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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Willie the Duck" data-source="post: 8939803" data-attributes="member: 6799660">Well, that's the thing. Pretty much anything you like, so long as you are consistent. The point system doesn't really go a good job of adjudicating power, balance, or effectiveness excepting in the broadest, most holistic strokes (in that yes you can probably make a more effective character with 400 points than you can with 100). The complexity of how to excel at an open-ended goal/activity game is too broad and varied to capture with fixed numbers. Even if it could, there are significant value judgements that went into the (various editions of the) game that may not play out in any at-actual-table. For example, being good at combat is seen as really valuable and thus creating a generally combat-capable character can take hundreds of points, the same hundreds of points spent on IQ, DX, and skills can create an incredible polymath skill character. Another example (and inter-edition comparator) is that 3e seemed to assign points to many advantages and disadvantages based on how awesome they would be to have IRL, not how much they affect gameplay. As such, longevity/unaging cost a lot of points (and a fatal illness gave a lot) even though they likely wouldn't affect a campaign. 4e, with a different value judgement on these things, drastically reduced the point costs/payout for such things. I've heard the GURPS point system be called a 'fairness mechanism' instead of a balancing mechanism, and despite at the time thinking 'that's not really addressing my misgivings,' I've come to realize that it's a really accurate descriptor, and one of those situations where you are either okay with it, or not.Even the 1990s GURPS tech stuff was often  based on a view of technological advancement that came from the 1950s-60s, through Traveller (I suspect) and into early GURPS. Fin-stabilized, uranium-tipped tank shells and gyrojet hand weapons and such were to be the weapons of the future. Space armor was literal ports of Traveller suits (in approximately the same order). Cyberpunk/netrunning stuff was obviously from later, but there seemed to be solidly in the Neuromancer motif (perhaps deliberately, as how many people really want realistic hacking?).Regardless, SJ has been pretty clear that they will support the existing products, but don't think the market would suddenly spring to life for GURPS if they suddenly invested heavily in it. Unfortunately 'an update of actual SJ product XYZ' is one thing that a SRD-type setup can't reasonably provide.</blockquote>

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