GURPSDay: First Character

+Douglas Cole spoke about GURPSDay, how he is gathering the links to GURPS related posts for the week.  It got me thinking about all the years I spent playing and about getting out a few of my GURPS books.  I only have about 60 or 70 GURPS books.  Plus I have the books for the all the editions, plus the box for the second edition.

While my posts will not be like the others, I'm not too concerned about it.  I am not good at developing rules, physics or math in general.  I'm coming at this from my experience and what I like to do.

Around 1986, my group had been playing AD&D and Basic D&D for seven years.  The 2nd edition of D&D was coming out, we didn't know it was another edition.  But by this time I think we were running on fumes.  +Rob Conley suggested we give GURPS a shot.  Which I reluctantly did.  I was not big into changing systems, but knew we needed to try something different.

What got me hooked on GURPS were the quirks.  Simple one point disadvantages that helped flesh out a character.  I loved the idea.  I know GURPS gets a bad rap for being rules heavy system, but it was the disadvantages, quirks and skill choices that drew me in.  All these elements enhanced my role-playing.  I now felt I had a system that could reflect a character I wanted to play.  Now I could play a unique character instead of a cookie cutter class.

I still have my first character sheet.  I'm not sure if we made it with 1st or 2nd edition rules.  I know I got a huge boost because I made a reptile man named Shesh.  I hulking brute with a 17 strength.  Here's what happened, we were making 100 point characters with 30 points of disads and 5 points of quirks.  I didn't figure in the racial point cost of a reptile man.  It was a significant amount, something like 60 points.  Rob let it go since it was my first character. 

Click so you can read it.

And the other concepts I found fascinating was rolling 3d6 and not d20.  Rolling low instead of high.  Armor actually provided protection from damage.  Weapons did different types of damages.  The spells had prerequisites that made sense.  And it didn't matter how big and tough you were, one good shot to the head by anyone could take you out.

I was hooked.  From 1986 through 2009 I primarily played GURPS.  The third edition was my favorite.  We often played 75-point character with 25 points of disads.  I loved the struggle of it.  Playing a lowly acolyte who was in charge of a orphanage of a few children, who liked to write poems to a prostitute he liked.  He and two other 75-point guys took on a vampire who was targeting the children.  And we took him out.  There was a blanket dipped in holy water, a frying pan and some rope involved.  Oh my god was that fun.

Anyway, my first entry into GURPS Day.  I hope one of many.  I spent a lot of time with this system.  Thanks to +Douglas Cole and +Peter V. Dell'Orto for reigniting my interest in GURPS again.