GURPS - Compendium 1..

Racial Advantages and Disadvantages
A nonhuman race could conceivably possess almost any advantage or disadvantage
that an individual character could, within reason. When in doubt, the
GM should exercise common sense: a whole race of Eunuchs is probably nonsensical,
while size-related disadvantages - such as Dwarfism. Fat. Gigantism.
Overweight and Skinny - are relative to a racial norm, and are better handled
using the Inconvenient Size disadvantage (p. 102) when applied on a racial basis.
Extra Limbs
Many nonhumans have extra limbs, or limbs with unusual capabilities.
These are normally treated as advantages; see Extra Arms (p. 54), Extra Legs
(p. 55) and Strikers (p. 66) for details.
Racial Quirks
Racial quirks are minor disadvantages or personality traits that apply to all
members of a race. They can be a useful tool for defining the biases and leanings
of a race. The GM must be careful when assigning these, however, since
overuse of racial quirks can pigeonhole individual characters to the point where
they all seem identical.
Racial Skills
A distinction must be drawn between racial skill bonuses, group skill
bonuses and racially-learned skills.
Racial Skill Bonus
A racial skill bonus is a natural talent for a certain skill. It is expressed as, for
instance, "+1 Forgery" or "+3 Fast-Talk." Not every member of the race has the
skill. Individuals get the benefit of the bonus only after they pay at least a halfpoint
to actually learn the skill - not on default use.
The cost for a +1 racial bonus is equal to half the cost (from the table on p.
B44) to learn the skill at DX (for physical skills) or IQ (for mental skills). The
cost for a +2 racial bonus is equal to half the cost to learn the skill at IQ+1 or
DX+1, and the cost for a +3 racial bonus is equal to half the cost for IQ+2 or
DX+2. No racial skill bonus should ever exceed +3.
Racial skill bonuses apply to all specializations of a skill, even for those
skills which normally require specialization, such as Survival and Engineer.
Group Skill Bonuses
Occasionally, the GM may wish to make a certain race gifted in an entire
field of endeavor. Group skill bonuses are designed to make this easy for the
GM.
A group skill bonus can be bought for any reasonably-related group of skills
that the GM decides upon - including the skill groups in this book and the Basic
Set - with the exception of the Combat/Weapon, Esoteric, Magical, Military,
Psionic and Thief/Spy groups. The cost is 6 points per +1 with those skills. It is
recommended that GMs treat the Science group as a special case, and divide it
into two sub-groups, each costing 6 points per +1: soft sciences (Anthropology,
History, Literature, Psychology, etc.) and hard sciences (Alchemy, Architecture,
Meteorology, Physiology, etc.). The Research skill should be regarded as
belonging to both subgroups.
Group skill bonuses should never be allowed on a less than racial basis. The
GM who wishes to grant a race a bonus with a small number of related skills -
Character Cost vs.
Racial Strength
Part of the fun of playing nonhuman
characters is dealing with "people" that are
not only different from humans, but more
than human. Many GMs will want to create
at least a few PC and NPC races with
physical and mental powers far beyond
normal humans. In game terms, this means
characters with a high racial point cost.
This creates an apparent contradiction
in the campaign, however. The question
arises. "If these guys are so great, why
don't they control the whole world?"
The most obvious answer is to say,
"they do." There's no reason why humanity
has to be the dominant race of the campaign.
Mankind could be an insignificant
minor race or an audacious upstart to the
ancient civilizations of the nonhumans!
However, even if the GM prefers an
anthropocentric campaign, he needn't forsake
superhuman races. The factors that
allow an individual to excel are quite different
from those that allow one race to
dominate another. A humanocentric story
or campaign usually assumes that humanity
has several advantages, relative to other
races, that would never show up on an
individual character sheet.
First, humans are prolific. A woman
can easily bear six to 12 children in her
lifetime. A single male can father children
with a huge number of women. Other races
might be strictly monogamous, or tied to a
complex fertility cycle, or simply generally
infertile, allowing humanity to dominate
them through sheer numbers. This is borne
out in nature, where extremely capable
species such as the dominant carnivores
inevitably have smaller numbers than
"lesser" species.
Second, humans are aggressive. They
tend to want money, property and power
for its own sake. A pragmatic race might
let the humans move in and assume the
burden of running things. The race might
insist on a few basic rights, but would not
necessarily want political power. An
extremely powerful or supernatural race
may simply pursue goals that humans cannot
comprehend, leaving them to do as they
please.
Finally, humans are organized. A
super-race might never need to band
together for protection from nature as
humanity's ancestors did. Such a race
might be quite at a loss to withstand an
organized human military campaign or
political program. Indeed, such a race
might find real economic and cultural benefit
in accepting organization by humanity.
Of course, humans may one day
encounter a race that is more prolific,
aggressive and organized than we are . . .
orcs with spaceships. The outcome is left
as an exercise for the GM.
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