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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 5220622" data-attributes="member: 80487">If you really do understand how points work in Hero System, then you understand that (as the text points out) they are a tool for the GM and players to use where they are useful.If you think there's some magical "gotta" that's gonna getcha, something you escape by using a game that does not provide such a tool, then you really do not understand. King Conan with powered armor and a gatling gun is not the equal of thief Conan with a leather jerkin and a machete. That is so whether or not you have a points system to evaluate the advantage.If you don't want to make characters pay points for this or that, then there's no enforcement mechanism to make you do it. In fact, the designers will suggest not doing it in some kinds of game.(Perhaps Conan pays only in coin for his typical armament, and wields the Phoenix sword for one episode as a plot device -- whilst Elric pays points for Stormbringer and the Ring of Kings.)GURPS simply does not (or formerly did not) provide the same "build everything in points" utility as a basic feature. Instead, it provides more "off the shelf" stuff that has rather arbitrary points values or none at all. It is concerned less with game-mechanical effects as building blocks with which to play, and factors to balance one against another in the game currency, more with in some sense modeling things realistically.To an extent, one can model things realistically in Hero and get game-balance point values. However, that extent is limited mainly by one thing that makes it better suited than GURPS to superhuman characters: the scale of factors. It readily distinguishes artillery from sidearms, but does not offer as many points of difference among anti-tank guns. I am thinking of the bogglingly BIG numbers even man-portable gear was packing in GURPS Ultra-Tech of 2nd or 3rd ed..I think it's easier to tune Hero for more realistic gore than to tune GURPS for the nuances of comic-book violence. (There's a similar awkwardness with BRP, so perhaps no coincidence that it was a Superworld campaign that inspired the Wild Cards fictional milieu.)</blockquote>

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