I don't care about whether or not the family of the PCs plays any role. (My own characters are mixed in this regard - some are heavily involved of their family, some clashed into them and despise them now, and there is one or another case of an "orc-phan".)

However, what I always look for is that the PCs have people they care for. These don't need to be family members - love interests, friends, likeable colleagues and so on are all fair game too.
Conan would be a good example - we don't know much about his family, it doesn't play a role in the stories, but he has always allies and/or the love interest of the week who he cares for.

I don't like "teflon billies", but I can see where such a turtle play comes from - the fear to offer a weak-point and smacked over the head for that. I've seen that a lot in Shadowrun games where a.) PCs tend to be cooler than thou (and family is uncool if you are an adolescent who just switched to his first "adult" RPG) and b.) GMs tend to present a "hard and brutal world" (which basically comes down to "GM will take every opportunity to fuck you, take your rewards away and be a prick").

I'll give TWO example from movies to show that family members might be an ally instead of a "disadvantage" :

In Last Action Hero,  the daughter of Jack Slater is perfectly capable of defending herself in a one-on-one fight .  Although, depending on how you stat  "Jack Slater" in GURPS mechanics  - he might worry about his daugher too much if he forgets she is well trained.  Its only a disadvantage in tht it limits the options he gives himself.
http://imdb.com/name/nm0933098/bio

In the movie Night of the Comet , the two sisters have a Dad who is in the military. Apparently he taught them something about firearms and how to use them. You'll notice that Reggie didn't go for handguns first  - she found them submachineguns. Which led to this .....

Quote[When her MAC-10 jams while target shooting]
Samantha: Daddy would have gotten us Uzis.

And later in the same movie :

QuoteRegina Belmont: C'mon Hector, the MAC-10 submachine gun was practically designed for housewives.

http://imdb.com/title/tt0087799/

  So in a game set before the movie takes place those girls could probably take care of themselves....they just have to THINK for a second.


- Ed C.

Quote from: RPGPunditI think this whole GURPS/Champions-ism is part of what has caused the problem with family members.

When you define having a family as a "disadvantage", that gets you bonus points, it encourages thinking of family only as a liability that has to cost the PC, by all concerned.

Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if Champions was the first to model family members as "disadvantages", simply because of genre emulation: in superhero stories, families by and large complicate matters. Look at Spiderman: he gets emotional support from MJ and Aunt May in spades, sure, but he knows that he can never, never, never let his secret identity slip, otherwise they'll both be in great danger (and they often end up in danger anyway).

On GURPS, JimBobOz is correct that family members could be modelled as Allies or Dependents. (In fact, you could simplify it and simply take your entire family as an Ally Group). However: I don't have my old 3rd edition Basic Set handy, but ISTR that family members are given as examples under Dependents but not Allies or Ally Groups. This seems to be an oversight on the part of the GURPS designers which might subconsciously prompt gamers to say "Oh, so family = Dependents = a disadvantage, huh?"

IMO in some games is actually quite cool to have friends/relatives (when they're recurrent) that serve as allies/competitors/enemies/whatever; it gives extra roleplay resources to the players and can also make them be more inmersed/attached to the game.

Yup, its true in many superhero comics family are there to be threatened; and it doesn't help that all the "coolest" superheros are "loner" types.

RPGPundit

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