TM

TM

Written by CHRISTOPHER R. RICE

Edited by NIKOLA VRTIS
Illustrated by BIDAJ DOO
GURPS System Design z STEVE JACKSON Chief Executive Officer z PHILIP REED
GURPS Line Editor z SEAN PUNCH Chief Creative Officer z SAM MITSCHKE
GURPS Project Manager z STEVEN MARSH Chief Operating Officer z SUSAN BUENO
Production Artist z NIKOLA VRTIS Director of Sales z ROSS JEPSON
GURPS FAQ Maintainer z Page Design z PHIL REED and JUSTIN DE WITT
VICKY “MOLOKH” KOLENKO ­­­Art Direction and Prepress Checker z NIKOLA VRTIS

Sith Editrix: Elizabeth “Archangel Beth” McCoy

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STEVE JACKSON GAMES

Stock #37-0374 Version 1.0 – September 2021 ®
 Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Building to the Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Approaches to Character Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Playing With Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
With Great Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Power-Playing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
The High-Powered Campaign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Powerful Realistic Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Genres for High-Powered Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Realistic Powerful Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
About GURPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Powerful Characters and Expectations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Decomplicating the Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4   The Werewolf Heir . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Skills vs. Wildcard Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
NPCs in Campaigns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Character Growth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Metagame Traits vs. Impulse Buys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Alternate Point Rewards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
High-Powered Combat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 High-Powered Pitfalls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
The High-Points-Total Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Point Debt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Character Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 All-Powerful Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Starting Power Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Misplaced Realistic Powerful Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Be the Hero’s Hero . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Super-Normal vs. Superpowered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Templates and Buckets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Unusual (Background) for Whom? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

I feel like I live in a world made of cardboard, always

taking constant care not to break something, to break
someone. Never allowing myself to lose control even for
a moment, or someone could die.
– Superman, in Justice League Unlimited #3.13

Introduction
GURPS is a robust system with dials and switches to tune characters, along with warnings about pitfalls to avoid when
the game engine to whatever it is you desire. But higher-pow- being the GM.
ered campaigns can be harder to quantify. Is a high-powered
campaign in GURPS a question of how someone runs the
game? Each GM has their own way to run a “high-powered” About the Author
campaign, so that’s going to vary from person to person. Is Christopher R. Rice has run numerous high-stakes
it the amount of points the GM allots for character creation? and high-powered games in GURPS. He’s also authored,
A hero with 300 points in nothing but combat abilities (e.g., co-authored, or contributed to nine GURPS supplements
weapon skills, Combat Reflexes, and High Pain Threshold) is (and counting!) and many articles from old and new
different from one with 300 points in social traits. Is it the Pyramid. Of course, if he’s not writing about GURPS,
way the campaign is put together – which power level, which he’s blogging about it. Visit his site, “Ravens N’ Pennies”
rules, which genre, and so on? A modern-day action cam- (www.ravensnpennies.com), for more GURPS goodies.
paign using realistic rules produces a different experience He wishes to thank L.A., for being the wonderful, amaz-
than one that includes cinematic options. ing, inspiring woman that she is – not every man gets his
In truth, it’s all three . . . and one more: it’s ow the GM uses muse personified in the flesh! He also thanks his gaming
the tools GURPS provides. The campaign grows as the set- group – the Headhunters – for alpha testing, his family
ting grows, and which rules are used can change, even grow, (especially his mother), and Elizabeth “Archangel Beth”
according to how the game proceeds. This supplement gives McCoy, his Sith Editrix mentor.
advice on running high-powered games with high-powered

Contents and Introduction 2

 With Great
Power . . .
Running a game with high point totals or where player to effectively manage such games: the campaign and the
characters are focused on specific areas, like combat, can characters.
be challenging. The GM needs to consider two key aspects

The High-Powered Campaign

There are several matter to consider when designing a aspects inherent to their nature when pushed to that level. For
high-powered campaign. example, a splatterpunk campaign might work if the PCs are
doing the splattering, but from the victims’

Genres for side of the swimming pool, that doesn’t

work so well. Likewise, horror cam-
High-Powered Games paigns are predicated on PCs not being
able to kick monster butt most of the
The best genres for high-powered games are time, and “realistic” settings may rely
usually supers, pulp action, or any sufficiently on not tossing scenery around during
cinematic setting where the PCs are “big darn a bar brawl. The GM should consider
heroes” (or other key figures). carefully how cinematic changes mod-
With ingenuity, most genres could work at ify the genre they’re considering for
a “high-powered” level, but many of them lose the campaign.

About GURPS
Steve Jackson Games is committed to full sup- with #GURPShook on Twitter. Or explore that hashtag for
port of GURPS players. We can be reached by email: ideas to add to your own game! The GURPS How to Be
[email protected]. Our address is SJ Games, P.O. Box a GURPS GM: High-Powered Origins web page can be
18957, Austin, TX 78760. Resources include: found at gurps.sjgames.com/howtobeagurpsgmhpo.
Store Finder (storefinder.sjgames.com): Discover
New supplements and adventures. GURPS continues to
nearby places to buy GURPS items and other Steve
grow – see what’s new at gurps.sjgames.com.
Jackson Games products. Local shops are great places to
Warehouse 23. Our online store offers GURPS print
play our games and meet fellow gamers!
items, plus PDFs of our books, supplements, adventures,
Bibliographies. Bibliographies are a great resource for
play aids, and support . . . including exclusive mate-
finding more of what you love! We’ve added them to many
rial available only on Warehouse 23! Just head over to
GURPS book web pages with links to help you find the
warehouse23.com.
next perfect element for your game.
Pyramid (pyramid.sjgames.com). For 10 years, our
Errata. Everyone makes mistakes, including us  – but
PDF magazine Pyramid included new rules and articles for
we do our best to fix our errors. Errata pages for GURPS
GURPS, plus systemless locations, adventures, and more.
releases are available at sjgames.com/errata/gurps.
The entire 122-issue library is available at Warehouse 23!
Internet. To discuss GURPS with our staff and your Rules and statistics in this book are specifically for the
fellow gamers, visit our forums at forums.sjgames.com. GURPS Basic Set, Fourth Edition. Page references that
You can also join us at facebook.com/sjgames or begin with B refer to that book, not this one.
twitter.com/sjgames. Share your brief campaign teasers

With Great Power . . . 3

Decomplicating the Rules get some of the feel of certain rules without bogging down
every scene.
As shown by GURPS Ultra-Lite, GURPS doesn’t have to For a good starting point on essential mechanics for
be complicated. Most mechanics are “roll 3d lower than a running a GURPS game, see GURPS Lite; from there,
target number.” Despite its reputation, it’s also not a “reality add in rules from the Basic Set and other supplements to
simulator.” Rather, GURPS is a toolbox to create exactly the address situations most likely to come up in the campaign.
game the GM wants within a consistent framework (which For a discussion of customizing combat, see How to Be
is sometimes confused with being a perfect simulator). The a GURPS GM, pp.  40-43, and How to Be a GURPS GM:
GM can complicate a campaign with special rules for special Combat Encounters. The GM can also get ideas by starting
situations, and this can lead to gameplay that can bog down a discussion on the Steve Jackson Games message boards,
very fast. It’s like a house of cards – the more you stack on top, forums.sjgames.com.
the more likely it falls down. This is especially the case with
high-points games. More points equal more creation options
and that means to more actions the characters can take, and NPCs in Campaigns
thus more the players need to remember. The best thing a GM Creating a campaign to entertain players of high-points
can do when running high-points campaigns is to pare down characters can seem daunting. The urge to stat up everything
the rules used at the beginning and come up with templates or will rear its ugly head, and the GM may become concerned
trait packages to limit character-creation options. Let compli- about balance in the campaign without those stats. Don’t. Just
cations emerge during gameplay. There will be plenty, given .  .  . don’t. Most NPCs don’t need detailed character sheets.
the average player. They only require the stats the PCs will likely interact with.
Another option is to “turn the dial” on rules by mak- For a fight scene involving some mooks, anything not combat
ing a note of which rules might be relevant, but only using related is irrelevant unless the GM intends to permit non-com-
them when dramatically appropriate. This allows the GM to bat ways of defeating them. Likewise, a fence might
look like this: “Michael “Shine” Duron, Fast-Talk-14,
Merchant-15, Contact Group (Local underworld;
Skill-15; 9 or less).” The GM can make up everything
C ommunication else in the moment and take notes on additional traits
The key to good campaigns is communication. The GM for NPCs the protagonists might meet again.
should be open to the players as much as possible, while the Campaigns are often built by accretion – the PCs’
players should feel comfortable coming to their GM with ideas interactions with the world eventually help mold
and problems. A few tips: the world. By deciding only on key stats before the
campaign starts, the GM has greater flexibility when
• Pop Culture Comparison: Be open to players phrasing ques- interacting with players, while keeping a framework
tions like “I wanna be X from Y.” This sort of fiction-based con- to hang the world on.
cept is extremely helpful when starting character or campaign
design because it lets the GM build a good foundation. Just be
wary of characters being too much like X from Y; ensure the PCs M etagame raits vs T .
have some key differences, to avoid “but X from Y could have
done it!” arguments later. I mpulse uys B
• Bad Character Design: Be willing to tell players “No, that Metagame traits (e.g., Luck or Serendipity) are
doesn’t work for the campaign” and then help them design some- common ways for players to arrange the lucky breaks
thing with many of the same key features that does fit. A fasci- that fictional protagonists often get via writer fiat.
nating character concept may simply clash: a rock-star cyborg While those traits work well for lower-power cam-
fits a high-tech campaign, not a high-fantasy one, and trying paigns, characters with north of 400 points might
to shoehorn in a magical construct bard could require NPCs to be better served by GURPS Power-Ups 5: Impulse
react in ways that “break the suspension of disbelief” or become Buys. With Impulse Points, the players can change
boring. More obviously, “best at everything” concepts rarely play the scenery of the campaign, get favors in play, and
well with others. It’s better to catch incompatible designs before much, much more. Consider carefully the value of
they enter play than to have to fix things later. just rerolling a bad roll vs. being able to really influ-
• No Inspiration: Sometimes a player just has zero character ence the setting in an organic and logical manner.
ideas. They might not like the campaign (and that’s a different,
serious problem), but usually they’re just having a hard time
coming up with something that catches their interest. In such H -P
igh owered ombat C
cases, the GM’s job is clear: help the player throw spaghetti at Creating exciting battles in high-stakes campaigns
the wall and see what sticks. Suggest things that the player has can be difficult for the GM, thanks to the competence
enjoyed in the past and would work for the campaign at hand of the protagonists. To start calibrating combat, the
or things the player hasn’t tried before! At the worst, for the GM should measure the basic damage output of each
GM who knows a player well enough, ask if they want a char- of the characters, and determine how much damage
acter with Amnesia, and design a fun mystery for the player to they can take. That is, figure out a given PC’s best
engage with. attack and note the range for minimum and maxi-
mum, plus the average.

With Great Power . . . 4

 Example: The 1,000-point superhero Laser Lass might be campaigns, combats are just another way to highlight the
able to emit blasts doing 15d burning. Thus, the GM would awesomeness of the players’ characters – while also remind-
note this as “Laser Lass, 15-90 (52).” ing them not to get overconfident, if the mooks have some
strategy! To present more of a challenge when using mooks,
For how much damage a character can take, add up all
the GM can use the following optional modification for Basic
DR the character has and note if the DR has any limitations
Abstract Difficulty (GURPS Action 2: Exploits, p. 4):
(such as “Only vs. energy”). Optionally, use the rules for
Point Totals and Overall Power from How to Be A GURPS Super BAD: Normally, BAD is not used in combat. But in
GM, p. 27. high-powered campaigns, the GM can ignore this and give
Broadly, unless a high-powered PC is fighting an equal-pow- the opposition half the bonus from BAD to all rolls made in
ered NPC, the protagonists will win most combats – and combat (e.g., attack, damage, active defenses). This lets mooks
that’s okay! It’s expected that the PCs can wipe the floor with challenge the high-points heroes even if the villains have
the mooks the big bad sends after them. In high-powered barely above-average traits.

The High-Points-Total
Character
There are two types of “high points” characters. The high-points-total characters! It’s just that one is broadly
first is the most obvious: someone with points north of competent (a Jack-of-All-Trades) and the other is specifically
300 – sometimes far north. Such characters can afford to competent (a Jenny One-Skill).
spend points on being broadly competent, giving them good
odds of affecting multiple issues. Examples include travelers
in time and space, caped crusaders, and hyper-competent Character Creation
space-faring captains. The second type is a character who The involvement of the GM in character creation is par-
has concentrated points in a specific aspect. Such characters ticularly important in high-stakes campaigns. Player char-
often “punch above their weight class” in their area of exper- acters who are not aligned with the campaign’s premise can
tise. Even at relatively low points totals, specialized charac- cause all sorts of trouble, and the larger the point totals, the
ters seem to be of higher value. Both types are considered more trouble.

With Great Power . . . 5

Starting Power Level special abilities, 100 on skills, up to ‑50 points in disadvan-
tages, and a final 200 on whatever you like” or “up to 200
The GM should first decide on the starting point value of
points on attributes, 400 in advantages and abilities, 100 in
their high-powered game. The higher the value, the greater
skills, ‑50 in disadvantages, and 100 on GM-designed pack-
the challenges and the stakes should be. This can be tricky
ages.” For campaigns with one GM and one or two players,
for the GM who has never run a high-value campaign before,
using templates to design broadly competent adventur-
who may thus choose a conservative number (anything less
ers might be the better route; see “Buddies and Loners,”
than 300 points). This is rarely as good an idea as it may seem;
Pyramid #3/53: Action, pp. 4-8, for what this could look like
the promise of high stakes encourages players to design either
in a GURPS Action campaign.
Jennies One-Skill who become frustrated or bored outside
Another way to do this is to use “Buckets of Points” from
their specialization, or Jacks-of-All-Trades who can’t quite
Pyramid #3/65: Alternate GURPS III. Sean Punch’s methodol-
rise to the occasion – any occasion. While not a fixed rule,
ogy for character creation is spot on for high-points and low-
anything labeled “high points” should start around 300-500
points characters.
points. This is the beginning value of the high-stakes GURPS
Monster Hunters series.
The GM might find it useful to reference pop culture as Building to the Concept
a measuring device. For example, the GM could say, “Like Normally, GURPS campaigns start out with a specific point
the Avengers, but everyone is more street level, so 600 points budget, and the players build their characters from there. This
or so.” The GM may also wish to use one of the methods equality of point budgets means characters are theoretically
described under Templates and Buckets or Building to the balanced against one another. Fixed point budgets also can
Concept (below). be useful because they require characters to focus on niches,
reducing the odds of an unbalanced party,
limiting unexpected game-mechanical
synergies, and ensuring a greater range
B e the H ero s ’ H ero of possible adventures. But cinematic
campaigns can benefit from (or even
Some of the current series for GURPS (particularly Action, After the End,
require!) an entirely different approach.
and Dungeon Fantasy) specify starting point totals below the very high level.
It’s more GM-intensive than normal and
These totals keep character concepts tightly focused while ensuring that no
requires the players and the GM to trust
one plays a schlub in a campaign that’s all about heists, surviving the apoca-
each other, but at high enough point
lypse, or dungeon delving. Such games hinge on competency from each player
totals, what becomes more meaningful
character. It’s possible to reduce the values of templates found in the series
is how the character can affect the plot.
(see, for example, GURPS Action 4: Specialists or GURPS Dungeon Fantasy
First, the GM needs to decide
15: Henchmen), but increasing them can be harder due to the fact players
what  point range  the campaign will
have more options and power-ups to choose from, and thus can design char-
span, and then the average player char-
acters who can succeed more often and potentially at a greater range of tasks.
acter’s point value. This range of points
For starting characters with higher than standard point values, the GM should
is called the “tolerance.” In general, a
always be involved. The GM will want to rein in Jacks-of-All-Trades who are
tolerance of 50% in either direction is
spreading themselves too thin with too many skills, suggest Jennies One-Skill
good for most campaigns, but super-
need some basic skills (like Survival along with Fireball), and decide whether
hero or fantasy games can go well above
to let a minmaxer get away with some incredible skill-trait combination.
or below that.
To have a better sense of what players might get up to, as well as to ensure
they focus on the campaign concept (“20 points in Free Fall? In an Earth- Example: A GM who wants to run
bound setting?”), the GM may create packages of traits for the players to a 1,000-point superheroes campaign
choose. After all, 250 points in a standard template plus 50 points decided on might have a minimum of 500 points
by the players means the GM must keep track of more possible actions that and a maximum of 2,000 points. With
the players could take than if the GM restricted them to picking a 250-point an average point value of 1,000 points,
template plus five 10-point packages. the tolerance is 50% to 200%.
So, how do you challenge a 300-point delver in Dungeon Fantasy or hero
in Action? Raise the stakes! The High-Powered Campaign (pp. 3-5) is full of Next, the GM provides an overview
ideas for exactly that. of the campaign (genre, a few sentences
about the setting, and any adventure
expectations). Then the GM gets with
the players (individually or together) and
asks for pitches about their characters. The
Templates and Buckets GM can provide a questionnaire designed to find out how the
Having access to large numbers of points has its hazards. character might fit into the campaign, and to help integrate
Aside from risking characters who are too focused or too each player’s vision of their character with the setting. (For
general, players may suffer from “decision fatigue” because example, the GM might ask: What is your character’s current
they have too many choices! If the GM isn’t starting with life goal or the motivation for doing what they do? Where did
templates from an existing GURPS series, specifying broad the character grow up? What was their training?) The goal is
guidelines can still be helpful to the players; for example, to ensure all the PCs are appropriate to the campaign, and
“spend 100 points on attributes, 200 on advantages, 200 on the players are happy with them.

With Great Power . . . 6

 Each player now describes “What You Must Have,” “What concerning issue is muddying the themes and creating uncer-
You Need,” “What You’d Like,” and “What Would Be Cool” for tainty about which genre expectations are in effect in the cam-
their character concept. paign. Players can’t react confidently to the game world unless
they know how the game world will react to their characters.
• What You Must Have: These traits are essential to the
player’s character concept. The player cannot adequately por-
tray the character without them. For example, Captain Gadget Playing With Power
needs Gadgeteer abilities, Siren needs Voice and Mind Control, In this approach, the players create “normal” characters.
and Robbing Hood needs high DX and Weapon Master (Bow). The GM then throws them into trouble up to their ears, but
• What You Need: These are traits that help the character doesn’t kill them and instead hands out more points. A lot
concept come to life. The player could live without them, but more points.
the character wouldn’t be as much fun. It would be good if What catapults the protagonists into problems might be
Captain Gadget could be hyper-competent with mundane the first stirrings of a new power, or the stress may cause their
technology (Mechanic, Computer Programming, etc.), Siren powers to awaken. Either way, they started as regular (or
could communicate with marine life (including seagulls), and below average) PCs for the setting, and now they’re speeding
Robbing Hood could afford a zillion trick arrows. to the top on large batches of earned points. The GM can let
• What You’d Like: These are traits that would be useful the players assign the points, or hash out a rough progression
and help the player with the character concept, but they’re not with each player and hand out packages of power increases
integral to it. For instance, Captain Gadget would like to have instead, at longer intervals, with some points per session to
an Ally group of little battery-powered buddies, Siren likes address minor character adjustments.
the idea of high Appearance (or Reputation
and Wealth from a singing career), and
Robbing Hood would like an Ally group
of humans, not little toys, thanks.
• What Would Be Cool: These are
traits that would enhance the character
concept, but aren’t really needed at all.
Perhaps Captain Gadget wants Contacts
who are sapient computers, Siren would
like to be covered in tiny scales (that
give DR) and have the ability to shape-
shift into a mermaid and maybe Control
(Water), and Robbing Hood could also
be good at computer hacking.
Once the GM and the players have
gone through this process, the GM final-
izes each player’s character. This may
require only reviewing the character
sheet and checking math, or it might take
creating new advantages, negotiating
lesser forms of expensive “What Would
Be Cool” traits, and denying Captain
Gadget a robot blimp fleet.
Overall, building to the concept fits
high-points campaigns well because it
provides a framework for characters, using
the average and tolerance to set expectations without forc- Power-Playing
ing concepts into restrictive point limits. It works best with This tack is nearly the reverse of Playing With Power. The
groups who have been together for a while or at least have character is built to be powerful, and instead of a mix of plan-
a strong, shared social contract. It can also take a while, ning and evolving to fit with a group, they’re meant to occupy
so use this method for pick-up games only when designing a niche from the start. The Team Healer, the Team Brick,
characters is meant to be part of the experience! the Crowd Controller – they may have personality and back-
story, and develop into complex characters, but they start out
Approaches to defined by the “high concept.” The GM should be very involved
in character progression, to keep each one from encroaching
Character Design on someone else’s niche.
Here are some broad approaches that the GM can take for
making powerful characters for high-stakes games. Mixing Powerful Realistic Characters
and matching may be possible, but should be expected to pro- This approach is more orthogonal to the other two, though
duce tension between characters who likely have vastly differ- it interacts more smoothly with Playing With Power. The cam-
ent outlooks because of the way they were designed! A more paign is unrealistic, but the characters take it very seriously.

With Great Power . . . 7

Stakes are high, but everyone has to pay the rent, getting stuck by their point budget. For high-points campaigns, it gets
with the bill for destroyed property is a risk, and underage more complicated: players have plenty of points to spend on
heroes still need to keep their grades up and not ditch school traits and may well use them to produce high-competence
too much. Examples include anime magical-girl teams, portal generalists or hyper-focused specialists. This might lead to
fantasies, and gritty superhero comics. This approach often scattershot characters that don’t fit the campaign mold, gen-
benefits from templates or buckets of points (p. 6) for the real- eralists who encroach on others’ niches (and make it impos-
istic part of the character and then another template or bucket sible for a GM to challenge anyone with something they’re
for the unrealistic portions of the character. For Powerful not decent at), or ultra-specialized people who can’t be chal-
Realistic Characters, the dichotomy between their mundane lenged in their specialty – but are useless outside it. Luckily,
and fantastic sides is a key part of the campaign feel. there’s an answer: wildcard skills (p.  B175 and GURPS
Power-Ups 7: Wildcard Skills). These encourage “broad spe-
Realistic Powerful Characters cialization,” allowing high competency in small, thematically
connected areas. They give focus, niche-protection, and range.
This version is firmly rooted in “realistic” high-stakes cam-
Furthermore, wildcards aren’t just packages of skills. They
paigns, whether historical, low-magic fantasy, hard science
also serve a dramatic role, which can patch previously unno-
fiction, or modern day. The PCs may be movers and shak-
ticed holes in skill sets, such as whether a detective might have
ers (or assassins and spies), with their biggest point-sinks in
Area Knowledge (the bad side of town). With a high-stakes
traits like Wealth, Allies, or Reputation. The court mage has
campaign, really consider including wildcard skills.
Status and a very few spells; the short-range psionic empath
got rich “cheating” at cards; the starship-owning smuggler
. . . has a ship. Character Growth
Because GURPS front-loads the complexity of
character creation, updating characters is easy.

Powerful Characters
Make a few choices; spend a few points. Boom.
Done. However, incremental growth on top of

and Expectations
already-powerful characters may not suit the cam-
paign. The GM may wish to limit when PCs can
There aren’t necessarily clear demarcations between the spend their experience points, encouraging larger
listed design methods, even though too much intermingling can improvements instead of smaller, immediate-grati-
give a disjointed feeling that, at best, needs careful handling to fication ones (and reducing paper-shuffling during
be interesting instead of frustrating. Here is an example of how every game session to update a few skills). This also
a high-concept idea could be expressed differently in each type. has the side effect of reducing intersession over-
(Similar trope expectations apply for someone whose power is in head since players know they won’t need to upgrade
a magical item – Green Lantern’s ring is very different from Bilbo their characters until a dedicated session.
Baggins’s! – psionic abilities, etc.) Some campaigns might not use earned points,
but only adjust social traits (Contacts, Wealth,
Reputation, etc.) according to how the characters
The Werewolf Heir behaved. If using Building to the Concept (pp. 6-7),
When the first change hits, Playing With Power werewolves are the GM may not award points, but instead discuss
suddenly awakened to their supernatural side! Their mundane each character’s logical growth at the end of an
cares take a distant second place as they deal with new enemies adventure arc.
and new abilities.
Power-Playing werewolves may have always known their nature
and use their wolf-forms to speedily run down villains or scout Alternate Point Rewards
ahead for the group. NPCs are easily persuaded to be calm about If the GM wants to award character points, it
the wolf, except when plot-relevant. can be difficult to pin down how many to dish out
Powerful Realistic lycanthropes must keep the neighbors from when running a high-points campaign. The PCs
reporting a “stray dog” while they navigate were-critter politics likely already have almost everything they wanted
(which may involve killing challengers!) without losing their mun- for their character concept, so upgrading it is tricky!
dane job until they’ve gotten the royal purse. Five character points is unlikely to modify a 500-
Realistic Powerful ones do political outreach to prepare mun- point character very much in some campaigns.
dane humanity for Lycanthrope Rights – while thwarting the To emulate some of the ways pop culture heroes
occasional kidnapping or deportation attempt. seem to progress with their powers and traits,
another method is called for. First, figure out the
average starting point value of the characters and
the approximate ending point value they should have
Skills vs. Wildcard Skills when the GM intends to wrap up the campaign; the differ-
ence between the two values is the total number of points each
GURPS has several hundred skills available (even more character should have earned by the end of the campaign. The
if counting specialties). This can lead to a lot of time pick- ending point value can be anything the GM likes, but is often
ing “perfect” skills during character creation. For most cam- related to accomplishing a specific goal such as “defeat the big
paigns, this works out fine because the players are limited bad” or “save the world from the aliens.”

With Great Power . . . 8

 Next, determine the number of sessions the GM expects to Example: A group playing 1,000-point supers hopes to have
run and the average length of those sessions. Finally, divide a four-hour session once a week for the next year. That’s up to
the total number of earned points by the number of sessions 52 sessions in a year, but the GM takes into account sickness,
to figure out how many character points the players should be family, holidays, and vacations, and assumes it’ll be more like
earning each session. Extra points for good roleplaying, clever 40. The GM wants the PCs to gain about 50% of their total
solutions, etc. aren’t included in this average, but should still points over time. Thus, the GM should award about 12 points
be awarded! This is a guide, not a rigid structure. per session (or about three per hour).

High-Powered Pitfalls
Here are a few common challenges to watch out for when Star Trek’s Q: they’re vehicles for the storywriters to “break
running a high-powered campaign. the rules” and force less-godlike characters to deal with sit-
uations they could not normally get into themselves But in a

Point Debt game? As NPCs, they can make players frustrated and help-
less when they show up, and as PCs, if everyone is omnicom-
It’s happened to everyone at least once: a player has cre- petent, what could possibly challenge them, and why bother
ated a character and believes they’ve gone over every detail with character sheets, anyway?
and processed every possibility. Then the game
begins, and BAM! The player discovers that
they forgot to add some key trait. The GM
could have the person edit the character
and recalculate everything. Or, the GM
could simply add the trait to the character
sheet and put the protagonist in point debt.
Being in point debt means the player needs
to spend most of their earned character
points at the end of every session to buy off
the late purchase.
The GM decides how many earned points
must go to the debt each session (from a
fraction of points to all of them). Requiring
fewer than all the earned points allows the
character to advance in other areas, like their
fellow party members. For players who try
to game the system by purposely forgetting
traits, the GM should require that all earned
points be spent on paying off the debt.

All-Powerful
Characters
Omnicompetent characters may work
well in fiction where the writer decides what
happens and how it happens, but they are
boring in a game. This doesn’t mean pow-
erful people are boring, but such a charac-
ter needs to have an internal weakness – an
area of non-competency that keeps them
from Saving The Day Again, each gaming
session. For example, Watchman’s Doctor
Manhattan is a godlike character. He can
do just about anything and is the only
character with traditional superpowers in
that setting . . . but his disconnection from
humanity makes him easy to manipulate
and causes him all manner of problems.
He’s still capable of losing. Meanwhile, con-
sider the Beyonder from Marvel Comics or

With Great Power . . . 9

Misplaced Realistic However, super-normals tend to be somewhat fragile
against the superpowered in some situations. The GM needs
Powerful Characters to recognize this and make sure the character can do use-
ful things in such conditions. For example, if the big bad
A high-points character is not necessarily one that is is all but invulnerable to attacks except by the team strong
unrealistic. GURPS realism is essentially, “if it’s possible guy, the GM should toss in a few mooks of varying abilities
in the real world, it’s possible in the game.” There are cer- for the super-normal and others in the group to engage.
tainly real-world examples of people who, as game charac-
ters, would just be worth more points than the hoi polloi.
Through genetics, luck, or hard-won talent, they are just Unusual (Background)
for Whom?
more capable – them’s the breaks.
A high point total does not mean being powerful in all areas.
A 400-point person sank most of their points into social traits Unusual Background is a GM-defined trait that’s often
(Influence skills, Rank, Status, Wealth, etc.) would be abysmal used incorrectly. Unusual Background effectively covers
at physical conflict. Similarly, real people can be “minmaxed” three concepts and should be considered whenever one of
or tightly focused via raw talent (e.g., “savants”) or intense these cases crops up.
training (e.g., Navy SEALs). As characters, they may have far First, it’s a measure of how rare a trait is in the cam-
fewer points, but can do that one thing astonishingly well. paign world. For example, teleportation might be possible,
However, see Approaches to Character Design, pp.  7-8; but only one in a million has it. Unusual Background for a
putting a “realistic powerful character” into a setting that rare known ability includes the awe it attracts and profits it
punishes that form of realism will do neither player nor cam- can turn.
paign any favors. The GM needs to keep an eye on character Second, it is a measure of how prepared the setting’s
creation and steer the players in the right direction for the inhabitants are against a trait. For example, if there are no
campaign – don’t let the players create Bill Gates when the known means to block teleporters in the campaign world, or
setting needs Bruce Wayne. no one thinks to guard against teleportation because it is a
secret ability, then the character should pay for that benefit.

Super-Normal vs. Third, it exchanges flexibility in other areas for a trait

the GM doesn’t want getting out of hand. (If the GM really
Superpowered doesn’t want PCs to buy an ability, the GM needs to spec-
ify “not for PCs.”) For example, teleportation is extremely
In some campaigns, a player might want to design a super handy, but if the GM can siphon off some points to prevent
“normal” – someone who is essentially human and possesses the teleporter from also becoming a high-DX assassin-acro-
no superhuman abilities, but is at peak human performance. bat, the GM now has an in-game reason that prevents boring
In GURPS terms, this tends to manifest as extremely high “I teleport and win” scenarios.
attributes, useful traits like Combat Reflexes and Luck, and By its nature, the cost of Unusual Background requires
high or broad skills. Balancing such people against those the GM to make a judgment call, but GURPS Powers offers
with actual powers can be tricky. The best option is to load some suggestions. For a general discussion of the advan-
the super-normal up on “plot armor” (e.g., meta-game traits) tage, see Powers, pp. 184-186. For suggestions with point
to allow them to be of similar value to their powered com- costs, see Arms Control, Powers, p. 138; Pulp Chi, Powers,
panions, but lacking anything identifiable as actual powers. p. 209; and Unusual Backgrounds, Powers, pp. 204, 209, 217,
Because they spent their points on being the best at what they 220. GURPS Psionic Campaigns, p. 13, provides details on
do without chucking fireballs, meta-game traits allow them determining the cost of Unusual Background (Psi).
to do exactly that in game.

“That proves you are unusual,” returned the Scarecrow;

“and I am convinced that the only people worthy
of consideration in this world are the unusual ones.
For the common folks are like the leaves of a tree,
and live and die unnoticed.”
– L. Frank Baum, The Land of Oz

With Great Power . . . 10

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