Character Creation: HARP

The list is getting shorter. Only 18 games left.

Actually, an opinion, if anyone still reading these characters would like to pipe up. I own GURPS 3rd Ed, and I own exactly three GURPS books: Creatures of the Night, Cabal, and Bunnies and Burrows. I'd be happy to make characters for all three books. What do you guys think? No point just making a GURPS character; that'd be meaningless, without a setting.

And yet, that's more or less what I'm doing today.

The Game: High Adventure Role Playing
The publisher: Iron Crown Enterprises
Degree of familiarity: None. I'm not even sure where I got this book. I think Brad Williams might have given or traded it to me before I left Atlanta, but I don't remember.
Books required: Just the HARP book. 

 

You might recall from when I did a D&D character that I grouse when games don't include settings. Well, sometimes. I mean, GURPS doesn't, but that's kind of the point. Dread doesn't have a setting per se, but it's understood to be a horror game, at least, and the book gives you several examples to run with. HARP just gives you a game engine, but does at least pay some attention to helping the GM figure out the setting (it's not a very big section, but it's there). And the system's been licensed out, so apparently Iron Crown is doing something right.

Anyway, I'm going to do what I did for my D&D character (who, I should note, is now part of a party with a fighter, a rogue, and a mage). Make a generic-fantasy character, without worrying too much about the world, and just assume it's full of dungeons and perchance a dragon or two. Maybe some orcs.

OK, cracking the HARP book, I find Step One: Choose a Profession. I have nine choices...wait, what's a Harper? Oh, it's a bard. Well, let's think about this. If I were coming to this without having spent the last year (good god) making characters, my initial attraction would be to Harper, Mage or Warrior Mage, but really, I don't know. Let's look at the descriptions, such as they are, and see if anything inspires me.

Cleric? Eh. Did that. Fighter? Well, maybe. It just sounds so boring. Harper? Maybe. I played a bard in a god-awful game of D&D a couple years back, might be nice to see how the games compare. Mage? Maybe. I do love mages. Monk? OK, seriously, why aren't they called "martial artists" or something? Because when I think "monk," I think this or this. Ranger? Maybe. Never made one. Rogue? No, thanks. My Low Life character was kind rogue-y. Thief? Wait, what's the difference? Too confusing for me. Warrior Mage? Actually, I did that with my favorite D&D character.

OK, really, Ranger is the one that appeals, so let's do that. I get a +10 to any one Outdoor Skill, and I can learn Ranger spells. And there's some Favored Skill stuff, too, but that's for a later step. Oh, and my "Key Stats" are Insight, Strength and Agility.

Step Two: Generate Statistics. I've got three choices here. I can roll for random stats, or I can spend points, or I can spend a random number of points. Normally I'd spend for it, but I'd kinda like to finish this up and go eat something, so I'll generate some random numbers. I get:

43 57 99 100 50 71 97 40

Hoo, not bad. Ooh, this is a percentile system. Neat. Well, the books says I want high ratings in Insight, Strength and Agility. Interestingly, though, under the descriptions of the stats themselves, no stat is listed as being special for Rangers. Weird. Guess I should think a little about concept.

OK, my character was born to a happy family in a stone cottage in the woods, outside of town proper. They lived there because his mother was a midwife and his father was a trapper and furrier, so folks from the village came to see them all the time. My character, Alin, used to get into trouble with the twin children of the town magistrate. They went off exploring together, and one day they found (hang on, checking the monster section) a giant spider. It killed one of the twins (the boy) and bit my character, and the girl managed to help him hobble back home. Poisoned, he never quite managed to fully recover, and he walks slowly even now.

The magistrate blamed Alin for the death of his boy, and made things hard on the family. His parents both died fairly young, leaving Alin bitter and contemptuous of authority. Alin learned to be a trapper and a skilled archer, but he's comparatively frail and slow.

With all of that in mind, I assign numbers. OK, now we do Stat Bonuses and Development Points. I'll just note those below.

Strength 97 (Bonus 10, 10 DPs)
Constitution 43 (Bonus -2, 0 DPs)
Agility 99 (Bonus 10, 10 DPs)
Quickness 40 (Bonus -4, 0 DPs)
Self-Discipline 71 (Bonus 5, 5 DPs)
Reasoning 57 (Bonus 2, 2 DPs)
Insight 100 (Bonus 10, 10 DPs)
Presence 50 (Bonus 0, 0 DPs)

Now, what the heck do these do? I can use them to buy up stats, buy Talents and other stuff. I have 37 DPs (huh-huh), so I'll save them until I know what I can do with them.

Step Three: Choose Race & Culture. I'm human. That was easy. I get 8 points to divide between my bonuses, so I shall put four into Quickness (to offset my low rating) two into Reasoning and the other two into Self-Discipline. I note that my Endurance is +30, my "power points" is +30 (which might actually matter, since Rangers can cast spells), and my resistance are +10 across the board.

As a human, I get +5 ranks to skills of my choice in my Favored section. I also get one skill to get a +10; that's my specialty. The book tells me to figure out my height, weight, age and Base Movement Rate. Well, my character is a human male of, let's say, 21, and he's about average - 5'10'', about 180lbs. His BMR is 10' (based on his height and his Quickness). His culture is Rural; he didn't live deep in the woods enough to be Sylvan. That means I start with my Racial language (which probably doesn't exist) and Common. I get a bunch of skill ranks for growing up Rural, that I'll add in to the next step.

Step Four: Buy Skills and Talents. OK. I spent Development Points on these, and they cost different amounts based on whether they're Favored. Let's see what's in the list. I can only have 6 ranks in a skill, at 1st level. I get a bunch of free ranks, too. Holy god, this is annoyingly complex.

So, I'll take:

Ambush 3
Animal Handling 2
Armor 2
Brawling 2
Crafts (Bowyer) 3
Crafts (Fletcher) 1
Endurance 1
Foraging/Survival (Forest) 3
Healing 1
Herbcraft 1
Jumping 1
Locks/Traps 2
Lore (Local Region) 2
Navigation 1
Perception 1
Riding 1
Rope Mastery 3
SpellCasting (Tree Merge) 3
Stalking & Hiding 1
Swimming 2
Tracking 4
Weapon (Axes) 2
Weapon (Bows) 4

Now, Talents. I haven't spent any DPs yet, so these are theoretically all open. I'll spend 20 on Outdoorsman; that gives me +10 to all Outdoor skills and Herbcraft. I need to buy another rank in Tree Merge so I can actually cast it, which costs 2 more, leaving me with 13. I'll spend 3 to bump my Constitution up to 46 (which removes the penalty on it), and I'll put the other 10 into Speed Loader; I fire my bow quick-like.

I need to calculate my Skill bonuses and all. Jebus. There's math involved. Jesus, that was fun. Oh, and I get to add +10 to a single skill because I'm hoo-man. I choose Rope Mastery. I want to be good at making traps and snares.

Good grief. Step Five: Purchasing Equipment. Fuck that. I'm tired. I'll wind up with a bow, an ax, and 50' of rope like every other fantasy character.

Step Six: Final Touches. They recommend that here's where you finally start thinking about role-playing, but I have done that already. I shall, instead, give you the character sheet and go make a freaking bratwurst.