From: sos@oz.plymouth.edu (Steffan O'Sullivan)
Subject: Re: GURPS: Alien races -- Too powerful?
Keywords: GURPS Aliens Space
Reply-To: sos@oz.plymouth.edu (Steffan O'Sullivan)
Organization: Plymouth State College - Plymouth, N.H.
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 92 22:34:15 GMT

This discussion has been raging on the SJG BBS (or at least was last
time I was on) for well over a year.  It arouses strong feelings in
GURPS players, and I don't know of anyone who was ever convinced to
switch sides.  The intricacies of the discussion are what drove me off
of the SJG BBS.

I will state my position, but by this time I don't expect to convince
anyone.  This whole post is IMO, and if your opinion works in your
GURPS games, great.  If you don't play GURPS because of this very
issue, you have my sympathy.  If you don't play GURPS for broader
reasons, why are you reading this discussion?

1) It's fun to play a non-human race sometimes.  My favorite fantasy
characters all seem to be halflings, in fact.

2) GURPS doesn't do well trying to represent PC-potential races outside
the human norm.  NPCs, monsters - no problems.  But because it's a
point-balanced system, once you get away from human attributes, ads,
and disads, the system begins to strain.

3) Given those two beliefs, it logically follows that I don't allow any
non-humans that are grossly different from humans, but I do allow many
non-human options to my players when I GM.  (Note: when I actually
*play* instead of GM, I go with whatever house rules the GM wants - no
arguments.)

4) For those games where *all* the PCs will be far from the human norm,
I adjust them closer to average stats.  This is exactly the way GURPS
Bunnies & Burrows works:  the average rabbit has ST 10, DX 10, IQ 10
and HT 10, and humans have vastly different stats.  It isn't possible
to play a human in B&B, and it's the first GURPS book that out and out
says it's not compatible with any other GURPS genre.  I have also done
this in games where the PCs had their minds transferred into the bodies
of laboratory animals, BTW.

5) IQ and DX in non-human races are the abusive problem areas.  I
simply don't allow more than a +1 in these, even though the race might
logically have higher, such as a sentient cat.  The system simply
cannot take the strain, and abusive things happen whether the player is
trying to be abusive or not.

6) I never use the Increased ST (a multiplier), either.  I will allow
up to about +4, but after that, things get out of control.  The Fantasy
Folk Half-ogres are right out.  I'll go to +2 for HT.

7) Disads is the other area where a race can be abusive.  I don't allow
more than 60 points *total* disads between racial and personal for
non-humans.  I do stretch it to 60-points simply as a sop to those who
really want to play a non-human.  Logically, I shouldn't allow this -
there is no reason one character should get more disad points than
another.  I do it anyway.  (BTW, since I require a mandatory Sense of
Duty: Companions in all my games, human characters get -45 in disads.
Since I use Bill Seurer's system of not really requiring any disads but
getting the points for them anyway, this is slightly weird.  I *do*
require the non-human to take the racial disads, and the rest he can
write down as he pleases.)

8) For a long time I believed that a Dwarf should simply pay whatever
ST points he would pay if he were human.  In a point-based system,
where every player starts out the game with the same number of points,
it makes sense.  But this really does limit a Dwarf severely, so I give
them the +2 ST that Fantasy Folk gives them - it's no big deal, really,
though it would be if it were DX +2.

-- 
  - Steffan O'Sullivan		         sos@oz.plymouth.edu