Character Creation
Backstory
You should write the story of your character: Her background, her upbringing, her early influences, her ambitions. At least, you should think this through. Either way, you should share your backstory with the GM. Experience points (character points) are awarded based mostly on good roleplaying. You don't have to (and sometimes shouldn't ) share all your character's backstory besides obvious traits to the other players.
Point System
Characters are created with a point system. Generally, a PC will start with 100-200 Character Points, and earn more with experience. Ordinary folks (i.e. supernumeraries) will generally be 25 point characters. Background or Silent Bit characters will range between 25-50 points. Featured Extras would have 50-75 points. A superhuman would be in the 200-300 point range. Animals, alien races, and monsters are rated differently; the point system is based on humanoid characters. You can spend your points any way you want, within reason. The GM may overrule bizarre or silly character designs.
House Rule
Rather than doing all the calculations of the character point system yourself, just design a reasonable, believable character, and remember to balance out the good (advantageous) things with the bad (disadvantageous). The GM can do the calculations for you and suggest any changes needed to balance your characteristics.
...And if you have trouble finding details on character point "purchases," just ask the GM. Not everything may be documented here.
Attributes
Characters have four attributes: Strength (ST), Dexterity (DX), Intelligence (IQ), and Health (HT). These are similar to the attributes in Dungeons & Dragons, but Constitution is calculated based on Health, Wisdom has been rolled into IQ, and Charisma has become an advantage (see below). An average attribute is 10 (or between 8 and 12). 16+ is extraordinary; 4 or less is debilitating.
House Rule
You are encouraged to make a D&D-style 3d6 roll to determine attributes. If you make a pathetic roll, run with it in your backstory; you will gain many character points from a low attribute with a good backstory about it. Alternately, you can just reroll. Once you get a roll over 7, you should stick with it. Another fail-safe is to just turn all of the dice over, so the side on the bottom is now the top. If the Goddesses truly favor you, this will improve your roll.
Advantages & Disadvantages
Advantages are just that... they give your character an advantage in life, and you (the player) an advantage in the game. Conversly, disadvantages impede your character, and make playing the game more difficult for you. The concept of the point system is to balance your character's advantages in life with equivalent disadvantages (the brilliant girl with crooked teeth; the gorgeous fashion model who's dumber than his own socks). Functionally, this means for every disadvantage you're willing to have, you get another advantage for your benefit! The (dis )advantages, and their point values are listed & linked below.
House Rule
Again, you don't have to do the point calculation if you'd rather not. Just try to balance the good with some bad. You can use the listed point values in the links below as a guideline.
House Rule
Whether you calculate your own points or not, a good strategy for character creation in GURPS is to choose all the disadvantages you can stand, then balance that out with the advantages you want. There's a nominal but flexible limit of -40 points in disadvantages unless it's one BIG disadvantage (i.e. "No Arms").
House Rule
Image & Looks
Your character’s intrinsic “social” traits: appearance, manner and bearing.
Social Standing
Your character’s extrinsic social traits – her place in society.Wealth
Wealth and poverty are relative; they depend on the specifics of the campaign you are playing.Friends & Foes
Some characters have NPCs who are especially well or ill disposed toward them. Powerful friends you can call upon in times of need are an advantage; weaker friends you must defend are a disadvantage, as are powerful enemies.Friends or Foes – Variable
Ability Advantages
These are innate abilities. In general, a character may only be given these advantages when she is first created.*Ability Disadvantages
These are problems acquired before the character first comes into play. As a rule, a character may only be given disadvantages when she is created.*House Rule
All characters are created equal, but some become more equal than others...
Quirks
A “quirk” is a minor personality trait. It’s not an advantage and it’s not necessarily a disadvantage – it’s just something unique about your character. For instance, a major trait like Lust is a disadvantage. But being a flirt (meaningless flirtation with random people), that's just a quirk.
You may take up to five “quirks” at -1 point each . . . so, if you do, you will have 5 more points to spend on other things.
The only drawback to a quirk is this: you must roleplay it. If you take the quirk “dislike of heights,” but blithely climb trees and cliffs whenever you need to, the GM will penalize you for bad roleplaying. The points you lose this way will cost you much more than you earned for taking the quirk. So don’t choose a quirk you aren’t willing to play!
Some Quirks:
Ambiguous Ethnicity, Ambiguous Gender, Cheerful, Cutesy, Disorganized, Dorky, Dreamer, Dull, Easily Frustrated, Fashion Disaster, Forbidden to Say a Certain Word, Forgetful, Imperfect Teeth, Inaccessible Idioms, Involuntary Utterance, Loud Voice, Nice, Nostalgic, Nose Picker, Nosy, Odious Personal Habit, Oily Skin/Hair, Perfect Teeth, Perfectionist, Secretive, Serious, Sexual Fetish, Speaks in Third Person, Suspicious, Swears, No Sense of Humor, No Underwear, Uncongenial, Xenophilia...
Examples of quirks include beliefs and goals, likes and dislikes, habits, expressions, peculiarities of dress, and so on.
Skills
A “skill” is a particular kind of knowledge. Karate, auto Mechanics and the English Language are all Skills. Each of your Skills is represented by a number called a Skill level; the higher the number, the greater the Skill. When you try to do something, you (or the GM) will roll 3 dice against the appropriate Skill, modified as the GM sees fit for that particular situation. If the number you roll is less than or equal to your (modified) score for that Skill, you succeed! But a roll of 17 or 18 is an automatic failure.
Certain Skills are different at different Tech Levels (“TL” for short). Such Skills are designated by /TL.Learning Skills
To learn or improve a Skill, you must spend character points. Skills are divided into Mental and Physical. The tables in the Skills List show the point cost to learn each Skill. Skills have different difficulties – Easy, Average, Hard, and Very Hard – at that level. Harder Skills cost more character points to learn.
Limit on Beginning Skills
The maximum number of character points a starting character can spend on Skills is equal to twice her age. For instance, a 14-year-old could apply no more than 28 points to Skills, a 35-year-old could use up to 70 points! This limit does not apply to Skills added after a character is created.
Skill Defaults
Most Skills have a “default level.” This is the level at which you perform the Skill without training. Nobody can know every Skill; but a default roll can save your life. A Skill has a default level if it is something that everybody can do . . . a little bit. For instance, the “default” for Lockpicking is IQ-5. If your IQ is 11, and you have to pick a lock, you can do it on a roll of 6 or less. Why? Because 11 minus 5 is 6, so 6 is your “default” skill at Lockpicking. You fumble around with the lock, sliding a credit card around the latch like the detective in a movie you saw once . . . and sometimes it works!
Some Skills (especially Very Hard ones) have no default.