Character point

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Character points are abstract units used in some role-playing games during character generation.

Early role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons assigned random values to a player character's attributes, while allowing each character a fixed number of skills. As a result, characters were at the same time wildly unbalanced in terms of attributes and heavily constrained in terms of skills. Later games such as GURPS introduced a points-based system of purchasing attributes and skills as a means of improving game balance and flexibility. These points are known as character points.

Usually, a player is allotted a number of points for character generation. A character's attributes (such as high intelligence), skills (such as fixing a car or mechanics), or powers (such as flying) can then be "bought" for a certain number of points. More powerful abilities or a greater degree of power will require more "spending" of character points. Later, character points can be earned and spent to improve attributes or skills, or to buy new skills or powers. In some games, such as GURPS, these points are experience points; in others, such as Ars Magica, there is a more complicated relationship between experience points and character points.

[edit] Examples

For example, a simple fantasy role playing game might use three traits to describe a character: Combat powers, magical aptitude and thievery skills. You have nine points to distribute, each trait has a minimum of one point and a maximum of five points.

• For an allrounder you could chose three points in fighting, three points in thievery and three points in magic.
• To create a warrior you could choose five points in fighting, one point in thievery and three points in magic. While he is a superb fighter, his thievery skill is poor, this may cause problems when a stealthy approach is necessary.

There also might be the possibility to use some of the points for special properties, like being related to an influential family or to start with better equipment.