GURPS Fantasy

[cliff]

That was definitely just your GM being stingy... the GURPS rules state that at the end of every session, the GM should award the players between 0 and 5 points, averaging 2-3.

[Holocron]

Oh noes!! After all these years it turns out I've been missing out on 50-80% of all the character points I was entitled to???

Hmm, y'know, you'd think that with my love affair with my character point stash, I'd have read that part of the rules much more clearly... Oh well.

[cliff]

Well, as with every RPG ever made, it also clearly states it's the GMs call in the end. If you had fun, then the rest is academic.

I tend to like to go a bit heavy on the award in the earlier segments of the game and slow down a bit later. Let the players gain power while they're still getting attached to their characters and then slow it down once they're immersed in the role.

[Omegaman]

Well, I think I am giving out lots of points. The 2-5 is usually 2-3 per session, but then at the end of an adventure arc I will award from 6-15 in one fell swoop. We started at 100pts and I need to get them to the 250pt range so they will be ready for my master plan to go into effect.

It is a pretty big campaign and as it grows, they will really need the points so I am laying it on to get them up there, and then we can back it down and do 1s and 2s if we need to.

Just didn't want to start them out at 250 pts because they have no experience with the game and I think they would have made VERY lopsided characters. This 100 to 250 growth period lets them start with a decent concept and then build it in a realistic fashion so that their 250 pts resemble a well rounded character. I hope. I have never played GURPS before so we'll see. I think it's working though, cause instead of having 20 points to unbalance something, they are spending 1-3 on improving ablities and picking up a skill here and there to round out their concept.

[Holocron]

Cliff - Yeah, I don't really feel bad about it. In my opinion the smaller pt awards made the game much more realistic, and made every pt award feel much more valuable. In hindsight, I feel like the campaign was VERY well done.

Omegaman - Ahh I see, so there is a reason for the extra large pt awards. It does sort of make some sense, and I think it'll accomplish your goal of well rounded characters.

One thing to consider though, since this is everyone's first time playing Gurps, you're establishing the precedent with the pt awards. So if there's a new campaign later, people may feel deprived if the pt awards suddenly shrink. (personally I prefer consistency in what to expect)

Also, don't feel obligated to bring your pcs up to the 250 pt level to execute your master plan. 250 is a LOT. It basically means they're on the edge of being super human in ability (a super-normal, or super powerful, but not possessing super "powers")

In my Gurps fantasy campaign, I didn't reach the 150-160 pt range until about the END of the whole campaign, at the conclusion of the dramatic ending. There were several times that I went up against enemies worth several times more points than I was. There was a 300 point bale, and then her brother, a 500 pt fighter-mage type, which enchanted gear to boot I think.

When all the wild stuff really started happening, there were enemies (demons) with enchanted full plate, and strengths at like 50, and sword skills at 20-25...

Obviously we didn't kill all these guys, but some of us survived, and we managed to defeat a few of these guys.

So take into account that the lethality of combat works both ways, the enemies die easier too, and players are usually innovative and can find ways to overcome a high powered enemy.

Its your campaign, so its not wrong to give big point awards and bring them up to the 250 pt level, I'm just saying that you don't have to feel locked into that just because you have a larger than life master plan coming up against them.

One last comment is that I was actually pretty proud as a player to have survived and accomplished everything I did at the point level I was at. If I had been at 250 or 300 pts, I wouldn't have been too impressed, but starting at 100 and working my way up to 150 and having taken on so many enemies that were so much more powerful than I was, I really feel like it was a much larger accomplishment, and still feel amazed that I was able to survive all that.