GURPS - Compendium 1..

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INVENTING NEW DISADVANTAGES Just as for advantages, there will be times when you need a disadvantage that you cannot find in the GURPS system. For the most part, the guidelines given under Inventing New Advantages (p. 16) can be easily adapted to the creation of new disadvantages, but beware - there is even more room for abuse with disadvantages. Once again, this advice is intended primarily for GMs, and players should obtain the GM's permission before creating any new disadvantages. In all cases, the creator should keep the golden rule for disadvantages in mind: A "disadvantage" that does not limit the character is not a disadvantage! Turning Old Problems Into New Existing disadvantages can be re-engineered into new ones using the same basic procedure recommended for advantages: rename, redefine, combine, modify and fine-tune. There are a few additional points to note. First and foremost, a great many supposedly-new disadvantages can be handled by existing "user-defined" disadvantages, the most useful of which are: Physical Mental Addiction (p. B30) Code of Honor (p. B31) Dependency (p. 81) Compulsive Behavior (p. B32) Unnatural Delusions (p. B32) Feature (p. 85) Fanaticism (p. B33) Vulnerability (p. 106) Intolerance (p. B34) Weakness (p. 106) Obsession (p. 93) Phobias (p. B35) Social Sense of Duty (p. B39) Dependents (p. B38) Vows (p. B37) Duties (p. B39) Enemies (p. B39) Supernatural Odious Personal Destiny (p. 97) Habits (p. B26) Dread (p. 97) Reputation (p. B17) Karmic Ties (p. 97) Social Stigma (p. B27) Wyrd (p. 100) Next, when combining multiple disadvantages to create new ones, remember that certain advantages can also be added to the mix, reducing the value of the composite disadvantage. For example, a positive Reputation can be associated with a "good" personality trait (such as Honesty or Sense of Duty) that is considered a disadvantage in GURPS because it restricts a character's choice of actions. Secret Disadvantages A character may have a disadvantage that neither he nor the player is aware of. The secret disadvantage is determined by the GM, from a point value picked by the player. The actual disadvantage should be worth 5 points less than the value of the Secret Disadvantage. (E.g., Berserk, normally -15 points, is worth -20 points as a Secret Disadvantage.) The GM must pick the disadvantage carefully - it should be something that the character would not have known about. If the disadvantage is a mental one, the conditions that trigger it should never have happened to the character. Most physical disadvantages are too obvious, although something like Hemophilia might have gone unnoticed. Secret Enemies are quite reasonable, as are various mental disadvantages like Berserk, Bloodlust, Combat Paralysis, some of the less-common Phobias, the -15-point version of Split Personality and Unluckiness. Evil Twins make excellent Secret Disadvantages. Secret Dependents might be amusing, though implausible ... A variation on this is the "Schrodinger's Disadvantage," which can be used to complicate the lives of the PCs when they're getting a little too lucky. See Secret Advantages (p. 16) for details. When the disadvantage is fully exposed, as determined by the GM, the extra -5 points for the secret must be bought off as soon as possible. To encourage characters to take Secret Disadvantages, the GM may allow an extra -5 points of disadvantages when the character is created with this disadvantage. This extra -5 points is more of a loan than a permanent part of the character design - the "exposed" character will have only the usual number of disadvantage points. 75
Doing Away With Disadvantages By Bill Seurer "I'll be done with my character as soon as I find just one more disadvantage. " No doubt every GURPS Game Master has heard that line countless times as players struggle to get exactly the "right" number of disadvantages and quirks when creating a character. Usually, that last disadvantage or quirk doesn't fit the character very well or won't come into play very often (if ever). Here's an alternative method of creating characters that avoids these and other problems. The basic premise is that nearly every "100-point" character created by the "normal" rules has exactly -45 points in disadvantages and quirks. In effect, characters have 145 positive points to spend. Using this method, you ignore the disadvantages and quirks when calculating the point total, and simply count the positive points. Thus, a player has 145 points to spend on attributes, advantages and skills, as well as genre-specific special powers. Every player should take at least one dis advantage and may take any number of additional disadvantages as well as any number of quirks. However, the "negative" points from disadvantages and quirks do not reduce the point total of the character. (Attributes taken below the racial norm do, however.) Since the disadvantages don't reduce the point total, the player can also define exactly how severe they are. This allows disadvantages to be customized: one person can play a high IQ person who is nearly always afraid of mice, while another can play a dunce who only sometimes gets spooked by them. The players now create the characters they really want to play, and don't feel compelled by character creation rules to take flaws they don't want to play. (See The Much-Maligned Will, p. 10, for an alternative approach to the customization problem.) What effect does this have in practice? The author has been using this method for several years, and the characters created by his players have all been very welldefined. The players have had a lot more fun roleplaying them, and have become much more involved as well. From practical experience, one should expect the value of these "voluntary disadvantages" to run from about 5 to 60 points in most cases, with about 30 points being the average. Characters will have from 0 to 15 quirks, with about six or seven being the average However, if the restriction is worth more than the reaction modifier, then the overall trait is still a disadvantage. Finally, when applying enhancements and limitations (Chapter 4) to disadvantages, great care must be taken to interpret them properly. In general, limitations are fairly straightforward, and should reduce the value of the disadvantage by the appropriate percentage. For instance, a Vow that applies "Only on Sundays" is not worth as much as one that applies all the time. Enhancements rarely make any sense for disadvantages, but those that do can often be interpreted either way. For instance, if Affects Others allows a disadvantage to be used as an offensive ability, it should reduce the value of the disadvantage by at least 40% - if not actually turn it into an advantage - even if it still afflicts the character! Brand-New Problems The guidelines for creating totally new disadvantages are similar to those for inventing new advantages. In general, use the following rules. Penalties to attributes are handled by assuming that an effective -1 to an attribute is worth -10 points, and then modifying the final cost using limitations (p. 110) that restrict the circumstances under which the penalty applies. For example, a Reduced Hit Point is just a -1 to HT (-10 points) with the -50% Accessibility limitation, "Only To Soak Up Damage," for a net cost of -5 points. Penalties to skills should be handled using the Incompetence rules (p. 91), and are worth -1 point for each -4 to a specific skill. Skill penalties are not worth as much as "negative skill bonuses" would be, simply because players tend to select skills for which their characters have an aptitude and ignore those at which their characters are inept. Note that the penalty can be changed to -3 or -5 without disturbing balance much, but as a rule of thumb, skill penalties must apply to reasonably common skills to be worth points. The GM may also wish to permit a kind of "Group Skill Penalty," worth -6 points per -1 to a group of common skills. This is worth much more as a disadvantage because it is much harder for a player to avoid an entire group of skills. Reaction penalties use the Reputation rules on p. B17, with each -1 on reaction rolls being worth -5 points, divided by two or by three if it applies only to a specific group of people. Unique abilities can only be priced by comparison. Look at other, comparable disadvantages in the system and assign a similar point value, which can be adjusted if the disadvantage is more or less limiting than the one to which it is being compared. Note that it isn't a good idea to determine the point value of a disadvantage that's the "opposite" of an existing advantage simply by taking the value of the advantage and sticking a minus sign in front. For example, Peripheral Vision is a 15-point advantage for a human, but "Poor Peripheral Vision" would not be a - 15-point disadvantage, simply because humans do not have especially good peripheral vision to begin with. Conversely, while adding an arm is a 10-point advantage, One Arm is a -20-point disadvantage. This is because the lack of two arms severely limits skill use, but adding an extra one only somewhat enhances most skills. The final cost of a disadvantage is equal to the sum of the costs of its component parts, modified for its rarity. A rare disadvantage is sometimes worth more points simply because (in the case of rare health problems) it is less likely to be treatable or because (in the case of rare deformities and mental problems) it is more likely to generate shock and disgust on a bad reaction roll, rather than a mere snub. A common disadvantage may be worth correspondingly less, by the same logic - Bad Sight is an example of a disadvantage that is worth less because it is common and treatable. 76
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CHARACTER CREATION COVER BY JEFF KO
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5. SKILLS .........................
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ATTRIBUTE LEVELS AND THEIR MEANINGS
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The Much-Maligned Will: Optional Wi
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The Much-Maligned Will: Optional Wi
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Extra Effort Lifting with High ST T
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Optional Rule: Treating Figured Qua
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Fine-Tune Once you have taken exist
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NEW ADVANTAGES The following are al
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This advantage is useful to shamans
Page 24 and 25: Frequency of Assistance Frequency r
Page 26 and 27: Favor Variable You saved someone's
Page 28 and 29: A character with the Iron Hand will
Page 30 and 31: Pious 5 points Some people have an
Page 32 and 33: Tenure 5 points This social advanta
Page 34 and 35: OCCULT AND PARANORMAL ADVANTAGES Th
Page 36 and 37: Clerical Magic Variable In some wor
Page 38 and 39: Familiar Variable Familiars are sma
Page 40 and 41: Karmic Ties Variable Some people ar
Page 42 and 43: Medium 10 points You possess the na
Page 44 and 45: failure, you will believe your ance
Page 46 and 47: Snatcher Variable This is the power
Page 48 and 49: Drift: The Jumper does not arrive i
Page 50 and 51: RACIAL AND SUPER ADVANTAGES These a
Page 52 and 53: Body of Stone 8 points/level Your b
Page 54 and 55: the presence of the odor and for 30
Page 56 and 57: one-handed task (e.g., swinging a s
Page 58 and 59: You must buy the ST to support your
Page 60 and 61: No Vitals 5 points You have no part
Page 62 and 63: Type of Drone Mindless: -10 points.
Page 64 and 65: Passive Defense 25 points/level up
Page 66 and 67: Special limitation: One class of da
Page 68 and 69: Claws 15/25/40/55 points The charac
Page 70 and 71: d) The transformation is not instan
Page 72 and 73: Note: Modifiers for multiple limita
Page 74: "wrong" with the image (not necessa
Page 79 and 80: The base value of an Evil Twin is m
Page 81 and 82: Obnoxious Drunk -1 point As you dri
Page 83 and 84: than that (in fact, he is more like
Page 85 and 86: Scalped -5 points You have survived
Page 87 and 88: MENTAL DISADVANTAGES Mental disadva
Page 89 and 90: Compulsive Gambling -5/-10/-15 poin
Page 91 and 92: Edgy -5 points This is a mild form
Page 93 and 94: Low Self-Image -10 points You lack
Page 95 and 96: Self-Centered -10 points Like Self
Page 97 and 98: OCCULT AND PARANORMAL DISADVANTAGES
Page 99 and 100: Jinxed -20/-40/-60 points This disa
Page 101 and 102: Unliving -50 points You are not tru
Page 103 and 104: Lost Speed and DX are regained at a
Page 105 and 106: Reprogrammable Duty -25 points You
Page 107 and 108: Unhealing -20/-30 points You do not
Page 109 and 110: Turning Enhancements On and Off Eac
Page 111 and 112: LIMITATIONS Limitations reduce the
Page 113 and 114: Reduced Range -5% Each time this li
Page 115 and 116: Mastery High Skill vs. Diversity Ha
Page 117 and 118: Extraordinary Diligence to Maintain
Page 119 and 120: USING SKILLS Two sets of skills nor
Page 121 and 122: Firearms Specialization and Familia
Page 123 and 124: Firearms Specialization and Familia
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Vehicle Skill Specializations (Cont
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+ 1 to +5 if the item is a variant
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NEW SKILLS The following list inclu
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The composer must have a skill in e
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Lifting (Physical/Hard) No default
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Fire-Siphon (Physical/Average) Defa
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Modifiers: All Vision modifiers app
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Blind Fighting (Mental/Very Hard) N
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Time and fatigue requirements: It t
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Light Walk (Mental/Hard) No default
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Pressure Points (Mental/Hard) Defau
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Darts (Physical/Easy) Defaults to D
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MAGICAL SKILLS Alchemy/TL (Mental/V
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MEDICAL SKILLS Chi Treatment (Menta
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OUTDOOR SKILLS Animal Guise (Mental
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A critical success automatically ba
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Revolution. It does not automatical
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Planetology can be used in place of
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The GM may give a further +1 bonus
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162
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Note that some maneuvers are listed
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Just Watch This One! Expanding the
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Just Watch This One! (Continued) Te
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Just Watch This One! (Continued) Mu
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The Spin Kick allows a simultaneous
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The Rule of 12 If evolution or the
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Countervailing Attribute Modifiers:
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Player-Created Races Although the c
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PERSONALITY TRAITS Stefan Jones ori
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APPENDIX 2 — ADVANTAGE LISTINGS T
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Name Cost Page Reference Peripheral
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Name Cost Page Reference Hidebound
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Name Type Default Page Reference Na
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Name Type Default age Reference Nam
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- K - Kicking maneuver, 170. Knacks
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