[gurps] Social Skills?

[Timothy Groves]

Bay Grabowski wrote:
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> Hey all! I've lurked on the listserve for a while, but I've got a
> question for ya'll. Firstly, I use 3rd ed. my lowly student budget
> doesn't have the scratch to buy a whole new edition.
>
> Anyways, I tend to GM games of GURPS at conventions in the SoCal area a
> fair amount, and one think I've noticed that is unsurprising, but
> annoying, is that players consort together when creating characters. In
> particular, this shows up if one guy is willing to be the guy with
> absurd amounts of charisma and social skills, so whenever the group need
> to talk to someone they leave him to it and all take bad reps or the
> like. Anyone have any good ways to help balance this out? Same think
> happens on occasion with a rich character giving cash and items away,
> though not as much.
The best way to deal with this is force a situation in which a situation 
*must* be handled by a character not specialized to handle it.

Other ways, some of which I've used, include:
- Prohibiting player interaction during character creation;
- Requiring that characters choose a small number of skills from 
pre-chosen packages;
- Requiring that players choose from a stable of pre-gen characters, 
with only a few points left over for customization.

None of these are *good* solutions, but they will work.