Dogs in the Vineyard style events in GURPS

I’m currently reading through an indie-published game called Dogs in the Vineyard. It’s really pretty amazing and seems like a fresh idea in a pretty unique setting. There is no way I’m going to convince my players to switch systems since most of them are Simulationists and therefore we play GURPS nearly exclusively. One of the first things that jumped out at me from the character creation mechanics was the “Events” section. This is basically a way to build up a character’s background. It reminded me of the life path chart from Talsorian Cyberpunk 2020 except that it the DITV version is totally narrative driven. So I decided to consider how to create a GURPS version of this system. Here’s what I have so far.

Make a list of key defining moments of your character’s life thus far. Let’s say 2-6 events. To start with think of a brief sentence that describes this event. For example you could say “learned to use her sword for self defense versus a rabid dog that was attacking a beloved family pet”. Next figure out when in the character’s life this event happened. At this point decide on the difficulty of the event relative to any current skills your character possesses. So if you’ve currently got a sword skill of 16 then learning to use your sword was probably pretty effortless. So if we decide that your event was considered Easy then you roll your current skill +4 and I roll against the same skill but unmodified. If the character wins the roll then the event turned out for the best or very close to how you described it. In the rabid dog scenario we’ll find the dog was dispatched and thus began the start of your remarkable reputation for swordsmanship. However, if you fail the contest, then we will now have more contexts around your skill and your feelings around it. Perhaps a bystander jumped in and drove the dog away. Maybe your childhood enemy killed the dog with a bow and shamed you. The results could be as simple as nightmares filled with dogs or as complex as your town folks know of your “failure” and worry that you overestimate your sword skill.

In essence, you decide the event and together we decide the results for that event. Winning or failing the event has no impact on your characters current abilities. You don’t gain new skills or abilities from doing this. It’s possible to pick up quirks or perhaps plant the seeds for some future advantages or disadvantages if you like. But the point should be that your event now influences your worldview and possibly common perception. This will add some flavor to your background in a dynamic way that reflects our storytelling environment. Doing it collectively gets the groups creative juices flowing and, I believe, will provide depth to your characters.