Welcome back to System Hack! For our second installment of hacking GURPS, we’re going to take a look at the banes of the system’s existence; they’re listed in a separate chapter from the boons. That’s right, we’re looking at disadvantages. GURPS character creation has each player build their character from a set number of character points, which are used to buy attributes, skills, and advantages. There’s also the ability to get points back by reducing attribute values or taking disadvantages. In the case of GURPS, where the quantity and scope of disadvantages is so broad, it takes an eagle eyed GM to make sure that each disadvantage is ‘worth’ the point cost (for advantages players tend to do that themselves, isn’t that weird?). This is generally done by enforcing the disadvantage at the table, making disadvantages in play a lesson in negative reinforcement. To make things even more complicated, some disadvantages aren’t really disadvantages at all. Things like dark secrets and enemies swing the spotlight directly at a character, producing a positive value to the player that isn’t reflected by the negative point value.

While limiting the number and point value of disadvantages in your GURPS game is always prudent, there are other methods out there to make them work without giving any players unfair advantages or feeling like you’re punishing them every time they need to make a self-control roll. After talking a bit about one of the inherent flaws of advantage/disadvantage type systems, I’m going to discuss little hacks to improve the utilization of two common disadvantage mechanics in GURPS: frequency of appearance and self-control rolls.

The diegetic value trap

GURPS disadvantages are predicated on the notion that they have negative value for characters. This is essentially always true; every disadvantage represents a problem or burden…for the character. This is why GURPS, as well as most merit/flaw systems in RPGs, fall into what I call the diegetic value trap. Players, those who are playing the game and creating the character, do not perceive the value of a ‘disadvantage’ in the same way that a character in the game world would. Having to make a self-control roll because of ‘Bad Temper’ is modeling bad behavior on the part of the character…but the player who took Bad Temper sees it as an interesting thing to play out. A character may feel burdened by their Dependent, but the player knows that this NPC will mean more plot hooks aimed directly at them, and therefore more spotlight time. This is why in some games, Burning Wheel for example, all relationships, even hated enemies, cost points to buy as opposed to refunding points like an inimical relationship would in GURPS.

Ultimately, the key to using disadvantages well is to make sure their value to the player is reflected in the game. This is easier for some disadvantages than others; disadvantages like ‘Easy to Kill’ are straight up valued correctly, being perceived as negative by character and player alike (I’ve never actually had a GURPS player take ‘Easy to Kill’, I wonder why). Disadvantages like Code of Honor can be restrictive and negative to character and player alike, but they need to be enforced; additionally, some of the lighter Codes are so PC-aligned they shouldn’t be worth anything (which is noted in How to be a GURPS GM). There are two types of disadvantages, though, that both force the GM to do more work and also fall into the diegetic value trap. Frequency of appearance disadvantages are few, but represent plot-centric elements that should be treated more comprehensively than a negative number. Self-control roll disadvantages are almost always traits characters want to play; while they can be managed using the typical disadvantage mechanics, more modern games typically address these sorts of character traits using positive rather than negative reinforcement.

Frequency of appearance disadvantages

There aren’t that many frequency of appearance disadvantages in GURPS; in the core rules they are Dependent, Enemy, and Secret. There are several others that are not technically frequency of appearance disadvantages, but operate in the same way except that the frequency of appearance is ‘whenever the GM feels like it’ (if you think this sucks, it’s because it does). These disadvantages include Cursed and Weirdness Magnet. Frequency of appearance disadvantages are the ones that are most susceptible to the diegetic value trap, though they are typically disruptive when they come up in play. I propose a hack based on another frequency of appearance system: Obligation from Edge of the Empire. Obligation resolves the biggest issue with these sorts of disadvantages by both socializing their appearance to the entire party, and also flattening the distribution of the disadvantages by requiring that everyone take one.

The main mechanical change we’re going to make is socializing these disadvantages. While only one character is going to have a secret and one character may technically be the one who has a dependent, the fact is that these major plot points are going to affect the whole party, unless you run a game where a large portion of the time is spent with individual characters running off on their own. Set a pool of points for these ‘plot magnet’ disadvantages, I’d recommend 25-50 points per player to start. Each player can spend from the pot up to their portion, though players are certainly welcome to spend unevenly if everyone is OK with that. Once the party has spent their plot magnet points, first let them spend those points on frequency of appearance advantages that can similarly benefit the whole party; there are really only two of these, Allies and Contacts (as a note players can buy these on their own as usual, this is just an opportunity to buy a whole-party Ally or Contact if that’s relevant to the group). After any group spends have occurred, the remaining points are divvied back to the players evenly.

Now, there are two ways you can deal with these disadvantages appearing. If you’re OK with multiple problems shooting off at once, just roll frequency of appearance as written for each of the disadvantages. For those originally written to be at the GM’s whim, use the x1 value of 9 or less on a 3d6. If you want to tamp down on the frequency of appearance disadvantages (at least in terms of, well, frequency of appearance), you can use the Obligation method and assign blocks of a d100 to each disadvantage. For those who appear on a 6 or less, 10 points. For those that appear on a 9 or less, 25 points. For 12 or less, 50 points, and for 15 or less, 75 points. As you’ll note, you will quickly fill up the d100 here with high frequency of appearance disadvantages. You can also treat dependents differently; in GURPS as-written a dependent showing up doesn’t necessarily mean they’re immediately going to be in trouble. If you play a campaign with many dependents or have characters with dependents with high frequencies of appearance, it may be better to treat them separately and just use the normal frequency of appearance mechanics. That said, dependents still fit well under the pooled points methodology, as the whole party is going to be affected by their existence and behavior.

Self-control roll disadvantages

There are many, many more self-control roll disadvantages than frequency of appearance disadvantages, and pretty much all of them are about mechanizing character behavior. Whereas a disadvantage like ‘addiction’ has specific character impacts, a disadvantage like ‘bully’ is simply about making the character do things and behave a certain way. Now, in general most players take these disadvantages because at some level they want their character to act that way. Not every player needs a self-control roll to make their character act like a bully, for instance, and for that reason personality traits are usually better modeled in games with inducements than punishments or restrictions. A classic example is the Fate ‘compel’. A compel is going to come up at the same times a self-control roll would, but because the mechanic is rewarding acting in character rather than taking control away from the player, it makes the player feel more positive about how they engage with the trait and also provides reinforcement for the player who would have done it anyway in the system with a self-control roll. Speaking of trait, ‘traits’ in Burning Wheel are more passive than either compels or self-control rolls. There’s nothing in the course of a session that makes your character act a certain way or rewards you if they do, but you do get rewarded with Artha after the session if behaving in line with your trait made your life more interesting or difficult. Similarly, if you don’t engage with the trait at all, other players may decide at the next trait vote that it should be stricken from your character.

For GURPS, the trait vote would be pretty harsh; generally losing disadvantages comes with the immediate need to pay the point cost for their removal. However, we can use a Burning Wheel approach to these disadvantages if the self-control roll is too demanding for your playstyle. Just as one would for a trait in Burning Wheel, at the end of every session, ask if playing to the disadvantage made the character’s life more complicated or interesting. If the answer is yes, that’s worth a character point. Although this may seem like a way to speedrun advancement (by buying more of these disadvantages), for the most part you aren’t going to see more than one or two really front of mind for a player in a given session. You can also subdivide disadvantages, ensuring that each player only gets a certain number of points they can spend on self-control roll disadvantages. In fact, if you’re going to be treating these more like traits, it may be better not to count them as disadvantages at all; instead, give a pool of points to each player that they can spend on these disadvantages (a negative pool, I suppose), but don’t link them to point totals. That way, these disadvantages don’t affect the overall character build, and there’s less of a game balance impact on shifting to a reward-based mechanic from the self-control roll.

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In a way, the problems with disadvantages come from trying to put them into a ‘generic and universal’ framework. Painting personality traits and plot elements like enemies and secrets with the same mechanical brush, let alone also using the same brush for physical weaknesses, is a fraught proposition. What we’re trying to do is shake out a couple of character elements that are particularly ill-served by the generic ‘disadvantage’ rules, and use experiences from other games to make them more interesting and (hopefully) less unbalancing. While specific can often beat generic, one of the powers of GURPS is that the point-based framework makes it pretty easy to subdivide and isolate specific elements and further refine the system until it does exactly what we want it to.

GURPS is a potent system, but still one ripe for system hacking. There’s one more element I want to dive into, looking at different elements of GURPS to add in some narrative goals like you may see in a game like Burning Wheel or Cortex Prime. It’s going to take some time and some thinking, but I won’t forget about it. Until then, go roll some dice, stat some characters, and see how far you can go with generic and universal. I’ll see you later with another System Hack!

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