Archetypal vs. Menu-style characters

[Malic]

I voted Archetypal, although plenty of flexibility and options is important.

Asmor and Remathilis's comments on the first page pretty much cover why.

Just one more thing - if using a point buy system, it's really important that the point costs for things are well balanced, so that you can sustain good differences in character abilities - if some choices are way more efficient than others, your cherished concept can get eroded fast.

For me, 3.x has the balance pretty good, with lots of ways to customise your character (especially with a sympathetic DM and maybe some third party components), but without going to the bland free for all of point buy. (I know point buy isn't like that for many people, it's just the impact it has on me.)

 

[Lord Rasputin]

I don't like classless roleplaying, because I'm a classy guy. But seriously, the potential to munchkin the heck out of a GURPS character is just beyond the pale (or was; maybe the new version solves this point-buy conumdrum?). It can be done almost by accident, and that, in my view, is a problem. It also makes a GM's job harder because every NPC needs to be essentially completely built.

Really? Aside from psis (PK 20 for a 100-point character), even GURPS 3e had safeguards against this. Most GURPS characters in games I have played have not been power-tweaked. By contrast, I rarely see a game of D&D 3e/3.5e without a character who has been seriously power-tweaked.

There are two reasons for this, in my view:

* GURPS presents options for roleplaying; D&D options are almost all combat-oriented. This presents a different view of the game to a player, even though one could play roleplaying-oriented characters in D&D.

* More players play D&D; it's the first system folks play. The idea of learning a new rules set terrifies munchkins. GURPS and HERO have much more math.

In short, it's system presentation and player attitude that determine how power-tweaked a character is, not the system.