30 July 2021

Found Is Found

There are many rules in an RPG that sometimes don't make sense.

In GURPS it says that someone of a lower tech level must pay double for each TL difference between their native and the item they want; assuming, of course, that higher tech stuff is available at all.

So a TL 0 person buying TL 2 mail would have to pay 4x as much or 8x as much for TL3 mail and plates.

But once the adventure starts, the armorer isn't going to be carding the characters at the door and charging the barbarian more than the knight for a pair of vambraces.

The 2x per TL is for character creation only.

A tougher nut to crack is where the money will buy something that's got a character point value, like cyberwear.

Do you make the character pay points or money for their upgrades?  Is it points at character creation and cash during play?  Both?

I tend to land on making the player pay points at creation and money during play and not forcing them to drop their experience points balancing the increase in character points.

Likewise, I've never forced a PC to spend points on wealth levels once their characters have slain the dragon and are discovering exactly how many wagons it takes to move the hoard.

Aside:  Do you know the dimensions of a one metric ton cube of gold?  37.26cm or just about 14-11/16" per side.  That's two cubes per wagon.  How many cubes in that mountain of gold the dragon's corpse is sitting on?

2 comments:

  1. Ahhh... Character generation. That makes more sense, as long as the TL0 culture isn't directly in contact with a higher TL, like a part of the higher culture.

    Some neo-barb travelling the wastes of the land to come to civilization? Okay, TL0 at the start of the travel, but what about any experience or treasure or just normal stuff picked up on the way?

    This is where having a flexible GM/DM can make a game, while an inflexible GM/DM can kill off what would be a great game.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sometimes known as the Kellys Heros Paradox.

    ReplyDelete

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