From: thornley@milli.cs.umn.edu (David H. Thornley)
Subject: Re: Random Rolls
Followup-To: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Organization: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, CSci dept.
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 21:49:47 GMT

In article <2393@blue.cis.pitt.edu> seawasp@vm2.cis.pitt.edu (Sea Wasp) writes:
>In article <C1A06E.94H@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> jacobus@symphony.cc.purdue.edu (Bryan J. Maloney) writes:
>>In article <1993Jan22.163503.7783@news.tufts.edu> gharris@jade.tufts.edu (George W. Harris) writes:
>>>[Requiring characters to start point-balanced is OK, but maintaining the
>>> balance after play has begun is entirely unnecessary.]
>
>>Uh, are there any GURPS GMs out there brain-dead enough to NOT run things
>>in the way George suggests?
>
>	All the ones I encountered.
>
Didn't somebody say something about GURPS attracting more mature GMs
or something?  This would seem a counterexample.  (Hint:  Point-analism
is not maturity.)  Of course, this sentence might explain a lot of what
Sea Wasp doesn't like about GURPS.

BTW, ever notice how some maniacal accountants say that characters get
no points for disadvantages acquired during play, but must pay points
for advantages acquired during play, and don't see any inconsistency?

>	Example: character has disad, crippled. I was told flat out that
>even if my character were to encounter and somehow do a great service for
>some godlike being who could cure the paralysis complete with the muscle
>and instinctive skill to use the body, I'd then be in point debt for a LONG
>time until I managed to "pay off" the debt -- so for something like a game
>year, I'd be unable to learn a damn thing.
>
This, of course, makes absolutely no sense.  (Unless it's fairly easy to
do great services for godlike beings, in which case giving points for
"crippled" is the wrong thing to do in the first place.)  If I may stray
over to Fantasy Hero, a similarly point-based system for a little discussion:

In my campaign, most of the characters did a great service for the kingdom
recently (breaking into a strong rebel castle and, with a little help from
the unreliables inside, assisting the royal army to retake it).  For this
service, they were awarded knighthoods (as well as more experience points
than usual).  It is possible to buy knighthoods with points for character
creation, and one character (who had not been there) had.

If I were to point-balance this, I would have charged each character for the
knighthood (and a few contacts).  I could have simply put them into debt for
points, which seems real screwy.  I could have given these things as directed
experience points.  I could have added in Reputation and Hunted by Morganet
disadvantages, not to mention Rivalry with PC (the order of knighthood they
were up for has a problem with one of the PCs who wasn't present, heh heh).  
All of these seem extremely artificial to me, so I simply ran their
characters through a brief ceremony (alright, it was a bit more complicated
with the Imperial exile) and let it go at that.

In another situation, a character had emerged from a magic forest because
a thief had taken the Heart of the Forest.  After a good long time, they
finally accumulated enough clues to track down the thieves and restore
the Heart.  I told the player that her character had only come out of the 
forest to chase after the thieves and the Heart, and that she should either
retire the character or find new motivations (i.e., psych limits).  In
this case, the character sheet reflected the character, and I thought
that simply removing the newly-irrelevant disadvantages was tantamount
to removing the character's motivations, and therefore I wanted to see
new reasons for the character to continue adventuring.  If they aren't as
restrictive as the last batch, that's fine with me.  Her character "won",
after all, and it would be idiotic to severely penalize her for that.

Point balance after starting play means, to me, that you put limits on
how fast the character can change.  The character can't become a master
with the sword without long practice, in or out of combat, and can't
overcome a fear of snakes casually.  On the other hand, characters can
find immense wealth or marry the queen's son or something without major
internal changes, and therefore point balance is irrelevant.

Followups to .advocacy, where I think this thread belongs.

DHT



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