This chapter talks about the basics of character creation, and explains what the game’s most fundamental stats mean.

The basic process of creating a character in DFRPG is simple: you go to chapter 2, pick a professional template, and select your final traits from several shopping lists presented in that template. This tends to be a lot faster than creating a character from scratch in core GURPS, particularly for people who are new to the system. We’ll talk more about the templates when we cover chapter 2.

Character Points

Each ability listed in those templates has a cost in Character Points, and each professional template has a total of 300 points worth of abilities. Their point total adds up to only 250, however, since they also have 50 points worth of “problems” that have negative costs and inconvenience the character in various ways. We’ll see later that you gain more character points as you play, and those can be used to either improve your abilities or get rid of those problems. There’s no special “XP” here like you might find in other games - the points you gain from adventuring and use to advance are the same kind as the ones you spent during character creation, and all trait costs remain the same.

The concept of “zero to hero” does not apply here: templates are tuned to be seriously good at their main jobs from the start. I’d say they have roughly the same power as level 7 or 8 D&D 3.x characters, though there are some important differences in how they play that I’ll get into when we discuss chapter 2.

Experienced GURPS players can try their hand at making freeform characters starting with the same 250/-50 total, though even in this case I’d recommend starting from a template and changing to taste - they’re just that useful.

So what do these points get you? A character sheet is made up of several different types of traits. This chapter describes the two most basic types in detail, and mentions the others (which get their own chapters).

Basic Attributes and Secondary Characteristics

Basic Attributes, henceforth known as simply “attributes”, measure how strong, quick, and smart your character is and influence everything they do. Each one also helps determine one or more Secondary Characteristics, derived values that are just as important to your character. These characteristics can also be “fine tuned” and increased or decreased directly, again costing points or giving them back depending on the direction of change.

Strength (ST) determines your capacity for dealing physical damage, your Basic Lift that measures how much you can lift and carry, and your hit points. GURPS HP does not have the abstract fuzziness of its D&D counterpart - its hit points are “meat points”. The meatier you are, the more HP you have. You can increase HP separately with points, but there are limits to this, so it remains fundamentally anchored to your beefiness.

The sole mental attribute, Intelligence (IQ) is the basis for every mental skill in the game. It also determines your Perception and Will, which as you would expect are used for noticing things and resisting mental Bad Stuff.

Dexterity (DX) is your overall agility and coordination. It’s the basis for nearly every physical skill in the game.

Health (HT) is a measure of your stamina and your resistance to Bad Stuff of a physical nature, including unconsciousness and death when your HP goes below zero. A few physical skills that are more dependent on stamina than coordination are tied to HT. It also determines your Fatigue Points, which you spend in order to perform exhausting tasks or fuel special powers, including spells. Wizards need good cardio in this game!

DX and HT together determine your Basic Speed, a number that can be fractional. This is how fast you can react, particularly in combat. Rounded down, this score becomes your Basic Move, which is how far you run in a combat turn. Both can be tuned separately, with Basic Move being much cheaper.

Your Basic Move can be reduced if you’re carrying too much weight. How much is too much depends on your Basic Lift.

You might notice that the functions of each attribute are a little… unbalanced. ST and HT have a few things they do, and are useful to characters who want to do those things well. DX and IQ are the basis for 95% of the game’s skills and everyone wants to have good levels in those. And this is why they cost 20 points per level to raise, while ST and HT cost 10.

Finally, Size Modifier is a number representing how big you are in relation to a typical human. The vast majority of delvers are more or less human-sized and -shaped, and so have a 0 here and don’t need to think about it any further. Monsters, of course, have much more varied scores.

Other Traits

Each of these gets their own chapter later on, mainly because there are huge lists of them.

Advantages are special abilities or social edges your character possesses. Their chapter lists the stuff anybody might get, but each professional template also has access to a few exclusive ones.
Disadvantages are the “problems” mentioned earlier. They inconvenience you in several ways but give you more points to spend.
Skills let you do stuff in the game. They have levels relative to their associated attribute. As mentioned above, most are based on DX or IQ, though some use HT, Perception, or Will. Spells are also skills, available to characters with the proper advantages.
Quirks are small foibles or personality traits that are too “light” to cause a mechanical impact, but can help flesh out your character. Anyone can pick up to 5 quirks, each of which gives you a single extra character point to spend. These can be spent on extra traits, or to get extra starting cash to buy better equipment.

Language, Please!

Language gets a bit of boxed text here. While language is an acquired skill in real life, it’s treated as a “binary” advantage here. You either know a language or you don’t.

As is usual in the dungeon fantasy genre, most sapient beings can speak and write a language called by the very original name of Common. All PCs get this one for free. Being illiterate in Common is a disadvantage worth -3 points.

Other languages also exist. Most of them feature in ancient grimoires, magical scrolls, and enigmatic dungeon writings. Certain isolated cultures might also have their own languages, and their members might be unable or unwilling to speak Common. Spoken proficiency and literacy in a language cost 3 points each (i.e, it costs 6 points to know how to speak and write in a language).

Cosmetic Details

There are some traits that have less mechanical impact and mostly serve to flesh out your character. Age, ethnicity, handedness, gender, hair and eye color, height and weight, all of these things are purely cosmetic and do not affect your stats in any way.

Age being entirely cosmetic is a big departure from core GURPS, which had a series of advantages and disadvantages about being young or old, as well as long- or short-lived. None of that costs anything here. As the joke goes, the lifespan of a delver is measured in months regardless of their biology.

Handedness matters in that you get a penalty for wielding weapons and doing certain other tasks with your off-hand, but being right- or left-handed is a purely cosmetic choice. And you can buy the Ambidexterity advantage to ignore it altogether.

Impressions

GURPS is one of my favorite systems so I think it’s not surprise that I’m pretty fond of these basics. The use of templates is the big change over core GURPS here, and as I mentioned above I like them so much I wouldn’t try to start a game without them.

While I don’t have a problem with the concept of disadvantages and the way GURPS handles them, you might! Several criticisms of it have popped up over the years, after all. In that case, you can easily ignore them by discarding that section of the templates and giving your characters 300 points to play with from the start.

Next up: A deeper look into advantages, disadvantages, and skills.