Most op things in GURPS

[Gnaeus]

I’ll be running a multi-genre GURPS 4e game in the near future. I’m familiar with older editions and am figuring out current game rules.

My group has some optimization differences between players. I am well aware that GURPS is a system in which 2 175 point characters built around the same things can be very different in effectiveness. I know I will need to watch and say no to some combinations.

That said, is there anything I particularly need to look out for? Particularly unbalanced subsystems or advantages/disadvantages that should really be repriced?

[thorr-kan]

I’ll be running a multi-genre GURPS 4e game in the near future. I’m familiar with older editions and am figuring out current game rules.

My group has some optimization differences between players. I am well aware that GURPS is a system in which 2 175 point characters built around the same things can be very different in effectiveness. I know I will need to watch and say no to some combinations.

That said, is there anything I particularly need to look out for? Particularly unbalanced subsystems or advantages/disadvantages that should really be repriced?
There may be some advice to be had at forums.sjgames.com.

[kyoryu]

Honestly, it's not a matter of repricing. It's a matter of GM approval on characters. There's no set of tweaks you can make and then tell your players "cool! Go do whatever!"

A lot will also depend on your campaign, and making sure that players have a good understanding of the breadth of activities they'll be involved in. Nothing sucks more than sinking a bunch of points into social status and whatnot and then spending all your time in a dungeon where it's irrelevant. Or vice versa.

[JustIgnoreMe]

50 points is all you need to kill everything.

Look up Munchkin's Universe-shaking Nondirectional Cosmic Hyperluminal Kinetoelectromagnetic Interference Neurodisruptor on forums.sjgames.com

[jindra34]

Also OP and Broken depend on the game. Killing everyone in the universe quite USELESS in a game where you're entire goal is to be a rescue agency or some such. But if your playing supervillians out to take over the world, after (a somewhat paradoxical) display it makes it quite easy to succeed.

[JellyPooga]

In my experience, the only thin to watch out for is excessive spending in a given field. A character that spends 100pts solely on smashing an axe into someones face is going to wreck combat compared to someone that spends more evenly across a range of spheres (social, exploration, etc.). As GM I'd recommend imposing limits on where your players can spend their points; if characters are working to a 175pt limit, then saying "max 75pts on Advantages, 80pts on Skills, no more than 50pts of Disadvantages", for example, can go a long way towards limiting this kind of hyper-specialisation, but the best approach is always to talk to your players about not abusing the system. Watch out for the "cinematic" and inhuman Advantages, as well as the likes of Talent, which if given free reign can skew the system a little.

[Arbane]

50 points is all you need to kill everything.

Look up Munchkin's Universe-shaking Nondirectional Cosmic Hyperluminal Kinetoelectromagnetic Interference Neurodisruptor on forums.sjgames.com

150 points is all you need to Pun-Pun your way to omnipotence, IIRC.

Like any point-buy system (like any RPG, really), the GM needs to be willing to veto or change characters that are going to be ineffective or overpowered in play.

[Algeh]

At least in my experience, GURPS players fully expect the GM to say no to at least some of their character creation ideas since the system isn't really self-correcting. Our groups always did it that way, anyway.

Things I remember a GM forbidding specifically:

No, you may not be a were-squirrel
No, you may not have live monkeys sculpted into your knees

(These were neither the same player nor the same GM.)

I once got away with having an entire cult following me around, though, all with fanaticism: cult I was the head of as a disadvantage. I almost certainly shouldn't have been able to get that past the GM, at least not at the point value it was worth on that particular cult leader's character sheet, but he ended up wanting to run one of those "sudden twist where nothing is like the pre-game pitch" campaigns anyway, so I figure me breaking the "surprise" things he came up with with my large group of relatively obedient and widely-trained followers he wasn't expecting was somewhat balanced with how annoying his campaign premise was. (This was back when we were both much younger and dumber, and GURPS was still in 3rd edition. I don't know if they've done anything to ally/follower/etc. point values since then - at the time there was a sweet spot where they were free, neither an advantage nor a disadvantage, so I spent a bunch of character points to be the head of this cult and basically got a swarm of free fanatical cultists following me around that I had specialize in a lot of the useful NPC/hireling/boring-to-RP skills so I could delegate tasks to them as needed.)

[galaxia]

There is too much emphasis on saying no and not enough on just figuring out how to balance the different PCs.

If someone builds a PC that's better than the others then lift the others. If someone builds a weak PC then give the PC some kind of boost.

There is absolutely no objective difference between inflation (so-called power creep) and deflation. It's just empty aesthetics.

What isn't good is telling players no. Let them play what they want to play and figure out how you can make it work. Just be clear to them that building their player around being overly-powerful won't work because you will take measures to balance the party. That won't involve saying no to their build. It will involve increasing the power level of the other PCs and the enemies — effectively nullifying the incentive to try to break the system.

Unless you're dealing with organized play or are using premade material and can't figure out how to bump up the challenge there is generally rarely a good reason to say no to a player about their PC build.

Also, too much balance can be just as bad for game quality as too much brokenness. The perfectly balanced game has the same person controlling all the PCs, all of which are identical, while facing the same PC builds in the opposition — also controlled by the same person. Is that fun? It's playing chess against yourself.

[Knaight]

Unless you're dealing with organized play or are using premade material and can't figure out how to bump up the challenge there is generally rarely a good reason to say no to a player about their PC build.

There's also the small matter of how GURPS is a generic system intentionally designed with huge amounts of material intended for fundamentally different games and not likely to overlap. Any specific campaign in GURPS using only the small fraction relevant to it is the game working as intended, and demanding that every PC build be allowed basically kills any campaign that isn't a huge kitchen sink genre mash up.

[kyoryu]

There's also the small matter of how GURPS is a generic system intentionally designed with huge amounts of material intended for fundamentally different games and not likely to overlap. Any specific campaign in GURPS using only the small fraction relevant to it is the game working as intended, and demanding that every PC build be allowed basically kills any campaign that isn't a huge kitchen sink genre mash up.

Not to mention that many advantages/disadvantages/etc. that are properly priced for a given setting may be entirely inappropriate for others and game-breaking.

[CharonsHelper]

150 points is all you need to Pun-Pun your way to omnipotence, IIRC.

Like any point-buy system (like any RPG, really), the GM needs to be willing to veto or change characters that are going to be ineffective or overpowered in play.

Yep - the more customization there is, the easier a system is to break. Point-buys are pretty much all easily breakable to some degree, and the customization is a large part of why 3.x is so easy to break past level 8ish.

[galaxia]

There's also the small matter of how GURPS is a generic system intentionally designed with huge amounts of material intended for fundamentally different games and not likely to overlap. Any specific campaign in GURPS using only the small fraction relevant to it is the game working as intended, and demanding that every PC build be allowed basically kills any campaign that isn't a huge kitchen sink genre mash up.
GMs should define the flavor/type/scope of the campaign prior to players creating their character concepts. That fixes that concern.

Yep - the more customization there is, the easier a system is to break.
The more customization there is the easier it is to fix the system. The worst situation is dealing with the inflexibility of things like official organized play settings while having the ability to bring broken builds.

[Knaight]

GMs should define the flavor/type/scope of the campaign prior to players creating their character concepts. That fixes that concern.

Sure. That still leaves a reason to say no to a character when this communication isn't perfect, which it never is completely.

[CharonsHelper]

The more customization there is the easier it is to fix the system. The worst situation is dealing with the inflexibility of things like official organized play settings while having the ability to bring broken builds.

That has nothing to do with the customization of the system itself.

[Mr Beer]

Really would help to try to narrow down the genre and the rulebooks you intend to be using. If you just throw the whole GURPS canon at the players, the choices are unhelpfully overwhelming.

What exactly the premise of the game going to be and what challenges are they up against?

A good way to prevent abuse is to simply build GM templates for the game. Characters can spend points within limits and guidelines you create.

Another way is to put hard caps on damage output and DR and HP...that kind of thing.

FWIW the traditional 'broken' builds include:

- Very high damage output (so cheap damage + ignores armour + high ROF or an absurd number of dice with a bunch of limitations to make it affordable)
- High tech character with enough money to ultratech military gear to a low tech battlefield
- Lots of cheap Allies who are always available
- Social engineering wizard (lots of Charisma + looks, very cheap, gives huge reaction bonuses)

[JellyPooga]

There is too much emphasis on saying no and not enough on just figuring out how to balance the different PCs.

If someone builds a PC that's better than the others then lift the others. If someone builds a weak PC then give the PC some kind of boost.

There is absolutely no objective difference between inflation (so-called power creep) and deflation. It's just empty aesthetics.

What isn't good is telling players no. Let them play what they want to play and figure out how you can make it work.

I agree in principle, but disagree in practice. If you give a player the book, telling them it's a gritty low-fantasy setting and they come back with a high-faluting martial artist with cinematic Advantages, then "no" is the appropriate response. The player has not taken on board the setting or theme. Expurgating options from the book is both necessary and should be expected. "No" is the default answer for anything outside of what has already been given a "yes".

[kyoryu]

The more customization there is the easier it is to fix the system.

This makes no sense to me. Can you unpack that one a bit?

You keep going back to OP as an issue. Since there's never been an OP organization for GURPS, can I ask how much familiarity you have with the system, or are you applying principles learned from other systems to the question at hand?