# GURPS-Share your thoughts



## sfgiants (Oct 16, 2005)

I recently started thumbing through a copy of the third edition. Some neat concepts.
A few questions though:

a) what is the difference between third and fourth?
b) how well does Gurps actually play?

Experiences with the system are very welcome


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## Crothian (Oct 16, 2005)

GURPS Prisoner rocks.  I'm not bigt on the system but I really like the suppliments.


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## tetsujin28 (Oct 17, 2005)

sfgiants said:
			
		

> Ia) what is the difference between third and fourth?



Lots of little changes that in general add up to a better game. The most dramatic changes are that stats no longer cost the same (DX and IQ cost more than ST and HT), Passive Defense is gone (good riddance), and the point levels have gone up to compensate (there's no direct correlary, but a 100 pt. 3e PC is roughly equivalent to a 125-150 pt. 4e PC).







> b) how well does Gurps actually play?



Very, very well. I tend to look at GURPS as "90% of Hero, with 50% of the required effort". I've run it for more than ten years, and had great results. It's ended up my default system.

I like that the game is very modular. If I want a combat to run quickly, I just use the basic rules. If it's a fight with the Big Bad, I'll use some of the Advanced options. One thing to remember, as the inimitable Curt said over on RPG.net, "GURPS is like a cow. Don't try to eat the whole thing in one sitting."







> Experiences with the system are very welcome



I've used it for 19th-century horror, westerns, Glorantha, 'generic' fantasy, GURPS Mage: the Ascension, Hellboy...

...nearly everything. And the supplements (other than GURPS China, which, sadly, stank) are top-notch.


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## The Lost Muse (Oct 17, 2005)

I think GURPS is great; however, it is a lot of work for a GM, while running D&D one can just pull out the monster manual and be good to go (combat wise, and in a time crunch)


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## maggot (Oct 17, 2005)

YMMV, but I find GURPS very, very tedious.  I've never run a game using it, but played in way too many, so it could be the GM.

I remember in a GURPS fantasy game having to run combat second by second: one second you would ready your mace, the next second you could actually attack with it.  With each combat "round" being a second in the game, combat took forever.  After that campaign, I swore off GURPS for ever.  (That was 3e, I think.)


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## Umbran (Oct 17, 2005)

I've not tried to run a game with the newest system, but by description it hasn't changed so much as to change my opinion of it.  I find that GURPS puts so much effort into trying to be "General Use" that it has lost any hope of having flavor of it's own.  In addition, the mechanic is tedious to work with, both in prep and in play.  I use GURPS when I don't have any other ruleset that'll do the job at all.  

In general, I think GURPS suffers from a simple fact - it is usually better to use a tool designed to do a specific job than to use a tool that's designed to do many jobs.  A dedicated screwdriver will almost always d4rive screws better than the thing you find on your pocketknife.  And these days, you have to go quite a way to find a genre that isn't reasonably covered by another system.

That being said, the _supplements_ for GURPS are often fantastic, because they contain a great deal of fine informaton and ideas that aren't really wed to the rules.


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## Wombat (Oct 17, 2005)

I love GURPS supplements; I am annoyed with the system.

I used to play it back in New Hampshire with a guy who worked on a couple of the supplements (Stephen O'Sullivan, very nice guy).  The problem I found with GURPS is that in trying to be everything, it ends up being very little.  This is what initially turned me off to "universal" systems.  To this day I have yet to find a system that works with all genres, no matter what people try to sell me.  I find the game far too crunchy and far too driven by the "hunchback albino midget" syndrome -- taking too many flaws to get the character you want to play.  

That being I ran in a very good GURPS Tekumel campaign in Santa Barbara, CA, but that was mainly because the GM was very cool and we ignored a lot of the rules.  

Still, SJG has put out some of the greatest gaming resource material on the face of the planet.  In various supplements I have found fantastic quick-n-dirty info on: Classical Greece, The Book of the New Sun, modern arcane conspiracies, the Aztecs, Dynastic Egypt, futurist views for the next couple hundred years of human development, 17th century Europe, the Golden Age of Piracy, fairytale Russia, and an alternate early Victorian London populated by goblins...  Each of these supplements has proven to be a treasure trove of facts, ideas, concepts, and gaming thoughts at a reasonable (for rpgs) price.  

So currently I own over a dozen GURPS supplements, but no longer own the core rules.


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## Aus_Snow (Oct 17, 2005)

Wombat said:
			
		

> I love GURPS supplements; I am annoyed with the system.



Same here.

There are some very well-written supplements out there (and I have quite a few of them), but I just can't find the motivation to run GURPS campaigns these days.


Re: GURPS China - egads that's an expensive supplement (at Amazon)! And it's crap? Gee, what a great way to spend $100. Not to mention another option down in my search for good mythic China supps.


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## VirgilCaine (Oct 17, 2005)

maggot said:
			
		

> YMMV, but I find GURPS very, very tedious.  I've never run a game using it, but played in way too many, so it could be the GM.
> 
> I remember in a GURPS fantasy game having to run combat second by second: one second you would ready your mace, the next second you could actually attack with it.  With each combat "round" being a second in the game, combat took forever.  After that campaign, I swore off GURPS for ever.  (That was 3e, I think.)




That's weird. I always though it would be faster than D&D, since you can only do one thing per round and not two or three. It's the order you have to choose, really. Draw a weapon or move in the first turn. 

As for editions, 3e GURPS is like 2e D&D. 4th edition has brought a lot of modernization and streamlining that was needed. 
Of course, I just want to use it for contemporary horror campaigns, so the myriad books aren't of much interest to me, neither are the myriad Pyramid sample articles (use the search function, lots of good stuff there, even for my limited wants) dealing with GURPS Fantasy and GURPS Black Ops and GURPS whatever.


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## Prince Atom (Oct 17, 2005)

Well, G3 was around for about 18 years, in one form or another.

I've played a few sessions, and it does seem that it takes you forever to do things in combat, but that's because of the magnification of the time scale. Zooming it out a bit and allowing more than one maneuver per turn might improve things.

I like the system, myself. I don't have to learn new rules and options when I switch games. Even with d20, there's a whole list of new skills and feats to learn when switching genres.

There are a lot of skills, though, and at first I found it hard to tell which were necessary to do what (what, precisely, do you need to roll against to analyze a crime scene? How about to get along in the wild?). To make matters worse, there's a lot of specialization going on, too. I often joke that you'd better remember which side you should part your hair on, or you'll be at -1 to some skills all day.

So I'd jettison a lot of the detail, myself, and run with lite rules. It provides a nice break from the d20 system, however.

TWK


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## The Cardinal (Oct 17, 2005)

GURPS3e was my standard system for more than 12 years - and GURPS 4e is even better. I've used GURPS for everything from ultra-dark grim 'n gritty 30 Years War campaigns to 800 pts. Transhuman Space games  - and it always worked great.

GURPS 4e - buy it, play it, GM it, never regret it!

...and the new and shiny GURPS4e Banestorm gives you a really wonderful and original fantasy RPG setting


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## trancejeremy (Oct 17, 2005)

a) Apparently not much. 

To answer b), it's like a migraine headache. There may be more painful and unpleasant game systems to run, but I haven't found one.


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## Conaill (Oct 17, 2005)

trancejeremy said:
			
		

> it's like a migraine headache. There may be more painful and unpleasant game systems to run, but I haven't found one.



Heh - that almost sums up my experience when switching to D&D from GURPS.  (Edit: although in my case, it was *playing*, nor *running* the game.)

Love GURPS, but haven't had a chance to try 4e yet. 

Regarding combat in GURPS, there are a couple issue playing a role: (1) yes, not much happens in a GURPS round compared to D&D round. However, this also means rounds go *much* faster, which keeps people more engaged in the ongoing combat. In higher-level D&D, a round for a single PC may take 10-15 minutes to resolve, during which time some of the other players may be wandering off to make themselves a sandwich, browsing through comic books, or playing a videogame in another room . (2) On the other hand, a single attack in GURPS may involve several rounds of aiming (if ranged), or concenetration (if a complicated spell). And at the very least it will tend to take two dice rolls (attack and defense) instead of the (usual) single attack roll in D&D. This means you do tend to get less "accomplished" in terms of #attacks in GURPS per minute of playing time. At higher point values, combat does tend to speed up somewhat because people spend less time needing to aim, and they may be able to pull of spells with fewer rounds of concentration. (3) On the third hand... D&D combat gets a lot more complex to run and adjudicate at higher levels. So the average group of gamers may spend a lot more of their time looking up rules, calculating bonuses, etc. 

In the end, # attacks per minute of gaming doesn't tell you squat about how enjoyable the game (or even the combat) is, of course. For me, I love the flexibility of GURPS combat much more than the heaps and heaps of special feats and rules of D&D. And a combat system without defense rolls makes as much sense to me as one without attack rolls... "What do you mean, I just have to stand there and take it! Can't I try to jump aside, or parry his attack with my sword?"


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## d20Dwarf (Oct 17, 2005)

Aus_Snow said:
			
		

> Re: GURPS China - egads that's an expensive supplement (at Amazon)! And it's crap? Gee, what a great way to spend $100. Not to mention another option down in my search for good mythic China supps.




Well, you might want to try e23. 

http://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=SJG82-0107


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## HeapThaumaturgist (Oct 18, 2005)

Systems with short rounds are just ... annoying.  I've tried to run several in the past, and things are just TOO ... SLOW ... 

I want to TRY GURPS in a serious way, but the slow rounds would probably annoy me to no end.

--fje


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## VirgilCaine (Oct 18, 2005)

Conaill said:
			
		

> Regarding combat in GURPS, there are a couple issue playing a role: (1) yes, not much happens in a GURPS round compared to D&D round. However, this also means rounds go *much* faster, which keeps people more engaged in the ongoing combat.




Aha! I was right!


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## The_Universe (Oct 18, 2005)

GURPS supplements are excellent compendiums of related source information, and often contain great adventure ideas. I have about a half dozen that I use regularly. 

On the other hand, the GURPS rules make me want to die. I loathe them with every fibre of my being. They're inconveniently and inconsistently granular, and I would NEVER play in a GURPS game.

That being said, I know that there are people enamored of the system, so it must have some good points. Whatever they are, they don't appeal to me (which does not mean they're not there). 

So, in conclusion, I would encourage you to put money in Steve Jackson's pocket, but you can go straight to the supplements and skip the core rules.


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## Aus_Snow (Oct 18, 2005)

d20Dwarf said:
			
		

> you might want to try e23.



Indeed, you have a point there. Thanks.

What do you think of GURPS China, by the way? Any good at all?


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 18, 2005)

*My Hat of GURPS know a limit*



> Originally Posted by Wombat
> I love GURPS supplements; I am annoyed with the system.




Amen!

I fell into a RPG group that also happened to be a GURPS playtest group.  That meant we played GURPS a lot for 4 years.

For an RPG that claims to be a Generic Universal Role Playing System, I found it to be lacking in the first 2 categories.  Too often, the supplements (which were usually very well thought out) ALTERED the base rules.  For example, the Psionics system in the base rules was underpowered to the extent that it was ramped up in almost any supplement that used Psi, like GURPS Supers, etc.  After 4 years, I have a small folder of GURPS PCs that are completely incompatible with each other.

HERO, my favorite sytem, can be an excercise in die rolling, but it DOES succeed in being able to handle any genre I've thrown at it so far, and crossing or mixing genres is no problem whatsoever.

D20, my third favorite, has its warts too, but I'd run it before GURPS.

My second is the D20 variant known as Mutants and Masterminds- the flexibility of HERO with the reduced mathematics of D20.  While I haven't done so myself, I have heard that many use M&M like HERO or GURPS- as a system in which a good GM can model any campaign.

ON THE OTHER HAND- I have found many of the supplements worth buying.  The guys who write them often do a good job of researching their material and making the end results internally consistent.  I ALWAYS keep my eyes open for sales of GURPS game material in hopes of finding a good price on something I can use for background material.  Occasionally, I'll even buy the GURPS version of another game or a particular f/sf setting with which I'm familiar, like GURPS Traveller, if only for use as background material.


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## wingsandsword (Oct 18, 2005)

I'll agree with the chorus here:

GURPS Suppliments: Great source material, great references, great stuff on genres often not covered much by other RPG's.  You rarely go wrong picking up the GURPS sourcebook on a subject you are interested in.

GURPS rules:  Blech, overcomplicated, bland, and tedious.   Character creation takes hours, and the learning curve is daunting to say the least.  Rules for things that might actually come up in games like vehicles, magic, psionics, or space travel get overwhelmingly complex (as it was pointed out to me, you have to perform calculus to determine the hit points of a vehicle, since it requires calculating the exact surface area of the entire vehicle to derive its HP).  

I've known two GMs who actually run GURPS and tried it out, and apparently there are two different ways to actually make GURPS playable (each one did one):
1. Become an absolute expert on the system, preferably backed up with computer programs to calculate a lot of things, have a big library of GURPS books you can quickly access, and know them by heart. 
2. Discard most of the rules, use just the free "GURPS Lite" simplified rules, and use it for rules-light roleplaying-heavy games.

Honestly, d20 in some ways became what GURPS tried to be, a universal multi-genre system.  There isn't one single "d20" book for all genres, but it's a system that just about every gamer is at least passingly familiar with, and it's been adapted to virtually every genre and setting out there (either officially or unofficially).  GURPS strength is in the suppliments, not the rules.


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## Aust Diamondew (Oct 18, 2005)

wingsandsword said:
			
		

> I'll agree with the chorus here:
> 
> GURPS Suppliments: Great source material, great references, great stuff on genres often not covered much by other RPG's.  You rarely go wrong picking up the GURPS sourcebook on a subject you are interested in.
> 
> ...



 Ditto.  My experience is more or less the same.  I use to like GURPS more before Wizards made the d20 system but after d20 was made I felt that GURPS really lost it's nitch.


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## maggot (Oct 18, 2005)

Conaill said:
			
		

> Regarding combat in GURPS, there are a couple issue playing a role: (1) yes, not much happens in a GURPS round compared to D&D round. However, this also means rounds go *much* faster, which keeps people more engaged in the ongoing combat.




Not my experience at all.  Low level D&D rounds zip by, high-level D&D rounds can drag, but GURPS rounds are excruciating.  I remember playing an eight-second combat that took all night, and many I ran from place to place while others took actions.  Could have been my group with a combination of lack of knowledge of the rules (the players, not the GM) and many GURPS options thrown in.

Let me second Mutants&Masterminds as a terrific generic system.  I'm working with a friend on creating a cyberpunk game out of it, and it's working great.  (If my friend had suggested GURPS cyberpunk, I would have fled in terror.)


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## Darkness (Oct 18, 2005)

wingsandsword said:
			
		

> Rules for things that might actually come up in games like vehicles, magic, psionics, or space travel get overwhelmingly complex



 Magic? Weird; I didn't find magic in GURPS more difficult than, say, magic in D&D. Possibly even less - and I have played/run considerably more (A)D&D than GURPS...
(Assuming GURPS 3e/4e; I'm not familiar with earlier editions.)

By the way, what did you dislike the most about the GURPS magic system?


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## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 18, 2005)

I love GURPS - both the system _and_ its supplements. To answer your questions:

a) All in all, the system is much more cleaned up and balanced. Skill and attribute costs were streamlined, advantages and disadvantages cleaned up and modified to become more coherent, the number of damage types were reduced... It'S a big improvement. The only thing to beware of is the Giant Skill List of Doom. In the end, the GM should go through all the advantages, disadvantages, and skills and decide which are useful for his campaign and which aren't.

b) Rather smooth. I'm running a GURPS Eberron campaign right now, and it works pretty well. Yes, fights between two highly skilled opponents can get rather tedious. Just remember that highly skilled opponents are supposed to be _rare_ and send larger numbers of less skilled mooks against the PCs. As long as they superior in number and do enough damage to harm the PCs, they are still a threat - even the best swordsman is in trouble if he lets himself get surrounded.

During the last session, the PCs fought five ogres, and the fight was rather spectacular. The ogres rarely hit (their low Dexterity and weapon skills saw to that - in GURPS, ST does not translate into hitting more frequently...), but they did so much damage when they actually _did_ hit that the players were sweating during the whole fight.

This brings me to another issue: The injury system for GURPS. In D&D, you are basically either "alive", "dead", or in a small boundary zone where you are unconscious and dying. In GURPS, you are either "mostly healthy", "dead", or in a rather large intermediary zone where you are _really_ badly injured, but still hanging on somehow and trying not to fall unconscious. Very healthy characters can struggle along for a long time, but even they will worry that sooner or later they will blow a roll and fall unconscious or even die. IMO, this causes more dramatic tension than the D&D damage system, with its rather linear hit points...

One thing I also appreciate GURPS for is that it is possible to create pretty much the character you want with far less hassle than in D&D. It doesn't have any strange effects like a very skilled diplomat being also very good in combat and capable of withstanding large amounts of injury. You can build precisely the character you want - without going beyond the core rules.

Of course, D&D has its advantages as well, or else I wouldn't play it. But this thread is about GURPS, after all...


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## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 18, 2005)

maggot said:
			
		

> Not my experience at all.  Low level D&D rounds zip by, high-level D&D rounds can drag, but GURPS rounds are excruciating.  I remember playing an eight-second combat that took all night, and many I ran from place to place while others took actions.  Could have been my group with a combination of lack of knowledge of the rules (the players, not the GM) and many GURPS options thrown in.




That's a common GURPS newbie GM mistake, and one I have been guilty of myself in the Bad Old Days.

How did that old quite go? "GURPS is like a cow; you can't eat it in one go."

Too many GMs forget that all those cool new rules are _optional_, and that it is not a good idea to throw all of them at newbies who haven't even become familiar with the basics. The actual basics, as represented in GURPS Lite, are actually not complicated at all.


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## Jonny Nexus (Oct 18, 2005)

Wombat said:
			
		

> I love GURPS supplements; I am annoyed with the system.
> 
> [snip]
> 
> So currently I own over a dozen GURPS supplements, but no longer own the core rules.




Ditto. Well I'm not annoyed with the system, but just found it too fiddly (especially the one-second combat round).

On the subject of people who don't like GURPS nonetheless buying GURPS rulebooks, I once did a survey on the subject (inspired by finding that I owed 23 GURPS rulebooks plus a boxed set).

http://www.criticalmiss.com/issue9/feedback1.html

The most interesting result here was that of people who said that they *actively disliked* GURPS (33% of our survey), 52% of them still owned at least one GURPS rulebook (although only a fifth of those owned more than 5 books).


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## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 18, 2005)

Darkness said:
			
		

> Magic? Weird; I didn't find magic in GURPS more difficult than, say, magic in D&D. Possibly even less - and I have played/run considerably more (A)D&D than GURPS...
> (Assuming GURPS 3e/4e; I'm not familiar with earlier editions.)




D&D magic is relatively easy in the beginning, but it really gets tedious once you reach higher levels and have to decide every day what your caster is going to prepare...


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## Aaron L (Oct 18, 2005)

QUick question for anyone who has it:  is CthulhuPun worth getting?  Im a CoC fanatic, and a cyberpunk mix with Delta Green seems so cool, is the book worth getting for a good read?  Ive  never read any GURPS suppliments.  Ive seen it for a few years now, but every time I run into it Ive been out of money, should I go ahead and order it?  Ive had this and CthulhuTech on my mind for a while now, m just waiting for Tech to finally come out, if it ever does...


[edit] HAHA, after doing a bit of googling, I found some info on multiple related topics to cthulhupunk, and found Jurgen all over them [/edit]


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## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 18, 2005)

Aaron L said:
			
		

> QUick question for anyone who has it:  is CthulhuPun worth getting?  Im a CoC fanatic, and a cyberpunk mix with Delta Green seems so cool, is the book worth getting for a good read?  Ive  never read any GURPS suppliments.  Ive seen it for a few years now, but every time I run into it Ive been out of money, should I go ahead and order it?  Ive had this and CthulhuTech on my mind for a while now, m just waiting for Tech to finally come out, if it ever does...
> 
> 
> [edit] HAHA, after doing a bit of googling, I found some info on multiple related topics to cthulhupunk, and found Jurgen all over them [/edit]




Yup, I'm everywhere. Don't think too hard about how I do it, or you will loose 1/1D6 SAN.   

I think it _is_ a good read. Its cyberpunk timeline is getting a bit dated now (since there was no plague that killed off 10% of humanity in 1997), but still, I think it's worth it. There is plenty of advice for mixing the two genres and how the themes interact with each other, and gives a nice feeling for the sheer bleakness of the background. 

And I've always wanted to do a Delta Green campaign which slowly moves into the Cthulhupunk/Cyberworld future. I want to see the reaction on the faces of the players as Boris Yeltsin gets assassinated in 1995...


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## johnsemlak (Oct 18, 2005)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> And I've always wanted to do a Delta Green campaign which slowly moves into the Cthulhupunk/Cyberworld future. I want to see the reaction on the faces of the players as Boris Yeltsin gets assassinated in 1995...




Given the abount of Yeltsin's live appearances since, there no way to prove that didn't actually happen


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## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 18, 2005)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> For an RPG that claims to be a Generic Universal Role Playing System, I found it to be lacking in the first 2 categories.  Too often, the supplements (which were usually very well thought out) ALTERED the base rules.  For example, the Psionics system in the base rules was underpowered to the extent that it was ramped up in almost any supplement that used Psi, like GURPS Supers, etc.  After 4 years, I have a small folder of GURPS PCs that are completely incompatible with each other.




Fortunately, this is no longer a problem with the new Psionics rules - they are just a subset of the regular advantages in the GURPS 4e Basic Set. And you can run Supers with the Basic Set alone, too...

Really, it's a vast improvement.


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## VirgilCaine (Oct 18, 2005)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> D&D magic is relatively easy in the beginning, but it really gets tedious once you reach higher levels and have to decide every day what your caster is going to prepare...




I guess you don't use Scribe Scroll very much do you? 



> Too many GMs forget that all those cool new rules are optional, and that it is not a good idea to throw all of them at newbies who haven't even become familiar with the basics. The actual basics, as represented in GURPS Lite, are actually not complicated at all.




GURPS Lite would be a useful tool if it had just a _tad_ more stuff in it.

All I want out of GURPS Basic is some of the advanced combat rules (apparently you need the autofire rules to use the shotguns...), the weapons and equipment charts (especially the *club*, which IS NOT in GURPS Lite), and the larger lists of ads and disads. GURPS Lite doesn't quite have the breadth in it's ads/disads that I think I would want for a contemporary Horror/CoC campaign. 

I have enough material from the Pyramid sample articles and to-be-converted D20M and CoC adventures that I've really got more than I can use in the adventure front. There's a lot of nifty adventures I could do.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 18, 2005)

VirgilCaine said:
			
		

> GURPS Lite would be a useful tool if it had just a _tad_ more stuff in it.
> 
> All I want out of GURPS Basic is some of the advanced combat rules (apparently you need the autofire rules to use the shotguns...), the weapons and equipment charts (especially the *club*, which IS NOT in GURPS Lite), and the larger lists of ads and disads. GURPS Lite doesn't quite have the breadth in it's ads/disads that I think I would want for a contemporary Horror/CoC campaign.




I'm basically in agreement here - which is why I looked over my complete Basic Set and wrote up all the stuff I considered to be absolutely essential for the campaign and handed it to my players in addition to GURPS Lite. Took me some time, but not _that_ much - and game play went very smooth indeed - and now some of the players have gotten their own Basic Sets...

This is a bit of a problem with GURPS 4e - you can use it to run pretty much _everything_, but you will only need a fraction of the stuff for all but the most bizarre campaigns. The GM therefore must pick and choose carefully what he needs for that campaign. Compare that to D&D, which is pretty much optimized for a specific type of fantasy campaign - and can only do other campaigns with a variety of optional books.

So yes, GURPS does require some initial work from the GM, unlike many other RPGs. But ultimately, it is worth it - and once the game starts, it all works pretty smoothly in my experience.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 18, 2005)

The Cardinal said:
			
		

> GURPS3e was my standard system for more than 12 years - and GURPS 4e is even better. I've used GURPS for everything from ultra-dark grim 'n gritty 30 Years War campaigns to 800 pts. Transhuman Space games  - and it always worked great.




Wow - so it's not just a myth that there are people out there who actually _play_ Transhuman Space.   

What was your campaign about?


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## BiggusGeekus (Oct 18, 2005)

I bought the sourcebooks, but rarely cracked the core book.  Never got into 4e.

My general sentiment is that it's a neat, gritty system.  I'd suggest giving the PCs more starting points and cutting back the number of disadvantages.  For example, 125 starting points with 20 points of disads and no quirks.  Otherwise you end up with a bunch of alibio irratable lepers in your group.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 18, 2005)

BiggusGeekus said:
			
		

> My general sentiment is that it's a neat, gritty system.  I'd suggest giving the PCs more starting points and cutting back the number of disadvantages.  For example, 125 starting points with 20 points of disads and no quirks.  Otherwise you end up with a bunch of alibio irratable lepers in your group.




My players seem to be fond of Motion Sickness. Or rather, they used to be.

But they discovered that there are plenty of opportunities for lengthy stays on moving vehicles in Eberron. Lightning rails, sailing ships, and much, much more...

One of the PCs with motion sickness is trying to buy it off. The other one spends much of his time vomiting.


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## Mercule (Oct 18, 2005)

I can't say anything about 4E.

As for 3E, it was the single most painful gaming experience of my life.  I've played a lot of really bad systems.  I've DMed several really bad systems.  I've created a couple of really bad systems.  GURPS makes the worst of them look all nice and shiny.  I only wish I'd tried Synnibar so I could make a comparison.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 18, 2005)

Mercule said:
			
		

> I can't say anything about 4E.
> 
> As for 3E, it was the single most painful gaming experience of my life.  I've played a lot of really bad systems.  I've DMed several really bad systems.  I've created a couple of really bad systems.  GURPS makes the worst of them look all nice and shiny.  I only wish I'd tried Synnibar so I could make a comparison.




Seems like a lot of people react very strongly to GURPS - they either hate it or love it.

Kind of like D&D in that regard...   

EDIT: But there is hope for you, too - when I first tried to run GURPS, my players probably had a similar reaction.

Now they have started GURPS campaign on their own...


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## BiggusGeekus (Oct 18, 2005)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> Seems like a lot of people react very strongly to GURPS - they either hate it or love it.




I have to admit my experience with GURPS was entirely my own fault.  I wanted to jump in with both feet and do a world-hopping game with all realties connected to each other through a victorian mansion with lots of doorways.  I let the players make any kind of character they wanted and set the base TL at 7.  One problem, I overlooked how much money sci-fi characters get.  Ooops.  The powergamers all went sci-fi and the roleplayers (through whatever twist of fate) went fantasy.  The result was cumbersome as a geared-up sci-fi character can whip the snot out of most fantasy builds.  

Then there was the whole "I come from a future where we all shoot horses" quirk that I just won't go into.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 18, 2005)

> Fortunately, this is no longer a problem with the new Psionics rules - they are just a subset of the regular advantages in the GURPS 4e Basic Set. And you can run Supers with the Basic Set alone, too...
> 
> Really, it's a vast improvement.




Well, it would have to be.

I never said that you couldn't run anything with the basic set, just that the supplements were often wildly incompatible with the basic rules.  I see that as a severe flaw.

In all honesty, I made several enjoyable PCs in my time playing GURPS.  But compared side to side, even at the same point value, they were truly incompatible.  This indicated to me that the rules were in a constant state of flux- something that bothers the hell out of me.


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## Azgulor (Oct 18, 2005)

I have to echo Jurgen's thoughts regarding GURPS.  It's a very good system that utilized an elegant core mechanic years before D&D3e.  Excluding rabid fanboys and haters from either side of the aisle, I'll try to give you an objective assessment.

GURPS gets a bad rap, much the same way D&D does at other sites like RPGNet.  It won't ever be all things to all people, but for those who like it, it can handle a wider range of genres than d20 can without modification.  This is a dual-edged sword for the game.  Some people want to have a single place to go to reference, say, all of your combat rules - regardless of whether it's Stone Age or Space Opera.  Others don't want rules on autofire and explosives taking up page count when they're only interested in running a fantasy campaign.  It's been my experience that the latter type of gamer takes an all-or-nothing view of the game.  Yet they don't bat an eye at having D&D core rulebooks & d20 Modern or other d20 variant even though there is usually a fair amount of repeated text.  Why?  I suspect because since those rules are scattered amongst various books, they consider it easier to take or leave what you want.  Since GURPS was designed to support genre-crossing styles of play, you don't see the separation in different books that you do with d20 (at least in regards to character creation and combat).  

What you will see in GURPS supplements are mechanics that supplement the genre or setting and a great deal of GM advice and suggestions.  It baffles me that people who have no problem with the metric ton of d20 variant rules on the market cry that GURPS has "too much".

GURPS in play, is extremely quick.  In my experience, it's faster than d20 because there are fewer exceptions or special circumstances employed (such as feats, attack of opportunity, etc.).  As Jurgen stated, combat is a more visceral & dramatic affair.  There's no D&D hit point "what does it represent" ambiguity.  Called shots, hit locations, etc. are built into the core rules as advanced options.  Does your critically wounded hero fight on through the pain?  In GURPS he does, but in d20 (or at least D&D) he runs at peak efficiency until he drops unconscious.  GURPS seems to keep my players on the edge of their seat more.  Massive Damage and Wounds/Vitality help d20 get close to the level of tension, but not quite 100% there.  My group has often said that GURPS plays out like a novel, while D&D plays out like a video game.

On the other hand, d20 has gone a long way to getting closer to GURPS in its ability to support multiple genres.  However, rather than doing so via a Generic System approach, d20 can be tweaked, massaged, or hammered into the appropriate style desired to support a campaign or genre.  D&D3/3.5 was still D&D to me - with all of the baggage that caused me to abandon it.  D20 Modern, Spycraft, Conan, and Grim Tales showed me how versatile the system can be.  Also, the classes-as-archetypes are a much easier learning curve for new players and for player improvement in general.  Hit Die and levels are easier GM tools to work with when creating adventures than point totals.

If GURPS has an Achilles' Heel, it's that all that detail can result in long character creation times.  As work and family demands continue to eat into available GM prep time, d20's faster character creation and "building block" levels shave 25-50% on character creation.  Note: this is a self-inflicted problem.  I like fully-statted NPCs (at least for tier 1 & 2 characters).  I recently purchased GURPS Character Assistant - it's been the greatest time-saver I've purchased all year.

I still go back and forth between GURPS and Conan as to which is my preferred system.  At the end of the day, they're both great games.

Azgulor


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## Romnipotent (Oct 18, 2005)

I play it each week (4th ed) and the system allows for a more personalised character. They're easier to get into because you cannot be typeclassed. I had a 3rd ed character convert over to 4th edition... he had a high intelligence and ended up at about 180 pts 4th from a 100pt 3rd... then he died.


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## HeapThaumaturgist (Oct 19, 2005)

I'd like to try GURPS, but them dang short rounds:

Is there any option in the core rules for running rounds where more gets DONE?  The slowest game I ever played was GODLIKE, and it had the simplest rounds-mechanic in that your roll to DO an action was the same as WHEN you got to go, and each round was a single action.  It took hours to tally and compare and resolve and rinse and repeat ad nauseum.  

--fje


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## Nomad4life (Oct 19, 2005)

maggot said:
			
		

> Let me second Mutants&Masterminds as a terrific generic system.  I'm working with a friend on creating a cyberpunk game out of it, and it's working great.  (If my friend had suggested GURPS cyberpunk, I would have fled in terror.)





Hey yeah!  We pretty much did the same thing:  M&M has became our “default” generic system on accident.  It just runs generic settings so well on short notice, and it's an amazing system to start with.

Back on-topic:
I remember playing GURPS in high school…  I remember thinking “this _should _ be fun.  The rules are solid.  The characters are interesting and detailed.  The setting is cool.  So _why is nobody enjoying themselves_?  Why do I feel like I’m doing math homework instead of playing a game?”

In other words, I can’t say that the system was “bad” but somehow things never clicked in a good way.  Maybe the system was just too tedious to be enjoyable for us at that time.

But like everyone else says, GURPS makes the finest sourcebooks that I know of.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 19, 2005)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> Well, it would have to be.
> 
> I never said that you couldn't run anything with the basic set, just that the supplements were often wildly incompatible with the basic rules.  I see that as a severe flaw.
> 
> In all honesty, I made several enjoyable PCs in my time playing GURPS.  But compared side to side, even at the same point value, they were truly incompatible.  This indicated to me that the rules were in a constant state of flux- something that bothers the hell out of me.




That was because GURPS 3e had a very long run - 15 years or so - and various supplements covered various topics that hadn't been treated in the Basic Set. Eventually, the two GURPS Compendia were published and collected all those materials - but too little effort was done in balancing all those systems with each other.

GURPS 4e is different. It's finally a _unified_ system again, it covers pretty much anything you might need for creating a character - _any_ kind of character - and there is finally balance in all things.


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## Numion (Oct 19, 2005)

Azgulor said:
			
		

> My group has often said that GURPS plays out like a novel, while D&D plays out like a video game.




If a game plays like a novel, I'd rather go read one.


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## Kumaiti (Oct 19, 2005)

I LOVE GURPS, to me it is the best system ever!!

But I am kind of a "fanboy" for GURPS, so I won't argue about it because it would be quite biased. Just my 0,02


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## Aus_Snow (Oct 19, 2005)

Azgulor said:
			
		

> My group has often said that GURPS plays out like a novel, while D&D plays out like a video game.



Never really found that to be so.

However, I wouldn't be too surprised if the way that GURPS books tend to be _written_ might push away certain demographics. They have more of the novel to them in that way, I suppose. In like manner, the way _D&D_ (as in 'official') books tend to be written might repel others. I've read statements to that effect on other forums, for instance. . . actually, on this one too. :\






			
				Numion said:
			
		

> If a game plays like a novel, I'd rather go read one.



What then is a good Story Hour thread (one that might somewhat resemble a good novel, let's say)?






			
				Kumalti said:
			
		

> I am kind of a "fanboy" for GURPS, so I won't argue about it because *it would be quite biased.*



Just like everyone else's posts, you mean?


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## Azgulor (Oct 19, 2005)

Numion said:
			
		

> If a game plays like a novel, I'd rather go read one.




So by the same token, you'd rather play a video game than play D&D?

It was probably poor word choice on my part, but that was why I said "play out" rather than "play".  When the session is complete, the feedback I've received is that the players weren't pulled out of the role-playing experience due to some wonky game mechanic or abstracted rule.

As an example, I've noticed that when people write up their D&D story hours, they detail the character injuries from combat, etc.  Many of the writers are quite gifted and it reads like a novel as you'd expect.  However, the writer is filling in the blanks regarding wound detail, the pain the characters fight through, etc.  The _game_ doesn't provide for that level of detail.

In D&D, a character won't fight valiantly through a battle and then pass out afterwards from blood loss, or defeat a foe via a well-aimed strike that leaves them alive but disadvantaged (say from serious arm or leg wound).  Conversely, you won't see a character in GURPS jump off a three story building because he "knows he can take the hit" or take on 12 orcs without serious reservations.  Now which one sounds more like every fantasy novel and movie ever made and which one sounds like Diablo?

Now a d20 variant or OGL game can be a different discussion.  Conan/Grim Tales/Spycraft vs. GURPS - tough choice.  D&D vs. GURPS - GURPS wins for me every time.

Azgulor


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## Nebulous (Oct 19, 2005)

I've never played GURPS but i like what i'm hearing about the supplements. Those that enjoy them, what would you say are the top five supplement books out there? And are they generic enough to be applied to a d20 game, or any other system?


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## Umbran (Oct 19, 2005)

Azgulor said:
			
		

> Excluding rabid fanboys and haters from either side of the aisle, I'll try to give you an objective assessment.
> [...snip...]
> 
> GURPS in play, is extremely quick.  In my experience, it's faster than d20 because there are fewer exceptions or special circumstances employed (such as feats, attack of opportunity, etc.).  As Jurgen stated, combat is a more visceral & dramatic affair.  There's no D&D hit point "what does it represent" ambiguity.  Called shots, hit locations, etc. are built into the core rules as advanced options.




Okay, aside from a perhaps unintentional implication that those of us who don't agree are "haters".  And aside form the idea that somehow you love the system, but are still "objective"...

It doesn't look like you're comparing apples to apples here.  You say GURPS combat is quick, and d20 isn't bedcause of all the special circumstances - but you seem to be comparing GURPS *without* the advanced options to d20 *with* the options.  ANd that's not right.

I've used GURPS without all the options.  You're right, in tht it is quick.  It is also about as dry as sawdust, rather like running d20 with no feats or situational modifiers in combat.  Turn all the options on in both systems, and GURPS is the slower beast.


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## Aus_Snow (Oct 19, 2005)

Nebulous said:
			
		

> I've never played GURPS but i like what i'm hearing about the supplements. Those that enjoy them, what would you say are the top five supplement books out there? And are they generic enough to be applied to a d20 game, or any other system?



I can't decide on a top 5, but the 5 I've got (over all) the most use out of, up to this point, would be:

Blood Types
Faerie
Celtic Myth
Imperial Rome
Transhuman Space


edit --- oh, my apologies, it seems I didn't answer fully. Well, these have all been used with a couple of systems, d20 being one of them, and GURPS being neither of them!


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## Warrior Poet (Oct 19, 2005)

Nebulous said:
			
		

> I've never played GURPS but i like what i'm hearing about the supplements. Those that enjoy them, what would you say are the top five supplement books out there? And are they generic enough to be applied to a d20 game, or any other system?



I'd add _GURPS:  Horror_ and _GURPS:  World War II_ to that list, and both are very applicable to other systems, I feel.  The mechanics don't necessarily mesh, but as many others have pointed out, as sourcebooks, they're almost unparalleled.  Almost every page has something that could add to a plot, setting, NPC, style, or game flavor.  _GURPS: Horror_ has a huge index of recommended books, comics, and films that make great horror inspiration, for example, and _GURPS:  World War II_ has a good (brief) history of the war, including factors that led up to it, major personalities, major conflict regions, etc.  And that's just to name a few advantages of just two books.

Warrior Poet


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## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 19, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> I've used GURPS without all the options.  You're right, in tht it is quick.  It is also about as dry as sawdust, rather like running d20 with no feats or situational modifiers in combat.  Turn all the options on in both systems, and GURPS is the slower beast.




Well, I've run GURPS combat with several of the options (hit locations, the option where you can decrease your opponent's Defence by lowering your effective skill, as well as a few others), and I'd say the fight against the five ogres took about the same time it would take me in D&D.

But somehow, the combat seemed more... _visceral_ in GURPS. One character got his leg broken by an ogre, and the shield of the other one was destroyed when an ogre hit it a second time. And the ogres were so tough that they JUST.WOULD.NOT.DIE!

All in all, I was rather pleased with it.


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## Renshai (Oct 19, 2005)

A friend talked me into getting the books for 4E, and while they are an interesting read, I'd never play it. I used the Character Generator to create a few characters and ran some sample combats with me son. Two or three of the characters had skills in their weapons that assured of hits most of the time, and also gave them a great chance at parrying.  During the test the combat dragged out "forever". One would hit, the other would parry, rinse and repeat. When one finally got through armor absorbed enough of the blow to prevent it from being major damage. 

I tried this several times and ended up with the same result.  On paper the system looks great and fun, in play I just didn't like it.


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## Nebulous (Oct 19, 2005)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> But somehow, the combat seemed more... _visceral_ in GURPS. One character got his leg broken by an ogre, and the shield of the other one was destroyed when an ogre hit it a second time. And the ogres were so tough that they JUST.WOULD.NOT.DIE!




That's something in d20 i've learned (with much practice, for better or worse) to ad lib.  Critical hits are a pretty good way to recreate special situations, just don't do the bonus damage and supplement a new injury. 

I wonder if GURPS is anything like Hackmaster. I own the Hack DMG, never played, i was just curious, but the complexity of combat and the charts and the hit locations and the...the...the...well, it gave me a headache just reading it.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 19, 2005)

My top five favorites are:

- Transhuman Space - and not just because I am credited as a playtester and later wrote for the line!   

This is probably the most realistic SF setting out there - and one of the strangest. It's probably hard to convert to d20 because of all the posthuman character types - how would you stat a _sapient software program_ in d20? - but worth for all the thought-provoking stuff in it alone. Useful if you are running any sort of SF campaign, since it not only introduces new technologies, but also hints how these change societies - something all too often overlooked in RPG settings...

- GURPS Horror: Written by none other than Kenneth Hite, who knows this stuff, this is the definite book on RPG horror, as far as I am concerned... Little in the way of rules - most is GMing and campaign advice.

- GURPS Cabal: Also written by Ken Hite, this is a brilliant treatment of the "modern horror/supernatural conspiracy" genre. Like the World of Darkness, but without the Angst (though _with_ plenty of horror...). Easily useable with d20 Modern with all the magic options.

- GURPS Alternate Earths 2: Another genre that SJG is good at - "Alternate History". Five alternate Earths, where history took a different turn. From a world where the Vikings were wealthy enough to _permanently_ settle the New World (and which makes for a pretty darn nifty fantasy world if you add magic and fantastic beasts to it) to Caliph, a world where Muslims invented the printing press early on and built stargates different stars in our 17th centuries - these are all a great read, and a great inspriation. Since these worlds have little in the way of rules, they should be easily useable with d20. GURPS Alternate Earths 1 was an earlier and (in my opinion) slightly inferior compilation, though it was still good. If you want shorter summaries of these worlds, plus a parallel dimension-spanning war for the Future of the Multiverse (plus psionic Nazis), see the new GURPS Infinite Worlds instead.

- GURPS Banestorm: The nifty "standard" fantasy setting for GURPS - medieval Earth humans get stranded on a fantasy world with the usual inhabitants and build Christian and Muslim kingdoms. The standard D&D rules don't _quite_ fit because of different assumptions about magic, but the rules from Midnight make a good fit IMO.


But of course, there are many, _many_ more good GURPS books. Here is a list...


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## billd91 (Oct 19, 2005)

GURPS is a fine game and we've had fun with it even if we do generally prefer D&D. We've played mostly sci-fi games with the GURPS system including a psionics game, Star Trek, and Babylon 5. And we've found it works pretty well, is very flexible, and doesn't bog down any more than any other game.

That said, there are some issues with it that I'm not necessarily keen on. Being a point-buy system, you tend to see a lot of people buying disadvantages to get more points but then cooking the character so that the disadv is marginalized. Really, you pretty much see that with all point-buy systems (like Hero) and it's easy to see situations where it gets out of control. The quirks, however, are quite nice as a way to define role-playing elements and then squeezing points out of them. But again, easy to abuse without GM approval.

The other issue I'd bring up here is the way GURPS resolves tasks: rolling 3d6. Unless you memorize the probability tables, determining the exact effect of a penalty on the odds of success is more difficult. In fact, depending on the character's target number, the same penalty will affect characters in different ways. A flat probability die roll is a LOT easier to intuitively grasp, especially when dealing with bonuses and penalties (which affect the odds of success in exactly the same way).


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## Azgulor (Oct 19, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> Okay, aside from a perhaps unintentional implication that those of us who don't agree are "haters".  And aside form the idea that somehow you love the system, but are still "objective"...
> 
> It doesn't look like you're comparing apples to apples here.  You say GURPS combat is quick, and d20 isn't bedcause of all the special circumstances - but you seem to be comparing GURPS *without* the advanced options to d20 *with* the options.  ANd that's not right.
> 
> I've used GURPS without all the options.  You're right, in tht it is quick.  It is also about as dry as sawdust, rather like running d20 with no feats or situational modifiers in combat.  Turn all the options on in both systems, and GURPS is the slower beast.




Um, no.  Did you read my post?

It has been my experience that GURPS combat (using Advanced combat) is faster than combat in d20 if you're doing anything other than "I roll to hit" (i.e. grappling, attack of opportunity, feats that introduce exceptions to standard rules, etc.).  If your experience is the opposite, fair enough - could it be that you know d20 better than GURPS?  I never see people post such an admission. It's always GURPS is slower - period.  Perhaps I know GURPS better than d20, I play both with equal frequency so it's hard to say for sure and I can concede the possibility.  But overall, GURPS plays faster in my group - in and out of combat.

And as a fan of both GURPS and d20 (but I'm much less enamored of core D&D), I tried to provide specific examples of what GURPS does that I and my group enjoy and where I struggle with it as a system.  I tried to do the same with D&D/d20.  Therefore, I felt my opinions were more objective than the usual "GURPS rocks" / "GURPS sucks" threads.  I _never_ said or implied that those who didn't agree with me were "GURPS haters".  I also fail to understand how stating that it's a tough choice for me to pick between Conan and GURPS as my preferred system places me in the biased-GURPS-advocate camp.

Azgulor


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## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 19, 2005)

Renshai said:
			
		

> A friend talked me into getting the books for 4E, and while they are an interesting read, I'd never play it. I used the Character Generator to create a few characters and ran some sample combats with me son. Two or three of the characters had skills in their weapons that assured of hits most of the time, and also gave them a great chance at parrying.  During the test the combat dragged out "forever". One would hit, the other would parry, rinse and repeat. When one finally got through armor absorbed enough of the blow to prevent it from being major damage.




This is true, and this was a problem for me when I started GMing GURPS as well. But I've learned a thing or two since then.

First of all, high skills are supposed to be _rare_ in game worlds. Anything beyond a skill level of 12 is very good for an ordinary "mook" opponent - so if you are GMing, avoid high skill values for anything other than elite opponents. If you want to challenge the PCs, send them against larger numbers of lesser skilled opponents instead. Even the best swordsmen is in deep, deep trouble when he is surrounded in GURPS:

"I block the first attack!" (assuming the character has a shield)
"I parry the second attack!"
"Now I can either try to dodge the attack - with a much lower success chance - or parry it at -4 to my effective skill. Oh, bugger..."

This goes both ways - PCs can gang up on superior opponents once they have dispatched of his mooks, and he will be defeated in short order.

Another way to challenge the PCs is to let them fight against much bigger and stronger opponents with big weapons - like my ogres. Sure, they won't hit as often, but the damage they do is so significant that the players will sweat every time you roll to hit. Besides, if they try to block any hits with their shield, there is a chance that their shield will be damaged. Likewise, if they parry the attack, their weapon might break since it is likely smaller and lighter.


GURPS combat can run really well if the GM knows how to work the system. But it works under a different set of assumptions, and this is something that can catch new GURPS GMs off guard.


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## Renshai (Oct 19, 2005)

Jurgen,
I can understand your approach and I gave that alot of thought, however...  when creating a 150pt character (the suggested standard) it is very easy to create a character that has a 16 or 17 skill rating. If such skill ratings are so rare I don't this would be the case. Now, I could see increasing the skill cost for skills over 13 and then you could achieve that sort of "rarity" of  high skill that you suggest. As the game is written it is insanely easy to get scores in that range and still have a very well rounded character skill wise. 

There really is something I like about GURPS, and believe me I'm not looking for reasons to dislike it... this continues to be a huge problem for me though. Strangely though, I never see it addressed on any of the GURPS forums. For a while I thought it was just me or that I was doing something wrong.

Thanks for your comments!

Ren


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## painandgreed (Oct 19, 2005)

I haven't played 4E but GURPS does what it means to do pretty well. I had good games both in a time travel game as well as a military sniper campaign with no issues. You might like the system. You might hate the system. Even a system meant to tackle all genres is not going to please all people. I has classless point based characters that can't take too much damage usually and a 3d6 mechanic that ends up in bell curves. If you want a "lucky shot can kill" type system, it does that. If you want something else, there are probably ways to do it. Neither means that you're automatically going to like the way it is done.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 19, 2005)

Renshai said:
			
		

> Jurgen,
> I can understand your approach and I gave that alot of thought, however...  when creating a 150pt character (the suggested standard) it is very easy to create a character that has a 16 or 17 skill rating. If such skill ratings are so rare I don't this would be the case. Now, I could see increasing the skill cost for skills over 13 and then you could achieve that sort of "rarity" of  high skill that you suggest. As the game is written it is insanely easy to get scores in that range and still have a very well rounded character skill wise.




Well, 150 points _is_ already rather heroic - these are highly competent people who have had fairly intensive training, or very high inherent potential." Average people" are probably 25 points, max, and your standard guard or thug probably shouldn't have much more than that. IIRC, each skill point is supposed to represent 200 hours of training, and only true professionals practice much more than those 200 hours...

150 point characters would be the equivalent of level 6 D&D characters - not tough enough yet to play in the "big leagues", but far above most other people.

Out of interest, what kinds of attributes and skill levels did you give your character?


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## Jim Hague (Oct 19, 2005)

I'll chime in here, having run GURPS 3rd for nearly 10 years.

IME, folks that add _all_ of the optional rules from supplements are asking for trouble.  The non-core rules aren't balanced against anything but the setting they're in, so you end up mixing and matching to your peril.  At that end of the spectrum, trying to run a multi-book, multi-genre campaign becomes crazymaking.  Ultimately, it's that feature that caused me to abandon GURPS in the first place - partially due to rules bloat, which was my fault, but also because the rules weren't universally balanced, giving lie the the 'Universal' part of the game.

GURPS is like a lot of other generic systems - it represents a given mean of characters very well, and starts to lose useability and coherency outside that range.  3rd was balanced (more or less) for characters between 100-200 points.  Beyond that, it doesn't work terribly well.  And nowhere is this more clear than GURPS combat.

Example: The PCs, trapped on a crippled Russian submarine, are attacked by a squad of transgenic octopus/human hybrids sent by the bad guys.  These hybrids took about two hours to stat out properly, and rang in at 500 points, roughly.  PCs ranged from 400 to 475 points, with a gaggle of 50 point Russian sailors backing them up.  PCs get initiative.  Hybrids die in a single round, even allowing for cover, armor and tactics.  Well, there went _that_ encounter.

All of that being said, the GURPS genre supplements (Horror being my fave) are almost universally beyond reproach and consistently excellent.  It sounds like damning with faint praise, but I can't recommend the supplements enough.


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## Renshai (Oct 19, 2005)

Jurgen,
I'm afraid this was a couple of months ago, before Hurrican Rita turned my home town into a large wreck. I've since formatted my machine and don't have those characters anymore. 

So would you suggest starting charcters off at 100 or 75 points? 

If you did have 150 point characters and you reached the climax of a campaign and they were pitted against a number of foes that were roughly their equivalent, wouldn't you have a drawn out fight on your hands, due to the high parry/dodge skills of their opponents?

Thanks!
Todd


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## Numion (Oct 19, 2005)

Aus_Snow said:
			
		

> What then is a good Story Hour thread (one that might somewhat resemble a good novel, let's say)?




Well, a story hour is other people playing the game. Again, I would like my game to play like a game I was playing, not other people. 



			
				Azgulor said:
			
		

> So by the same token, you'd rather play a video game than play D&D?
> 
> It was probably poor word choice on my part, but that was why I said "play out" rather than "play". When the session is complete, the feedback I've received is that the players weren't pulled out of the role-playing experience due to some wonky game mechanic or abstracted rule.
> 
> As an example, I've noticed that when people write up their D&D story hours, they detail the character injuries from combat, etc. Many of the writers are quite gifted and it reads like a novel as you'd expect. However, the writer is filling in the blanks regarding wound detail, the pain the characters fight through, etc. The game doesn't provide for that level of detail.




This is the first time someone equated _more_ detailed rules to a higher level of storytelling. Let's not confuse different styles here with novel-likeness. D&D characters can due to the HP system take a beating and still function. Gurps has the ever popular and realistic 'death spiral'. Neither has anything to do with a good story. They just address different genres. In plenty of books and movies the hero can take an unnatural beating and still proceed to administer thorough asskicking. Not realistic, but no means absent from literature. As to the detail of rules - I think it's up to imagination. A D&D swordstrike is to me, in my mind, as vivid and detailed as the Gurps swordstrike to back with 3 cracked spinal columns and one slipped disk is to you.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 19, 2005)

Renshai said:
			
		

> Jurgen,
> I'm afraid this was a couple of months ago, before Hurrican Rita turned my home town into a large wreck. I've since formatted my machine and don't have those characters anymore.




I'm sorry to hear that.



> So would you suggest starting charcters off at 100 or 75 points?




That all depends on what you want for your campaign - how you want to start it off. 75 or 100 point characters gives you rather ordinary if competent people who are caught up in exceptional circumstances. 150 points gives you characters who are definitely larger than life, though by no means immortal.



> If you did have 150 point characters and you reached the climax of a campaign and they were pitted against a number of foes that were roughly their equivalent, wouldn't you have a drawn out fight on your hands, due to the high parry/dodge skills of their opponents?




That depends entirely on how the fight is staged. If you have the exact number of opponents who are all equal to each other, then it will probably boil down who first gets lucky and downs his opponent. After this, the side that won that particular duel will likely have two fighters ganging up on a single fighter on the other side, and proceed to make short work of him (remember what I said about not letting yourself get surrounded?), thus freeing up another fighter...

But frankly, fights between completely matched opponents are boring. Far more interesting are fights with one or two rather competent enemies, and a larger number of less competent henchmen. And it is likely that the party will have a number of less melee competent characters as well - archers or wizards for example. Now the fight becomes a race which side can exploit the other side's weak points first. And that is how a fight should be - dynamic, interesting, and requiring intelligent tactics to win.

Oh, and 150 character points need not be the end of a campaign. In fact, I started my current GURPS Eberron campaign with 150, and now the characters have about 220 points each - and I can still challenge them without too many problems. Like I said, planning GURPS campaigns and adventures requires a different mindset than D&D campaigns. There isn't any power level at which characters are _supposed_ to start or end a campaign...


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## Renshai (Oct 19, 2005)

Thanks for your input Jurgen, its really helped me a take a different look at the game. 

Todd


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## Conaill (Oct 19, 2005)

Numion said:
			
		

> Azgulor said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Heh - If a game plays like a video game, I'd rather go play one.

I have to agree with Azgulor on this one. It's a pretty accurate and concise description of my experiences with both systems over several years of playing both.

... and I do like reading novels better than playing video games...


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## jcfiala (Oct 19, 2005)

I've got a metric ton of GURPS books, but never felt the need to actually run anything with them.  They're interesting and fun to read, but in my decades of gaming, I've never felt the pull to run it.  They don't inspire me like other games do.

D20?  I've run three or four campaigns.  Cthulhu?  Two or three.  Convention games?  BESM, D20, Space Munchkin, Cthulhu, Cthulhu...

They don't call to me as a GM.  So, now that there's a 4th edition, I'm pretty much moving on to buying books that actually get used.


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## Conaill (Oct 19, 2005)

billd91 said:
			
		

> The other issue I'd bring up here is the way GURPS resolves tasks: rolling 3d6. Unless you memorize the probability tables, determining the exact effect of a penalty on the odds of success is more difficult. In fact, depending on the character's target number, the same penalty will affect characters in different ways. A flat probability die roll is a LOT easier to intuitively grasp, especially when dealing with bonuses and penalties (which affect the odds of success in exactly the same way).



Actually, I'd have to strongly disagree with this. It's an issue I've heard brought up before by people who are used to D&D's flat d20 roll.

To me, the outcome of a 3d6 mechanic is much *more* intuitive, _even though I can't necessarily calculate the exact probabilities in my head_. "Intuition" has nothing to do with being able to do statistics on the fly. Rather, it has everything to do with being able to follow your gut feeling. Our human brain has to deal with bellcurve-shaped probabilities in the world around us every day. So once you can get away from the bad habit of trying to do statistical calculations when you should be roleplaying, 3d6 actually winds up being more intuitive than d20...


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## Numion (Oct 19, 2005)

Conaill said:
			
		

> Heh - If a game plays like a video game, I'd rather go play one.




Huh. Didn't see _that_ one coming.

Besides, I doubt that differences in combat system make another game like video game or another like a book. 

I just don't see the Gurps system making anything seem other than an excerise in math  :\ 

And if we shift from the combat system to other aspects .. just whoah. The Gurps system is based on point-whoring the most mechanical advantages for conditional RP penalties that never come in to play, I think you get the picture from there. Like, whats the penalty for terminal illness if you know your characters isn't likely to make it for that long anyway?

I bet the WoD crowd would be just laughing off their asses right about now, if they knew D&D crowd arguing the Gurps crowd as to which system is better at creating novels


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## Umbran (Oct 19, 2005)

Azgulor said:
			
		

> Um, no.  Did you read my post?




Yes, I read it.  My apologies if I didn't get out of it what you intended.  Note that I specifically reported what you _seemed_ to be saying.  I did that because there's always the possibility of miscommunication, and not admitting that possibility is hubristic.  I'd take it as a kindness if you'd do me the favor of considering that possibility yourself, rather than suggest that I didn't read at all.  



> If your experience is the opposite, fair enough - could it be that you know d20 better than GURPS?  I never see people post such an admission. It's always GURPS is slower - period.




I already did admit that I wasn't familiar with the newest addition (but nobody's suggested that the new edition has things that make it particularly faster).  Back with previous editions, when I formed my opinion, I was quite familiar with both.  I used GURPS for a couple of major adventure design projects and had to get pretty solid on the nitty-gritty before I was done.    It took longer for my players to grasp GURPS in detail than d20 in detail, and even after getting up to speed, GURPS ran more slowly in combat.  Sorry, but that's the way it worked out.

I've never had problems with how quickly the rules worked outside of combat, but one hardly notices any game mechanic when you're not in a scene that needs lots of task resolution.



> I _never_ said or implied that those who didn't agree with me were "GURPS haters".




Sorry - this is why I noted it as perhaps unintientional.  It is rather easily inferred from, "Excluding rabid fanboys and haters from either side of the aisle, I'll try to give you an objective assessment."  That's implying that _someone_ has to be in those other camps, now doesn't it?  You shouldn't be surprised when someone starts to think about who you mean by that 



> I also fail to understand how stating that it's a tough choice for me to pick between Conan and GURPS as my preferred system places me in the biased-GURPS-advocate camp.




Some of this may stem to a difference in terminology.  Where I come from, objectivity isn't about "fair and balanced reporting".  It is about universal truth - the speed of light in vacuum is an objective fact, measurable as the same by everyone.  An objective report is listing things that all people will find to be true.  Your opinion of GURPS is dependant upon your personal experience, and therefore subjective.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 19, 2005)

Numion said:
			
		

> I just don't see the Gurps system making anything seem other than an excerise in math  :\
> 
> And if we shift from the combat system to other aspects .. just whoah. The Gurps system is based on point-whoring the most mechanical advantages for conditional RP penalties that never come in to play, I think you get the picture from there. Like, whats the penalty for terminal illness if you know your characters isn't likely to make it for that long anyway?




If your campaign will last shorter than that time span, then your GM is fully justified in hitting you with a rolled-up newspaper. A cardinal rule of disadvantages is:

"A disadvantage that isn't disadvantageous to the character isn't worth any points."

A great many disadvantages (and advantages, for that matter) are inappropriate for many campaigns. This is intentional - with GURPS 4e the authors wanted to have _everything_ for creating any conceivable character inside the Basic Set. This was a different design goal than what the creators of D&D intended, which focuses on a specific genre, and it is not an inherent weakness of the system.

I mean, just because it is _possible_ within the rules to buy Social Status 7 and proclaim: "My character is the President of the United States!", there is no reason why the GM should allow this unless he plans a GURPS West Wing campaign. Likewise, if the campaign is a one-shot adventure that lasts only for short time frame, there is no reason at all why he should allow "Terminally Ill". This disadvantage is only suitable for longer campaigns where racing to either find a cure or some sense of closure for the character adds dramatic tension to it, and any GM worth his salt should realize.

To sum it up: If you are the sort of GM who will let his players walk all over him even though they are obviously min-maxing things without regard to what is appropriate to the campaign...

...then you probably shouldn't GM GURPS. Run another RPG that is less dependent on GM choice.


EDIT: I've realized that I was a bit snarky here. There is nothing wrong with an RPG that does much of the campaign preparation for you - when I started my D&D Forgotten Realms campaign last year I simply told my players: "Create 1st level characters", and that was it (until they showed me all sorts of "optional" books they wanted to use, but that's another matter...). GURPS forces the GM to put some more thought into what is and what is not permissable in a campaign. But I think it is worth it.


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## Ethernaut (Oct 19, 2005)

Timmundo said:
			
		

> however, it is a lot of work for a GM, while running D&D one can just pull out the monster manual and be good to go (combat wise, and in a time crunch)




I guess it depends on what type of games you run and what your "home system" is. I've been running GURPS games for almost 20 years now (though, I confess, I've only run one GURPS game in the last 4... Buffy and Risus have been taking up most of my time). I find that since I'm more accustomed to thinking of characters in the GURPS style of attributes,  advantages, disadvantages, and skills... running a D&D/D20 game can be maddening as I try to shoe-horn a character concept into the D&D constraints.

Of course, it helps that I've developed a nice shorthand for non-player characters and monsters. I almost never pay attention to points for my non-player characters unless it matters for creating allies/patrons/enemies for the players. Paying that much attention to the rules is asking for trouble, though character creation software mitigates this somewhat.

For the record, I've run the following genres in GURPS:
- low-magic sword & sorcery (Lankhmar)
- Vampire & Voodoo meets Cyberworld
- Vampire & Voodoo & Supers meets Atomic Horror
- Vampire & Voodoo meets Age of Napoleon
- Vampire & Voodoo in the Roaring Twenties
- Riverworld
- Castle Falkenstien 
- a D&D-like fantasy world (the only 4e game thus far)


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## Ethernaut (Oct 19, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> general, I think GURPS suffers from a simple fact - it is usually better to use a tool designed to do a specific job than to use a tool that's designed to do many jobs.  A dedicated screwdriver will almost always d4rive screws better than the thing you find on your pocketknife.  And these days, you have to go quite a way to find a genre that isn't reasonably covered by another system.




Ah, but what if your campaign crosses so many genres that your need that versatility? That's why I use Gurps. My games are cross-genre by definition and I'd rather have all my NPCs and characters in one game system (or least game systems that are easy to convert between).


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## Ethernaut (Oct 19, 2005)

trancejeremy said:
			
		

> There may be more painful and unpleasant game systems to run, but I haven't found one.




Er. Rolemaster. 

And I'd put anything D20 as being more unpleasant to run than Gurps, but that's just me. I love *playing* in D20 games but I find that it doesn't match my GM style at all.


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## Ethernaut (Oct 19, 2005)

wingsandsword said:
			
		

> Honestly, d20 in some ways became what GURPS tried to be, a universal multi-genre system.  There isn't one single "d20" book for all genres, but it's a system that just about every gamer is at least passingly familiar with, and it's been adapted to virtually every genre and setting out there (either officially or unofficially).  GURPS strength is in the suppliments, not the rules.




The reason D20 will never be an acceptable universal system for me is that it never seems to have the right rules for the setting that I want to run. You have to hunt through dozens of supplements to find off bits of rules that *may* work in your game, but you have no idea if they'll really work in practice. GURPS (especially 4e) can be used to build 90% of the types of games I'd like to run. 

You know, I've never really understood why people think GURPS is all that complicated. Character generation can be long and drawn out, especially as compared to whipping out a no-nonsense D&D character. But the basic mechanic of rolling 3d6 vs a target is no more complex than the d20 method. Gurps adds active defense, while D&D has attacks of opportunity. The other reason that I find D20 games hard to run is that I find that I have to learn more rules to run a combat than I do in Gurps. 

I just want to come to the defense of my old standby game system. I don't particularly want to trash D&D or D20. I've been involved in far too many kick-ass D20/D&D games for that. As far as I'm concerned, any system is as good as the GM. And a GM should run any system that they are personally comfortable with.


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## Ethernaut (Oct 19, 2005)

Aaron L said:
			
		

> QUick question for anyone who has it:  is CthulhuPun worth getting?




It's *ok*. I've even used a good deal of it for my Near-Future Horror game I used to run. But many people aren't fond of the Cyberpunk setting (which is getting very dated these days). It is also nowhere near the top of the list of best GURPS supplements to buy and doesn't approach the quality of most CoC supplments either.


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## Conaill (Oct 19, 2005)

Ethernaut said:
			
		

> Character generation can be long and drawn out, especially as compared to whipping out a no-nonsense S&S character.



Yeah, character creation can definitely take a lot more time than in D&D. Just like using pointbuy in D&D will take more time than rolling stats.

On the other hand, this extra effort is only a one-time cost, paid _up-front_. Updating the character between sessions will typically take much *less* time than in D&D, so over the course of the character's life span you actually spend way less time doing character creation than in D&D. 

Heck, I've seen people plan out their "build" for a D&D 1st level character all the way up to 10th level and beyond. That alone probably winds up taking more time than creating a beginning GURPS character from scratch. (And invariably they wound up scrapping the plan at pretty much every level, so they put even more time into their D&D character creation...)


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## Ethernaut (Oct 19, 2005)

Nebulous said:
			
		

> I've never played GURPS but i like what i'm hearing about the supplements. Those that enjoy them, what would you say are the top five supplement books out there? And are they generic enough to be applied to a d20 game, or any other system?




In no particular order...
1. Fantasy 4e - useful for any fantasy game
2. Cabal - my favorite modern fantasy setting
3. Horror 3e - useful for any horror game
4. Voodoo/Spirits - my favorite magic system... which can be adapted to other games
5. Goblins - best read of any of the supplements... though perhaps not as useful 

Also, most historical supplements are top notch


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## Ethernaut (Oct 19, 2005)

Conaill said:
			
		

> On the other hand, this extra effort is only a one-time cost, paid _up-front_. Updating the character between sessions will typically take much *less* time than in D&D, so over the course of the character's life span you actually spend way less time doing character creation than in D&D.




Amen to that. I couldn't agree more.


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## Numion (Oct 19, 2005)

Conaill said:
			
		

> On the other hand, this extra effort is only a one-time cost, paid up-front. Updating the character between sessions will typically take much *less* time than in D&D, so over the course of the character's life span you actually spend way less time doing character creation than in D&D.




On the other hand you don't update your D&D character unless it levels. And I don't know who you've been playing with, but levelling in D&D is pretty quick. Only thing that might take time if one hasn't thought about is choosing new spells for sorcerer and wizard.



			
				Jurgen Hubert said:
			
		

> A great many disadvantages (and advantages, for that matter) are inappropriate for many campaigns. This is intentional - with GURPS 4e the authors wanted to have everything for creating any conceivable character inside the Basic Set. This was a different design goal than what the creators of D&D intended, which focuses on a specific genre, and it is not an inherent weakness of the system.




Yeah, but if those options aren't compatible with each other, or require a lot of DM .. sorry, GM, adjudication, it's not really universal, is it?



> I mean, just because it is possible within the rules to buy Social Status 7 and proclaim: "My character is the President of the United States!", there is no reason why the GM should allow this unless he plans a GURPS West Wing campaign. Likewise, if the campaign is a one-shot adventure that lasts only for short time frame, there is no reason at all why he should allow "Terminally Ill". This disadvantage is only suitable for longer campaigns where racing to either find a cure or some sense of closure for the character adds dramatic tension to it, and any GM worth his salt should realize.




But it would be darned funny to slip something like that past the GM, wouldn't it? The look on the GMs face when in mid-game during a scene in a cafeteria you reveal that you're the POTUS, "see GM, right here on the _advantages_ .."

EDIT: It would become even more comical when it became clear that the player had taken "crack addict", "albino" and "hunchback" to pay the points to be the POTUS   

Heh, heh .. crack addict albino hunchback president .. I _crack_ myself up!


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## billd91 (Oct 19, 2005)

Conaill said:
			
		

> Actually, I'd have to strongly disagree with this. It's an issue I've heard brought up before by people who are used to D&D's flat d20 roll.
> 
> To me, the outcome of a 3d6 mechanic is much *more* intuitive, _even though I can't necessarily calculate the exact probabilities in my head_. "Intuition" has nothing to do with being able to do statistics on the fly. Rather, it has everything to do with being able to follow your gut feeling. Our human brain has to deal with bellcurve-shaped probabilities in the world around us every day. So once you can get away from the bad habit of trying to do statistical calculations when you should be roleplaying, 3d6 actually winds up being more intuitive than d20...




You find it MORE intuitive that a -2 on the check affects a character whose target number is 12 significantly more (effectively -24%) than a character whose target number is 16 (effectively -8%) compared to a -2 giving all characters a -10% lower chance of success?

I find that curious.


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## Conaill (Oct 19, 2005)

billd91 said:
			
		

> You find it MORE intuitive that a -2 on the check affects a character whose target number is 12 significantly more (effectively -24%) than a character whose target number is 16 (effectively -8%) compared to a -2 giving all characters a -10% lower chance of success?
> 
> I find that curious.



Yes it does (See? You're calculating percentages again. Stop that. )

If you're attempting something while you're subject to some kind of penalty, when does that penalty matter most? The person with really high skill isn't really going to care - he'll succeed anyway. The person with a really poor skill isn't really going to care either - he'll probably fail anyway. But for the person who only has a 50-50 chance of succeeding to begin with, that -2 penalty can make all the difference.

Let's turn the situation around: Say you're an archer with _one_ +2 arrow left, in a quiver full of normal arrows. When should you decide to use that last +2 arrow during the course of a combat? D&D would tell you "Fire it at any time. Doesn't matter what your chances of hitting are, the +2 gives you an even 10% higher chance, translating in a fixed average increase in damage." GURPS on the other hand would tell you "Better wait for a good opportunity to use that arrow. Don't waste it on shots which you'll probably fail anyway, or on ones you are likely to make even without the +2. Instead, use it when you think the extra +2 might be just enough to put you over the edge". 

Which one sounds more intuitive to you?


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## Harmon (Oct 20, 2005)

Played GURPs 3e for 10 yrs- loved the system and liked the idea that you could do nearly anything with it.  

As a GM its better to work on the fly, because making up all those characters, monsters, and such could be overwhelming

Cheat sheets and such are a must as well as Player assistance with the rules is a great help.

Recently I have been playing with the idea of a fantasy no magic campaign in the GURPs system.

As far as the differences- there are only a few differences that I have noticed so far and most of them are small.  3e had a few small holes and 4e plugged them nicely.


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## mmu1 (Oct 20, 2005)

I like GURPS a lot - in theory. It's gritty, it's detailed, it allows for complex character concepts.

In practice, I have yet to play in a really enjoyable GURPS game. This is largely because it's, in my experience (and I've tried a lot of games) almost  impossible to find players and GMs who understand the system well, and want to learn all the "optional rules". As a result, most things are resolved with the basic ruleset, which is - as someone pointed out earlier - dry, dreary and simplistic, with no flavor or character.

Also, I find that most GMs, rather than accepting how deadly GURPS combat is (and the fact that it should be used as a last resort) simply find ways to fudge around it - which means that a lot of the time, I was sitting there rolling my eyes at the fact we were still alive when I could think of twelve different ways to kill the party if the enemies had been played competently using the complete combat rule set. 
(I don't mean this as a personal attack - and I realize that there might have been circumstances I'm not aware of - but on the surface, reading about something like a combat between PCs and multiple ogres sort of makes me cringe. The fact there were no multiple fatalties as a result of fighting extremely strong monsters so tough they could be hit multiple times and keep on making their Health rolls to avoid passing out or dying tells me either punches were pulled, or the PCs were godlike. Four brutes that use even rudimentary tactics and can shrug off tons damage = let's all full-out attack one PC at the same time since we won't be able to dodge their blows anyway, so what do we need an active defense for = one dead PC)

While I suppose it's possible this could all be a huge coincidence and bad luck on my part, I believe that GURPS actually encourages the above - people strip out the complexity and deadliness beacuse it's too much for them, and you're left with a simplistic system without flavor.

Which also makes complete GURPS one of those settings that's absolutely murderous (for either the PCs or NPCs) if someone on one side of the table is significantly better at gaming the system, playing the game, roll-playing, whatever you want to call it.  In D&D, if you don't plan your tactics well, you take an AOO. In GURPS, if you don't plan your tactics well, the first hit you take puts you out of the fight.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 20, 2005)

Numion said:
			
		

> Yeah, but if those options aren't compatible with each other, or require a lot of DM .. sorry, GM, adjudication, it's not really universal, is it?




They _are_ compatible, at least in GURPS 4e. They _aren't_ appropriate for every campaign. It you are running a science fiction campaign, then Magical Aptitude is absolutely inappropriate, and so is taking psionic powers in a strictly historical campaign set in Revolutionary America.

The same is true for D&D, to some extent - if you are going to play in a Dark Sun campaign, then it would be kind of silly to buy metal armor at character creation just because metal armor is in the PHB.



> But it would be darned funny to slip something like that past the GM, wouldn't it? The look on the GMs face when in mid-game during a scene in a cafeteria you reveal that you're the POTUS, "see GM, right here on the _advantages_ .."




Well, if the GM is daft enough not to take a look at the character sheets...

The GM always has _final say_ over what kind of character is appropriate for the campaign. It says so right in the Basic Set.

And in the PHB, for that matter...



> EDIT: It would become even more comical when it became clear that the player had taken "crack addict", "albino" and "hunchback" to pay the points to be the POTUS
> 
> Heh, heh .. crack addict albino hunchback president .. I _crack_ myself up!




Would probably work in a GURPS IOU campaign. In others, I don't think so...


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## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 20, 2005)

Ethernaut said:
			
		

> Er. Rolemaster.




I see your Rolemaster and raise you by one Dangerous Journeys.


----------



## VirgilCaine (Oct 20, 2005)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> I see your Rolemaster and raise you by one Dangerous Journeys.




I raise you _Synnibar_.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 20, 2005)

VirgilCaine said:
			
		

> I raise you _Synnibar_.





I fold.

Have you actually _played_ Synnibar?


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## billd91 (Oct 20, 2005)

Conaill said:
			
		

> Yes it does (See? You're calculating percentages again. Stop that. )
> 
> If you're attempting something while you're subject to some kind of penalty, when does that penalty matter most? The person with really high skill isn't really going to care - he'll succeed anyway. The person with a really poor skill isn't really going to care either - he'll probably fail anyway. But for the person who only has a 50-50 chance of succeeding to begin with, that -2 penalty can make all the difference.
> 
> ...




The trouble here is, these situations and how they should be approached are exactly the same. In both cases, there's only one +2 arrow so there's no fixed average increase in damage. That would only occur if there are multiple +2 arrows to be shot. And in this situation, multiple +2 arrows indicates a calculatable average increase in damage for both systems. It's just that the D&D system, it's easier to calculate. With only one +2 arrow, the archer in either system is well advised to use it when it is most needed.

Note that I'm not really advocating that D&D is better because it's easier to calculate the effect of penalties nor am I suggesting a player should approach the game like that. I'm thinking more along the direction of a DM trying to predict how the elements they put in an adventure or the penalties they asign (particularly on the fly while playing) will affect the PCs and the tasks they have to perform.

Now, your explanation about how a penalty hurts the guy with some minor competence would help in that regard. But I seriously doubt that a penalty that affects characters in different ways is more intuitable for most players or DMs, especially those relatively new to the system.


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## billd91 (Oct 20, 2005)

I would concede that a 3d6 task roll is reasonably intuitive if you spin it like this:

Most of your attempts to achieve a success at something tend to be relatively average attempts at the task. It's really only particularly exceptional attempts, either good or bad, that reach either end of the range.

THAT is reasonably intuitive, but I still think the mechanics of modifying that task attempt with bonuses or penalties is not. And that's generally why I prefer to roll a flat probability for task attempts, mechanical ease. 

Fun discussion, though.


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## mmu1 (Oct 20, 2005)

billd91 said:
			
		

> You find it MORE intuitive that a -2 on the check affects a character whose target number is 12 significantly more (effectively -24%) than a character whose target number is 16 (effectively -8%) compared to a -2 giving all characters a -10% lower chance of success?
> 
> I find that curious.




A -2 in D&D is also weighed differently depending on the level of skill. If you hit on 11+, it reduces your chances of success by 20%. If you only hit on 18+, if reduces your chances of success by 66%. It hardly matters at really low or really high skill, just like in GURPS...

So much for intuitiveness.


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## Conaill (Oct 20, 2005)

billd91 said:
			
		

> The trouble here is, these situations and how they should be approached are exactly the same. In both cases, there's only one +2 arrow so there's no fixed average increase in damage.



Fine - _expected_ increase in damage.

In D&D, the expected increase in damage from a +2 arrow is independent of your chance to hit in the first place (provided you stay within the 1-20 range). In GURPS, the expected increase in damage will be highest  if your chance to hit is 50% and drops off both for harder and easier shots. WHereas teh first seems more elegant on paper, in practice the second is actually more intuitive because it corresponds better with the real world. "Don't waste your ammo on *that* shot - wait for a good opportunity to use that +2 arrow, it's your last one!"


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## Jim Hague (Oct 20, 2005)

What surprises me in all this is that people are bothering to calculate percentages for success.  There's very, very few ways a characters would know this in all but the most general and nebulous way...why sit there and play the numbers game when you could be roleplaying the encounter, whatever it may be?   Isn't that called metagaming and generally frowned upon?


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## Conaill (Oct 20, 2005)

Jim Hague said:
			
		

> What surprises me in all this is that people are bothering to calculate percentages for success.  There's very, very few ways a characters would know this in all but the most general and nebulous way...why sit there and play the numbers game when you could be roleplaying the encounter, whatever it may be?   Isn't that called metagaming and generally frowned upon?



Yup. That doesn't stop people from calculating their optimal amount of Power Attack to maximize expected damage output though. Heck, I believe there was even a seminar on that at Gencon a few years ago...


----------



## Jim Hague (Oct 20, 2005)

Conaill said:
			
		

> Yup. That doesn't stop people from calculating their optimal amount of Power Attack to maximize expected damage output though. Heck, I believe there was even a seminar on that at Gencon a few years ago...




Oh, I know - I had a player (imagine the half-ogre fighter with spiked chain from that Order of the Stick strip, but make him a psi-warrior Polymorphed into a troll) that did exactly that.  It's an attitude that's just incomprehensible to me.  I mean, if someone's having fun doing it, great...but IME it's more often someone that's either trying to gain what amounts to a metagame advantage, or that views the game as a competition between GM and players.  And in both cases, that's not a Good Thing.


----------



## VirgilCaine (Oct 20, 2005)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> I fold.
> 
> Have you actually _played_ Synnibar?




Remember, you folded!








I've heard the legends, as we all have. 

But no, of course not. I'm not rich enough or stupid enough (poor, non-working college student) to waste money on a novelty item like _Synnibar_.


----------



## tetsujin28 (Oct 20, 2005)

VirgilCaine said:
			
		

> Of course, I just want to use it for contemporary horror campaigns, so the myriad books aren't of much interest to me, neither are the myriad Pyramid sample articles (use the search function, lots of good stuff there, even for my limited wants) dealing with GURPS Fantasy and GURPS Black Ops and GURPS whatever.



There really are a lot of supplements you should consider if you're going to be doing contemporary horror: GURPS Horror, Spirits, Voodoo, and Cabal are all excellent. You might also want to take a look at the two volumes of Suppressed Transmission.


----------



## tetsujin28 (Oct 20, 2005)

Ethernaut said:
			
		

> 4. Voodoo/Spirits - my favorite magic system... which can be adapted to other games



Gotta agree with you. It's the coolest magic system out there, including the over-rated Ars Magica.


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## Numion (Oct 20, 2005)

Jim Hague said:
			
		

> I mean, if someone's having fun doing it, great...but IME it's more often someone that's either trying to gain what amounts to a metagame advantage, or that views the game as a competition between GM and players.  And in both cases, that's not a Good Thing.




So sure of your opinion, you are [/Yoda]. Have you ever seen the player type who thrives on this type of thing? I have, and it's not necessarily disruptive. We're all big boys, and as long as the DM keeps the game from devolving into munchkinism a little number crunching doesn't hurt anybody.

The player just has to do his maths 'on the fly' in a timely fashion as not to disrupt the game. Using power attack is one factor the fighter can control in his hacking - deciding how much accuracy you sacrifice for straight power in the blow is no different from a sorcerer applying empower metamagic or whatnot. 

As for Gurps .. I really like the game in theory. It is designed in a fashion that it makes sense. Today at the game shop I even almost caved in and got the 4th ed, but since I already have 3rd ed and no functional campaign or even a one-shot came out of that, I decided not to go for it. All the pieces are there, but it just doesn't translate to good gaming for me.


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## Jim Hague (Oct 20, 2005)

Numion said:
			
		

> So sure of your opinion, you are [/Yoda]. Have you ever seen the player type who thrives on this type of thing? I have, and it's not necessarily disruptive. We're all big boys, and as long as the DM keeps the game from devolving into munchkinism a little number crunching doesn't hurt anybody.
> 
> The player just has to do his maths 'on the fly' in a timely fashion as not to disrupt the game. Using power attack is one factor the fighter can control in his hacking - deciding how much accuracy you sacrifice for straight power in the blow is no different from a sorcerer applying empower metamagic or whatnot.
> 
> As for Gurps .. I really like the game in theory. It is designed in a fashion that it makes sense. Today at the game shop I even almost caved in and got the 4th ed, but since I already have 3rd ed and no functional campaign or even a one-shot came out of that, I decided not to go for it. All the pieces are there, but it just doesn't translate to good gaming for me.




Hi!  Go back and read what I said again - I know there's people for which that sort of activity is fun; I simply find it incomprehensible.  

As a GM I wouldn't allow it save for a few concepts where it made sense _in character_ for the person in question to calculate the odds.  Obviously, I couldn't stop a player from doing so in their head, but the moment it _did_ become a disruption or slow the game down, the hammer gets applied.

In any case, we're derailing things a bit.  As a GM, I don't find that GURPS satisfies my needs in gaming anymore.  Lite really wasn't enough to sway me back to a system I came to loathe (admittedly at least some of that was my fault), but I still pick up GURPS supplements that have interesting topics since the _information_ in them is almost universally useful.


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## VirgilCaine (Oct 20, 2005)

tetsujin28 said:
			
		

> There really are a lot of supplements you should consider if you're going to be doing contemporary horror: GURPS Horror, Spirits, Voodoo, and Cabal are all excellent. You might also want to take a look at the two volumes of Suppressed Transmission.




Given, but that's four of them. I'm not planning on it being ghost-heavy (_Supernatural_, I'm looking at you...) and I'm going for more of a CoC feel to it.


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## mmu1 (Oct 20, 2005)

Jim Hague said:
			
		

> What surprises me in all this is that people are bothering to calculate percentages for success.  There's very, very few ways a characters would know this in all but the most general and nebulous way...why sit there and play the numbers game when you could be roleplaying the encounter, whatever it may be?   Isn't that called metagaming and generally frowned upon?




Yeah, taking the time to plan your next combat move (because you play under the assumption that someone who adventures for a living might have a solid grasp of tactics, especially when his life depends on it every day) while other people are taking their turns in combat is metagaming. It's awful, the way game play would speed up if everyone did it.


----------



## Conaill (Oct 20, 2005)

mmu1 said:
			
		

> Yeah, taking the time to plan your next combat move (because you play under the assumption that someone who adventures for a living might have a solid grasp of tactics, especially when his life depends on it every day) while other people are taking their turns in combat is metagaming. It's awful, the way game play would speed up if everyone did it.



No, it's awful that you insist on playing in a game system where it takes complex calculations to figure out what the most tactically sound next combat move is!


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## mmu1 (Oct 20, 2005)

Conaill said:
			
		

> No, it's awful that you insist on playing in a game system where it takes complex calculations to figure out what the most tactically sound next combat move is!




Wait... You mean I can't play D&D without doing complex math? That's it, it's Storyteller for me from now on.


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## Conaill (Oct 21, 2005)

Amber, baby! Diceless all the way...


----------



## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 21, 2005)

VirgilCaine said:
			
		

> Given, but that's four of them. I'm not planning on it being ghost-heavy (_Supernatural_, I'm looking at you...) and I'm going for more of a CoC feel to it.




Then go for GURPS Horror and the two Suppressed Transmission volumes - which technically aren't GURPS, but are full of weirdness with often explicitly stated connections to the Cthulhu Mythos.

If you are reading them without getting dozens of adventure and campaign ideas, you are doing something wrong.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 21, 2005)

> I've never played GURPS but i like what i'm hearing about the supplements. Those that enjoy them, what would you say are the top five supplement books out there? And are they generic enough to be applied to a d20 game, or any other system?




I'd go with the more generic ones, myself.  Things like the Martial Arts supplements are simply excellent, and you can easily use them to flesh things out in ANY RPG stystem with a little work.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 21, 2005)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> I'd go with the more generic ones, myself.  Things like the Martial Arts supplements are simply excellent, and you can easily use them to flesh things out in ANY RPG stystem with a little work.




Actually, GURPS Martial Arts, though it contains a lot of information on real world martial arts styles, does have a fair amount of rule information. Converting it will take some work.

No idea how this will work out with the upcoming GURPS Martial Arts for GURPS 4e, though...


----------



## Jim Hague (Oct 21, 2005)

mmu1 said:
			
		

> Yeah, taking the time to plan your next combat move (because you play under the assumption that someone who adventures for a living might have a solid grasp of tactics, especially when his life depends on it every day) while other people are taking their turns in combat is metagaming. It's awful, the way game play would speed up if everyone did it.




Wow, snark much?  

My _point_, which you're missing in your valiant but vain efforts to appear cool, is that sitting there and calculating the optimal numbers can be a problem, and not something I'd allow.  Planning what you do in character is fine; working out the exact range and modifiers is something for the GM.   Knowing what modifiers to shuffle around for optimal effect isn't something the character'd know, save under certain circumstances (having some attribute that reveals a weak spot, for example), and even then I'd simply say that's a game effect.  In cases of Feats like Power Attack (d20, not GURPS, obviously), there needs to be flexibility, but the player should describe what they're doing and explain how those numbers come out in character.

But again, threaddrift.  Back to Jurgen kindly and expertly explaining the good points of GURPS.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 21, 2005)

Jim Hague said:
			
		

> But again, threaddrift.  Back to Jurgen kindly and expertly explaining the good points of GURPS.




Why, thank you!

Are there any remaining questions? I need to get back in the mood for my monthly GURPS Eberron session on Sunday...


----------



## mmu1 (Oct 21, 2005)

Jim Hague said:
			
		

> Wow, snark much?
> 
> My _point_, which you're missing in your valiant but vain efforts to appear cool, is that sitting there and calculating the optimal numbers can be a problem, and not something I'd allow.  Planning what you do in character is fine; working out the exact range and modifiers is something for the GM.   Knowing what modifiers to shuffle around for optimal effect isn't something the character'd know, save under certain circumstances (having some attribute that reveals a weak spot, for example), and even then I'd simply say that's a game effect.  In cases of Feats like Power Attack (d20, not GURPS, obviously), there needs to be flexibility, but the player should describe what they're doing and explain how those numbers come out in character.




Yeah, I do, when someone thinks he can talk down to me because he's under the impression that his way of playing the game is the only _right_ way to play the game, and has his head stuck so far up his third point of contact he can't even take a joke. I didn't miss your point, it's just worthless.


----------



## Jim Hague (Oct 21, 2005)

mmu1 said:
			
		

> Yeah, I do, when someone thinks he can talk down to me because he's under the impression that his way of playing the game is the only _right_ way to play the game, and has his head stuck so far up his third point of contact he can't even take a joke. I didn't miss your point, it's just worthless.




Hi!  A few things:

1)I wasn't talking down to you.  I expressed my opinions in terms of what I'd allow as a GM.  I'm sorry you feel the way you do, but that's no reason to start insulting people.

2)Being insulting is hardly funny.

3)Your post's been reported. And welcome to IL Land!  Enjoy your stay.


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## Jim Hague (Oct 21, 2005)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> Why, thank you!
> 
> Are there any remaining questions? I need to get back in the mood for my monthly GURPS Eberron session on Sunday...




Welcome, of course.  GURPS Eberron, hm?  Eenteresting...

So here's a question, and trying not to drift the thread too much - how do you deal with the differences between D&D's fire and forget spell system and GURPS' spells as skills?  Or has that changed between 3rd and 4th?


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## Eridanis (Oct 21, 2005)

mmu1, Jim Hague -

Please get off of one anothers' throats. On topic, all, or the thread will be closed.


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## Jim Hague (Oct 21, 2005)

Okiedoke.  Jurgen, given that we've run this one out, perhaps another thread going into the details on your GURPS Eberron campaign?


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## buzz (Oct 21, 2005)

Jim Hague said:
			
		

> Planning what you do in character is fine; working out the exact range and modifiers is something for the GM.   Knowing what modifiers to shuffle around for optimal effect isn't something the character'd know, save under certain circumstances (having some attribute that reveals a weak spot, for example), and even then I'd simply say that's a game effect.  In cases of Feats like Power Attack (d20, not GURPS, obviously), there needs to be flexibility, but the player should describe what they're doing and explain how those numbers come out in character.



Sorry to keep the drift going, but...

A character should be able to act in accordance with the competencies listed on their sheet. Sure, the *PC* doesn't know what a Power Attack feat is (unless he's a fighter named Roy), but that rule is how said PC's expertise is reflected in the laws of the game universe. IMO, gaming the calculation for best BAB sacrifice when Power Attacking is just *playing the character properly*.

Sure, there's a point at which this can go overboard, but too much separation of player and character knowledge short-changes the character, and results in, IMO, unrealistic results, simulation-wise. People are generally aware of their capabilties, especially in their fields of expertise. Characters are people, too!   

As for bell-curves being inherently more intuitive than flat distributions... I don't agree. It really depends how the die mechanic is used in the game. (I also think "intuitive" isn't really the right term. I don't thnk there's anything "intuitive" about whether action resolution should be resolved with a flat or curved distribution. We've left intuition far behind at that point. What's intuitive about both mechanics is that "high nunber = good".)

IME, I'm usually guesstimating, anyway. With d20, guesstimating is pretty easy because it's all multiples of 5. With HERO (my 3d6 system), guesstimating is pretty easy because I just look at how far my final target number is from 10-11 (the top of the curve).

Anyway, as for GURPS...

Didn't really like GURPS 3e. Like GURPS 4e quite a bit. _Transhuman Space_ is badass.

Unfortunately, my first chance to actually _play_ GURPS was at GenCon this year, and it was the singularly crappiest gaming experience ever. Not becasue of the rules, but because of the GM and other players. After about an hour and forty-five minutes of sitting at a cramped table in a deafeningly loud room with _nine_ people that numbered among them the very smelly, the very vulgar, the very immature, and they very misogynist... and having barely moved beyond the basic intro for the adventure, I just got up and left. First time I have ever walked out on a game.

So... yeah, not much on-topic content here. Thanks for your time!


----------



## Jim Hague (Oct 21, 2005)

buzz said:
			
		

> Sorry to keep the drift going, but...
> 
> A character should be able to act in accordance with the competencies listed on their sheet. Sure, the *PC* doesn't know what a Power Attack feat is (unless he's a fighter named Roy), but that rule is how said PC's expertise is reflected in the laws of the game universe. IMO, gaming the calculation for best BAB sacrifice when Power Attacking is just *playing the character properly*.
> 
> Sure, there's a point at which this can go overboard, but too much separation of player and character knowledge short-changes the character, and results in, IMO, unrealistic results, simulation-wise. People are generally aware of their capabilties, especially in their fields of expertise. Characters are people, too!




Mea culpa, mea culpa.  You've said what I was trying (and apparently failing) to say better than I, Buzz.  I know that numbers play is something some people enjoy...I just don't comprehend _why_.  Looking at it, it sounds as much fun as playing with a spreadsheet.  Is that wrong?  Not at all.  Can it slow down the game?  Sometimes.  My preferred style of play isn't, despite some 3rd party claims to the contrary, the only one out there.



> Unfortunately, my first chance to actually _play_ GURPS was at GenCon this year, and it was the singularly crappiest gaming experience ever. Not becasue of the rules, but because of the GM and other players. After about an hour and forty-five minutes of sitting at a cramped table in a deafeningly loud room with _nine_ people that numbered among them the very smelly, the very vulgar, the very immature, and they very misogynist... and having barely moved beyond the basic intro for the adventure, I just got up and left. First time I have ever walked out on a game.
> 
> So... yeah, not much on-topic content here. Thanks for your time!




Even given my dislike of 3e, I'd say give it another chance - con games are going to be in many cases radically different from a more normalized tabletop session.  Hey, maybe if we ask nicely, Jurgen'll do some 4e in an online game...


----------



## buzz (Oct 21, 2005)

Jim Hague said:
			
		

> I know that numbers play is something some people enjoy...I just don't comprehend _why_.  Looking at it, it sounds as much fun as playing with a spreadsheet.  Is that wrong?  Not at all.  Can it slow down the game?  Sometimes.  My preferred style of play isn't, despite some 3rd party claims to the contrary, the only one out there.



Gotcha, JH. I've seen many a game derailed by excessive metagaming. Nonetheless, I like to keep the numbers in mind and try to make optimal choices. Not so much becasue I like math, but because I like suceeding spectacularly.  D&D also rewards this to a certian extent ("resource management"), so I see it as just part of the play experience. I tolerate/enjoy it the same way I do point-optimization in HERO; sometimes, it's the means to a desired end and enjoyable play experience. For me, at least.



			
				Jim Hague said:
			
		

> Even given my dislike of 3e, I'd say give it another chance - con games are going to be in many cases radically different from a more normalized tabletop session.  Hey, maybe if we ask nicely, Jurgen'll do some 4e in an online game...



Yeah, I don't blame the system at all. I do feel bad that GURPS and SJG were represented this way at *the* major gaming con, though.

I don't see any of my current gaming groups haknering for a GURPS 4e campiagn any time soon. However, I tend to use ENWorld gamedays as my RPG laboratory. I'll probably end up running some GURPS at one of them. It's going to have to wait until after I run some _Savage Worlds_, though.


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## Shayd3000 (Oct 21, 2005)

Ethernaut said:
			
		

> As far as I'm concerned, any system is as good as the GM. And a GM should run any system that they are personally comfortable with.




Here here!

You want quick....try _Torg_ on for size 

George


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## Ethernaut (Oct 21, 2005)

Shayd3000 said:
			
		

> Here here!
> 
> You want quick....try _Torg_ on for size
> 
> George




Ah, nothing beats *Risus* for quickness. 

But Risus was inspired by the West End D6 system, so there you go.


----------



## Ethernaut (Oct 21, 2005)

buzz said:
			
		

> Yeah, I don't blame the system at all. I do feel bad that GURPS and SJG were represented this way at *the* major gaming con, though.
> 
> I don't see any of my current gaming groups haknering for a GURPS 4e campiagn any time soon. However, I tend to use ENWorld gamedays as my RPG laboratory. I'll probably end up running some GURPS at one of them. It's going to have to wait until after I run some _Savage Worlds_, though.




I had a similar experience at GenCon this year. My only GURPS game was terrible. It's a shame, since I had two excellent GURPS games at GenCon '04 (the _Mystery Men_ game was absolutely inspired).  

Maybe I'll run a GURPS game next time I make it to a game day...


----------



## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 21, 2005)

Jim Hague said:
			
		

> Welcome, of course.  GURPS Eberron, hm?  Eenteresting...
> 
> So here's a question, and trying not to drift the thread too much - how do you deal with the differences between D&D's fire and forget spell system and GURPS' spells as skills?  Or has that changed between 3rd and 4th?




Well, none of the PCs wanted to become a wizard so far... Still, I worked some rules out.

As a matter of fact, there _is_ a "spell memorization system" in the new Basic Set - it is under "Modular Abilities". I worked it out that you gain a "spell slot" for every 5 character points. You can prepare any spell from your spell book (which can contain any spell you have copied from somewhere else, though you do have to follow the standard prerequisite chains for this - but you don't have to spend any character points on the spells themselves, only the spell slots). This takes one minute to do. This means that wizards are unlikely to have as many spell slots as mid- to high-level D&D wizards (which I consider to be a blessing, since that got really annoying after a time), but they can recover them faster since they don't have to rest for eight hours. They still need to pay the usual energy costs for GURPS spells, though.

One PC is playing a priest of Kol Korran, and for variety I use the ritual magic system explained in the 4e Basic Set for priestly magic. Though it does have some similarities with the system from GURPS Voodoo/Spirits, it is _not_ the same. Basically, you learn each college of magic as an IQ/Very Hard skill, and you can cast any spell in that college - but at a penalty equal to the number of prerequisites they have (though you can buy off that penaltey as a Technique). I gave each deity four different college their priests could use.


----------



## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 21, 2005)

Jim Hague said:
			
		

> Even given my dislike of 3e, I'd say give it another chance - con games are going to be in many cases radically different from a more normalized tabletop session.  Hey, maybe if we ask nicely, Jurgen'll do some 4e in an online game...




Hmmm... Intriguing suggestion. I've never done online games before, though I might be willing to do a one-shot as an experiment. Did you have any particular genre in mind?

(If this thread does get closed, anyone interested should feel free to mail me at

jhubert AT gmx DOT de   )


----------



## Jim Hague (Oct 21, 2005)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> Hmmm... Intriguing suggestion. I've never done online games before, though I might be willing to do a one-shot as an experiment. Did you have any particular genre in mind?
> 
> (If this thread does get closed, anyone interested should feel free to mail me at
> 
> jhubert AT gmx DOT de   )





Me personally, I'm a sucker for pulpy horror, conspiracy horror...you may begin to see a pattern here.


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## Shayd3000 (Oct 21, 2005)

Ethernaut said:
			
		

> Ah, nothing beats *Risus* for quickness.
> 
> But Risus was inspired by the West End D6 system, so there you go.




At least Torg wasn't/isn't D6....blah.  Though the _Ghostbusters _incarnation of D6 was rather fun to play and GM....

Like the gentlemen said before, teh game is just the toolkit, and each GM really needs to use the toolkit that lets him best tell the story.

George


----------



## buzz (Oct 21, 2005)

Ethernaut said:
			
		

> I had a similar experience at GenCon this year. My only GURPS game was terrible.



Dare I ask, was it the Banestorm "weekend with friends" event? And was it run by a, um, portly gentleman with a Southern (US) accent?

I got the impression that the guy was an SJG MIB (their promo/outreach fan club), which made me doubly sad for SJG.  :\ 

Sorry to keep digressing.


----------



## Shayd3000 (Oct 21, 2005)

mmu1 said:
			
		

> Also, I find that most GMs, rather than accepting how deadly GURPS combat is (and the fact that it should be used as a last resort) simply find ways to fudge around it -
> 
> ...
> 
> - and I realize that there might have been circumstances I'm not aware of - but on the surface, reading about something like a combat between PCs and multiple ogres sort of makes me cringe. The fact there were no multiple fatalties as a result of fighting extremely strong monsters so tough they could be hit multiple times and keep on making their Health rolls to avoid passing out or dying tells me either punches were pulled, or the PCs were godlike. Four brutes that use even rudimentary tactics and can shrug off tons damage = let's all full-out attack one PC at the same time since we won't be able to dodge their blows anyway, so what do we need an active defense for = one dead PC)




Or that perhaps the GM was playing the Ogres as BIG DUMB BRUTES.  This means that they would not be using any kind of tactic, no matter how "common sense" we might think it is.  

In the games that I run, Intelligence is an important factor in determining what tactics I use.  If the Int of the NPC's is higher, I play them smarter, and let them "know" (ie. intuit) who the right targets really are.  If the int is lower, then I tend to have them go after random targets, which usually comes off as being stupid.  

Now my players tend to be _tactics challenged_ so it can get to be a challenge to play the opponents as being dumber....

Of course this has nothing to do with GURPS.....

...except that we should be careful to distinguish between a GM's technique and game mechanics/rules..._DISCLAIMER:  this has been your obligatory on-topic sentence, now move along, move along._

George


----------



## mmu1 (Oct 21, 2005)

Shayd3000 said:
			
		

> Or that perhaps the GM was playing the Ogres as BIG DUMB BRUTES.  This means that they would not be using any kind of tactic, no matter how "common sense" we might think it is.




Which makes all-out attacks all the more likely, in my opinion - charging in club swinging, with no concern for your own safety because you're big and have thick skin seems very much like a dumb brute thing to do. It's trying to dodge and parry that's out of character. True, they might very well not be coordinated - but it takes no particular intelligence to gang up on a single enemy... wolves can manage it, so why not ogres?

I could be wrong about this particular combat, but I don't think I'm wrong in this: GURPS is completely unsuited for playing games pitting a group of adventurers against monsters and encounters adapted from D&D, if you use the rules as written. The system is, simply put, deadlier by an order of magnitude.


----------



## tetsujin28 (Oct 21, 2005)

Shayd3000 said:
			
		

> Though the _Ghostbusters _incarnation of D6 was rather fun to play and GM....



You mean more that the d6 incarnation of _Ghostbusters_ wasn't fun to play.


----------



## tetsujin28 (Oct 21, 2005)

mmu1 said:
			
		

> I could be wrong about this particular combat, but I don't think I'm wrong in this: GURPS is completely unsuited for playing games pitting a group of adventurers against monsters and encounters adapted from D&D, if you use the rules as written. The system is, simply put, deadlier by an order of magnitude.



True. But that's a point thing. Start the PCs off with 200 + disads, and you've got a pretty good approximation of a 10th-level party. But yes, strangely enough, you can't just port D&D over to GURPS and expect it to run the same. They're different games, with different design philosophies.


----------



## mmu1 (Oct 22, 2005)

tetsujin28 said:
			
		

> True. But that's a point thing. Start the PCs off with 200 + disads, and you've got a pretty good approximation of a 10th-level party. But yes, strangely enough, you can't just port D&D over to GURPS and expect it to run the same. They're different games, with different design philosophies.




Heh... Fair enough, I suppose my point - rather than the obvious fact you can't just port over D&D to GURPS and expect it to work - was that, despite GURPS supposedly being universal, there are just types of games you can't play with it - at least not without changing it so much you'd be better off with a different system to begin with. 

Mutants and Masterminds, which was mentioned several times in this thread, makes for a much more universal system, despite not having been designed that way from the ground up.


----------



## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 22, 2005)

mmu1 said:
			
		

> (I don't mean this as a personal attack - and I realize that there might have been circumstances I'm not aware of - but on the surface, reading about something like a combat between PCs and multiple ogres sort of makes me cringe. The fact there were no multiple fatalties as a result of fighting extremely strong monsters so tough they could be hit multiple times and keep on making their Health rolls to avoid passing out or dying tells me either punches were pulled, or the PCs were godlike. Four brutes that use even rudimentary tactics and can shrug off tons damage = let's all full-out attack one PC at the same time since we won't be able to dodge their blows anyway, so what do we need an active defense for = one dead PC)




Well, first of all, as others have noted the ogres weren't the brightest, so the PCs were able to use superior tactics and hold them off at a choke point that only two of the ogres were being able to attack them at once. That did help a lot.

Secondly, the PCs _were_ highly competent - two 230 point combat monsters and a very good healer who did it best to keep them upright (though after the combat, he was the only one standing for some time...).

Just to give you an example, one of the fighters (a shifter) has ST 15, DX 14, HT 13, Buckler-16, Spear-17 and 5 Extra Hit Points (giving him a total of 20). He is one tough guy, and able to fight odds that would be overwhelming for ordinary humans. Still, this fight even wore him down (and he lost his shield).

And they have decided not to fight the remaining ogres who returned to the lair - the combat was too close for their liking...



> Which also makes complete GURPS one of those settings that's absolutely murderous (for either the PCs or NPCs) if someone on one side of the table is significantly better at gaming the system, playing the game, roll-playing, whatever you want to call it.  In D&D, if you don't plan your tactics well, you take an AOO. In GURPS, if you don't plan your tactics well, the first hit you take puts you out of the fight.




Not neccessarily so, if you have a high HT or Strong Will. Unlike D&D, when you reach a certain injury level, you won't pass out automatically - you can roll each round to see if you remain standing. And if your HT is high enough, you can last for a _long_ time (just ask me about the Trollslayer in our GURPS Warhammer campaign and the 30 goblins some time...).


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## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 22, 2005)

Jim Hague said:
			
		

> Me personally, I'm a sucker for pulpy horror, conspiracy horror...you may begin to see a pattern here.




Hmmm... Something like that could be arranged.

Anyone else interested?


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## tetsujin28 (Oct 22, 2005)

mmu1 said:
			
		

> Heh... Fair enough, I suppose my point - rather than the obvious fact you can't just port over D&D to GURPS and expect it to work - was that, despite GURPS supposedly being universal, there are just types of games you can't play with it - at least not without changing it so much you'd be better off with a different system to begin with.



Again, you _can_ create the equivalent of D&D parties. You just have to know what point level you're looking at. A beginning GURPS PC is a lot more competent than a beginning D&D one. Conversely, you have to give out a larger amount of XP than is normal in GURPS for PCs to keep up with D&D's level abilities. This doesn't mean that GURPS can't do the same thing that D&D does. It just means that it can't do it the same _way_.







> Mutants and Masterminds, which was mentioned several times in this thread, makes for a much more universal system, despite not having been designed that way from the ground up.



I'm not sure I agree, and I'm a huge M&M fan. It doesn't do gritty well. It can do pulp, but that's not the same thing. But M&M can indeed do a pretty darn good imitation of D&D (thus the creation of the Blue Rose/True20 engine).

It really just comes down to the fact that every game is going to put its own personality stamp on any game run with it. A GURPS dungeon-crawl game is still going to feel like GURPS, and D&D in space is still going to feel like D&D. The difference is that GURPS is designed to have changes happen to it. D&D complains a bit more, due to it being a more dedicated and focused game.


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## Stormrunner (Oct 22, 2005)

OK, my 0.02 here, as someone who played GURPS 3e for 15+ years (only reason I'm not playing now is lack of a group) AND owns most of the WotC d20 books except for the setting-specific FR and Eberron stuff.

GURPS tries to be "universal", but I suspect that's something that may not be possible for ANY game system.  Similar to Goedel's theorem that any "language" (including mathematics) will have at least one possible valid "sentence" (equation, whatever) that doesn't "parse". (e.g. "This sentence is false."  is neither false nor true in English, despite being "valid" - following all the rules for sentence structure.), IMO any game system is going to have at least one setting it doesn't simulate well.

GURPS works very well for grim-and-gritty, low-magic campaigns.  X-Files? Saving Private Ryan? King Arthur? Cthulhu? Constantine? Dracula? Firefly? Babylon 5? Sam Spade? All good.

Star Wars? Star Trek? Lord of the Rings? Battletech? Warhammer? Batman? D&D? Sin City? Cyberpunk? Not quite so good, but doable.

X-Men? Thor? Dr. Strange? Superman? The Matrix? Wuxia? Slayers? Not really up to it.

Generally, the farther away from "standard human" a character's race/skills/powers are, the harder it is to simulate him in GURPS.  The system handles swinging a sword or shooting a pistol quite well, but doesn't scale well to swinging a battleship or shooting a Wave Motion Gun.

What I really like about GURPS is the level of research and playtesting that goes into it, which is one of the reasons the supplements are so good.  Subscribers to the Pyramid boards can preview, playtest, and suggest edits for upcoming books - I've got my name on the credit pages of a couple of supplements that way.  This allows the supplements to take advantage of the collective knowledge base.  In the Space playtests, for example, we had a couple of posters who were actual astronomers and physicists in their day jobs.  This tends to weed out the most broken/unrealistic stuff.  Not that there AREN'T broken combos - but they tend to come about when you combine stuff from different books/genres.  This is also probably the reason GURPS works better with more "realistic" genres.  If something has real-world stats (e.g., fuel consumption of an M60 tank), somebody will probably post it and the book will be tweaked accordingly.  But there are no real-world sentient AI programs, or people who can lift a battleship, so any stats on such abilities are purely off-the-top-of-the-head and cannot be fact-checked.

In my experience, playing a GURPS character doesn't require any more math than playing a D&D character - both tend to require summing up a lot of modifiers.  _Creating_ a GURPS character is a little more complex - but more flexible, and for the most part, it's a one-time cost: you do the calculation, write the resulting number on your sheet, and just use that number from then on, no need to redo the calculation each time.  It's the GM who needs a calculator when designing adventures (but much less so when running them).

I play both, I like both.  Which is better, a knife or a spoon?  Depends on whether you're eating steak or ice cream.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 22, 2005)

Stormrunner said:
			
		

> GURPS works very well for grim-and-gritty, low-magic campaigns.  X-Files? Saving Private Ryan? King Arthur? Cthulhu? Constantine? Dracula? Firefly? Babylon 5? Sam Spade? All good.
> 
> Star Wars? Star Trek? Lord of the Rings? Battletech? Warhammer? Batman? D&D? Sin City? Cyberpunk? Not quite so good, but doable.
> 
> X-Men? Thor? Dr. Strange? Superman? The Matrix? Wuxia? Slayers? Not really up to it.




The new edition _does_ seem to work better for high-powered stuff, though.

But admittedly, I haven't run adventures for characters for higher than 230 points...

(Oh, and GURPS runs _perfectly_ for Warhammer - I should know, I have run two campaigns for it. And if Warhammer isn't the prime example for "grim-and-gritty", I don't know what it is...)


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## bodhi (Oct 22, 2005)

Jim Hague said:
			
		

> As a GM I wouldn't allow it save for a few concepts where it made sense _in character_ for the person in question to calculate the odds.




Do you have many players that want to play C-3PO or Spock?


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## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 23, 2005)

In some ways, GURPS characters can be _tougher_ than their D&D counterparts. A character in a decent set of plate mail is all but invulnerable to attacks from physically weak fores, for example. Even a set of chain mail can make a character last very long unless the enemy has a high ST score or high tech weapons.


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## Ethernaut (Oct 23, 2005)

buzz said:
			
		

> Dare I ask, was it the Banestorm "weekend with friends" event? And was it run by a, um, portly gentleman with a Southern (US) accent?




It was, though nobody walked out of our game. We "finnished" two hours early so nobody had to. What a waste. And we didn't even have a single combat.

It was a shame, really. The concept had so much potential. I could have run it so much better.

But I don't want to diss the guy too much. Some people like the "place the players in a situation and let them do whatever the hell the want and never pay any attention to pacing or drama" type of game. That's not my style. I like a cinematic game with lots of action and drama.


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## Ethernaut (Oct 23, 2005)

mmu1 said:
			
		

> GURPS is completely unsuited for playing games pitting a group of adventurers against monsters and encounters adapted from D&D, if you use the rules as written. The system is, simply put, deadlier by an order of magnitude.




Well, some might not prefer to use GURPS for such games, but I found that it works just fine. My only Gurps 4e game that I ran was adapted directly from a D&D module and we had a great time. 4e is *not* as deadly everyone says. It's actually hard to die. Easy to go down, but hard to die. With magical healing, a competent party can do just fine against D&D style monsters in a typical dungeon. And with wizards regaining fatigue every 5 or 10 minutes, they don't need to return to the surface as often.


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## VirgilCaine (Oct 24, 2005)

Ethernaut said:
			
		

> Well, some might not prefer to use GURPS for such games, but I found that it works just fine. My only Gurps 4e game that I ran was adapted directly from a D&D module and we had a great time. 4e is *not* as deadly everyone says. It's actually hard to die. Easy to go down, but hard to die. With magical healing, a competent party can do just fine against D&D style monsters in a typical dungeon. And with wizards regaining fatigue every 5 or 10 minutes, they don't need to return to the surface as often.




Thank you! I make the same mistake as another poster did, I mistook "realistic" for "very deadly."

In D&D you have a huge barrier of hit points between you and death, with a tiny strip of incapacitation. 
In GURPS you have a huge barrier of hitpoints between you and death and a very small barrier between you and _possible_ incapacitation. 

As long as the dice are with you, a GURPS character with high Health and appropriate ads could keep fighting until -60 * hits.


Damn, that's a REALLY good point, Ethernaut.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 24, 2005)

> Shayd3000
> Here here!
> 
> You want quick....try Torg on for size








> Ethernaut
> Ah, nothing beats Risus for quickness.




YOUNGSTERS!

You want quick, try Steve Jackson's old board/RP game Melee/Wizard/In the Labyrinth.

3 stats.  Character generation takes 5 minutes.  D6s for everything.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 24, 2005)

VirgilCaine said:
			
		

> In D&D you have a huge barrier of hit points between you and death, with a tiny strip of incapacitation.
> In GURPS you have a huge barrier of hitpoints between you and death and a very small barrier between you and _possible_ incapacitation.
> 
> As long as the dice are with you, a GURPS character with high Health and appropriate ads could keep fighting until -60 * hits.




To be precise, a character with 10 base hit points could theorethically stay alive until he has lost 60 hit points - after this, he is irrevocably dead.

However, any fantasy melee fighter is going to have more hit points than that. Hit Points in 4e are now based on ST, which costs 10 point per level. And Extra Hit Points only cost 2/level now - so depending on how many you can talk your GM into allowing you, the character can keep standing for a _very_ long time.

Let's take one of the melee fighters from my GURPS Eberron campaign. He has ST 15, 5 levels of Extra Hit Points, and HT 13.

Once he has lost 20 hit points, he will have to start rolling his HT versus unconsciousness every round to remain standing - a 83.8% chance of succeeding. Once he has reached -20 hit points, he will have to roll versus HT again to see if he dies from his wounds. The same is true at -40, -60, and -80 hit points - and at -100 hit points, he is irrevocably dead. The chance that he will make it that far if he continues to get injured is 49.3% if he keeps on making is rolls versus death.

However, the odds are that he will fall unconscious long before that, and it is rather easy to kill an unconscious foe. Still, in theory he could survive a loss of 119 hit points - not bad for a supposedly "lethal" game...


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## VirgilCaine (Oct 25, 2005)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> Once he has lost 20 hit points, he will have to start rolling his HT versus unconsciousness every round to remain standing - a 83.8% chance of succeeding. Once he has reached -20 hit points, he will have to roll versus HT again to see if he dies from his wounds. The same is true at -40, -60, and -80 hit points - and at -100 hit points, he is irrevocably dead. The chance that he will make it that far if he continues to get injured is 49.3% if he keeps on making is rolls versus death.
> 
> However, the odds are that he will fall unconscious long before that, and it is rather easy to kill an unconscious foe. Still, in theory he could survive a loss of 119 hit points - not bad for a supposedly "lethal" game...




Exactly my point. I just used an easy example.


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## Shayd3000 (Oct 25, 2005)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> YOUNGSTERS!
> 
> You want quick, try Steve Jackson's old board/RP game Melee/Wizard/In the Labyrinth.
> 
> 3 stats.  Character generation takes 5 minutes.  D6s for everything.




Been there, done that 

I wish I still had my sets.  I thought those were fun games!

George


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## Shayd3000 (Oct 25, 2005)

*Ghostbusters*



			
				tetsujin28 said:
			
		

> You mean more that the d6 incarnation of _Ghostbusters_ wasn't fun to play.




Okay, to be honest, I only ran and played (and still have my copy of) the first edition of the Ghostbusters game, though I'm pretty sure this is an early rendition of D6.  Not a game I'd want to do a campaign in, but it was great fun for light one-shots.

George


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## mmu1 (Oct 26, 2005)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> To be precise, a character with 10 base hit points could theorethically stay alive until he has lost 60 hit points - after this, he is irrevocably dead.
> 
> However, any fantasy melee fighter is going to have more hit points than that. Hit Points in 4e are now based on ST, which costs 10 point per level. And Extra Hit Points only cost 2/level now - so depending on how many you can talk your GM into allowing you, the character can keep standing for a _very_ long time.
> 
> ...




Of course, at that point the character is crippled, his active defenses become ineffectual and he can't hit back because of all the penalties either, which leaves him open to being full-attacked by someone swinging for the vitals (or worse).

And that doesn't take into account what happens when someone starts to cripple your limbs one by one, either...

I haven't quite made up my mind whether that ability of high HT characters to be easy to cripple but almost impossible to kill is a bug or a feature.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 26, 2005)

mmu1 said:
			
		

> I haven't quite made up my mind whether that ability of high HT characters to be easy to cripple but almost impossible to kill is a bug or a feature.




Well, someone has to hit a limb _and_ do 11 points of damage _after_ substracting DR. Which might be difficult to do if the attackers aren't particularly strong.

(For the record, that character in question currently prefers to wear an enchanted set of plate mail. "Unfortunately", he forgot his helmet - which he definitely regretted when they learned they would face a mind flayer - and thus, the biggest single amount damage he received happened when a rock fell on his skull...)


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## Jim Hague (Oct 26, 2005)

bodhi said:
			
		

> Do you have many players that want to play C-3PO or Spock?




Depends on the campaign.  I _do_ have plenty of happy players across two campaigns right now...a subtle indication that I'm running games to my players' satisfaction.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Oct 27, 2005)

One thing that I have noticed is that the one-second round leads to much greater _panic_ on the part of the players.

In D&D, if someone is in trouble, someone else will likely say: "OK, I'll zip across the battlefield and help him out."

In GURPS, the response will likely be: "Oh s**t, will I reach him in time?"

Only being able to move five yards per turn or so will do that to you...


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## Maximara (Nov 1, 2005)

The_Universe said:
			
		

> GURPS supplements are excellent compendiums of related source information, and often contain great adventure ideas. I have about a half dozen that I use regularly.
> 
> On the other hand, the GURPS rules make me want to die. I loathe them with every fibre of my being. They're inconveniently and inconsistently granular, and I would NEVER play in a GURPS game.




Even though I am an avid GURPS fan I will admid the 3e rules were to put it bluntly a mess. Near the end the 3e system had grown into something that looked like it had been designed by Rube Goldberg on an LSD trip. 4e fixed a lot of the problems and intergrated things like cinematic optional rules into the core rules. For example the Cannon Fodder rule allows GURPS fighter to plow through minor NPC's with an ease rivaling that of a 10th level AD&D1 Fighter plowing through Kabols. Admitedly GURPS does require a little more thought by the GM than D&D 3.x but it is a far better cross genre system than d20 is.


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## Chainsaw Mage (Nov 1, 2005)

HeapThaumaturgist said:
			
		

> Systems with short rounds are just ... annoying.




Amen to that, brother.  That's why AD&D 1e and 2e are true MEN'S games.  ONE MINUTE ROUNDS, baby.  None of these 1 second/6 seconds nonsense.


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## Shadoglare (Nov 3, 2005)

I'm new to the GURPS world - been playing D&D D20 for a few years, but when I decided I wanted to try GMing a game I wanted to try out a different system because I always felt the D&D rules were too unrealistic, especially when it comes to combat. 

I'm planning a sci-fi campaign, and looked over a large number of game systems to see which I'd want to use... and considered D20 Future, deciding that it looked it it would likely fall under the same limitations as D&D, just with different images pasted on the game system. 

GURPS, I will admit, has an absolute crapload of rules, *especially* when it comes to combat (we're talking 55 pages of rules, not even including the damage effects section - in comparison D&D has about 30 - more like 15 if you consider how much of that is taken up by graphics), which, if I'm sure I included/allowed all of them, would cause a 1-second combat round to take like 20 minutes to play realtime. 

As a result I'm planning on using a basic set of combat rules, with the possibility of allowing players to use the more advanced rules only in special situations where the situation really calls for it. 

I've already warned the people I'm planning to play with not to get overwhelmed by the books - because they try to cover *everything* in one book, there are a tons of rules & options - but over half of which probably won't apply to your individual campaign, so they can be ignored (for example there are if I remember right something like 60+ pages of advantages (aka feats) and disadvantages - but as I'm planning a semi-realistic sci-fi campaign, I can just tell the players to "ignore anything marked with an alien or a lightning bolt." Which is probably half of them if not more).


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## Barak (Nov 3, 2005)

I'm my limited in lenght, pretty wide in scope (as in, I've played in a bunch of different settings, but never for long) experience, GURPS do their own stuff pretty darn well, and "copy" other stuff very badly.  IE:  GURPS:Japan was fun.  GURPS:Vampire was dumb, and annoying.

That's not really that surprising.  I'd -expect- a game limited to one style to be better at it than a generic game.  But GURPS works pretty darn well at their own stuff.

As for players using math/game knowledge..  As a DM, I'd -never- punish that, especially for non-1st level character.  That 10th level fighter in D&D will know much better than his player that moving 5' will not get a blow pass his defense, but moving 10' might.


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## Breakdaddy (Nov 3, 2005)

wingsandsword said:
			
		

> Honestly, d20 in some ways became what GURPS tried to be, a universal multi-genre system.





/gags


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## Breakdaddy (Nov 3, 2005)

Numion said:
			
		

> If a game plays like a novel, I'd rather go read one.




If a table top RPG plays like a video game, I'd rather go play one.


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## Maximara (Nov 4, 2005)

Barak said:
			
		

> I'm my limited in lenght, pretty wide in scope (as in, I've played in a bunch of different settings, but never for long) experience, GURPS do their own stuff pretty darn well, and "copy" other stuff very badly.  IE:  GURPS:Japan was fun.  GURPS:Vampire was dumb, and annoying.




Well the rumor mill here is that GURPS had a major headache dealing with White Wolf which is why those licenced products (Vampire, Mage the assention) turned out the way they did. For the most part when SJG does a licenced product it it usially a top notch effort as demonstrated by Conan, Castle Falkenstein, and Traveler.  Yes there have been a few clunkers over the years (Fantasy II: The Madlands being the worst of the lot) but D&D has had similar mess ups.


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## sfgiants (Nov 4, 2005)

Wow, thanks for all the opinions/input. I am still deciding. The game seems good, but I am having trouble getting over the idea that each second is detailed. Seems like un-needed complexity I guess. Am I wrong here?


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## Conaill (Nov 4, 2005)

sfgiants said:
			
		

> Wow, thanks for all the opinions/input. I am still deciding. The game seems good, but I am having trouble getting over the idea that each second is detailed. Seems like un-needed complexity I guess. Am I wrong here?



Doesn't bother me. 

It *does* bother me in DnD that, even with 6-second rounds, people still say "that one attack really represents a set of feints and half-jabs spread over a 6 second period, with perhaps only one jab in there with an actual chance of connecting". That's right up there with "hitpoints in DnD are not really hits"... 

You know how *long* 6 seconds is in combat?


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## Jürgen Hubert (Nov 4, 2005)

Maximara said:
			
		

> Yes there have been a few clunkers over the years (Fantasy II: The Madlands being the worst of the lot) but D&D has had similar mess ups.




You know, Fantasy II has a certain strange appeal. I mean, a weird, alien, and deadly fantasy landscape reshaped by the whims of cthonic deities modelled after Winnie the Pooh and friends can't _help_ but be fascinating.

But I can't imagine actually _playing_ such a campaign. Still, the monsters were way cool, and perhaps I will steal them at some point...


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## Maximara (Nov 5, 2005)

Chainsaw Mage said:
			
		

> Amen to that, brother.  That's why AD&D 1e and 2e are true MEN'S games.  ONE MINUTE ROUNDS, baby.  None of these 1 second/6 seconds nonsense.




When Man to Man came out (the combat system that evolved into GURPS) we made jokes about the AD&D1 combat round. Iiiiiittttts iiiiiinnnnn ssssslloooowww mooootttttiooooonnnnn.


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## Numion (Nov 5, 2005)

Conaill said:
			
		

> You know how *long* 6 seconds is in combat?




In D&D fights usually last 3-8 rounds in my experience. In real life fights can easily last much longer than that. If D&D used one second rounds the fights would last even less time.


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## buzz (Nov 5, 2005)

The real point is that D&D's rounds and hit points work fine in play. They only appear problematic when dissected on gaming fora.


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## Conaill (Nov 5, 2005)

buzz said:
			
		

> The real point is that D&D's rounds and hit points work fine in play. They only appear problematic when dissected on gaming fora.



Oh, I never claimed they were "problematic". As a game mechanic it works fine. Just like I'm not going to complain that pawns in chess can only move one square at a time. I mean, if that pawn really put in an effort - maybe it's an elite pawn, veteran of many campaigns - maybe it should be able to move _two_ squares every one in a while, right? Sure, you'll have one very tired pawn, but...  

Anyway  yes, as a game mechanic, D&D works fine. So does GURPS's combat system. It's just that GURPS to me _feels_ a lot more realistic, just like D&D feels more realistic than a game of chess. That doesn't mean it doesn't _work_...


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## robertsconley (Nov 13, 2005)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> GURPS combat can run really well if the GM knows how to work the system. But it works under a different set of assumptions, and this is something that can catch new GURPS GMs off guard.





As a GM of GURPS for over 10 years the big different in combat flavor is what my group calls the "tin can" syndrome. Take a high skill opponent with a shield and plate armor magicked up to the hilt and you get a situtation where you keep making your hit rolls but the opponent keeps making the defense rolls. It starts to boil down to who makes a critical first. 

I am pointing out not to be critical of GURP but reinforce that even when using the basic combat you wind up with a very different feel then D20. The two things that attracted my players initially was the point based system of making characters, and the fact you get a defense roll in combat. 

As for me the biggest difficulty as a GM was learning all the modifiers and when to apply them. D20 was no more difficult than GURPS in my opinion when it came out if you wanted to use all the options.

One thing I will say that I was impressived how much GMing D20 felt like GM ing Gurps. Because of skills and feats I felt more comfortable with my initital D20 session than I did when I did an occasional AD&D session (switching from GURPS) in the mid 90's.

I observed that people who were used DMing AD&D tended to run their initial games like AD&D where the class pretty much was determining what the character could do. While DMs used to GURPS and other skilled bases system were running looking to see what skill players had as opposed to what class they were.


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## Shadoglare (Nov 13, 2005)

robertsconley said:
			
		

> As a GM of GURPS for over 10 years the big different in combat flavor is what my group calls the "tin can" syndrome. Take a high skill opponent with a shield and plate armor magicked up to the hilt and you get a situtation where you keep making your hit rolls but the opponent keeps making the defense rolls. It starts to boil down to who makes a critical first.




Which is exactly why in the new campaign I'm working on right now, I'm being sure to emphasise to the players that as this is not going to be a military or merc campaign, they are not going to be annoyingly well-armed like this. They've been informed they will be allowed to carry a side-arm such as a pistol, and *maybe* some inconspicuous light armor - battles will either be in that light gunplay or in hand-to-hand brawling, or a mix (although I'm sure there will be the occassional "splatter the bad guy across the wall" exception). 
I'm sure this will take some adjustment, as the players are all mostly D&D players who are used to the "I need a better toy" mentality and are used to constantly getting weapon & armor upgrades. 
That mentality works fine in D&D because no matter how strong you & your opponents' stuff is, if you hit, you hit, and that's all there is to it. Not so with GURPS - which actually allows your target to not just stand there like a doofus and take the hit.  (D&D does have a "dodge" but all it is, is an extra feat that adds +1 to your AC against the foe you are currently engaged with). Thus, if you have thick armor and good dodging skills, and so does your opponent, I can definately see battles taking a looooooooooooooong time. 
But again that's probably why even in the GURPS rulebooks it states that their rules are designed around battle being a last resort exception, not a rule - they didn't intend them to be for hack-n-slash campaigns where you're killing off a group of baddies every time you turn a corner.


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## Twowolves (Nov 13, 2005)

Conaill said:
			
		

> Oh, I never claimed they were "problematic". As a game mechanic it works fine. Just like I'm not going to complain that pawns in chess can only move one square at a time. I mean, if that pawn really put in an effort - maybe it's an elite pawn, veteran of many campaigns - maybe it should be able to move _two_ squares every one in a while, right? Sure, you'll have one very tired pawn, but...




You mean, like when the pawn makes it's opening move?

I'd much rather play in a game with 6 second rounds, with two combatants mixing it up, each having only one (or more, for skilled fighters) real chance at a telling blow, versus playing a game where half of my actions in combat is "cocking" my axe.


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## The Cardinal (Nov 13, 2005)

robertsconley said:
			
		

> As a GM of GURPS for over 10 years the big different in combat flavor is what my group calls the "tin can" syndrome. Take a high skill opponent with a shield and plate armor magicked up to the hilt and you get a situtation where you keep making your hit rolls but the opponent keeps making the defense rolls. It starts to boil down to who makes a critical first.




...a good reason to switch to GURPS 4th Ed.


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## mhacdebhandia (Nov 14, 2005)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> You know, Fantasy II has a certain strange appeal. I mean, a weird, alien, and deadly fantasy landscape reshaped by the whims of cthonic deities modelled after Winnie the Pooh and friends can't _help_ but be fascinating.
> 
> But I can't imagine actually _playing_ such a campaign. Still, the monsters were way cool, and perhaps I will steal them at some point...



I can believe that group of players who are all really interested in roleplaying would get a kick out of the Madlanders' society and environment.

It's a fascinating read, but just as a for-instance: What the Hell is the point of detailing soulless society to the extent it was? The book doesn't really support playing them, and no Madlander who enters their cities is going to a) survive long enough to appreciate it and b) understand it even if he did.

The monsters are fantastic, as is the culture and folklore. What a bleak-minded society.


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## glass (Nov 14, 2005)

robertsconley said:
			
		

> As a GM of GURPS for over 10 years the big different in combat flavor is what my group calls the "tin can" syndrome. Take a high skill opponent with a shield and plate armor magicked up to the hilt and you get a situtation where you keep making your hit rolls but the opponent keeps making the defense rolls. It starts to boil down to who makes a critical first.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



What does 4e do to address this issue?


glass.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Nov 14, 2005)

glass said:
			
		

> What does 4e do to address this issue?




Body armor no longer adds to your defense rolls - only shields do. Standard Defense rolls are:

Dodge: Move + 3
Block: Shield Skill/2 + 3
Parry: Weapon Skill/2 + 3

The concept of Passive Defense is gone.

Oh, and there is an optional rule for highly skilled fighters - by taking a penalty to your effective melee skill, you can reduce your opponent's Defense roll on a -2/-1 basis.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Nov 14, 2005)

robertsconley said:
			
		

> As a GM of GURPS for over 10 years the big different in combat flavor is what my group calls the "tin can" syndrome. Take a high skill opponent with a shield and plate armor magicked up to the hilt and you get a situtation where you keep making your hit rolls but the opponent keeps making the defense rolls. It starts to boil down to who makes a critical first.




Well, duels between two people with good equipment and high skills _will_ take a lot of time. Possible solutions to this are:

- Don't send lots of highly skilled people against the PCs - after all, highly skilled people are supposed to be _rare_.
- Make it possible for the PCs to either use the environment against them or gang up on them if they use decent tactics. Even highly skilled opponents will have problems if they are surrounded...


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## Flexor the Mighty! (Nov 14, 2005)

I like the idea of two skilled warriors battling with strikes and parries until one makes the first mistake, ie getting hit with a critical, thus allowing thier foe to make the fatal strike.  Reminds me of movie sword fights I've seen and Jedi lightsaber battles.


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## harmyn (Nov 15, 2005)

Stormrunner said:
			
		

> ....GURPS works very well for grim-and-gritty, low-magic campaigns.  X-Files? Saving Private Ryan? King Arthur? Cthulhu? Constantine? Dracula? Firefly? Babylon 5? Sam Spade? All good.
> 
> Star Wars? Star Trek? Lord of the Rings? Battletech? Warhammer? Batman? D&D? Sin City? Cyberpunk? Not quite so good, but doable.
> 
> ...




I can't really agree with this. I've playing in or run GURPS games set in things like X-Files, King Arthur, Star Trek, Mecha-Anime, Batman, Noir-Supers, X-Men Mutant Styled, The Matrix Concept, and a couple of real kick-ace Wuxia-Hollywood Action Mini-Campaigns. It was always simply a matter of applying different optional rules and choices in character creation. All is very doable if you put forth just a wee bit of effort.

Another point of interest, I can't accept d20 games as "universal" systems because they are class-based. To take the _"classic sales-tag-line"_ from GURPS, if I wanted to take my Fantasy Mage and team him up with a World War II Operative and send them searching for treasure in Renaissance Italy; I can. In d20 I would need d20 Past, D&D, and d20 Modern (or its WWII equivalent) to cover all the needed classes and options that are expected by most to give the characters variety and options. 

Each time you go off in a direction that isn't clearly laid out and need additional options you have to try and figure out proper multi-classing options or find classes from other sources, or make your own up and hope they are well balanced. 

Don't get me wrong I have enjoyed many games in D&D 3.5 and am typically the DM, but I have a far easier time running a thrilling GURPS Supers game in 3rd or 4th edition rather than a mid to high level D&D game. But that's just me.

There are other systems out there can be adapted to universal systems, West End Games D6 system, the Reisus (sp?) game, World of Darkness, but they are all typically skill based. Class based systems can do what they are designed to do very well, but to take them off into different areas other than they were specifically designed can make for some hard work.

-------------------------

As for my favorite books, hard to say but the ones I have used the most are:

Horror
Blood Types
Creatures of the Night
Supers
Psionics

Historical ones would be:

Imperial Rome
Vikings
Celtic Myth
Aztecs
Old West


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## harmyn (Nov 15, 2005)

Flexor the Mighty! said:
			
		

> I like the idea of two skilled warriors battling with strikes and parries until one makes the first mistake, ie getting hit with a critical, thus allowing thier foe to make the fatal strike.  Reminds me of movie sword fights I've seen and Jedi lightsaber battles.




I agree, I do like this imagery myself. I've noticed in D&D that when two equal warrior types are battling it out one-on-one it frequently comes down to the same issue about one good blow. Either it is an impressive critical hit that ends the day or both end up down to about 10hp's and whoever hits first wins the day. Seen this happen several times.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Nov 15, 2005)

Flexor the Mighty! said:
			
		

> I like the idea of two skilled warriors battling with strikes and parries until one makes the first mistake, ie getting hit with a critical, thus allowing thier foe to make the fatal strike.  Reminds me of movie sword fights I've seen and Jedi lightsaber battles.




True, these _are_ fun - but you shouldn't do them too often or they will loose their drama and only get tedious. And make sure that there are other things than just the two duelists - a dramatic environment or hordes of mooks that the _other_ PCs can fight while the "champions" are duking it out...


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 15, 2005)

> Another point of interest, I can't accept d20 games as "universal" systems because they are class-based. To take the "classic sales-tag-line" from GURPS, if I wanted to take my Fantasy Mage and team him up with a World War II Operative and send them searching for treasure in Renaissance Italy; I can. In d20 I would need d20 Past, D&D, and d20 Modern (or its WWII equivalent) to cover all the needed classes and options that are expected by most to give the characters variety and options.




Maybe its just an artifact of older editions of the game (I learned in GURPS 2Ed, and own the basic book & some suppliments from GURPS 3Ed), but my personal experience was like Stormrunners- as he pointed out it was very difficult to simulate certain PCs with the basic books.  Some PC designs were only viable in various settings with setting-specific books.

I once tried to make a "regular Joe" whose one ability was telekinesis- in all of its forms and at great power.  While my fellow players had nice powerful PCs of their own, my guy could barely lift a bowling ball, and lacked fine control and so forth.  Even devoting all of my build points to one area, my PC was as useful as a bag of pasta.  I abandoned the design in favor of a nympho nutcase with a bunch of skills.

On the other hand, had we been allowed access to GURPS Supers, my guy could have lifted cars or performed surgery with his telekinetic hand.

So, in my experience, GURPS is no more generic than D20.

HERO, on the other hand, has more than earned the right to be called generic IMHO.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Nov 15, 2005)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> I once tried to make a "regular Joe" whose one ability was telekinesis- in all of its forms and at great power.  While my fellow players had nice powerful PCs of their own, my guy could barely lift a bowling ball, and lacked fine control and so forth.  Even devoting all of my build points to one area, my PC was as useful as a bag of pasta.  I abandoned the design in favor of a nympho nutcase with a bunch of skills.
> 
> On the other hand, had we been allowed access to GURPS Supers, my guy could have lifted cars or performed surgery with his telekinetic hand.
> 
> So, in my experience, GURPS is no more generic than D20.




Trust me, this is much, _much_ better with GURPS 4e. Everything you need is in a single book, and pretty much every character concept is catered to (and I have a hard time of thinking of any concept that _isn't_).


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 15, 2005)

Tell you what, Jürgen...you've at least gotten me to consider looking at it in the stores...

It will not be a priorty purchase even if I like it, though...my game group is like a swamp hit by a storm- a bunch of sticks in the mud.  If it isn't D&D 3.0 Core + class books, they're not playing it.

But I'll buy any worthy product.

So, you've at least given me reason to examine the system again...


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## Jürgen Hubert (Nov 15, 2005)

In GURPS 3e, super powers were an afterthought, and various, often mutually contradictory rules were added in various supplements and finally consolidated in the Compendia.

In GURPS 4e, all those were taken and the bugs worked out so that the rule set finally became one unified whole again...


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## buzz (Nov 15, 2005)

N.B.: I feel compeeled to address this topic whenever it comes up. Apologies in advance for thread drift.



			
				harmyn said:
			
		

> Another point of interest, I can't accept d20 games as "universal" systems because they are class-based.



d20, as a whole, is not a "universal" system and has never been marketed as such. It's simply a house system to which everyone happens to have access. That a wide variety of genres have been adapted for the system is a by-product of this.

And among some of these products are games that are arguably "universal", in that they aim to be multi-genre, e.g., BESMd20 and d20M.

Whether a class-based RPG is inferior/superior for "generic" gaming is a separate argument, one for which I think d20M makes a pretty good case. Like GURPS (especially 3e) it is as generic as its supplements allow.

As Dannyalcatraz accurately points out, HERO is really the only crunchy RPG that is truly "one book does it all." GURPS 4e is coming closer to this, though; it's much more HERO-like than 3e.  Some lighter RPGs like FUDGE can also be considered truly "generic", though this is accomplished more through omission, i.e., specifically _not_ trying to cover everything, but providing a basic framework for the GM.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 15, 2005)

The closest a D20 game comes to being generic is, oddly enough, another game that started off as a superhero game...the extremely well done _Mutants and Masterminds._

Technically, its not D20- its got some elements of HERO and Marvel Superheroes- but it still has Feats and Skills, etc...  Anyone who plays D20 would find it an easy transition to make.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Nov 16, 2005)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> The closest a D20 game comes to being generic is, oddly enough, another game that started off as a superhero game...the extremely well done _Mutants and Masterminds._




It _is_ rather good, though it does not do gritty games quite as well, and GURPS allows more fine-tuning.

GURPS is also better if you prefer equipment and innate abilities seperate - not really important in super-hero campaigns, but much more so for "classical" adventuring campaigns where the PCs are after wealth and better equipment...

That doesn't mean that M&M isn't a fine game - it is, and I have enjoyed playing it in the past myself - but it does have its limits which you should be aware of when planning campaigns.


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## philreed (Nov 16, 2005)

Anyone in the Austin area interested in GURPS may want to hit the south Lamar Half-Price Books. When I was in there yesterday I saw the 4e basic set (the slipcase, $125 version) for $20. They also had all of the 4e supplements for half-price.


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## JoeGKushner (Nov 16, 2005)

philreed said:
			
		

> Anyone in the Austin area interested in GURPS may want to hit the south Lamar Half-Price Books. When I was in there yesterday I saw the 4e basic set (the slipcase, $125 version) for $20. They also had all of the 4e supplements for half-price.




Man, that's a great deal. Heck, if I could get someone to pick that up for me, I'd be willing to pay pal them the funds!


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## jdrakeh (Nov 16, 2005)

sfgiants said:
			
		

> b) how well does Gurps actually play?




I'm playing in a GURPS Half-Life game on Thursdays. Although character creation can pretty involved, depending upon the power level of a given game, it's usually on par with D&D 3x characetr creation in terms of time spent. As for how it plays, it's _really_ simple from the player side of things (I'm not the GM, so I have no idea how it plays from that side of the screen).


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## Jim Hague (Nov 16, 2005)

philreed said:
			
		

> Anyone in the Austin area interested in GURPS may want to hit the south Lamar Half-Price Books. When I was in there yesterday I saw the 4e basic set (the slipcase, $125 version) for $20. They also had all of the 4e supplements for half-price.




What's the address on that one, Phil?  I've got folks in that general area, and $20 for the set is waytoo good to pass up.


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## Chainsaw Mage (Nov 16, 2005)

harmyn said:
			
		

> To take the _"classic sales-tag-line"_ from GURPS, if I wanted to take my Fantasy Mage and team him up with a World War II Operative and send them searching for treasure in Renaissance Italy; I can. In d20 I would need d20 Past, D&D, and d20 Modern (or its WWII equivalent) to cover all the needed classes and options that are expected by most to give the characters variety and options.




Plus, the characters wouldn't all be playing by the same rules.  To name one example, at negative hit points, the d20 Modern character would have to make a Fortitude save to stabilize; the D&D character would have to roll on % dice (10% chance, but you all knew that.   ).    

Mechanically, d20 Modern and D&D are *not* identical.  So integrating characters would bring with it questions about which rules apply and which do not.


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## Chainsaw Mage (Nov 16, 2005)

philreed said:
			
		

> Anyone in the Austin area interested in GURPS may want to hit the south Lamar Half-Price Books. When I was in there yesterday I saw the 4e basic set (the slipcase, $125 version) for $20. They also had all of the 4e supplements for half-price.




Seems to suggest that GURPS 4th isn't exactly flying off the shelves, eh? 
 :\


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## Dancer (Nov 16, 2005)

Chainsaw Mage said:
			
		

> Seems to suggest that GURPS 4th isn't exactly flying off the shelves, eh?
> :\




Well, that seems to be the reason for statement in the first place. 

Question:  What store sells a $125 book for $20?  With a practice like that it's difficult to see how they are staying in business.


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## Conaill (Nov 16, 2005)

JoeGKushner said:
			
		

> Man, that's a great deal. Heck, if I could get someone to pick that up for me, I'd be willing to pay pal them the funds!



Same here!


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 17, 2005)

I took a look at it in the store, as I promised.  It DOES look better, but I still didn't like the layout.  My RPG purchase jury is still out on it...



> Question: What store sells a $125 book for $20? With a practice like that it's difficult to see how they are staying in business.




I suspect that the purchaser:

1)  bought it, scanned it, and sold it to Half-Price Books, and is going to make up the difference by selling illegal downloads/.pdfs.

2)  bought it, died, and it was sold out of his estate

3)  he really thought it sucked.


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## Chainsaw Mage (Nov 17, 2005)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> I suspect that the purchaser:
> 
> 1)  bought it, scanned it, and sold it to Half-Price Books, and is going to make up the difference by selling illegal downloads/.pdfs.
> 
> ...




Or 

4) bought it, had it fall apart (as most 4e books do due to sh***y binding) and sold it in disgust, vowing never again to buy from a company with such shoddy production values.


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## sjmiller (Nov 17, 2005)

Chainsaw Mage said:
			
		

> Or
> 
> 4) bought it, had it fall apart (as most 4e books do due to sh***y binding) and sold it in disgust, vowing never again to buy from a company with such shoddy production values.



Well, considering that Steve Jackson Games has promised to replace, at no cost, any 4e book that has a bad binding or glue job, I would not hesitate to buy it if I was in the area.  Heck, if I KNEW someone in the are I would have them buy it and send it to me.

Oh, and for the record, only the two basic books had the glue/binding problem.  As soon as this was discovered SJG offered to replace them.  It wasn't their fault the printer used bad glue, so I would not blame them for shoddy production values.


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## Shadowpup (Nov 18, 2005)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> I once tried to make a "regular Joe" whose one ability was telekinesis- in all of its forms and at great power.  While my fellow players had nice powerful PCs of their own, my guy could barely lift a bowling ball, and lacked fine control and so forth.  Even devoting all of my build points to one area, my PC was as useful as a bag of pasta.  I abandoned the design in favor of a nympho nutcase with a bunch of skills.
> 
> On the other hand, had we been allowed access to GURPS Supers, my guy could have lifted cars or performed surgery with his telekinetic hand.
> 
> ...




Which is what I was going to say.

In HERO you can do anything.  In a variety of different ways.


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## Shadoglare (Nov 19, 2005)

Chainsaw Mage said:
			
		

> Seems to suggest that GURPS 4th isn't exactly flying off the shelves, eh?  :\




Or they're selling them at cost or just above, possibly less if they're used. 
As I recall buy.com and amazon both sell them for about 1/3 off SRP and that's for brand new ones...


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 19, 2005)

Amazon has the 2 books bundled for just under $50, Bookamillion has each book at just under $25.

Draw your own conclusions...


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## Jürgen Hubert (Nov 19, 2005)

Well, SJG sold enough books to have begun selling a second print run. And I don't think _all_ of these can be attributed to replacements (my copy is still holding up fine, for example). So I guess it's not doing that badly...


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## Azlan (Nov 19, 2005)

Conaill said:
			
		

> It *does* bother me in DnD that, even with 6-second rounds, people still say "that one attack really represents a set of feints and half-jabs spread over a 6 second period, with perhaps only one jab in there with an actual chance of connecting". That's right up there with "hitpoints in DnD are not really hits".



But combat in D&D has always been _fundamentally_ built on those two very concepts; that...

1.) During a 6-second (or 10-second, in 2nd Edition) round, a combatant in melee engages in a series of feints, jabs, and parries throughout the combat round, but the attack roll represents an opening in an opponent's defenses and thus a chance to actually inflict damage. (This is the main reason why attacks of opportunity and multiple attacks per round for higher level characters are so prevalent in D&D 3.5, but not so in a system like GURPS where each combat round encapsulates only one second.)

2.) As characters gain in levels, hit points represent less and less actual physical damage.


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## wingsandsword (Nov 19, 2005)

Azlan said:
			
		

> 1.) During a 6-second (or 10-second, in 2nd Edition) round



Technical correction: It was a 60 second round in AD&D 1e and 2e, 10 times longer than the current round.  

All but the highest level characters getting only one attack in a full minute of combat was easily seen as an abstraction, when it's only 6 seconds, it's much easier for players to see only getting one or two attacks in that time amidst dodging, parrying, moving and such, thus less people assuming that attacks were more literal and less abstract.


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## Azlan (Nov 19, 2005)

wingsandsword said:
			
		

> Technical correction: It was a 60 second round in AD&D 1e and 2e, 10 times longer than the current round.



Really? I thought they had reduced it to 10 seconds in 2nd Edition.

Oh, well. My statement still upholds.



			
				wingsandsword said:
			
		

> ...when it's only 6 seconds, it's much easier for players to see only getting one or two attacks in that time amidst dodging, parrying, moving and such, thus less people assuming that attacks were more literal and less abstract.



Even so, 6 seconds is a long enough time span. Practically anyone can swing a longsword and hit a stationary target several times within a 6-second time span. But if the target is moving, parrying, blocking, and _fighting back_, then that's a different matter!


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## wingsandsword (Nov 19, 2005)

Azlan said:
			
		

> Really? I thought they had reduced it to 10 seconds in 2nd Edition.



There was an optional rule in Players Option: Combat & Tactics (which included an entire optional expanded combat system designed to use minis) that reduced rounds to "10 to 15 seconds", but the core rules always said 60 seconds.


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## The_Universe (Nov 19, 2005)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> Well, SJG sold enough books to have begun selling a second print run. And I don't think _all_ of these can be attributed to replacements (my copy is still holding up fine, for example). So I guess it's not doing that badly...



 How big was the first print run?


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## Jürgen Hubert (Nov 19, 2005)

The_Universe said:
			
		

> How big was the first print run?




No idea. Most game companies tend not to forward that kind of information. That being said, since it was the rerelease of their flagship product I doubt it was a small one...


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## harmyn (Nov 20, 2005)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> Amazon has the 2 books bundled for just under $50, Bookamillion has each book at just under $25.
> 
> Draw your own conclusions...




This is flawed logic and I will 'splain why.

You can also order all three of the D&D Core Books at Amazon for a grand total of $59.31 and they are $57.99 for all three at Overstock.com. So going by your inference, D&D 3.5 must also be pretty poorly to be going at a third off their cover price (the same as GURPS). Or you might deduce that online retail giants like those above make all their profit on volume of sales and so have a razor thin profit on a per book basis. 

As an aside, this is also what hurts your FLGS --- they can't compete with that kind of a mark down on product and by placing preorders you will frequently get your copy as soon as the local small-business brick and mortar does.


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## Conaill (Nov 21, 2005)

Azlan said:
			
		

> Conaill said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Exactly. And that's why I like GURPS better...


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## Kesh (Nov 21, 2005)

Conaill said:
			
		

> Exactly. And that's why I like GURPS better...



 Out of curiosity, why do you consider the GURPS way better?


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## Conaill (Nov 21, 2005)

Kesh said:
			
		

> Out of curiosity, why do you consider the GURPS way better?



Because it's less of an abstraction, which allows me to stay more into the mind of my character during combat.

Hitpoints in D&D could mean just about anything - from a lowly commoner taking 1 hp of damage and being at the brink of death, to a high level PC taking a greataxe to the face and saying "well, that did leave me a little winded - a few more of those and I might actually start bleeding". Not to mention the fact that it apparently takes stronger magics to heal a badly wounded hero than a badly wounded commoner.

As for combat rounds, one thing I really like about GURPS is that you can *actively* defend yourself. You can step back from your opponent's blow, or try to deflect it with your own weapon, or block it with your shield, etc. Those are all options that will affect your chances of getting hit, as well as your positioning and your ability to reply to the attack. Sure, you could lump all those together into an amorphous AC bonus. But then again, you could probably come up with a combat resolution method where you lump *everything* together into one opposed roll for an entire combat. 

Let's call it a 10-minute round: both opponents roll a d20, add their hitpoints, BAB, AC, as well as a +5 for every combat related efat they have. Higher number wins the combat, loser dies or is incapacitated. I'm guessing few people would be very happy with a combat mechanism like that for a PC-based game (although it migh be acceptable for a squad-based wargame). Well, I feel the same way about D&D combat rounds, in comparison with GURPS combat rounds...


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## Jürgen Hubert (Nov 22, 2005)

There is also a certain amount of dramatic tension with short combat rounds.

In real life combat, one second can be a long time. Especially if you need to come to the aid of someone who is across the room. D&D characters can move a long way in a single round, and often do; GURPS characters need to think hard about the strategically best positions they can take, and if they turn out to be wrong about that, they will have a harder time getting out of it without becoming vulnerable...


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 24, 2005)

Actually Harmyn, there is no flaw in my logic- I wasn't using any, just pointing out facts.

For the record, I have, in another thread, FLGS, I myself point out the selfsame fact...that online retailers buy in bulk and sell at low profit margins.

In fact, I go even further and bring up the claim (that some Attorney Generals & others are asserting) that _some_ online retailers are engaging in predatory pricing, using "inexpensive" gaming products to cross-promote movies, novels, collectibles & games to gamers while simultaneously driving brick & mortar game stores out of business.


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## Conaill (Nov 25, 2005)

Ah - so the conclusions you wanted us to draw were that some retailers are using predatory pricing, and _not_ that prices for the books are plummetting because they suck?


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 25, 2005)

No.

I really was directing everyone to draw their own conclusions.  I just wanted some actual $$$ figures in the thread for people to work with.

Prices can be low for a variety of reasons: a mistake*; predatory pricing; a directive from headquarters to get n underperforming dog of a product off its shelves with deep discounts; offering regulars a good deal; and many, many more.

A low price by itself, without evidence of _why_ the price is low, means nothing.

Some retailers _are_ using predatory pricing- at least according to allegations by people investigating them.  Some RPGs _are_ selling poorly, and sometimes its regional†.

* a buddy of mine found an incredible deal at Target once: M:TG cards for $4/box.  Not per booster...per _box_.  They had been mislabeled in the system, and that is how they rung up at the register.

† in the early days of M:TG, a particular FLGS in Austin typically had cards many weeks after the rest of the city was completely sold out.  The reason?  The owner had a buddy who ran a FLGS in Los Angeles that couldn't sell the game- nobody bought it.  Despite the overwhelming trend in the game's sales, it wasn't working for him, so he'd "unload" this product on his buddy in Austin.


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## harmyn (Nov 25, 2005)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> No.
> 
> I really was directing everyone to draw their own conclusions.  I just wanted some actual $$$ figures in the thread for people to work with.
> 
> ...




What you say here is understandable and reasonable. But through limited word usage and by pointing out the GURPS books at a reduced price w/ no mention of any other company's books at a point in the thread where people were talking about quality and why a given set of books were reduced in price; your comments could very easily be misinterpreted to infer that the prices are low because of sales issues, not because Amazon and Books-A-Million were using predatory pricing tactics.

Next time you ask people to draw their own conclusions and not make an inference at the same time, you might want to better explain your position.


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## Palaner (May 26, 2006)

*Oh hell yes.*

Sorry to bump up an old thread, but I just have to say this.

I am most fortunate to have such a great group of players.  They were hardcore d20 fanatics until I showed them GURPS 4e.  My god...I'm not trying to be overly hyperbolic, but I have never seen anyone so excited about a game, especially when all four of them are this excited. 

When I came to the door Wednesday afternoon, one of them answered, "The BOOK.  I need the BOOK."  He then explained that he needed to change part of his character concept...something I'd never see in the same way with D&D.  The other two players who came in that day to make characters were also intentionally not told the other two's concepts..._because the latter didn't want them to be influenced._

Dare I mention the conversation that took place that afternoon...no, there was no other conversation.  The guys talked about nothing but GURPS for hours.  They roared with laughter over hilarious combinations and were impressed with interesting concepts.  There was some confusion about Innate Attacks, but they are willing to see how it plays out.

Even after the character-building session I was receiving phone calls and IMs about what kinds of characters they wanted to play.

I don't know about you guys, but I am proud and delighted that my players are already having a blast creating characters.  We're going to play a Back to the Future game next week...I'll keep you posted on what happens.


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## ChristianW (May 26, 2006)

I am late to this, but I just want to throw in my two cents. I've played a lot of GURPS and I feel that it does an excellent job of "low fantasy." 

I am attracted to GURPS because "hit points" never inflate. Getting hit with a sword hurts no matter how experienced a warrior is.

I appreciate the lack of classes. Characters are based upon skills, advantages, and disadvantages. The customization options are liberating.

Some aspects of the mechanics make a good deal of sense. For example, armor does not make one harder to hit. Armor reduces damage, as it should. Along this same vein, shields are extremely useful in play.

Damaged characters and bad guys show the effects of their wounds gradually. As a result, foes might not fight until the death simply because they are unable to do so. They fall over, pass out, etc.


On the downside, GURPS can be very complex...and expensive. Running a fantasy game might require a GM to purchase GURPS Campaigns, Characters, Magic, and Fantasy. That's about $140 right there. That's nuts. 

There's not the kind of support I'd like. There's nothing like a Monster Manual. So much fo the work has to be done by a GM and emulating a D&D monster can take a great deal of work.


All in all, it's a darn fine game, but it's definitely a do it yourself system.


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## Hairfoot (May 26, 2006)

Conaill said:
			
		

> one thing I really like about GURPS is that you can *actively* defend yourself. You can step back from your opponent's blow, or try to deflect it with your own weapon, or block it with your shield, etc. Those are all options that will affect your chances of getting hit, as well as your positioning and your ability to reply to the attack. Sure, you could lump all those together into an amorphous AC bonus.



I haven't played GURPS, but that sounds suspiciously like Palladium's micro-managed combat system where you choose parries, dodges, and rolling with blows to meet incoming attacks.  Far from being less abstract than D&D, it reduces the violence and confusion of combat to comical, step-by-step choreography.  A boxer doesn't stop to think "hmm.  He's throwing a right, so I'll dodge it and punch him the guts.  No, no, wait!  I'll block it and step backward instead!"  He just reacts.

But, again, I haven't played it.


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## Palaner (May 26, 2006)

The two combat systems ARE pretty similar.  However, GURPS's combat is time-structured, whereas Palladium's has an "anything goes" attitude.  Siembieda suggests "hopping" to and from the more dramatic fights going on, making some players feel less important.

Like Jurgen said, GURPS should keep all players on their toes, simply because of the one-second system.  Also, the system is complete; Palladium's makes you hunt through at least two or three books to find a certain rule.


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## Conaill (May 26, 2006)

ChristianW said:
			
		

> On the downside, GURPS can be very complex...and expensive. Running a fantasy game might require a GM to purchase GURPS Campaigns, Characters, Magic, and Fantasy. That's about $140 right there. That's nuts.



Compared to buying a PHB, DMG and MM at $120? Eh...

Also keep in mind that most of those are optional add-ons. You don't really *have* to have GURPS Magic and GURPS Fantasy to run a fantasy game. Back before 4e, I was in several long-running fantasy campaigns with nothing but the basic set. And I've seen several very successful one-shot games using only the freely downloadable GURPS Lite rules. (In contrast, I've never seen a a one-shot game using the D&D SRD - although that might be due more to availability of the D&D vs GURPS books).

[Edit: just checking amazon...
GURPS basic set (capaigns + characters) is $47.19; Fantasy is $23.07; Magic is sold out but let's assume another $23.07. Total: $93.33
D&D PHB+DMG is $37.74; MM is $18.87. Total: $56.61
Those are some more realistic prices to toss around. All in all, a pretty good deal for both, considering how many hours of enjoyment you get out of them...]


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## Conaill (May 26, 2006)

Conaill said:
			
		

> Also keep in mind that most of those are optional add-ons. You don't really *have* to have GURPS Magic and GURPS Fantasy to run a fantasy game. Back before 4e, I was in several long-running fantasy campaigns with nothing but the basic set.



Actually, this is something I would love some feedback on, from those of you who actually _have_ the 4th edition material...

- How essential are GURPS Magic and GURPS Fantasy for playing a fairly standard fantasy game (and I'm not talking a standard _D&D_-style fantasy game ).
- How does this compare with the modularity in 3rd edition? Do you feel you need fewer or more books in 4e?


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## Kormydigar (May 26, 2006)

sfgiants said:
			
		

> I recently started thumbing through a copy of the third edition. Some neat concepts.
> A few questions though:
> 
> a) what is the difference between third and fourth?
> ...



I started playing GURPS soon after 2nd Ed. D&D was released (we tried a campaign of 2e but didn't care for it). GURPS was our game of choice for a long time. There are things I love about the GURPS experience and things that irritate me. First, the good stuff:

1) The rules are very modular. You can go lite and not worry about too much detail if you don't feel like it.

2) The supplements are usually very good and contain info to use with ANY system.

3) A true skill based system allows creation of dharacters that you just can't quite get with classes.

...and now the bad

VIRTUALLY NO ADVENTURE SUPPORT!!!!!!!!   

This is the main reason I started playing D&D 3E when it came out. With so little time for gaming, much less prep time, I need ready to go adventures that don't require a lot of conversion work. If I had all the free time of my younger days, I would certainly still use GURPS. Why oh why can't SJG have an OGL.   

3)


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## prosfilaes (May 27, 2006)

Conaill said:
			
		

> Actually, this is something I would love some feedback on, from those of you who actually _have_ the 4th edition material...
> 
> - How essential are GURPS Magic and GURPS Fantasy for playing a fairly standard fantasy game (and I'm not talking a standard _D&D_-style fantasy game ).




If you want to use the GURPS Magic system, the basic book has 11 pages of spells and the GURPS Magic book almost a couple hundred. I really don't see a whole lot of point to GURPS Fantasy; it has little GURPS-specific content, and most people who have been playing a while are familiar with or have alternate sources for the general fantasy discussion.



> - How does this compare with the modularity in 3rd edition? Do you feel you need fewer or more books in 4e?




There's no question that you need fewer books, since the mean book size went from 128 pages to 256 pages. You could survive easily without GURPS Campaigns. GURPS Characters covers most of the Basic Set and Compendium I, and GURPS Magic covers GURPS Magic and GURPS Grimore.


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## B9anders (May 28, 2006)

ChristianW said:
			
		

> On the downside, GURPS can be very complex...and expensive. Running a fantasy game might require a GM to purchase GURPS Campaigns, Characters, Magic, and Fantasy. That's about $140 right there. That's nuts.




61$ on ebay excluding postage (packaged together) for the Basic Set and Fantasy bought new.  

Another plus side is that the exhaustiveness of GURPS doesn't really encourage buying countless supplements to trawl for new feats, prestige classes, rules etc. 

With those four books, I feel I have pretty much everything I could want to run a fantasy campaign except a setting (I use my own - something I think GURPS generally encourages in all aspects: Making the game your own. Unlike D&D, the core books gives you the tools for that) and Fantasy, ruleswise, can easily be skipped. It's invaluable as inspiration and exploring fantasy in general though.

A 4th edition version of the GURPS Fantasy Bestiary is the only thing I would like to see. 

The thing about GURPS is that the books may be expensive and few, but they are virtually always of very high quality. No wasted investments there. Magic gives an incredibly thorough treatment of magic that allows you to shape the kind of magic you want to your own preferences, the basic set gives you all the rules you want to run any kind of campaign you want, unless you are not familiar with the genre you are delving into, in which case a setting book is probably needed.


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## B9anders (May 28, 2006)

B9anders said:
			
		

> A 4th edition version of the GURPS Fantasy Bestiary is the only thing I would like to see.




ANd just now I found this thread. 

I am now officially excited.


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## Nomad4life (May 28, 2006)

GRUPS was always one of those games that _I wanted so much_ to like.  I loved the way that game handles character creation.  I loved the freedom of having a universal system that could run any setting I could imagine.

Off and on, I had some good times with GURPS.  But in the end, the system was simply far too rules-heavy for my tastes.  There came a point when preparing and running the game was more work than fun.

I’ve never regreted a GURPS supplement I’ve bought, though.  Very good quality, and very well researched- I use all the fluff with other systems.


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## Agback (May 29, 2006)

There are things about GURPS that bug me so badly that I have never got around to actually playing a game. A lot of them are variations of the theme of confounding things together 'to make the game simple', and then disambiguating them with special cases , so that you end up with a game that is more complicated than if you treated them separately from the start. And with runs rougher.

GURPS stats are one example. Steve Jackson started from the beginning with the axiom that a 'modern' (this was 1984 or thereabouts) RPG would have no more than four character stats. He therefore shoehorned cunning, book-learning, perceptiveness, empathy, firmness of resolve, etc. inot one mental stat: IQ. And he shoehorned agility, manual dexterity, and hand-eye co-ordination into one physical stat (DX); strength, and (at one stage) charisma and good looks into another (ST), and size, physical toughness, stamina, and good immune system inot a third. Don't get me wrong, that can work fine in a simplistic and quirky system. But Steve Jackson didn't want simplistic and quirky. So he introduced a bunch of advantages and disadvantages such as wealth, social status, appearance, some of which partially modify the effects of stats (eg. to reduce agility skills below DX but leave manual dexterity skills alone or vice-versa). Some of these in effect optionally increase the number of stats. Others represent a compulsory choice (eg. of welath, status, physical attractiveness) that is just like a stat except for not being on the same numerical scale as the stats, and therefore not being suitable to base a skill on or to roll against. GURPS has in effect about 12 stats, but eight of them are kludgey special cases, and four or five of them don't do things they ought.

There is a similar nest of horrors surrounding the interaction of weapon type with armour type. The original system had three types of damage so that it would need different types of armour (clever). But it worked back-to-front and had a nasty trap in which you had to work out what part of your target you would hit before your could determine whether you did hit. In tidying that up without ever acknowledging that any of the initial design decisions had been misguided, GURPS has ended up with a hideously involved procedure in which the weapons' damage roll is modified by the armour's DR, which has previously been modified by the weapons armour divisor, with a special qualification for whether the armour is flexible, and then by the weapon's damage type. And the procedure is modified in many cases by notes for specific wepons and specific kinds of armour. There are 13 types of weapon damage (only eight if you disregards 'afflication', burning, corrosion, special, and toxic, considering only mechanical damage), besides armour divisors, and some types of armour _still_ need different DRs against listed damage types.

Many people are blessed by not being bugged by the sorts of things that bug me. Some of them seem to like GURPS.

Even I could probably play and enjoy GURPS if I could get past the desire to disambiguate the stats, introduce systematic armour rules and tidy up the weapons types, etc. If GURPS would open and play I would probably enjoy it well enough. But to set up a GURPS campaign I have to tabulate the specifics of the weapons and armour in my SF settings, design a tech level system that captures the details I am concerned with, tabulate specifics for the status systems and rank systems of my social institutions. And while I am attempting that I am always overtaken with an irresistable desire to change the things that bug me.


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## Agback (May 29, 2006)

prosfilaes said:
			
		

> You could survive easily without GURPS Campaigns.




The _combat rules_ are in 'Campaigns'. So are the rules for the effects of injury and healing.


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## Celtavian (May 29, 2006)

*Great game system*

Great game system, but too much work to run.


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## Agback (May 29, 2006)

sfgiants said:
			
		

> Wow, thanks for all the opinions/input. I am still deciding. The game seems good, but I am having trouble getting over the idea that each second is detailed. Seems like un-needed complexity I guess. Am I wrong here?




I think so. The thing that makes for unnecessary detail is not whether the combat turn is called a 'second'. Rather, it is whether that action of that turn is simple to resolve and decisive.

A system that calls its turns '60 seconds', but that tends to generate 75% air-swings, and in which it takes ten solid sword-hits to put an enemy down, generates the detatil of eighty blows in a typical fight. (And a system in which there is a separate roll and table lookup to determine exactly which finger is severed by a roll of '45' on the 'D slashing criticals' also gernerates a lot of detail.) But a system in which 60% of swings typically hit and three hits tend to put someone down will tended to generate detail on only eight blows in  a typical fight, whether the turns are called seconds or minutes.


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## TGryph (May 29, 2006)

Guys;

     First off, I have been running a Gurps Low Fantasy campaign for over a year now. A 25 year D&D player, my group switched to HARP for a year, then tried Gurps, our current (and so far unchallenged)  system of choice. I am going to chime in on some of these posts...

    First off, I gotta say to those guys who can say what is wrong with Gurps when they haven't even TRIED it..loosen up and give it a shot. Gurps Lite is all you need for a decent try...hell, you could run a long-time campaign using nothing else. Don't be like a virgin trying to tell me what sex feels like 

     Second, true the Major Combat rules are in Campaigns, but there is a Combat Lite section at the tail-end of Characters that is quite sufficient to run a Fantasy campaign.

     While it is true you don't HAVE to have Magic to run a fantasy campaign, I found it to be FAR easier to use it and have access to the pre-made spells rather than to make up a bunch myself. Plus, some of the alternate magic systems are pretty cool. You could literally run a long term fantasy campaign using just Gurps Lite and Magic.

     As to the fact that Gurps is rules-heavy, I get a kick out of reading this on a D20-ruled board. I find Gurps to be much less rules-heavy than D20. Oh it CAN be a bugger if you use all the options, but basically it is just roll 3d6 under the skill level. You can add options as you wish, but they are just that...OPTIONS.

    Now to the poster who was wishing for a Bestiary..oh yeah, I feel your pain. I have the old Bestiary and Fantasy Bestiary, but I will be the Happiest Camper on the Block when the new 4th Edition Bestiary comes out.

     The one-second combat rules weren't a big issue with my group, nor was the alleged lethality of combat...maybe because Gurps puts a much smaller emphasis on combat than D&D. Heck, that was the major change I had to get used to in running my Gurps campaign. We sometimes go a session or two without a single melee...and I gotta say I don't miss it. Oh, and so far we have yet to lose a character..been close a couple of times, but no fatalities.

     My group loves the flexibility and detail of the character generation system..it was the biggest selling point to them. Yeah, chargen can take a while, but that what options do to a game. And remember...the GM can eliminate the ones he doesn't want in his campaign.

     So go to the SJ Games website and download the free Lite rules and give 'em a shot..you might be surprised 


     TGryph


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## B9anders (May 29, 2006)

Agback said:
			
		

> GURPS stats are one example. Steve Jackson started from the beginning with the axiom that a 'modern' (this was 1984 or thereabouts) RPG would have no more than four character stats. He therefore shoehorned cunning, book-learning, perceptiveness, empathy, firmness of resolve, etc. inot one mental stat: IQ. And he shoehorned agility, manual dexterity, and hand-eye co-ordination into one physical stat (DX); strength, and (at one stage) charisma and good looks into another (ST), and size, physical toughness, stamina, and good immune system inot a third. Don't get me wrong, that can work fine in a simplistic and quirky system. But Steve Jackson didn't want simplistic and quirky. So he introduced a bunch of advantages and disadvantages such as wealth, social status, appearance, some of which partially modify the effects of stats (eg. to reduce agility skills below DX but leave manual dexterity skills alone or vice-versa). Some of these in effect optionally increase the number of stats. Others represent a compulsory choice (eg. of welath, status, physical attractiveness) that is just like a stat except for not being on the same numerical scale as the stats, and therefore not being suitable to base a skill on or to roll against. GURPS has in effect about 12 stats, but eight of them are kludgey special cases, and four or five of them don't do things they ought.




That is the elegance of it. You can have several layers of complexity, but they are very easy to break down into those four basic stats. As TGryph says, gurps is basically 'roll 3d6'. If you don't feel like using those layers of complexity, you leave perception, will, fatigue points, et al as they are and have them covered your basic stats.

The 'compulsory' choices are no more compulsory than a player can entirely ignore it in character creation (and ever after, depending on what type of game is being run), with the only effect of maybe not having as much money to buy equipment as a few others. They are mostly roleplaying options to delve into the character and shape him, not a necesary stat block.



> There is a similar nest of horrors surrounding the interaction of weapon type with armour type. The original system had three types of damage so that it would need different types of armour (clever). But it worked back-to-front and had a nasty trap in which you had to work out what part of your target you would hit before your could determine whether you did hit. In tidying that up without ever acknowledging that any of the initial design decisions had been misguided, GURPS has ended up with a hideously involved procedure in which the weapons' damage roll is modified by the armour's DR, which has previously been modified by the weapons armour divisor, with a special qualification for whether the armour is flexible, and then by the weapon's damage type. And the procedure is modified in many cases by notes for specific wepons and specific kinds of armour. There are 13 types of weapon damage (only eight if you disregards 'afflication', burning, corrosion, special, and toxic, considering only mechanical damage), besides armour divisors, and some types of armour _still_ need different DRs against listed damage types.




Again, there are only as many layers of complexity in gurps as you want there to be. The mentality behind the rules is very different from D&D in that gurps is designed with the aim of empowering the GM to customise the game exactly to his own needs.

If you leave out the complex parts of the combat system, it isn't going to leave a hole in the system. There is a very neat an orderly hierarchy of progressive complexity.


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## B9anders (May 29, 2006)

TGryph said:
			
		

> Now to the poster who was wishing for a Bestiary..oh yeah, I feel your pain. I have the old Bestiary and Fantasy Bestiary, but I will be the Happiest Camper on the Block when the new 4th Edition Bestiary comes out.




Is the fantasy bestiary any good for a 4th ed campaign?


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## Jürgen Hubert (May 29, 2006)

B9anders said:
			
		

> Is the fantasy bestiary any good for a 4th ed campaign?




Well, some of the stats would need minor alterations, but they truly _are_ minor - nowhere near as dramatic as (say) conversions from AD&D2E to D&D3.X.

And yes, it is a good start. Its critter selection is a bit unusual in that it mostly represents creatures from real world folklore, but to me that's part of the charm. Another good book would be GURPS Creatures of the Night, a collection of very _unusual_ horror critters...


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## Jürgen Hubert (May 29, 2006)

Conaill said:
			
		

> Actually, this is something I would love some feedback on, from those of you who actually _have_ the 4th edition material...
> 
> - How essential are GURPS Magic and GURPS Fantasy for playing a fairly standard fantasy game (and I'm not talking a standard _D&D_-style fantasy game ).




GURPS Magic: That depends on your approach for magic. If you want a vast variety of individual spells that can be learned as skills, then you probably need GURPS Magic. On the other hand, the Basic Set already has a pretty good selection - perfectly suitable for low-magic campaigns or campaigns where magic is not the main focus.

But if you want to see magic as a selection of supernatural _powers_ that can be learned by certain people - not a vast variety of spells, but a certain number of "supernatural tricks" that can be learned individually - then the Basic Set is more than enough. For example, if you want a "mage" who has a few abilities related to healing, or one who focuses on "fire magic" in all its forms, or one who has the ability to control plants, then you can model all of these with GURPS Basic Set: Characters in minute detail.

Though in that case you will probably want GURPS Powers. Not because you _need_ it (you don't - there is little in the way of actual new rules material in it), but because it is bloody brilliant. It is full of all kinds of examples on just what kind of abilities you can do with GURPS. It will inspire you to think of lots of cool character concepts which you hadn't even considered before reading the book...



> - How does this compare with the modularity in 3rd edition? Do you feel you need fewer or more books in 4e?




Fewer. Still, I'm not about to get rid of most of my 3e books - most of them can still be used with little change.


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## Jürgen Hubert (May 29, 2006)

For those of you willing to try out GURPS, we are currently trying to set up a multi-GM online game set on Eberron here. You do need to be familiar enough with the system to create a character, though...


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## Jürgen Hubert (May 29, 2006)

Celtavian said:
			
		

> Great game system, but too much work to run.




Well, it does require some initial thought from the GM on what is and what isn't appropriate for player characters. But after that, it is smooth sailing.

Especially creating NPCs is a snap. With D&D, I have to figure out hit points, saving throws, BAB, skill bonuses, and much more when I create NPCs. With GURPS, I just give them some numerical values that I feel are appropriate and they are almost always rules-legal...


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## Conaill (May 30, 2006)

Agback said:
			
		

> GURPS stats are one example. Steve Jackson started from the beginning with the axiom that a 'modern' (this was 1984 or thereabouts) RPG would have no more than four character stats. He therefore shoehorned cunning, book-learning, perceptiveness, empathy, firmness of resolve, etc. inot one mental stat: IQ. And he shoehorned agility, manual dexterity, and hand-eye co-ordination into one physical stat (DX); strength, and (at one stage) charisma and good looks into another (ST), and size, physical toughness, stamina, and good immune system inot a third.



Jeesh man - how many stats do you want?  You've already listed 15 right there. You make it sound like you would consider 6 stats only a marginal improvement over 4 stats...


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## prosfilaes (May 30, 2006)

What I like about GURPS is that it's simple to check whether a character is built right. To figure out whether a skill level is correct, you simply have to look at the attribute and the points put into it, plus any defaults from other skills. 

Whereas for D&D3, you end up having to go level by level trying to figure out what feats and what skills were taken at each level to figure out whether things were legal or not. Boosts to skills can come from classes, races, feats and synergy bonuses.


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## Conaill (May 30, 2006)

Another datapoint regarding the complexity of the rule set:

By now, I've played D&D for about as many years as I played GURPS before that (about 3-4 years each - started playing D&D because I moved to an area where it was hard to find a GURPS game). Looking only at the "core" rules, I would say that D&D is somewhat more complex than GURPS. 

However, within the Fantasy genre, D&D has far more additional variants and rules (e.g. all the Complete books etc) and complex interactions between them than GURPS has. One could argue that this means that a D&D player has more choices, but I'm not sure that argument holds up. For example, many prestige classes consist largely of a fixed package of abilities that you could buy piecemeal in GURPS as well.


As for lethality of GURPS vs D&D... I've never seen so many characters die as in the various D&D games I've played in. Sure, hitpoints are much lower in GURPS, but damage is much lower as well, and one typically gets hit less often than in D&D, so comparing the absolute number of hit points is rather pointless. The main difference is that in GURPS you have a comparatively very large buffer between unconsciousness and death. The equivalent in D&D might be if your 100hp Fighter would have to be reduced to -100hp to even _start_ making Fort saves against death! The upshot is that unconsciousness may be somewhat more common in GURPS combat, but death is actually quite a bit less common. However, when it *does* occur, the consequences are typically mich more severe than in D&D. Death is not just a setback that most reasonably well-to-do adventurers can buy they way out off. At least in the campaigns I played in, resurrection was extremely rare and required direct divine intervention. (One notable example included the entire party going on a quest lasting close to a year real-time to bring back a favorite character.) On the other hand, characters did tend to be much longer-lived as well.

Mind you, _of course_ you can play GURPS in an extremely lethal fashion. I remember some Shadowrun games we played using GURPS rules where characters were dropping like flies. Then again, that's Shadowrun for you.


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## Jürgen Hubert (May 31, 2006)

Conaill said:
			
		

> Another datapoint regarding the complexity of the rule set:
> 
> By now, I've played D&D for about as many years as I played GURPS before that (about 3-4 years each - started playing D&D because I moved to an area where it was hard to find a GURPS game). Looking only at the "core" rules, I would say that D&D is somewhat more complex than GURPS.
> 
> ...




Well, not quite.

You start out with a certain pool of hit points, just like in D&D. For characters in reasonably realistic campaigns, this is relatively low, and a good hit with a sword or two, or a hit with most guns that aren't small-calibre will reduce that pool to zero - though armor can and will reduce the amount of injury dramatically, so armor is always a wise investment if it is available in the setting.

Of course, if the GM is willing to waive the suggested restrictions for realistic campaigns and the characters have enough character points to spend, they can purchase many more hit points than that. Thus you can have the barbarian berserker who gets hits with multiple sword strokes and is still standing. Not realistic, but hey - that's the whole point of high fantasy, isn't it?   

However, once your hit points reach zero, you aren't yet in risk of dying. However, you _are_ in risk of unconsciousness, and need to roll versus your Health score to see if you are still standing each round. Ordinary people will fall down very quickly, but very healthy people or people with strong wills (such as cinematic heroes) will remain standing for a much longer time...

Once your hit points drop to a negative value equal to your original hit points, you are really in trouble - there is a risk that you will die. If you fail a Health roll, you are done for (though a near miss means that there is still a chance of saving you). If you succeed, you remain alive... for now. More rolls need to be done at further multiples of your original hit point score - untill you reach -5x(original hit points), when your body has suffered injuries so severe that you die automatically.

Ordinary humans have about an even chance of surviving that roll, while healther people have pretty good odds. Still, there is always a _chance_ that you will fail these rolls, which keeps combat tense and risky - usually, you can't just say: "I still have 23 more hit points until I drop dead!"

And I rather like this feature.


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## woodelf (May 31, 2006)

tetsujin28 said:
			
		

> I tend to look at GURPS as "90% of Hero, with 50% of the required effort".




Whereas for me, it feels like 50% of Hero, with 90% of the required effort. I've just never figured out what it gives me that Hero System doesn't give me either better, or easier. Ditto Tri-Stat dX, nowadays. 

Personally, i think that everything that GURPS does, CORPS does better; several of the weaknesses of GURPS are fixed by CORPS; CORPS does it all with much less effort on my part; and the few weaknesses/holes CORPS has, GURPS has too, or GURPS has them worse. All of this based specifically on GURPS 3rd ed, however, so it's possible that the comparison is no longer correct with the new edition of GURPS. Nonetheless, IMHO, if you like the GURPS approach to a universal RPG set, skip it and pick up CORPS instead.


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## Jürgen Hubert (May 31, 2006)

woodelf said:
			
		

> Whereas for me, it feels like 50% of Hero, with 90% of the required effort. I've just never figured out what it gives me that Hero System doesn't give me either better, or easier. Ditto Tri-Stat dX, nowadays.
> 
> Personally, i think that everything that GURPS does, CORPS does better; several of the weaknesses of GURPS are fixed by CORPS; CORPS does it all with much less effort on my part; and the few weaknesses/holes CORPS has, GURPS has too, or GURPS has them worse. All of this based specifically on GURPS 3rd ed, however, so it's possible that the comparison is no longer correct with the new edition of GURPS.




The new edition is much better, smoother, and flexible, and should now cover pretty much everything that GURPS does.


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