TEXT: TEMPLATETOOLKIT1
  CHARACTERS
  TM
  GURPS System Design T STEVE JACKSON
  GURPS Line Editor T SEAN PUNCH
  Managing Editor T PHILIP REED
  Assistant GURPS Line Editor T JASON “PK” LEVINE
  GURPS FAQ Maintainer T VICKY “MOLOKH” KOLENKO
  Production Artist & Indexer T NIKOLA VRTIS
  e23 Manager T STEVEN MARSH
  Marketing Director T LEONARD BALSERA
  Director of Sales T ROSS JEPSON
  Prepress Checker T NIKKI VRTIS
  Page Design T PHIL REED and JUSTIN DE WITT
   Art Direction T NIKKI VRTIS
  Written by SEAN PUNCH
  Illustrated by GUY BURWELL PAUL DALY, MARCIO FIORITO,
  RAY LUNCEFORD, DAN SMITH, and JASON WALTON
  Reviewer: Jason “PK” Levine
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  STEVE JACKSON GAMES
  Stock #37-0147
  Version 1.0 – April 2014
  ®
  
   INTRODUCTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
  Using This Book. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
  Publication History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
  About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
  1. WHAT ARE CHARACTER TEMPLATES? . . . 4
  TYPES OF CHARACTER TEMPLATES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
  What About Racial Templates? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
  Occupational Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
  Dramatic Templates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
  Cultural Templates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
  ARE TEMPLATES REQUIRED?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
  Optional vs. Mandatory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
  Are Character Templates Rules?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
  Scope. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
  Templates and Player Freedom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
  WHY USE TEMPLATES? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
  2. DESIGNING CHARACTER TEMPLATES . . . . 8
  INDIVIDUAL TEMPLATE DESIGN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
  Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
  Cost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
  Traits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
  No Discounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
  Flexibility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
  Designing NPC Templates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
  Finishing Up. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
  Adjusting for Player Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
  PLANNING TEMPLATE SETS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
  Span the Space. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
  Identify Key Traits. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
  Templates and Player Perceptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
  The Jack of All Trades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
  Distribute the Goodies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
  Cheap Tricks: Copy and Paste . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
  Build Consistently . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
  Cheap Tricks: Modular Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
  Describe the Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
  3. TRICKS OF THE TRADE. . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
  PLAYER CHOICE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
  Lenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
  Why Use Lenses?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
  GIVING TEMPLATES TEETH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
  Hidden Traits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
  How Hidden? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
  Template-Optimal Abilities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
  Character Improvement Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
  WRITING IT UP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
  Sample Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
  4. NICHES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
  MATCHING TRAITS TO CHALLENGES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
  MATCHING CHALLENGES TO NICHES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
  One Kind of Challenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
  Several Kinds of Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
  Splitting Up Challenges. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
  FROM NICHES TO TEMPLATES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
  INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
  CONTENTS
  2
  CONTENTS
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  Bibliographies. Many of our books have extensive bibli-
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  you buy the resources that interest you! Go to each book’s
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  website – see above.
  Rules and statistics in this book are specifically for the
  GURPS Basic Set, Fourth Edition. Page references that
  begin with B refer to that book, not this one.
  About GURPS
  
  For a decade starting in the late 1980s, every GURPS world-
  book included a section recommending traits for suitable char-
  acter concepts, under a heading like “Character Types” or
  “Typical Characters and Backgrounds.” In 1997, GURPS
  Black Ops went further, offering partly completed character
  sheets to hasten character design. That marked the first stab at
  formal character templates, though the setting’s power level
  resulted in a sprawling presentation. A year later, GURPS
  Wizards rolled out the more concise format that’s still in use
  today, with lines for attributes, advantages, disadvantages, and
  skills; the notion of primary, secondary, and background skills;
  choices in the shape of point pools and picks from lists; and a
  “Customization Notes” section. With minor refinements that
  only an editor would care about, that pattern made its way into
  the GURPS Basic Set, Fourth Edition.
  Guidelines for designing character templates – another
  adaptation from Wizards – also appear in the Basic Set. How-
  ever, these keep things basic; there’s a significant gap between
  that simple advice and the template sets that drive such series
  as GURPS Action, GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, and GURPS
  Monster Hunters. GURPS Template Toolkit 1: Characters
  steps into this breach, exploring the creation process behind
  templates like these, including how to identify a campaign’s
  major character niches and develop coherent sets of templates
  for them. Though the average player might want to skip the
  more intricate nuts and bolts, this supplement doubles as a
  handy aid for cooking up character concepts and selecting
  traits to match.
  USING THIS BOOK
  GURPS Template Toolkit 1: Characters assumes that
  you’ve at least seen a character template. If you haven’t, then
  peek ahead at Sample Template (pp. 33-34). After that, consider
  reviewing both what the Basic Set has to say (Character
  Templates, pp. B258-260 and pp. B445-449) and Chapter 1 (if
  only for definitions of terms used in this work). Where to go
  after that depends on your goals.
  Players will find it useful to read Chapter 4 next, as it recom-
  mends abilities necessary to do important tasks. Then check 
  out Individual Template Design (pp. 8-15), because much of
  its advice is equally applicable to character design: recom-
  mended attribute and skill levels, advice on optimization, and
  so on. After that, skim Planning Template Sets (pp. 15-21 and
  Chapter 3 for insights into extracting the campaign informa-
  tion packed into templates.
  The GM will want to read Chapter 2 to learn how to design
  basic templates and sets of templates, and then Chapter 3 for
  advanced tools. Even the GM with no intention of getting
  fancy might want to cap off Chapter 2 by glancing at Writing It
  Up (pp. 33-34) to get a feel for template presentation. Chapter
  4 is about defining niches and their abilities, and isn’t a contin-
  uation of Chapters 2 and 3, but a supplement. Peruse it first,
  bookmark it as a reference, or simply ignore it – it comes last
  for a reason.
  PUBLICATION HISTORY
  This is the first edition of GURPS Template Toolkit 1:
  Characters. It builds on content developed for GURPS
  Wizards and revised in the GURPS Basic Set, Fourth Edition.
  Though it’s new material, it reiterates many key concepts from
  those earlier works. Some template fragments used as exam-
  ples of formatting and presentation may also seem familiar!
  ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  Sean “Dr. Kromm” Punch set out to become a particle physi-
  cist in 1985, ended up the GURPS Line Editor in 1995, and has
  engineered rules for almost every GURPS product since. He
  developed, edited, or wrote dozens of GURPS Third Edition
  projects between 1995 and 2002. In 2004, he produced the
  GURPS Basic Set, Fourth Edition with David Pulver. Since
  then, he has created GURPS Powers (with Phil Masters),
  GURPS Martial Arts (with Peter Dell’Orto), and the GURPS
  Action, GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, and GURPS Power-Ups
  series . . . and the list keeps growing. Sean has been a gamer
  since 1979. His non-gaming interests include cinema, mixology,
  and most recently tango. He lives in Montréal, Québec with his
  wife, Bonnie.
   INTRODUCTION
  INTRODUCTION
  3
  One way to make character creation less
  daunting is to use a “quick-start” technique
  known as a template.
  – GURPS Wizards
  
  A character template is a way for the GM – or the author of
  a GURPS supplement – to advise players on how to choose
  traits for their PCs. It consists of a structured list of attribute
  and secondary characteristic levels, advantages and disad-
  vantages, skills, and possibly other elements (perks, spells,
  techniques, and so on) that describe someone who fills a
  viable professional, social, or dramatic role in a particular
  campaign. The template’s designer calculates point costs in
  advance and notes the total “price tag.” This enables players
  to create appropriate PCs quickly; they simply pay the price,
  make any choices the template leaves open, and write down
  the resulting stats.
  CHAPTER ONE
  WHAT ARE
  CHARACTER
  TEMPLATES?
  WHAT ARE CHARACTER TEMPLATES?
  4
  Templates might cover only a subset of appropriate charac-
  ter types or the entire range suitable for the campaign, and 
  categorize heroes using any of several criteria. The three possi-
  bilities below aren’t mutually exclusive. Different classes of tem-
  plates can mingle, perhaps even on the same character sheet.
  OCCUPATIONAL TEMPLATES
  The easiest scheme to understand is division by what the
  character does in the game world. This can mean any of several
  things:
  • Jobs in the sense of pp. B516-518:
  “lawyer,” “mechanic,” “reporter,” “waiter,” etc.
  • Occupational specialties within jobs. In
  the modern world, “soldier” is a job but a
  vague one, and classifications such as
  “intelligence officer,” “medic,” and “sniper”
  are more meaningful – especially if every PC
  is a soldier.
  • Callings and vocations that differ from
  jobs because they lack formal qualifications,
  an employer, regular hours, and/or pay. In
  the modern world, “boxer,” “fortune-teller,”
  “student,” and “writer” often work like this,
  and “gangster” and “terrorist” almost always
  do; in fantasy, “cleric,” “fighter,” “thief,” and
  “wizard” fall into this category.
  • Social positions, when they’re how oth-
  ers see you and constitute the whole of what
  you do. Examples include “hereditary noble,”
  “idle rich,” and “slave.”
  TYPES OF
  CHARACTER TEMPLATES
  What About Racial Templates?
  Both racial and character templates are trait lists, but the concepts
  otherwise share little but the word “templates.” Character templates,
  however mandatory (p. 6) or prescriptive (p. 6), are guidelines (see Are
  Character Templates Rules?, p. 6), while even minimalist racial templates
  are rules – composite advantages or disadvantages that define every
  member of a race. Still, gamers designing races may want to mine Traits
  (pp. 9-13) for inspiration, paying particular attention to the recommen-
  dations for cultural templates that reflect genetic makeup. Those invent-
  ing hard, defining elements for races (racial features, perks, Talents,
  etc.) will find much of Giving Templates Teeth (pp. 27-33) applicable as
  well. On the other hand, a race’s fundamental nature is rarely variable
  enough for the advice on player choice to be appropriate, while individ-
  ual members of most races can learn and do as many different things as
  humans, making the remarks on skills and niches only weakly applica-
  ble on a race-wide basis.
  
  WHAT ARE CHARACTER TEMPLATES?
  5
  These usually coexist! Consider a pulp-era vigilantes cam-
  paign. Two PCs might be gainfully employed police officers,
  one a beat cop and the other a detective, frustrated by the rules
  of their day jobs; their “muscle” could be a boxer who formerly
  broke faces and took falls for the mob; and their mastermind
  might be a socialite with an inheritance.
  Occupational templates should include all the skills some-
  one needs to function in that field, as well as essential advan-
  tages (like Magery for a wizard) and disadvantages (such as
  Duty for a soldier), especially social ones: Legal Enforcement
  Powers, Status, Wealth, etc. This is particularly true of jobs
  with formal “entrance requirements.” Such templates might
  also suggest traits that would lead someone to enter the field or
  excel at it, or that would result from pursuing it; e.g., a fantasy
  warrior might take up the sword because he has good ST, stick
  with it out of Bloodlust, and eventually acquire Combat
  Reflexes and Wounded. Self-imposed mental disadvantages
  (p. B121) are common, too, whether this means a fighter’s
  Code of Honor or a cleric’s Disciplines of Faith.
  Thinking through all this is a lot of work, so the GM won’t
  want to create a template for an occupation unless it’s not only
  suitable for the genre and setting, but also exciting or iconic.
  DRAMATIC TEMPLATES
  Another way to split things up is by the character’s role in the
  story. In many genres, such templates are almost indistinguish-
  able from occupational ones – are “cleric” and “wizard” occu-
  pations (“temple official” and “student of magic”) or dramatic
  niches (“paragon of morality” and “wise man”)? Again, there
  are many ways to think about this:
  • Archetypes transcend genre, and are things like “mother
  figure,” “father figure,” “child,” “martyr,” “wise man,” and
  “trickster.” Technically, “hero” qualifies – but in a roleplaying
  game, that’s too broad a label.
  • Most genres have specific conventions, like “screaming
  victim” in horror, “femme fatale” in noir fiction, and “token
  alien” in space sci-fi.
  • In campaigns that feature superhuman gifts, powers
  may suggest dramatic divisions. For instance, a comic-book
  superhero team might have a “brick” who stops bullets and
  smashes things, a “blaster” who shoots faraway bad guys, a
  “mentalist” who controls minds, and so on.
  And again, subtypes can be mixed. What’s vital is that each
  dramatic template offers whatever the PC needs to advance the
  plot regardless of occupation. This often means personality
  traits – particularly mental disadvantages – and “meta-game”
  traits (such as Cursed, Daredevil, Destiny, Luck, Serendipity,
  and Unluckiness) that bend the odds so that the character can
  take his place in the story. When dramatic roles are tied to
  powers, though, the associated templates might resemble
  occupational specialties for a “job” like “superhero,” and dwell
  heavily on concrete capabilities.
  CULTURAL TEMPLATES
  Finally, it’s possible to distinguish by the character’s back-
  ground in the setting. This can be a powerful defining concept;
  e.g., Alexander the Great was first and foremost a Macedonian,
  which identified him throughout his adventures. A cultural
  template may specify a mixture of any of the following:
  • Beliefs and prejudices of a tribe, nation, or religion. These
  are usually self-imposed mental disadvantages (p. B121) and
  Odious Personal Habits (p. B22), but they might be more
  exotic; e.g., a Phobia concerning large bodies of water (Thalas-
  sophobia, p. B150), for a desert people.
  • Genetic traits of a family, bloodline, or closed breeding
  group. These are most often attribute levels and physical
  advantages and disadvantages, and in effect define the racial
  template of a sub-race (p. B454).
  • Social traits for a subculture. This typically means some
  variety of Social Regard (p. B86) or Social Stigma (p. B155),
  but anything’s possible; e.g., every member of the group might
  differ from the campaign average in Status or Wealth.
  • Teachings for a culture that imparts particular Cultural
  Familiarities (p. B23) and Languages (pp. B23-25), skills it
  considers vital (like Riding for an equestrian society), or
  learnable advantages (such as Combat Reflexes for a war-
  rior civilization).
  This is a big issue, worth clearing up before going any
  further:
  Character templates are not necessary to play GURPS.
  The GM may decide, on his own or after a discussion with
  the players, that templates will add nothing to the campaign.
  However, they have a lot to offer (check out Why Use Templates?,
  p. 7), and there’s a wealth of possibilities between “no templates”
  and “all PCs must be built on exacting templates.”
  OPTIONAL VS. MANDATORY
  If the GM chooses to use templates, the next decision is
  whether some or all PCs will be built on them.
  Optional Templates
  One possibility is that nobody is required to select a template.
  Characters can be built freeform, with templates serving as
  “training wheels” for new players who want support and as
  inspiration for veterans with writer’s block. Since such resources
  may go unused, the GM might want to stick to limited templates
  (p. 6) and spend relatively little time on their design.
  ARE TEMPLATES REQUIRED?
  Templates are
  guidelines, not rules.
  
  Special-Case Templates
  Another option is to allow most players to choose between
  using a template or going freeform, but to require templates
  for PCs in some occupations, roles, or cultures. This can serve
  several purposes:
  • Building a consistent game world wherein all members of
  a homogenous cultural group share certain features (much like
  a race).
  • Ensuring that anybody who occupies a key dramatic
  niche for the genre possesses traits that serve as “plot hooks.”
  • Parameterizing characters who have tricky or easily abused
  abilities; e.g., the GM may insist that wizards be built on occu-
  pational templates in order to limit IQ, Magery, and spells.
  • Setting entrance requirements for high-paying or presti-
  gious jobs.
  Be warned that most players will consider a situation where
  all the interesting niches require templates – leaving fans of
  freeform design only the peripheral and the lackluster – to be
  a dishonest version of Mandatory Templates (below).
  Mandatory Templates
  Everybody must select one or more templates! These don’t
  have to be prescriptive (below) – that’s a different axis. Possi-
  bilities include:
  • Mandatory Occupational Templates (pp. 4-5). Every-
  body must have something to do, and has to choose from a
  list of professions and vocations the GM regards as impor-
  tant to the campaign.
  • Mandatory Dramatic Templates (p. 5). Everybody
  must have a part to play in the story, whether this
  means classic roles such as “hero,” “maiden,” and
  “mentor”; the Five-Man Band of modern adventure
  fiction (“leader,” “lancer,” “smart guy,” “big guy,” and
  “chick”); or video-game concepts like “crowd con-
  trol,” “healer,” and “tank.”
  • Mandatory Cultural Templates (p. 5). Everybody
  must choose a family, faction, religion, nation, or
  whatever.
  The GM might insist on two or all three of these. He
  may link certain occupations, dramatic roles, and/or
  cultures, or permit players to mix and match. Some
  character concepts could be more constrained than
  others; e.g., every PC has to select a cultural template,
  Special-Case Templates (above) applies to certain jobs,
  and members of those professions automatically fill
  associated dramatic roles.
  SCOPE
  Separate from but related to the question of whether players
  must select templates is that of just how far the templates go.
  Limited Templates
  Some templates are worth only a fraction of the campaign’s
  starting points, leaving a lot of leeway for customization. This
  is common when using Optional Templates (p. 5), where the
  objective is to give players a push in the right direction, not to
  create their characters for them.
  Mandatory Templates (above) may also go this way, how-
  ever. The GM might feel that it’s important for every PC to
  have an occupation, a dramatic role, or a culture – to add
  depth to the campaign or to ensure that everybody fits in –
  but not want those qualities to define the PCs and turn them
  into stereotypes. Alternatively, he might want everybody to
  select two or three templates, which necessitates no one tem-
  plate being fully prescriptive on its own.
  Whatever the case may be, this leaves open the possibility
  that not all templates have the same point cost; e.g., a 150-
  point campaign might feature templates worth 25, 50, 75, and
  100 points. This means the GM doesn’t have to make every
  background equal, even if that would be illogical. It also lets
  players choose how much GM guidance they want to accept.
  Prescriptive Templates
  Other templates spend every character point except for
  those from quirks. They define the PC completely. Which isn’t
  to say that the player has no input – Player Choice (pp. 22-27)
  is a crucial aspect of any good prescriptive template. It merely
  means that following the template’s instructions results in a
  completed character. The template may well be little more
  than extensive advice for spending every last point.
  Prescriptive templates needn’t come in one piece. If the GM
  is also using Mandatory Templates (above), he might require
  each player to select two or three templates that add up to the
  campaign’s starting points. For instance, if everybody in a 150-
  point campaign must pick a 75-point occupational template, a
  45-point dramatic template, and a 30-point cultural template,
  the campaign is using prescriptive templates even if the indi-
  vidual building blocks are limited.
  WHAT ARE CHARACTER TEMPLATES?
  6
  Templates and Player Freedom
  Players are always welcome to customize character templates
  using leftover points, especially those generated by quirks. In
  addition, disadvantages listed as choices – as distinct from fixed
  requirements for the template or the campaign – are always sug-
  gestions, and players may substitute their own alternatives. And
  even in a campaign that uses templates that are both mandatory
  (above) and prescriptive (above), the GM is advised to be open to
  handling concerns like Enforcing Niche Protection (p. 7),
  Establishing Allowed Abilities and Levels (p. 7), and Suggesting
  Trait Distributions (p. 7) via negotiation. Provided that the player
  is willing to abide by the GM’s standards in such matters, there’s
  no good reason to forbid deviations from templates or to ban
  freeform character creation.
  Are Character Templates Rules?
  No. They are never completely binding (see Templates
  and Player Freedom, below, have no effect on the character-
  point costs of their constituent parts (see No Discounts,
  p. 9), and don’t in themselves influence dice rolls (although
  the included traits often do). Still, they are sometimes
  mandatory (below) and needn’t be complete nonentities
  (see Giving Templates Teeth, pp. 27-33).
  
  As character templates aren’t essential in the “you need
  them to play GURPS” sense, designing them can be a lot of
  unnecessary work if all the players are conversant with the
  rules and good at paying attention to the GM’s description of
  the campaign, and if the GM is adept at spelling out his expec-
  tations. One of the beauties of GURPS is that it allows players
  to create the PCs they want . . . there are no limits beyond those
  the GM sets! In practice, things aren’t always so rosy. Two
  common problems arise:
  Decision paralysis. Not every player approaches a new cam-
  paign with a character concept firmly in mind. For some, all it
  takes to get the creative juices flowing is a quick skim of the
  Basic Set for interesting traits. For others, however, the many
  choices there – not to mention in supplements that describe
  specialized abilities (GURPS Martial Arts, GURPS Magic,
  GURPS Powers, etc.) – can have the opposite effect, over-
  whelming the imagination.
  Inappropriateness. Yet other players interpret “no limits”
  somewhat too creatively. They dream up PCs that don’t suit the
  campaign the GM has in mind. The smorgasbord of options
  doesn’t befuddle them, but the resulting characters make the
  GM’s head hurt.
  All this goes double for gamers new to
  GURPS, who might have little idea of what
  is and isn’t possible, suitable, or effective. It
  goes triple if they are familiar only with non-
  generic RPGs where nearly everything in the
  core rules applies to every campaign, or are
  used to games that steer and simplify charac-
  ter creation using “classes” or “archetypes.”
  Such players might assume that anything
  published is in use . . . and pick inappropri-
  ate traits or end up totally bewildered.
  A well-designed set of character templates
  can solve all of these problems and serve a host of other use-
  ful purposes besides.
  Recommending Character Concepts
  Templates can call attention to the jobs, dramatic roles,
  and/or cultures the GM deems important. Indeed, they’re often
  worth creating for this purpose alone, as they tell even players
  who are creating their characters freeform what sorts of peo-
  ple and activities the campaign will focus on. If the GM hasn’t
  worked out a template for a given background, that sends the
  message that he either overlooked it (so such characters might
  have little to do and be boring to play) or felt it unsuitable –
  and while neither is an insurmountable obstacle, both flag a
  need for player-GM dialog to establish expectations.
  Enforcing Niche Protection
  If templates are mandatory (like those in GURPS Action,
  GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, and GURPS Monster Hunters),
  they might describe the most important roles for PCs in the
  campaign. The GM can use them to divvy up capabilities vital
  to the genre or setting in a way that ensures that everyone gets
  equal “spotlight time.” This enables the players to negotiate
  among themselves to establish who will do what and assemble
  a team that has all the abilities it needs to succeed at likely
  challenges. For much more on this, see Chapter 4.
  Listing Must-Haves
  One of templates’ best uses is to remind players, especially
  new ones, of abilities they shouldn’t overlook. This can tie into
  individual character concepts and niche protection – “You
  need these traits to function in this capacity!” – but it doesn’t
  have to. It’s no less useful to ensure that everybody ends up
  with essential everyman traits (p. 17); e.g., Riding (Horse) and
  Survival (Plains) in a campaign about steppe nomads.
  Establishing Allowed Abilities and Levels
  In any campaign, the GM decides what traits are permitted,
  have special prerequisites, or are forbidden; for those bought in
  levels, he also specifies maxima. Templates offer a convenient
  tool for managing all this. Even if they aren’t mandatory, the GM
  can refer to them as the official word on what’s acceptable; e.g.,
  “Nobody can have more Status than these templates allow.” If
  they are mandatory, then establishing which templates grant
  access to particular advantages, skills, etc. also serves the pur-
  pose of niche protection; in effect, templates can come with
  “hidden traits” (pp. 27-29) that limit access to specific char-
  acter elements or associate them in unorthodox ways.
  Setting the Power Level
  The GM can use templates to convey the campaign’s
  power level (see Starting Points, p. B10, and Power Level,
  p. B487). For prescriptive templates, this is a simple matter
  of setting total cost equal to starting points. For others, it
  involves noting how many points remain for customization.
  Setting the Disadvantage Limit
  In a campaign with a disadvantage limit (p. B11), tem-
  plates can communicate that, too. Either use the full limit
  and say as much or spell out how many points in negative-
  cost traits are still available to pay for customization. Leave
  quirks at the player’s discretion in even the most prescriptive
  templates, however.
  Suggesting Trait Distributions
  Templates can show players (again, new ones in particular)
  roughly what proportion of points ought to go into attributes,
  secondary characteristics, advantages, skills, and so forth.
  They might even differentiate between categories within each
  class of traits, often by setting separate budgets for “regular”
  and “special” abilities; e.g., ordinary skills and magic spells, or
  mundane and exotic/supernatural advantages. On mandatory
  templates, especially prescriptive ones, this is another way to
  establish allowed ability levels.
  This isn’t just about setting limits, though. An angle often
  overlooked by new players is optimizing points in attributes,
  advantages that bestow skill bonuses (notably Talents), and
  skills to get the best return on investment. See Optimization
  (pp. 13-14).
  WHAT ARE CHARACTER TEMPLATES?
  7
  WHY USE TEMPLATES?
  
  To see the benefits that Chapter 1 claims for character tem-
  plates, the GM must design good templates . . . and that takes
  serious effort. The individual templates have to walk a fine line
  between offering sufficient advice to help the player visualize
  the character and enough choice to make it unique. Moreover,
  the whole collection needs to be conceived of as a cohesive set.
  DESIGNING CHARACTER TEMPLATES
  8
  CHAPTER TWO
  DESIGNING
  CHARACTER
  TEMPLATES
  A template should convey what it needs to say but no more.
  It must stay on message for its occupation, role, or culture, not
  be a catchall for anything that might conceivably apply to a
  “special snowflake.” Most important, it has to result in a char-
  acter (or an aspect of one!) that somebody wants to play.
  CONCEPT
  A template is a partially built character, so designing it
  requires a “concept,” just as does a fully realized character (see
  Character Concept, p. B11). This is a clear idea of what the tem-
  plate represents and how it fits into the campaign. It’s best
  developed in discrete steps:
  1. Come up with a working title that describes the role you
  have in mind. Examples: In a Musketeers campaign set in 17th-
  century France, this might be “Frenchman,” “Florentine,” or
  “Spaniard” – or “King’s Musketeer,” “Cardinal’s Guard,” or
  “foreign spy.” In hack ’n’ slash fantasy, it’s probably something
  more like “cleric,” “thief,” or “wizard.”
  2. Decide what kind of template that implies. Review Types
  of Character Templates (pp. 4-5) for important advice, remem-
  bering that it’s possible to mix types. Examples: In the
  Musketeers campaign, a template for someone who comes
  from a particular European state would be cultural, while one
  for a soldier, spy, or other adventurer would be occupational.
  In the hack ‘n’ slash game, cultures might be too generic to
  matter (“Faux-Medieval Kingdom I,” “Faux-Medieval Kingdom
  II,” etc.), but you’ll want occupational templates – and these
  will double as dramatic templates, because each “character
  class” plays a particular role in the story.
  3. Visualize the traits that would best meet the demands of
  that role in the campaign. Both your specific knowledge of the
  game world and the general advice in Chapter 4 can help here.
  You’ll flesh this out more later; for now, simply note any high-
  lights that leap readily to mind. Examples: A cultural template
  for a Florentine might be stereotyped, with Merchant skill, artis-
  tic skills, and Rapier for fighting; an occupational template for a
  Musketeer would include the position’s social advantages
  alongside skill at musketry, fencing, riding, and politesse; and
  a fantasy thief template would require criminal skills such as
  Lockpicking, Pickpocket, and Stealth, plus enough DX and IQ
  to be talented at these.
  Template Description
  It’s surprisingly helpful at this stage to write up the concept
  in plain language rather than as game stats; for an example, 
  see Sample Template (pp. 33-34) or any other published tem-
  plate. Coming up with a paragraph that encapsulates your
  objective forces you to collect your thoughts in a way that’s
  almost guaranteed to provide new insights. Don’t worry about
  getting the words perfect – unless you’re a GURPS author, you
  aren’t being paid for this! And don’t be shy about coming back
  at the end of the design process and revising your description
  to better suit the concept’s final evolution (see Finalize the
  Description, p. 15).
  COST
  Decide in advance how many points the template will
  cost. In theory, you could start picking traits and ring up the
  bill at the end; in practice, that’s lazy and sacrifices focus
  (for further thoughts, see Check Your Math!, p. 14). Just 
  as the player on a budget must make some hard calls
  regarding what truly matters, forcing him to refine his char-
  acter concept, the GM on a budget builds better templates.
  INDIVIDUAL TEMPLATE DESIGN
  
  Setting the budget depends on Scope (p. 6) – and while the
  presence of numbers might suggest otherwise, this is an art!
  Pricing Limited Templates
  Limited templates (p. 6) can have any cost that’s less than
  campaign starting points. This doesn’t have to be the same
  for each template – some occupations are more
  difficult than others, not all dramatic roles are
  equal, and certain cultures are richer or enjoy
  more respect than average. The lower this cost,
  the greater the template’s flexibility (p. 10) but
  the weaker the advice to new players and the
  GM’s control over where points are spent.
  Conversely, a “limited” template that burns up
  in excess of 90% of the player’s starting points
  will seem restrictive and isn’t materially differ-
  ent from a prescriptive one.
  A cultural background can come in as low as
  5 to 10 points; a typical occupation, at anywhere
  from 25 to 75 points; and an elite occupation like “com-
  mando” or “wizard,” at 100 points at least. In a low-powered
  campaign, keep costs down but don’t abandon your convic-
  tions. If you can’t see a template being affordable on starting
  points, then that tells you something about the campaign;
  e.g., if you feel that being a brain surgeon is a 100-point job,
  then in your 50-point GURPS Horror game, brain surgeons
  are unsuitable as PCs and may well be NPCs who terrorize
  screaming victims!
  Dramatic templates are exceptional in that they can actually
  have negative values if they contain enough disadvantages. In
  that case, it’s crucial to be aware of disadvantage limits. See
  Respecting the Disadvantage Limit (p. 11).
  Pricing Prescriptive Templates
  Prescriptive templates (p. 6) can get tricky. If each charac-
  ter will have just one, then matters are straightforward: cost
  equals campaign starting points. This is how templates work in
  series like GURPS Monster Hunters and GURPS Action.
  However, a prescriptive scheme might involve choosing
  from several menus: cultural template, occupational template,
  and/or dramatic template. In that case, it’s easiest if all tem-
  plates of a given type have the same cost, allowing players to
  mix and match for extra flexibility (p. 10). Alternatively, the
  GM can have several different price ranges; e.g., 10- and 20-
  point cultural templates, 50-, 60-, and 70-point dramatic roles,
  and 60-, 70-, 80-, and 90-point occupations in a 150-point cam-
  paign. That’s much more work, but it might be worth the trou-
  ble for lots of players, for a campaign in which PCs require
  frequent replacement (like grunts in a war), or if the scheme
  will be recycled (perhaps for repeated convention games) or
  used to generate NPCs as well (see also Designing NPC
  Templates, p. 12).
  Then the GM must do the sort of thinking noted for limited
  templates, and ensure that the totals add up to the campaign
  power level. The recommended method is to decide which set
  of templates is dominant – usually occupations or dramatic
  roles – and dial these back just enough to afford the others. For
  instance, the GM of another 150-point campaign might want
  all national origins to be 10-point packages, leaving 140 points,
  and then specify 140-point occupational templates, or 100-
  point occupations plus 40-point dramatic roles.
  TRAITS
  With a picture of the template in mind and a budget to spend
  on it, it’s time to allocate points to traits that fit the vision.
  Chapters 3 and 4 offer more detail on choosing these and on
  replacing fixed traits with player choices. Consider reading
  ahead before putting this advice into action for the first time!
  Attributes
  It’s useful here to expand on How to Select Basic Attributes
  (p. B14):
  Values
  Description
  Notes
  6 or less
  Crippling
  You cannot lead a normal life.
  7
  Poor
  You can live a normal life but 
  never be an adventurer.
  8-9
  Below-Average
  The lowest an adventurer 
  should ever have.
  10
  Average
  Most people!
  11-12
  Above-Average
  A good “average” for 
  adventurers.
  13-14
  Exceptional
  Above-average even for 
  adventurers.
  15-16
  Amazing
  Strongly defines the most 
  capable of adventurers.
  17-18
  Legendary
  Historical “bests” and 
  remarkable fictional 
  and folkloric heroes.
  19-20
  Mythic
  Astounding even among 
  heroes.
  21 or more
  Superhuman
  Off-limits to humans.
  Ordinary jobs are for average people. The associated
  occupational templates should leave everything at 10 unless
  the profession selects for particular gifts; e.g., in a circus
  campaign, the strongman needs high ST and the acrobat
  requires good DX. Even then, in a realistic setting, ST 8-18
  and DX, IQ, and HT 9-14 account for nearly every human in
  any occupation generic enough to merit a template – partic-
  ularly if that template applies to NPCs (see Designing NPC
  Templates, p. 12).
  “Adventuring” occupations can be more liberal. Most have
  one or two above-average stats (11-12), and key scores might
  stray into the amazing range (15-16). In a high-powered cam-
  paign, all four attributes may be above-average (11-12) or
  exceptional (13-14). “Adventuring” doesn’t always mean “unre-
  alistic.” Commandos who receive training in many DX- and
  IQ-based skills, and who do regular intensive exercise, could
  conceivably justify 13 across the board!
  Dramatic templates are a special case, as it often serves the
  purposes of drama for an archetype to have extreme attributes.
  DESIGNING CHARACTER TEMPLATES
  9
  No Discounts
  Without exception, a template’s cost equals the total price of its
  constituent parts. Avoid the temptation – often carried over from
  other game systems – to see templates as “package deals” with dis-
  counted price tags. While characters built on templates and those
  designed freeform might have completely different trait selections,
  they should be indistinguishable on the basis of point costs alone.
  
  If all the PCs will be Musketeers and you decide to offer tem-
  plates for “the strong one,” “the quick one,” and “the wise one,”
  it makes sense to assign high ST, DX, and IQ, respectively.
  Likewise, the archetypal fool needs low IQ.
  Cultural templates rarely merit attribute modifiers. A cul-
  ture may harbor a Reputation for being deprived or gifted, but
  all too often that’s racism or pride talking. While there’s noth-
  ing wrong with gestures like making a nation of farmers a lit-
  tle stronger or healthier than one of sedentary cityfolk, tread
  lightly – excessive stereotyping is almost always a bad idea, and
  that goes double here.
  In all cases, note that an attribute below 8 is impractical in
  actual play. Even dramatic templates should try to avoid scores
  of 7 or less. If nothing else, these burn up too much of the dis-
  advantage limit; see Respecting the Disadvantage Limit (p. 11).
  All of this assumes humans. Alongside a racial template,
  take this advice in relative terms – if the average elf has DX
  12, then an exceptional one has DX 15-16. Regardless of race,
  it’s also useful to think relatively when players can pick more
  than one character template. Combining two templates with
  DX +1 to get DX +2 is easier than remembering that DX 11
  and DX 11 imply DX 12. A practical compromise is to
  choose one set of templates to provide a baseline with
  absolute scores (e.g., “DX 11 [20]”) and then have the rest
  offer modifiers (e.g., “DX +1 [20]”).
  Secondary Characteristics
  It’s best to leave HP, Will, Per, FP, Basic Speed, and Basic
  Move at the base values implied by the template’s attributes.
  Tweaking these is especially likely to confuse new players!
  Simply choose attributes that give fair secondary characteris-
  tics and leave fine-tuning to the adventurous gamer.
  An exception is justified when the concept absolutely
  requires outstanding ability in one of these areas – say, high
  Per for a tracker or high Basic Move for a sprinter. In that
  case, apply the secondary characteristic limits on pp. B15-
  18 and the advice given above for attributes. Thus, HP will
  mostly stay in the 8-18 range, while Will, Per, and FP
  remain around 9-14, but a level or two of variation is rea-
  sonable. Halve the attribute scale to assess what’s plausible
  for Basic Speed and Basic Move; e.g., Move 6 is above-aver-
  age and Move 8 is amazing.
  Advantages
  For occupational templates, include any entrance require-
  ments (e.g., Languages for a translator) or automatic benefits
  (e.g., Clerical Investment for a priest). Think about gifts that
  would lead someone to embark on this career; for example,
  Flexibility, High Manual Dexterity, Night Vision, and Perfect
  Balance for a thief. Fitting Talents are particularly likely; see
  pp. B89-91 and GURPS Power-Ups 3: Talents. Finally, con-
  sider advantages that could be learned or acquired during the
  course of a career: Combat Reflexes for a soldier, Wealth for
  a merchant, and so on. Don’t forget that not all occupations
  are jobs! For instance, an “idle rich” template may be defined
  by Status, Wealth, and not much else.
  Dramatic templates should incorporate advantages invari-
  ably found in literary and cinematic examples; e.g., Charisma
  or high Appearance for the dashing swashbuckler. Positive
  Destiny and similar “plot armor” (Daredevil, Extra Life, Luck,
  and Serendipity all qualify) are especially common for heroes
  meant to accomplish great things. When dramatic templates
  represent important tactical roles (as in most hack ’n’ slash fan-
  tasy) or powers (say, for members of a superhero team), the
  floodgates really open up. That swashbuckler might be defined
  as surely by Luck and Weapon Master as by his charm, while a
  superheroic “brick” may require Damage Resistance, Injury
  Tolerance, and a host of other exotic capabilities.
  In the case of cultural templates, likely candidates are any
  Cultural Familiarity, Language, Social Regard, Status, and/or
  Wealth which everybody like that enjoys. Genetic traits are
  also possible; e.g., “all Northerners have Temperature Toler-
  ance.” Cultures that breed people for particular occupations
  – that is, castes – may have advantages customarily found on
  occupational templates. For instance, all members of a labor-
  ing caste might have Lifting ST, while a warrior caste exhibits
  Combat Reflexes.
  Justify each advantage using an argument similar to one of
  those above. Try to avoid genuinely unusual abilities; if every
  character of a type has a trait that’s rare even in the genre,
  then giving that ability to everyone built on the template will
  dilute its value and damage willing suspension of disbelief.
  DESIGNING CHARACTER TEMPLATES
  10
  Flexibility
  The concept (p. 8) behind a template should be suffi-
  ciently flexible that the player can easily individualize the
  character. Leave enough “creative space” that the gamer
  isn’t stuck playing a stereotype (unless the campaign specif-
  ically calls for that). There are several ways to achieve this:
  Offer choices. The most obvious way to keep a template
  flexible is to offer many choices of traits. For an exploration
  of methods for doing so, see Player Choice (pp. 22-27).
  Keep density low. A “dense” character template includes
  many traits, even if their total cost isn’t especially high; it
  defines a particular role so precisely that it can rob a PC of
  individuality. A “sparse” template makes fewer suggestions;
  the resulting character is easier to customize. To achieve
  sparsity, give the template only traits that define the role,
  not everything that could conceivably fit.
  Limit scope. As Scope (p. 6) explains, templates can
  spend few or all of the campaign’s starting points. A
  straightforward way to offer flexibility is to bear the power
  level in mind and come in under the point budget for PCs,
  leaving enough unspent points – and sufficient unused
  points in disadvantages, if enforcing a limit – that the player
  can customize the character.
  There’s considerable give and take here. For instance, a
  prescriptive template of great scope and density can remain
  flexible if it offers many choices. A dense template that
  specifies lots of traits and offers no choices among them
  still offers flexibility if all that detail is cheap and leaves the
  player with most of his starting points unspent. And so on.
  In fact, it’s wise not to strive for all of the above, or inex-
  perienced players will be left wondering, “What’s my role?”
  After all, the logical extreme of sparsity and limited scope is
  a blank character sheet, while the ultimate in choice is the
  Basic Set – which is fine, but then you aren’t using tem-
  plates. The secret is to strike a balance between the three.
  
  Advantages that are the opposite of definitive disadvantages
  (below) are also inappropriate; make sure that these don’t
  appear among the template’s options. Don’t be afraid to
  acknowledge reality, however. In particular, it’s justifiable to
  assume that anyone making a successful career out of some-
  thing has a level or two of relevant Talent; e.g., a “rock star”
  template could plausibly boast Musical Ability, while one for a
  “social engineer” enjoys Smooth Operator.
  Disadvantages
  Occupational templates may have disadvantageous
  entrance requirements; the most common of these is Duty,
  but some traditional organizations expect self-imposed men-
  tal disadvantages (p. B121), particularly Code of Honor (Pro-
  fessional), Disciplines of Faith (for priests), and Vows. Other
  disadvantages might lead someone into a career, much as
  advantages can; a person who suffers from Kleptomania may
  well end up with few job choices but “thief.” Some liabilities
  can become assets under suitable circumstances – consider
  the assassin with Bloodlust or the menacing goon with
  unpleasant Appearance. And still others are consequences of
  the occupation; e.g., mental problems representing post-trau-
  matic stress disorder for a veteran soldier.
  Dramatic templates are often defined almost entirely by their
  mental disadvantages, and frequently have “good” disadvan-
  tages or tragic flaws; see Disadvantages for Heroes (p. B119).
  They sometimes have nasty problems like Cursed, Unluckiness,
  and negative Destiny, if their place in the story is a tragic one.
  Cultural templates should contain any Social Stigma, or
  Status or Wealth deficit, from which everybody like that suffers.
  Some cultures’ rigid outlooks on life would qualify as Odious
  Personal Habits (handle these like Odious Racial Habits) or self-
  imposed mental disadvantages. The latter most often consist of
  a cultural Code of Honor; Fanaticism or a Sense of Duty toward
  either the group itself or a suzerain to which it owes allegiance;
  or Intolerance of rival factions. Genetic traits can be negative,
  too – problems as mild as Distinctive Features and as severe as
  Hemophilia run in bloodlines.
  It’s possible for a disadvantage to have multiple links to a
  template. For example, a thief might pursue that career
  because he has Social Stigma (Criminal Record) and can’t find
  honest work, or end up with Social Stigma (Criminal Record)
  as a consequence of being caught stealing. A man might
  become a sumo wrestler because he’s Fat, or grow Fat through
  training. And a tragic archetype might start out with a horrible
  Destiny that ensures his downfall, or be cursed with that dur-
  ing his descent. A trait that offers several “hooks” like this is
  especially suitable for the template!
  There are also especially unsuitable disadvantages – ones
  that would interfere fatally with the concept. For occupational
  templates, avoiding these might be yet another entrance
  requirement (if all pilots need 20/20 or better vision, then Bad
  Sight has no place on their template), but it’s possible that such
  a trait would merely doom the sufferer to failure (few things
  are more pathetic than a thief with Honesty). For dramatic
  templates, this means steering clear of problems inimical to
  the archetype, particularly Villain Disadvantages (p. B120) for
  heroes . . . and “Good” Disadvantages (p. B119) for scum. For
  cultural templates, it’s mainly a matter of not assigning any-
  thing that would define the character as belonging to mutually
  exclusive group. For all templates, the opposite of a definitive
  advantage (pp. 10-11) is off-limits!
  Respecting the Disadvantage Limit
  If the GM has set a campaign disadvantage limit (p. B11),
  then no character template or permitted combination of tem-
  plates should violate this or extend special exemptions to it.
  How closely templates ought to approach the limit, and even
  whether they should include disadvantages at all, are matters
  of some debate.
  On one hand, flexibility (p. 10) is best served by leaving dis-
  advantages substantially or entirely untouched. That gives
  players an extra option for scrounging up points with which to
  customize their PCs. It has the bonus effect of not forcing any-
  one to roleplay traits he didn’t personally select.
  On the other hand, if the GM insists on mandatory tem-
  plates, he may want to exploit them to establish the disadvan-
  tage limit (Setting the Disadvantage Limit, p. 7) or show
  what’s permitted (Establishing Allowed Abilities and Levels,
  p. 7). If so, templates can specify disadvantages up to the
  limit. This is often for the best with new players, even if it
  does limit flexibility.
  It’s important not to let idealism trump practicality. If a
  template needs disadvantages – to the point where omitting
  them would damage plausibility – then include them. The com-
  mando who lacks Duty and thus never has to serve his coun-
  try, or the archetypal fool who doesn’t have lower-than-average
  IQ and therefore isn’t particularly foolish, will upset the cam-
  paign far more than a player getting 10 or 20 fewer customiza-
  tion points than hoped for.
  As in all matters, moderation may be best. Anything from 0
  points to the full limit is “legal,” and the figure needn’t be the
  same for every template or combination. When treading this
  middle ground, however, be sure to note how many disadvan-
  tage points remain for customization – your players will thank
  you for the clarification.
  One last thing: Quirks aren’t appropriate template compo-
  nents. Even on the densest, most prescriptive of mandatory
  templates, the GM should leave quirks to the player, who can
  spend the resulting five points on whatever customization suits
  the character and campaign.
  Skills
  For an occupational template, pick the skills needed for the
  character to be competent in that role. Avoid excessive num-
  bers of skills, but include all the necessary skills, a few that are
  complementary (if not vital), and some that provide fitting
  background color. No occupation worthy of an entire template
  is described by just one skill, not even when that skill shares the
  template’s name!
  DESIGNING CHARACTER TEMPLATES
  11
  Better a diamond 
  with a flaw than 
  a pebble without.
  – Confucius
  
  Example: A TL8 physician would be unqualified if he knew
  just Physician. Diagnosis is equally important, and he would be
  unlikely to graduate from medical school without knowing a lit-
  tle Electronics Operation (Medical), Pharmacy (Synthetic),
  Physiology, and Surgery – even though he isn’t a technician,
  pharmacist, physiologist, or surgeon. Poring over textbooks and
  medical journals is liable to impart Research, while running a
  private practice could easily justify some Administration.
  Also be aware that skill and occupation names often don’t
  match. The main skill of a screen or stage actor is Perform-
  ance, not Acting. Many “economists” are actually experts at
  Finance and Market Analysis. Marketers use Propaganda, even
  if their euphemism for it is “advertising.” And so on.
  The exact details can vary between similar-seeming tem-
  plates. Professional soldiers learn far more than the Soldier skill.
  Poor-quality conscripts may be taught little but the broad knowl-
  edge covered by Soldier. And soldiers in times and places with-
  out standing armies wouldn’t get Soldier, despite the name, but
  would certainly have weapon skills, Hiking, and Survival.
  The moral? If you aren’t 100% sure whether a skill belongs
  on the template, read its description!
  For dramatic templates, the importance of skills varies
  widely. Some archetypes are described entirely by advantages
  and disadvantages – or even by disadvantages alone. On the
  other hand, it’s hard to qualify for “trickster” without trouble-
  making skills like Fast-Talk and Stealth, or for “wise man”
  without a thoughtful ability such as Dreaming or Philosophy.
  And some such roles double as occupations in campaigns
  where one’s place in life determines one’s part in the story; thus,
  they require occupational skills.
  For a cultural template, skills tend to be things that no one
  with that upbringing could avoid learning. A person who hails
  from a primitive culture where the forest sustains life won’t
  lack Survival (Woodlands), while somebody born into a caste
  may be drilled in the skills of the associated occupation from a
  young age. There’s often a veneer of “cultural” skills to all kinds
  of templates in settings where certain pursuits are everyman
  traits (p. 17); e.g., the GM could justify adding Computer Oper-
  ation to almost any TL8+ template.
  Skill Levels
  Setting actual skill levels is more challenging, but consider
  these guidelines:
  Values
  Description
  Notes
  8-9
  Novice
  Skills unimportant to personal 
  or professional success.
  10-11
  Amateur
  Hobbies and secondary job skills.
  12-13
  Low-Risk 
  Primary job skills for most jobs, 
  Professional 
  including somewhat risky ones 
  like “pilot,” “soldier,” and “doctor.”
  14-15
  High-Risk 
  Primary job skills for risky jobs, 
  Professional 
  like “fighter pilot,” “commando,” 
  and “surgeon.”
  16-19
  Expert
  Someone good enough to stand out 
  in even a risky field.
  20+
  Master
  One of the top people alive or 
  of all time in any field.
  For occupational templates, 12 or 13 suffices for most call-
  ings. Skill 14 or 15 should do for genuinely risky ones, includ-
  ing “adventuring” professions. Save 16+ for people who truly
  stand out in their field. Such impressive skill levels certainly
  have a place on templates for heroic PCs, but not on those for
  ordinary jobs that nameless NPCs might hold; including them
  there waters down the value of high skill.
  For dramatic templates, levels should usually fall within the
  ranges recommended for occupational skills. For archetypes like
  “child” and “fool,” it’s possible that no skill will be even this high.
  DESIGNING CHARACTER TEMPLATES
  12
  These guidelines assume that the GM is designing tem-
  plates for PCs: above-average people – typically adventurers
  and often heroes – who have abilities that let them make a
  difference in their world, and who might even be destined to
  do so. That doesn’t describe most NPCs, however.
  Many of the essential principles behind designing good
  templates for PCs are less important when creating tem-
  plates for NPCs in minor supporting roles, such as the
  majority of average people working at ordinary jobs. In
  particular, the GM can set aside matters of power level and
  efficiency (NPCs never require point totals!), ignoring Cost
  (pp. 8-9) and Optimization (pp. 13-14) to focus on giving
  NPCs the capabilities needed to play their part. Which isn’t
  to say that NPC templates should routinely outstrip those
  for PCs; on the contrary, it’s best if they give each role the
  abilities it requires but little more, and go light on attrib-
  utes, advantages, and skills. Since the GM is writing
  recipes for creating complete NPCs quickly – not advice for
  players carefully crafting beloved PCs – templates can be
  dense and prescriptive, sacrificing flexibility (p. 10) and
  omitting customization notes (pp. 14-15).
  For NPCs meant to fill similar roles to PCs and interact
  with them on an equal footing, often as backup or oppo-
  nents, the GM should use PC templates. This is usually true
  of cultural templates, and often of other kinds. However,
  the GM may also want “NPCs only” templates; e.g., for evil
  priests in heroic fantasy or enemy soldiers in war. If these
  are meant to generate worthy rivals, they should follow
  most of the guidelines for PC templates – but like templates
  for workaday NPCs, they can trade some flexibility for
  speed. Such NPCs often require quirks, which the GM may
  hardwire into their templates, perhaps in the form of a
  “quirks table.”
  Having NPCs share PC templates doesn’t always
  mean simplifying matters overall, however. As Pricing
  Prescriptive Templates (p. p) suggests, such an arrangement
  can justify setting up a complex series of menus for occu-
  pation, dramatic role, and culture. While this kind of sys-
  tem is probably excessive for templates the players will use
  for a handful of PCs, it’s a worthwhile investment in cam-
  paign prep when it will double as a generator for dozens or
  hundreds of future NPCs!
  Designing NPC Templates
  
  Conversely, roles that double as professions – like the arche-
  typal wise man, superheroic blaster, or hack ’n’ slash wizard –
  and that are intended for larger-than-life heroes might merit
  expert (16-19) or even masterful (20+) levels, if the GM believes
  the story calls for them.
  For cultural templates, most skills will be background color
  and not known as well as professional skills; e.g., even in a tribe
  of equestrian nomads, typical Riding skill should fall in the 8-
  11 range, which is still far better than the average human’s
  default of 5! The exception is when such a skill is literally a life-
  or-death matter. In that case, everybody might have 12+.
  In all cases, if advantage bonuses or high attributes mean
  that even one point would buy a level above the recommended
  maximum in a suitable skill, then so be it – don’t rely on a
  default merely because the one-point level would be “too high.”
  Points in a skill send the message that the skill fits the tem-
  plate, and its level should exceed the default for a template
  with comparable aptitude but no justification for the skill. For
  instance, the template for an educated wizard with IQ 13 could
  at worst have Savoir-Faire (High Society)-13, for one point;
  that’s high for a background skill, but spend the point, as it
  establishes an important contrast with the clever lower-class
  thief who also has IQ 13.
  Finally, remember that raw skill level measures odds of suc-
  cess under “adventuring” conditions, as defined on p. B171.
  Skill use at ordinary jobs and in daily life enjoys +1 or more for
  favorable tasks (Task Difficulty, p. B345) – and possibly
  bonuses for equipment (Equipment Modifiers, p. B345) and
  extra time (Time Spent, p. B346). If such modifiers will almost
  always apply, give the template the skill levels needed to play
  the part after adding them, not before.
  Skill Tiers
  Optionally, when listing a template’s skills, break them
  down as follows:
  Primary Skills: Essential skills at the levels discussed above.
  Categorizing skills here sends the message that the charac-
  ter (especially a PC!) requires them to function in his culture
  or chosen occupation, or to fulfill his dramatic role.
  Secondary Skills: Skills that it’s hard to imagine the character
  not having. Such skills are still necessary to play the role;
  they just aren’t used to perform its key tasks.
  Background Skills: Skills chosen mainly for descriptive rea-
  sons. These are optional, and the GM should be particularly
  open to negotiation where they’re concerned, even on
  mandatory templates.
  As this scheme suggests, skill level is chiefly a concern for
  primary skills. Secondary and background skills are often at
  lower levels than these – with background skills being lowest
  – but that isn’t a rule. High attributes and bonuses from
  advantages can mean that lower-tier skill levels exceed
  higher-tier ones . . . and that’s fine! What matters is that the
  template gives the character enough primary skill to fill the
  appropriate shoes.
  Skill Notation
  When listing skills, include all relevant information in the
  following format:
  Skill Name (Difficulty) Relative Level [Point Cost]-Actual
  Level
  For instance, “Broadsword (A) DX+2 [8]-14.” This makes
  things more transparent, especially when customizing the
  character.
  Other Traits
  Some templates include additional components:
  Perks: Follow the guidelines under Advantages (pp. 10-11).
  Listing perks with advantages is simplest, but it’s reasonable to
  call them out separately in templates built around structured
  “styles” that offer a limited number of special choices (like
  those in GURPS Martial Arts and GURPS Thaumatology:
  Magical Styles).
  Spells: While these obey the notes under Skills (pp. 11-13),
  listing them separately makes sense for dedicated spellcasters,
  who often know many spells that are at the same level and sub-
  ject to identical notes. A separate section can end with a blan-
  ket qualifier such as “all at IQ+1 [1]-14 with the +3 for
  Magery,” reducing length and complexity.
  Special Skills and Abilities: A hodgepodge of related, usually
  exotic or superhuman advantages, skills, and other traits might
  merit their own sub-list. The individual bits and pieces should
  follow the usual guidelines, but putting them all in one place
  often makes it easier to see what’s going with complicated
  powers. Wildcard skills (p. B175, pp. 30-31) may also get their
  own listing of this kind.
  Techniques: Individual techniques verge on getting too
  dense (see Flexibility, p. 10), but as with perks, setting aside
  points for a choice of techniques might suit the needs of a
  “style.” Also list techniques separately when a peculiarity of
  the rules makes a template’s key ability a technique rather
  than a skill; e.g., Motion-Picture Camera (p. B233) for a Hol-
  lywood cameraman. Follow the guidelines under Skills
  (pp. 11-13) for choosing levels, and present techniques using
  a variation on skill notation: “Motion-Picture Camera (A)
  Photography+1 [4]-13.”
  While only techniques truly differ from everything else dis-
  cussed so far, segregating the above items offers handy labels
  to use as shorthand in customization notes (pp. 14-15).
  For two further classes of traits that are sometimes impor-
  tant, though almost never listed explicitly, see Hidden Traits
  (pp. 27-29).
  FINISHING UP
  While selecting traits accounts for the overwhelming
  majority of the work of template design, several important
  steps remain.
  Optimization
  Most veteran players try to squeeze maximum effectiveness
  out of their points during character creation. Since optional
  templates are aimed at new players who don’t know to do this,
  while mandatory ones are apt to annoy experienced gamers
  unless they do this, it’s best to optimize templates so that PCs
  built on them are no less efficient than scratch-built ones.
  There are two main methods for accomplishing this:
  1. Choose each attribute level so that it minimizes the total
  cost of that score and all skills and secondary characteristics
  that depend on it.
  DESIGNING CHARACTER TEMPLATES
  13
  
  Example 1: A DX/Average skill at DX+2 costs 8 points (see
  Buying Skills, p. B170), so six such skills come to 48 points. A
  DX/A skill at DX+1 costs only 4 points, so six of them add up
  to just 24 points. Thus, lowering six DX/A skills from DX+2 to
  DX+1 frees 24 points . . . of which 20 points could be spent on
  +1 to DX, regaining the original skill levels, raising DX for all
  defaults and future skills, improving DX rolls and Basic Speed,
  and saving 4 points!
  Example 2: If the template has just four DX/A skills at DX+2,
  then lowering them from DX+2 to DX+1 frees only 16 points.
  However, if the template also has DX 12 [40], HT 11 [10], and
  Basic Speed 6.00 [5], adding the 5 points spent on Basic Speed
  would give 21 points, of which 20 points could be spent on +1
  to DX, granting the same skill levels and Basic Speed while
  improving DX and saving 1 point.
  Example 3: If a template has 2 points in each of 10 IQ-based
  skills, then shaving a level off each skill would scrounge up a
  mere 10 points – not enough to raise IQ, even though it’s
  clearly crucial to the role. However, if that template also has 5
  points apiece in Will and Per, reducing each of those scores by
  a level would turn up 10 more points, giving the 20 points
  needed for +1 to IQ, which would yield the same Will, Per, and
  skill levels, and improve IQ for other purposes.
  2. Add advantages that give skill bonuses at bulk rates,
  notably Talents (pp. B89-91), but also Absolute Direction
  (p. B34), Brachiator (p. B41), Charisma (p. B41), Empathy
  (p. B51), Flexibility (p. B56), High Manual Dexterity (p. B59),
  Magery (p. B66), Perfect Balance (p. B74), and Voice (p. B97).
  Example: Absolute Direction [5] gives +3 to Navigation.
  Thus, even at the bottom of the skill scale – in this case, Navi-
  gation (A) IQ-1 [1] – it’s cheaper to take the advantage and get
  Navigation at IQ+2 for a total of 6 points than it is to buy Nav-
  igation (A) IQ+2 [8] for a net 8 points.
  This process may seem a little artificial, but remember that
  experienced players nearly always go through such convolu-
  tions. Template optimization ensures that everybody has the
  same edge, regardless of rules familiarity – an important facet
  of Adjusting for Player Experience (above). However, this think-
  ing only holds true when designing templates for adventurers,
  for whom advantages and high
  attributes are fitting (or at least more
  common than in the general popula-
  tion). Inefficiency isn’t a big deal for
  ordinary folks; see Designing NPC
  Templates (p. 12).
  Check Your Math!
  Sum the positive point costs of
  attribute and secondary characteristic
  improvements, advantages and perks,
  and skills, spells, and techniques. Neg-
  ative-cost traits – primarily disadvan-
  tages, but possibly reduced attributes
  and secondary characteristics – lower
  this. (Unlike some game systems,
  GURPS uses simple integer addition;
  e.g., 200 points of goodies plus -50
  points of drawbacks comes to 150
  points.) Verify that total cost equals
  the target you set under Cost (pp. 8-9).
  After spending points, optimizing, investing saved points else-
  where, and so on, this might not be true!
  If you’re over budget, try Optimization (pp. 13-14) if you
  haven’t yet. Next, make cuts in nonessential areas, starting
  with advantages and background skills included entirely for
  color. If that isn’t enough, think about adding some disadvan-
  tages, subject to Respecting the Disadvantage Limit (p. 11). If
  you still can’t reduce cost to a reasonable level, then it’s pos-
  sible that the concept isn’t ideal for the game you have in
  mind. You could instead adjust your target, but that’s a slip-
  pery slope; sticking to your guns results in sharper character-
  ization. Exception: If the concept is central to the campaign
  and the price tag exceeds campaign starting points, consider
  a higher power level for the campaign, not just a bigger
  budget for one template.
  If you’re under budget, you might want to spend “leftover”
  points on core traits; good choices are primary skills, plus
  attributes and Talents that boost them. Extra color in the form
  of fitting background skills is never a bad thing, either.
  However, there’s nothing wrong with accepting a lower cost
  than planned! Trying to “use up” starting points or achieve par-
  ity with other templates leads to muddy characterization as
  surely as letting cost creep up past its original target. If the con-
  cept yields a concise template that offers extra room for cus-
  tomization, consider leaving well enough alone.
  Customization Notes
  Offer the player some thoughts on how he can make his
  character different from other PCs built on the same template.
  A few ideas:
  • Advice on fleshing out player-defined traits on the tem-
  plate, whether this means the precise details of a Patron or a
  self-imposed mental disadvantage, or simply the colorful
  minutiae of Distinctive Features or Appearance.
  • Suggestions for fitting disadvantages, if the template
  leaves room for more of these.
  • Ideas for traits to buy with leftover points (if the template
  costs less than campaign starting points), or with points from
  discretionary disadvantages and quirks.
  DESIGNING CHARACTER TEMPLATES
  14
  Adjusting for 
  Player Experience
  When designing templates for PCs, make sure they reflect the character-creation
  habits of your experienced players. For instance, if their warriors all get Combat
  Reflexes and their wizards all boast Magery 3, then consider following suit in
  your templates – even if the typical warrior or wizard in the setting isn’t like that.
  Doing so will put characters built using your templates on an equal footing with
  those who aren’t.
  Optimization (pp. 13-14) is often an important aspect of this, but not all habits
  are optimal in that sense. For example, dropping 15 points on Luck doesn’t
  directly improve skills, but if your established players count on Luck for insur-
  ance, then inexperienced players may feel gypped (or annoy the veterans!) when
  they learn that they can’t. Likewise, if wizard PCs have high Magery not to
  improve spells cheaply but to boost damage with Missile spells (p. B240), then
  casters without at least that much Magery will pale by comparison.
  
  • Guidance on appropriate or necessary equipment – espe-
  cially Signature Gear, if the template includes it. Even if the
  template doesn’t incorporate Signature Gear, consider a few
  words on what to get if the player spends leftover points on it.
  • For an occupational template only: job roll, monthly pay,
  and wealth level (see Jobs, pp. B516-517). Job prerequisites
  should appear in the template, though; there’s no need to reit-
  erate them.
  If using the possibilities discussed in Player Choice (pp. 22-
  27), this is the place to give advice on how to pick and choose
  among the template’s options. In effect, such a template is a
  guide to creating a whole range of character types. It’s helpful
  to describe a few of these.
  Finalize the Description
  If you followed the suggestion under Template Description
  (p. 8), then read through the whole template – all its traits
  and any accompanying advice – and assess whether the sum-
  mary you wrote describes the final result. If you were
  inspired along the way, or ran into budget issues, the blurb
  may no longer be accurate! Revise it as needed to give the
  players an honest synopsis.
  DESIGNING CHARACTER TEMPLATES
  15
  Following the guidelines so far should yield decent one-off
  character templates, but developing templates as a set is best.
  This ensures that no important character concept is left out,
  outdoes or falls behind the others, or overlaps another so badly
  that PCs invade each others’ niches or otherwise interfere. The
  entire collection paints one of the players’ first pictures of the
  campaign (see Templates and Player Perceptions, p. 16), so it’s
  imperative to use a pleasing palette . . . or at least, one that con-
  veys the image in your mind’s eye. Accomplishing this is a
  multi-step process.
  SPAN THE SPACE
  The design of any well-crafted template set starts by identi-
  fying the campaign’s major roles and backgrounds. Each one
  that’s distinctive and important enough to make the cut will
  become the subject of a template. The GM should strive to
  cover the whole spectrum of character concepts available to
  starting PCs while leaving room for growth (below).
  In the case of occupational or dramatic templates, the goal
  is to ensure representation of the entire range of activities and
  capabilities the GM wants to feature prominently in the cam-
  paign. This is a big task – big enough to fill all of Chapter 4! If
  it seems too big, interview the players about the sorts of char-
  acters they would like to play and start with that list, perhaps
  adding one or two extra concepts if something seems missing.
  A set of cultural templates helps describe the game world.
  List influential castes, city-states, factions, families, nations,
  religions, tribes, and so on that are suitable for PCs. Relative
  power and size are unimportant – if a background seems inter-
  esting enough for a player to embrace as central to his charac-
  ter’s identity, it deserves a seat at the table. Many gamers prefer
  obscure origins.
  Multiple Sets
  If each player is allowed to select just one template, feel free
  to blur occupation, dramatic role, and culture. If you intend to
  permit two or three templates per character, however, you’ll
  have to create several sets, one for each category. This may
  lead to overlap: the occupation that suits just one culture or
  that’s indistinct from a dramatic role, the culture defined by its
  dramatic role (often “token foreigner”), and so on. That’s fine
  if you’re comfortable with it – simply make notes that qualify
  the affected choices and remember to include them in the
  write-ups you show the players. Otherwise, change or delete
  the weaker item.
  Room for Growth
  The primary objective here is to identify the “space” con-
  taining interesting character concepts and then distribute tem-
  plates more-or-less evenly over that ground, so that players are
  never too far from an option that’s close to the PC they have in
  mind. That is, it’s a question of achieving coverage. This is cov-
  erage in the sense of a cell-phone network, though, not suffo-
  cating plastic wrap.
  For one thing, there should always be room for new tem-
  plates between existing ones, as this comes in handy for
  avoiding sameness when several players claim similar roles
  or when using templates to generate hordes of NPCs. Some
  of these late-breaking additions may be variations on
  themes, effectively Lenses (pp. 25-27) made standalone tem-
  plates; e.g., “swashbuckler” could inspire spinoffs such as
  “musketeer” and “pirate.” Others might interpolate between
  two or more templates, whether that means cultural tem-
  plates for half-breeds and border-dwellers, or occupational
  ones for specialists like a “marine” who fits between “sol-
  dier” and “sailor.”
  The space itself can evolve, too. Adventures may eventually
  spill out of the original campaign boundaries, necessitating
  new cultural templates . . . or the GM might shake things up
  by introducing abilities or technologies that suggest tem-
  plates unlike any existing one. Players who create their char-
  acters freeform or join late often dream up concepts that
  didn’t occur to the GM – ideas that merit the work of design-
  ing new templates for cultures or occupations that future PCs
  or NPCs can use.
  In short, sets are not set pieces. They can be as dynamic as
  the GM wants.
  PLANNING TEMPLATE SETS
  All the world’s a stage,
  And all the men and women
  merely players.
  – William Shakespeare, 
  As You Like It
  
  IDENTIFY KEY TRAITS
  Before designing the templates on the list(s) identified in
  the previous step, it’s imperative to decide which traits really
  matter in the campaign. These requirements may be sweep-
  ingly dramatic – “Someone has to have Destiny and most PCs
  ought to enjoy Luck, but there’s room for a whipping boy with
  Unluckiness!” – or entirely pragmatic, such as a group of spies
  needing to be able to drive fast, impersonate people, hack com-
  puters, and blow things up (see Matching Traits to Challenges,
  pp. 35-42). They might encompass larger-than-life, even super-
  human gifts in the vein of Weapon Master, Magery, and Innate
  Attack . . . or low-key abilities closer to Tenure, a couple of Sur-
  vival skills, and being fluent in French.
  The biggest needs are usually a function of genre. The GM
  who’s short on ideas can consult the relevant GURPS supple-
  ments for discussions of important traits in the Basic Set,
  write-ups of crucial new ones, and ready-made character tem-
  plates to mine for ideas or use wholesale. For instance, GURPS
  Martial Arts boasts 35 pages of templates, trait lists, and new
  perks and skills, alongside advice on power and realism level,
  and another 33 pages of martial-arts techniques – that is, all the
  necessary tools for picking out what matters and what doesn’t
  in a martial-arts campaign. Genre series like GURPS Action
  and GURPS Monster Hunters devote entire volumes to tem-
  plates illustrating the use of suitable abilities.
  Play style is also important, especially when designing
  dramatic templates. The PCs of players who charge into sit-
  uations headlong will need combat and healing abilities in
  any campaign, while a comparatively thoughtful bunch
  might benefit more from the extra detail in GURPS Social
  Engineering. Gamers who value stunts and drama over real-
  ism will get a lot of mileage from cinematic abilities like
  Gadgeteer, Trained by a Master, and wildcard skills (p. B175,
  pp. 30-31), even as realism mavens focus on perfecting the
  skill list describing each U.S. Army MOS. Such considera-
  tions can lead to radically different choices for the same
  genre. For example, GURPS Gun Fu and GURPS Tactical
  Shooting represent opposite sides of the realism coin for
  campaigns that focus on military or law-enforcement gam-
  ing, and the attention to world-building in GURPS Fantasy
  contrasts sharply with the emphasis on heroes over setting in
  the GURPS Dungeon Fantasy series.
  Dungeon Fantasy notwithstanding, setting is normally cen-
  tral to a campaign. Matters such as tech level, mana level, and
  good old geography are influential. An alien world calls for
  matching Biology, Geology, Meteorology, Naturalist, and
  Survival specialties. The social milieu often suggests needs,
  too; for instance, whatever the genre and play style, a cam-
  paign about the Queen’s troubleshooters won’t go far if nobody
  takes the Queen as a Patron or owes her a Duty, while a mili-
  tary saga is destined to involve Rank.
  DESIGNING CHARACTER TEMPLATES
  16
  The character templates you offer will affect your play-
  ers’ view of the game world and the kinds of adventures
  that take place in it. Suppose you’re planning a fantasy
  campaign. If you present only prescriptive thief and war-
  rior templates that describe dramatic roles as much as
  occupations, the players will justifiably conclude that you
  intend to run a freebooting campaign in a setting where
  rough-and-tumble “professional adventurers” are com-
  mon. If you also include low-powered occupational tem-
  plates for farmers, herbalists, and minstrels, your players
  will infer that you intend a more staid campaign, set in a
  quasi-medieval milieu. Make sure your template list sends
  the right message!
  Also take the time to review Designing NPC Templates
  (p. 12) and make clear which templates are for PCs and
  NPCs alike – and which aren’t. Players tend to assume that
  the abilities on templates reflect the game world’s status
  quo. In our fantasy example, they’ll expect rival thieves and
  warriors to have the abilities on those templates . . . and
  spend points and cash to prepare accordingly. If their
  assumption proves costly or fatal, you’ll end up with con-
  fused or angry players.
  Finally, design your templates as a complementary set
  (Planning Template Sets, pp. 15-21). If some outshine oth-
  ers – by offering more or better-optimized abilities, com-
  ing across as more interesting or “cooler,” or merely
  exhibiting more attention to detail and fewer math errors
  – the players may conclude that you see certain character
  types as more important. They might even assume that
  you’ll favor people who play them. That, too, can only be
  bad for group harmony.
  Perceptions of What’s Possible
  As Establishing Allowed Abilities and Levels (p. 7)
  explains, templates offer a way for the GM to tell players
  what traits appear in the campaign. This is vital for any
  capability labeled “exotic” or “supernatural,” or described
  as “cinematic” (Gadgeteer, Gunslinger, Trained by a Mas-
  ter, Weapon Master, skills that require such advantages,
  the Computer Hacking skill, wildcard skills, etc.). Such
  options are always off-limits unless the GM explicitly
  allows them – and the GM won’t want to permit anything
  that would harm realism (e.g., DR for ordinary humans),
  game balance (like Gizmos in an equipment-poor post-
  apocalypse story), or setting consistency (in sci-fi, super-
  natural gifts might be forbidden even as biotech allows
  more powerful exotic ones). In a campaign that uses
  templates, these decisions are best made as part of the
  tasks under Identify Key Traits (above), and enforced
  through Hidden Traits (pp. 27-29). This sends the players
  another important message – one about what is and isn’t
  possible, which not only affects character creation, but
  also speaks volumes about the game world’s natural laws
  and realism level, and thus the kinds of bad guys and
  adventures to expect there. Be sure the templates are say-
  ing the right things!
  Templates and Player Perceptions
  
  Everyman Traits
  After assembling the list of key traits, it’s use-
  ful to identify the ones that everybody needs and
  separate these from things that only some PCs
  require or that can be worked around if nobody
  picks them. The nigh-universal elements, or
  everyman traits, fall into two broad subtypes:
  Campaign Requirements: Traits that the GM’s
  campaign plans demand of every PC. Good
  examples are attribute and skill minima that rep-
  resent entrance requirements and basic training
  in a military game; Patron (The Queen) and Duty
  (The Queen) in that story about the Queen’s trou-
  bleshooters; and Luck if the GM feels the PCs
  won’t survive their exploits (or the players’ gam-
  ing style!) without it. The GM may want to add
  skills the players take for granted – say, Forced
  Entry if they’re prone to exclaim, “Of course I
  can kick down a door!”, or Gesture if they grum-
  ble, “How hard is it to signal that it’s time to
  move, anyway?” Such necessities are specific to
  the campaign and the gaming group, and may
  encompass attributes, advantages, disadvan-
  tages, skills, or almost anything else.
  General Requirements: Traits that suit most
  believable people (or likely adventurers, at any
  rate), regardless of the campaign’s fine details.
  This typically means basic life skills, because
  even dead-average people need those, whereas
  advantages and high attributes practically define
  “above average,” and disadvantages and low
  scores do the same for “below average.” Specifics
  vary – consider implementing Player Choice
  (pp. 22-27) here if nowhere else – but the usual
  suspects include:
  • A travel skill. This varies by setting – Hiking
  in some, Riding in others, Driving in still others
  – but the basic need is universal.
  • An Influence skill (p. B359), since it’s the rare
  individual who has no preferred way of dealing with other peo-
  ple, if only badly.
  • An interest pursued during downtime: Carousing, Con-
  noisseur, Dancing, Games, Hobby Skill, Musical Instrument,
  Sports, etc.
  • Area Knowledge and/or Current Affairs pertaining to the
  PC’s background.
  • For adventurers in any setting, Climbing and Stealth (the
  party is only as good at these tasks as its weakest member), at
  least one Per-based skill for noticing important things
  (Observation, Scrounging, Search, Survival, etc.), and basic
  combat skills.
  • For most TL8+ people, Computer Operation.
  • For ordinary people in any background, Housekeeping – if
  only to cook boxed mac ’n’ cheese and do the laundry.
  Either class of everyman trait belongs on every template –
  or on all templates of one category (occupational, dramatic, or
  cultural), if there are several sets – so that nobody overlooks
  it. As has been suggested, the list should afford the player
  some choice; thus, it may vary slightly between templates.
  Since cultural templates often switch things up – if only by
  requiring different Area Knowledge and Current Affairs spe-
  cialties – they’re the ideal home for everyman traits, particu-
  larly when offering multiple template sets.
  Remaining key traits are specific to particular roles in the
  campaign, and shouldn’t appear on all or even most templates.
  Which brings us to the next topic . . .
  DISTRIBUTE THE GOODIES
  After setting aside everyman traits, dole out whatever key
  items remain in such a way that each template receives its fair
  share and what it needs to play its role. When offering two or
  more of occupational, dramatic, and cultural templates, allo-
  cate essential elements to these broad categories first and then
  distribute each set’s allotment among its specific templates.
  While all of this is more art than science, it’s possible to iden-
  tify a few basic principles. Keep these “three Ss” in mind:
  • Sharing. No template should get all the fun stuff. Divvy
  up traits – especially skills and advantages – so that each
  template in a set brings something unique to the table and
  thus is worth choosing.
  DESIGNING CHARACTER TEMPLATES
  17
  The Jack of All Trades
  A recurring assumption throughout Planning Template Sets (pp. 15-
  21) and Chapter 4 is that templates – especially occupational ones –
  must carve strong niches with exciting specialties backed by thrilling
  abilities. Not all gamers enjoy such characters, though. If the GM
  knows he has players like this, he should offer a “jack of all trades”
  template of some kind (it needn’t be called that) for those who find
  their fun in playing the role of the worthy assistant and second-
  stringer, handy in a host of odd situations. Such heroes abound in hor-
  ror, where despite lacking the single-minded expertise of the cop,
  doctor, medium, and scientist, they survive by being flexible and too
  useful to leave behind.
  Traits for such templates can run the gamut. They tend to include
  decent DX and IQ to support a wide range of skills, low-end abilities
  borrowed from most or all of the other templates, and a double-help-
  ing of Player Choice (pp. 22-27). Niche Protection (pp. 18-19) still
  applies, though – the jack of all trades should not outshine a PC built
  on a specialist template when that expert is doing his thing. If he
  does, that’s a problem.
  On the other hand, such a generalist can be the pro at “all the stuff
  everybody else thinks is boring,” and boast exceptional everyman traits
  (p. 17). If so, all the other templates must respect that niche. Especially
  in a low-key campaign, being the only one who’s genuinely good at
  commonplace skills like Area Knowledge, Carousing, Computer Oper-
  ation, Driving, Housekeeping, and Scrounging can be a role unto itself,
  and the GM should take care that the rest of the template set doesn’t
  outshine the jack of all trades here.
  To handle the special needs of this kind of template, design it last,
  outside of the usual sequence, carefully picking its traits not to tread
  on toes while making sure that it’s good at abilities that are primarily
  background color for other roles. Also be aware that the jack of all
  trades is a dramatic niche as much as (perhaps more than) an occupa-
  tion. In a campaign with distinct occupational and dramatic template
  sets, it would be logical to have this template count as both choices,
  and price it accordingly.
  
  • Suitability. If the template wouldn’t work without a trait,
  then that trait belongs there no matter what other templates
  have it.
  • Synergy. While key abilities are shiny and fun, it’s the total
  effect of everything on the template that makes it what it is.
  Select traits that complement not just the template’s role but
  also each other.
  See Giving Templates Teeth (pp. 27-33) for some “advanced”
  tools that can come in handy here, and Chapter 4 for a more
  detailed approach to distributing traits.
  Matching Expertise to Templates
  Above all else, it’s imperative to attach key traits to appro-
  priate templates. Odds are good that if you deemed particular
  templates and abilities essential to your campaign, you already
  have an excellent idea of what goes where: If Magery and spells
  are among the key traits, and “wizard” appears in the template
  set, the match should be obvious . . . and the same goes for
  medical skills in a set of soldier templates that includes
  “medic,” Social Stigma (Minor) when there’s a dramatic tem-
  plate called “child,” and Survival (Desert) if only one cultural
  template describes desert-dwellers.
  If you somehow identified a trait as important without hav-
  ing a clear idea of where it goes, you have several options:
  • If in retrospect you have no idea why you put the trait on
  the list, drop it! This isn’t as strange as it seems – you might
  choose a trait, read its description to help you assign it, and
  discover that it isn’t what you thought it was.
  • Leave the trait to the end of the distribution process and
  assign it to the template that has the smallest share of interest-
  ing building blocks (see Fair Shares, p. 19). When you know that
  something is fundamental to the campaign, yet no
  template cries out for it, this approach kills two
  birds with one stone.
  • Follow the advice in Traits (pp. 9-13) and
  Chapter 4 for assigning traits to individual tem-
  plates. This is the way to go if you’re certain that
  the trait is important and have a nagging suspicion
  that you overlooked its significance to a specific
  role.
  • Use Player Choice (pp. 22-27) to offer the trait
  as an option for several templates. This is a good
  solution when you want to see the ability but don’t
  care who has it. For instance, if the templates are
  essentially occupational, yet you desire a touch of
  drama in the form of one PC – any PC – with
  Destiny, you might give everybody a shot at Destiny.
  • Make the thing an everyman trait (p. 17). An
  ability that not every believable person has might
  be reasonable as something every PC has if it’s
  cheap, generic, and a logical fit to the campaign.
  For example, not all soldiers learn Karate, but if
  there’s no “hand-to-hand specialist” template and
  you want flashy unarmed combat, replacing
  Brawling with Karate throughout a military-themed template
  set would plausibly push things that way.
  Overlap
  A key trait can certainly appear on more than one template,
  provided that it truly suits them all. For instance, “exceptional
  DX” isn’t a reasonable everyman ability but does fit nearly any
  fantasy warrior or rogue, so quite a few templates in a swords-
  and-sorcery campaign are liable to end up with it. Keep in
  mind that the goal isn’t to award each template “exclusive
  rights” to the things that define it most strongly (whether that
  means Combat Reflexes for warriors or Gadgeteer for inven-
  tors), but to ensure that such character elements don’t become
  everyman traits, or nearly so.
  What is bad is when two templates blur together due to
  their assigned traits. In that case, a little quick-and-dirty differ-
  entiation is in order. Give melee fighters with Weapon Master
  dissimilar weapon specialties, assign spellcasters different
  enabling advantages (such as Magery and Power Investiture)
  and distinctive spell lists, scatter two forest-dwelling tribes to
  temperate and tropical regions so that their Survival specialties
  are Woodlands and Jungle, and so on. If even that fails, take it
  as a sign that although the templates might seem different in
  concept, they’re indistinguishable from the viewpoint of the
  GURPS rules set. Consider merging them and handling dis-
  tinctions through tools such as Customization Notes (pp. 14-
  15) and Player Choice (pp. 22-27).
  In a campaign that uses two or three of occupational, dra-
  matic, and cultural templates, the same principles hold when
  assigning key traits to these categories. Even a specialized abil-
  ity might find its way onto templates of more than one kind. For
  instance, commandos trained to fight in a particular environ-
  ment (an occupational template) and natives to that terrain (a
  cultural one) could both justify the Survival specialty for those
  surrounds. If players can choose several templates – one from
  each set – it’s important to address overlap in such cases: Do the
  points add together to buy higher levels, does only the best
  instance apply while points in lesser ones go elsewhere, or what?
  Be prepared to answer such questions.
  Niche Protection
  After assigning key traits, pick levels as explained in Traits
  (pp. 9-13). Make sure that if particular elements are definitive
  for a niche, the associated template has the most impressive
  degree of those things (highest attribute, advantage, and skill
  levels, worst disadvantage levels and self-control rolls, etc.)
  among the templates for which those items are appropriate.
  DESIGNING CHARACTER TEMPLATES
  18
  
  Also strive to ensure that template has the most points in its
  specialty. For instance, while every modern soldier learns
  Guns (Rifle), the “sniper” template should be best at it, sink the
  most points into sniping-related perks and techniques, and
  have the largest total investment in relevant skills such as
  Camouflage, Observation, and Stealth. These measures ensure
  that each PC has a niche that other players won’t invade sim-
  ply by following the instructions on their chosen templates.
  It’s possible that two niches might have the same definitive
  traits. In that case, apply the advice under Overlap (p. 18): dif-
  ferentiate as much as possible – and where that fails, consider
  merging the templates. Differentiation may take the form of
  the same core ability accompanied by dissimilar complemen-
  tary ones, or of similar-sized pools of points distributed differ-
  ently. Many other useful ideas about how to distinguish among
  individuals in closely related fields appear in supplements that
  define “styles”: GURPS Martial Arts for
  melee fighters, GURPS Thaumatology:
  Magical Styles for wizards, and
  GURPS Gun Fu and GURPS Tactical
  Shooting for gunmen.
  For a great deal more on niches, see
  Chapter 4.
  Fair Shares
  Although it’s ideal for each template
  to have a task that none of the others
  handle as well or at all, playing second
  fiddle is far more fun than not playing!
  It’s important that PCs built on each
  and every template in the set have
  something to do most of the time. The
  best way to achieve this goal is to divvy
  up desirable abilities as evenly as possi-
  ble. If one template gets all the fun stuff
  while another has little but workaday
  traits, that’s a problem. Solutions depend on why this is so.
  When a template is boring because the role it describes
  isn’t very exciting – despite the GM’s best efforts – simply
  drop it unless it’s essential. If it is essential, but performs its
  function using lackluster abilities, “off screen,” or via a few
  humdrum dice rolls, then merge the template with one for an
  existing role that’s more fun – or invent a new-and-interesting
  niche for it. For instance, hack ’n’ slash fantasy adventurers
  occasionally need a spokesman, but the obvious “minstrel” or
  “herald” isn’t much use when fighting slimes and zombies, so
  the solution is to add musical magic to arrive at the classic
  RPG “bard.” If the template describes a role that’s vital to the
  campaign but not particularly important to player agency, a
  workable alternative is to reserve it for NPC assistants; see
  Designing NPC Templates (p. 12).
  If the template is lackluster because all the good stuff went
  elsewhere, check whether another template enjoys a surfeit of
  colorful-but-nonessential traits – and if it does, move one or
  two of them to the troubled template. Review the context of
  the abilities on the other template, too; if an exciting tem-
  plate’s spark originates not from a single ability but from the
  synergy of several, then letting the boring template duplicate
  one of those abilities shouldn’t steal anybody’s thunder. Such
  measures work even better if donations come from multiple
  sources, as copying a trait from each of several templates can
  result in a unique mixture that enjoys synergies of its own
  without watering down anybody else’s role. That last part is
  crucial: don’t make the donor templates unexciting or redun-
  dant in the process.
  Another possibility – whether the role is boring or the GM
  didn’t save any good stuff for it – is assigning an unclaimed key
  trait to spice things up. The dull supporting role won’t seem
  nearly so dull if it gets that Patron (Lesser God) advantage the
  GM couldn’t find a home for. Even more radically, reconsider a
  rejected-but-fitting trait for a place of honor on the template. For
  instance, if a band of commandos includes a demolition man
  who blows stuff up, a weapons man who shoots stuff up, a
  medic who save lives, and a nominal leader who mostly parrots
  orders from higher-ups, giving the last guy Empathy and
  Intuition to turn him into the sort of officer who knows his men
  and always makes the right call is worth considering even if the
  GM initially wrote off those advantages as hard to referee.
  Everyman Traits Revisited
  For each template, remember to add everyman traits (p. 17)
  alongside role-specific elements. If a template already has some
  of these, there’s no pressing need to add them again (but see
  below). If it has other traits that obviate them, feel free to ignore
  them; e.g., the template for a superheroic “mentalist” archetype
  that has an always-on version of the Mind Control advantage
  will find a mundane Influence skill redundant, while one for a
  tribesman with the Low TL disadvantage won’t know Computer
  Operation in a TL8+ campaign. Otherwise . . . tack them on.
  Try to keep point expenditures about equal for everyone.
  For instance, if one template is for a DX 13, IQ 10 thug and
  another is for a DX 10, IQ 13 professor, and both have a point
  in each of Driving and Area Knowledge, the goon will end up
  with Driving-12, Area Knowledge-10 while the prof gets
  Driving-9, Area Knowledge-13. If this doesn’t yield results that
  feel right, assign a pool of points to everyman abilities and
  give the player the option of compensating for poor potential
  (discretionary budgets are discussed in Player Choice, pp. 22-
  27). Likewise, when a dramatic template has abilities calcu-
  lated to make it stand out in some way, and these happen to
  overlap everyman traits, add the points; in a campaign where
  Luck [15] is a mandatory advantage, the “lucky guy” who
  would get that advantage anyway should have Extraordinary
  Luck [30] instead.
  DESIGNING CHARACTER TEMPLATES
  19
  Cheap Tricks: Copy and Paste
  It’s easiest to create lots of templates by using the first one of a given type as
  a template for other templates. Once you’ve written it up, leave everyman traits
  (p. 17) in place and swap the things that make it unique. For instance, chang-
  ing cultures could be a matter of altering Languages and Codes of Honor, while
  two spellcaster templates might differ primarily in their core advantages (e.g.,
  Power Investiture in place of Magery) and spell lists. Much what distinguishes
  templates is “color,” especially mental disadvantages and little preferences such
  as swords vs. maces (a matter of writing down Broadsword or Axe/Mace) or cars
  vs. trucks (change the Driving specialty from Automobile to Heavy Wheeled).
  If you’re using a computer to type up templates, this can literally be a mat-
  ter of copying, pasting, and editing. Don’t be too lazy, though! Give each tem-
  plate a once-over at the end to verify that it can stand on its own and isn’t
  riddled with nonsensical “leftovers” from the original.
  
  With care, exceptional levels of everyman traits can even
  perk up dull templates (see Fair Shares, p. 19). Most such ele-
  ments are unexciting, but that isn’t all of them – least of all at
  good levels. For more on designing a template around such a
  role, see The Jack of All Trades (p. 17).
  BUILD CONSISTENTLY
  Every template in a set must also mind the guidelines under
  Individual Template Design (pp. 8-15). Formulating a collection
  of templates is hard work, but that doesn’t justify cutting cor-
  ners (well, mostly . . . see the Cheap Tricks boxes on p. 19 and
  p. 20). Indeed, the task comes with some extra concerns:
  Template Description (p. 8). This isn’t “optional fluff.” To a
  GURPS novice, it’s often the only part of the template that
  makes sense! In a set, it’s crucial that this blurb not merely
  explain the template’s role clearly, but also display a keen
  awareness of the campaign’s other templates, drawing
  explicit comparisons and contrasts. For instance, the bard
  template in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy is introduced as “A
  magical minstrel who dabbles in a little of everything: the
  roguish pursuits of the thief, the swordplay of the swashbuck-
  ler, and the spellcraft of the wizard,” while the swashbuckler
  template offers, “In the time it takes the plodding knight to
  strike his first blow, you’ve struck two, and with more flair –
  and although you respect the precision of the martial artist,
  you would never bring fists to a swordfight.”
  Cost (pp. 8-9). Make sure that all templates are built to a
  character-point budget. This doesn’t have to be the same
  budget unless the templates are prescriptive – in that case, it
  should be. If the prescription involves choices from several
  sets, then support mixing and matching either by ensuring
  that all templates in a category cost the same or by offering
  options for all budgets.
  Traits (pp. 9-13). Enforce consistent standards for attrib-
  utes, skills, and so on. Not all templates need equal access to
  everything (see Distribute the Goodies, pp. 17-18), but they
  should pay the same price for a particular capability. Thus,
  although different zero-cost Unusual Backgrounds (p. 28) may
  well lurk behind the scenes, any explicit Unusual Background
  for a given ability should cost the same for everybody. Also
  strive to honor descriptions equitably; e.g., all templates that
  claim to portray “experts” (or “amateurs,” or “masters”) should
  boast comparable primary skill levels. Collectively, these meas-
  ures are equivalent to having a single law for everyone in a
  campaign that uses freeform character creation.
  Adjusting for Player Experience (p. 14). Still on the subject of
  traits, make sure that all templates reflect your group’s values
  when it comes to designing PCs. If your players give Combat
  Reflexes to every fighter, then every template for a warrior of
  any kind should have it as an option, at least. If they always
  create technical experts as high-IQ polymaths, then make sure
  your templates for computer hackers, doctors, engineers, sci-
  entists, etc. follow suit. And so on.
  Flexibility (p. 10). It’s rarely practical to make all templates
  equally dense – though that’s worth taking a stab at! – and
  unless they’re entirely prescriptive, they’ll probably have differ-
  ent costs. Implement Player Choice (pp. 22-27) consistently on
  all templates in a set, however.
  Optimization (pp. 13-14). Do this consistently or not at all!
  If you optimize, use the same tricks on all the templates; if you
  dislike the “ability inflation” this causes, be equally inefficient
  everywhere. Otherwise, some character types will simply be
  better, leading to cranky players or nobody picking the less-
  optimized templates. Optimization may mean that the tem-
  plate you planned to enjoy the best DX or IQ (or, less often, HT
  or advantage level) ends up finishing second to a dark horse.
  So it goes . . . there’s nothing wrong with a template set putting
  the swordsman who actually needs better DX ahead of the dex-
  terous rogue, or the sage who requires high IQ ahead of the
  intelligent wizard.
  Check Your Math! (p. 14). Many players, especially new
  ones, simply pay the listed price for a template and assume
  that it’s correct. Errors mean that their PCs end up underpow-
  ered or overpowered. More attentive gamers may check your
  math for you and read intent into mistakes. Too cheap and
  they’ll think you ignored No Discounts (p. 9) to favor a charac-
  ter type; too expensive and they’ll decide that the template is
  disfavored. They might mention this . . . or they might quietly
  select the better deal, resulting in a lopsided PC party.
  Customization Notes (pp. 14-15). This isn’t “fluff,” either. As
  in the description, it’s vital to tie in the template with all the oth-
  ers, because customization includes picking the right template;
  e.g., the customization notes under the “criminal” template in
  GURPS Horror recommend, “More refined lawbreakers
  should use Aristocrat or Attorney; tougher ones, Retired
  Soldier.” If players will choose from several sets, this is where
  to explain how to handle duplicate abilities (Overlap, p. 18)
  and offer any warnings about combining the template with
  others (Multiple Sets, p. 15), whether that means outright
  incompatibility or a special exception (like The Jack of All
  Trades, p. 17). As always, this is the place to explore Player
  Choice (pp. 22-27) and spell out how many disadvantage
  points remain at the player’s discretion (Respecting the
  Disadvantage Limit, p. 11), except that now this advice might
  include cautions about straying too far into other niches.
  DESIGNING CHARACTER TEMPLATES
  20
  We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are 
  created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with 
  certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty 
  and the pursuit of Happiness.
  – United States Declaration of Independence
  
  DESCRIBE THE SET
  After you’ve planned your template set(s), designed all the
  templates, and made any adjustments, it’s advisable to put
  your thoughts on the whole shebang into words for the players.
  Doing so fills a purpose similar to Finalize the Description
  (p. 15) – but for all the templates, not just one. Given the num-
  ber of “moving parts” in a template set, it’s best to do this last.
  At a minimum, summarize why you’re offering templates
  and what the underlying campaign assumptions are – things
  like power level, disadvantage limit, and available abilities.
  Some other important points to touch on:
  • State whether templates are optional or mandatory
  (Optional vs. Mandatory, pp. 5-6). If they’re optional aside from
  some special cases, mention the exceptions.
  • If there are several template sets, then group occupational
  (pp. 4-5), dramatic (p. 5), and cultural (p. 5) templates, and
  label each set accordingly.
  • If players may choose more than one template – and
  especially if they must – spell out how many choices are
  allowed off what “menus,” and what the total budget is. For
  further thoughts, see Pricing Prescriptive Templates (p. 9) and
  Multiple Sets (p. 15).
  • Point out any templates that are exceptions to your sys-
  tem, like The Jack of All Trades (p. 17).
  • List everyman traits (p. 17) somewhere so that players
  buying templates that offer ability choices don’t overlook
  them, while those creating PCs freeform know what you con-
  sider “standard.”
  • Indicate whether the same templates will be used for
  NPCs. If only some will, note which ones. (For a discussion of
  why this matters, see Templates and Player Perceptions, p. 16.)
  This doesn’t have to fill pages! Using symbols can reduce
  word count even further. For example:
  This campaign is about a secret UN antiterrorist group with
  agents from every major nation. Since Cédéric and Letta are
  new players, and I want everybody to meet agency standards,
  I’m using templates. Everybody gets to pick a template from
  the “Specialties” menu; most are worth 200 points, but free-
  lance ones are worth 250 points and marked *. People who
  aren’t freelancers should also pick a 50-pointer from the
  “National Service” menu. Disadvantage limit is -50 points,
  including quirks, and these templates use up -30 points, so you
  can take -20 more points for customization. Most NPCs won’t
  be as good as you, except in the Specialties marked †. If you
  really want to make your own PC, we can talk – the campaign
  is 250 points with -50 in disadvantages, you need all of the
  skills on the “Minimum Training” list at 12+, and no attribute
  should be below 11.
  DESIGNING CHARACTER TEMPLATES
  21
  Another way to create a set of consistent templates fast,
  though not as quickly as Copy and Paste (p. 19), is to create
  a single “base template” that specifies a pool of points to
  spend on pre-priced “modules” that plug into it. In effect,
  this is Lenses (pp. 25-27) on steroids.
  The base template sets the minimum standards for all
  PCs in the campaign – attributes, everyman traits, and any-
  thing else everyone needs – while the modules offer cus-
  tomization, and can cover almost anything. Common
  possibilities include:
  • Background. Modules are “mini-cultural templates”
  reflecting where the character came from; see Cultural
  Templates (p. 5) for ideas.
  • Education. Modules represent certifications, licenses,
  stints of job training, university degree programs, etc.
  • Experience. Modules stand for previous work assign-
  ments, military terms or tours, or similar obligations. They
  might impart the same qualities as education – but the GM
  may toss in real-world consequences, good (Contacts,
  Wealth, and so on) and bad (Enemies, Wounded, etc.).
  • Interests. Modules cover long-term uses of personal
  time along such broad lines as “fitness,” “martial arts,”
  “occultism,” and “technology.”
  The base template specifies points to be spent on mod-
  ules, and each module has a cost equal to the sum its com-
  ponent trait costs. If players can select more than one
  module, use a menu system similar to that used for multi-
  ple templates; e.g., “Spend 100 points on one 10-point
  background, one 50-point MOS, and two 20-point tours 
  of duty.” Modules may have others as prerequisites; 
  for instance, “Advanced Cryptography” might require
  “Basic Cryptography.”
  Multiple modules allowed together should interface
  neatly; e.g., two instances of Bow (A) DX [2] become Bow
  (A) DX+1 [4], and DX 14 [80] and DX +1 [20] yield DX 15
  [100]. If overlapping traits don’t add cleanly, offer a
  catchall for “leftover” points. This can be general (“Spend
  leftover points on known skills”) or specific (“Leftover
  points go into the following skills, in this order”). Opti-
  mization (pp. 13-14) gets tricky, because different modules
  may distribute points among skills that benefit from
  diverse attributes and advantages. It’s easiest to give the
  base template good attributes and keep skill expenditures
  in modules modest.
  The payoff? A single template acts as a whole set!
  There’s no duplication of effort in the form of repeatedly
  writing out basic infrastructure (like template cost and the
  “Attributes” line) or shared traits. You need just one
  description and one collection of customization notes,
  which double as your set description (so they should be
  moderately detailed). You worry about everyman abilities
  once and you optimize once. Consequently, all the PCs will
  be consistent and unlikely to vary in ways that someone
  might deem unfair.
  This method works best for templates for characters for
  whom a high degree of uniformity makes sense, like soldiers
  or officers of national services. It’s also great for NPCs who
  don’t vary much – consider a “thug” template with modules
  like “sword,” “spear,” “big,” and “quick.” However, it’s
  unsuitable for high-powered PCs who have radically differ-
  ent abilities (e.g., magic, psi, and martial arts).
  Cheap Tricks: Modular Templates
  
  Everything so far has focused on templates that are more-
  or-less static collections of standard elements: pick a template,
  pay its point cost, write down the Basic Set traits it recom-
  mends, maybe juggle a few numbers, and then get on with the
  game. Templates can go further, though – if the designer is
  willing and able! Willpower must come from the GM, but abil-
  ity can be learned . . .
  TRICKS OF THE TRADE
  22
  One of the most powerful “advanced techniques” of template
  design is to specify not only fixed traits but also choices of traits.
  This simplifies the player’s options without eliminating them
  (contributing greatly to Flexibility, p. 10) and offers the GURPS
  novice a stepping-stone to freeform character design.
  Templates that offer choices are standard in GURPS supple-
  ments, so experienced gamers may consider them the norm.
  Chapter 2 glosses over the possibility only because few GMs are
  paid by the word or the hour to write GURPS materials. While
  the devil is in the details, the basic idea is easy to understand:
  Earmark some of the template’s point cost to be spent on any
  of several traits.
  The simplest way to accomplish this is to offer identically
  priced choices, which may be narrow or broad. A somewhat
  more complex possibility is to hive off a pool of points for the
  player to spend on a list of options however he sees fit – though
  this approach slows down new players who haven’t memorized
  details such as the Skill Cost Table (p. B170), the Technique Cost
  Table (p. B230), and pricing for variable traits like Reputation
  (pp. B26-28) or complicated ones such as Alternate Form
  (pp. B83-84). These methods work best when tailored to the
  class of thing being bought, but a few general principles hold:
  1. Player choice can coexist with required purchases; e.g.,
  all characters built on the template must know one particular
  skill but may pick from several others.
  2. While the traits chosen are up to the player, the need to
  choose is not – that is, the choice itself is a mandatory purchase.
  3. Points allocated to a choice – whatever form it may take –
  are spent. Be sure to add them when determining template cost.
  Attribute and Secondary 
  Characteristic Choices
  Because attribute and secondary characteristic blocks are
  dense and highly formatted, it works best to specify fixed val-
  ues, like so:
  Attributes: ST 10 [0]; DX 15 [100]; IQ 14 [80]; HT 12 [20].
  Secondary Characteristics: Damage 1d-2/1d; BL 20 lbs.; HP
  10 [0]; Will 13 [-5]; Per 14 [0]; FP 12 [0]; Basic Speed 7.00
  [5]; Basic Move 7 [0].
  . . . and then mention optional increases or reductions as
  choices under “Advantages” or “Disadvantages,” respectively.
  If nothing else, this method establishes a clear baseline from
  which to calculate the template’s skill levels. It also makes
  stats lines easier to scan, as shown by comparing the preferred
  format:
  Attributes: ST 10 [0]; DX 15 [100]; IQ 14 [80]; HT 12 [20].
  Advantages: 20 points chosen from among ST or HT +1 or +2
  [10 or 20], or DX +1 [20].
  to this jumbled-together one:
  Attributes: ST 10 [0]; DX 15 [100]; IQ 14 [80]; HT 12 [20]; and
  20 points in ST or HT +1 or +2 [10 or 20], or DX +1 [20].
  In the latter case, seeing “ST,” “DX,” and “HT” more than
  once trips up the reader – and someone who’s really skimming
  might even spot the “[20]” after “DX” toward the end and
  assume that the template has DX 11!
  Advantage Choices
  In order of increasing complexity, advantage choices might
  involve:
  • A single, flexible advantage; e.g., “10 points of Signature
  Gear.” There isn’t much choice here, but there’s more room
  than in “Signature Gear (Sword worth $5,000) [10].”
  • Simple either/or choices; e.g., “Either Animal Empathy [5]
  or Animal Friend 1 [5].”
  • Fixed numbers of choices from longer lists of identically
  priced traits; e.g., “Two of Danger Sense [15], Empathy [15],
  Illuminated [15], Intuition [15], or Oracle [15].” That example
  is a 30-point option, but one choice for 15 points or three for
  45 points would be just as valid.
  PLAYER CHOICE
  CHAPTER THREE
  TRICKS OF
  THE TRADE
  
  • Fully discretionary budgets; e.g., “16 points chosen from
  among Alcohol Tolerance [1], Ambidexterity [5], Appearance
  (Attractive, Handsome, or Very Handsome) [4, 12, or 16],
  Charisma [5/level], Honest Face [1], Luck [15], No Hangover
  [1], Penetrating Voice [1], Perfect Balance [15], Rapier Wit [5],
  Serendipity 1 [15], Signature Gear [Varies], or Voice [10].” In
  cases like this, it’s important to verify that the offered traits can
  add up to the budget – preferably in several ways. Handy tools
  for ensuring this are perks (thus, it’s best to bundle these with
  advantages), advantages bought in levels (in the example,
  Appearance and Charisma would qualify), and variable-price
  options (like Signature Gear in the example).
  There are several ways to vary these themes, too:
  • Offer multiple, unrelated sets of choices. For instance,
  two or more of the examples above might coexist on the
  “Advantages” list of the same template. This is helpful when
  you want to ensure that every character built on the template
  makes a choice in each of several realms: social privileges,
  physical gifts, supernatural abilities, and so on.
  • Replace a single-item choice with a cluster of advantages
  that add up to the same point cost. In such cases, note a point
  budget, too; e.g., “Either Speak with Animals [25] or Animal
  Empathy [5] and Animal Friend 4 [20]” is reasonable, but “25
  points on either Speak with Animals [25] or Animal Empathy
  [5] and Animal Friend 4 [20]” is clearer.
  • Include variable-price advantages among the choices. A
  trait like “Allies [Varies]” or “Signature Gear [Varies]” is mean-
  ingless alone but makes a good addition to the list of traits
  available on a discretionary budget, as it introduces variability
  that can be used to hit the mark.
  Two special cases merit further notes:
  Attributes and Secondary Characteristics: List improvements
  as bonuses, not values; e.g., “40 points chosen from among ST
  or HT +1 to +4 [10/level], DX or IQ +1 or +2 [20 or 40], Basic
  Speed +1 [20], or Basic Move +1 to +3 [5/level].” They other-
  wise obey the rules for advantages, and can appear as part of
  any kind of advantage choice.
  Advantages in Levels: If you don’t want players taking more
  than a certain number of levels, specify a maximum level with
  the choices; e.g., “Extra Attack 1 [25],” “Enhanced Dodge 1 or
  2 [15 or 30],” or “Striking ST 1 to 3 [5/level].” Do this when oth-
  erwise open-ended advantages are available on discretionary
  budgets generous enough to buy more of an ability than you
  would like.
  Disadvantage Choices
  Disadvantages work almost exactly like advantages when it
  comes to offering player choice. They can be flexible in them-
  selves; offered as either/or choices or as picks from lists, singly
  or in clusters; or assigned a budget. The only fundamental
  change is that all point costs are negative.
  Also as with advantages, a template may offer several unre-
  lated sets of disadvantage choices. For instance, one choice
  could define the character’s motivation for entering the line
  of work that an occupational template defines (e.g., a thief
  might choose between Greed (12) [-15], Kleptomania (12)
  [-15], or Trickster (12) [-15]) while another hints at basic per-
  sonality (a “Robin Hood” with traits like Charitable and
  Chummy is nothing like a back-alley mugger with problems
  like Bloodlust and Callous!).
  A few additional notes apply as well:
  Respect the Disadvantage Limit: A template’s total disadvan-
  tage load – including all fixed traits and choices – shouldn’t
  exceed the campaign disadvantage limit.
  Attributes and Secondary Characteristics: List reductions as
  penalties rather than as values. They otherwise obey the rules
  for disadvantages, and can appear as part of any kind of disad-
  vantage choice.
  Disadvantages with Self-Control Rolls: In addition to the
  possibility of levels, as with advantages, many disadvantages
  offer self-control rolls that vary severity and thus point value;
  see pp. B120-121. The template may fix these or leave them to
  the player, which is handy for meeting disadvantage budgets
  on discretionary lists. When leaving a choice, a space-saving
  measure common in GURPS supplements is to mark the base
  cost with an asterisk, like so: “Greed [-15*].” This means that
  the actual value might be at ¥0.5, ¥1, ¥1.5, or ¥2, depending on
  self-control number. If a template has a fixed disadvantage of
  this sort, like “Greed (12) [-15],” a more severe level can appear
  among its choices – in this case, it might take the form of
  “worsen Greed (12) [-15] to (9) [-22] for -7 points or to (6) [-30]
  for -15 points.”
  Finally, as traits with negative point values are apt to con-
  strain the player’s freedom – and hence fun – as much as the
  character’s options, player choice is extra-important for disad-
  vantages. The GM would do well to remember the following:
  • Choices are just suggestions. Some disadvantages are
  unavoidable for a template to make sense (e.g., Duty for a sol-
  dier), or are campaign requirements (such as Enemy in a cam-
  paign about wanted fugitives). It’s reasonable for these to be
  either fixed or picked from short, mandatory lists. Everything
  else is a suggestion, and the GM should be open to players sub-
  stituting their own choices.
  • Personality goes a long way. Too many points from fixed
  mental disadvantages may leave the player unable to roleplay
  the resulting PC enjoyably or well. Thus, choice is particularly
  recommended for mental problems, as it gives the player more
  latitude in defining a playable personality.
  • Players need breathing room. Consider using up only a
  fraction of the campaign’s disadvantage limit with fixed or
  even recommended traits. This lets the player decide how
  many problems he wants to deal with.
  • Quirks are wild. Don’t succumb to the temptation to
  include quirks among choices in order to fill chinks in budgets.
  Quirks should always be left to the player!
  TRICKS OF THE TRADE
  23
  They say, best men are moulded
  out of faults;
  And, for the most, become much
  more the better
  For being a little bad.
  – William Shakespeare,
  Measure for Measure
  
  Skill Choices
  These can wear many masks as well, most of them similar
  but not identical to the ones described for advantages and dis-
  advantages. Common approaches in published templates are:
  • Skills that leave specialties to the player; e.g., “Hidden
  Lore (Elementals, Faeries, or Nature Spirits) (A) IQ-1 [1]-13.”
  These can be open-ended rather than constrained; e.g., “Area
  Knowledge (any city) (E) IQ [1]-14” or even “Area Knowledge
  (any) (E) IQ [1]-14.” Many of the approaches below fold in this
  option by adding such a skill to a list of choices.
  • Simple either/or choices; e.g., “Either Crossbow or
  Thrown Weapon (Knife), both (E) DX+1 [2]-16” or “Either
  Chemistry (H) IQ+1 [8]-15 or Physics (VH) IQ [8]-14.” Diffi-
  culty and controlling attribute can differ. What matters is that
  the point cost is the same.
  • Fixed numbers of choices from lists of identically priced
  skills; e.g., “Six of Dancing (A) DX-1 [1]-14; First Aid, Gesture,
  or Panhandling, all (E) IQ [1]-14; Cartography, Connoisseur
  (any), Disguise, or Merchant, all (A) IQ-1 [1]-13; Carousing
  (E) HT [1]-12; Hiking, Running, or Sex Appeal, all (A) HT-1
  [1]-11; or Scrounging (E) Per [1]-14.” It’s often practical to
  tack on the option to improve a skill on the list – or to add or
  improve a skill off the list. Supposing the example is for back-
  ground skills, this might look like “or 1 point to raise one of
  those skills by a level,” “or 1 point to raise a one-point second-
  ary skill by a level” (if the template has secondary skills that
  cost 1 point), “or 1 point to add another one-point secondary
  skill” (ditto), or anything similar. Riders can be as complex as
  you wish, combining the previous types or even varying cost
  or level, like “or 1 point to buy another secondary skill at one
  level lower” (if the template sells secondary skills for 2 points)
  or “or sacrifice two choices for another two-point secondary
  skill” (ditto).
  • Discretionary budgets to be spent on lists of skills with a
  fixed range of costs; e.g., “A total of 8 points in Fast-Draw
  (any), Knife, or Thrown Weapon (Knife or Shuriken), all (E)
  DX [1]-15, DX+1 [2]-16, or DX+2 [4]-17; Axe/Mace, Bow,
  Jitte/Sai, Polearm, Shortsword, Spear, Staff, Throwing, or
  Tonfa, all (A) DX-1 [1]-14, DX [2]-15, or DX+1 [4]-16; or Blow-
  pipe or Kusari, both (H) DX-2 [1]-13, DX-1 [2]-14, or DX
  [4]-15.” As in the previous case, riders can allow the player to
  divert points to skills on other lists.
  • Discretionary budgets that require the player to use the
  Skill Cost Table (p. B170); e.g., “A total of 6 points in Chemistry
  (IQ/H), Computer Operation (IQ/E), Driving (any) (DX/A),
  Piloting (Light Airplane) (DX/A), Savoir-Faire (High Society)
  (IQ/E), Skiing (HT/H), Sports (Golf or Tennis) (DX/A), or The-
  ology (IQ/H).” Again, this could sport a rider giving permission
  to spend points on the template’s other skill choices.
  Variations abound and mostly take the form of the sorts of
  riders already mentioned, but two further methods are espe-
  cially useful:
  • Multiple lists of choices, covering subjects as diverse as
  home territory (via Area Knowledge, Current Affairs, Survival,
  etc.), primary weapon skill, and preferred means of transporta-
  tion. Any number of these might be divvied up among skill
  tiers (primary, secondary, or background) in whatever way
  makes sense.
  • Choices between fixed-price packages, which may them-
  selves contain choices, like so:
  One of these three 20-point melee skills packages:
  1. One of Rapier, Saber, or Smallsword, all (A) DX+3 [12]-18;
  one of Shield (Buckler) (E) DX+3 [8]-18, or Cloak or Main-
  Gauche, both (A) DX+2 [8]-17.
  2. One of the sword skills in option 1 at DX+4 [16]-19; one of
  Shield (Buckler) (E) DX+2 [4]-17, or Cloak or Main-
  Gauche, both (A) DX+1 [4]-16.
  3. One of the sword skills in option 1 at DX+5 [20]-20.
  Other Choices
  Perks: These are best included with advantages, as they offer
  an elegant way to spend a budget on a list that also contains
  bigger-ticket traits whose prices aren’t all nice, clean fractions
  of the allocated points. In a campaign with many perks, a pick
  from among them can serve as a de facto flexible advantage
  (e.g., “five Magic Perks [1/perk]”). If it truly seems important
  that perks have their own template line, follow the guidelines
  for advantages.
  Spells: Spell choices work like skill choices. When naming
  specific spells, the GM must ensure that each choice comes with
  its prerequisites – perhaps by bundling them in packages. As
  most spellcasters have many spells, it’s often simplest to treat all
  spells (save, perhaps, for a few mandatory basics) as one big
  choice; e.g., “Choose 30 wizardly spells, which will be either (H)
  IQ+1 [1]-15 or (VH) IQ [1]-14 with the +3 for Magery.”
  Special Skills and Abilities: The advice for spells also
  applies to choices of other remarkable skills; e.g., wildcard
  skills (p. B175, pp. 30-31), cinematic skills enabled by Trained
  by a Master, Imbuement Skills from GURPS Power-Ups 1:
  Imbuements, and psionic skills from GURPS Psionic
  Powers. Similarly, a template that offers a choice of special-
  ized advantages might give these their own listing.
  Techniques: Technique choices work like skill choices, but
  use the Technique Cost Table (p. B230) and mostly note levels
  relative to controlling skills rather than attributes. Player
  choice is recommended to keep templates that specify tech-
  niques from becoming too dense (see Flexibility, p. 10). If the
  techniques depend on skills that are also choices, account for
  this possibility – offer options applicable to each choice on the
  skill menu, or ones that are learnable for a wide range of skills.
  Mixed Choices
  An entry may specify that some or all of its budget can
  optionally be spent on another category of trait. For instance, a
  discretionary advantage list might end with “put leftover points
  into primary weapon skills” or just “put leftover points into
  skills,” while a skill list could wrap up by extending 
  the alternative of investing some of its earmarked points in
  “more IQ,” “social advantages,” or simply “further advantages.”
  TRICKS OF THE TRADE
  24
  Excellence represents the 
  wise choice of many alternatives –
  choice, not chance, determines 
  your destiny.
  – Aristotle
  
  This works best when two distinct categories of traits offer
  related choices – like a selection of magic-related advantages
  and a pick of spells for a spellcaster, or martial-arts perks and
  techniques for a kung fu master – because it keeps the points
  in a particular realm, ensuring competence in that area.
  However, the GM can be as flexible as he wants.
  Mixing together specific groups of traits from diverse cat-
  egories in optional packages is a job for lenses.
  LENSES
  A lens is a mini-template added to another template to
  change its focus . . . explaining the term’s origin. It consists of
  a package of traits – typically advantages, disadvantages,
  and/or skills – that apply in addition to those on the base tem-
  plate. It may also modify or remove template elements through
  clauses like “intensify Duty (12 or less) [-10] to (15 or less) [-15]
  for -5 points” or “remove Combat Reflexes for -15 points.” A
  lens’ cost is the sum of its component costs, and adds to that of
  the template it modifies. The player pays this price and records
  the combined traits of the template and the lens.
  What does a lens look like? That varies, but it should
  always have a name (the more descriptive, the better), a point
  cost (given as an adjustment to template cost), and a list of
  traits (in the standard order for character sheets – attributes,
  then advantages, and so on), plus any comments needed to
  understand it. To illustrate, here are two simple lenses meant
  to be added to a “soldier” template to yield noncommissioned
  and commissioned officers:
  NCO (+35 points): Add IQ +1 [20]; Military Rank 1 [5]; Lead-
  ership (A) IQ+1 [4]; Tactics (H) IQ-1 [2]; and an extra 4
  points in primary, secondary, or background skills. Maxi-
  mum Military Rank is 3.
  Officer (+50 points): Add IQ +1 [20]; Military Rank 3 [15];
  Leadership (A) IQ+1 [4]; Savoir-Faire (Military) (E) IQ+1
  [2]; Tactics (H) IQ [4]; and 5 more points in primary, sec-
  ondary, or background skills (often including Strategy).
  This is a veteran, not a green lieutenant!
  Like any template meant to be used with others, a lens should
  strive not to add traits that oppose or are redundant with those
  on the base template. Where possible, altering or deleting trou-
  blesome traits is best. If an incompatibility seems likely regard-
  less, the lens ought to suggest how to handle this. For instance,
  if the base template that goes with the above examples offers
  Leadership, Savoir-Faire (Military), and Tactics as options, then
  the lenses might add a note: “If the soldier already has those
  skills, add points up to the nearest full skill level and move left-
  overs to the discretionary skill pool.”
  Lens design runs into three significant conceptual concerns:
  which templates allow the addition of lenses, when lenses are
  added, and how many lenses can be tacked on.
  Specific vs. General
  A lens might be intended for one template in particular,
  for all templates within a set, or even for all characters in the
  game world.
  Template-Specific Lenses
  These are the easiest to work with because they benefit
  from maximum compatibility. There’s just one template in the
  picture, allowing each lens to count on specific lists of traits to
  ensure that character points add up nicely without any redun-
  dancies or conflicts. For instance, a lens for a template that has
  Brawling (E) DX [1] could instruct “improve Brawling from
  DX [1] to DX+3 [8] for 7 points” without thinking about the
  DX+1 [2] or DX+2 [4] cases, while one for a template that lacks
  Sense of Duty could add that without needing to address over-
  lapping Sense of Duty disadvantages. Lenses like these amount
  to packages of choices of the sort that appear within templates,
  set aside for the reasons in Why Use Lenses? (above).
  Example: A broad “knight” template might come with
  “knightly orders” lenses, each with the Code of Honor, Duty,
  Patron, Reputations, Sense of Duty, and/or Vows specific to
  one particular order of chivalry. A knight without such a lens
  would still be a viable PC, just not a member of such an order.
  Lenses for Template Sets
  A group of lenses may be associated with a set of templates
  and combinable with any of them. Though it’s theoretically
  possible to ensure compatibility by planning for every conceiv-
  able combination, that’s a lot of work. It’s simpler for such
  lenses to avoid fixed traits and offer choices and discretionary
  budgets that enable the player to work around conflicts. 
  TRICKS OF THE TRADE
  25
  Why Use Lenses?
  Lenses might appear extraneous at first glance, but
  they serve two practical organizational purposes.
  Tidying Up Mixed Choices
  Couldn’t a template simply offer choices of advantages,
  disadvantages, and skills to cover the same ground – a lot
  like Mixed Choices (pp. 24-25)?
  In theory. In practice, a template’s designer often wants
  to say that these advantages go with these disadvantages and
  these skills, and those advantages go with those disadvan-
  tages and those skills. A template that does so directly
  inevitably either muddies things by including traits of sev-
  eral kinds in a section intended for those of one particular
  sort, or resorts to footnotes or case numbers to link choices
  in different sections. Such methods are inelegant, and a
  surefire way to confuse new gamers and trip up fast read-
  ers. By dint of being in a section labeled “Lenses” rather
  than, say, “Advantages,” “Disadvantages,” or “Primary
  Skills,” lenses warn the gamer to read carefully – and listing
  different-but-connected traits together after a descriptive
  name helps explain what’s going on.
  Simplifying Multiple Menus
  Isn’t the idea of templates modifying other templates
  redundant with Multiple Sets (p. 15)?
  The logic certainly is! However, the nice thing about
  lenses is that they aren’t full-on templates. They don’t
  require paragraph-long descriptions, customization
  notes, or separate sections for attributes, secondary
  characteristics, advantages, and so on. They’re compact,
  concise, and provide the benefits discussed under
  Modular Templates (p. 21).
  
  Still, knowing the template set makes it easy to anticipate
  incompatibilities and trouble-free for the lenses to incorporate
  elements found on none of the templates (e.g., if no template
  has True Faith or Disciplines of Faith, it’s safe to add them). If
  the added traits appear on some templates, the lens can offer
  straightforward advice on how to handle redundancies.
  Example: In GURPS Action, the “criminal,” “intelligence,”
  “law enforcement,” “military,” and “security” lenses give heroes
  extra social advantages and background skills befitting their ori-
  gins. These lenses come with a rider: “If a skill appears on your
  lens and your template, you may combine the points assigned to
  it and buy a higher level.” They also contain instructions that
  push advantage and disadvantage choices on the template in
  compatible directions; e.g., characters with the “military” lens
  must have their template’s optional Duty and may spend its dis-
  cretionary advantage points on the lens’ Rank [5/level].
  Fully General Lenses
  A lens might be a package intended for anyone, even a PC
  designed freeform. This is valuable when the GM wants to
  associate specific traits for story reasons; e.g., the aliens teach
  humans the High TL advantage and the Beam Weapons skill
  via sleep-teaching that brainwashes the subject with Sense of
  Duty (Alien Masters), or having psi powers is always a sinister
  Secret. Such lenses needn’t have anything to do with tem-
  plates, but a template set gives the GM a head start when iden-
  tifying special cases that need handling – like what that alien
  programming does to specific Sense of Duty disadvantages
  found on templates.
  Variation vs. Add-On
  A lens may vary an occupation, dramatic role, or culture
  during character creation, or be added later on as a kind of
  “character development.”
  Variant Lenses
  Lenses that modify templates at character creation let the
  player define the PC’s role more precisely. In other words,
  they’re the equivalent of stats-heavy customization notes. They
  might be particular to individual templates or applicable to
  entire sets.
  Variant lenses may be optional or required. For instance, a
  “medical doctor” template could assume a general practitioner
  but offer completely optional lenses for specialists, while an
  “academic” template might require the player to pick either an
  “arts” lens or a “sciences” lens – and in a campaign where not
  every PC is going to be a soldier, it’s fair for a single “soldier”
  template to handle occupational specialties through required
  lenses. A required choice between lenses amounts to part of the
  associated template that’s sequestered for the reasons explained
  in Why Use Lenses? (p. 25). When it applies to several templates,
  it also serves to ensure consistency and avoid repetition.
  Variant lenses associated with non-prescriptive templates
  may cost points to be paid out of whatever budget remains for
  customization. Such a lens should never cost more than what
  the player could scrape together after buying the template,
  selecting any remaining disadvantages, and choosing quirks.
  Cost might even be negative, if the lens contains extra disadvan-
  tages (within the campaign’s usual limits!). When such a lens is
  required, its cost plus the template cost should be less than cam-
  paign starting points, to avoid making the template prescriptive.
  Example: The lenses for knightly orders in GURPS
  Banestorm range from -10 points to 15 points in cost, to be
  added to a 150-point “knight-errant” template. In a 150-point
  campaign, players would have to take extra disadvantages to
  afford the lenses that have positive point costs. In a 200-point
  game, these would demand no special measures. The GM
  shouldn’t require such a lens in 165-point or lower campaign
  unless he means for templates to be prescriptive.
  When associated with prescriptive templates,
  such lenses should either cost 0 points or be
  budgeted for within the template. In the latter
  case – and often the former! – this means the
  lens is required.
  Example: Each of the five background lenses
  in GURPS Action costs 20 points. All of the pre-
  scriptive 250-point templates in Action instruct
  “Choose a 20-point lens” and factor those 20
  points into their cost – that is, they require a lens.
  The most elaborate case is a detailed system of
  mandatory templates and lenses that are collec-
  tively prescriptive. A PC is a combination of one
  base template with a certain number of lenses, the
  total cost of all of which equals the campaign
  power level. For a complete worked example, see
  GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 15: Henchmen, which
  offers 10 templates and 12 lenses, each worth 125
  points, that can be assembled to create 120 dis-
  tinct 250-point character types!
  Add-On Lenses
  Other lenses are meant to be bought with earned points.
  These can be template-specific, but just as often they’re intended
  for sets or even general use. Two important examples are:
  Advanced Qualifications: A set of extra traits – usually posi-
  tive ones like advantages (especially social advantages) and
  skills – that go with seniority in the profession, tribe, or what-
  ever the template describes. A good example is the “NCO” lens
  on p. 25, which adds IQ, Military Rank, and skills to emulate a
  veteran warrior’s experience and consequent promotion.
  TRICKS OF THE TRADE
  26
  
  Crossover: A package of definitive traits that are normally
  associated with another template, intended to create a hybrid
  character type. GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 3: The Next Level
  brims with examples, such as the “cleric-knight” lens that
  boosts the cleric’s martial abilities . . . and the “knight-cleric”
  lens that tacks priestly powers onto the knight! As those exam-
  ples suggest, this works best when the lens is tailored to the
  template: review the template being borrowed from, extract its
  truly archetypal traits, and design a lens that grafts these onto
  a different template as seamlessly as possible. However,
  Dungeon Fantasy also offers lenses intended for the entire set
  of templates used in that series, such as ones that add the men-
  talist or ninja’s powers to any dungeon explorer.
  At the GM’s option, such a lens might be available during
  character creation, if points remain to buy it (which is unlikely
  for a prescriptive template). For instance, if “soldier” is a 100-
  point template in a 150-point campaign, and “NCO” is a 35-
  point lens, there’s no good rules reason not to allow a PC to
  enter play as an NCO – though there may be excellent story rea-
  sons to forbid this (starting with the GM wanting Rank to be
  earned in play).
  Exclusive vs. Stackable
  It may be possible for the same character to have several
  lenses. If so, the player adds the traits and costs of all the
  selected lenses to those of the template. Lenses intended to be
  used together should be at least as compatible as lenses and
  associated templates.
  Some lenses are clearly exclusive, however. This doesn’t
  necessarily have anything to do with traits. If the campaign’s
  “seer” template requires either the “blind seer” lens with the
  Blindness disadvantage or the “sighted seer” lens without, then
  that’s certainly about traits . . . but stating that it’s unaccept-
  able to join more than one knightly order is mostly a matter of
  setting and story, because the rules handle multiple Duties and
  Patrons well enough. Such a prohibition might even originate
  on the meta-game level, if the GM defines a group of lenses
  intended to share spotlight time evenly.
  Exclusivity could exist between two lenses of any variety
  discussed so far, for any of the above reasons – although if
  the lenses differ in type, the issue is likely tied to traits more
  than anything else. In all cases, spell out what lenses are
  incompatible so that the player is aware of the ramifications
  of each choice.
  In the absence of a specific prohibition, lenses are “stack-
  able.” The player can pile them up if he can afford what they
  cost! Of course, this makes it important to lend as much
  thought to lens-lens consistency as to the template-lens variety.
  A campaign might feature several of the ideas discussed
  here: required and optional variant lenses, add-on lenses for
  both advanced qualifications and crossovers, variants and
  add-ons, a group of template-specific lenses and a collection
  that’s shared by every template in a set, and perhaps all of
  these and more besides. If so, not all lenses need to stack. For
  instance, the GM might require one variant per template,
  offer several optional add-ons per template that can coexist
  with the variants but not with each other, and present a vari-
  ety of general add-ons that can accompany any template with
  any of its specific variants or add-ons. If the campaign will
  feature many stackable lenses, it’s best if they follow the
  advice provided for lenses intended for template sets and gen-
  eral use – namely, they should use few fixed traits and allow
  a high degree of choice.
  Also be on the lookout for lenses that are only sometimes
  stackable. Advanced qualifications often lead to puzzles of this
  sort. For instance, although there may be both “officer” and
  “NCO” lenses for that “soldier” template, only some officers
  pass through NCO ranks. Thus, the “officer” lens needs to take
  into account previous Rank and skill for those with the “NCO”
  lens, but also award suitable abilities to those who graduate
  directly from the academy into a commission.
  Finally, as Modular Templates (p. 21) discusses, it’s possible
  to define a succession of lenses that are stackable, but only in
  a specific order. That is, some are prerequisites for others. For
  instance, the advanced qualification lens of “master of a
  knightly order” should apply only to knights who already have
  a variant lens that indicates membership in such an order.
  TRICKS OF THE TRADE
  27
  Normally, the nearest that character templates get to
  being “rules” is when the GM requires all players to use them
  (Mandatory Templates, p. 6). There’s nothing special about
  PCs built on them; template traits have standard costs (No
  Discounts, p. 9) and work the usual way. Still, templates can be
  more than mere character-design aids – and even if that’s all they
  are, a few rules can help Distribute the Goodies (pp. 17-18).
  HIDDEN TRAITS
  The roles that character templates represent might be fun-
  damental enough to justify describing the people who fill them
  using approaches ordinarily reserved for racial templates.
  Good candidates for such treatment include:
  • Cultural templates that reflect early childhood experi-
  ences, deep-seated biases, and perhaps even genetic traits bred
  into particular castes, classes, or tribes.
  • Dramatic templates of all kinds, particularly archetypes
  detectable by supernatural abilities (“You have a great destiny,
  gadjo.”) or defined by powers (like the superheroic “brick,”
  “blaster,” and “mentalist”).
  • Templates for occupations that ingrain teachings through
  mundane-but-extreme means; e.g., “cloistered monk,” “com-
  mando,” or “radioactive wasteland survivor.”
  • Templates that describe a state arrived at via extraordinary
  means: divine inspiration (customary for fantasy clerics), magi-
  cal wishes, mystic enlightenment (common among shamans
  and martial-arts masters), ultra-tech sleep-teaching, etc.
  In cases such as these, the GM may rule that character tem-
  plates imply zero-cost traits similar to those described in
  Features and Taboo Traits (p. B452). These influence the tem-
  plate’s selection of components that do cost points. Since their
  effects are obvious to anyone who examines the template, such
  features can often be left implicit, making them “hidden traits.”
  GIVING TEMPLATES TEETH
  
  Hidden traits can help explain why templates are mandatory
  (“In this campaign, all PCs are special in some way”) or prescrip-
  tive (“You were born, chosen, or transformed to be this one
  thing”). Not every template in the campaign has to cite the same
  reasons, though! For instance, GURPS Dungeon Fantasy uses
  such thinking extensively, but its barbarians, scouts, and thieves
  are shaped by being born into tough societies that teach impor-
  tant early lessons; bards and wizards have some doors opened
  and others closed by dint of innate magical talents; clerics,
  druids, and holy warriors are chosen by deities to bear gifts
  unavailable to other mortals; knights and swashbucklers are
  archetypes (“born leader” and “dashing hero,” respectively); and
  martial artists are mystics enlightened in monasteries.
  Zero-Cost Unusual Backgrounds
  The most common kind of hidden trait originates from a
  campaign decision that only characters built on particular
  templates may acquire certain capabilities. In effect, those gifts
  call for an Unusual Background (p. B96) that costs 0 points,
  and this is an implicit part of templates that feature those abil-
  ities. Such a situation might have a game-world explanation
  (“Everybody knows that only one-eyed Northerners have The
  Sight!”) or be in the name of Niche Protection (pp. 18-19) –
  although these are often one and the same in a good story.
  Players who don’t select relevant templates can’t simply
  declare, “Since the Unusual Background costs nothing, I’ll just
  write it down and buy the associated traits anyway.” That’s no
  more valid than someone playing a human PC noting “Feature:
  Breathes 95% carbon dioxide, 3% nitrogen, 2% argon [0]” and
  expecting it to be true. The point cost isn’t the issue . . . such an
  Unusual Background is part and parcel of a character tem-
  plate, exactly as a zero-cost racial feature is inherent to a racial
  template. It isn’t available piecemeal.
  Overall, zero-cost Unusual Backgrounds are fairest in
  campaigns that use mandatory templates, each guaranteeing
  access to interesting abilities. Exclusivity isn’t necessary; lists
  can overlap from template to template. Equality isn’t a big
  deal, either – that is, not all templates need to offer the same
  number or point value of “reserved” traits – because everything
  still costs what it costs, meaning that characters with access to
  fewer special options but the same number of starting points
  can simply spend more on common-but-valuable gifts such as
  above-average DX and IQ. However, it better serves the cause
  of fun if every PC can do one or two things that others cannot.
  If character templates are mandatory but only some of 
  the set enjoys access to cool stuff, if there are special-case 
  templates (p. 6) for certain abilities, or if templates are entirely
  optional, then it becomes important to consider “dramatic bal-
  ance” – which is about time in the spotlight, not “game bal-
  ance” or point costs. Several methods might prove useful here,
  individually or concurrently:
  • Give other templates greater leeway on general campaign
  limits. For instance, if the “pilot” template lacks the cybernetics
  of the “cyborg,” the psionic powers of the “esper,” and the vast
  mental training of the “human computer,” then it would be fair
  to make him a paragon of sharp eyes and reflexes, able to buy
  up to +3.00 to Basic Speed instead of the usual limit of +2.00,
  and even DX and Per 25 instead of the human norm of 20 . . .
  or maybe he can acquire new Piloting specialties out of the blue
  whenever he has enough points, for entirely dramatic reasons
  (“He’s the pilot – of course he can fly that!”). Such approaches
  work best when templates are mandatory for all.
  • Give templates with zero-cost Unusual Backgrounds
  matching implied taboo traits (below) that forbid useful capa-
  bilities. This means that such people enjoy access to some abil-
  ities at the cost of other doors being shut. The most common
  example is a simple inversion of the previous approach: subject
  individuals who have special gifts to stricter limits than the
  campaign norm. That mundane “pilot” might be limited to DX
  and Per 20 – but perhaps the more remarkable character types
  can have only DX and Per 15. This kind of approach works well
  when freeform character creation is allowed but special-case
  templates are the only route to extraordinary abilities.
  • Give templates that have zero-cost Unusual Back-
  grounds mandatory disadvantages associated with their
  abilities. For instance, if only the “cleric” template can
  have Power Investiture, buy True Faith, or cast theurgic
  spells, then make sure that clerics also have a set of
  restrictive self-imposed mental disadvantages (p. B121)
  such as Disciplines of Faith, Honesty, and Vows. When
  using GURPS Powers, required disadvantages might
  even form the basis for a power modifier that suspends
  the wielder’s powers if he strays from a moral code,
  exercise regimen, etc. This approach doesn’t require
  anybody to use a template; fiction is full of special gifts
  with downsides. However, it’s useful to concoct tem-
  plates for such people to illustrate the campaign’s
  ground rules for their capabilities.
  Implied Taboo Traits
  The flipside of zero-cost Unusual Backgrounds is
  hidden traits that forbid particular choices to charac-
  ters built on some templates. Like members of many
  nonhuman races, such people are bound to attribute or
  secondary characteristic ranges that are stricter than
  the campaign norms, or cannot buy specific advan-
  tages, disadvantages, or skills. There are two basic
  ways to handle these “taboo traits”:
  TRICKS OF THE TRADE
  28
  How Hidden?
  In a campaign with prescriptive, mandatory templates, hid-
  den traits (pp. 27-29) can be left truly implicit, because each
  player must pick a template that specifies everything available.
  By virtue of appearing on the template, special abilities are
  allowed without any need to state that they’re due to a built-in
  zero-cost Unusual Background. Similarly, anything not on the
  template is “taboo” by dint of omission, the template’s baseline
  attributes plus modifiers included with its advantages and disad-
  vantages handle attribute minima and maxima, and there’s no
  requirement to spell out such things.
  In any other campaign, be more explicit. Making “Available
  Special Abilities” and “Taboo Traits” lists for each template is
  work, but the players will appreciate the effort and honesty. To
  save time, preface the template set with a statement that every
  template’s “taboo traits” include all special abilities listed for
  another template but not for it, define categories such as “mili-
  tary skills” and “magical abilities” campaign-wide for quick ref-
  erence, and keep each template’s lists short by picking only those
  gifts or constraints that the concept truly requires.
  
  • If templates are mandatory, start by making lists of
  what’s permitted to all characters, regardless of template:
  everyman traits (p. 17), campaign attribute limits, recom-
  mended advantages and disadvantages, widespread skills, and
  so on. After that, design individual templates normally, adding
  whatever fits regardless of whether it’s consistent with those
  general lists. A player who selects a template may choose from
  among its traits plus those allowed by the campaign’s general
  permissions. Everything else is “taboo” by default.
  • If templates are anything but mandatory, append foot-
  notes or customization notes (pp. 14-15) that explicitly state
  what’s “taboo.” For instance, in a game world where the gods
  oppose magic, it may be that most people can acquire Blessed
  and True Faith but mages cannot, so wizard templates should
  mark Magery with a note like “Forbids Blessed and True Faith.”
  More mundanely, a template for military commandos is likely to
  come with a lengthy list of “taboo” physical disadvantages and
  many mental ones, as well as strict attribute minima.
  If it’s possible to select multiple templates, lenses, or mod-
  ules, then “taboo traits” go even deeper: all choices containing
  them are themselves “taboo,” unless the GM spells out an excep-
  tion. Any waiver should effectively impose a replacement con-
  straint. For instance, in that example where the gods oppose
  magic, a wizard couldn’t skirt Magery’s drawbacks by buying a
  “chosen by the gods” lens without special permission from the
  GM – probably in the form of accepting another restriction such
  as “knows no spells despite paying for Magery.”
  In all cases, if templates are anything but prescriptive, there
  will be points left over – and unless templates always burn the
  full disadvantage limit, there will be a few points floating
  around for customization, if only those from quirks. These
  extra points are still constrained by the template’s taboos. If
  there’s any chance that the player might select traits that don’t
  fit the template’s concept, include suitable warnings!
  TEMPLATE-OPTIMAL
  ABILITIES
  A template’s abilities might include new traits specially
  suited to it. These needn’t be exclusive to it – if they’re gener-
  ally available, the template may describe individuals who
  exemplify those capabilities, pursue occupations that require
  them, play dramatic roles that rely on them, or hail from cul-
  tures where they’re widespread. Thus, although such traits are
  commonly associated with zero-cost Unusual Backgrounds
  (p. 28), that isn’t essential; what’s important is that they’re opti-
  mal for particular templates, strengthening concepts or boost-
  ing key competences. Still, there are few better ways to make
  certain templates important in the game world and attractive
  to players than to offer template-optimal traits that are also
  template-specific.
  While any kind of trait could fill such a role, a few are par-
  ticularly useful.
  Higher Purpose
  see p. B59
  Higher Purpose can combine a Code of Honor specific to
  an occupation or a culture – or even to a dramatic role like
  “honorable hero” – with +1 to all dice rolls for a group of
  tasks that characters built on the template perform in the
  course of playing their part. This double-barreled nature
  makes it ideal for fleshing out a concept! It works best as a
  fixed advantage, but might be optional on a template describ-
  ing a group whose members don’t share consistent goals.
  Published examples include:
  Higher Purpose (“Medic!”) – for the GURPS Action “medic”
  template – gives +1 to success rolls made to aid injured allies
  in action scenes: Dodge and movement skill rolls to reach them
  under fire, HT rolls to stay conscious on the way there, med-
  ical skill rolls to patch them up, etc.
  Higher Purpose (Defend the Faith) – for the GURPS Monster
  Hunters “crusader” template – gives +1 to all rolls to protect
  sacred ground, defend a member of the PC’s congregation, or
  recover a holy artifact that rightly belongs to his religious group.
  Higher Purpose (Seek Knowledge) – for the GURPS Dungeon
  Fantasy “sage” template – gives +1 to any roll made to bargain
  for books, decipher runes, communicate with sphinxes, etc.
  As the examples imply, Higher Purpose isn’t always mysti-
  cal. Though the advantage is often entangled with holy power
  or something similar (like Defend the Faith), it could just 
  as easily flow from determination or dramatic necessity 
  (both factor into “Medic!”). The motivation could even be
  unabashedly meta-game, with every template in a set sporting
  a Higher Purpose that guarantees that heroes built on it do
  well in their spotlight moments, provided that they’re role-
  played appropriately.
  The GM might treat Higher Purpose as coming in levels,
  with Higher Purpose 2 [10], Higher Purpose 3 [15], or more
  granting +1 per level to affected dice rolls. Perhaps all charac-
  ters built on the template have Higher Purpose 1, with higher
  levels offered as options, or maybe Higher Purpose 1 is avail-
  able to everybody but specific templates have access to addi-
  tional levels as a special ability.
  Talents
  see pp. B89-91
  A template with several related skills is likely to include a
  Talent for those activities. This might be because the Talent
  helps define the concept – explaining why somebody would
  enter an occupation, perhaps even serving as a job requirement
  (see Advantages, pp. 10-11) – or because it optimizes the tem-
  plate’s point-spending (see Optimization, pp. 13-14). Whatever
  its justification, where Higher Purpose (above) provides a
  bonus to a category of tasks, Talent aids a group of skills that
  characters built on the template use to play their role.
  If no stock Talent suits the template, it’s easy to coin a new
  Talent by following the guidelines in the Basic Set or the
  expanded advice in GURPS Power-Ups 3: Talents. Remember
  that the most plausible Talents are believable inborn knacks. If
  the aptitude can be defined without resorting to the names of
  templates or skills, then it’s probably fine; e.g., “a mind for
  inventing complex mechanisms” describes a reasonable Talent
  for a “gadgeteer” template, but “good at ninja stuff” is a hope-
  lessly circular definition for a Talent for a “ninja” template.
  As in all RPGs, however, trait divisions in GURPS are some-
  what arbitrary. Skills are no exception. If a template needs sev-
  eral skills to describe what the GM sees as a single occupation
  or undertaking, and this activity is one at which he feels a per-
  son could be naturally gifted, then a Talent for all of the rele-
  vant skills passes the plausibility test.
  TRICKS OF THE TRADE
  29
  
  As well, Power-Ups 3 presents a Talent option called Job
  Training that’s defined as “I’m adept at every key skill on my tem-
  plate.” Details are beyond the scope of this work, but in brief: it
  gives +1 per level to every affected template skill (normally pri-
  mary and secondary ones only), costs 1 point per level for every
  two template skills that benefit, and imposes strict limits on
  learning, maintenance, and more. It makes a fine addition to an
  occupational template, but calls for access to Power-Ups 3.
  All of which said, plausibility varies with campaign realism
  level. In a fantasy setting, people born on the feast day of the
  Ninja God might be naturals at the sundry ways of the ninja,
  while those whose birth sign is that of the Wandering Trades-
  man have a knack for 12 jobs whose only link is the Tradesman
  myth. In cinematic play, “what makes sense” is often identical
  to “what’s good for the story,” and the GM may give each tem-
  plate Talent at its primary and key secondary skills solely to
  make it easier for the resulting PCs to advance the plot. And the
  GM always has carte blanche to link unrealistic skills such as
  Body Control, Enthrallment skills, Thaumatology, and Weird
  Science however he likes!
  Whatever their realism level, custom Talents are extra-
  appealing as template-specific traits because of the optimization
  they enable; e.g., a vehicle-related Talent that benefits Boating,
  Driving, Piloting, and Submarine would cost 5 points/level and
  be a wonderful bargain for a PC who has even two specialties
  among those skills. Thus, the GM might wish to consider reserv-
  ing such Talents as the special abilities of specific templates.
  Perks
  see pp. B100-101
  Perks can “provide a modest bonus (up to +2) to an attribute,
  skill, or reaction roll in relatively rare circumstances.” A perk giv-
  ing +1 or +2 to rolls against one of a template’s definitive attrib-
  utes or skills, under circumstances central to its concept, is a
  cheap, easy way to add depth. It’s a very limited version of the
  bonus that Higher Purpose (p. 29) or Talent (pp. 29-30) grants,
  and the conditions that limit it represent an opportunity to flesh
  out the template: word the situations in which the benefits per-
  tain in a way that hints at what a PC built on the template ought
  to be doing, at least some of the time.
  Not all perks provide bonuses. Qualitative effects are fine –
  and perhaps even better, since they’re defined entirely in terms of
  activities and circumstances. For instance, the GURPS
  Dungeon Fantasy “holy warrior” template has the perk “Foes
  slain personally can’t rise as undead,” which all by itself tells the
  player that this role is about violently opposing necromantic
  abominations. That’s a lot of exposition from a one-point trait!
  As perks are largely user-defined and easily adjusted, they’re
  often template-specific. There’s no good reason not to rename
  a general perk and adjust the situations in which it applies to
  get an optimal match to a particular template and its associ-
  ated activities. For instance, in a campaign where the “seer”
  template is all about eating lotus and receiving visions, it’s triv-
  ial to turn Alcohol Tolerance into Lotus Tolerance that gives +2
  to HT rolls for lotus use.
  For exhaustive advice on perk design – and many examples
  to adapt to your templates – the place to go is GURPS Power-
  Ups 2: Perks.
  Modifiers
  see pp. B101-117
  An interesting way to turn an advantage available on many
  templates or to everyone into an ability specific to just one or a
  few templates is to apply a custom enhancement or limitation
  that echoes the template’s concept. Volumes could be written
  about modifiers (they fill GURPS Power-Ups 4: Enhancements
  and vast swaths of GURPS Powers), so it’s difficult to general-
  ize, but the most useful examples are innately flexible, like these:
  Accessibility (p. B110): Limiting an advantage might not seem
  like a way to highlight characters built on a template as promi-
  nent users of that ability, but there are exceptions. First, it’s a
  kind of optimization to use Accessibility to reduce a trait’s point
  cost by restricting access to the specific circumstances under
  which such a person would nearly always use the ability. For
  instance, the “traceur” template in GURPS Action buys Trained
  by a Master with a -50% limitation that unlocks only cinematic
  abilities and rules related to movement, enabling him to be unre-
  alistically mobile (his niche!) very cheaply. Second, when an
  advantage only appears on templates, template-specific
  Accessibility modifiers can divvy up its applications. Action
  again provides an example: The “hacker” template has Quick
  Gadgeteer with a -50% limitation restricting it to computers and
  codes, the “wire rat” template gets it with a -50% limitation that
  encompasses strictly electrical and electronic devices that aren’t
  computers, and nobody can buy an unlimited version; thus,
  Accessibility helps differentiate two templates.
  Cosmic (p. B103): The +50% version of this enhancement
  can suspend a built-in restriction of an advantage. This can
  turn an otherwise “generic” trait into a template-specific abil-
  ity. Maybe Empathy is common, but on the “healer” template
  it gets “Cosmic, Also gives physical status,” extending its +3
  to skill rolls to diagnose or treat illness or injury. Perhaps
  Mind Probe is an option on many templates, but only the
  “necromancer” template has “Cosmic, Works on the dead” for
  prying thoughts from corpses. In GURPS Dungeon Fantasy,
  the “artificer” template has the option of putting Cosmic on
  Quick Gadgeteer to extend gadgeteering abilities to magic
  items – a unique trick. Power-Ups 4 is especially useful here, as
  it includes a long discussion of Cosmic.
  Pact (p. B113): If a template includes supernatural abilities
  enabled by a zero-cost Unusual Background (p. 28), these
  might come with Pact limitations tying them to the template’s
  disadvantages. This is a convenient way to link a template’s
  advantages and disadvantages to give it a cohesive identity.
  Wildcard Skills
  see p. B175
  The GM might want to define wildcard skills that encom-
  pass primary and important secondary skills for some or all of
  the campaign’s templates. For each niche, consult Chapter 4 to
  identify crucial skills, follow the guidelines in Skills (pp. 11-13)
  to set levels, and calculate how many points that would cost.
  TRICKS OF THE TRADE
  30
  Hide not your talents, they for
  use were made . . .
  – Benjamin Franklin
  
  Rather than purchase ordinary skills individually, though,
  invest roughly the same number of points in a single wildcard
  that covers them all. Such wildcards needn’t replace those
  skills in the campaign in general. They work best when
  restricted to templates for people for whom all of the con-
  stituent skills are vital, while characters built freeform or on
  unrelated templates buy the individual skills normally.
  Such wildcard skills might simply match templates on a
  one-to-one basis, perhaps even sharing names with them. For
  instance, GURPS Action offers templates named “assassin,”
  “cleaner,” “demolition man,” and so on, each with a correspon-
  ding wildcard: Assassin!, Cleaner!, Demolition Man!, etc. Not
  every template needs to have a wildcard. Some templates may
  include too few skills for this to be efficient (see below), while
  others lack cinematic elements by design.
  Another possibility is for the campaign to feature a broad
  wildcard skill set and define templates via combinations of
  wildcards. For example, GURPS Monster Hunters offers
  Blade!, Detective!, Gun!, Inventor!, Lore!, Medic!, Science!,
  Talker!, and Ten-Hut!, but these don’t correspond to templates.
  Rather, the “commando” template enjoys access to Gun!,
  Blade!, and Ten-Hut!; the “sage” gets Lore!; the “sleuth” can
  know Detective!, Talker!, and Ten-Hut!; the “techie” uses
  Inventor!, Medic!, and Science!; and the “warrior” starts with
  Blade! In situations like this, wildcard combos generate the
  kinds of synergies that Distribute the Goodies (pp. 17-18) men-
  tions. Again, it isn’t necessary to give
  every template wildcards, and the
  GM may opt to restrict them to tem-
  plates that otherwise lack larger-
  than-life abilities. For instance, the
  previously 
  mentioned 
  Monster
  Hunters templates get wildcards,
  while the “crusader,” “experiment,”
  “inhuman,” “psi,” and “witch” wield
  superhuman powers instead.
  In either situation, wildcard
  skills might be fixed traits, options,
  or variant rules. Several of the
  mandatory, prescriptive templates
  in Monster Hunters assign wild-
  cards automatically. The “warrior”
  template there also presents the
  Blunt! skill as an option for fighters
  who prefer bludgeoning to hacking.
  In Action, by contrast, none of the
  templates list wildcards; such skills
  are strictly optional. The GM can
  mix approaches, allowing players
  to decide for themselves whether
  they want to swap points out of
  ordinary skills to buy the wildcards
  their templates allow – perhaps on
  the basis of whether that’s optimal.
  Indeed, Optimization (pp. 13-14)
  is a serious concern when using wild-
  card skills. At triple the cost of Very
  Hard skills – topping out at 12
  points/level – they can easily end up
  being inefficient. A wildcard that
  replaces skills based on a single attribute is no bargain alongside
  even one or two ordinary skills based on that score, and two such
  wildcards quickly become less efficient than raising the attrib-
  ute. Thus, it’s strategic to ensure that wildcards span skills based
  on DX, IQ (including Will and Per), and HT, each floating from
  its nominal base to the relevant attribute for skill rolls normally
  based on that score. In fact, a good way to visualize wildcards is
  as enabling the character to perform all tasks related to his niche
  by making appropriate attribute rolls, modified by relative skill
  level. If even that seems unimpressive, check out Wildcard
  Points in GURPS Power-Ups 5: Impulse Buys.
  Finally, be aware that wildcard skills for templates serve a
  near-identical purpose to template-specific Talents (pp. 29-30)
  – namely, improving ability with a broad range of skills related
  by niche. A template might offer one or the other, but it’s
  almost never a good idea to use both.
  Powers
  see p. B257 and GURPS Powers
  For occupational templates that describe such supernatu-
  ral callings as “psychic” and “sorcerer” – and for dramatic
  templates aimed at heroes whose amazing gifts define their
  place in the story – a power (group of advantages that share a
  modifier and a Talent) can serve as an excellent source of dis-
  tinction. When templates are mandatory, at least for people
  with superhuman capabilities (Special-Case Templates, p. 6),
  the most obvious framework is one wherein each power is
  associated with a template whose hid-
  den traits (pp. 27-29) grant access to
  it and perhaps impose related draw-
  backs. Powers can also tie in with
  the more tangible possibilities men-
  tioned so far.
  For starters, a power’s Talent
  could define a template as discussed
  in Talents (pp. 29-30), providing a
  bonus both to rolls to use abilities and
  to key skills. Unrealistic skills (e.g.,
  Enthrallment skills, Musical Influ-
  ence, and skills that rely on Trained
  by a Master) are clear choices, but
  moderately realistic ones associated
  with extraordinary claims (Breath
  Control, Dreaming, Esoteric Medicine,
  Exorcism, Hypnotism, etc.) also fit. A
  Talent that benefits skills and advan-
  tages should cost 10 points/level,
  increasing to 15 points/level if it affects
  more than a dozen skills.
  As well, powers can suggest tem-
  plate-specific perks (p. 30). GURPS
  Power-Ups 2: Perks defines “power
  perks”: one-point superhuman abili-
  ties that accompany powers. Making
  one of these a fixed element on a tem-
  plate is a simple way to leave ability
  selection a matter of player choice
  while giving every character built on
  the template a hallmark trait.
  Examples include a “pyrokinetic”
  template with a perk that lets the pyro
  generate the equivalent of a match flame from his finger, and
  a “shaman” template with stock Autotrance (p. B101).
  TRICKS OF THE TRADE
  31
  
  And by definition, powers imply modifiers (p. 30). These
  can differentiate between users of identical abilities all by
  themselves, thereby making the associated templates distinc-
  tive as well. For instance, mental communication – as Mind
  Reading or Telesend – is common among the supernaturally
  gifted. If those advantages have Mana Sensitive (p. B34) on the
  “sorcerer” template, a Pact (p. B113) linking them to a Disci-
  plines of Faith disadvantage on the “priest” template, and Tele-
  pathic (p. B257) on the “psychic” template, they’ll be dissimilar
  enough to keep the niches from melting together.
  Finally, it’s possible to think more broadly. Like wildcard
  skills (pp. 30-31), powers needn’t be associated with templates
  on a one-to-one basis. What’s unique about each template may
  instead be the group of powers to which it grants access. There
  might be a general “psi” template that offers ESP, Psychokine-
  sis, and Telepathy; a broad “blaster” template with a selection
  of destructive powers like Electricity, Fire, and Radiation; a
  “mystic” template that gives a choice of Divine, Magic, and
  Spirit powers; and so on.
  CHARACTER
  IMPROVEMENT OPTIONS
  In theory, character templates matter only during character
  creation, after which PCs are supposed to “forget” such meta-
  game origins and evolve as if they had been designed freeform.
  In practice, the campaign’s need for niche protection (pp. 18-
  19) and many players’ desire for guidance (if neophytes) or
  inspiration (if veterans) don’t suddenly evaporate once the
  adventures start. Niches influence spotlight time enough to be
  important in play, while some gamers find the dynamic
  process of character development more challenging than the
  static task of character design. Thus, it can be desirable to give
  templates a role in how earned character points are spent.
  This is already the case in several of the approaches dis-
  cussed so far! Many character-development options depend on
  a key trait. If templates are mandatory – or required in partic-
  ular cases (Special-Case Templates, p. 6) – then such a trait
  might appear only on specific templates. If it’s unavailable in
  play, then it’s restricted to characters built on those templates,
  which means that all future growth that depends on it is like-
  wise constrained. For instance, if the GM deems Magery an
  inborn gift that cannot be bought later on, and the only way to
  start with it is to build a PC on the “wizard” template, then
  without GM intervention, there’s no way for people who don’t
  use that template to learn spells that require Magery.
  However, the GM can go further and rule that even traits that
  aren’t strictly off-limits as later purchases are only available to
  those with appropriate templates. This amounts to extending a
  zero-cost Unusual Background (p. 28) from starting abilities to
  future ones. There are several ways this can work:
  Template-guided improvement. Abilities the template allows
  as initial purchases – including those protected by zero-cost
  Unusual Backgrounds – can be bought later with earned
  points. This might mean just some things (the GM doesn’t have
  to allow wizards to improve Magery or fighters to develop High
  Pain Threshold) or literally everything. There may be condi-
  tions attached . . . time, money, training, whatever. If Weapon
  Master is optional on the “warrior” template, warriors
  who don’t start with it might have a few hoops to
  jump through! Template-guided improvement is
  often the only way to attain the high attribute levels
  accessible to templates given greater leeway on gen-
  eral campaign limits; e.g., a template could permit
  DX 25 as compensation for no special abilities, but
  unless it costs 300 points or more, this actually
  means “You can eventually buy up to DX 25 in play.”
  Template-limited improvement. The campaign has
  a list of traits that anybody may add in play, but if
  your template rejects something like that, then it’s
  forever off-limits. While this is most often no thanks
  to an implied taboo trait (pp. 28-29), it might instead
  be a matter of buying off disadvantages: No matter
  how many points you have, you’re stuck with your
  template’s definitive disadvantages. This also encom-
  passes lower-than-usual attribute limits for tem-
  plates, where such restrictions balance generous
  access to special abilities.
  Lens-mediated improvement. Most or all character
  development is through buying lenses (pp. 25-27)
  intended for the purpose – some of which might be tem-
  plate-specific, while others are general. In the strictest model,
  each template has a succession of lenses that must be bought in
  a particular order, giving “quantum leaps” in improvement; this
  brings character levels to GURPS, for gamers who want that.
  Quite different from that is the campaign where some or all
  players create their PCs freeform, after which lenses are offered
  to guide later growth – that is, the standard picture is inverted
  so that templates are for development, not design! In all cases,
  it’s best if the lenses present options rather than fixed choices,
  or else all PCs of a particular type will eventually converge,
  which is boring.
  Power-ups. The template-specific abilities available to start-
  ing characters are only a subset of the list that the template
  allows, and additional options or “power-ups” can be bought
  with points earned in play. This is effectively template-guided
  improvement with a “basic template” and an “extended tem-
  plate.” For example, a template might start with DX 15 and
  offer DX +1 among its advantage options, limiting starting DX
  to 16, yet allow “DX up to 25” as a power-up. Like lenses, some
  power-ups can be permitted to every template in a set while
  others are only for particular templates.
  TRICKS OF THE TRADE
  32
  
  These options can coexist! In GURPS Dungeon Fantasy,
  for instance, each character type enjoys template-guided
  improvement in the form of the right to spend earned points
  on anything on the original character template,
  each template also has access to exclusive power-
  ups and lenses in play, and additional power-ups
  and lenses are offered to nearly everyone – but
  several archetypes have to live with “taboos” or
  disadvantages no matter how many points they
  earn. The GM can get results that range from
  completely optional guidance during character
  development, through modest pressure for PCs to stay in
  their niches, all the way up to emulation of a level-based
  game system.
  TRICKS OF THE TRADE
  33
  How to present a template is a “trick of the trade” only in
  the sense that it’s the kind of fussiness that mostly matters to
  paid writers! The GM is free to use whatever format he and his
  players find clear, and is encouraged to pack in as much detail
  as patience allows. Still, presentation affects comprehension.
  Years of publishing GURPS material have shown the following
  outline to be effective:
  Template Name: Style this as a title preceding the template’s
  contents. Players are apt to refer to it, so keep it descriptive and
  snappy. If several template sets coexist, consider how names
  will “stack.” One set – probably occupational templates –
  should use nouns while the rest are adjectives.
  Cost (pp. 8-9): Place this under the name, exactly like the
  point value of an advantage in the Basic Set. It’s crucial to spell
  out how many character points the template eats up. If tem-
  plates are prescriptive, this also tells players the campaign
  power level.
  Template Description (p. 8): Put this before the stats to help
  players understand the template’s goals and decide whether it
  suits their play style.
  Stats Block: Now list all the traits! Give each type its own
  clearly labeled paragraph or section. Published templates
  arrange trait categories in roughly the order in which the Basic
  Set introduces them: Attributes, Secondary Characteristics,
  Advantages, Perks, Disadvantages, Wildcard Skills, Primary
  Skills, Secondary Skills, Background Skills, Techniques, Spells,
  and finally Special Abilities. Omit empty sections (Perks, Wild-
  card Skills, Techniques, Spells, and Special Abilities are often
  absent), but never Attributes or Secondary Characteristics,
  even if all the scores are human-average. Published templates
  also separate choices within each section to make it obvious
  that there are several things to decide; the “official” method is
  to insert a bullet (•) between player decisions, but use what-
  ever trick you like. Within each list of traits or choices, it’s help-
  ful to sort items in some intuitive way – alphabetical order,
  skill difficulty, etc.
  Footnotes: If a trait is unusually complicated – e.g., a disad-
  vantage that requires the player to choose a self-control number,
  a skill modified by a required advantage, a template-optimal
  ability (pp. 29-32) that needs an explanation, or any element
  mutually exclusive with anything else on the template or that
  implies a “taboo trait” (pp. 28-29) – then players will greatly
  appreciate a note to that effect! Put a mark like “*” or “†” on the
  item in question, repeat the mark below the stats block, and spell
  out what’s so special.
  Lenses (pp. 25-27): If the template has special lenses avail-
  able for it, list these by name after all the stats but before the
  next section.
  Customization Notes (pp. 14-15): This part is optional, but
  consider discussing player choices offered in the stats block or
  in the form of lenses, at least. Putting these notes after every-
  thing so far helps ensure that the player is informed about the
  topics being discussed.
  Power-Ups (p. 32): If templates guide character develop-
  ment, offer a set of power-ups for future growth. These should
  come last, since they’re rarely relevant to character creation.
  SAMPLE TEMPLATE
  The best way to illustrate the nitty-gritty of template presen-
  tation is with a worked example. This “soldier” template isn’t
  “canonical” in any sense! It’s how one GM might interpret that
  occupation in a particular campaign, and shows what ele-
  ments go where in the style of published GURPS supplements.
  Soldier
  50 points
  You’ve successfully completed TL8 basic military training
  of some kind (assume that all technological skills are TL8) and
  are now trusted to defend your country using deadly force.
  Although you have above-average potential, you aren’t some
  sort of action-movie “army of one.” You’re a moderately realis-
  tic greenhorn infantryman.
  Attributes: ST 11 [10]; DX 10 [0]; IQ 10 [0]; HT 11 [10].
  Secondary Characteristics: Damage 1d-1/1d+1; BL 24 lbs.; HP
  11 [0]; Will 10 [0]; Per 10 [0]; FP 11 [0]; Basic Speed 5.25
  [0]; Basic Move 5 [0].
  Advantages: Military Rank 0† [0]. • A total of 20 points chosen
  from among ST or HT +1 or +2 [10 or 20], IQ or DX +1 [20],
  Will or Per +1 to +4 [5/level], FP +1 to +3 [3/level], Basic
  Move +1 to +3 [5/level], Absolute Direction [5], Acute Senses
  (any) 1 or 2 [2/level], Alcohol Tolerance [1], Combat
  Reflexes [15], Deep Sleeper‡ [1], Fearlessness [2/level], Fit
  [5] or Very Fit [15], Hard to Kill [2/level], High Pain Thresh-
  old [10], Less Sleep 1-4 [2/level], Lifting ST 1 or 2§ [3 or 6],
  Night Vision 1 or 2 [1 or 2], Outdoorsman 1 or 2 [10 or 20],
  Penetrating Voice [1], Rapid Healing [5], Resistant to Dis-
  ease (+3) [3], Single-Minded [5], or Temperature Tolerance
  1 or 2 [1 or 2].
  WRITING IT UP
  The never-ending task of self improvement.
  – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  
  Disadvantages: Duty (To army; 12 or less)† [-10]. • A fur-
  ther -15 points chosen from among Addiction (Chain
  Smoker) [-5], Bloodlust [-10*], Bully [-10*], Callous [-5],
  Chummy [-5] or Gregarious [-10], Code of Honor (Sol-
  dier’s) [-10], Compulsive Carousing [-5*], Fanaticism
  (Own nation) [-15], Gullibility [-10*], Hidebound [-5],
  Incurious [-5*], Intolerance (Enemy nation) [-5], Laziness
  [-10], Light Sleeper‡ [-5], Overconfidence [-5*], Post-Com-
  bat Shakes [-5*], Sense of Duty (Unit) [-5] or (Nation)
  [-10], Truthfulness [-5*], Wealth (Struggling) [-10],
  Workaholic [-5], or worsen Duty (12 or less) [-10] to Duty
  (15 or less) [-15] for -5 points and/or change it to
  Extremely Hazardous for -5 points.
  Primary Skills: Guns (Rifle) (E) DX+2 [4]-12; Hiking (A) HT+1
  [4]-12; and Soldier (A) IQ+2 [8]-12.
  Secondary Skills: Brawling (E) DX [1]-10; NBC Suit, Spear,
  Throwing, and Wrestling, all (A) DX [2]-10; and Camouflage
  (E) IQ [1]-10. • Three of Gunner (Cannon or Machine Gun),
  Guns (any other), or Knife, all (E) DX+1 [2]-11; Driving
  (Automobile or Heavy Wheeled) or Stealth, both (A) DX
  [2]-10; First Aid or Savoir-Faire (Military), both (E) IQ+1
  [2]-11; Armoury (Body Armor, Heavy Weapons, or Small
  Arms), Artillery (Cannon or Guided Missile), Electronics
  Operation (Comm, EW, or Sensors), Explosives (Demoli-
  tion), Forward Observer, Freight Handling, Mechanic
  (Automobile or Heavy Wheeled), or Navigation (Land), all
  (A) IQ [2]-10; Tactics (H) IQ-1 [2]-9; Observation, Survival
  (any), or Tracking, all (A) Per [2]-10; or 2 points to raise one
  two-point secondary skill by a level or two one-point sec-
  ondary skills by a level.
  Background Skills: A total of 3 points in any previous skill;
  Climbing or Sports (any), both (DX/A); Hobby Skill (any)
  (DX/E or IQ/E); Area Knowledge (any), Current Affairs
  (any), or Games (any), all (IQ/E); Gambling, Fast-Talk, or
  Streetwise, all (IQ/A); Carousing (HT/E); Lifting (HT/A);
  Intimidation (Will/A); or Scrounging (Per/E).
  * Multiplied for self-control number; see p. B120.
  † Military Rank and Duty reflect admission to military serv-
  ice. This makes attributes or secondary characteristics lower
  than those above, most physical disadvantages, mental disad-
  vantages not listed here, and Social Stigma (Criminal Record
  or Minor) “taboo” without GM permission.
  ‡ Deep Sleeper and Light Sleeper are mutually exclusive –
  pick one.
  § Lifting ST is technically exotic, but soldiers lug heavy kit
  often enough for this to be believable.
  Lenses
  In both cases below, if the soldier already knows one of the
  extra skills, add points up to the nearest full skill level and move
  leftovers to the discretionary pool. Further lenses, representing
  specialized training, will be available for earned points in play.
  NCO (+45 points): Add IQ +1 [20]; Military Rank 1 [5]; Admin-
  istration (A) IQ-1 [1]-10; Leadership (A) IQ+1 [4]-12; Savoir-
  Faire (Military) (E) IQ [1]-11; Tactics (H) IQ-1 [2]-10; and a
  total of 12 more points of advantages and/or primary, sec-
  ondary, or background skills.
  Officer (+45 points): Add IQ +1 [20]; Military Rank 3 [15];
  Administration (A) IQ [2]-11; Leadership (A) IQ [2]-11;
  Savoir-Faire (Military) (E) IQ+1 [2]-12; Tactics (H) IQ-1
  [2]-10; and 2 more points in primary, secondary, or 
  background skills. • Add Strategy (H) IQ-1 [2]-10 to optional
  secondary skill choices.
  Customization Notes
  There are a few big decisions to make here, starting with
  mindset. The most “heroic” soldier is the honorable, gung-ho
  kind, who displays loyalty (Chummy or Sense of Duty) and zeal
  (Code of Honor, Overconfidence, Workaholic, or a more seri-
  ous Duty for which he likely volunteered). However, armies are
  full of troops who’ve had the spark whipped out of them (Hide-
  bound, Incurious, or Truthfulness) or been thoroughly indoc-
  trinated (Fanaticism). And many cinematic stereotypes have a
  basis in reality, including the gun-shy youngster (Gullibility,
  Light Sleeper, or Post-Combat Shakes), the slothful “get over”
  artist (Addiction, Compulsive Carousing, or Laziness), and the
  unstable wannabe killer (Bloodlust, Callous, or Intolerance).
  Real-life soldiers often display elements of several archetypes.
  Next comes the matter of natural talent. Some soldiers start
  out or become physically well-suited to the job, with high ST,
  HT, or FP alongside a few of Fit, Hard to Kill, High Pain
  Threshold, Lifting ST, Rapid Healing, Resistant to Disease, and
  Temperature Tolerance. Others show mental resilience in the
  form of Combat Reflexes, Deep Sleeper, Fearlessness, Less
  Sleep, Single-Minded, or above-average Will. Of course, the
  army has many specialized jobs, and it’s worth picking gifts
  that would be helpful there; e.g., some of good Per, Absolute
  Direction, Acute Vision, Night Vision, and Outdoorsman for a
  future sniper. Again, a mix is most realistic, if less dramatic.
  Then there’s the question of skills. While basic training dic-
  tates the majority of these, most new soldiers are familiar with
  the rudiments of a few specialized activities, whether because
  they are naturals at specific tasks covered by the Soldier skill
  (and perhaps were singled out for this), pulled the same duties
  over and over, or trained in close proximity to a specialist unit.
  Possibilities include a broad knack for military matters (Savoir-
  Faire and Tactics), lots of time in the motor pool (Driving,
  Freight Handling, and Mechanic), being trained by an artillery
  unit (Artillery and Forward Observer), or being stationed in a
  wilderness area (Navigation, Survival, and Tracking).
  The campaign will start at 100 points and allow -50 points
  in disadvantages, so this template leaves 50 points unspent,
  plus up to 25 points more from -20 points of added disadvan-
  tages (although many are “taboo”) and five quirks. These might
  buy further template options or traits generally allowed in the
  campaign – better attributes would be a good investment.
  Training in occupational specialties will take place between
  adventures, but it’s possible to put customization points
  toward starting out as a corporal or a very green sergeant
  (NCO lens with Military Rank 1), or as a newly commissioned
  lieutenant (Officer lens with Military Rank 3).
  TRICKS OF THE TRADE
  34
  Any group is weaker than a man
  alone unless they are perfectly
  trained to work together.
  – Robert A. Heinlein,
  Starship Troopers
  
  Every story confronts its major characters with dramatic
  and practical challenges. The subset of these that a PC is best-
  suited to take on defines his niche. The game is most fun when
  the overlap between niches is relatively small and the tasks cor-
  responding to each one occupy about the same amount of play
  time. In that case, each player gets a turn and nobody is left
  out; in theatrical terms, everybody enjoys the same amount of
  time in the spotlight.
  Templates – particularly mandatory ones (p. 6) – are an
  effective tool for defining a campaign’s niches. A well-designed
  template set is a way for the GM to ensure that the PCs possess
  the right abilities to confront likely challenges, and that these
  are distributed among roles in a way calculated to give compa-
  rable spotlight time. It also enables players to discuss group
  composition in broad-but-meaningful terms, like “driver” or
  “medic,” instead of having to resort to trait-by-trait compar-
  isons and checklists.
  The trick is to identify niches of equal breadth and then
  design templates for them. There’s no way to do this perfectly,
  but here’s some broad advice:
  1. Think about the challenges the campaign will offer and
  divide them into categories that look like they’ll take about
  the same amount of play time to resolve. This is the hard part!
  To help make this prediction come true, make ample notes at
  this step and consult these when planning adventures and
  game sessions.
  2. Settle on the number of starring roles in the campaign.
  Start with the number of players, and then adjust downward to
  get a little overlap for safety or upward to account for late join-
  ers or NPC assistants.
  3. Define niches by dividing the categories of challenges
  from the first step among the number of starring roles from the
  second. If roles outnumber categories, work a new class of
  challenges into the campaign or split an existing one (e.g.,
  fighting might fracture into ranged and melee combat, replac-
  ing the “fighter” niche with “archer” and “swordsman”). If cat-
  egories outnumber roles, group together related challenges.
  Associations might be obvious (like “science” with “inventing”)
  or demand reimagining (in a campaign that has challenges for
  crooks, outdoorsmen, and stealth experts, the niches may end
  up being a stealthy outdoorsman called a “scout”
  and a stealthy crook called a “thief”).
  4. Design a template for each niche, giving it the
  abilities it needs to meet its assigned challenges.
  All of this advice holds whether the templates are
  occupational, dramatic, or cultural; for instance, the
  “thief” niche might go to the professional criminal,
  the archetypal trickster, or the cultural template for
  disenfranchised street-dwellers. The important
  thing is that the final results split up spotlight time
  evenly. The remainder of this chapter consists of big
  lists of suggestions to assist with this process.
  NICHES
  35
  A campaign might present hundreds of varieties of chal-
  lenges, most of them genre- or setting-specific (e.g., “feats of
  strength” involving ST, Lifting ST, the Lifting skill, etc. are
  important at low TLs – particularly in fantasy – but otherwise
  uncommon). Several broad areas that often arise on adven-
  tures are listed below. Each suggests fitting traits from the
  Basic Set, which the GM might find inspiring when designing
  templates associated with niches that tackle those challenges.
  Where disadvantages appear, the assumption is that these
  would plausibly enhance a niche concerned with such chal-
  lenges. This rarely means better results on dice rolls. It usually
  has more to do with having either a natural tendency toward
  the activity or fewer apprehensions or moral compunctions
  about doing the deed. Stereotyped disadvantages (e.g., Absent-
  Minded for academics) are omitted except where they’re too
  universal to ignore.
  MATCHING TRAITS
  TO CHALLENGES
  CHAPTER FOUR
  NICHES
  He has achieved success . . . 
  who has filled his niche and
  accomplished his task.
  – Bessie Anderson Stanley,
  “Success”
  
  In all cases, it’s important to pick only the traits that suit the
  campaign’s genre and TL.
  Animals
  Beasts come up in most adventure genres, whether this
  means a cowboy or knight’s horse, the fantasy druid’s pets,
  guard dogs, or wild animals encountered as monsters or the
  subjects of study. In some campaigns, dealing with them is a
  niche in itself.
  Advantages: Allies, in the form of highly capable pets; Ani-
  mal Empathy; and Animal Friend.
  Disadvantages: Any self-imposed mental disadvantage
  (p. B121) tied to animal welfare.
  Skills: Animal Handling; Disguise (Animals); Falconry;
  Mimicry (Animal Sounds or Bird Calls); Mount, when the PC
  is a beast; Naturalist; Packing; Riding; Teamster; and Veteri-
  nary. At higher TLs, add Biology (Zoology), an IQ/H optional
  specialty, and Paleontology (Paleozoology).
  Combat
  Almost every adventurer needs abilities useful in a fight,
  because battles take a while to game out and an incompetent
  PC means a bored player. However, combat challenges also
  define niches. The difference is that characters who fill pure
  combat niches require higher skill levels and more supporting
  attributes and advantages than their associates.
  Attributes and Secondary Characteristics: ST; DX; HT; HP;
  Basic Speed; and Basic Move.
  Advantages: Ambidexterity; Combat Reflexes; Enhanced
  Defenses*; Extra Attack*; Fit; Gunslinger*; Hard to Kill; Hard
  to Subdue; High Pain Threshold; Peripheral Vision; Rapid
  Healing; Trained by a Master*; and Weapon Master*. Traits
  with an asterisk (*) may be too cinematic for some campaigns.
  Disadvantages: Berserk, which brings both benefits and risks;
  Bloodlust, especially for assassins; Callous, ditto; and Sense of
  Duty, to one’s own side or some great cause worth fighting for.
  Skills: All combat/weapon skills! Countless niches encom-
  pass combat tasks, so pick matching skills. For example, an
  assassin might prefer Fast-Draw, Garrote, Guns (Pistol), Knife,
  and other skills for concealable weapons; a sniper needs Guns
  (Rifle); and a space marine is likely to know Battlesuit. Com-
  mon supporting skills are Armoury, Connoisseur (Weapons),
  and Tactics; Animal Handling and Riding, for cavalrymen; and
  Savoir-Faire (Dojo), and possibly cinematic martial-arts skills,
  for martial artists.
  Communications
  Handling an adventuring group’s communications calls for
  a clear-voiced language expert. Intercepting enemy messages
  demands a good ear, too. At TL6+, add technical proficiency to
  all this. If the PCs aren’t prepared for such challenges, the
  adventure may grind to a halt the first time they encounter a
  code or a foreign tongue.
  Attributes and Secondary Characteristics: IQ and Per.
  Advantages and Perks: Acute Hearing; Cultural Familiarity;
  Language Talent; Languages; Penetrating Voice; and Voice.
  Disadvantages: Xenophilia.
  Skills: Computer Operation; Cryptography; Electronics
  Operation (Comm, EW, Media, or Surveillance); Electronics
  Repair (ditto); Gesture; Heraldry, because visual codes are
  communications, too; Linguistics; Lip Reading; Mimicry
  (Speech); Public Speaking; Savoir-Faire, in settings with strict
  social protocols surrounding messages; Typing; and Writing.
  Crafting
  Adventurers often face difficulties posed by broken or miss-
  ing gear, or otherwise find themselves making hasty material
  preparations. Entire stories have been written about such
  things: raising the barn before winter, building a plane from
  the crash wreckage, etc. If adventures will involve such ele-
  ments, then at least one niche should be up to the challenge. In
  low-key “slice of life” campaigns, each niche might have a
  trademark craft.
  Advantages: Artificer; Gifted Artist; and High Manual 
  Dexterity.
  Disadvantages: Workaholic.
  Skills: Armoury; Artist, especially Interior Decorating, Pot-
  tery, and Woodworking; Carpentry; Electrician; Electronics
  Repair; Jeweler; Leatherworking; Machinist; Masonry;
  Mechanic; Scrounging; Sewing; and Smith. If the campaign
  features relevant Professional Skills such as Clothmaker, Dis-
  tiller, Glassblower, and Tanner, add those. Engineer should
  be an option for very talented individuals.
  Deceit
  Many campaigns feature criminal or espionage activities. In
  those that do, some niche should handle the art of bypassing
  security not through force, stealth, or technology, but by pre-
  tending to be somebody else.
  Attributes: IQ is crucial to impersonators (see p. B174).
  Advantages and Perks: Cultural Adaptability*; Honest Face;
  Social Chameleon*; Voice; and Zeroed. Traits with an asterisk
  (*) may be too cinematic for some campaigns. People with
  established alter egos might have Alternate Identity.
  Disadvantages: Compulsive Lying; Enemies; Secret; and
  Trickster.
  Skills: Acting; Disguise; Fast-Talk; Forgery, if the deceiver
  prepares his own fake ID; Makeup; Mimicry (Speech); and Psy-
  chology. Savoir-Faire and Streetwise are useful for passing
  oneself off as a “generic” member of a particular social class.
  Detective Work
  It’s the rare adventure that doesn’t involve tracking foot-
  prints, questioning captives, searching bodies, tossing rooms,
  and so on. Most plots have at least one place where the PCs –
  be they principled cops, gritty bounty-hunters, or greedy dun-
  geon-raiders – must follow a trail of clues.
  NICHES
  36
  When you are genuinely
  interested in one thing, it will
  always lead to something else.
  – Eleanor Roosevelt
  
  Attributes and Secondary Characteristics: IQ and Per.
  Advantages: Acute Senses, for spotting clues; Empathy, for
  detecting lies; and Intuition, for those times when the evidence
  is ambiguous. Actual detectives usually have Legal Enforce-
  ment Powers and/or Police Rank.
  Disadvantages: Curious. Detectives often have Duty, Hon-
  esty (for the eventual reaction bonus), and/or Sense of Duty
  (ditto), too.
  Skills: Artist (Drawing), for sketching faces from descrip-
  tions; Body Language; Computer Operation, in worlds with
  databases of fingerprints, license plates, photos, and so on;
  Criminology; Cryptography (Code-Breaking), an IQ/A optional
  specialty; Detect Lies; Electronics Operation (Security or Sur-
  veillance); Forensics; Interrogation; Photography; Psychology;
  Research; Scrounging; Search; and Tracking. Intelligence
  Analysis is vital for combining all the information if the GM
  plans to provide “free” insights on a success. Give genuine
  detectives Law (Police) and Savoir-Faire (Police).
  Esoterica
  If the campaign features the occult or paranormal – as is
  common in fantasy, horror, and tales of the weird and conspir-
  atorial – then solving related problems is the job of at least one
  niche, if not one per distinct form of esoterica.
  Attributes and Secondary Characteristics: IQ; Will; and Per.
  If spells are involved, add FP to the list.
  Advantages and Perks: Autotrance; Danger Sense; Empa-
  thy; Illuminated; and Intuition. For access to spiritual
  resources, add Clerical Investment and Religious Rank. Use
  Luck and Serendipity to emulate abstract “blessings.” If the
  setting features extraordinary abilities – Blessed, Channeling,
  Magery, Medium, Power Investiture, True Faith, etc. – then
  these are essential!
  Disadvantages: Disciplines of Faith; Vows, especially weird
  ones; and Xenophilia, for those who deal with supernatural
  entities. Mystics occasionally exploit problems like Addiction
  (psychedelics), Epilepsy, Flashbacks, and Phantom Voices for
  gain. If occult powers exist, then Divine Curse, Weirdness Mag-
  net, and related difficulties might even be required.
  Skills: Autohypnosis; Dreaming; Esoteric Medicine; For-
  tune-Telling; Hidden Lore; Hypnotism; Meditation; Mind
  Block; Occultism; Philosophy, the weirder the better; Religious
  Ritual; Symbol Drawing; Theology; and any Expert Skill with
  an unorthodox subject matter (Conspiracy Theory, Psionics,
  Thanatology, etc.). Skills that manipulate genuine power –
  Alchemy, Artist (Illusion), Enthrallment, Exorcism, Herb Lore,
  Ritual Magic, Thaumatology, spells, etc. – also belong here, if
  they exist.
  Establishment
  Dealing with the setting’s apparatus of power can be a
  major challenge – possibly the principal one, in a relatively
  cerebral campaign. This can be the primary job of a niche, or
  of several if there are many different authorities to wrangle.
  Advantages: Charisma, for leaders; Claim to Hospitality;
  Contacts; Legal Immunity; Patrons; Rank; Reputation; Secu-
  rity Clearance; Social Regard; Status; and Wealth.
  Disadvantages: Any Code of Honor, Duty, or
  Sense of Duty expected of the position. In some set-
  tings, Jealousy or Selfish might be necessary to
  seem convincing.
  Skills: Administration; Current Affairs (People or
  Politics); Diplomacy; Economics; Expert Skill
  (Political Science); Geography (Political); Heraldry;
  Law; Leadership; Politics; Propaganda; Public
  Speaking; and Savoir-Faire, usually but not always
  the High Society specialty.
  Exploration
  “How do we get there?” is a classic RPG chal-
  lenge! While not all adventuring groups have a ded-
  icated navigator, map-maker, and route-finder, it’s
  an essential sideline for at least one niche in any
  genre where the heroes leave home occasionally. If
  the campaign’s explorers focus on the wilderness
  rather than on manmade places, it would be reason-
  able to merge this category with Outdoors (p. 39).
  Advantages: Absolute Direction; Eidetic Mem-
  ory; and Intuition.
  Disadvantages: Curious.
  Skills: Navigation above all else. Add Architecture, for
  indoor exploration; Area Knowledge, if only of the entire
  world in broad strokes; Cartography, for making maps; Cur-
  rent Affairs (Regional); Geography; Mathematics (Survey-
  ing); Meteorology/Weather Sense; Naturalist; Prospecting;
  and Urban Survival, for urban exploration.
  Inventing
  Coming up with new technologies is an important challenge
  in a long-term campaign with a historical, pulp, or sci-fi angle.
  It’s an acquired taste, though, as the PCs involved will be in or
  out of the spotlight for a long time. If inventing will take center
  stage, then, distribute these traits among several niches to
  involve as many players as possible; if it won’t, make this stuff
  incidental to a niche that handles other challenges.
  Attributes: IQ is the most cost-effective way to be good at the
  many associated skills.
  Advantages: Artificer; Gadgeteer*; Gizmos*; High TL*; Less
  Sleep; and Versatile. Traits with an asterisk (*) may be too cin-
  ematic for some campaigns.
  NICHES
  37
  
  Disadvantages: Compulsive Behavior, if the GM permits
  Compulsive Inventing (it certainly fits!); Curious; and Worka-
  holic, which the rules thrust upon inventors, so they might as
  well get points for it.
  Skills: Bioengineering, for biotechnology; Computer Pro-
  gramming, for software; Engineer, for most things; Metallurgy,
  for alloys; Pharmacy, for drugs; and so on. Add Current Affairs
  (Science & Technology); Mathematics (Applied), as a prerequi-
  site for Engineer; and Scrounging, for parts. Many inventions
  call for subsidiary skills, such as Architecture, for buildings;
  Armoury, for weapons or armor; Electronics Repair, for elec-
  tronic gadgets; Machinist, for tools; and Mechanic, for vehi-
  cles. When permitting Gadgeteer and Gizmos, consider
  topping off this list with Weird Science.
  Medicine
  Adventurers who engage in chases, combat, and dangerous
  athletics need a healer. In horror and technothrillers, medical
  challenges encompass bio-weapons, epidemics, and infected
  matter. Cyberpunk adds performance-enhancing substances
  and implants. Sci-fi often features all of these elements, sug-
  gesting multiple niches; in other genres, this is a supporting
  role, incidental to a niche.
  Attributes: IQ.
  Advantages: Empathy; Healer; and Resistant to Disease.
  Disadvantages: Code of Honor (Professional); Pacifism;
  Selfless; Sense of Duty; and Workaholic.
  Skills: Bioengineering; Biology (Microbiology), an IQ/H
  optional specialty; Diagnosis; Electronics Operation (Medical);
  Esoteric Medicine, especially in fantasy; Expert Skill (Epidemi-
  ology); First Aid; Hazardous Materials (Biological); Hypno-
  tism; NBC Suit; Pharmacy; Physician; Physiology; Poisons;
  Surgery; and Veterinary.
  Military
  Military challenges call for solutions like artillery barrages,
  commando raids, sieges, and the sheer mass of manpower and
  hardware that an organized fighting force can bring to bear.
  When every PC has such a background, all templates will boast
  some of the traits below – but enough genres make the veteran
  its own niche to justify a standalone category.
  Niches that handle military challenges normally tackle
  Combat (p. 36), too. Training ranges from Melee Weapon skills
  for primitive soldiers, through Guns, on up to Beam Weapons
  for futuristic troops.
  Advantages and Perks: Charisma, for leaders; Combat
  Reflexes; Courtesy Rank; Fit; Military Rank; Penetrating Voice,
  for sergeants and low-TL officers; Reputation, in the form of
  medals and decorations; and Security Clearance.
  Disadvantages: Chummy; Code of Honor (Soldier’s); Duty
  (Service), which is often required; Intolerance of the opposi-
  tion; Overconfidence, for a reaction bonus from green recruits;
  and Sense of Duty, to unit or nation, for a reaction bonus from
  one’s fellows.
  Skills: Grunts have Soldier and maybe Tactics; NCOs defi-
  nitely have Tactics, and add Leadership; officers resemble
  NCOs, but acquire Strategy at the high end; and depending on
  the background, Savoir-Faire (Military) might be universal or
  matter only at high Rank. To this add technical skills such as
  Armoury; Artillery; Camouflage; Engineer (Combat); Expert
  Skill (Military Science); Explosives; Forward Observer; Haz-
  ardous Materials; Heraldry, especially at low TLs; NBC Suit;
  Parachuting; and any Electronics Operation or vehicle-opera-
  tion skill for gear that’s largely or entirely military in the setting.
  Mobility
  Many adventuring challenges amount to “Get from A to B,”
  but separate A and B with distance and danger. When the whole
  gang goes, that’s a job for Exploration (p. 37) and Transportation
  (p. 42). When just one brave volunteer needs to do it, that’s defin-
  itive of a niche, from the fantasy thief to the modern traceur.
  Attributes and Secondary Characteristics: DX; HT; Basic
  Speed; and Basic Move.
  Advantages: Enhanced Dodge; Fit; Flexibility; and Perfect
  Balance. If the GM is willing to deem Catfall or a half-level of
  Enhanced Move (Ground) “realistic enough,” then add those.
  Skills: Acrobatics; Body Sense; Breath Control; Climbing;
  Escape, for tight squeezes; Free Fall, in space campaigns;
  Hiking; Jumping; Running; Sports, especially those to do
  with running around; and Swimming. While this normally
  means personal mobility, not vehicles, unpowered equipment
  counts; e.g., Bicycling, Parachuting, Piloting (Glider or Low-
  G Wings), Scuba, Skating, and Skiing. Finally, add Aerobat-
  ics, Aquabatics, Flight, and Mount, for those capable of
  suitable movement.
  Money
  Money makes most game worlds go round and presents PCs
  with endless challenges, starting with “How do we pay for our
  gear?” Solving these problems is essential in all genres, and a
  niche in itself in more thoughtful campaigns.
  Advantages: Business Acumen; Independent Income; Light-
  ning Calculator; Mathematical Ability; Rank (Merchant or
  Administrative); and Wealth.
  NICHES
  38
  There’s so much knowledge to be had that specialists
  cling to their specialties as a shield against having 
  to know anything about anything else.
  – Isaac Asimov, Prelude to Foundation
  
  Disadvantages: Greed; Miserliness, to keep the money; and
  Workaholic.
  Skills: Accounting; Administration; Current Affairs (Busi-
  ness), and conceivably other specialties, to exploit trends; Diplo-
  macy, for high-powered negotiations; Economics; Finance;
  Gambling; Heraldry (Corporate Logos); Law (Contract or Busi-
  ness); Market Analysis; Mathematics (Statistics); Merchant; Pan-
  handling, down at street level; Propaganda; and Savoir-Faire
  (High Society). These skills assume existing money; add Coun-
  terfeiting to make money (literally!) or Prospecting to find gold,
  silver, etc. at the source.
  Nautical
  If the campaign world has vast bodies of water that the
  heroes can’t simply fly over – which describes most interesting
  historical settings – then these are likely to pose major chal-
  lenges indeed. Like Military (p. 38), this category might
  describe everybody but is also a valid niche in itself.
  Advantages: Absolute Direction and Perfect Balance.
  Disadvantages: Chummy, as ships are close quarters, and
  Xenophilia, because ports are full of foreigners.
  Skills: Area Knowledge, for any body of water; Biology
  (Marine Biology), an IQ/H optional specialty; Boating; Climbing,
  for rigging at lower TLs; Diving Suit; Fishing; Freight Handling;
  Knot-Tying; Law (Marine); Meteorology/Weather Sense; Navi-
  gation (Sea); Scuba; Seamanship; Shiphandling (Ship or Sub-
  marine); Submarine; Submariner; Survival (Island/Beach); and
  Swimming. At TL6+, add Electronics Operation specialties for
  equipment commonly found aboard ships, particularly Sensors
  and Sonar.
  Outdoors
  The challenges of the great outdoors are legion. Unless the
  adventurers won’t leave the city, ever, the campaign should
  define at least one niche that has the job of dealing with these.
  In games where Exploration (p. 37) is the dominant outdoor
  activity, the GM might merge that category with this one.
  Secondary Characteristics: Per.
  Advantages: Absolute Direction; Acute Senses; Outdoors-
  man; and Temperature Tolerance.
  Disadvantages: Loner, plus almost any self-imposed mental
  disadvantage (p. B121) tied to keeping nature pristine.
  Skills: Area Knowledge, for any expansive outdoor area;
  Camouflage; Climbing; Fishing; Hiking; Meteorology/Weather
  Sense; Mimicry (Animal Sounds or Bird Calls); Naturalist;
  Navigation; Survival; Swimming; and Tracking. Some ranged
  combat skills – Blowpipe, Bolas, Lasso, Net, Thrown Weapon
  (Harpoon), etc. – are used more often for hunting than for
  fighting. High-tech niches might include Biology (Ecology), an
  IQ/H optional specialty; Geography; and Geology.
  Performing
  Many plots call for the PCs to entertain NPCs, whether that
  means placating the king to avoid beheading, impressing some-
  one who can provide an introduction or a lucrative contract, or
  using a performance as a diversion. Or perhaps the play is the
  thing, and the campaign is about putting on successful shows!
  Advantages and Perks: Appearance is universally handy.
  Then there’s Flexibility for contortionists; Musical Ability and
  Voice for musicians; Penetrating Voice and Rapier Wit (unless
  deemed too cinematic) for spoken-word types; Perfect Balance
  for acrobats; and so on. Be sure to suggest these in customiza-
  tion notes.
  Disadvantages: Compulsive Carousing and Overconfidence.
  Performers sometimes actively exploit Dwarfism, Hunchback,
  Skinny, etc.
  Skills: Acrobatics; Carousing; Dancing; Fire Eating; For-
  tune-Telling; Games; Mimicry (Speech); Musical Instrument;
  Performance; Public Speaking; Singing; Sleight of Hand;
  Sports (anything fun to watch); Stage Combat; and Ventrilo-
  quism. Behind the scenes, add Artist (Scene Design); Elec-
  tronics Operation (Media); Group Performance; Makeup;
  Musical Composition; Poetry; Sewing, for costumes; and
  Writing, for plays. Some artists are also experts at Connois-
  seur (Dance or Music) and/or Current Affairs (High Culture
  or Popular Culture).
  Plants
  Plants might not matter at all to adventurers, but as they’re
  everywhere in most game worlds, they can be a big deal –
  whether that means leafy monsters in fantasy, a haunted forest
  in horror, a plant-based cure in a medical thriller, or growing
  a living in a low-key historical campaign. With rare exceptions,
  there’s just enough here for one niche.
  Advantages: Green Thumb and Plant Empathy.
  Disadvantages: Phobia (Fire), in settings where intelligent
  plants don’t appreciate flame.
  Skills: Farming; Gardening; Naturalist; and Pharmacy
  (Herbal). Most fantasy and cinematic settings add Herb Lore;
  high-tech ones might tack on Biology (Botany), an IQ/H
  optional specialty, and Paleontology (Paleobotany).
  Research
  Heroes occasionally have to look for answers in whatever
  repositories of information suit the setting: libraries, the
  Internet, etc. While research-related tasks rarely constitute a
  whole niche, they can be essential to moving the story forward
  – particularly in mystery, occult, and technothriller plots.
  Attributes: IQ is archetypal.
  Advantages: Eidetic Memory; Intuition; Less Sleep, for
  all-nighters; Single-Minded; and Tenure, for access to the
  best libraries.
  Disadvantages: Curious; Obsession with some academic
  goal; and Workaholic.
  NICHES
  39
  That is why I have chosen
  my own particular profession,
  or rather created it, for I am 
  the only one in the world.
  – Arthur Conan Doyle,
  The Sign of Four
  
  Skills: Administration, for getting past librarians and clerks;
  Computer Operation; Current Affairs, for “common knowl-
  edge”; Intelligence Analysis; Literature; Philosophy, for
  informed insights; Public Speaking, for debating, lecturing,
  and presenting expert testimony; Research; Speed-Reading;
  Teaching; Typing; Writing; and IQ/H or IQ/VH skills, particu-
  larly Expert Skills, concerning abstruse subject matter.
  Sabotage
  Many an adventure plot revolves around blowing up, burn-
  ing down, or otherwise wrecking things. If the campaign fea-
  tures mission objectives or obstacles that can’t be worked
  around in more subtle ways, then one or more niches should
  specialize in such destruction.
  Advantages: Artificer; Fearlessness, for walking around with
  explosives; High Manual Dexterity; and Luck, for avoiding
  unintended accidents.
  Disadvantages: Pyromania.
  Skills: Architecture, for knowing the weak spots in structures;
  Engineer (Combat); Explosives (Demolition or Fireworks);
  Forced Entry; Machinist; and Traps, for leaving nasty surprises.
  Remember that “repair” skills can also destroy: Armoury can
  neutralize weapons; Electrician can cut power; Electronics
  Repair can short-circuit gizmos; and Mechanic can sever brake
  lines and facilitate car bombs.
  Science
  Outside of fantasy and TL0-3 adventures, and especially in
  sci-fi and TL6+ stories (unless the campaign is pure action),
  many problems call for scientific solutions – most often testing
  and field-expedient applications. If this stuff is relevant, then at
  least one niche should excel at it. In a cerebral game, several
  niches might specialize in different areas.
  Attributes: IQ is the cheapest way to shine at more than a
  few of the relevant skills.
  Advantages: Lightning Calculator and Mathematical Ability.
  Disadvantages: Curious.
  Skills: Astronomy; Biology; Chemistry; Geography (Physical);
  Geology; Mathematics; Metallurgy; Meteorology; Naturalist;
  Paleontology; Physics; Physiology; Psychology (Experimen-
  tal); and any scientific Expert Skill imaginable (Epidemiol-
  ogy, Hydrology, Natural Philosophy, etc.). In fiction,
  Engineer is frequently associated with science, too. These
  often come with some of Computer Programming, Current
  Affairs (Science & Technology), Electronics Operation (Sci-
  entific), and Hazardous Materials.
  Security
  Except in the most sedate of campaigns, keeping watch for
  trouble is important, and there should be at least one niche
  tasked with doing so. If this is a central premise – the PCs are
  bodyguards, antiterrorist forces, etc. – then every niche ought
  to have some of these traits.
  Secondary Characteristics: Per in itself is crucial for meeting
  security challenges.
  Advantages: Acute Senses; Combat Reflexes; Danger Sense;
  Less Sleep; Night Vision; and Peripheral Vision. True security
  officers often have Legal Enforcement Powers and/or Rank.
  Disadvantages: Light Sleeper and Paranoia. Security offi-
  cers often have Duty and/or Sense of Duty.
  Skills: Animal Handling (Dogs), for working alongside guard
  and sniffer dogs; Body Language; Electronics Operation (Secu-
  rity or Sensors); Explosives (EOD); Lip Reading; Observation;
  Search; Shadowing; Streetwise, for noticing dodgy situations;
  Tactics, for suitable responses; and Tracking. Niches covering
  these tasks should add combat skills for the relevant “force spec-
  trum”: Intimidation, usually a Melee Weapon skill (whether
  Broadsword for a big club or Tonfa for a modern side-handle
  police baton), and possibly ranged skills such as Liquid Projec-
  tor (Sprayer) and Guns. Police officers know Law (Police) and
  Savoir-Faire (Police).
  Sneaking
  In adventure plots, not being detected by enemies comes sec-
  ond only to combat. If the entire PC group needs to be circum-
  spect, then give all niches a few suitable traits – but even then,
  the dedicated stealth expert is a common and necessary role.
  Attributes: IQ (DX, not so much, despite the common asso-
  ciation between grace and sneakiness).
  Advantages and Perks: Honest Face and Night Vision.
  Disadvantages: Loner.
  Skills: Acting, for not behaving suspiciously; Camouflage;
  Holdout, for one’s gear; Housekeeping, for making evidence
  disappear; Observation, for spotting guards and hidden cam-
  eras; Shadowing; Smuggling; and Stealth.
  Social Engineering
  People can be the most puzzling challenge. Manipulating
  others and settling conflicts peacefully is a huge niche in
  almost every genre. In fact, it’s such a major role that unless
  the GM foresees the campaign being wall-to-wall Combat
  (p. 36) and Sneaking (p. 40), it’s best to scatter these abilities
  across several – perhaps all – templates.
  Attributes: IQ defines “social intelligence,” doing what the
  “Charisma” or “Charm” attribute does in other RPGs.
  Advantages and Perks: Appearance; Charisma; Cultural
  Adaptability*; Cultural Familiarity; Empathy; Fashion Sense;
  Honest Face; Pitiable; Rapier Wit*; Smooth Operator; Social
  Chameleon*; and Voice. Traits with an asterisk (*) may be too
  cinematic for some campaigns.
  Disadvantages: Chummy; Compulsive Carousing; Overcon-
  fidence, for the reaction bonus from the impressionable; and
  Xenophilia, to avoid accidental bad reactions from foreigners.
  NICHES
  40
  An expert is a person
  who has made all 
  the mistakes that can be
  made in a very narrow field.
  – Niels Bohr
  
  Skills: Acting; Carousing; Connoisseur (Wine), or any other
  specialty that would impress; Current Affairs (High Culture,
  People, Popular Culture, or Travel); Dancing; Detect Lies; Diplo-
  macy; Erotic Art; Fast-Talk; Interrogation; Intimidation; Leader-
  ship; Makeup; Merchant; Panhandling; Politics; Psychology;
  Public Speaking; Savoir-Faire; Sex Appeal; and Streetwise.
  Social Sciences
  The trappings of culture can present
  interesting challenges, ranging from spot-
  ting art forgeries to determining whether
  the tribesmen are cannibals. In high-
  action campaigns, the associated traits are
  at best part of one niche. In more sedate
  tales, there’s room for at least two niches –
  arts and humanities – and maybe more.
  Attributes: IQ is the most affordable
  way to be good at lots of suitable skills.
  Advantages: Cultural Familiarity; Lan-
  guage Talent; and Languages. Cultural
  Adaptability also fits, though it’s cinematic.
  Disadvantages: Curious and Xenophilia.
  Skills: Anthropology; Archae ology; Car-
  tography; Connoisseur (Literature, Visual
  Arts, etc.); Criminology; Current Affairs,
  particularly Headline News, Politics, and
  Regional; Economics; Geography (Politi-
  cal); Heraldry; History; Law; Linguistics;
  Literature; Philosophy; Psychology; Sociol-
  ogy; Theology, especially the Comparative
  specialty; and many Expert Skills (Egyptol-
  ogy, Political Science, Xenology, etc.).
  Space
  If space travel features in the cam-
  paign, as it often does at TL9+, then skills
  for dealing with the curves it throws at the PCs are vital.
  Every space voyager should know the basics, but the sea-
  soned space-hand is a strong niche of its own.
  Advantages: 3D Spatial Sense; G-Experience; Improved G-
  Tolerance; Perfect Balance; and Xeno-Adaptability, in cinematic
  campaigns with alien cultures.
  Disadvantages: Chummy, because spaceships are close
  quarters, and Xenophilia.
  Skills: Area Knowledge, for an interplanetary state or even a
  galaxy; Astronomy; Expert Skill (Xenology); Free Fall; Freight
  Handling; Law (Interstellar); Navigation (Space or Hyperspace);
  Physics (Astrophysics), an IQ/H optional specialty; Piloting, for
  anything space-related; Shiphandling (Spaceship or Starship);
  Spacer; and Vacc Suit. Electronics Operation specialties that
  campaign assumptions make vital to space action also fit; e.g.,
  Force Shields, Matter Transmitters, and Sensors are widespread
  in space opera.
  Stealing
  Fantasy heroes out to loot dungeons, career criminals after
  the big score, super-spies assigned to snatch top-secret plans . . .
  PCs often face the challenge of taking what isn’t theirs. This is a
  niche unto itself in genres where it matters. In stealth-heavy
  campaigns, there’s room for several templates: the nimble-fin-
  gered pickpocket, the agile cat burglar, the security-systems
  cracker, etc.
  Attributes: DX and IQ.
  Advantages and Perks: Flexibility and Perfect Balance, for
  cat burglars; High Manual Dexterity, for pickpockets; and
  Night Vision.
  Disadvantages: Greed, as
  motivation, and Loner, to
  avoid betrayals.
  Skills: Architecture, for find-
  ing secret doors; Climbing;
  Connoisseur, for recognizing
  unobvious
  treasures worth
  stealing; Electronics Operation
  (Security); Electronics Repair
  (Security); Escape; Explosives
  (Demolition), for blowing safes;
  Filch; Forced Entry; Lockpick-
  ing; Merchant, for appraising
  the value of obvious loot; Pick-
  pocket; Search; Sleight of
  Hand; and Traps.
  Streets
  The streets pose problems
  that must be solved through
  morally (if not physically!) dirty
  means: bribery, threats, vio-
  lence, and lurking in dark alley-
  ways. Solutions to these often
  inform a niche, which can be
  substantial if all the other tem-
  plates are polite and proper.
  Advantages and Perks: Alco-
  hol Tolerance; Contacts (Crimi-
  nal); Danger Sense; Fearlessness; and Indomitable.
  Disadvantages: Bad Appearance, Callous, and a mean-
  and-nasty Reputation all aid Intimidation. Often, Social
  Stigma (Criminal Record) is necessary to be taken seriously.
  Skills: Acting, for appearing downtrodden; Area Knowledge
  (any “tough” locale); Brawling; Carousing; Fast-Talk, for spe-
  cious intimidation (p. B202); Forced Entry; Gambling; Her-
  aldry (Graffiti Tags); Holdout; Intimidation; Merchant, for
  illegal deals; Observation; Panhandling; Savoir-Faire (Mafia);
  Scrounging; Shadowing; Streetwise; and Urban Survival.
  Technical Means
  “Technical means” is a euphemism for tools with few hon-
  est applications: computer viruses, false-bottomed luggage,
  forged ID cards, poisons, signal jammers, tiny cameras,
  truth serums, etc. High-end crooks, spies, and commandos –
  especially at higher TLs – routinely face challenges that
  require them to use or confront such stuff. If this isn’t the
  campaign focus, then the associated abilities might consti-
  tute a single niche.
  Advantages: Those with legitimate support will have a few of
  Alternate Identity, Legal Immunity, Rank (Administrative, Mil-
  itary, or Police), and Security Clearance.
  NICHES
  41
  
  Disadvantages: Paranoia and Secret Identity. Duty (Service)
  and Sense of Duty (Nation) are common among real spies and
  black operators.
  Skills: Brainwashing; Cartography; Computer Hacking;
  Computer Programming; Counterfeiting; Cryptography; Elec-
  tronics Operation, particularly EW and Surveillance; Electron-
  ics Repair (ditto); Expert Skill (Computer Security);
  Explosives; Forgery; Holdout; Intelligence Analysis; Interroga-
  tion; Mathematics (Cryptology); Photography; Poisons; Propa-
  ganda; and Smuggling.
  Transportation
  Travel is a classic motivation for adventure, and thus a large
  part of many campaigns. An expert with vehicles, cargos, and
  related subjects can tackle numerous challenges. In a big
  group, “driver” and “pilot,” “operator” and “mechanic,” and so
  on may be separate niches.
  Attributes: DX.
  Advantages: Absolute Direction; Acute Vision; Combat
  Reflexes; and Signature Gear (Vehicle).
  Disadvantages: Workaholic, for those long hauls.
  Skills: Area Knowledge, possibly of specific transportation
  networks; Bicycling; Boating; Connoisseur (Vehicles); Crewman
  skills of all kinds; Current Affairs (Travel); Driving; Engineer
  (Vehicle Type); Freight Handling; Mechanic; Navigation; Pack-
  ing; Parachuting; Piloting; Riding; Shiphandling; Submarine;
  and Teamster. At TL6+, any Electronics Operation specialty
  needed for essential vehicle systems may qualify, most often
  Sensors and – unless there’s room for a Communications (p. 36)
  expert – Comm.
  NICHES
  42
  After identifying the campaign’s important challenges, it’s
  time to associate these with specific niches for PCs. However
  numerous the possible combinations, the matchmaking
  process can be reduced to just a few cases.
  ONE KIND OF CHALLENGE
  If the campaign’s challenges fall into categories equal in
  number to the players (most likely by design!) and seem to
  divvy up play time about equally, the process is simple: associ-
  ate categories with niches on a one-for-one basis. Assign the
  traits that go with a challenge to the related niche. Discard any-
  thing that doesn’t suit the setting (such as Electronics Opera-
  tion and Urban Survival in a TL2 steppe-nomads campaign) or
  your view of the target character type.
  SEVERAL KINDS
  OF CHALLENGES
  More likely, each niche will specialize in several categories of
  challenges. This case is common because it’s easy to identify
  dozens of things that need doing – for instance, Matching Traits
  to Challenges (pp. 35-42) lists 30 areas – while most campaigns
  have four to eight players. There are two basic models for this:
  Splitting Up the Space: The straightforward approach is to
  distribute challenges among niches without overlap. (Traits
  may still be duplicated, because all attributes, most advan-
  tages, and many skills are valuable in several unrelated areas.)
  Each niche takes its fair slice of the pie. If each category of
  challenges is likely to account for roughly equal spotlight time,
  give each niche the same number of categories. If not, handle
  the division as objectively as possible – label challenges as
  “weak” and “strong,” assign them numerical ranks, or what-
  ever, and then ensure that each niche gets the same number of
  strong suits, ranking points, etc.
  Sharing with Specialties: Some campaigns call for everybody
  to be good at tackling a few challenges, and to have individual
  specialties on top of that. Several of the examples in Matching
  Traits to Challenges are often universal in this sense: Military
  (military unit or mercenary company), Nautical (ship’s crew),
  Performing (circus, theatre troupe, etc.), Security (police
  squad), Space (spaceship’s crew), and Streets (criminal gang).
  In cases like these, identify the shared realms, set them aside,
  allocate the remaining challenges on the list according to the
  advice for splitting up the space (above), and at the end add the
  overlapping areas to every niche. If one niche is supposed to be
  especially good at a set of common tasks (e.g., an NCO who’s
  the best at Military stuff in an all-Military group), count each
  “intensified” baseline competency as an extra specialty when
  balancing spotlight time.
  However challenges are distributed, it’s safe to say that if a
  trait turns up in several categories assigned to a niche, it’s prob-
  ably essential to that niche – don’t omit it unless it truly makes
  no sense!
  Indeed, while “Each niche deserves equal spotlight time”
  is the golden rule, another rule is only slightly less important:
  “Each niche should make sense in the game world.” Don’t
  slap things together at random. Considering only the list
  under Matching Traits to Challenges, see the Combined
  Challenges Table (p. 43) for combinations widespread in
  adventure fiction. Other possibilities are fine if they fit the set-
  ting – what’s “sensible” is necessarily subjective and cam-
  paign-specific.
  SPLITTING UP CHALLENGES
  While distributing challenges among niches, you may
  discover that finer distinctions could be made. That’s to 
  be expected!
  If only a subset of a category is clearly applicable to 
  the campaign, then narrow things down to what’s suitable.
  MATCHING
  CHALLENGES TO NICHES
  
  Tailoring categories to fit the game world is a standard part of
  the niche-building process. This is most often done on the
  basis of associated traits.
  Example: When using the categories in Matching Traits to
  Challenges (pp. 35-42) in medieval (TL3-4) fantasy, many
  implied technological challenges won’t be appropriate. For
  instance, Communications covers clear speech, languages, and
  technical expertise, but the last area – embodied by Computer
  Operation, Electronics Operation, Electronics Repair, and
  Typing – is irrelevant. Thus, skills for the technical subcategory
  can simply go away.
  If a category has several unusually strong subcategories, split
  these up before starting the process of allocating challenges to
  niches. Treat the resulting new categories just like all the others
  – they count as full shares in Several Kinds of Challenges (p. 42),
  and may even stand alone as niches (One Kind of Challenge,
  p. 42). Looking at Matching Traits to Challenges, obvious exam-
  ples include:
  Animals: Handling with Animal Handling, Packing, Riding,
  Teamster, and Veterinary vs. hunting with Disguise (Animals),
  Mimicry, and Naturalist.
  Combat: There are as many subcategories as there are
  weapons and fighting arts. In fact, “general combat specialist” 
  is a rare niche – if a campaign has pure combat experts, they
  should tackle different challenges. For example, one might
  get ranged combat; two others, melee combat, further split
  into heavy and light arms and armor; and yet another,
  unarmed combat.
  Communications: There’s a clear split between fronting a
  group (Cultural Familiarity and Voice, plus Gesture, Heraldry,
  Public Speaking, and Savoir-Faire), snooping for information
  (Acute Hearing alongside Computer Operation, Cryptography,
  Electronics Operation, and Lip Reading), and translating (Lan-
  guage Talent and many Languages, as well as Gesture, Linguis-
  tics, Mimicry, and Writing).
  Crafting: Each craft or set of allied trades – e.g., Armoury,
  Jeweler, and Smith, for metalworking – might be its own niche.
  Deceit: Grifting (Honest Face and Voice, with Acting, Fast-
  Talk, Psychology, Savoir-Faire, and Streetwise) differs from
  impersonating (Cultural Adaptability, Social Chameleon, and
  perhaps Alternate Identity, with Acting, Disguise, Forgery,
  and Mimicry).
  Detective Work: Mystery-solving calls for Empathy and Intu-
  ition, plus skill at things like Body Language, Criminology,
  Cryptography, Detect Lies, Forensics, Intelligence Analysis,
  and Interrogation. Treasure-hunting is more about high Per,
  Acute Senses, and Scrounging, Search, and Tracking.
  NICHES
  43
  Combined Challenges Table
  Challenge
  Common Combinations
  Animals
  Exploration, Outdoors, Plants, Science, and Transportation
  Combat
  Military, Mobility, Sabotage, Security, Sneaking, and Streets
  Communications
  Crafting, Military, Performing, Research, Social Engineering, Social Sciences, and Technical Means
  Crafting
  Communications, Inventing, Sabotage, Technical Means, and Transportation
  Deceit
  Performing, Sneaking, Social Engineering, Stealing, and Streets
  Detective Work
  Medicine, Research, Security, Social Engineering, Streets, and Technical Means
  Esoterica
  Research, Social Sciences, and whatever specific challenges exotic abilities can resolve in the setting
  Establishment
  Money, Social Engineering, and Social Sciences
  Exploration
  Animals, Mobility, Nautical, Outdoors, Plants, Social Sciences, Space, and Transportation
  Inventing
  Crafting, Science, Space, Technical Means, and Transportation
  Medicine
  Detective Work, Plants, Research, Science, and Technical Means
  Military
  Combat, Communications, Nautical, Sabotage, Security, Sneaking, Space, Technical Means, 
  and Transportation
  Mobility
  Combat, Exploration, Outdoors, Performing, Sneaking, Stealing
  Money
  Establishment, Social Engineering, and Stealing
  Nautical
  Exploration, Military, Outdoors, and Transportation
  Outdoors
  Animals, Exploration, Mobility, Nautical, and Plants
  Performing
  Communications, Deceit, Mobility, Social Engineering, and Social Sciences
  Plants
  Animals, Exploration, Medicine, Outdoors, and Science
  Research
  Communications, Detective Work, Esoterica, Medicine, Science, and Social Sciences
  Sabotage
  Combat, Crafting, Military, Sneaking, Stealing, Streets, and Technical Means
  Science
  Animals, Inventing, Medicine, Plants, Research, Space, and Technical Means
  Security
  Combat, Detective Work, Military, Sneaking, and Technical Means
  Sneaking
  Combat, Deceit, Military, Mobility, Sabotage, Security, Stealing, and Streets
  Social Engineering
  Communications, Deceit, Detective Work, Establishment, Money, Performing, Stealing, and Streets
  Social Sciences
  Communications, Esoterica, Establishment, Exploration, Performing, and Research
  Space
  Exploration, Inventing, Military, Science, Technical Means, and Transportation
  Stealing
  Deceit, Mobility, Money, Sabotage, Sneaking, Social Engineering, Streets, and Technical Means
  Streets
  Combat, Deceit, Detective Work, Sabotage, Sneaking, Social Engineering, and Stealing
  Technical Means
  Communications, Crafting, Detective Work, Inventing, Medicine, Military, Sabotage, Science, 
  Security, Space, and Stealing
  Transportation
  Animals, Crafting, Exploration, Inventing, Military, Nautical, and Space
  
  Esoterica: Each distinct form of esoterica in the campaign –
  mundane conspiracy, shamanism, theurgy, wizardry, etc. – is
  likely to be its own niche.
  Establishment: Status suggests one subcategory; each kind
  of Rank, another. Match further traits to this master advan-
  tage. For instance, Current Affairs (People), Heraldry, and
  Savoir-Faire (High Society) – plus “old money” Claim to Hos-
  pitality, Contacts, and Patrons – go with Status. By contrast,
  Administration, Current Affairs (Politics), Expert Skill (Politi-
  cal Science), and Law – with civil-service connections – suit
  Administrative Rank.
  Exploration: Each area or environment suggests a niche.
  Someone with Architecture, Urban Survival, and urban spe-
  cialties of Area Knowledge and Current Affairs occupies a dif-
  ferent role from a person with Naturalist, Weather Sense, and
  knowledge of outlying areas. Mapmaking with Cartography
  and Mathematics (Surveying) can be its own thing, too.
  Inventing: Realistic inventors who specialize in one of
  armor, biotechnology, drugs, materials, software, weapons,
  vehicles, etc. occupy a niche apiece.
  Medicine: Healing (Empathy and Healer, plus Diagnosis,
  First Aid, Physician, and Surgery) is the classic, but medical
  sleuthing (Bioengineering, Biology, Epidemiology, Hazardous
  Materials, NBC Suit, and Poisons, backed with Resistant to
  Disease) could be its own thing, even in the same campaign.
  Military: The military has a bewildering variety of special-
  ties – one might say it takes perverse pride in finding new chal-
  lenges for troops to meet.
  Mobility: In rare cases where mobility challenges are split,
  typical divisions are along the lines of speed (DX, Basic Speed,
  Basic Move, and Enhanced Dodge) vs. endurance (HT and Fit,
  plus Breath Control, Hiking, and Running), or horizontal (mix
  speed and endurance traits) vs. vertical (Perfect Balance, with
  Acrobatics, Climbing, and Jumping).
  Money: Investing (Mathematical Ability along with Account-
  ing, Economics, Finance, Market Analysis, and Mathematics)
  is a different deal from running a business (Business Acumen,
  plus Administration, Current Affairs, Diplomacy, Finance,
  Merchant, and Propaganda), just for starters.
  Nautical: Each shipboard task could be its own niche. As
  well, sailors with Boating, Climbing, Freight Handling, Knot-
  Tying, Navigation, Seamanship, and Weather Sense aren’t
  much like ocean scientists with Biology, Diving Suit, Electron-
  ics Operation, Scuba, and Swimming. Surface vessels and sub-
  marines suggest separate niches, too.
  Outdoors: Each terrain type – as defined by a Survival spe-
  cialty – could lead to its own niche.
  Performing: In a showbiz campaign, each kind of perform-
  ance might define a niche: acting, dance, impressions, music,
  puppetry, sideshow feats, stand-up comedy, etc. Even if every-
  one is part of the same act, performing artists differ from tech-
  nical artists (who know Artist, Makeup, Sewing, etc.).
  Plants: This is such a narrow area that it’s usually one niche
  when it matters.
  Research: Sages offer insights and memorized details (Intu-
  ition and Eidetic Memory, with Current Affairs, Expert Skills,
  Literature, Philosophy, and Teaching); academics are sages with
  Tenure, often sustained using Public Speaking and Writing in
  lieu of Teaching; and investigators pore over records (Less Sleep
  and Single-Minded, plus Administration, Computer Operation,
  Intelligence Analysis, Research, and Speed-Reading).
  Sabotage: Wrench-in-the-gears sabotage (Forced Entry and
  the abuse of repair skills) isn’t strongly tied to demolition
  (Architecture, Engineer, Explosives, and Traps). These could
  be separate niches – the first for civilians, the second for troops
  – though both suit guerrillas and terrorists.
  Science: If there’s enough meat on the bone, a campaign
  could define one niche per science! This is realistic . . . it’s just
  hard to justify when science plays a bit part.
  Security: Police work (with Animal Handling, Electronics
  Operation, Explosives (EOD), Search, and Tactics) isn’t the
  same as standing watch (which is mostly a function of high Per,
  some sensory advantages like Danger Sense and Night Vision,
  and a good Observation skill).
  Sneaking: In campaigns where this matters, it’s something
  that most PCs need, but there’s a distinction between the per-
  son who hides from sight (Camouflage, Shadowing, and
  Stealth) and the one who hides his intentions in plain sight
  (with Honest Face, plus Acting, Holdout, and Smuggling).
  Social Engineering: This is a vast set of challenges. It would be
  reasonable to split up abilities between the alluring beauty
  (Appearance and Fashion Sense, with Carousing, Connoisseur,
  Dancing, Erotic Art, and Sex Appeal), the leader/spokesman
  (Charisma and Voice, alongside Diplomacy, Leadership, and
  Public Speaking), the player of mind games (Smooth Opera-
  tor, plus Acting, Fast-Talk, Intimidation, Psychology, etc.),
  and so on.
  Social Sciences: Studying the world of the mind of past civ-
  ilizations (Archaeology, Connoisseur, History, Literature, Phi-
  losophy, and Theology) is one possibility; analyzing living ones
  (Anthropology, Criminology, Current Affairs, Psychology, and
  Sociology) is another. Specialties can give experts in particular
  cultures their own niches, if relevant.
  NICHES
  44
  Philosophers are people who know less and less about
  more and more, until they know nothing about everything.
  Scientists are people who know more and more about 
  less and less, until they know everything about nothing.
  – Konrad Lorenz
  
  Space: Each crew position is a niche. There’s also a dis-
  tinction between the space hand with Free Fall, Freight Han-
  dling, Piloting, Spacer, and Vacc Suit, and the geeky rocket
  scientist with Astronomy, Electronics Operation, Navigation,
  and Physics.
  Stealing: As noted earlier, cat burglary (excellent DX, with
  Flexibility and Perfect Balance, specialized in Climbing and
  Escape), security systems (high IQ to assist Electronics Opera-
  tion, Electronics Repair, Lockpicking, and Traps), and theft
  (lots of DX and High Manual Dexterity, adept at Filch, Pick-
  pocket, and Sleight of Hand) could be distinct. Each will need
  some competence in the other areas, though, even on a team.
  Streets: The thug with Fearlessness, a scary demeanor, and
  Brawling, Forced Entry, and Intimidation is but one possibility.
  The street person using Acting, Observation, Panhandling,
  Scrounging, and Urban Survival could be another niche, and
  the high roller who likes Carousing, Fast-Talk, Gambling, 
  and Savoir-Faire (Mafia) is often his own form of scum.
  Technical Means: In an espionage campaign, experts in
  tech for assassination (Explosives and Poisons), deception
  (Counterfeiting, Forgery, Holdout, Propaganda, and Smug-
  gling), electronic intelligence (Computer Hacking, Computer
  Programming, Cryptography, Electronics Operation, etc.),
  human intelligence (Brainwashing and Interrogation), and so
  on will fill separate niches.
  Transportation: There are as many potential niches as vehi-
  cle types. Moreover, there’s often a difference between operat-
  ing and maintaining vehicles.
  NICHES
  45
  After carving out niches by distributing suitable challenges
  among them – combining or splitting categories as needed –
  build templates by following the advice in Chapters 2 and 3.
  There are a couple of points to bear in mind when doing so.
  First, don’t forget to add whatever else needs to be there.
  The traits associated with a niche’s challenges are rarely
  enough. Consider everyman traits (p. 17), at a minimum. Also
  remember that niches needn’t go with occupations. If they’re
  pinned to dramatic templates, tack on suitable elements (like
  Destiny or Unluckiness). If they’re cultural, inject appropriate
  color; e.g., the niche of people from the Icy North might be
  meeting Combat and Nautical challenges, but if the Tempera-
  ture Tolerance advantage and Skiing and Survival (Arctic)
  skills seem fitting, put them on the template!
  Second, keep track of the traits that go with challenges
  assigned to niches. These can be plowed in with everything else
  being added to the mix, but it’s prudent to ensure that each tem-
  plate spends about equal points on its niche-related abilities.
  Example: Commando Team
  For a campaign about a small squad of commandos, the
  GM decides to build a set of templates around niches appropri-
  ate to special-ops soldiers. After a little research, he comes up
  with four areas commonly called out as separate specialties for
  such troops: communications (handles radios and codes; has
  extra training with electronics), engineer (sets and disarms
  explosives and booby traps), medical (patches up teammates in
  the field), and weapons (operates heavy weapons and acts as
  team armorer).
  He also discovers that such men have access to all kinds of
  special courses. These are mostly things that everyone assigned
  to a given team would learn, but foreign languages, intelligence
  and operations (grabbing enemy documents, interrogating cap-
  tives, taking photos, and analyzing this data in the field),
  sniper, and vehicles all seem individual enough, and would
  make good lenses for any of the eventual templates. With 16
  possible template-lens combos, each offering trait choices, the
  players ought to be happy.
  The GM opts to use the list under Matching Traits to 
  Challenges (pp. 35-42). First, he discards categories that he
  doesn’t see arising: Animals, Plants, and Performing, because
  he doesn’t plan to make them relevant; Esoterica, because the
  campaign won’t be about weird warfare; Establishment, Money,
  Social Engineering, Social Sciences, and Streets, because Mili-
  tary covers the main society with which soldiers deal; Inventing,
  Research, and Science, because that stuff is for desk jockeys, not
  combat troops; and Nautical and Space, because these are
  infantrymen, not Navy SEALs or space marines.
  Next, the GM identifies the areas common to all team mem-
  bers. He decides that’s Combat and Military, for obvious rea-
  sons; Deceit and Sneaking, because these guys handle covert
  and clandestine ops; and Exploration and Mobility, because
  they need to travel on foot, often over rough terrain. He com-
  bines the associated traits, keeping those that suit troops and
  discarding those that don’t, as follows:
  Attributes and Secondary Characteristics: The GM intends to
  impose high minima anyway, but given that DX, IQ, HT, Basic
  Speed, and Basic Move are all recommended twice, he sets
  these a little higher than originally planned and includes the
  possibility of raising them among advantage options.
  Advantages: Combat Reflexes and Fit appear more than
  once and seem appropriate; they become fixed traits. Ambidex-
  terity, Charisma, Flexibility, Hard to Kill, Hard to Subdue,
  High Pain Threshold, Military Rank, Night Vision, Penetrating
  Voice, Perfect Balance, Peripheral Vision, Rapid Healing, Rep-
  utation (decorations), and Security Clearance all fit the cam-
  paign, so they become options. The GM dismisses the other
  suggestions as too cinematic or socially oriented for the game
  he has in mind.
  Disadvantages: Serious problems don’t fit serious troops!
  However, the GM notices Duty and makes Duty (15 or less;
  Extremely Hazardous) [-20] mandatory. Accepting that
  Chummy, Code of Honor (Soldier’s), Overconfidence, and Sense
  of Duty are admirable in elite soldiers, he offers these as options.
  Skills: Spotting many skills important to advanced military
  training, the GM requires Armoury, Camouflage, Climbing, For-
  ward Observer, Hiking, Jumping, Leadership, Navigation, NBC
  Suit, Observation, Parachuting, Savoir-Faire (Military), Soldier,
  Stealth, Swimming, Tactics, and combat abilities (Brawling,
  Guns, Judo, Knife, Spear for bayonets, and Throwing for
  grenades). One less-obvious skill that appears more than 
  once seems to be suggesting itself, and goes on the list: Acting.
  FROM NICHES TO TEMPLATES
  
  The GM deletes any skill that feels cinematic or out-of-genre,
  and then offers the remainder as secondary or background
  options from civilian life, cross-training, etc.: Area Knowledge,
  Artillery, Cartography, Connoisseur (Weapons), Current
  Affairs, Engineer (Combat), Escape, Expert Skill (Military Sci-
  ence), Explosives, Fast-Talk, Hazardous Materials, Holdout,
  Housekeeping, Naturalist, Running, Scuba, Shadowing, Skat-
  ing, Skiing, Sports, Strategy, Streetwise, Urban Survival, and
  Weather Sense.
  Then the GM assigns the remaining tasks to the niches he
  identified for templates and lenses:
  Communications: This template gets the technical part of
  Communications, the electronic elements of Crafting, and the
  communications side of Technical Means. Improved
  IQ seems indicated. Repeated Cryptography, Elec-
  tronics Operation, and Electronics Repair skills
  send the message that those are crucial, too; the GM
  requires them, making the key electronics specialty
  Comm and offering a choice among several others.
  He also makes Computer Operation mandatory,
  and raises Savoir-Faire (Military) for knowing
  exactly how to call for help. Computer Program-
  ming and Scrounging become additional skill
  options; Acute Hearing and Artificer, extra advan-
  tage options.
  Engineer: This template gets Sabotage and the
  destructive side of Technical Means. Explosives is
  obviously key; the GM makes the Demolition and
  EOD specialties mandatory, offering the others as
  options. He also requires Engineer (Combat),
  Forced Entry, and Traps. As for other traits, Fear-
  lessness and High Manual Dexterity fit the bill, and
  become further advantage options.
  Medical: This template gets Medicine. The
  essential field skills seem to be Diagnosis, First
  Aid, and Surgery. Others become options: Electron-
  ics Operation (Medical), Hazardous Materials (Biological),
  Pharmacy, Physician, and Poisons. The GM also raises IQ,
  adds Healer to advantage options, and tosses Selfless into the
  disadvantage options.
  Weapons: This template gets the weapons aspect of Crafting,
  plus intensified Combat and Military where heavy firepower is
  concerned. This means sinking more points into the template’s
  mandatory Armoury and weapon skills; the GM opts for
  Armoury (Heavy Weapons and Small Arms), Guns (GL, LAW,
  and LMG), Gunner (Machine Gun), Artillery (Cannon) for mor-
  tars, and Artillery (Guided Missile) for antitank missiles. He also
  adds a modest Tactics increase for knowing how to deploy this
  stuff. Machinist seems like a reasonable complement to
  Armoury, and joins the optional skills. Finally, all those heavy
  weapons make the ST suggested under Combat especially
  attractive, so that becomes an advantage option.
  Foreign Languages: This lens gets the language part of
  Communications, which takes the form of mandatory Lan-
  guages. It expands the template’s existing options, too, offer-
  ing the possibility of spending advantage points on Language
  Talent (explaining why the soldier was admitted to the course),
  and of putting a few background skill points into Public Speak-
  ing and Writing (to indicate exceptional competence, per
  p. B24), and even Linguistics (plausible, if uncommon).
  Intelligence and Operations: This lens gets whatever ele-
  ments of Detective Work, Security, and Stealing suit soldiers,
  plus any bits of Technical Means that fit with these. The GM
  notes that this gives repeated recommendations of Body Lan-
  guage, Cryptography, Electronics Operation (Security and Sur-
  veillance), Intelligence Analysis, Interrogation, Search, and
  Tracking. He also likes the look of Cartography, Detect Lies,
  Forced Entry, Lockpicking, Observation, Photography, and
  Scrounging. But that’s 15 skills! He elects to require just seven
  – Cryptography, Intelligence Analysis, Interrogation, Lockpick-
  ing, (increased) Observation, Photography, and Search – and
  offer a choice among the rest. Per and Acute Senses seem like
  fair things for the lens to add to advantage options, and the GM
  also recommends improved IQ.
  Sniper: This lens gets the aspects of Outdoors related to
  sneaking around in the bushes, plus the predictable intensifi-
  cation of Combat and Sneaking. This ends up amounting to
  boosts to Armoury (Small Arms), Camouflage, Guns (Rifle),
  Observation, and Stealth. The GM has the lens add improved
  Per, Acute Vision, and Outdoorsman to advantage options for
  the template. Figuring that a stalker might learn Mimicry (Ani-
  mal Sounds or Bird Calls), Survival, or Tracking, he has the
  lens call these out as extra skill options.
  Vehicles: This lens gets the vehicles part of Crafting – and
  Transportation, of course! The skills that come up as essential
  are various kinds of Boating and Driving useful to small
  groups, with associated Mechanic skills. The GM decides that
  boosted Navigation also fits, and puts a point in Freight Han-
  dling, too. The lens further adds Absolute Direction as an
  advantage option and unselected vehicle skills as skill options.
  With that done, the GM uses Chapters 2 and 3 to design
  templates and lenses around all this. He takes care to spend
  equal points on each template’s niche abilities, and does the
  same for the lenses. Recognizing that the trait lists don’t cover
  everything, he adds other elements he deems fitting; e.g.,
  optional Less Sleep and required First Aid. Finally, he writes
  notes explaining how to combine points when a trait comes up
  more than once.
  NICHES
  46
  
  Accessibility limitation, 30.
  Advantages, challenge suggestions, 36-42;
  choices, 22-23; limits, 7; modifiers, 30;
  niche suggestions, 43-45; required,
  10-11; template-optimal, 29-30; see also
  Traits.
  Adventures, matching traits to challenges,
  35-42; perceptions and, 16; see also
  Challenges.
  Attributes, challenge suggestions, 36-42;
  choices, 22; improvement choices, 23;
  levels, 9; reduction choices, 23; required,
  9-10; see also Traits.
  Boring templates, 19, 20.
  Challenges, Animals, 36, 43; categories, 35-
  42; Combat, 36, 43; combinations, 43;
  Communications, 36, 43; Crafting, 36,
  43; Deceit, 36, 43; Detective Work, 36-
  37, 43; Esoterica, 37, 44; Establishment,
  37; Exploration, 37, 43; Inventing, 37-
  38, 44; kinds of, 42; matching to niches,
  42-45; matching traits to, 35-42;
  Medicine, 38, 44; Military, 38, 44;
  Mobility, 38, 44; Money, 38-39, 44;
  Nautical, 39, 44; Outdoors, 39, 44;
  Performing, 39, 44; Plants, 39, 44;
  Research, 39-40, 44; Sabotage, 40, 44;
  Science, 40, 44; Security, 40, 44;
  Sneaking, 40; Social Engineering, 40-41,
  44; Social Sciences, 41, 44; Space, 41,
  45; splitting up, 42-45; Stealing, 41, 45;
  Streets, 41, 45; Technical Means, 41, 45;
  Transportation, 42, 45; see also
  Adventures.
  Characters, boring, 19, 20; choices for, 6,
  10, 22-27; improvement, 15, 32-33;
  reasons to use templates, 7;
  recommending concepts, 7; requiring
  templates, 5, 6; template types, 4-5;
  types of concepts, 4-5; see also Traits,
  specific types of traits.
  Cheap tricks, 19, 21.
  Commando team example, 45-46.
  Cosmic enhancement, 30.
  Cultural templates, defined, 5; see also
  Design.
  Customization notes, design and, 14-15;
  format, 33.
  Design, concept, 8; consistency in, 20-21;
  copy and paste, 19; cost, 8, 20, 33;
  customization notes, 14-15, 20;
  description, 8, 15, 20, 21, 33; examples,
  33-34, 45-46; flexibility, 6, 10, 20, 22-27;
  individual templates, 8-15; matching
  expertise to templates, 18; math
  checking, 14, 20; modular templates, 21;
  NPCs, 12; optimization, 13-14, 20;
  player experience and, 14, 20; scope, 6;
  template format, 33; “three Ss,” 17-18;
  see also Lenses, Niches, Sets, Traits.
  Disadvantages, challenge suggestions,
  35-42; choices, 23; limit, 7, 11, 23;
  required, 11; see also Traits.
  Dramatic templates, defined, 5; see also
  Design.
  Everyman traits, 17, 19-20; see also Traits.
  Generalists, template for, 17.
  GURPS, 3-5, 7, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 23, 29,
  32, 33; Action, 3, 7, 9, 16, 26, 29-31;
  Banestorm, 26; Basic Set, 3, 7, 10, 16,
  22, 29, 33, 35; Black Ops, 3; Dungeon
  Fantasy, 3, 7, 16, 20, 27-30, 33;
  Dungeon Fantasy 15: Henchmen, 26;
  Dungeon Fantasy 3: The Next Level,
  27; Fantasy, 16; Gun Fu, 16; Horror,
  9, 20; Magic, 7; Martial Arts, 7, 13, 16,
  19; Monster Hunters, 3, 7, 9, 16, 29,
  31,; Power-Ups 1: Imbuements, 24;
  Power-Ups 2: Perks, 30, 31; Power-
  Ups 3: Talents, 10, 29, 30,; Power-Ups
  4: Enhancements, 30; Power-Ups 5:
  Impulse Buys, 31; Powers, 7, 28, 30,
  31; Psionic Powers, 24; Social
  Engineering, 16; Tactical Shooting,
  16, 19; Thaumatology: Magical Styles,
  13, 19; Wizards, 3.
  Higher Purpose advantage, 29.
  Jack of all trades, template for, 17.
  Lenses, add-on, 26-27; character
  improvement and, 32; designing, 25-27;
  example, 25; exclusive, 27; format, 33;
  general, 26; reasons to use, 25; sets and,
  25-26; stackable, 27; template-specific,
  25; variant, 26; see also Design.
  Limited templates, cost of, 9; defined, 6;
  see also Design.
  Mandatory templates, defined, 6, 28; 
  see also Design.
  Modifiers, 30.
  Niches, design overview, 35; determining,
  35-42; example team, 45-46; generalist,
  17; matching challenges to, 42-43;
  protecting, 7, 18-19.
  NPC templates, 12.
  Occupational templates, defined, 4-5; 
  see also Design.
  Optional templates, defined, 5; see also
  Design.
  Pact limitation, 30.
  Perks, 13, 24, 30; challenge suggestions,
  36-41; see also Traits.
  Players, freedom, 6, 10, 22-27; mixed
  choices, 24-25; perceptions, 16.
  Power level, 7, 33.
  Power-ups, 32; format, 33.
  Powers, 13, 31-32; see also Advantages,
  Traits.
  Prescriptive templates, cost of, 9; defined,
  6; see also Design.
  Secondary characteristics, challenge
  suggestions, 36-40; choices, 22;
  reduction choices, 23; required, 10; see
  also Traits.
  Sets, boring templates in, 19; character
  improvement, 15; consistency in, 20-21;
  defined, 15; defining roles and
  backgrounds, 15; description, 21;
  designing, 15-21; distributing traits,
  17-20; example, 45-46; generalists in,
  17; key traits, 16-17; lenses for, 25-26;
  multiple, 15; see also Design, Niches.
  Skills, challenge suggestions, 36-42;
  choices, 24; format, 13; levels, 12-13;
  niche suggestions, 43-45; required,
  11-13; template tiers, 13; format, 33; 
  see also Traits, Wildcard Skills.
  Soldier template, 33-34.
  Special abilities, 7, 13, 24, 31-32; see also
  Advantages, Skills, Traits.
  Special-case templates, defined, 6; see also
  Design.
  Spells, 13, 24; combined challenges, 43;
  skill levels, 12.
  Talents, 10, 29-30; power, 31; see also
  Advantages, Traits.
  Techniques, 13, 24; see also Traits.
  “Three Ss,” 17-18.
  Traits, challenge suggestions, 35-42;
  choices, 6, 10, 22-27; distributing, 7, 
  17-20; everyman, 17, 19-20; fair
  distribution, 19; format, 33; hidden,
  27-29; implied taboo, 28-29;
  improvement, 32-33; key, 16-17; limits,
  7; matching to templates, 18; mixed
  choices, 24-25; niches and, 18, 43-45;
  no discounts, 9; overlap of, 18;
  perceptions of possible, 16; permitted, 7;
  required, 7, 9-13, 20; template-optimal,
  29-32; see also specific types of traits.
  Unusual Background advantage, zero-
  cost, 28.
  Wildcard skills, 13, 24, 30-31; format, 33;
  see also Skills, Traits.
  INDEX
  47
  INDEX
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SOURCE: textdata/thevault/GURPS [multi]/4th edition/GURPS 4e - Template Toolkit 1 - Characters .pdf