Point buy and skill-based game

[Thyrkill]

I need the communities help. I haven't run a game in over 2 years but have that "itch" again. I have finally found a group of players (I live in Kona, HI...not an easy place to find gaming), and we are bouncing ideas back and forth about what to play. Currently there is a Dark Heresy campaign and a potential 4e game in the works. An idea thrown out recently, after some discussion, was a fantasy game with a point-buy/skill-based system. GURPS and Hero were the main games that I am familiar with, but I have never run either or any point-buy system, for that matter.

My question is two-fold:
1. What are the choices out there for these kind of systems, and how are they?
2. As the GM, what am I getting myself into...potentially?

Thanks for any advice or help,
Matt

 

[TreChriron]

You're options are immense frankly.

Point buy systems work best when you have a solid idea of what you want to do and can guide character creation. Handing your players a point-buy and letting them go hog wild is a BIG mistake. It will cost oodles of time and the net result will be the SUCK.

So, before we embark on your journey through the point buy land of insanity, we should identify a couple things you like about games.

How long should a combat take? How focused will your game be on combat?

Magic? Powers? Psionics?

Do you lean more on the cinematic/adventurous side or the gritty realism side?

Is character creation fairly fast or involved?

What is your favorite game? What games have you enjoyed in the past?

 

[Umbran]

2. As the GM, what am I getting myself into...potentially?

The strength of point-buy systems are in their flexibility. This is also their weakness.

Point buy systems typically allow the players to develop whatever abilities they want. For those who want that level of control, it's a great thing. But, point buy systems typically have few or no guards against development that will have undesirable impacts on play.

It is relatively easy to build a point-buy character that is thoroughly ineffective at anything. It is also easy to build a point-buy character to take advantage of a rules-exploit so well as to be nigh-broken. It is relatively easy to have both of these characters in the same party!

In a classed and leveled system like D&D, while there are some quirks, characters of a given level have known numbers of hit points, you can generally guess at their AC, saves, and so on. The level alone gives you a gauge on how well they'll survive - not a perfect measure, by any means, but it is something.

Point-buy systems typically lack that handle for the GM. It can take more work and more attention on the GM's part to build encounters and adventures that challenge, but don't overwhelm the party. You find the sweet spot of what the party can take through experience with the party, not from any framework in the rules.

 

[steenan]

Flexibility, the greates strength of the point-buy systems, is also their greatest weakness. Character creation does not direct the player anywhere. With no clear concept, a player either picks things at random or tries a lot of different combinations - both take awfuly lot of time and create poor characters. It is also possible to create a character that is potentially fine, but completely unfit to the campaign.

For this reason:
1. Make sure that the players know what to expect of the campaign before they start thinking about characters.
2. Make sure that the players have a good graps on who their characters are before they start playing with numbers.

 

[Ariosto]

A points system is basically an economy. If prices are artificially locked in to "what the book says", then they can easily get way out of sync with actual demand. Thus, we can find some stuff outrageously over- or under-priced.

Now, that is less likely to happen the more one's concept of what the game is about is on the same page as the designers'.

In my experience -- YMMV -- that is easier with Hero than with GURPS. First, Hero is rooted in the superhero game Champions, and to me it seems still to be pretty clearly first and foremost about beating up the "bad guys". Stuff that's pretty far out but does not directly contribute to that primary undertaking is likely to be "cheap" if you're playing a game in which, say, the power to fly to another planet -- or not having that power -- is more significant.

(I'm working from not-so-fresh memory here, so examples may be poor choices although the general principle is not so far from the actual case.)

GURPS, on the other hand, seems to me a bit more agnostic. The points values seem often to have more to do with an assessment of how hard to get something should be, in more or less "realistic" terms, in whatever milieu the writer has in mind. Figuring out just what that might be, in the "generic universal" rules, is complicated by the conceit of agnosticism as to the nature of "your" world.

 

[karlindel]

It would help to have a better definition of what you mean by a point-buy/skill-based system. HERO is point-buy but is not really a skill-based system, as it is based mainly on powers. D&D 4th Edition could be called a point buy/skill-based system as it has point buy stats and skills. I'll assume you mean skill-based as opposed to class and level-based.

As others have pointed out, the main benefit of skill-based systems is that the players have fine control over character advancement. Also, it allows characters to be incompetent in some areas, as things are not as inter-linked as in a class-based system.

The biggest problem is that they are hard to balance, as it is easy for characters to focus on certain areas, and if the area that one character is focused on comes up all the time while another character's focus seldom does, then that can lead to dissatisfaction.

Here are some other game systems that might fit what you're looking for: Runequest II (from Mongoose) has options for random or point-buy character generation, and pretty much everything is based on skill rolls, it uses the Basic Roleplaying (BRP) system, a free BRP quick-start is available online;
Ars Magica has a focus on magic and spellcasters, including a detailed magical research system, however it has some quirks to the gameplay;
White Wolf's World of Darkness system is largely skill-based, see Mage the Sorceror's Crusade for the fantasy version;
Mutants & Masterminds is a d20 based superhero game with a point buy system, there is a Warriors&Warlocks supplement for fantasy games using the system;
FATE system is largely skill-based, and the SRD is free online, see Legends of Anglerre for the fantasy version and fantasy specific rules;
D6 System is largely skill-based and the books are available for free on rpgnow.com;
Reign uses the One Roll Engine, and rules for mercenary companies and micro-and macro-level deeds interacting;
Burning Wheel is skill-based, but can be very complicated, a simpler version of the system is Mouse Guard, which can be used to run ordinary fantasy games.

 

[1Mac]

There are also a few games that straddle between class-based and point-buy; there are classes and levels, but at each level players choose from among a wide breadth of powers. These have a lot of the flexibility of a point buy system, but HP, attacks, saves, and skills are more balanced, like in any level-based game.

True20 by Green Ronin is the archetype for this sort of thing. The SRD has a sketchy version of this same idea that you can check out as well.

 

[nedjer]

I play rules light to medium, points buy all the time. It works, for me, when the PC Gen is limited/ gritty and most buys result from mission-based advancement options. I.e. they can't empty the sweety shop until they sweat blood.

 

[billd91]

With any point buy system, the more you need to be involved, as GM, with character design. You have to make sure the players aren't exploiting rule loopholes (intentionally or unintentionally) or that they won't be radically leaving themselves weaker or stronger than other PCs in what goes on in the genre you're playing. It's OK for one character to be a combat monster compared to another as long as the type of game you're running gives them both something important to do.

 

[jonrog1]

Try Savage Worlds. Cheap buy in ($10) for the base book, fast paced, semi-point buy. I'd get the Fantasy and Supers Companion too, personally.