How does a small-town adventurer progress to a practical demigod?
This will introduce a milestone-driven packaging and rewarding of character points to characters on a far less frequent basis than is suggested in GURPS in order to emulate the “level up” feel found in Dungeons & Dragons and related variants such as Pathfinder.
Milestones
Are GM-Defined
A milestone involves the idea of establishing key points, milestones, among a series of adventures that recognizes the degree of sheer effort and work put in by the player characters (PCs) in a longer campaign.
Instead of recording the progression of experience points, as is typically done in games such as Dungeons & Dragons, this will make the progression of character power a great deal more controlled and contingent on the story rather than depend on the awarding of points. Furthermore, this removes the need for filler combats, etc. present in a campaign merely to introduce more experience points, a problem I would argue is found in many Dungeons & Dragons campaigns.
Are Exciting
The idea of “levelling up” has always been extraordinarily fun from the perspective of the players: momentous junctions of great increase in power. Having this notion, instead of an idea of having frequent small character point rewards, will shift a very slow progression of character power to a very staggered one that is inciting for the players waiting for these staggered points along their progression.
Rewards
Defining a Reward
This is just as difficult a question as it is for rewarding smaller packages of character points. It is argued here that what can be done is the rewarding of a single characteristic high point-cost advantage along with a small number of “free” character points that can be put anywhere the player feels appropriate for the character.
Curbing Power Growth
But how is it that PC power can still be kept within the bounds of what the campaign should be targeted for? Ensuring an upper bound for the number of points you reward and planning for a stable number of milestones should be able to accomplish this.
For example, in my Lest Dispelled Golarion GURPS campaign, I have started all PCs at 125 points. Each milestone will award characters around 10-25 character points. Since this campaign is following the scaffolding laid down by a Paizo Adventure Path, there will be six modules split into around 2-3 arcs each.
If we consider the ending of each arc as a milestone for character progression, this will result in the following approximate progression of character power (assuming a lower limit of 15 character points for each milestone reward). Some changes may occur throughout the campaign, where appropriate, of course, but this can still give an idea of where the GM can expect characters will be at. Relative GURPS Power Levels found in the table are taken and changed from what is described in GURPS Banestorm.
| PC Point Total | Module | Milestone/Level | Relative GURPS Power Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| 125 | 1 | 0 | Heroes in the Making |
| 140 | 1 | 1 | Capable Adventurer |
| 155 | 1 | 2 | Capable Adventurer |
| 170 | 2 | 3 | Capable Adventurer |
| 185 | 2 | 4 | Name in History |
| 200 | 3 | 5 | Name in History |
| 215 | 3 | 6 | Name in History |
| 230 | 4 | 7 | Name in History |
| 245 | 4 | 8 | Name in History |
| 260 | 5 | 9 | Real-Life Legend |
| 285 | 5 | 10 | Real-Life Legend |
| 300 | 6 | 11 | Real-Life Legend |
| 315 | 6 | 12 | Real-Life Legend |
What does this accomplish? This simulates an approximate progression of characters from level 1 to level ~12-13 in Dungeons & Dragons terms, which is typically where campaigns find themselves ending. Obviously, there is a difference in what is considered a level of power here and in Dungeons & Dragons. GURPS is, by its nature, a far grittier system: an increase in 15 character points can mean far more than just a typical increase in Base Attack Bonus (BAB) and a possible Attribute Point increase as one would see in D&D.
Take from this what you will. I will let everyone know how it goes when I finish with this campaign.