GURPS Character Creation: Just the Basics! Part 6

Welcome back, Gamelings!
We're almost done creating our character!!

How super exciting is that?

Today we will focus on Quirks and some information on Skills.

So grab a snack, some caffeine, and a comfy chair.
This might take a while.

Let's start with 

Quirks...
Quirks are small, strange personality traits that are neither advantages or disadvantages.
Example: Gluttony is a disadvantage; but if you can only eat or drink something if it is the color indigo, that's a quirk.

You can have up to 5 quirks at -1 points each.
A mental quirk is seen as a personality trait and must either require you to make a decision, require a certain action, or limit your actions/ give you a small penalty.

Mental quirks, though minor,  MUST be played! If you are scared of spiders and go rolling in a pit of tarantulas, what are you even doing? The GM WILL penalize you for bad roleplaying.
Follow the rules.

A physical quirk does not HAVE to be roleplayed (although it is much more fun that way) but it does give you minor penalties in play.

Skills:
Skills are certain things you are knowledgeable in (kung fu, chemistry, cooking, etc.). Your character, in order to stand out from every other character in the game world should have a particular set of skills.

You will start your campaign with a few skills and can acquire more through training as the campaign continues! Your skills are measured in skill levels. 

Let's say that you have LiamNeeson-16 (Note: This is not a real skill...unfortunately), that means that your LiamNeeson skill is at level 16. 

(That's a pretty high LiamNeeson)

When it is time to make a move, you (or the GM) will roll 3d against the level of the appropriate skill modified for the situation. If the number rolled is less than or equal to your skill level, you succeed!
Congratulations!

But a roll of 17 or 18 is always a failure so, there's that. 

Skills (Controlling attributes):

Each skill is based off of a controlling attribute. 

There are 4 types of skill bases:
ST-based: Skills only depending on your brute strength. These are fairly rare skills.

DX-based: These skills rely on coordination, speed, and agility.
IQ-based: These skills require intelligence, creativity, and reasoning.
HT-based: These skills rely on just how physically fit you are.

Skills (Difficulty Level):

Just like in the real world, some skills take more time, study, and practice to master. The more time/study/practice that a skill requires, the harder the difficulty level is and the more points you must spend to achieve it.

Easy: These are skills that pretty much anyone can do given a short learning period.

Average: These are skills used by people every day at work, at home, in social situations, and even in combat.

Hard: These are skills that require intensive formal training.

Skills (Tech Level):

Some skills are different or evolve depending on the tech level. Those skills must be learned at your tech level or lower. (Higher Tech Level skills can be learned in game but only if you have a teacher and the skill is not IQ-based).
YOU MUST NOTE THE TECH LEVEL ON YOUR CHARACTER SHEET WITH THE SKILL!
Example: If you have navigation/TL2, you can chart the stars and whatnot... However, if you have navigation/TL8, you would just get on your phone, click GoogleMaps (or the equivalent) and use that for your GPS.

Skills (Buying):

In order to learn or improve skills, you have to spend character points... That is just the way things work. The point cost of a certain skill depends on 2 things:
The difficulty level

+
the final skill level you want to be at.

Here is a handy-dandy chart found in the GURPS Lite book to help you out!

Let's say that you are learning an IQ-based skill and your IQ is at 12. Let's also say that you wish to end up at IQ+2 and the difficulty is hard. That means that your point cost will be 12.

Skills (Defaults):
Most skills will have a default level. This is the level that you can TRY to do it if you have had no training whatsoever. If a skill has a default level, everyone can do it!
It's like an exclusive club... but with everyone... and not a club.
A skill USUALLY defaults to its controlling attribute (ST, DX, IQ, or HT) at -4 if Easy, -5 if Average, or -6 if Hard.
If a skill has NO default level, it is far too complex. It requires training!

If your skill's basic attribute is higher than 20, you must treat that attribute as a 20 when figuring out the default skill level. (Even if your character is superhuman.)
Only individuals from a society where a skill is known may attempt a default roll against that skill.
As an example, let's say your skill is snowshoeing... if you came from an area similar to the Sahara desert, you do not get to attempt a default roll. What do you know about snow?
Nothing.
That's what.
Not a darn thing.

Alright folks.
That will be it for this post!
Our next post will be the ENTIRE LIST of skills...

The Chronicles of Darkness - Character Creation Continued, Skills/Derived Traits

Welcome back folks to the second installment of our character creation seminar, or… post.

Needs more darkness

In our first entry, we went over the background of the World of Darkness and got our Attributes sorted out. This time around, we’re going to get into Skills and Derived Traits.

Skills are exactly what it says on the box. Each one determines how well your character does in a certain field. There are also Skill Specializations, which further augment those abilities.

Similar to how we decided how to allocate our attributes, we choose a Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary category of skills, between Physical, Mental, and Social. Only, this time, we get eleven skill points in Primary, seven points in Secondary, and four in Tertiary.

Gotta have priorities

The skills are pretty simple themselves!

Physical – Athletics, Brawl, Drive, Firearms, Larceny, Stealth, Survival, Weaponry

Mental – Academics, Computer, Crafts, Investigation, Medicine, Occult, Politics, Science

Social – Animal Ken, Empathy, Expression, Intimidation, Persuasion, Socialize, Streetwise, Subterfuge

Many of these are self-explanatory, for example, Firearms determines your skill with guns and the like, while Academics shows how educated you are. Some are a little more nuanced, like Crafts, which covers all crafting from carpentry to soldering electronics, to even basket weaving.

One main difference from before is that Skills start at 0, where Attributes started at 1.

Everyone's got a passion

 If you decide that you want a skill at 5 dots (to show that your character is world-renowned for his/her ability to do the thing) the fifth dot costs an additional skill point (only at creation) for a total of 6 points. This will make the character super specialized, but weak in other areas.

Once your skills dots are allocated, you then choose three skill specializations to give to one or more skills you have dots in. For example, an MMA fighter that put three or four dots in Brawl may want Muay Thai and Grappling as two different Brawl Specializations, and put his third one into Intense for Intimidate. The Specializations are meant to be specific, not broad, so a Firearms Specialization in Guns isn’t appropriate, but one in Pistols is. What’s appropriate for your character or not is up to a discussion between you and your Storyteller. Each specialization gives you an effective additional dot in that skill for the purpose of that specific thing.

Will Smith knows all

Your skills come into play when trying to do things covered by that skill, combined with an appropriate attribute. For example, the aforementioned MMA fighter tries to grab an opponent. He would a number of d10s equal to his Strength plus his Brawl, adding his Grapple Specialization. Let’s say he has a Strength of 3 and a Brawl of 4, which would total 8 dice. Then you would subtract the Defense of the opponent (explained later in this post,) which we’ll say is a 3, bringing his dice down to 5. Rolling those 5 dice, he gets 5 6 9 4 2. Any die that comes up with an 8 or higher is considered a success, so for this purpose, he gets the grab. Some rolls may have a required number of successes to actually succeed. For instance, trying to hack into a fairly secure computer may require 3 successes to complete instead of 1.


This is what a veteran sheet looks like

*For supernatural characters only!*
You add the supernatural template (explained in later posts) before determining derived traits!


Don't tell your mortal friends

Now, on to our derived traits. They are called derived traits because they are determined by other dots on your sheet.

The first is your Health boxes, which is determined by your Stamina dots plus your character’s Size (almost always 5 for an adult human). Our MMA fighter is pretty tough, so his Stamina is 4, giving him 9 total Health boxes.

Next, we have Willpower, which you get from your Resolve plus your Composure. Willpower is used to augment your dice pools, and is refreshed by your Virtue and your Vice (details in a later post.)

Now, we have Speed, which is your characters Size (again, usually 5) plus their Strength and Dexterity. This determines how far they can run in a single turn of combat (3 seconds)

Then, your Defense. This is what you use to dodge attacks coming at you. You use the *lower* of your Wits or Dexterity.

Finally, your Initiative modifier. At the start of combat, each character rolls a d10 and adds their initiative modifier to that roll. The Initiative modifier is your Wits plus your Composure. Whoever has the highest Initiative score after the roll goes first in a fight.

As the dots on your sheet change, so do these. For instance, if you get another dot of Dexterity, you change your Speed, Defense, and Initiative to match!

The Rock may or may not return

Next time, we’ll talk about Merits and start talking about the different types of Supernaturals!

GURPS Character Creation: Just the Basics! Part 5

Ladies and gentlemen,
Boys and girls,
GAMELINGS!

We have come to the Disadvantage (disad) post of our character creation tutorial series.

"What is the definition of a disadvantage?"

Well the GURPS manual defines a disadvantage as:

"a problem or imperfection that renders you less capable than

your attributes, advantages, and skills

would indicate."

"Why would I want to give my character disadvantages?"
Well other than REALISM...
Disadvantages have negative point costs!

That means that you get more points to put into your character elsewhere!

The GM will usually put a cap on the disadvantages you can give your character.

A good rule of thumb for GMs is 50% of the total point cost.

Example: If the total character point allowance is 80 points and your GM has set the disad limit at 50%, you get -40 points for disads!

Other restrictions on disads would be:

Negated Disadvantages: 

You cannot take a disadvantage that one of your advantages would negate! 

Example: you have Acute Hearing, you cannot also have Hard of Hearing.

Villain Disadvantages: 

Some disads are just not "hero" material. I mean, a hero with Intolerance isn't much of a hero at all.  The GM is free to deny them to characters. They are, however, found in villain characters.

Some mental disads don’t affect you all of the time those disads give you a chance to control your urges. These will be marked with a "*". In circumstances likely to trigger your problem, roll 3d against a target number of 12. A roll

of 12 or less means you succeed and shrugoff your urge. A roll of 13 or higher means you fail and suffer its effects! 

This is a self-control roll. 

You never have to roll!
It’s actually good roleplaying (and a heck of a lot more interesting) to give in willingly.

Alright, brace yourselves...
it's time for the list of disadvantages...

Bad Sight:

You have bad eyesight. This gives you a -6 to vision rolls and a -2 to your hit in combat. If the campaign (or your character) is at a tech level high enough to correct it (with glasses or contact lenses) this disad costs -10 character points. If your tech level is too low to correct it, it costs -25!

*Bad Temper:
You are not in control of your emotions! GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF! In any stressful situation you must make a self-control roll. If you fail the roll, you must insult, attack, or act out against the cause of the stress. This is -10 points!

*Bloodlust:
You want your enemies dead.

DEAD dead.
No matter what...
Dead.
This means that all, or the majority of your attacks must be killing blows and you will put in extra shots just to make sure you have really killed them.
Whenever you are in any situation with your enemy (accepting surrender, taking a prisoner, waiting behind them in line at Starbucks while they take forever figuring out what they want) you must roll a self-control roll. If you fail the roll, you try to kill them... even if that means breaking the law, compromising stealth, wasting ammo, violating orders, or pouring insane amounts of boiling-hot coffee down their throats. The chance to go ballistic in your friendly neighborhood Starbucks costs -10 points.

Code of Honor:
This is a personal "code" of ethics that you stick to. The specifics can vary but the intentions must be "Honorable". 

An informal code that applies only among your peers is worth -5 points. 

A formal code that applies only among peers, or an informal one that applies all the time, is worth -10 points. 

A formal Code that applies all the time, or that requires suicide if broken, is worth -15 points.

*Curious:
Now, everyone is a little bit curious. A normal character might ask questions like, "Where does this hallway lead?" or  "What is that light up ahead?" But you? No. That simply won't do. You ask the real questions like, "What does this mildly poisonous plant taste like?" and "Is the fur on this angry lion's nose softer than the fur on it's tail?" You can make a self-control roll. If you fail, you investigate even though you KNOW it could be very dangerous and potentially deadly. (Again, you never HAVE to roll... just keep things interesting and assume that you are gonna pet that hangry lion on the nose.) This costs -5 points

Delusions:
You believe a few things that are just not true...at...all.

There are a couple of levels of just how delusional you really are:

A Minor Delusion affects your behavior, and anyone around you will soon notice it (and react at -1), but it does not keep you from functioning more-or-less normally. -5 points.

A Major Delusion strongly affects your behavior, but does not keep you from living a fairly normal life. Others will react to you at -2. -10 points.

A Severe Delusion affects your behavior so much that it may keep you from functioning in the everyday world. Others react to you at -3, but they are more likely to fear or pity you than to attack. -15 points.

*Gluttony:
Good food and drink are the true loves of your life. You must ALWAYS have an abundance of them in your stores. If you are presented with a piece of food or drink that you should (or NEED to) resist, you can make a self-control roll. If you fail, you gobble it down despite the consequences. This costs -5 points.

*Greed:
You lust for wealth. You will literally do anything to obtain it.Whenever riches are offered (even if it's a trap) you can make a self-control roll. If you fail, you might almost die, but you got that gold, dammit! Small sums do not tempt you as much if you are already rich, but if you are poor you will pretty much chew your arm off to get those riches! Good for you...
This costs -15 points.

Hard of Hearing:
You're not deaf but you have some hearing loss.
I SAID, "YOU'RE NOT DEAF BUT YOU HAVE SOME HEARING LOSS!"
You have -4 on any hearing roll or any roll where it is imperative that you understand someone.
Go ahead and take that -10 points while you walk into that cave that we told you not to go into.

*Honesty:

You must obey the law, and do your best to get others to do so as well. In a lawless area, you do not get to just go crazy. You act as though the laws of your own home were in force. You also assume that others are honest and good unless you know otherwise.

Make a self-control roll whenever you are faced with the choice to break an unreasonable law. If you fail, you MUST obey the law no matter what the consequences. If you succeed, you break the law but must roll a self-control roll afterward. If the second roll is failed, you must turn yourself over to the authorities with haste. This little lovely bit of glory will get you -10 points.

*Impulsiveness:

You have no patience for thinking it out or conversation. You are a doer! If you are alone, you just act without putting thought into anything. If you are a part of a larger group and you MUST talk it through, you do so quickly and get to the action. Make a self-control roll whenever it would be BEST to wait, think, or talk it out. If you fail, you MUST act immediately. This bit of fun will cost -10 points.

Intolerance:

You dislike, distrust, and have a general prejudice against someone, someones, or anyone and everyone!
Other players or NPCs will react at -1 to -5 depending on just how much of a prick you are (This is up to the GM, of course).

Thoroughly intolerant you react at -3 toward anyone not of your own class, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or species (pick one). Total Intolerance of this kind is worth -10 points.

Specific Intolerance aimed at one particular class, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sex, or species is worth from -5 points (commonly encountered victim) to -1 point (are victim).

Jealousy:
You have to be the very best
Like no one ever was

Ahem... Sorry...
You get super upset if anyone seems better than you in any way! You reject any plans made by someone "better" than you and hate when they are the center of attention. If an NPC is jealous, the GM will apply a reaction penalty of -2 to -4 toward the people the NPC is jealous of. This will get you -10 points.

*Lecherousness:
You hit on everyone and everything.You can't help it. You even spout a few lines at yourself in the mirror. Make a self-control roll whenever you are near (for more than a passing moment) a member of the sex that your character finds attractive.
If the other person is Handsome/Beautiful you get -5 slapped onto that roll.
If the other person is Very Handsome/Very Beautiful you get -10 slapped onto the roll.
All of this debauchery costs -15 points.

*Obsession:
Your life has one mission and you will not rest until it is fulfilled!
Make a self-control roll whenever it would be BEST to deviate from your goal. If you fail, you must continue on your quest despite what that may mean for you, your party, and your campaign.
If your obsession is a Short-Term Goal, it costs -5 points.
If your obsession is a Long-Term Goal, it costs -10 points.

*Overconfidence:

You believe that you are far better at something than you really are. Make a self-control roll every time the GM thinks you are being too cautious. If you fail you MUST continue as if you are DEFINITELY able to handle the situation. Fake it til you make it, people!

You receive +2 to reaction rolls made by young or naive characters who believe you to be the superhero you think you are. However you receive -2 to reaction rolls made by people who know better. 

This all costs -5 points.

Pacifism:
You abhor and (attempt to) abstain from violence.
You are either:

Reluctant Killer: You get -4 to hit a person (only people) with a deadlyattack, or -2 if you can’t see his face. If you kill someone, roll 3d – you’re morose anduseless for that many days. -5 points.

One Who Cannot Harm Innocents: You may fight – you may even start fights – but you may only use deadly force on a foe that is attempting to do you serious harm. -10 points.

*Phobias:

A “phobia” is a fear. The more common an object or situation, the greater the point value is for a fear of it. If you have a phobia, you may only temporarily master it by making a successful self-control roll. Even if you master a phobia, you will be at -2 to all IQ, DX, and skill rolls while the cause of your fear is present, and you must roll again every 10 minutes to see if the fear overcomes you. If you fail the self-control roll, you will probably pee your pants and cry like a little baby. Heck, even the THREAT of the phobia requires a self-control roll at +4. 

Some common phobias are:

Blood (Hemophobia): -10 points.

Darkness (Scotophobia): -15 points.

Heights (Acrophobia): -10 points.

Number 13 (Triskaidekaphobia): Roll at

-5 if Friday the 13th is involved! -5 points.

Spiders (Arachnophobia): -5 points.

Sense of Duty:
You feel a strong commitment to a person or group of people. There is nothing that you won't do for them and you could NEVER abandon them. The point value is based on the size of the group your commitment is aimed at.

Individual: -2 points.

Small Group: -5 points.

Large Group: -10 points.

Entire Race: -15 points.

Every Living Being: -20 points.

*Truthfulness:
You cannot and WILL not tell a lie. Make a self-control roll whenever you must keep silent about something. Roll at -5 if you actually have to tell a lie! If you fail, you blurt out the truth. You have a permanent -5 to Fast-Talk skill, and your Acting skill is at -5 when your purpose is to deceive. This gets you -5 points.

Unluckiness:
Your party should probably leave you behind when they head into that casino. You have HORRIBLE luck! I'm talking "fall through a window into a pot of lemon juice and getting out to roll in salt" kind of luck. Once per play session, the GM will arbitrarily and maliciously make something go wrong for you. The GM is not allowed to kill you with "death by bad luck" but pretty much anything north of death is fair game! This crap-shoot is -10 points.

Vow:
I know what you are thinking...
Trust me.. I do..
"But a vow is a good thing, right?"
Suuuuuuuure. I mean... it CAN be...
But let's just say that your vow was to never ever in your entire life drink water until someone has had some first and, oh no, you're all alone. Guess who shrivels up and dies from being dehydrated. Yep. You! The GM is the final judge on point value but it is basically put on a scale of how inconvenient it is for you!

Minor Vow: Silence during daylight hours; vegetarianism; chastity; or something itty bitty like that.. -5 points.

Major Vow: Use no edged weapons; keep silence at all times; never sleep indoors; own no more than your horse can carry; or other semi-crazy vows. -10 points.

Great Vow: Never refuse any request for aid; always fight with the wrong hand; hunt a given foe until you destroy him; challenge every knight you meet to combat; or something else insane (here's looking at you Waterboy...).  -15 points

Hey.
Guess what.
You did it!
We made it through!
Now pick and choose which disads fit your character, throw them up onto your character sheet, gather up all of those extra points, spend 'em, and (as always) check with your GM!

Next time we will cover Quirks and some Skills.
(Skills will be broken up into 2 posts because hot damn there are a lot of them)

See you next time, Gamelings.
I need a nap!

The Chronicles of Darkness – Background/Intro to Character Creation

Welcome one and all! This post will be the first of a multi-part series (I don’t know exactly how many yet,) where we’ll explore the themes, moods, and eventually character creation for one of my favorite worlds, the Chronicles of Darkness (formerly known as the New World of Darkness.)

To begin, the World of Darkness is just like our world, in the present day. It has our cities, our races, our technology, even our people. There are two primary differences, however. The first is that it is inherently darker. Crime rates are higher, police response times are lower, murder and disappearances are commonplace. The second? The supernatural is real. Vampires, Werewolves, the Fae, almost every story you’ve heard.

And you’re just a normal guy (or girl) living in this dark world.

And this guy is your neighbor

Now, you may be wondering how people sleep through the night, knowing that the monsters of the night could be right next door. The thing is… they don’t know. Most of them at least. Each creature has a reason to keep humanity in the dark.

Now! On to character creation!

For this, we’ll be using the base New World of Darkness, not the Second Edition (known as the God Machine Chronicle.)

This game is unlike a lot of tabletop RPGs out there, like Dungeons and Dragons, and Pathfinder. It is a game of storytelling, not dungeon crawling (most of the time.) While none is inherently better than the other, each has its own merit.

The Storytelling System uses 10-sided dice, and uses a stat system that goes from 0-5 in each stat (there are always exceptions.) A zero means you are completely unskilled in that particular stat, while a 5 means you are world-renowned for that particular stat, with the rest being the in-betweens.

This weakling here only has a Strength of 10

Step 1! Concept: This part is very basic, as it’s just a short phrase describing who your character is. This could be anything from ‘girl next door’ to ‘small town mechanic.’ This is also where you come up with some semblance of a background for your character. You could also look to your storyteller to help run a prologue for your character, to help flesh him/her out.

Step 2! Attributes: These are divided into three categories; Physical, Mental, and Social. These are then divided up into three more categories; Power, Finesse, and Resistance. Each of these starts at 1.

The Physical Attributes are, in order of Power, Finesse, and Resistance, are Strength, Dexterity, and Stamina.

The Mental Attributes are Intelligence, Wits, and Resolve.

The Social Attributes are Presence, Manipulation, and Composure.

For your character, you want to determine which of the three categories, between Physical, Mental, and Social, you want to make the Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary.

For the Primary category, you will have 5 extra points to divide between the three. For instance, if you choose Physical, you could put 2 into Strength, 2 into Dexterity, and 1 into Stamina, a fair stat spread for an athlete.

The Secondary category would get 4 points, while the Tertiary category would get 3.

Our next article will go into Skills and derived traits!

GURPS Character Creation: Just the basics! Part 3

Hello again, gamelings!

Welcome to the third installment of “Let’s Create A Character!”

In today’s episode we will be discussing:
Social Background and Wealth and Influence

Let’s jump right into it, shall we?

Social Background consists of 2 elements:

Tech level and Language.


Tech Level:

Tech level is the number of the level of technological advancement. Prehistory/caveman days would have a low tech level while future/space age would have a high tech level.

Usually the campaign is assigned a tech level but if you want to be crazy with it all (and your GM lets you), you can spend points to be higher or lower tech level than the assigned campaign tech.

Now let’s say that you want to have a lower tech level than that of the campaign…

Well… okay then…

It’s your choice.

This means that you start off the campaign with NO KNOWLEDGE of how to use ANYTHING at the campaigns tech level.

You’re campaign takes place in late Victorian England (tech level 6)? Your tech level is 2?

Good luck figuring out indoor plumbing! Hell… Good luck even figuring out books or doors!

You can, however, learn certain DX-based skills (such as opening those darn doors or how to hold and fire a weapon, even) in play if there is someone of the correct tech level around to teach you.  However, since you don’t think the same way as other (higher-tech) players, they can’t teach you any IQ based tech skills.

In order to obtain this super special lack of technological knowledge, you get -5 points for each tech level you plan to loose.

Good for you…

HOWEVER!!!!

If you plan to have a higher tech level than your fellow campaigners (and the ability to look down your nose at these primitive beasts), you must spend 5 points per tech level!  This comes in handy big time if you are in a lower tech level campaign and just so happen to be a doctor!

“QUICK! HAND ME THAT SYRINGE OF EPINEPHRINE!!!”
“Yarp.”

Moving right along to Language!

Now, GURPS just assumes that your character is fluent in your native language! (How sweet is that?)

Your fellow campaigners and gm, however, will need to know what that is so go ahead and mark it on your character sheet in a similar layout to this “English (Native) [0]”.

Go on.

Trust me… You want to.

It will save you time and a headache later…

Done with that?

Good.

Now…
Language:

Language is a combination of two parts:

Comprehension levels and Literacy.

Comprehension level is basically how well you can function in the foreign language.

How many points you are going to spend on learning a new language depends largely on your comprehension level, of which there are 4.

None: Just nod and smile because this language doesn’t even rustle your hair as it zooms over your head. It costs zero points to have this non-level.

Broken: You can say “where is the bathroom?” but you probably won’t understand the answer until the person you are speaking to slows it down like they are speaking to a toddler. This means that you are at a -3 when it comes to skills that require or depend upon language. This costs 1 point for spoken and 1 point for written.

Accented: You can speak the language but people snicker at you behind your back for how silly you sound. This gives you a -1 to skills that require or depend on language. This level costs 2 points for spoken and 2 points for written.

Native: You speak this language so well that no one would know that you aren’t from there… you know… except that they’ve never seen you around before…  This one has no negatives toward your language skills and it costs 3 points for spoken and 3 points for written.

Next up we have...



 Literacy:

This basically determines if you can read!

Illiteracy: This is a written comprehension level of “none”… It basically looks like scribbles and gibberish to you. You get the previously mentioned -3 disadvantage to your language rolls. Dang… that sucks.

Semi-literacy: This is a written comprehension level of “Broken”… you read SUPER slowly! You must roll against your IQ to understand the most basic things written in this language. You get the previously mentioned -2 disadvantage to your language rolls.

Literacy: This is a written comprehension level of “accented” or “native”. You can read at full speed and even understand it! YAY YOU! You still get the -1 disadvantage to language rolls if you are “accented” though.

Alright!

On to Wealth and Influence!

What does it take to be wealthy and influential?

Well…

Wealth

Reputation

Importance

THESE ARE THE INGREDIENTS CHOSEN TO CREATE THE PREFECT LITTLE GIRL!

I mean…

Yea…


Wealth:

Wealth is dependent on the character.

A factory worker in modern days will be living much more comfortably than a medieval lord even though the amount of money he has is less.
It’s all variable.

Most people will start off with an “Average” wealth level. This doesn’t cost any character points and it gives you the average wealth level for your campaign.

Now here’s the fun part:

Deciding what wealth level you want to have.

Dead Broke: You own nothing but the scraps of linen that you call clothing attached to your body. That’s it. You have no money. You have no property. You have no source of income at all! You are unable to work, unwilling to work, or can’t friggin find work! -25 points! Congrats! Go spend them on a shower, a shave, and some food…. You bum.

Poor: You have 1/5 of the average campaign wealth. You can find some work but no one is willing to pay you more than pennies! -15 points.

Struggling: You have ½ the average campaign wealth. You can get any job out there… you just won’t make very much money at all… -10 points.

Average: Your bank account is completely average in every way. You are the everyman! 0 points

Comfortable: You have a job but you are living a bit better than the rest of the world. Congrats! Your starting wealth is double that of the Average campaign wealth! 10 points

Wealthy: You are sitting pretty at 5x the average starting campaign wealth! Woooo! Go you! 20 points

Very Wealthy: You get 20x the average campaign starting wealth!!! How are you doing this?!? 30 points

Filthy Rich: At this point money is probably all your character has going for itself since you are spending a whopping 50 points on this! The upside, however is that you have 100x the average starting campaign wealth. Congratulations on becoming the 0.001%.

Reputation:

What do you want to be known for?

The details of your reputation are 100% up to you! That means you get to use that big, beautiful brain of yours!

Look at you go!

You are a character creating machine!

Be SUPER SPECIFIC when it comes to your reputation and know that for every +1 to reaction rolls (up to +4) it costs 5 points and for every -1 to reaction rolls (up to -4) it is -5 points!

Easy, right?

Now we come to the last bit of this installment…

Importance (status):

This is you place in society!
It has its own little distinction from your personal fame and fortune
.

Status levels range from -2 (beggar) to 8 (god-like ruler).

The average status for most characters is 0 (free man).

For every level above 0 that you raise it will cost you 5 points but going even one level above 0 puts you in a ruling class in YOUR CULTURE ONLY! This means that those from YOUR CULTURE will defer to you giving you a bonus on reaction rolls.

If you want to go a level or two below average in status it will be -5 points per level! Save those points for your advantages and disadvantages!

We will discuss those next time on:
SUPER FUN CHARACTER CREATION TIME!!!!!

Do you have any questions? Any at all? Wonder why narwhals have sword-like protrusions on their faces? Go ahead and ask us whatever you want in our comment section! 

The Benefits of Emulation and How To Get Your Emulators Working Properly

Oh, hi there again! 

Welcome Back!

This time we’re going to be talking about *drum roll*

 Emulators

** !! WARNING !! **

THE USE OF EMULATORS IN AND OF THEMSELVES IS NOT A VIOLATION OF COPYRIGHT LAWS. BUT THE DOWNLOADING AND USE OF ROM AND ISO FILES WITHOUT THE PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS IS A BLATANT VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT LAWS, UNLESS YOU PERSONALLY OWN A PHYSICAL COPY OF THE ROM / ISO FILE(s) IN QUESTION.

THE PINUP GAMER DOES NOT RECOMMEND OR CONDONE THE USE OF ILLEGALLY PIRATED MATERIALS AND THUS WILL NOT PROVIDE INFORMATION ON HOW TO ACQUIRE SUCH ITEMS.

I, myself, am a multi-platform gamer, in that I use both consoles and PC to satisfy my gaming needs. But lets face it, you can't just put a PS2 or GameCube in a car and play it, now can you? Well, OK, yeah you can if you have a television in your vehicle, but we don’t all have that, now do we?! With an emulator, all you need is a computer (laptop you goobers) or a smartphone and you can play your consoles everywhere!

Working Emulators have been coded for nearly every console ever created, and I will provide links to the official sites for each one at the end of this rant.

Recently I had an urge to play Final Fantasy XII but my dilemma lied, however, in the fact that I was in a hotel and had neither items in my possession. I remembered a friend telling me about emulators several years back, I also remember telling her that that was the stupidest idea I had ever heard (who the fuck needs THAT?!) WEEEELLLLLL…….. anywho, I took to the interwebs and began my search. It didn’t take long to find what I was looking for and then some.

HOLY SHIT!!! ALL THE THINGS MAN…. ALL . THE . THINGS!

From DOS to Wii, You name it, you can find an Emulator for it, hell there is even an emulator to mimic Android OS (WAHHHHHHH?)

 

I know this is a lot of info to take in all at once

The newer consoles have bitchin' graphics right? Well, that carries over to the emulators as well, so for like the GameCube/Wii Emulator and the PS2 emulator specifically will require a descent graphics card (sorry not my fault). Do you have one? 

I imagine you do, don’t you?

99% of emulators are ready to play off the bat, all except the Sony Playstation2, the BIOS file needed to run the PS2 emulator is still under full copyright and thus cannot legally be distributed with the emulator. You will need to use a memory card transfer devise to migrate the BIOS file from your personal PS2 system to your computer. There are ways to find them on the internet, but it would be against the law to divulge specifics of that information.

Now that you have the emulators you want, we need to get the ROM (or) ISO files onto your computer.

Google search for ROM files for OLDER games (Nintendo 64 and older) and download them (please see warning at beginning of post)

Newer games (disc systems) use a format called ISO files. These can be easily extracted using a tool called Magic ISO, just follow the instructions of the program and BAM you have the image files for your personal use on your computer.  Placing them in a special folder within the main emulation program folder is recommended, just to keep it all organized and easy to find.

GC/Wii discs use a different format that is unreadable on Windows OS formatted PC’s sorry, can’t help you in that regard.

Do you have your ROM / ISO (s) ready?

SWEET!

Pick an Emulator and open that bitch up!

Every one is different but they all generally have a drop box bar on the top with various names “file”  “tools” “etc…”

Ok now explore those options and choose your ROM or ISO and Away you go! There are many sites on the web that will explain exactly how to get the best graphical quality for your computer. It will take far to much time / room / patience that, quite frankly I do not possess to hold your hand through every single little thing. Besides I cant see directly into your damn computer and therefore cannot tell you exactly what to do. Just google that shit and I promise you will find what you need. It might take some tinkering, but you’ll get it. 

OK, now that I have piqued you interest and told you what the fuck to actually do, how about I do the nice thing and give you direct links to the stupid things?

DOS-Box – MSDOS Emulator

FCEUX – NES Emulator

ZSNES  - SNES Emulator

Project 64 – Nintendo 64 Emulator

Dolphin – GameCube AND Wii Emulator in one glorious package

VisualBoy Advanced – Gameboy Advanced

No$GBA – Nintendo DS Emulator

ePSXe – Sony Playstation 1

PCsx2 – Sony Playstation 2

PPSSPP – Sony PlayStation Portable

Sega Saturn , Sega Genesis , Sega Dreamcast – please google for yourself as the hosts contain copyright protected material and will not be posted here.

Atari 2600 – Please google for yourself as the hosts contain copyright protected material and will not be posted here.

ColecoVision – Please google for yourself as the Hosts contain copyright protected material and will not be posted here.

All of these websites are the Original Distribution Sites, except for the VisualBoy Advance (has been an open source application for a long time now).

Have questions or comments? Leave them in the comment section for us! We can't wait to hear from you!

GURPS Character Creation: Just the basics! Part 2

Howdy doody, gamelings!

Welcome to PART TWO of our wonderful and exciting GURPS character creation tutorial adventure!!!

Now, where did we leave off?

RIGHT!!! HP, Will, Per, and FP!

These are SUPER simple and are also NOT TAKEN FROM YOUR GIVEN POINT TOTAL!

 HP is equal to the level of your ST! (ST 10=HP 10)

Will is equal to the level of your IQ! (IQ 40=Will 40)

Per is also equal to the level of your IQ! (IQ 20=Per 20)

FP is equal to the level of your HT! (HT  10=FP 10)

 

Moving right along…
Basic Speed:

Basic speed measures reflexes and how fast your character can run,  react, and dodge.

Basic speed is calculated by adding ST and DX together and dividing that amount by 4!

MAKE SURE YOU DO NOT ROUND UP OR DOWN!!!

7.25 is better than 7!!

Dodge:

Dodge is the measure of how fast you can move out of the way of something that is coming at you!

Dodge is calculated by taking your basic speed number (minus any fractions… 7.25=7) and adding 3.

(dodge=7+3=10)

Basic Move:

Basic move is the speed at which your character can run (forrest, run!) and it is equal to your basic speed level without the fractions! (basic speed is 7.25, basic move is 7)!!

 Now that we have those basics down…

Let’s start spending some points, shall we?

How do you look?

Your appearance can affect the way NPCs and other playable characters react to your character so make sure you choose wisely!

There are 7 levels of appearance.

Hideous: You are the ugliest of the uglies to get hit with the ugly stick. In fact, you might just BE the ugly stick! This gives you a -4 on reaction rolls but, hey, you get -16 points! Go ahead and add that to your total, you grotesque little monster.

Ugly: You aren’t getting a date without some serious cosmetic surgery. This gives you a -2 on reaction rolls but gives you -8 points! Enjoy those points all by yourself, Gollum.

Unattractive: You’re not great looking but it’s nothing a makeover montage wouldn’t fix! This gives you a -1 on reaction rolls but -4 points! Go spend them at the makeup counter, sweety.

Average: You are super mediocre! Congrats! This doesn’t have a negative addition to your reaction rolls! It costs no points. However, you also get no extra points…

Attractive: You are “small town pretty”. You aren’t model material but you are most definitely good looking. You get +1 on reaction rolls! WOOO! However, this costs 4 points.

Handsome or Beautiful: You ARE model material and you turn heads occasionally! This gives you a  +4 on reaction rolls made by characters attracted to your gender and a +2 from everyone else. This costs a whopping 12 points!

VERY Handsome or Beautiful: You make heads turn so fast people get whiplash and almost break their necks! This gives you a +6 to reaction rolls made by characters attracted to your gender and +2 from everyone else! Hang onto your hats, though… This costs a whole 16 points!

(Maybe those IQ points you took away should go here… Pretty but not so bright…)

Next up: Charisma!!

Charisma may seem like a crude amalgamation of looks, intelligence, and manners but it is a completely separate thing!!! This can affect influence rolls, leadership and public speaking rolls, and reaction rolls!  It costs 5 points per level but it adds +1 to each of these rolls per level!!!!

I think we've had enough good stuff for a while... Let's move on to something not-so-good.

Now, sometimes we can all be pretty annoying.

Admit it.

Go on… Admit it…

I’ll wait here…

Good.

Even our characters can be pretty darn annoying sometimes. The behaviors that make them this way are called Odious Personal Habits (OPH). The bright side is that these habits will give you -5, -10, or -15 points to use elsewhere (to make up for all of the annoying things you’ll do to those in your party…).

-5 point habit examples: Bad body odor, nervous tics, mumbling, tone-deaf singing, etc.

-10 point habit examples: making everything sound perverted, making a pun for everything, leaving a mess wherever you go, etc.

-15 point habit examples: picking a fight with everyone you meet, trying to sleep with anything and everything, etc.

 

To wrap up this part of our tutorial, I give you: Voice!

This perk costs 10 points but it gives you +2 to any skill that requires speaking or singing AND +2 to any reaction rolls made by someone who hears your voice! 

Cool, right?!?

Next time we will cover Social Background and Wealth & Influence!!

Make sure to check back with us often!!

Do you have a question? How about a recommendation on what you’d like us to cover? Leave a comment and let us know!! We would love to hear from you!