GURPS Character Assistant: Getting Started

If you are just starting with GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, the GURPS Character Assistant (GCA) is a great way to quickly create game characters without many book references. There are a few tips for setting it up and a few pointers I can give you to make the entire process easier to manage.

The Delvers to Grow book is excellent and gives you lower-level starting templates to begin with, so you can have a complete "zero to hero" experience. I find Dungeon Fantasy's starting 250-point characters to be too powerful, with too many options for a new player to pick up, and a simple 62-point template from Delvers to Grow gives you that "level one" adventurer experience with a lot less to grasp when you are starting the game.

Also, a 62-point character is not terribly survivable, so be careful out there!

Delvers to Grow needs a few package files in GCA, so find those under the help menu, check for updates, and choose optional packages.

In Manage Your Library, create a Dungeon Fantasy library and include the "Delvers to Grow" book, plus Companion 3, if you would like to use that too. You do not need any GURPS books, as DF is a standalone game.

From here, you are creating characters, and the flow is listed above. Find a section you want to add items to your character with, choose a subsection, and filter. Then add what you want and move on to the next section. I recommend starting with the templates section first, as those have excellent guided scripts that will take you through the character design process easy and with zero mistakes. You will get a series of dialog prompts asking you to make a choice or a few choices, and then you move to the next.

Keep an eye on the character points spent on the bottom bar, and when you are done, add some equipment to your character, print it, and begin playing! The GURPS Combat Examples page has a bunch of great example combats to get you used to how the game flows. You can play the game as simple or complex as you want! If all you want to do is roll "hit and damage," just do that! Add in the more detailed rules as you like them. Many people play GURPS just like a d20 game, "hit and damage," and forgo many extra rules - so feel free to play how you want.

GURPS is an old-school game; not all rules must be followed as written. This is probably one of the biggest hang-ups many new players have when they are trained to "play rules as written" by newer games. With old-school games, the rules are just suggestions, and you can play with as many or as few as you want. Same with Dungeon Fantasy! Go grab the 100% free GURPS Lite and use that as the task and combat resolution system, you are fine and the game will play great.

It took me a while to become proficient with GCA, but stick with it, and you will find a lot is possible with the program. Dungeon Fantasy is a subset of GURPS, and you may want custom advantages, disadvantages, skills, or gear - and those can all be added in as custom items in the program.

The characters I design with GCA are unique, and the program can be addictively fun. No other game out there does what GURPS does regarding ultimate character customization. If you write a short backstory, you can find mechanics for almost all of your character's unique quirks, traits, and personality choices. That is the beautiful thing about GURPS - backstory mechanics exist and are just not "notes on paper."

Give it a try if you are looking for other games, and you just may find you like this game better for grim and realistic fantasy with a hard edge.