(Yes, this guy was inspired by Richard Castle. But I had the idea for the super good senses based on reading the GURPS powers book and an add for an 80s TV show on Spike I saw as a kid.)

@Bad_Quail To be fair, I've only played Dresden Files once at a cub with pregens.

@Canageek See, I've only played Fate with full character creation. It's something I can definitely see being not as much fun with pregens, unless each pregen's aspects were written specifically to gel or clash with other characters in interesting ways.

@Bad_Quail I still think you miss a lot by trying to condense a person down to four points that you don't with a skill list.

@Canageek The skill list tells you different things about a character though. It tells you things about what they can do and how they were trained but not who they care about or what their personality's like.

@Bad_Quail right that should come out in roleplay. that shouldn't have any effect on what they actually are capable of doing in the game. I chemist use a complete dick to everyone and a chemist who's a very nice person can do the same chemistry.

@Canageek Okay dude. Good talk.

@Bad_Quail Plus in a game like gurps you actually can have that. my character has a personality Quirk that I got several points for where he always keeps his sworn word, and is Infamous in his community for being the worst liar anyone's ever seen.

@Canageek I'm confused by the statement that Fate only has 4 bullet points per character. For default Fate Core, it's 5 aspects, 10 skills, and 3 stunts. The Dresden Accelerated pregen I'm looking at right now has 1 mantle, 5 aspects, 6 approaches, 2 custom conditions, and 5 stunts.

@dbisdorf Sorry, doing this from memory. I was porbably thinking of aspects. But that still just gives you a sketch of a character. Not like day GURPS were I can have a collage major and associated skills, skills for my profession, skills as an adventure and advantages and disadvantages on top of that.

@Canageek https://dice.camp/media/E04HfeTEJqA1ekipDnA College education, skills for education, profession, and adventuring, advantages, disadvantages, and history.

To me, this appears like a fleshed-out character, with strengths, weaknesses, abilities, and personality. This doesn't represent every possible nuance of a living human being, but neither will GURPS.

It depends on how you define "complete" for purposes of roleplaying, and I think that's a subjective standard.

@dbisdorf Let me dig up my character sheet? To me that is a concept you START from, not a finished character.

@dbisdorf Like, you don't have any flexibility, just 'archeologist'

@Canageek @dbisdorf Honestly I find a lot more flavor in this than I do in GURPS. What are the character's motivations? IN GURPS all I know is what the character can and can't do. With this character I know that they like to go into the wilderness, have trouble with snakes, are highly college educated, and know a bit of lore. I can give this character to someone and they have a pretty good idea of how to run with it.

@craigmaloney @dbisdorf I won't develop a full personality until I've played a couple games, and don't think most of that should be on the character sheet anyway. How does the fact I'm a grump effect my adventuring anyway?

Plus the parts that effect play fall into Advantages/disadvantages.

@Canageek @dbisdorf Having it on the character sheet allows you r get back into character without having to keep a mental note about the demeanor of the character. Also the GM can use for interactions with your character. Remember: any strings you put on your Fate Character Sheet are there for both you and the GM to pull at any time.

@Canageek Being a grump absolutely affects your adventuring. It affects how likely you are to persuade that weapons dealer to see you a sword, or to get that biker gang to give you a ride, or to get a favor from your old lieutenant. It tells the GM whether your contacts will welcome you with open arms or a slammed door in the face.

@dbisdorf no it doesn't as a skilled karizmatik person can pretend to not be grumpy for a while.

@Canageek If your character isn't frequently and unusually grumpy and doesn't affect your behavior, it shouldn't be on your character sheet. If you put "grumpy" on your sheet, you are indicating that this is a significant fact that's going to affect your interpersonal relations.

Same goes for the 10-point GURPS disadvantage "Bully". You can't take that disadvantage and then never roleplay it because you "pretend not to be a bully."

@dbisdorf @Canageek These are two very different ways of representing characters, and each has its strengths.

GURPS is saying "here's the character's resume and transcripts", Fate is saying "here's my cover letter and bio". Each is useful for giving you a sense of the character, and there is a fair amount of overlap, but each does it a different way because the needs of the games are different mechanically.

@Canageek @dbisdorf @craigmaloney

"How does the fact I'm a grump effect my adventuring anyway?"

Point your rhetorical question elsewhere, because Fate has plenty to say in reply to that...

@Canageek @dbisdorf vs. GURPS where I would have several archaeologist advantages, a few weapon skills, a disadvantage against snakes, a few other skills for studying and lore-finding, and a about a paragraph of other one-point things to attempt to fill out a character to the max point value for the session.

To me the Fate sheet tells me a lot more about what that character wants than the GURPS sheet, which tells me a lot of what I think the character can do.

@dbisdorf @Canageek Worse, the GURPS gives hints about what sorts of adventures I might want to have. In Fate it's pretty clear that we're going to be headed to the wilderness at some point and there will be snakes. In GURPS I know that the GM will likely use my snake disadvantage to try to make things interesting but nowhere on the sheet is there my intention to head anywhere. It's completely up to a meta discussion with the GM.

@Canageek @dbisdorf Note: I loved GURPS for a long time and am in love with Fate. Frankly I think there's room for both (even though SJGames seems to be faltering with trying to figure out GURPS place in the world). But I also think that Fate is better suited for player intent and packaged skills than GURPS is. GURPS is a finer-toothed-comb than Fate. Fate allows me to do "Archaeologist-ness" in a way that I don't have to overthink. GURPS makes me have to define that in more detail.

@dbisdorf @Canageek Put another way: GURPS is what I would use to describe to a computer what my character can do. Fate is what I would describe to someone programming the computer in broad terms what a character can do. 😁

@craigmaloney @dbisdorf Right, in FATE you get a quick sketch of a character, like in an authors notes about a book. Gurps gives you the summary a bunch of nerds have put together on a wiki after combing over ever line about that character in the book ;)

@Canageek @craigmaloney I totally agree that GURPS provides a more granular view of a character. And if that works better for you, that's cool, and you should totally do that. I just think it's a matter of preference. I can find a lot of people who find a Fate character "complete" for their purposes, but that doesn't make one approach superior to the other. It's just your groove.

@Canageek I could use that aspect to help me with history, anthropology, ancient artifacts, bureaucracy, academic contacts, scholarly publications, and legends and lore. It covers a wide variety of tasks and life experience. And remember, I said "rough and tumble archaeologist", so it also covers some brawling and skullduggery, and demonstrates the reputation others would see me with. How is that not flexible?

@dbisdorf because it doesn't actually show what skills your archaeologist has. you can't see if they have any hobbies or any other talents.

@Canageek Did the skills and stunts not appear in my screenshot? I'm a good fighter and a fair shot, exceptionally educated, comfortable in the wilderness, and I'm unusually talented with a bullwhip.

The sheet doesn't show that I like Sudoku or that I like to whittle, but those are trivial facts that won't affect an adventure.

Similarly, a GURPS character sheet won't show how many fillings I have, or when my first kiss was, or what my first grade teacher's name was.

@dbisdorf Ah! See, in my view those trivial things CAN effect an adventure. I made significant diplomatic relations at one point because my character had as a hobby skill dancer on his character sheet and rolled very well against it.

@Canageek In Fate, if I haven't specifically mentioned dancing in a stunt or aspect, we would look at my background and make a judgment call about whether I know how to dance.

I expect you need to make those on-the-spot judgment calls for GURPS as well. If you can link me a character sheet, I can show you where.

@dbisdorf Just tweeted it.

@Canageek Thanks! This looks like a fun campaign.

However, it's missing some significant facts. He has Rank in Bramfield and the Old Religion, but I don't know who his superiors are. He's attractive and has sex appeal...is he romantically entangled with anyone? Who's teaching him all that magic?

The whole book of a character's life would show his closest contacts, wouldn't it? If you gave me this PC to play, I'd have to invent all of that.

@dbisdorf Right, this is a rules reference for things that will come up in play. The fact he is married with a kid will actually give him some bonuses and penalties socially soon, so will be added. (Bonuses with the Sehai/elves as they are very infertile, so bring a parent is a BIG DEAL. Penalties with those who are freaked out by half-elves)

@Canageek The identities of friends, relatives, wife, child, superiors, and underlings would almost certainly come up in play, but they might not affect the *rules*, and that's a key insight.

Your GURPS character sheet is a complete reference of how your character interacts with the GURPS rules, which require precision. A Fate character is a complete reference of how that character interacts with Fate, which allows you to establish details based on broad statements.

@Canageek It would be impossible to catalog every detail of a human life even if you had a hundred sheets of paper, let alone one. But that's not the goal of a roleplaying game.

"Complete" is defined differently for every RPG, because every RPG has different rules, scope, and focus. None are utterly complete. They just have to be sufficient for the sake of the rules and the style of play.

@dbisdorf fair, but I think you get a more useful overview of what someone can do with RPGs that don't try to boil you down to a few traits

@dbisdorf I still think that RPGs like Fate don't give enough detail for a full character. Fate feels like an elevator pitch level of detail.

@Canageek @dbisdorf Let me leave you with this:

I'm thinking of a character that is 392 points, from fiction. How powerful is this character?

(Note: It's a character from one of the published , 4E settings).

@dbisdorf He nominally doesn't have a superior in Greater Bramfeildia right now, but spends more time getting things done then talking, so not as high rank as some council members.

As to Old Religion Rank, the identity of his boss is secret from the Christens, so it isn't on his character sheet in case they see it- DM tells pagan players who it is out of the room ;)

@markrollsdice I disagree. There is no feeling so good as when a skill you put on your character sheet three years ago suddenly becomes useful.

@Canageek So that's 3 years of it being irrelevant. A line of text in your description would've done just as well, and requires less mechanics.

@markrollsdice (Also I am literally on my way to play GURPS right now, in a four year long, only one Cindy every few months game....)