GCA: Random Characters

While I love the GURPS Character Sheet (GCS) program, the paid-for alternative on Warehouse 23, GURPS Character Assistant (GCA), is also a good option.

One of the best functions of the GCA alternative is the "Create Random Character From Template" option in the top menu. This option takes a template, preferably one of the more expensive ones, and randomizes the choices so you can create a random character to begin playing with.

Of course, if there are potential synergies, such as weapon master (or fast draw) in a weapon the character is not skilled with, I am allowed to go in and fix those, and do a few clean-up items. If something is game-breaking, I will change it. But I keep things as they are, and if my knight is a shield, spear, and flail user with a sling as a ranged weapon who gambles and has a criminal background - that is who I got.

Spells and gear I will need to add myself. I will let the character's skills guide me, especially for spells. If a wizard has elemental or demon lore, that will change the spells I choose. I will need to build a gear loadout for each character.

Random characters are fun! They force me to play with weapons, skills, advantages, disadvantages, and builds that aren't my typical choices, and challenge me to optimize that build with future character points. If you are an experienced GURPS player and want to challenge yourself outside your comfort zone, play a random character and build them into a viable one.

Also, I am not as attached to these characters as I am to my "pet characters", which I tend to stick with game after game. Random characters will be much more fun since there is little chance that I will want to protect them, and another amazing random creation is a button-click away. After a while, I will be invested in them and want to protect them, maybe, but still, I won't care as much if their story ends, and I need to start another.

I am starting to play through some excellent Basic Fantasy adventures with the GURPS rules, such as the Morgansfort campaign. Now, these adventures and Basic Fantasy are great games, and I can enjoy these adventures with many old-school games, even classics like Old School Essentials or Castles & Crusades. Since I source all my old-school monsters and treasures from Basic Fantasy and convert them to GURPS (see my B/X Conversions page), this works easily for me.

Doing this playtest will likely force me to update my conversion page. Still, there are many good suggestions for quickly adapting B/X monsters to GURPS without needing expansive bestiaries written for the game. Are they perfect? Not by a long shot. Do they work? They should, and with powers that are more like bang skills, like a spider's "entangle 13-" or "venom 11-" powers, they should work well enough, and not every monster is the same (or should be), and even powers can vary. Some spiders won't have entangling or venomous powers.

This is my issue with most kitchen sink fantasy bestiaries, and after a while, players know what to expect. A monster "outside the norm," like a mana spider that shoots magic missiles, will be seen as cheating by the referee, or a goofy one-off. For me? Mana missile 14-, 1d6 damage, 6 shots, and uses spider stats. I'd give them a one-use 12-minus magic web spell. Monsters are not supposed to be familiar. That next fire beetle may explode after it dies. You just don't know.

Much of today's fantasy games contain bad habits or false assumptions that D&D forced on us, and we follow them without questioning. Part of the fun of fantasy gaming is not knowing what to expect. D&D has enshrined all its goofiness and has become predictable and boring. This recycled fantasy culture gets boring. Yes, it is iconic. But this place isn't where fantasy gaming started, and it is not the place in the unknown that makes us fear the next monster in the dark.

For me, GURPS works well and gives me that "immersion feeling" that I crave when I convert a setting to GURPS. This was reported from players of GURPS Traveller as well, even though people played the same setting with the original 2d6 rules, once they switched to GURPS, it almost felt like people were "in VR" and actually experiencing the world in person.

GURPS is highly immersive, with a level of detail and reality that makes you feel like you are in the world, looking around, watching people walk by and doing their things, hearing the sounds and smelling the smells, and living there. I can't explain why this happens, only that it has been reported many times, and I also get that feeling.

This is the GURPS Reality Immersion Field.

It exists.

I will likely expand the setting a little; the encounters and adventures mention traders on the roads, but I have no other towns near the fort to trade with, so I may add a few places of my own. The setting is perfect for expansion, so I shall create a few more towns and link this to the city to the north.

A solid, expanded, old-school adventure with random characters and GURPS?

This sounds like fun.

GURPS Character Sheet (GCS)

I am glad I learned about GURPS Character Sheet (GCS), the community-supported and free alternative to GURPS Character Assistant (GCA). Before I go any further, consider becoming a backer of GCS if you love and use it! Even a dollar a month helps, and it helps the developer gauge interest and develop new features.

Where GCA forces you to create subsets of books to play with (and you sometimes end up with conflicts), GCS is designed from the perspective that every book is valid simultaneously. You start with a character sheet and apply templates and other selections to that sheet, and it copies them over.

GCA's books and scripts will delete unneeded and unused options; you can put a custom library rule that limits gear to a particular tech level or below.

GCA with templates guides you through selections one at a time. With GCS, it applies everything to your sheet, and you delete the ones you don't want (and combine duplicates). So, where GCA is a bit more user-friendly and guided, GCS makes up for it by allowing you to pull in anything from any GURPS book in your library.

GCA is more new-user-friendly and oriented to picking a subset of books. GCA also gives you an excellent loadout manager and factors shields in a little easier than GCS. If you are the type who manages your weight carefully and drops that backpack to be unencumbered during a fight, GCA does that well.

GCS is for power users and allows you to use your entire library to design characters. This feature is worth a lot if your campaigns extend across multiple books and you pull in random things from any book in your GURPS library.

Both are great programs and currently, GCA feels like it has slightly better support of Traveller: Interstellar Wars than GCS - but you can't go wrong with either. GCA is also stricter on character validation and auditing, ensuring the templates' rules are followed for every selection and point value. GCS feels much looser; you are fine if your points add up.

It took me a while to get used to GCS and how you delete unwanted template options and combine duplicate choices. They don't happen that often, but knowing how to sort through and filter your character to a legal design is a good skill. Also, deleting things on your sheet (not the libraries!) feels strange at first, like how you can go into 'edit mode' and delete the bite from your natural attacks if you never use biting in melee.

With GCS, you enter this "search, apply, delete, combine, and add" mode, which becomes your character editing workflow. GCA uses a lot of dialogs to guide choices, and you pick A, then B, then C, then D, until you finish - sometimes more than a dozen dialogs deep. It ensures all choices are made, but you can't go back into a dialog if you make a mistake.

Both are great, get constant updates, and whichever you choose is your personal preference.

GURPS Character Assistant: Dungeon Fantasy Setup

Some people like GURPS Character Sheet (GCS) for character generation, but my tool of choice is the excellent GURPS Character Assistant (GCA, link in sidebar). The unique thing about GCA is you must set up your library before creating a character (in GCS, you do not). Why do this? It allows you to better focus the application selections on what you want to see.

Want a base Dungeon Fantasy + Companion 3 setup? Just add these books to a library and save them:

You will have no 0.45 automatics and laster pistols cluttering your weapon lists, and every choice will be Dungeon Fantasy classes, powers, magic, equipment, advantages, and other items in the game.

But Steve Jackson Games also supports playing "Dungeon Fantasy within GURPS" - that is, instead of needing Dungeon Fantasy, you use the GURPS Basic Set Characters book and a bunch of supplements (PDFs on the Warehouse 23 site) as the "base game" for playing.

Why do this? Let's say you wanted to add a few GURPS expansion books to your Dungeon Fantasy game, like Low Tech or Horror. With this setup, you could have a lot of interesting books in your library and still have all of the focused Dungeon Fantasy feeling and frameworks. There are a few tricks to doing this:

The first book must be the GURPS Basic Set 4th Edition Characters book. Follow this with all the expansion books you want. Then the Dungeon Fantasy books. I will probably add "GURPS Powers" to my load and open up superpower-type abilities to my characters. There are two things you need to add at the end:

The first are three variants to remove TL 4+ gear, super science TL 4+ gear, and non-TL super science gear. These are highlighted, and one of them is poorly labeled.

If you want to use GURPS Basic Set armor (more like Dungeon Fantasy), do not use GURPS Low-Tech 4e; use the file "GURPS Low-Tech 4e - Everything NOT Armor & Protection" instead.

The final (not shown) is the world book GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Remove Unnecessary Traits. This last file aligns the traits of this library to the Dungeon Fantasy list. Why didn't I include it? I want things like "enemies" and "wings" in my game, and I do not wish the script to remove those traits. Consequently, I will have some "tech traits" on the list, but I can ignore those quickly enough.

Do I like the full GURPS setup or the Dungeon Fantasy setup?

Honestly, I love the clean Dungeon Fantasy setup, but I miss the freedom to pick and choose my books. GCS could do this better, and I can see how managing libraries feels like an unnecessary hassle. I need to check that program out and see. I can always edit in the few things I want as user edits in any case.

Both are excellent programs and highly recommended.