The problem with GURPS-style advantage/disadvantage character creation systems is that the actual impact of a given advantage or disadvantage is highly dependent on the circumstances of actual play: “Immune to psionic attacks” is totally amazing if your campaign is The War Against the Illithids; it’s completely wasted if your character never encounters a psion. Similarly, “Horrifically Claustrophobic” is a crippling disadvantage in a megadungeon campaign; it’s basically a non-factor if you’re playing Lawrence of Arabia.
So in order for these systems to work, the advantages and disadvantages need to be made equally relevant in actual play.
IME, however, there are two typical actual play dynamics in RPGs:
First, the players are given a free rein. Players will naturally seek to play to their advantages and play away from their disadvantages. This isn’t even really abusive play: It’s just a logical way of interacting with the world. (If I had no legs, I wouldn’t spend a lot of time buying ladders.)
Second, the GM is railroading the players. You might initially expect this to reverse the dynamic, but it typically doesn’t because (again, IME) most railroading GMs are more focused on achieving a predetermined goal: Their focus is an internal one. It might inadvertently force players into confronting their disadvantages, but often will not. (While the players will still be able to tactically exploit their advantages.)
In order for an advantage/disadvantage system to really work, IMO, you need a GM who’s willing to advocate as strongly for the inclusion of a PC’s disadvantage as the player is to advocate for the inclusion of the PC’s advantage.
The GMs most willing to do this are (in terms of the Threefold) dramatists and gamists. Simulationists are much less likely to put their thumb on the scale and “force” the inclusion of disadvantages.
This becomes a particular problem for GURPS because most the features in that system are heavily focused on supporting simulationists: So the people most likely to be running GURPS are the ones least likely to adopt the GMing techniques necessary to keep the advantage/disadvantage system balanced.
The problems exacerbated by the fact that GURPS is more of a tool for creating your own game than a game in its own right. A GM will need a clear idea of what kind of game they’re running, probably adjusting point values to suit their campaign, and should provide their players with enough information about the game to make informed decisions
Fascinating insight! At first, I understood you as saying that the GM should play to the PCs’ weaknesses as strongly as possible. On a more careful read, I figured out that it’s not a matter of pushing as hard as you can, but pushing just as hard as the players are pushing in the opposite direction. That is, if the players aren’t taking as much advantage of their strengths as they can (for example, due to lack of experience, which is my current concern GMing for new players), then there’s no need to compensate too hard.
This has been quite enlightening. Thanks for all the great work!
Interesting analysis and I can see that with GURPs and a few other game systems out there. But in a system like Fate, where you advantage can be your disadvantage and vice versa, it’s a core mechanic of the game and a balanced one at that. The DM doesn’t have to railroad a player but more so bribe them with fate points or the player can spend fate points to ignore their disadvantage.
I’m not generally a fan of advantage/disadvantage systems. (Well, actually, I have no problem with advantages – it’s the disadvantages I have issues with.) And generally it is as you say: players can be relied on to play up their advantages, but are much less motivated to be so scrupulous with their disads.
The systems that I’ve seen do disadvantages ‘right’, IMO, are the ones that _don’t_ give any benefit at character creation for selecting a disadvantage, but rather give some benefit when it comes up in play (be that plot points, extra XP, or whatever). That way, players are free to ignore their disadvantages if they like, but then they might as well not have them. And, conversely, there’s motivation for them to apply those disads when they might reasonably come up.
(Of course, the trick then is to make sure that the reward roughly matches the scale of the disadvantage. But that’s another topic.)
I absolutely agree; most advantage/disadvantage systems are quite inbalanced. These kind of mechanics would work better if they were tied more intricately to the core cycles of the game, so that their effects can be hardly avoided.
I see that delericho beat me to the comment I wanted to make: the best way to handle this issue is to make disadvantages a source of XP, rather than a way to get extra build points at character creation. 7th Sea does this, for example.
(However, it also requires you to *pay* build points at character creation in order to get the disadvantage in the first place, which strikes me as carrying it too far…)
I’ll add my voice to the chorus pointing to the story game approach that gives rewards to a character when their disads come up in play. My go-to example would be The Shadow of Yesterday, where Keys are general-purpose XP-generators, encompassing any motifs the player wants to incorporate into scenes involving their character, including hardships or complications the character faces as a result of something about his traits or situation.
As Professor Oat said, GURPS is indeed a framework to create your own game. The creators suggest the use of ‘templates’. Eg. A list of suggested attributes, skills, adv/dis for a given role in a given campaign.
On top of that I have to say that before writing an adventure I expect all the characters to be ready. I tend to look at the character sheet and think “what situation would allow character X to exercise disadvantage/exotic skilll?”.
Sometimes I suggested a player to change a skill/disadvantage if I really didn’t know how to integrate it in a campaign.
I’m lucky because my players pick up disadvantages for the fun of interpreting them, not only for the extra points. Also if you are not a great fun of disadvantages you could enforce a tighter disadvantage limit (eg only -15 points).
I use the advantage/imbalance system extensively, but not in the GURPS way. I have the player write a biographic essay for their character. They can be anything in the game world they want to be. Then I add disadvantages to their story. Superpower may be balanced by the fact that they are possessed by a demon. Their father is a King, I add that the father was deposed and the character is on the run. He will get both, powerful NPCs helping him and powerful NPCs trying to kill/capture him. etc etc etc. I try to make the disadvantages as specific to the game world and character story as possible.
Some disadvantages could actually be fun to play (loudmouthed, gullible, etc.) and other are easy for the GM to use in the story (phobia, enemy, obligation, etc.). If players are just taking disads for the points without having a clear concept, the GM should intervene. Likewise, a GM should tell a player beforehand if they think a character’s advantages might not help much in the game.
Advantages and Disadvantages seem to get a bad rap because the most well known examples of them (Hero/GURPS/DCH) are horribly broken.
Under the assumption that A/D systems are ‘training wheels for roleplaying’ there are several easy ways to balance them.
1. As mentioned, give the XP awards after they are played.
2. Make the point cost low enough that they will only be taken because a player really wants to roleplay them. In other words, they’re not worth the points.
3. Do not let them players ‘define’ the advantages. Make them specifically defined with game mechanical effects but also the ‘aspect/color’ is strictly defined as well. In other words, no Phobia vs. Cheese.
It’s not a ‘problem’ if you’re GM allows you to take claustrophobic and you never go into a dungeon. It’s just a dumb GM.
That the most popular systems don’t balance them is generously because they were created early in the hobby or non-generously because they’re just badly designed games! 😉