GET REAL
Let's be real for just a moment, I have quite a lot going on right now that I'm trying to get straight, along with a lot of things that pull me away from getting these things straight. The most notable thing that absolutely demands my attention is my upcoming wedding, which is May 15, and I've not even written my vows...not to mention all the decorations necessary, and we have no caterer, we're handling it all ourselves, and I have to get my best man and groomsman in line...it's...bothersome really. Worthwhile in the end, no doubt, but in the moment bothersome, and only adding to my hair-loss.
So what do we do? We think about how we would like to be creating youtube videos instead. Uwha?
Yes, as I've noted in the past, I watch a lot of youtube, and in turn I've uploaded a few videos to youtube. Why do I bring this up? Well, I had the idea to get a group together to do a GURPS (Generic Universal Role-playing System) campaign, fortunately (I thought) I wouldn't have to GM it, as a friend already had a campaign in mind. Months later there's no campaign going on. But, in the process of looking for members in the area to play, I realized that most people in my area don't have experience with any Tabletop game, much less GURPS. So I says to myself, I says, "Instead of teaching all of these people individually, why not just put together a tutorial on character creation?" Which was a brilliant idea! But then I thought, "Instead of just putting together a written tutorial, why not make a video tutorial, with different examples of sample characters." Boom! That's the one Caleb, upload that to youtube and you have helped a few extra people out in the process (or ruined a few lives if you did a poor job.)
With that in mind, here's a character I built!
HUMAN FENCER - Lucca Wrythe [150 Point Base, 50 Points Disadvantages, Avg Human]
This is a sample character intended to demonstrate the creation of a 150 point base human character in a semi-fantastic setting. Lucca is a noble with a history, his combat centers around his skill with fencing weapons and he prefers to rely on diplomacy when possible.
After the adventure has begun, and the characters have a bit of experience under their belts, it may be an excellent maneuver on Lucca's part to travel home, where he can reconcile his guilt with his sister, and train with a tutor to obtain the advantage "Trained by a Master." The character's backstory involves abandoning his family to join the resistance, which leads to some trouble back home. He develops a guilt complex regarding leaving his sister unguarded during this time, turns to alcohol to cope, and becomes an insomniac. As such, by reconciling with his sister, the guilt complex, alcoholic, and insomniac disadvantages can be bought off. The Gentleman's Code and Light Sleeper are not disadvantages that can be bought off. From there, one or two more advantages might be taken as the game progresses, but most points earned will go toward skill/attribute improvements and Striking ST upgrades.
Attributes
ST: 10
DX: 11 (+20 Points)
IQ: 13 (+60 Points)
HT: 10
Characteristics
Dmg: SW 2d, TH 1d {Modified by ST and Striking ST}
Lift: 20 pounds
HP: 15 (+10 points)
Will: 10
Per: 10
FP: 10
Speed: 6 (+15 Points)
Handsome (+12 Points)
Wealthy (+20 Points)
Rank 2 (+10 Points)
Advantages
Striking ST (+20 Points) [p. 90]
Rapier Wit (+5 Points) [p. 81]
Disadvantages
Alcoholism (-15 Points) [p. 124]
Code of Honor, Gentleman (-10 Points) [p.129]
Guilt Complex (-5 Points) [p. 139]
Insomniac, Severe (-15 Points) [p. 142]
Light Sleeper (-5 Points) [p. 144]
Skills
Administration, IQ (+2 Points) [p. 176]
Melee Weapon, Saber, DX+6 (+24 Points) [p. 210]
Public Speaking, IQ (+2 Points) [p. 218]
So what's all this mean? Well that's kind of why I wanted to do this video series (which I clearly am not doing at the moment), so that I could start out explaining the basic concepts, like what the heck Advantages and Disadvantages are, and then go into gradually greater detail as I explained different characters. Lucca was the first because he's a pretty prominent character in my games (I reuse him a bit from one place to the next, in some way or another,) and he's a general character, he's similar to the "Leader" I guess, except he lacks a lot of buffs and defensive abilities, instead he has a sort of political purpose in the group, and can hold his own in a fight.
I suppose you're still curious if you're still reading? Cool, I'll go into a bit more detail then: in GURPS, characters are built using character points, your character starts with zero points expended, and a 10 in all of their base attributes. Generally you want to start out with a basic idea of what your character does, but if you don't have one, you could just read through the book and find an idea to base your character on, I'll actually give another example of a GURPS character that epitomizes that a little later. For Lucca, I wanted to play a member of the nobility, but not like a king or queen, instead he's the son of a Lord, that way my character isn't totally consumed with treaties and paperwork, but he still has a burden to bear.
Because Lucca is of the nobility, you can expect him to be a bit more intelligent than the average man (assuming in your world nobles are entitled to better education) and this is represented by his IQ of 13. IQ is one of the four base stats, and IQ costs 20 character points to raise one level. So, 3 points of IQ is equivalent to 60 character points. Dag, considering Lucca is a standard human character, that means he only has 40 points left to toy with. Okay, but I also want Lucca to be slightly more dextrous than the average person, so we're gonna drop 20 points into that as well, leaving us with only 20 points left, and a DX score of 11. Does that make sense?
ST is Strength, this is obviously your character's equivalent to physical bulk and ability. High ST means you hit hard and can lift heavier things. It also adjusts your Hit Points (that is, the amount of damage you can take) and several other details. This stat costs 10 character points to increase.
DX is Dexterity, we've already covered that, but basically your chance to hit with a weapon is determined by Dexterity, along with your ability to do skill based tasks, like working on an engine or archery.
IQ is Intelligence, we've sort of covered that too, but it essentially determines how smart you are. Not only does this govern intelligence based skills, such as speaking different languages, programming, and yes...working on an engine again, but it also governs most magical skills.
HT is Health and this one's a doozy. Health covers your physical endurance, not your strength though. Even though this sounds like it would impact your Hit Points (sometimes called Health Points,) it actually impacts your FP, which is Fatigue Points. The better your Health the longer and harder you can run, jump, and withstand infection...or other things! Like ST, it costs 10 points.
So we've covered all of that, and I don't feel like it takes much to explain why Lucca doesn't get points to his ST and HT (aside from there obviously being a shortage of points to go around,) but he's more a man of the mind than the battlefield. Next let's take a look at his advantages (we'll skip Secondary Characteristics for now.)
Advantages, for starters, are sort of the details about your character that aren't explained merely in backstory and attributes. They give your character an edge they wouldn't otherwise have, similar to feats (features?) in D&D. Lucca doesn't have a lot of these at the moment, he'll probably develop more as he develops on his journey. But we do have a pretty standard one, and a semi-unique one to work with. Striking ST is a staple of non-bulky fighters. If your character strikes with the swiftness of a snake, but doesn't have the sheer strength of an ox, Striking ST may be for him. This is essentially ST bought at a 50% discount, that only impacts attacks made with a weapon or the character's body. So no extra HP or lifting strength, but Lucca's hitting a lot harder with that 4 extra ST on each attack. Oh my, that's 20 points down the drain, obviously we're done...well not yet, for now let's go ahead and say that we're going negative.
Next is Lucca's Rapier Wit Advantage, which is very different from Striking ST. Rapier Wit acts as a separate action altogether, that characters can't take without having this ability, or an appropriate counter ability (I guess?) But this essentially allows Lucca to banter with his opponents in order to catch them off guard, stunning them for a round. It sounds a bit ridiculous, but really, how often have the bad guys just stopped mid attack during movies because the hero called their mom a fat sow. Maybe that's not the best example, but for a better one, you can probably go watch almost any action movie. Seriously, try it, probably 50% have something like this. So, essentially, Lucca can make a public speaking check during combat, and if he rolls better than his opponent's defense and his own skill, he stuns the foe. Great. Also, Lucca's at -5 Points having taken 105 Points of stats and Advantages up to this point (and that's not even counting some secondary characteristic modifications!)
It's okay though, because, after speaking with our GM, it looks like we can get some points back in Disadvantages! Let's be fair, no character is endearing without problems, and the same goes for heroes. A flawless hero is hardly a hero, he's more like a God, a sort of disappointing one on a 100 Point scale...but still, no flaws? Seriously? That's why disadvantages exist, to flesh out the character and reward the player for fleshing them out. I won't go into a lot of great detail about Lucca's disadvantages, they're reasonably self-explanatory, but I will say that for these examples, a character can take up to half of their total point value, in disadvantages. Since a character is built on a 100 point base, they may have up to 50 points in disadvantages, which turns into a 150 point character. Yep, that's 50 points off, so now we have 45 points to top Lucca off with.
Also, you should note that all of these disadvantages are explained within Mr. Wrythe's backstory, and there's no reason not to do that, or else you'll have a hard time role-playing them. And yes, you have to role-play these things, or else what's the point? Aside from the negatives you get to your character, it's just plain more fun to have realistic characters. Like, an insomniac alcoholic noble who has trouble sleeping anyway due to a wary nature and guilty mind.
Alright, finally we hit the skills, which determine how well you do anything! Sure, a high Dexterity means you're good at using your body, but a high rapier skill means you're good at wielding a rapier. Or saber in this case...We spent 24 points giving Lucca a Saber skill of +6, which basically means when he attacks with his rapier he adds 6 to his DX score and tries to roll under that. You'll have to read the book to get a feel for how all the skills level up, but basically character points go in and you get a slightly variable result based on the difficulty of the skill.
That's the general gist of it all, the rest of the numbers in the above character example are self-explanatory, or explained within the text itself. I hope this has been informational, and I really hope to get that video up on youtube someday, until then...
TTFN!
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