From: laird@think.com (Laird Popkin)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: GURPS: Alien races -- Too powerful?
Date: 30 Jul 1992 15:51:38 GMT
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: django.think.com
Keywords: GURPS Aliens Space

In article <1992Jul29.164158.5350@tronsbox.xei.com> dfrancis@tronsbox.xei.com (Dennis Heffernan) writes:
>In article <1992Jul29.024035.18924@rchland.ibm.com> BillSeurer@vnet.ibm.com writes:
>|On "point breaks" for non-humans in GURPS Fantasy and GURPS Aliens.
>|
>|SO WHAT!   (Pet Peeve warning!!)
>|
>|If there is going to be any meaningful difference between races some are
>|going to probably be better than others at certain things.  If all your
>|elves are are humans with pointy ears who live in the woods, why bother?
>|
>	If there's going to be any meaningful reason to use a point system,
>everyone has to pay the same price for the same thing.  If you're going to
>give nonhumans a point break, or make them pay more, then telling your
>players to make "100 point characters" is meaningless.

I disagree.  A Dwarf should be strong.  It's easier for a Dwarf to be
strong than for a human to be strong.  It just happens that for humans,
strength 10 is "average", so it's in the middle of the curve for costs,
whereas for a Dwarf an 11 (if I recall correctly) is in the middle.
Remember, GURPS character points don't measure utility -- they reflect the
effort involved, and also serve to control the frequency of things.  For
example, Combat Reflexes is a "good deal" if you're in combat often, so,
just as in Real Life (TM), characters tend to end up with Combat Reflexes
if they're in combat often.

The point of having all players build characters with the same number of
points isn't that they're all the same power -- it's so that they all start
out with the same opportunities.

>|Now in GURPS (and I assume other point games) it will be "cheaper" to make
>|a strong, tough, (stereotypical) dwarven fighter than an equivalent human
>|fighter.  Now, if the only reason a player wants to be the dwarf is 
>|'cause it's cheaper, that's her problem.  She's a lousy roleplayer.  Dump
>|her and get some real players who want to play a dwarf 'cause they fell
>|in love with the little buggers while reading Lord of the Rings (or 
>|whatever) and want to be a DWARF, not a short little human tough guy.
>|
>	Writing different numbers down on paper will not change how a character
>is played.  It is just as easy to take one of the horrendous GURPS
>Aliens/Fantasy Folk races and play it exactly like a human, as it would be
>if their point costs were balanced.

Horrendous?!  I've had several players play characters of races in Fantasy
Folk, and they've all worked out fine.  No Giants, admittedly...

>	By all means, require whatever attributes or advantages you think are
>appropriate for a given race.  Just make them pay for it like everyone else.

I can sympathize with your position, but at the same time I think that
"everything costs the same for everyone" would lead to a lack of
differentiation between PC's.  When Dwarves get a bit of a point break on
strength, and an aptitude for certain skills, then that encourages players
to build appropriate Dwarves.  It certainly doesn't force them to (unless
they are complete slaves to min/maxing, in which case you have bigger
problems).  One of the things that I like about GURPS is that it uses
character points to encourage min/maxers to engage in a degree of
roleplaying, and this is another example of that.

>dfrancis@tronsbox.xei.com   ...uunet!tronsbox!dfrancis     GEnie: D.HEFFERNAN1
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>"That's a very healthy attitude...it just sounds strange coming from you."
>					-Corky Sherwood-Forrest


-- 
- Laird Popkin, Thinking Machines

Connection Machine: Massively parallel supercomputer.  Also a cool black
cube with more blinking lights than you can shake a stick at.
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc