Review: GURPS Power-Ups 9: Alternate Attributes

The Power-Ups series is a look at a narrow thing and expanding it. A few books introduce new ideas, such as Power-Ups 1: Imbuements and Power-Ups 5: Impulse Buys but most expand on and consolidate ideas from the Basic Set. This is more the latter, but a lot like a long Alt GURPS Pyramid issue.
One of the biggest core parts of GURPS is the streamlined attribute system. This book looks at ways to tweak it, goes in depth over possible consequences, and overs related ideas such as new attributes.
GURPS Power-Ups 9: Alternate Attributes is a tinker heavy book, not for newbies or those afraid of some math and analysis, but for those who like to tinker, it has some great material!

Chapter 1: Playing With Points

9 pages

The heaviest read, this chapter really points out how well balanced the attributes (Primary and Secondary) are and provides not only Under the Hood math but some brief history and concept origins. As a fan of GURPS from its beginning in Orcslayer and Man to Man and its predecessor The Fantasy Trip I understood the history but it was a nice call out. This was the most boring and hard to read chapter for me (quite a bit of math, not my strong suit) but really enlightening. I already knew the attributes were pretty well balanced and why certain decisions were made but the authors explanations and thoughts gave me new appreciation for just how well this system was designed and why its lasted so long as my favorite RPG.
Edited to add....
One bit here is the TL adjustments to ST which gives alternatives, including a chart for lower cost ST at higher tech levels since its arguably less useful.

Chapter 2: Changing The Game

24 pages

This chapter comprises the bulk of the book and is the one I found most useful. It has three main sections, Reformulating Secondary Characteristics, Adding Attributes, and Doing Away with Attributes.  The first was a lot like chapter 1 but laid important groundwork for the rest of the chapter. The fun part for me was in the second two sections, especially Adding Attributes.

Some highlights...

• Status and Wealth as Attributes provide a new way to handle these aspects in GURPS, Wealth could be used as the idea from Abstract Wealth, Pyramid #3/44 Alt GURPS II, which though less complete might even be simper to use. I'm considering combining both for a future post.
• Charisma as an Attribute is something thats come up on the forums and one of the few things I would like to tweak in GURPS, especially in socially focused campaigns. In fact combined with some other ideas, particularly expending resources I may use this to create a new subsystem for interacting with spirits, and possibly animals and plants.
• Magery as an Attribute explores ideas discussed in GURPS Thaumatology and further explored in The Fifth Attribute, Pyramid #3/120 Alternate GURPS V. Much as with Abstract Wealth combining these ideas can make for a nice change to the magic system that is fairly easy to implement but changes the flavor. Allowing for low IQ but still powerful mages, mages that weaken themselves to cast spells, etc.
• Chi as an Attribute is closely related, and one I have already started working on the details - expect that post within a week or so.
• Dividing up Attributes is a nice section that explores different aspects of current Attributes and could be useful, though needs to be watched carefully to avoid problems with game balance.
• Splitting Up the Universe explores attributes done in games such as InNomine and Vampire The Masquerade. I doubt I will use it for my InNomine conversion but others might like to do so, it would make for a closer adaptation than GURPS Classic InNomine. In fact,I just got an idea for a GURPS Toon adaptation after coming across InNomine Animae when grabbing those links!
• New Resources closes the main section with addressing things like FP and Energy Reserves and using them as Attributes.  Combined with Adding Attributes (such as Magery) its a good source of inspiration, with just enough guidance to help a GM design a new system pretty quickly.

Overall this is the key chapter for those of us who link to tinker and comes with not only ideas, but new perspectives.

Chapter 3: Fallout

This chapter deals with the ramifications and consequences of changing things around and helps with a lot of the math and heavy lifting to keep things from slipping beneath the cracks in unpleasant and surprising ways. It includes costs for Attributes based on number of skills they affect (also discussed earlier) and other useful bits.

Summary

This book is definitely not for everyone, nor is it a 'drop in the game ready to play' like most of the series. But its a really good book for those who like to tinker with the system and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I created a new advantage Chi Adept for my Chalice World setting based on this book. Probably making a Per based attribute fr that settings Fae and Buddhists as well.