From: Elizabeth.Mccoy@bbs.oit.unc.edu (Elizabeth Mccoy)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: GURPS character questions
Date: 4 Sep 92 22:23:59 GMT
Organization: Extended Bulletin Board Service

In article <1992Sep1.161230.58558@cc.usu.edu> sl9b4@cc.usu.edu (Deep Six) writes:
>I have some questions for GURPS GMs about experience points, character
>generation and character developement.
>
>First, in your campaign, how many points and how much starting money 
>do your players get to build characters? 

Same as the reccomended stuff in the Basic set.

>How many characters do the players have?

Usually one at a time. I've seen a couple of characters for one player,
once, but that's the max. (That was a long-running Fantasy game.)

>Please mention the type of campaign/setting when you answer.

Fantasy (a home-brew world and Yrth, both) and Space (mostly
home-brewed, but with additions from GURPS Aliens and the Space
Atlases). 

>Second, how much experience do you award?

Usually from 2 to 4 points, with 4 being "a lot". 

>Do you award individual experience to players/characters who play well 
>or do something outstanding?

Not too often, but sometimes. (If you've got some consistantly "good"
players, and some consistantly quiet players, it's probably better to
give only group stuff, for the most part, and save some points for when
a quiet player really gets into the swing of things.)

> What do you award experience for?

Survival. Not blowing up the world (or at least not the wrong part of
it). Having fun and therefore entertaining the GM. If everyone really
loused up, the points are less (.5-1.5), but points are there.

>What things do you look for when deciding how much experience you will
>give?

Getting into chrctr and solving the problem(s) presented are about equal
-- I'm probably more weighted towards the characterizations stuff (I.e.,
if someone totally muffs it, but it's because the character would do
that, that's still worth points. Unless the character is dead, of
course. It's a bit hard to give a dead character points...)

>Finally, when do you give experience? Let's say you begin a sceanrio --
>the players leave on a trip, go into a battle or embark to solve some
>problem. You get half way through the event and the game ends for the
>evening. Do you award experience?

Depends -- if there's going to be *any* time at all between part A and
part B, then yes (there was enough time for things to "sink in", or
whatever); if part B begins *immediately* where we left off ("Last
episode, Moonfur, Bessie, and Frank were fleeing the deadly cyberbugs'
teleport gun while the groundteam tried to break into the weapons'
cache. There was the sound of chitinous feet in the corridor..."), then
save the point-awarding for a "break-point" (either the end of the next
game, or some point inside it, if you have a "3 months pass
uneventfully" sort of hiatus where the impact of the adventures might
have had a chance to sink in).

>Must the characters seek training to use their experience points?

Sometimes, especially if time-use sheets aren't being used. (Learning
new spells is the main example I can think of, or new skills when
time-use sheets aren't being used. Otherwise, earned points usually go
into skills that were used "in the heat of the moment".) 

>If you do award experience ``mid-adventure,''
>do you put limits on how the characters can use their points? Limits
>such as they are only able to improve skills they have used during that
>session/game?

Yes, exactly.

--EM

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