Character Creation in GURPS

A bunch of people over the years have proffered their own advice on how to create characters in this system, and it's a great deal easier than a lot of folks make it out to be ... or MAKE it to be.  So herewith some counsel on this subject, and there'll be a follow-up post with the Character Creation document I give to new players.

'Nuff said.

The biggest problems a newbie have with GURPS is (1) deciding he needs to do everything at once; and (2) designing a character from the bottom up.

For the first part, take everything a step at a time. You've decided that (say) you're going to take 50 points in Disadvantages? Great. Pick them. That should be relatively easy. Now you know how many points you have to build. Set aside (say) 30 points for Advantages. Now set up your attributes, not based on numbers crunching, but on how strong, how dexterous, how smart and how healthy you think your character ought to be. Now you have some points left to put into skills.

Designing from the bottom up is almost always a mistake ... gee, I'll take this skill, I'll take that skill, oooh, I want that skill too. Instead, design it from the top down. Figure out, in detail, exactly what you want to play. Hmm, I'd like a warrior. Ex-military, heavy infantry. He needs to be reasonably strong, reasonably fast, pretty tough. I don't figure he's a brain type, but enough so he could've been a sergeant. Long service in a mercenary company, and once he's bought, he stays bought. I also figure he had downtime in the nearest big seaport, and knows how to get around in rough areas.

Anyone familiar with GURPS knows what this guy looks like. Perhaps ST 11, DX 12, IQ 11, HT 13. He'll have advantages such as High Pain Threshold, Combat Reflexes, Allies/Contacts (his old unit mates). He'll probably have a Sense of Duty, Code of Honor (Mercenary) and possibly an old war wound (One Hand, One Eye, Reduced Move due to a limp). Skills? Broadsword, Shield, Soldier, Armoury, Streetwise, some Area Knowledges, Carousing, Brawling, Hiking, Scrounging, Leadership, Survival.

Just right there, I'm up over 150 points, and I have a pretty viable character there. 

Maybe cut back on the Carousing ...

What don't I need? For one, I don't need to write down every damn skill I could use by default. If it comes up, I can look it up. I don't need to go over every advantage and every skill; there are a hundred of them this guy'll never know exists, let alone touch.

Speaking of those skill levels ... Yeah, the deal with benchmarks is that every GM seems to have his own set. †  For instance:

Skill 10 or less: well, you have basic knowledge of it, and it's better than nothing.

Skill 11-12: Low average; enough to get a job doing this.  (This is the level I look to for background skills useful to a party; y'know, in the "It's good to have someone in the party who knows something about World History" camp.)  Using my projected character above, I'll take Soldier, Armoury, those Area Knowledges, Carousing, Leadership, Scrounging and Hiking around here.  Possibly some Professional skill as well, whatever I did before I became a mercenary.  Carpentry or Leatherworking, maybe?

Skill 13: My nominating level for skilled craftsmen.  A character with secondary skills around here is doing alright.  Let's look for Streetwise, my key Area Knowledge, Brawling and Survival around here.

Skill 14-15: Now you're getting good; this is a talented practitioner of this skill.  A new character should have his go-to skill around here.  This is where I want my Broadsword (and maybe Shield) skill.

Skill 18: Expert; someone at this level may gain renown for his or her mastery, and people who ARE renowned for their expertise are around here. I don't allow PCs to exceed this with beginning characters, I never let them have more than a single skill up around here, and doing so involves serious sacrifice.

Skill 21: Best in a region. This is effectively the peak level for PC development; better than this is incompatible with adventuring. I don't think that as many as a half dozen PCs (out of a few hundred) have had a skill exceed 21.

Skill 25: Best in the world. In my 37 years GMing this system, only one PC, with a single skill, has reached this level.  (That PC has also been active for 19 years, and is by a good ways the highest point PC in my campaign's history.) 

† - The GURPS line editor, for instance, pitches those levels lower than I do.  We're both contradicted by a number of GURPS products, some of which have been cranked so high that one of my players (and a SJ Games author himself) memorably burst out in reaction to 1st edition GURPS Special Ops, "What the hell, does the US Army have recruiting stations on Krypton??")

I'll also mention this, because it's come up in the past.  Now I like backstories. I've editorialized in their favor.  And I appreciate when players give nods to those backstories in character creation ... it's often enough the case that the Glassblower or Innkeeper skill that the character "had" in pre-adventuring days turns out very handy that the most recent Order of the Stick webcomic turned on just that point.  But eeesh ... the object of character creation isn't to perfectly reflect a character's past life, down to every conceivable skill they may have ever had as an accountant for a fintech corporation.  It's to create a viable adventurer for everything that happens after creation.  Someone with a point each into fifty skills at a level of 9-12 is going to be a speed bump.  How about half as many, with some at useful levels?

Beyond that, look.  You're the player, not me.  You should be playing a character with which you can live.  But if you're a new player in my campaign, you just aren't steeped in the setting.  I am.  You just don't know my foibles as a GM.  I better have a good handle on them.

So if I tell you, "That skill isn't useful in my campaign," I am not blowing smoke out my backside; it's a good idea to presume I know what I'm talking about.  If I tell you, "That skill level is unnecessarily high/uselessly low," I probably know what I'm talking about there as well.  If I tell you, "You know, the type of role you aim to play really needs X Advantage and Y skill," well ... you get the picture.  So I hope.  

Not every GM gives such hints.  Reject some of my advice, fair enough, you're exercising your own agency.  Reject most or all of it, you're not only shortchanging yourself, you're hoisting a big red flag.  (And holy heck, telling me "That element of your setting makes no sense" is jumping up and down waving a big flaming red flag.)  Since I am not interested in an adversarial GM-vs-players tong war, it's my invariable experience that the handful of people who've hoisted such a flag will be disruptive, keep on picking fights and not last long.  (Curiously enough, almost without exception these people are familiar with GURPS, as opposed to newbies learning the system fresh.)