Create a character in GURPS (Guidelines)
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- čas přidán 5. 09. 2024
- You want to create a character in GURPS, but the Basic Set doesn't really explain how... or it does... but the explanation is 200+ pages long, and there doesn't seem to be any hints or guidelines.
This video will show you the guidelines I use when creating a character, how I gauge where to spend my points, and why.
If you have never built a character in GURPS, this video can help you get started.
Links mentioned in the video:
GURPS Unofficial Handbook of the Marvel Universe:
dagwood.sandwic...
PK Levine's House Rules (Perception and Will are separate from IQ):
www.mygurps.co...
GURPS Wiki Attribute levels explained:
gurps.fandom.c...
GURPS Wiki Skill list by category:
gurps.fandom.c...
Enraged Eggplant's Dungeon and GURPS series on Social Interactions:
• Social Interactions in...
• Social Interactions in...
• Social Interactions in...
• Social Interactions in...
Sean Punch's (Dr Kromm) description of skill levels:
forums.sjgames....
Sean Punch's (Dr Kromm) list of "everyman" skills:
forums.sjgames....
If you want to learn more, visit: www.themook.ne...
Other videos in the series:
Intro to GURPS (is GURPS right for you): • With GURPS, you can pl...
Game Mechanics: • GURPS Game Mechanics (...
Combat: • GURPS: Combat! How o...
NPCs: • GURPS: NPCs. If maki...
Characters: • GURPS: Characters. Ar...
How to use GCS: • A walk-though of how t...
Adventures: • GURPS: Adventures. W...
Intro to Magic: • GURPS: Magic, which do...
GM 1st steps: • What to do first, as a...
GM Gameplay Hints: • GM Gameplay Hints #1, ...
Powers Vol1: • Powers, Volume 1, Why ...
Powers Vol2-1: • Powers, Volume 2, part...
Powers Vol2-2: • Powers, Volume 2, part...
Powers Vol2-3: • What is a Tiddlywiki? ...
Guidelines for Creating Characters: • Create a character in ...
If you like this content, and would like to help me make more: github.com/spo... or
ko-fi.com/crno...
GURPS Discord server: / discord
Learning GURPS playlist: • With GURPS, you can pl...
GURPS (Steve Jackson Games): www.sjgames.com...
GURPS Character Sheet (GCS): gurpscharacter...
GURPS Game Aid for Foundry VTT: foundryvtt.com...
GURPS Game Aid Users Guide: bit.ly/2JaSlQd
GURPS Game Aid "How To" playlist: • Getting Started in Fou...
#GURPS #GURPS4e #RPG #Roleplay #Roleplaying #ttrpg #ttrpgs
I absolutely love GURPS! One of my most fond gaming experiences was getting to the end of character creation and discovering I’d interpreted the game prompt differently from the rest of my party. This resulted in an unforgettable experience where she leaned heavily on her friends for things they thought were easy and popped off when her niche came up.
The prompt our game master gave us was that all of the characters live in a college campus that’s been experiencing unexplainable, paranoid activity. After getting details on the game world I came to the conclusion that my character should be a Buffy style monster hunter. I gave her the disadvantages, Paranoia and Reputation (Campus) since she was basically a doomsday prepper who happened to be right. She invested nearly all of her points into gunplay and had just enough points in other skills to get by since 100 point characters really can’t afford to specialize as hard as she did. The GM approved Janice and come game day I found out everyone else saw the premise and thought Scooby Doo. The party consisted of Jack, the baseball star and default leader of the group since he was the only one who knew how to drive, Professor Preston, a teacher at the school who was running a fantasy club as an official front for our investigations, and Spot the dog, he was the team mascot and the only member of the team who was any good at tracking.
The first session was unforgettable, the party was investigating rumors of an Apeman in the area. After a long search and several challenges I couldn’t help with we finally found him in a warehouse. Jack pulled out his bat and told the Apeman to surrender so we could get to the bottom of this. Janice didn’t give the monster a chance, she pulled out her desert eagle and proceeded to blow the Apeman’s shoulder out.
Ha! Way to encourage old-man Wickles to take off that silly mask!
Keep up the good work. Your GURPS content is great. It's a relief to know you're out there advocating for GURPS, helping people get the most out of the system (myself included), correcting some misconceptions about the system, and increasing the size of the GURPS community by drumming up more interest in it. Thank you!
You are welcome! And I couldn't have said it better myself... that is exactly what I am trying to do! And I am hard at work on the next one!
Great! I am increasing gurps amount in my life (for now i played 2 games, but more to come shortly). Your vids are very helpful so, also they are in accord with my "rpg to have fun philosophy". Thx Nose, God bless
Right! Why play a game if you can't have fun? As I have gotten older, I have worked out the things I like to do in my life... and have FUN is definitely at the top of the list.
@@chrisnormand By the way. GURPS Horror supplement. Is it good to run smth lovecraftian?
@@goragabdula8203 I honestly can't tell you. I have never read it. But in general, most of the GURPS supplements are good for 2 things... they can give you cool ideas about the subject... and they can give interesting rules (that are all optional). You aren't required to use their rules... but if you find one that looks interesting/cool, then use it!
Long time GURPS player coming back to it after years to run my group through some games. This series has been a great refresher and wonderful resource to send to my new players and review with my experienced ones. Appreciate your content!
Thank you! That is all I can wish for. And good luck!
Good job once again!! I've never realized that I had been making characters with those percentages of points in each session of the sheet until now 😂
I know, right? At first, it just "felt" like the right proportions... but over time, I found more and more of my characters following those percentages (with outliers, of course). And it hit me, people new to GURPS could use this information, and voila!
Very good video, once again. The percentages on how to divide up attributes, advantages and skills really put things into perspective and helped me out quite a bit.
Fantastic! And I am in the middle of recording the follow up video where I do just that... build a character using those guidelines.
Sure, Bow skill 16 - 9 to target Eyes -- but then let's not forget Acc +4 for a Longbow, making it 11- for your example if you can spare a literal second to aim. And if you're playing DFRPG, Heroic Archer advantage lets you use Acc without taking a turn to aim; Weapon Master (Bow) added to it lets you nock a ready (in hand) arrow and release it same turn, and Fast Draw (Arrow) can let you ready an arrow from your quiver in no time -- allowing an archer with both advantages and high skill to make eye shots at better than 50% (at close range, at least) *every second*. And you can make a very viable character with those capabilities in well under the 250 points DFRPG gives as a usual starting value (I did it with 125 + 50 in disadvantages, including Staff, Knife, Lockpicking, Armoury (Missile Weapons -- lets him make his own bows and arrows if needed) -- but no social skills...
See!!! This is exactly why I love GURPS! I love the ability to uniquely craft your own special character...and I love the fact that GURPS has a lot of (optional) rules that you can include to handle your specific situation.
Our current group has a DFRPG Heroic Archer... and man, can they dish out damage!
@@chrisnormand Oh, yeah, and I forgot -- Strongbow (quirk-level advantage) lets you use a bow up to 2 ST "too heavy" for your ST without skill penalties, reflecting the body changes that well practiced longbow shooters undergo.
Excellent video! I'm definitely showing this to my next group.
IMO I think Combat Reflexes might be more important than High Pain Threshold for a basic character. Because injury is so lethal and takes so long to heal it's really best to avoid it when possible. But, being paralyzed for 1d rounds at the beginning of every combat is pretty crippling for a misadventurous crew regardless of your willingness to take a few blows.
Another potentially crucial advantage might be Common Sense. In early college our DM made it a required purchase since by that time our brains weren't quite ready to come out of the oven yet, hah!
I agree... and the only reason I brought up HPT is because it affects rules that may or may not be in the game. If the GM is using the shock rules, then HPT is a rather important decision to make. If they aren't, then HPT is a waste of points.
Combat Reflexes is one of the better Advantages, because of all of the bonuses that it provides... but, it isn't affected by optional rules... it just adds (really nice) bonuses.
And the "Common Sense" story was funny (and SO TRUE)!
I'm not disagreeing with you, but here is something to consider:
Combat Reflexes is also an Advantage that in many ways, is backstory based. If your character has had a reason to have them (military training, growing up on the streets, etc) then Combat Reflexes is likely. But not everyone has had a reason to develop that hair-trigger response. Most normal folk don't have it, although it is trainable, with enough time and effort.
But you are right, it IS an important advantage for combat, although teaching players that "ducking for cover", "waiting for an opening", and "you don't have to do damage every single turn" is made easier when their characters can't really do much at the beginning of the fight. (And sometimes it's just good character development!)
@@stevenhanly4412 And I am not disagreeing with you ;-) I think Combat Reflexes SHOULD be on every melee character's sheet... and in my next video, I will make certain I say that! Thanks!
Best gurps CZcamsr by far ❤❤
Thank you! I really hadn't expected to get this far, but enough people want to learn, so I keep trying.
Just Wanted to Say thanks for these videos Chris, with them I made the decision to switch my campaign over to Gurps along with switching it over to FoundryVTT, would not have done it without your great explanations.
Hey, thank you! I hope it goes well... and we will keep upgrading the Foundry VTT support!
I laughed out loud at paper-maché boy 😂 thanks for the great video! I’m just making my feet wet with the system, I’m going for a solo style, due to life, with Mythic gmE2. Wish you the best of luck! And thanks for all the videos!
Ha... I am glad you get my style of humor! Not everyone does. And good luck with the system, hopefully you will enjoy it!
5cps. This may be the best breakdown of GURPS on YT. My new long pitch.
Thank you! Wouldn’t that be worth another character point? 😎
@@chrisnormand ok. +1
ty for the help. im learning gurps
As are we all! Good luck!
Yeah, more GURPS video !
Keep the good work.
GURPS as so much potential, and between your video, the foundry module and gcs, I have the impression Fan do more for Gurps than SJGames these day.
I think GURPS could have been more successful if they had taken this route earlier on. WotC proved that with D&D5e... make it simpler so that new people can join in, with the ability to get complex, later. GURPS is definitely that. But I don't think SJG has the resources to mount such a campaign now... so it is up to us, the loyal fans, to carry their banner for them. Such is life.
Chris, when are we going to see a video of one of your GURPS sessions? I'd love to see the characters from your videos in action.
LOL, Between programming the GURPS Game Aid for Foundry, making CZcams videos, and RL... I don't have a lot of free time to game. But, it IS something I want to try to do.
Hello! I am GMing my first GURPS game tonight and your videos have been of incredible help in preparing these last few weeks. Although I have one questions: given the enormous breadth of skills available, how do I know when to use each one?
Congrats! I would suggest 2 things... if your characters already have the skills on their character sheet, when you present them with a situation, ask them "what skill do you have that you think would apply to this situation?" And have them explain why. If they give you a plausible explanation, then let them use that skill (but maybe with some negative modifiers, if it is a stretch). EVEN IF the explanation isn't RAW (Rules As Written). With so many skills, many people read the name (and not the description), and assume what the skill does. For example: "Search" and "Scrounging". Search is "the ability to search people, baggage, and vehicles for items that aren’t in plain sight." and Scrounging is "ability to find, salvage, or improvise useful items that others can’t locate." So if your player is trying to use "Search" like "Scrounging"... let them. And then maybe explain to them later that there is a different skill... and also let them change the skill (if they picked the wrong one).
Also, you could just use the "Wing it" rule. If your players can't give you a skill, you could just ask them to roll vs the most appropriate attribute (usually IQ or DX) with some modifiers as to the difficulty. And you can make this up on the fly.
Another very helpful quality video, Thank to, Nose!
You are welcome, and thank you for the support!
In 5e willpower is split between wisdom, intelligence and charisma saving throws.
Yeah, it’s the one place where GURPS and D&D don’t overlap well.
For all the "Tiefling Bards" out there. Health (HT) also governs the Sex Appeal family of skills.
I probably should have mentioned that, when discussing all of the reasons why you might want to get more HT. Thank you for reminding me. I was alluding to it when I said "approximate half of the skills"... while most skills are IQ or DX based, there are a few based on Will, or Per, and yes even HT.
@@chrisnormand I have found, in my years of GURPS gaming, that just buying up HT from 10 to 11 is likely the best 10 pts you'll ever spend. With all of the HT rolls in combat (stunning, unconsciousness, knockdown, toxin resistance, death checks) rolling an 11 or less is much easier than 10 or less (basically, it's something like a +12% bonus). And the extra FT point doesn't hurt either.
@@stevenhanly4412 Another fantastic point that I will bring up in my next video! Thank you again!
Great video, thank you!
Always!
Great video, thanks! I have a question, from the GM-perspective: how do you go about making NPC Allies/Enemies? Should the player with the advantage/disadvantage be mainly responsible for creation, or the GM? Also, are they an exception to the 'NPCs don't use character points' advice? I would love to hear your thoughts/experience on this, keep up the great work!
2 great questions!
1. Should the player make their own NPC ally? Yes. An ally is an "advantage", and just like any other advantage for the player, it should be created by the player. However, this is still "by agreement only", which means the GM must approve the NPC.
2. Are ally NPCs an exception to the 'NPCs don't use character points' advice? Yes, because the ally is an advantage, the player must use the character creation rules to create the NPC (since the Allies advantage determines its cost based on the number of character points spent for the Ally).
Funnily enough, I find using a piece of scratch paper quicker. There's a lot I love about the GCS, but I tend to use it after I figured out what I want first since I find it's layout a bit to clunky for my taste.
Indeed, but it's more of a "Break the rules after knowing them" for art. GCS is just great for newcomers, imho. Not required, but a huge help.
Developing a shorthand on your own beats it of course.
I certainly understand that. Christopher Rice (the author) told me that he has NEVER used a character creation tool... and I completely respect that. When you know GURPS, you know GURPS, and you don't need to a tool to help you. But as you know, I am targeting my videos at players new to the GURPS world... and I don't want to scare them away by making them learn so many of the rules, up front. But you know me... I am ALL ABOUT "you do you". If pen and paper is your thing, then so be it! But you have to admit... having GCS total up the weights is still kind of nice ;-)
So true. And as a computer programmer... being in front of a computer and using programs comes second nature to me... so I lean that way. Heck, I don't have enough space on my desk for "papers". ;-)
@@chrisnormand Heh, I find it funny that despite pretty much meeting in the middle, were' on opposite ends on how we got there. I'm about as analog as it gets while you're full on digital.
But you're right on Ghostdancer, he's like the GURPS equivalent of a lego master builder.
My problem with disadvantage limits is thus:
Let's say the gm goes out and says "150 point limit, 30 disadvantage"
And you go "ok, my concept is a blind, psionic monk"
Blindness is -50 points
So... That's a lil quirky
Obviously, a short conversation with the GM to go "ok, look, with the advantages and stuff I took to counteract the blindness so they can combat, brings it to like, a +10, so can that sorta be nulled so I can use the disadvantage for character stuff?"
Anyways
Not a fan of using disadvantage limit to keep people from showing up with a military MARS tactical robot
Just say "look, roughly human, ok?"
Also gets into issues where like, the characters aren't human
Like somebody wants to be an elf, or a dwarf
The whole disadvantage limit has to be invited so many times so often that it really shouldn't be there in the first place
I certainly agree that the limit is not a hard and fast rule. However, I think it is a good guideline for new GURPS GMs. Instead of trying to hit a homerun on your first "at bat", I suggest shooting for that single... and learn the game system.
Once you are comfortable with the rules, and how they would affect your game, then yes, of course, remove the disadvantage limit. GURPS is a toolkit, and if you don't like that tool, then don't use it.
i wish i could find something that would help new player create a character.. everything expects you to look it up , which at that point why not just use paper.
One of the drawbacks of having a very flexible character creation system... you could literally design anything. So yeah, just asking a new player to cerate a character is too much.
I normally suggest either pre-creating some characters for them, or getting a character concept from them (e.g. "ranger", "bard", "computer hacker", etc.) and then partially creating a character for them, and let them fill in the rest.
You can also create "templates" for them (and GURPS has tons of these spread throughout their supplements). Either use those, or create your own. For example, you might say "for a ranger type, you need to have at least a 13 DX, Combat Reflexes and High Pain Threshold advantages, and Bow, Naturalist, Fast-Draw Arrow and 2 Survival skills"... and let them pick the rest.
You can show them list this of skills: gurps.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_Skills
I have an idea for video: Creating Vehicles for 3e :D
That has been requested a few times... but I haven't used vehicles, so I don't know what I could say. Maybe I will learn more in the future... and anything I learn, I will be sure to let the "world" know.
@@chrisnormand that is the spirit. I have that book.. still unreaded
I love that GURPS can make the settings or games that there just wouldn't be a system for, or at least not a good 1, like fantasy, DnD doesn't do fantasy right, it isn't a solid setting items just exist without consideration of who made them or what inventions they'd require/result in.
Seriously though I like making settings like what if the wild west but with anthropromorphic animals like wolves, scorpions, rabbits etc.
or what if the game was an isekai, in GURPS that's easy, the world is TL 2 or 3, the characters TL 6 to 10 depending on their version of earth.
or what if you want a hard sci fi setting like Dallis and Robo (ignoring that 1 joke episode with physics breaking where they show why FTL is impossible and a nightmare)
I should check out GCS, see if it works better than character assistant.
Hopefully you will be pleasantly surprised. But I am biased... I have only ever used GCS.
@@chrisnormand I sadly can't use GCS, since it won't work with my screen reader but respect how it works. thankfully GCA is still good enough.
@@stm7810 Ah, yes. Being a WYSIWYG editor, it won't be as compatible with screen readers. Sorry.
@@chrisnormand it's all good, that's why other tools exist. it's great for my friends who can use it.
Oh man, that precentage distribution over attributes/skills/traits, Icelander would be upset, hehe. Good video anyway!
But I stand by my numbers... IF you have NEVER created a GURPS character before, these are "good" numbers to shoot for. Once you have an idea of how to build a GURPS character, then you don't need these guidelines. But I have been asked many times, "How many points should I spend on X"... and this video gives a guideline as to what you can spend.
My top speed is 19.6 mph, what's my GURPS speed?
I found this on the GURPS Forums: forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=130197
MPH = 2xMove. 1yd/sec x 1mile/1760yd x 60sec/1min x 60min/hr= 2.045 miles/hour.
So 19.6 MPH = 9.8 move. I would round down to 9, and keep speed at 9.8.
are you dead if you fail HT check on -1HP?
Ha, no, just busy.
@@chrisnormand xD
Thr boys at the landscaping gig don't know i'm lesrning gurps through my headphones while weedeating 🫡🤗
Ha! Perfect!