Grade the GURPS System

[FormerlyHemlock]

I mostly agree. I think there are two kinds of disadvantages, broadly speaking: numerical and narrative. Numerical disadvantages are basically just the reverse of numerical advantages – things like weak will, lowered move, etc. I think it's fair to give points back for those. Narrative advantages would be things like phobias, curiosity, various handicaps or social issues, and it's better to give some kind of metacurrency as a "reward" when those are triggered.

I think it depends largely on things like your players' openness to metagame currency (including XP BTW). The primary problems IMO with the GURPS disadvantage system are that:

1.) Point accounting: points from disadvantages are fungible, and the praxis of imposing a numeric cap on total disadvantages is wrongheaded; and

2.) Bad rules: Many disadvantages are un-roleplayable as written because they require you to act in insane ways regardless of context.

Dungeon Fantasy RPG improves on #1 to some extent by just baking certain concept-appropriate disadvantages into every character profession (i.e. class), spending the points for you in advance, and providing a suggested list of other disadvantages to round out your mandatory -50 point total. In some ways I might prefer a system where opting into certain advantages (like Combat Reflexes) can be "paid for" partly by opting into certain thematically related disadvantages (like Paranoia, One Eye, or Social Stigma: Criminal Record) and you have a cap on total mental disadvantages rather than all disadvantages... but the DFRPG system is good enough to be playable when it comes to chargen.

Not so with the actual mental disadvantage rules however, which are the same in DFRPG as in GURPS. The essence of the problem is that if you take a disadvantage with a self-control roll, such as Greed, you are required to reduce yourself to a one-dimensional caricature whenever you fail a self-control roll. If you're Greedy at more than the 1-point quirk level, then if someone offers you $100 to sell your children into slavery, and you roll poorly, you will do "whatever it takes to get the payoff, however illegal or ill-advised" even if it requires you to betray common sense and all your values, such as actually selling your kids into slavery for petty cash! The self-control roll rule is context-free and too simplistic. In practice nobody runs these rules as written, which is proof that they're broken.

A good fix that doesn't require metagame currencies is to just give the player a strong incentive to roleplay the given trait (such as a temporary but sizeable penalty to success rolls, from the distraction and guilt of secretly wishing you had that $100, after failing the self control roll but not selling your kids). That way players can still avoid irrational, insane behavior, and roleplaying remains coherent.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

[Never mind]

 

[dbm]

that is a picture of the wrong Meredith Placko

That must surely be some kind of in-joke as I am confident the Meredith must have seen the article.

(A bit like when Dexys Midnight Runners performed “Jackie Wilson Said” on Top of the Pops with a picture of Jockie Wilson in the background)

Spoiler

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

That must surely be some kind of in-joke as I am confident the Meredith must have seen the article.

(A bit like when Dexys Midnight Runners performed “Jackie Wilson Said” on Top of the Pops with a picture of Jockie Wilson in the background)

Spoiler

I went looking for my original video source with a quite different Meredith Placko and couldn't find it. Please disregard. Either I am going crazy... or I'm going crazy, I guess.

 

[MGibster]

Character Advantages and Disadvantages are not symmetrical! They play different roles in the character and in the game. Most Disadvantages are about spotlight time for your character; more broadly, flaws make characters interesting.

Character spotlight wasn't part of the design goal for GURPS. The system was designed for you to be able to translate characters from a wide variety of genres into a character. Something is a Disadvantage when it limits your character's available actions or hinders him in some way. Advantages have the potential to make a character just as interesting as any Disadvantage does.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Re. disadvantages.

I'll start by saying that disads are not a required thing for any system.

But if you're going to use them make sure your group are on the same page vis-vis what they are and how they work. When I start a new HERO game I let my players know that disads are optional. I tell the players, "if you want them, you take them for 2 reasons - "

Rewards. One gets points as a reward for giving the group (mostly the GM I admit) some interesting impediments to play/ and/or hooks for adventures. But I'm on board with using in-game rewards too.*

Roleplay. I make a point of telling players to only take disads that they want to have to deal with in game. Don't take Susceptibility to Kryptonite with a frequency of Very Common unless you want to constantly be rendered powerless by bloody Kryptonite. Don't take an Incompetent Dependent NPC if you don't want to be always having to run off to rescue them from their own stupidity. But if you do want to play someone who has to balance conflict between their sense of duty and their sense of honour then take two conflicting psychological disads. Also make sure that the disads your character takes work for the rest of the group. Don't take Serial Killing Hobo unless that's a thing everyone wants in the game.


I do have to say that the writer on that Greed disad that @FormerlyHemlock quotes upthread was real... hmm what's the polite word... specific in their understanding of how disads can work. Or indeed, basic human psychology. I can see why people who read that sort of nonsense would be put of the idea of disads.




*A while back, on some HERO thread here, I noodled through the idea of giving bennies in play for invoking disads. Basically I, unintentionally, re-invented Fate points, but decided to call them Soap points. Having noodled over the idea a bit more since then I think I'd allow either the player or GM to invoke a disad. If the GM wishes to invoke it they must offer soap appropriate to the intensity of the disad. The player may bid soap (equal to the GM's offer) from their existing soap pool (soap dish?) to ignore it. A player can always successfully invoke their own disad. If a disad is invoked, regardless of who invokes it, the player gets some soap based on the intensity of the disad.

1 soap for a Mild disad.
2 soap for an Strong disad.
3 soap for a Total disad.

Doing it this way does make the "frequency" roll redundant but that's fine. HERO defines frequency as: Very Common, 5 in 6 sessions; Common, 3 in 6 sessions, and Uncommon (or do they call it Rare?), 1 in 6 sessions. One could regulate frequency by only allowing a disad to be invoked (successful or not) that number of times as a maximum. For a minimum, well... this is a bit more flexible. I would encourage the group to consider invoking very common disads most sessions, common ones about every other session, etc. But not every scenario really justifies every disad. So use judiciously.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Honestly, this is an area where the Hero approach was better; it still had its problems, but the only time a Psych Limit was extreme was when you choose to take it extreme; there were milder forms that would show tendencies or make it easier to resist.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Re. disadvantages.

I'll start by saying that disads are not a required thing for any system.

I'm trying to decide if I want to argue with this; to some degree I think I do at least for physical ones if you want to fully be able to realize a wide range of characters.

(I may be a bad person to argue this, however, since I have some reason to believe I, in effect, invented the first full blown Disadvantage system in the hobby).

But if you're going to use them make sure your group are on the same page vis-vis what they are and how they work. When I start a new HERO game I let my players know that disads are optional. I tell the players, "if you want them, you take them for 2 reasons - "

Rewards. One gets points as a reward for giving the group (mostly the GM I admit) some interesting impediments to play/ and/or hooks for adventures. But I'm on board with using in-game rewards too.*

Roleplay. I make a point of telling players to only take disads that they want to have to deal with in game. Don't take Susceptibility to Kryptonite with a frequency of Very Common unless you want to constantly be rendered powerless by bloody Kryptonite. Don't take an Incompetent Dependent NPC if you don't want to be always having to run off to rescue them from their own stupidity. But if you do want to play someone who has to balance conflict between their sense of duty and their sense of honour then take two conflicting psychological disads. Also make sure that the disads your character takes work for the rest of the group. Don't take Serial Killing Hobo unless that's a thing everyone wants in the game.

One of the problems with Hero for many years is that the amount of points you needed to realize a lot of concepts virtually demanded a lot of Disads, and the easiest ones to come with for most characters were Hunteds and DNPCs. This did not produce a good result, IMO.

I do have to say that the writer on that Greed disad that @FormerlyHemlock quotes upthread was real... hmm what's the polite word... specific in their understanding of how disads can work. Or indeed, basic human psychology. I can see why people who read that sort of nonsense would be put of the idea of disads.




*A while back, on some HERO thread here, I noodled through the idea of giving bennies in play for invoking disads. Basically I, unintentionally, re-invented Fate points, but decided to call them Soap points. Having noodled over the idea a bit more since then I think I'd allow either the player or GM to invoke a disad. If the GM wishes to invoke it they must offer soap appropriate to the intensity of the disad. The player may bid soap (equal to the GM's offer) from their existing soap pool (soap dish?) to ignore it. A player can always successfully invoke their own disad. If a disad is invoked, regardless of who invokes it, the player gets some soap based on the intensity of the disad.

1 soap for a Mild disad.
2 soap for an Strong disad.
3 soap for a Total disad.

As I mentioned earlier, I consider this a viable alternative to up-front points. Unfortunately, all the games I know of that take a Complication-yields-metacurrancy approach have it as all-or-nothing, and as I said, I think that's inadequate.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

*A while back, on some HERO thread here, I noodled through the idea of giving bennies in play for invoking disads. Basically I, unintentionally, re-invented Fate points, but decided to call them Soap points. Having noodled over the idea a bit more since then I think I'd allow either the player or GM to invoke a disad. If the GM wishes to invoke it they must offer soap appropriate to the intensity of the disad. The player may bid soap (equal to the GM's offer) from their existing soap pool (soap dish?) to ignore it. A player can always successfully invoke their own disad. If a disad is invoked, regardless of who invokes it, the player gets some soap based on the intensity of the disad.

1 soap for a Mild disad.
2 soap for an Strong disad.
3 soap for a Total disad.

Doing it this way does make the "frequency" roll redundant but that's fine.

This method reminds me in a way of drama tokens in DramaSystem, at least w/rt forcing and blocking a force.

The thing I love most about DramaSystem though, and the part I have stolen for DFRPG/GURPS, is that you're forcing an emotional concession, not a practical concession. You can make the cold haughty king feel something towards you, but practical considerations might keep him from doing anything concrete. ("Almost I wish for your sake that I could free your husband, but politically I'm afraid it's impossible.") You can cleverly manipulate the Greedy dwarf into wanting your money, but whether he sells his wedding ring or his kids to you or not, well, that depends on roleplaying, not mechanics.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I'm trying to decide if I want to argue with this; to some degree I think I do at least for physical ones if you want to fully be able to realize a wide range of characters

When I say not required, I mean not required. Emphasis on that there absolute term. Let's face it, DND has gone 50 years without having any meaningful sort of disad system. It seems to be doing fine. Personally I think any RPG can be enhanced by having disads. But that's me. I know players to whom this idea is anathema.

One of the problems with Hero for many years is that the amount of points you needed to realize a lot of concepts virtually demanded a lot of Disads, and the easiest ones to come with for most characters were Hunteds and DNPCs. This did not produce a good result, IMO.

Agreed. I mean, back in the day, I took plenty of hunteds. Every PC came with a pre-built rogues gallery. But nowadays I prefer fewer disads, more base points. Or just go the way 6th Ed. has. One can take complications but you don't get points for them.

As I mentioned earlier, I consider this a viable alternative to up-front points. Unfortunately, all the games I know of that take a Complication-yields-metacurrancy approach have it as all-or-nothing, and as I said, I think that's inadequate.

Agreed. A problem with the meta-currency option I outlined above is: how does a character break out of the disad's effects once they've been invoked? I'm tempted to fall back on the EGO rolls that are already part of HERO system. Still just noodling, you understand, but I'm thinking:

the PC gets an EGO roll (modified for intensity) just after they do something stupid that harms themself, or just before they do something that harms someone else.

But this only works for psych disads. Social and physical ones probably just get played out in game.