the game system with a fixed price is unwise, to say the least.

I'm having trouble imagining this. An earthquake strikes Gotham City and you're the only foo' who makes it out alive. When you go into the bar and people ask, "Where you from?" and you say, "Gotham City," don't they all look at you surprised and say, "Aren't you supposed to be dead?"

The Unusual Background cost is a pointer. It says to the GM, "This is something cool about me that no one else has; make it count." If the GM doesn't make it count, then the GM's a dick and he shouldn't have charged you for it in the first place. If it's meaningless, I admit, it's also worthless, but paying points for it--by charging you points for it--the GM's said, "Hey, yeah, this is worth something." If he then proceeds to ignore it, that's where the system breaks down.

You can be the last survivor of the Gotham City earthquake and have it be worth exactly dick, or you can be the last survivor of the Gotham City earthquake and have it be the most momentous thing in the campaign. The former's worth 0 points while the latter has the potential to be worth hundreds of points--depending on the in-game advantages it grants you.

[dbb]

Oh, yes, almost forgot.

Having abilities like "Deflect the Dark Lord's Force Lightning" actually is a bad idea whether you're playing GURPS or something else entirely. In fact, by having this ability at all, a DM is essentially cheating his players out of something cool.

Think about it -- if the Dark Lord never shows up at all, they've wasted the points. If the Dark Lord shows up and his Force Lightning isn't hardcore enough that having the ability to deflect it makes the difference between winning and losing, they've wasted the points. And if the Dark Lord shows up and his Force Lightning is so hardcore that they have to have the ability to deflect it to even have a chance, then either:

1> The DM is, to use K's felicitous phrase, a Gygaxian ass pirate, or;

2> The DM could have just designed a Dark Lord who was beatable without the deflection ability in the first place, so the players are using up their own class features so the DM can make the numbers arbitrarily "big enough" to suit him.

That's madness. Characters should never ever have to pay for plot devicey stuff like that. If it's absolutely required that someone in the party has an ability for the DM to advance the plot, someone should just get that ability and not pay for it, because by working that into their character they're doing the DM a favor.

Now, if the power has other uses -- like if there's "deflect energy" that works against blasters and Force Lightning, that's a whole different story, because then you're buying something that's actually worth a damn.

George Lucas, by the way, is totally case 1. He spent the whole three years of that campaign throwing guys with energy weapons against the party in the hope that Luke's player would clue in that maybe buying "deflect energy" would be a good idea, but Luke's player was apparently too busy trying to get into Leia's player's pants (to the point where Lucas had to put his foot down with a contrived "she's your sister" revelation -- much to Leia's player's relief, I'm sure) to even notice, and instead spent his points trying to get enough Mind Control to be as cool as Obi-Wan. The other three players (Leia, Han with Chewie as his cohort, and the two droids being played by the same person) must have been heartily sick of his crap by the end of that campaign.

--d.

[dbb]

1144786214[/unixtime]]
Is Han an effective character? Yes. Is he a Jedi Knight and takes on Vader? No. He gets frozen in carbonite.

Dude, are you serious? Han is by far the coolest character in that entire party. When I was growing up, hardly any of the kids in my neighborhood wanted to be Luke. They totally wanted to be Han Solo. And by the "screen time" standard, Han is a raging success, since his getting frozen in carbonite and then let out again results in his personal backstory occupying like one-third of the second movie and the first half of the third. Which is by way of saying, that throwaway line in his background about how a smuggler lord was pissed off at him because he owed him some money generated almost as much screen time for him as Luke's entire point investment in "being a Jedi Knight" did.

That's just the best-case scenario -- it's possible Han's player actually got extra points for the "disadvantage" of being hunted by Jabba the Hutt. Which "disadvantage" resulted in the whole game centering around him for a good quarter of the length of the campaign -- and he wasn't even out of action for that long (remember, he probably still got to control Chewbacca even while he was frozen).

I'm having trouble imagining this. An earthquake strikes Gotham City and you're the only foo' who makes it out alive. When you go into the bar and people ask, "Where you from?" and you say, "Gotham City," don't they all look at you surprised and say, "Aren't you supposed to be dead?"

I'm honestly having some trouble imagining it too. But the point is that "get a cool reaction from NPCs" is an "advantage" that is in fact totally dependent on the DM. Some DMs will let you pay for it and still not give it to you. Some will give it to you without making you pay for it if you write a cool enough background. That's a problem, because player #1 is a less effective character than player #2, and he still doesn't get what he wanted.

In short -- I totally agree with you that if you pay points for an Unusual Background, you should get something back for it. DMs being DMs, however, we have no way to be sure that you will. So you shouldn't pay for it, unless you get some numerical advantage out of it.

--d.

[erik]

1144786214[/unixtime]]

The thing is that if you play a wizard in a LotR game, you don't get to be one of the angelic Wizards, you're just some human who uses Magic. Your curses and incantations are no more effective than Legolas' bow, and you shouldn't pay any more for it.

Do we ever see a PC wizard in LotR?

In MERPS (Middle Earth Role Playing System) you do. And they aren't *that* much more impressive than the other character types. There is a large distinction made between people who can cast spells, and the wizards like Gandalf and Saruman (who are more like outsiders sent by the gods, who also happen to be wizards).

[Neeek]

1144780679[/unixtime]]I remember the disadvantage "Weirdness Magnet" with much love. It gave like 10 or 15 points, and its drawback was that you gave the DM easy plot hooks. Dunno if it made it into the latest incarnation of GURPS or not.

7th Sea had something similar called Foul Weather Jack. It *cost* 5 points to have(out of 100 for starting characters). Of course, in 7th Sea, you gain experience mostly from having your backgrounds resolve, and FWJ gave you a 4 point background(3 was the normal max, the the amount of experience recieve was based on this number) that replaced itself upon completion, so it was the single best way to grab both screen time and experience all at once.

I'd rather watch Leia, who is much less powerful than Luke, but has much more entertaining dialogs and is hot in a metal bikini.

And I'd rather watch Han than either one. Okay, I'll make an exception for Leia in the bikini, but at any other point...

[Crissa]

Weirdness plays in the favor in roleplaying. If you pull out Hamster Fu and no one else in the world has a clue what it is, let alone that you have it, that's a big advantage.

And if you're the only blue-skinned alien on the planet earth, people will be able to ID you vs anyone else on the planet earth pretty damn easily.

It's the same thing. Utility in a roleplaying game isn't an absolute.

-Crissa

[RandomCasualty]

1144786391[/unixtime]]
That's madness. Characters should never ever have to pay for plot devicey stuff like that. If it's absolutely required that someone in the party has an ability for the DM to advance the plot, someone should just get that ability and not pay for it, because by working that into their character they're doing the DM a favor.

Well, I dunno. I think it depends.

There are certainly other ways of beating the emperor that may not involve using the force at all. Blowing up the deathstar while he's on it for instance. Lets remember that in Return of the Jedi, Luke didn't do jack shit. The emperor would have died anyway by the deathstar exploding. It had little do with Vader throwing the emperor into the reactor.

Having the ability to deflect his lightning may actually give you more options as far as killing the emperor, so I think it's probably worth something. Unless the DM is totally running a railroad game where the PCs must confront the emperor in some melee showdown at the end, the ability may allow that to be an option, one you didn't have before.

It really gets into quest design. Is the quest designed as an obstacle the PCs have to use their skills to get around, or is it designed based on the PC's skills? In the former case, there's simply a locked door and if you have lockpicking skill, it helps you beacuse it allows you to get through it, you can also bash it down... but really, the DM just presents you with a puzzle and says "try to get through it." This is most suited to min/max play because it is about setting up each and every problem within the games physics and letting the PCs cut loose.

In the later type of adventure, The only reason there is a locked door is because one PC can pick it. In this scenario, pretty much all the PCs abilities become plot device abilities. In this case, as Chan says, you are just paying for camera time. When you take pick lock, it's basically so that the DM can at some point place a lock you cna pick in the adventure, and you'll feel like a big hero for contributing. This is less rules intensive since the adventure itself caters to what you picked. So you'll never find Conan getting punished for his lack of research skills unless he's supposed to not be able to research something.

So does the emperor have force lightning as a prepared obstacle or becuase you took the ability to deflect it? Really it's a chicken/egg question IMO. In either case it's worth it for more options or for camera time, depending on your DM's style of adventure design.

It is however what I call a disposable ability. In either case, you need to be able to get those points back after the emperor dies, because once he's dead, your points are dead and useless. It's not granting you extra options anymore and it's not giving you any camera time.