From: bingcros@leland.Stanford.EDU (Richard Crosby)
Subject: Re: GURPS: Alien races -- Too powerful?
Keywords: GURPS Aliens Space
Organization: Highland Software, Palo Alto, CA
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 92 23:26:42 GMT

In article <15936aINNqd8@early-bird.think.com> laird@think.com (Laird
Popkin) writes:
>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...

Hmmm.  This is your own interpretation of what points are and not the
"official doctrine."  Look over the first few pages of GURPS Basic and
you will find that points essentially measure a character's strengths
and weaknesses and provide that ever sought after mechanism known as
balance.  There is no mention of reflecting effort involved or serving
to control the frequency of things.

Also, if we use your definition of points, then a dwarf with ST 12
should cost 0 points since that is average for a dwarf and reflects
the least effort involved and the most frequent occurrence of the
thing.  This is currently not the case since a dwarf is assessed 20
points in the dwarf racial cost to get the ST 12 average.

>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.

Well, once again deferring to what's actually said in GURPS, players
build characters with the same number of points so that each
character's relative strengths and weaknesses will be balanced with
respect to each other.  The dwarf's ST point break means that it will
be able to get a higher ST than a human for the same points.  This
sounds like neither equal power nor equal opportunity to me.  It just
looks like a kludge to try to mandate that all dwarfs are strong.

>>	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.

Hey, Dennis!  I agree!

>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.

Ah, the bane that point-based systems inflict upon the world.  I'm
surprised that Laird would use this argument, but I guess you use it
if it seems to fit your current train of thought.  "If everything
costs the same, then everyone will get the same stuff and be the
same."  Better go back to rolling for random stats and a class-based
system so that there is no doubt about who is a fighter and who is a
mage.  If you're not stuffing everything into fixed stereotypes, how
can you tell anything apart?

>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.

Politically correct dwarfs! :)

>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.

I don't see anything in the dwarf package that encourages roleplaying
except for Greed and Miserliness which I don't think should be there
anyway because it's too stereotypical.  I have a very hard time trying
to come up with an explanation of how the +2 ST point break helps
roleplaying.  I think that all of this racial package stuff could be
reduced to a set of guidelines like "Dwarfs are strong (average ST of
12) and tend to be adept at craft skills and axe/mace."  Nothing about
points, no min/maxing, no unbalancing.  Since there are no point
breaks, then people will play dwarfs because they think it's
interesting to roleplay a dwarf.  The current system is like a
liquidation sale where they're trying to get people to play dwarfs at
any cost and will give breaks and discounts to get people to do it.

>>dfrancis@tronsbox.xei.com   ...uunet!tronsbox!dfrancis     GEnie: D.HEFFERNAN1
>- Laird Popkin, Thinking Machines

Rich
rsc@hisoft.com
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc