# What is GURPS?



## Knightlord (Jun 21, 2008)

Just wondering: What's GURPS, and how would you compare it to D&D?


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## Shroomy (Jun 21, 2008)

Generic Universal Roleplaying System

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GURPS


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## xechnao (Jun 21, 2008)

It is D&D without classes but with thousands of feats to choose from. You get to pick some and you are set.


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## Aus_Snow (Jun 21, 2008)

Generic Universal RolePlaying System.

I'll try rephrasing what I said before. . . It's difficult (and maybe a bit pointless) to compare it directly to D&D, as it can do so many different things, pseudo-medieval fantasy being just one of them. Best way is to see for yourself, by picking up GURPS Lite free at the site I linked to above, and/or looking through the core books.


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## Jadeite (Jun 21, 2008)

There are also hundreds of setting books, all compatible. Some combinations are a bit strange, but the options are nearly boundless. It's also quite exploitable. There should be free introduction rules called gurps lite.
http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/Lite/


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## Particle_Man (Jun 21, 2008)

Some people buy the setting books they want and use a different rules system than GURPS itself.

The setting books are often well done like that, so even if you don't use the GURPS rules, you might like some of the setting books.

That said, I have some people that swear by the GURPS rules.  Combat is more deadly, especially once guns are brought to the party, so there is more gritty realism in the baseline rules (although there are "Swashbuckling" options to get more of the "hordes of mooks go down before my blade" feel).


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## Psion (Jun 21, 2008)

Particle_Man said:
			
		

> The setting books are often well done like that, so even if you don't use the GURPS rules, you might like some of the setting books.




This is true. They don't have near the offerings they once did, but in the day, they had great, well researched books on dozens of topics and game worlds. You can still get many of them.

I am really NOT a fan of the system, but I love some of the books.

That said, HERO is beginning to fill the same need for me these days. Their PULP HERO line has some great titles and is feeding my Spirit of the Century game.


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## Scribble (Jun 21, 2008)

Knightlord said:
			
		

> Just wondering: What's GURPS, and how would you compare it to D&D?




As others have said: Generic Universal Role Playing System...

It's point buy, so everything you choose for your character either gives you points or costs points. 

There are no "classes" as each power or stat or ability or skill is purchased individually.

The GM (or a group decision) sets the starting number of points you get, although there are guidelines.

There are no levels. XP translates into points that you use to purchase more of the above.

There are TONS of different campaign options... (Hence Generic) Fantasy, Old West, Martial Arts, Sci-Fi, Time Travel, Super Heros... Anything you can think of you can probably find a GURPS book for...

You can mix and match the above. (sometimes it's harder, but for the most part...)

It only uses d6's... Thats what bugs me the most... I get bored of only using one die type.

It's an OK game... Point buy games get weird for me though... I think it's the lack of a defined "Ohhh I leveled up!" moment, which causes them to seem like nothing ever changes... (even though it does.)

I prefer the old edition books to the new one.


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## HeavenShallBurn (Jun 21, 2008)

I don't really like the game itself but the setting books are good.  The old ones from GURPS 3e were better in my opinion even if the art wasn't so great.  They were well researched, well-written, and gave just the sort of information and advice you needed.  I use them rather frequently for other systems they have so much to swipe.


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## Nadaka (Jun 22, 2008)

GURPs is a fairly decent game. I played in a 3rd edition GURPs fantasy/pirate game recently. It was loads of fun. It won't replace d20 modern for me, but its definitely worth taking a look at.


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## jdrakeh (Jun 22, 2008)

Just because nobody has mentioned it (or at least nobody who shows up on my screen), you'd do well to start off with GURPS Lite which is 100% free and 90% compatible with most GURPS sourcebooks. It's basically a stripped down version of the full GURPS rules. I've run and played in several enjoyable campaigns that used only the GURPS Lite rules and one or two GURPS sourcebooks.


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## pawsplay (Jun 22, 2008)

GURPS is one of the best RPGs ever written, and the fourth edition is the best edition of GURPS ever written. It's a 3d6 roll under, point based system. The earlier editions had greater strength toward fairly realistic, action-oriented games, but over time, GURPS has covered pretty much everything at this point, including Discworld, real life Cops, and supers. 

The fora at sjgames.com are full of really creative, helpful, often opionated people willing to talk about everything from how to price a super power to the real life effectiveness of a downward knife grip.

Given that you can run GURPS with just two core books, and easily run it with just those and one setting sourcebook of your choice, it's also one of the best values in gaming.

EDIT: _and how would you compare it to D&D?_

It's faster and more intuitive, and about equally deadly at low to middle power levels. It has about the same learning curve. It has less special cases. The main GURPS Fantasy setting is something of a different beast, very high medievally flavored, very much SCA meets mythical Shakespeare. It has elves, dwarves, halflings, orcs, lizard men, ogres, minotaurs, goblins, hobgoblins, kobolds, etc.

There is also a line of products called GURPS Dungeon that helps you optimize the GURPS experience for traditional dungeon crawls. 

GURPS can come very close to _being_ D&D, depending on how you adjust the dials. It can also be something quite different.


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## Center-of-All (Jun 22, 2008)

I never thought I'd say this, but pawsplay is right. Completely, utterly, and unabashedly right.


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## The Cardinal (Jun 22, 2008)

pawsplay said:
			
		

> GURPS is one of the best RPGs ever written, and the fourth edition is the best edition of GURPS ever written. It's a 3d6 roll under, point based system. The earlier editions had greater strength toward fairly realistic, action-oriented games, but over time, GURPS has covered pretty much everything at this point, including Discworld, real life Cops, and supers.
> 
> (....lots of truth.......)
> 
> ...




QFT

GURPS Dungeon Fantasy is a *great* (and cheap) line - I've used GURPS4e before for most of my games, but with Dungeon Fantasy it might soon replace D&D3.5 completely (especially since D&D4e is not really liked around here)


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## philreed (Jun 22, 2008)

The Cardinal said:
			
		

> QFT
> 
> GURPS Dungeon Fantasy is a *great* (and cheap) line - I've used GURPS4e before for most of my games, but with Dungeon Fantasy it might soon replace D&D3.5 completely (especially since D&D4e is not really liked around here)




We're still expanding the Dungeon Fantasy line, with a few more releases in the works.


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## Zinovia (Jun 22, 2008)

GURPS is an intriguing idea that didn't work well for me in play.  I was in a campaign for a year or so, and while we had some fun in the game, I personally preferred other systems' mechanics.  Everything about GURPS *sounds* good in theory, but I found actual play to be disappointing.  

3d6 rolls for most everything means that most results will be average.  This is less "swingy" than D&D's flat d20 rolls, where you are just as likely to roll a 1, a 20, or a 10.  This is good in theory if you want most results to be in the mid-range.  Just optimize your character to be really good at their specific skills, and you will practically always succeed even at difficult tasks.

I felt that GURPS had too few stats (I was playing back in 1990, so I'm not referencing whatever the current edition is doing).  I played GURPS during my Rolemaster years (and was running a Rolemaster game at the same time).  RM had 10 stats, GURPS had 4 (with some derived from those 4).  It was too hard for me to get the flavor I wanted for my character.  In order to have some stats high, I had to make others (that didn't fit my character concept) high also, because the system was too coarsely grained.  

Combat was more deadly, and thus there seemed to be more incentive to finish fights ASAP.  My character was so optimized with her rapier skill that I could target a helm's eye slot pretty easily.  So it made combat less interesting.  Most fights played out the same more or less.  I'd get close, jab them in the face, and they'd fall over screaming.  There certainly was more to it than that, but overall, less fun than my experiences with D&D or RM.  

Some of the issues were due to the GM rather than the game system, as he was in lust with one of the players and hers was the Mary Sue character of the campaign (she got to save the day while the rest of us were her supporting cast).  Nonetheless, I believe GURPS was the product that was near the top of the thread that asked the question "What RPG product did you think you'd love and wound up hating?".  

So while my memories of GURPS are a bit hazy, I did play it for over a year, and think that it's an interesting concept that just doesn't pan out well in actual play (for some people anyway).  The source books however were excellent.


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## Mercule (Jun 22, 2008)

Psion said:
			
		

> This is true. They don't have near the offerings they once did, but in the day, they had great, well researched books on dozens of topics and game worlds. You can still get many of them.
> 
> I am really NOT a fan of the system, but I love some of the books.
> 
> That said, HERO is beginning to fill the same need for me these days. Their PULP HERO line has some great titles and is feeding my Spirit of the Century game.



This is all true.  GURPS is my least favorite system, ever, and I found playing it a horror.  But, that's a matter of taste.

If you want detailed, non-class/level based characters, I'd recommend Hero System.  It fills pretty much the same niche, but is a much better system, IMO.  One of my favorites, actually.

If you'd prefer something lighter weight and easier to prep for and play, then Savage Worlds fits that bill.  It's nowhere near as detailed as GURPS or Hero, but it gets the job done well enough.  It just focuses on stuff most people are actually _likely[/u] to use in play.

Basically, GURPS and Hero try to cover all the bases they could think of.  Meanwhile, Savage Worlds follows the 80/20 rule and defines the 20% of the ruleset that sees use 80% of the time and does it well._


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## Mercule (Jun 22, 2008)

Zinovia said:
			
		

> Combat was more deadly, and thus there seemed to be more incentive to finish fights ASAP.  My character was so optimized with her rapier skill that I could target a helm's eye slot pretty easily.  So it made combat less interesting.  Most fights played out the same more or less.  I'd get close, jab them in the face, and they'd fall over screaming.  There certainly was more to it than that, but overall, less fun than my experiences with D&D or RM.



That was something of my experience, too.  Hero has a couple of optional rules that let you swing combat along the spectrum from comic bookish to grim and gritty.  The default recommendations for fantasy campaigns tend towards heroic (not "super").  



> Some of the issues were due to the GM rather than the game system, as he was in lust with one of the players and hers was the Mary Sue character of the campaign (she got to save the day while the rest of us were her supporting cast).  Nonetheless, I believe GURPS was the product that was near the top of the thread that asked the question "What RPG product did you think you'd love and wound up hating?".



By all accounts, my GM was one of the best.  I really think the system just doesn't do it for some people.  IME, people usually like either Hero or GURPS, rarely both.  It must be some sort of play style thing.


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## Achan hiArusa (Jun 22, 2008)

Collect GURPS Rulebooks?  Who would do that?  (Eyes shelf full of GURPS books, including his full Transhuman Space collection)


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## The Cardinal (Jun 22, 2008)

philreed said:
			
		

> We're still expanding the Dungeon Fantasy line, with a few more releases in the works.






And my money is ready and waiting...


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## pawsplay (Jun 22, 2008)

Mercule said:
			
		

> By all accounts, my GM was one of the best.  I really think the system just doesn't do it for some people.  IME, people usually like either Hero or GURPS, rarely both.  It must be some sort of play style thing.




In my experience, it's rare to have been exposed to both, but I have not encountered this "play style" issue. Many people on the Hero and GURPS boards are quite familiar with the other game. It's probably rare for someone to invest heavily into two, very similar generic systems.


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## Mercule (Jun 22, 2008)

pawsplay said:
			
		

> In my experience, it's rare to have been exposed to both, but I have not encountered this "play style" issue. Many people on the Hero and GURPS boards are quite familiar with the other game. It's probably rare for someone to invest heavily into two, very similar generic systems.



Dunno.  Different experiences, then.  Most of my college group was strongly pro-Hero and, of those that had tried it, all hated GURPS -- a lot.  On the other hand, I've met quite a few GURPS players who held Hero in strong disdain.  I don't actually know anyone who has played both and is neutral.

Apparently, that isn't consistent with your experience.  I hope yours are more normal.

Personally, I'm past ripping on GURPS (okay, I'm trying really hard, so cut me some slack).  As long as people are coming to the hobby, who cares what system they're playing?  I do tend to try to steer people toward Hero, though, because I think it's a genuinely better system.  In thinking about it, GURPS might be easier to learn as a neophyte gamer because it's more skill-based than power based -- Hero can be, but the rules show their supers origins in the space devoted to powers.


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## pawsplay (Jun 22, 2008)

Mercule said:
			
		

> In thinking about it, GURPS might be easier to learn as a neophyte gamer because it's more skill-based than power based -- Hero can be, but the rules show their supers origins in the space devoted to powers.




75 point HERO characters and 150 point GURPS characters are so similar its eerie.  I don't know if one or the other is particularly more newbie friendly, especially as both now offer a lot of templates for characters.


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## SavageRobby (Jun 22, 2008)

I guess I'm on the few in the middle ground - I like (or don't like) Hero and GURPs about equally. I don't think they're bad systems, I just don't particularly care for either. However, if push came to shove and I _had_ to play one or the other, I'd probably opt for Hero.

Interestingly, I'm a huge Savage Worlds fan, so its not the generic system part that turns me off from Hero and GURPs. To be honest, I'm not sure what it is.


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## Mercule (Jun 22, 2008)

SavageRobby said:
			
		

> Interestingly, I'm a huge Savage Worlds fan, so its not the generic system part that turns me off from Hero and GURPs. To be honest, I'm not sure what it is.



My guess would be complexity.  Hero and GURPS, both, can involve a daunting amount of prep work for both players and GMs.  Sure, the GM can save the players (and himself, down the road) a lot of pain by picking up some up-front work in templating magic, races, critters, etc.  Or, you can use some published frameworks.  But, there's still a lot of fiddly bits that you have to master if you want your game/character to come together just right.

This is the main reason why I'd be tempted to run Savage Worlds over Hero.  I absolutely love the ability, in Hero, to set up a character or a magic system to reflect exactly what I was thinking.  On the other hand, there is a boatload of stuff that I just don't want to have to think about anymore.  Savage Worlds abstracts things enough that you just get to say, "this is what happens" but it's got a framework that lets you finish with "and the mechanical effects are this".


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## LoneWolf23 (Jun 22, 2008)

Speaking as a GURPS fan, one of the things I find most advantageous is the combat rules are simple enough, and consider miniatures and battlemaps to be options, not vital necessities.


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## jdrakeh (Jun 22, 2008)

Mercule said:
			
		

> My guess would be complexity.  Hero and GURPS, both, can involve a daunting amount of prep work for both players and GMs.




GURPS Lite circumvents almost all of this (HERO Sidekick does not, IME) with the good news being that this particular headache is front-loaded in full versions of both games (meaning that it all gets done before actual play). Still, I agree that it can be daunting.


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## xechnao (Jun 22, 2008)

Mercule said:
			
		

> I absolutely love the ability, in Hero, to set up a character or a magic system to reflect exactly what I was thinking.  On the other hand, there is a boatload of stuff that I just don't want to have to think about anymore.




Check out BESM (Tri-Stat). You might not be disappointed.


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## Mercule (Jun 22, 2008)

jdrakeh said:
			
		

> GURPS Lite circumvents almost all of this (HERO Sidekick does not, IME) with the good news being that this particular headache is front-loaded in full versions of both games (meaning that it all gets done before actual play). Still, I agree that it can be daunting.



I've checked out GURPS Lite, but not Sidekick.  That might have something to do with my thoughts.  

It could also be that I started playing Hero with Champions then played a few Fantasy Hero mages, so I may simply not be able to see Hero without the potential complications.


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## Kichwas (Jun 23, 2008)

GURPS is Hero with all the powers and disadvantages prebuilt and a lot of the flexibility removed.

Its not a bad game, but in playing it one is often left to wonder, "why am I not just playing the game this is obviously a tool-down of?"


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## pawsplay (Jun 23, 2008)

Mercule said:
			
		

> My guess would be complexity.  Hero and GURPS, both, can involve a daunting amount of prep work for both players and GMs.




The only problem with that theory is that they are both simple games.


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## pawsplay (Jun 23, 2008)

arcady said:
			
		

> GURPS is Hero with all the powers and disadvantages prebuilt and a lot of the flexibility removed.
> 
> Its not a bad game, but in playing it one is often left to wonder, "why am I not just playing the game this is obviously a tool-down of?"




I own a substantial number of books of both, and I entirely disagree with this opinion. I really am not sure how you would come to this misperception.


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## jdrakeh (Jun 23, 2008)

pawsplay said:
			
		

> The only problem with that theory is that they are both simple games.




Well, Hero _is_ heavily front-loaded with math. Not difficult math, mind you, just a _lot_ of it up front. For example, Hero has rules for creating powers, equipment, vehicles, and pretty much anything else you can thing of from scratch and assumes that you will do so, giving rather limited selections of each of these things in the FRED core book. This isn't an issue if you have the time or inclination to build an entire world from scratch, but if you don't, it can certainly be daunting. 

A lot of other generic systems (in fact, AFAIK, _all_ other generic systems) either have rules where you simply describe effects/equipment/etc and then aribitrarily assign a cost to them. Or conversely, they provide comprehensive lists of pre-built powers, pices of equipment, and vehicles that you can simply choose from. Such systems are not as detailed as Hero in terms of mechanical crunch, but the tradeoff is that they also take a lot less effor to run. 

Now, after you get all of your stuff built, there's very little math involved in Hero during actual play -- but, IME, a lot of people never make it that far due to an initial "WTF?!? I have to model a handgun using power effects!" response to seeing the character/item/power/vehicle creation rules. 

Granted, in both GURPS and Hero, this blow can be softened by sourcebooks (if you don't want to make it yourself, chances are, it's covered in a sourcebook someplace) but that will only get you so far.


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## pawsplay (Jun 23, 2008)

jdrakeh said:
			
		

> Now, after you get all of your stuff built, there's very little math involved in Hero during actual play -- but, IME, a lot of people never make it that far due to an initial "WTF?!? I have to model a handgun using power effects!" response to seeing the character/item/power/vehicle creation rules.
> 
> Granted, in both GURPS and Hero, this blow can be softened by sourcebooks (if you don't want to make it yourself, chances are, it's covered in a sourcebook someplace) but that will only get you so far.




The Hero System book already comes with a half dozen handguns, one or more shotguns, some SMGs, numerous vehicles, historical armor, etc. 

GURPS comes with representative weapons of every Tech Level from 1 to 11 and stats for a riding camel. 

So without going to any great lengths to stat anything, I can already pretty much run anything Feng Shui will do (very few creature or chi powers would be complicated enough to take more than a minute or two to convert, and the rest is already there). It's true, the main books only cover some very basic items, but sometimes, that's all you need. If you actually want a dozen kinds of revolver, stats for a WWII fighter plane, or Roman gladiator armor, yes, you'll want a sourcebook. 

GURPS Characters + GURPS Campaigns + GURPS Banestorm is three books, just like D&D, and comes with a more developed game world. 

HERO System 5th + The Turakian Age, likewise. 

For either GURPS or HERO, you will find they each come with as many weapons and armors described as does D&D. In fact, both support mix and match armor, which D&D 4e does not. I think people are quick to level as a liability that which is actually an asset. Yes, sourcebooks make GURPS and HERO more newbie friendly and complete, but the books are already as newbie friendly and complete as is D&D, and in fewer books. 

I can do a reasonable approximation of any 3.5 sample character in GURPS without the use of any soucebook whatsoever.


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## Mercule (Jun 23, 2008)

pawsplay said:
			
		

> The only problem with that theory is that they are both simple games.



For certain values of simple.  A vanishingly small number of values.

Most non-gamers consider Monopoly to be a complex game and Risk to be taxing.  Yes, Hero (sticking with my experiences) involves balanced, internally consistent rules with 3rd grade math.  But it still isn't exactly what I'd throw down in front of a green player to digest on their own.


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## jdrakeh (Jun 23, 2008)

Mercule said:
			
		

> Yes, Hero (sticking with my experiences) involves balanced, internally consistent rules with 3rd grade math.  But it still isn't exactly what I'd throw down in front of a green player to digest on their own.




As I hint at above, I don't think it's the _complexity_ of the math so much as it is the _volume_ of the math. There is quite a bit of math involved in character gen (and world-building, in Hero) -- I'd go so far as to say there is considerably _more_ up-front math than in many other RPGs of recent vintage (these RPGs basically have you pick stuff from lists or have broad 'catch all' approximations, rather than requiring you to build everything yourself). 

I've found that only the most die-hard gamers are willing to indulge a roleplaying system that seems like work. IME, most people want options, but they want them in a pre-constructed format that makes building a character like _taking a trip to the store_, rather than like _erecting a store_ one nut and bolt at a time. Again, in GURPS and Hero, sourcebooks can alleviate this to a large degree, but I don't see many people get that far. 

IME, many players take one look at the GURPS or Hero core books, think "Oh, man! Look at all the work this requires!" and then go buy something less labor intensive. This is a shame because, as I mention, once you get past the initial 'build it' stage, both games are actually far _less_ rules-heavy than stuff like D&D 3x. People just don't get a chance to find that out first-hand


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## hong (Jun 23, 2008)

That's what Robin Laws said: RPGs are fantasy shopping for guys.


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## Choranzanus (Jun 23, 2008)

GURPS is a kind of rpg system that reads much better than it actually plays (the opposite of 4ed I think). Virtually _none_ of the rules work as they are supposed to. Buyers beware.

That said, the sourcebooks are great. Just download GURPS Lite for free and you can use them.

When disscusing GURPS it is useful to remember that rules are more than just character creation. It is great that you can make a character you want, but that does not in itself make a great rpg system.


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## jdrakeh (Jun 23, 2008)

hong said:
			
		

> That's what Robin Laws said: RPGs are fantasy shopping for guys.




I had forgotten about that, though I think there is a lot of truth to the observation.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 23, 2008)

GURPS is one of my favorite game systems. A couple of things should be kept in mind, however:

- The GM needs to remember that most of the rules - including the advantages, disadvantages, and skills - are optional and not needed in most campaigns, though which of those are inappropriate for a specific campaign will vary. The GM needs to pay attention to the creation of the characters, and the players need to show a modicum of common sense when creating them. As I've said before, just because you can in theory purchase Social Status 7 and thus play the President of the United States in a modern-day campaign, it doesn't mean that playing such a character will be appropriate.

- Unlike D&D, characters _aren't_ assumed to be equally competent in combat unless the players make them so. Character points measure overall experience, power, and versatility, and not just competence in combat. Thus, it's just as possible to build scholars or socialites with the same number of character points as hardened combat monsters. If there are going to be a lot of fights, then the players should all make sure that their characters have some combat ability, and that no PC outshines the others too much.

- GURPS has a solid grounding in realism, so tactics that would work in real life will work well in it as well. If you are in a gunfight, use good cover and strategic positions. If your tech level is medieval, wear armor if you plan to get into swordfights. The side with the better tactics will usually have a huge advantage.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 23, 2008)

While both HERO and GURPS are essentially toolbox RPGs, and the math is almost entirely front loaded on both of them.

There are, however, certain differences which make all the difference to me (Mr. I-love-HERO-and-hate-GURPS):

GURPS has a huge number of well researched, written and playtested supplements that are useful as sourcebooks even if you don't play GURPS.  However, those supplements are not neccessarily balanced with the Core rules or with other supplements- they're designed to model a particular focused setting or campaign style.  For instance, the Core rules for psionics are not as flashy and are more expensive than in some of the sci-fi or superheroic supplements.  Where a Core PC may spend a host of build points to telekinetically lift a bowling ball, a supers Teke could spend the same amount of build points and toss a motorcycle.

In contrast, in HERO, supplements are just designed to be consistent within the game, reality being merely nodded to.  But in this system, points are points are points.  Barring a DM tweak, psionic powers cost the same for a FRP campaign as they do in a sci-fi or superheroic game.  The difference between campaigns is basically in how many freebie points the PCs can start off with- a 50 pt Energy blast power is going to be essentially the same power regardless of campaign.

To me, that meant that GURPS didn't live up to the "Universal" in its name, and it bugged me in each GURPS campaign or playtest I was involved with.  Whereas I can easily take a creature or NPC from any HERO supplement and run it as is- changing only its flavor text- for GURPS I had to make sure it was made under a set of compatible rules, or else it could either overpower or utterly underwhelm the party.  GURPS simply lacked what I called "internal cross-consistency."

Caveat- I haven't played the latest edition, and Jurgen has assured me that the current version of GURPS is a LOT more internally cross-consistent.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 23, 2008)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> While both HERO and GURPS are essentially toolbox RPGs, and the math is almost entirely front loaded on both of them.
> 
> There are, however, certain differences which make all the difference to me (Mr. I-love-HERO-and-hate-GURPS):
> 
> GURPS has a huge number of well researched, written and playtested supplements that are useful as sourcebooks even if you don't play GURPS.  However, those supplements are not neccessarily balanced with the Core rules or with other supplements- they're designed to model a particular focused setting or campaign style.  For instance, the Core rules for psionics are not as flashy and are more expensive than in some of the sci-fi or superheroic supplements.  Where a Core PC may spend a host of build points to telekinetically lift a bowling ball, a supers Teke could spend the same amount of build points and toss a motorcycle.




That used to be a problem for the 3rd edition - which originally started out with a ruleset for people close to the human norm, but over the course of the 15 years (!) of its existence accumulated all sorts of additional rules in various supplements that often contradicted each other.

The 4th edition has much tighter editorial control over the line (as opposed to individual books - individual books were almost always excellent, but how well they worked with the rest of the line varied), and you are unlikely to find any such glaring contradictions in it.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 23, 2008)

See!  See!  I told you Jurgen would assure you that the new version is better!


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## Viktyr Gehrig (Jun 23, 2008)

Jadeite said:
			
		

> There are also hundreds of setting books, all compatible. Some combinations are a bit strange, but the options are nearly boundless. It's also quite exploitable. There should be free introduction rules called gurps lite.
> http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/Lite/




As a matter of fact, there's a great way to randomly generate the theme of a campaign: find a list of GURPS sourcebooks, assign numbers to each of them, and roll three times. Your game is based on those three sourcebooks.

There used to be a webpage that did this for you automatically... but I can't remember the URL and pretty much any GURPS link is going to include the search terms "game", "random", and "sourcebook". Someone who's search-fu is stronger than mine might be able to pin it down.

Now, you can do this based just on the names of the sourcebooks, but it works much, much better if you actually have them all on your bookshelf... and can read through them and find ways to make them work together.

Only time it's ever failed me was when I rolled Biotech, Horror... and Bunnies & Barrows. I very well *could* have played such a game, but I decided that I really would rather not to.



			
				Vinovia said:
			
		

> 3d6 rolls for most everything means that most results will be average. This is less "swingy" than D&D's flat d20 rolls, where you are just as likely to roll a 1, a 20, or a 10. This is good in theory if you want most results to be in the mid-range. Just optimize your character to be really good at their specific skills, and you will practically always succeed even at difficult tasks.




Easiest House Rule in the world. Use a d20.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 23, 2008)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> See!  See!  I told you Jurgen would assure you that the new version is better!




Well, it is.   

Frankly, considering the D&D Edition Wars (and similar phenomena in other games going through multiple editions), it's astonishing just how large the majority of GURPS players is that considers GURPS 4E to be a better game, despite a number of rather significant changes. The only "major" criticism I can think of is that some people would have preferred it that the skills would be separated into different skill categories, instead of listed alphabetically - and in the larger scheme of things, that's not a huge issue.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 23, 2008)

Well, it seems to me that the change between GURPS 4Ed from its predecessors was not so much a change in mechanics- as we see in the current D&D switchover- as a MASSIVE housecleaning that really tightened the system up.


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## jdrakeh (Jun 23, 2008)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> Well, it seems to me that the change between GURPS 4Ed from its predecessors was not so much a change in mechanics- as we see in the current D&D switchover- as a MASSIVE housecleaning that really tightened the system up.




I think that's a fair assessment. My experience with GURPS 4e has been considerably more pleasant than experiences with past editions of GURPS (of course, I have yet to _run_ a 4e game).


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 23, 2008)

Korimyr the Rat said:
			
		

> There used to be a webpage that did this for you automatically... but I can't remember the URL and pretty much any GURPS link is going to include the search terms "game", "random", and "sourcebook". Someone who's search-fu is stronger than mine might be able to pin it down.




Here it is...



> Only time it's ever failed me was when I rolled Biotech, Horror... and Bunnies & Barrows. I very well *could* have played such a game, but I decided that I really would rather not to.




But who _wouldn't_ want to play a game in which genetically modified rabbits infiltrate a rabbit warren which have been secretly changed to be

- carnivorous (eating other rabbits they can catch in a dark corner of the warren)
- rapidly reproducing (they are emitting pheromones that make them irresistible to female rabbits - who subsequently go through an accelerated pregnancy after which the newborn burst from the womb) and
- rapidly growing (shedding the outer layer of their skin - including their fur - during each growth spurt)?

There's only one thing the surviving normal rabbits can do - infiltrate the nearby biotech lab that spawned them and find the poison tailored to those carnivores, before they spread out all over the world and threaten rabbitkind!


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## Choranzanus (Jun 23, 2008)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> - GURPS has a solid grounding in realism, so tactics that would work in real life will work well in it as well. If you are in a gunfight, use good cover and strategic positions. If your tech level is medieval, wear armor if you plan to get into swordfights. The side with the better tactics will usually have a huge advantage.



Yes, realism. GURPS is an ultimate simulationist system; everything must be realistic even magic, psionics, force fields, blasters...nevermind that default genre is medieval fantasy.
This kind of schizophreny shows up more often and as a result GURPS does modern day campaigns reasonably well and everything else poorly. GURPS realism is illusory, even if it was desirable in the first place.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 23, 2008)

Choranzanus said:
			
		

> Yes, realism. GURPS is an ultimate simulationist system; everything must be realistic even magic, psionics, force fields, blasters...nevermind that default genre is medieval fantasy.
> This kind of schizophreny shows up more often and as a result GURPS does modern day campaigns reasonably well and everything else poorly. GURPS realism is illusory, even if it was desirable in the first place.




I have run GURPS for medieval fantasy campaigns (Warhammer Fantasy and Eberron), and I must strongly disagree - it works excellently for this genre as well. After all, it's easier to add fantastic elements to a game based on realism than it is to achieve realism for a game that was never intended to be realistic in the first place (*cough* *d20* *cough).

No, magic, psionics, force fields etc. aren't realistic - but thanks to the way GURPS does things, you can always compare them to realistic weapons, armor, etc, and in a setting that uses both, you can figure out the best tactics combining the two. That's one of the cool things about GURPS - it allows the world-builder to ask the question: "What if?", and then figure out the consequences of his initial setting assumptions.

The new edition of Ultra-Tech is a very good example of this - it features both advanced but relatively "realistic" technology that is likely to be developed in the future, and implausible "supertech" for those with wilder campaign assumptions. You can pick and chose which technology you want to use, and the book has plenty of advice about the consequences of doing so.


(Oh, and I find it somewhat ironic that I often end up defending GURPS here on ENWorld... and D&D on the Steve Jackson Games forums.)


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jun 23, 2008)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> (Oh, and I find it somewhat ironic that I often end up defending GURPS here on ENWorld... and D&D on the Steve Jackson Games forums.)



What, you like two different systems? And visit a different forum besides EN World? Is that even allowed?


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## Choranzanus (Jun 23, 2008)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> I have run GURPS for medieval fantasy campaigns (Warhammer Fantasy and Eberron), and I must strongly disagree - it works excellently for this genre as well. After all, it's easier to add fantastic elements to a game based on realism than it is to achieve realism for a game that was never intended to be realistic in the first place (*cough* *d20* *cough).



No, it is not. In GURPS sword does about 1D damage and 9mm handgun does 2D+2. In reality, if somebody hits you with a sword, you die; with handguns you probably die (without modern medicine at least). The above mentioned numbers actually work in D&D fantasy or modern day "reasonably realistic but not quite one shot dead" campaign. Combine the two and realism will implode. GURPS makes many compromises to achieve its goals. In my post I wasn't trying to be too hard on GURPS, but  pointing out that the design principles you mention are fundamentally schizophrenic, and the results look like that.
People on SJG boards often seem to miss these points and pan D&D because it is "unrealistic", but they live in illusion.

I cannot recommend anyone to run Eberron in GURPS. It seems pointless to convert it all, even if it ultimately worked.


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## Viktyr Gehrig (Jun 23, 2008)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> Here it is...




I don't care what the others say. You're a peach.



			
				Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> But who _wouldn't_ want to play a game in which genetically modified rabbits infiltrate a rabbit warren which have been secretly changed to be
> 
> - carnivorous (eating other rabbits they can catch in a dark corner of the warren)
> - rapidly reproducing (they are emitting pheromones that make them irresistible to female rabbits - who subsequently go through an accelerated pregnancy after which the newborn burst from the womb) and
> ...




That's 100% pure awesome, despite the fact that I'm going to have nightmares about it now. I keep getting these recurring images of exploring a seemingly abandoned rabbit den and stumbling across dozens of bloody rabbit pelts, while hearing unnatural hissing and clicking noises from deeper in the tunnels...


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## The Cardinal (Jun 23, 2008)

Choranzanus said:
			
		

> I cannot recommend anyone to run Eberron in GURPS. It seems pointless to convert it all, even if it ultimately worked.




Seeing the growing numbers of gamers around here who enjoy their fantasy campaigns (Eberron, Warhammer, Conan, Midnight) much more since their GMs decided to convert them to GURPS, this kind of effort doesn't  seem all that pointless to me...


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 23, 2008)

Choranzanus said:
			
		

> No, it is not. In GURPS sword does about 1D damage and 9mm handgun does 2D+2.




Technically, a sword, when wielded with someone with _average_ Strength, will do 1D+1 _cutting_ damage. Which averages out to (3+4+6+7+9+10)/6=6.5 points - a major wound. The handgun shot averages out to 9 hit points - a bit more, but not excessively so. And note that we are talking about a _pistol_ here, not a rifle.



> In reality, if somebody hits you with a sword, you die; with handguns you probably die (without modern medicine at least).




That depends on a lot of factors - where the weapon hits, how strong the attacker is (in the case of swords), the general robustness of the victim (read up on what kind of stuff Rasputin survived), what kind of gun is used, and so forth. Single injuries such as those are certainly enough to incapacitate a limb, but they aren't lethal unless they hit a vital organ (which can be done in GURPS if you used the advanced hit location mechanics).



> The above mentioned numbers actually work in D&D fantasy or modern day "reasonably realistic but not quite one shot dead" campaign. Combine the two and realism will implode.




The numbers look rather plausible to me.



> GURPS makes many compromises to achieve its goals. In my post I wasn't trying to be too hard on GURPS, but  pointing out that the design principles you mention are fundamentally schizophrenic, and the results look like that.




They are not nearly as schizophrenic as you seem to think.



> People on SJG boards often seem to miss these points and pan D&D because it is "unrealistic", but they live in illusion.




Actually, I think the most common criticism revolves around the rather limited customization abilities for characters, which is perfectly valid.



> I cannot recommend anyone to run Eberron in GURPS. It seems pointless to convert it all, even if it ultimately worked.




It wasn't all that hard - all I had to do was to come up with racial templates and price conversion. Actually, I think GURPS probably works even better for the "pulp" atmosphere of Eberron than D&D - the characters can get quite powerful, but never really superhuman, and in all likelyhood they will still find it prudent to run from hordes of mooks even once they have become very experienced...


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## Aus_Snow (Jun 23, 2008)

Choranzanus said:
			
		

> In reality, if somebody hits you with a sword, you die



Classic.


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## jdrakeh (Jun 23, 2008)

Aus_Snow said:
			
		

> Classic.




Yeah, I have no idea what reality that is. Here, in the reality that I inhabit, people survive stab wounds on a pretty regular basis.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 23, 2008)

Korimyr the Rat said:
			
		

> That's 100% pure awesome, despite the fact that I'm going to have nightmares about it now. I keep getting these recurring images of exploring a seemingly abandoned rabbit den and stumbling across dozens of bloody rabbit pelts, while hearing unnatural hissing and clicking noises from deeper in the tunnels...




And that's just one of the many things you can do with GURPS...   

GURPS is brilliant for doing some really strange crossovers, and its sourcebooks are generally written with the assumption that the reader might wish to use the material in it in combination with an entirely different genre. That's why I recommend GURPS even to those who will never play the system - their books are often so thought-provoking that you will get dozens of new ideas for adventures and campaigns from a single read-through.

GURPS Horror really dissects the horror genre and rebuilds it. Transhuman Space gives you so many ideas of what people might do with future technology that you will also get no shortage of ideas how people in a _fantasy_ environment might use magic to change themselves and their environment (I once wrote an article about elves as a case study of fantasy Transhumanism...). GURPS Space has its own rule system for rolling up entire creatures (sapient or not) in alien environments - complete with the basics of their general behavior - and this system can also easily be used for other games.

Reading books for more than a single game system means broadening one's horizons. Inspiration can be found everywhere, but if you read books from different game lines, you will find ideas that you probably wouldn't find otherwise. And that's not just limited to D&D and GURPS. Take Exalted, for example - it radically made me rethink campaigns for very powerful characters, and now I know how to make them something more than just defeating bigger and badder enemies.


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## Aus_Snow (Jun 23, 2008)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> Take Exalted, for example - it radically made me rethink campaigns for very powerful characters, and now I know how to make them something more than just defeating bigger and badder enemies.



Would you mind expanding on that point, just a bit? Sorry, I know it's not quite on topic, but I'm intrigued. To be honest, I never gave Exalted a fair go - it got the 'don't like the looks of you' treatment, and was thereafter shunned. Occasionally, I'll do that. 

But I'd love to hear some of its good points - particularly the kind of thing you've just mentioned - from. . . well, frankly from someone not known (AFAICS) as an Exalted fanboi.


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## Choranzanus (Jun 23, 2008)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> That depends on a lot of factors - where the weapon hits, how strong the attacker is (in the case of swords), the general robustness of the victim (read up on what kind of stuff Rasputin survived), what kind of gun is used, and so forth. Single injuries such as those are certainly enough to incapacitate a limb, but they aren't lethal unless they hit a vital organ (which can be done in GURPS if you used the advanced hit location mechanics).
> 
> The numbers look rather plausible to me.



OK, I rest my case, you do not understand. Lets talk about mechanics.


			
				Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> Actually, I think the most common criticism revolves around the rather limited customization abilities for characters, which is perfectly valid.



True. But as I warned, mechanics is more than character creation. When discussing GURPS it seems inevitable that some people forget this.
Min-maxers and powergamers love GURPS, no doubt.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 23, 2008)

Aus_Snow said:
			
		

> Would you mind expanding on that point, just a bit? Sorry, I know it's not quite on topic, but I'm intrigued. To be honest, I never gave Exalted a fair go - it got the 'don't like the looks of you' treatment, and was thereafter shunned. Occasionally, I'll do that.




Sure. In D&D, the default assumption is that the PCs go on some sort of "Quest" - they need to retrieve an item, defeat a bad guy (or a group of them), and so forth. The reward usually includes either money or better equipment. Once they have completed the Quest, they move on to the next one. Often they are given those Quests by some sort of NPC, and sometimes they figure out what to do by themselves (like finding clues to how they can destroy the Evil Artifact). But in general, the reason for the Quest comes from the outside.

I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with that approach - or even that this is the only approach possible in D&D. But it seems to be the most common and the general default assumption.

In the default Exalted campaigns - where the PCs are Solar Exalted - things are very different. Instead of running Quest-based campaigns, the adventures are motivated by the goals and ambitions of the PCs themselves. Basically, the game asks the question:

"You have the power to change the world - so now what are you going to do with it?"

This is a question the players _have_ to answer, since each and every Solar PCs has some sort of motivation for how he plans to change the world in a major way (only people who have such ambitions become Solars in the first place). And thus, adventures don't spring from Quests, but from the choices and goals the PCs set for themselves.

As an example, a goal for a campaign arc might be: "We want to turn this province of the Realm to become independent and kick the Dragon-Blooded out." The PCs aren't doing this because someone told them to, but simply because they have seen how the Dragon-Blooded are tyrannizing the locals and want to do something about it. Now they need to figure out how to do this. They could openly conquer the province all by themselves, but that will draw a lot of attention to them and might make them enemies they are not ready for. They could begin a campaign of assassination against the Dragon-Blooded without getting detected as the assassins. They could use social manipulation to get the local Dragon-Blooded to turn upon themselves, and incite the population to revolt. They could try to convince the local spirit courts to side with them and sabotage the Dragon-Blooded.

There's a large number of possibilities on how to approach this, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages - and might lead to future complication and enemies. The PCs must decide for themselves how far they want to go and which of their ideals they want to compromise. Their moral and ethical choices _will_ have consequences, but there is no higher moral authority who is able and willing to punish them for their mistakes - instead, their choices will color their relationships with their peers and inferiors.


In short, the PCs have great freedom to do what they want, and how they want - but there is also no one else whom they can blame for their mistakes. If they make the wrong decisions, a lot of people will die or suffer even worse fates. And sometimes this will happen even if they might the _right_ choices - then, they get to decide who will live, and who gets to die. And they have no one to appeal to to ease their conscience.


And that's also how I will run future epic-level D&D campaigns: The PCs are metaphorical giants striding across the world, able to topple entire nations when they set their minds to it. But with that power also comes grave responsibility, and if the PCs have any morals at all, they need to face that people will suffer for both their mistakes and their inactions - and learn to live with it somehow.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 23, 2008)

Choranzanus said:
			
		

> OK, I rest my case, you do not understand.




You failed to make your point.



> Lets talk about mechanics.
> 
> True. But as I warned, mechanics is more than character creation. When discussing GURPS it seems inevitable that some people forget this.
> Min-maxers and powergamers love GURPS, no doubt.




Min-maxers will find something to exploit in every game system - _definitely_ including D&D. True, GURPS lends itself to abuse when the GM isn't careful about what kinds of advantages and disadvantages he permits in his campaign. But with some care, most abuses are easily avoidable.


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## Aus_Snow (Jun 23, 2008)

Great! Thanks for responding, and clearly and eloquently at that. Whether or not I'll let up on my fervent distaste for all things Exalted remains to be seen , but I can definitely see how - as with other RPG books, such as GURPS supplements, which you also mentioned - the book(s) in question might help a GM to come to a different understanding of certain other systems and/or settings they might choose to use.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 23, 2008)

Aus_Snow said:
			
		

> Great! Thanks for responding, and clearly and eloquently at that. Whether or not I'll let up on my fervent distaste for all things Exalted remains to be seen , but I can definitely see how - as with other RPG books, such as GURPS supplements, which you also mentioned - the book(s) in question might help a GM to come to a different understanding of certain other systems and/or settings they might choose to use.




Well, truth to be told the rule system _is_ a bit dodgy at times. But parts of it are still nonetheless impressive. I mean, D&D 4E has a lot of very cool powers suitable for use in combat. So has Exalted - but what really impressed me is the sheer range of cool powers for use _outside_ of combat. For controlling ships, persuasion of crowds, investigation of secrets... heck, they even made the _Bureaucracy_ skill look cool!

In Exalted, there's almost always several ways of dealing with a problem, instead of just combat - something that I wish the 4E powers would support better...


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## pawsplay (Jun 23, 2008)

Choranzanus said:
			
		

> No, it is not. In GURPS sword does about 1D damage and 9mm handgun does 2D+2. In reality, if somebody hits you with a sword, you die; with handguns you probably die (without modern medicine at least).




Neither is true. Most handgun wounds are not immediately fatal, and more people died of infected wounds than ever died of super ninja sword moves in history.


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## pawsplay (Jun 23, 2008)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> GURPS has a huge number of well researched, written and playtested supplements that are useful as sourcebooks even if you don't play GURPS.  However, those supplements are not neccessarily balanced with the Core rules or with other supplements- they're designed to model a particular focused setting or campaign style.  For instance, the Core rules for psionics are not as flashy and are more expensive than in some of the sci-fi or superheroic supplements.  Where a Core PC may spend a host of build points to telekinetically lift a bowling ball, a supers Teke could spend the same amount of build points and toss a motorcycle.




In principle, this is a fair complaint, but
* As of 4e, all super powers, be they psionic or mutant, use the same advantages to build them
* Even in 3e, telekinesis was actually one of the few ways for a "normal" character to do insane amounts of damage on a budget. Forget bowling balls... lifting _tons_ was not out of the question, and 4e is actually kind of a TK nerf.
* As far as I can recall, there is no 3e "super telekinesis" power anyway, I think they just made you buy psionc telekinesis and call it super.

So your criticism makes sense, if you refer to a previous version and use a completely differently example.  I believe the comparison you were looking for was "various ways to do 3d6 points of fire damage at a range."


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## pawsplay (Jun 23, 2008)

Mercule said:
			
		

> For certain values of simple.  A vanishingly small number of values.
> 
> Most non-gamers consider Monopoly to be a complex game and Risk to be taxing.  Yes, Hero (sticking with my experiences) involves balanced, internally consistent rules with 3rd grade math.  But it still isn't exactly what I'd throw down in front of a green player to digest on their own.




That's how I learned it, and my previous experience was with D&D, AD&D, TMNT and Other Strangeness, Star Wars (D6), Marvel Super Heroes, Talislanta 2e, Runequest, and GURPS. Piece of cake.


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## Ashrem Bayle (Jun 23, 2008)

How I became a GURPS fan...

A few years ago I sat down at my computer with a very ambitious goal. I was going to rewrite the D&D Player's Handbook (3.5) to better satisfy my need for more realism and detail. After about 60 pages into my outline, I realized the end result really wasn't going to be D&D anymore at all.

So I came to the conclusion that what I really wanted wasn't D&D, but another game altogether. So I started searching around. The game I was looking for had to meet certain criteria:

1. Highly customizable characters.
2. The ability to create characters that resembled real people more so than "video game" characters.
3. Lethal combat. No matter how great a warrior was, a commoner with a knife had to at least be a minor threat.
4. Combat needed to have options. "Fighters" needed as many cool tricks as "Wizards".
5. No Vancian magic system. Magic needed to be more flexible.
6. Interesting critical hits and failures.
7. Interesting combat. I wanted more options for different combat techniques.
8. And the most important thing: Players needed to be rewarded for being clever and strategic in a manner more meaningful than just "+2 to hit for flanking".

In the end, I settled on GURPS. It hit all of the above criteria and was designed with the idea that you can build everything around real-world simulation. But can it do it without dragging the game to a snail's pace?

It does, and it does it well. All the complexity is in character creation. So the good news is that you can make uber-detailed and interesting characters of any genre. The bad news is that character creation can take hours. 

It's worth it to me.

So a little over a year ago I dropped my D&D 3.5 campaign in favor of GURPS. I reveled in the "simulationist" aspects of the game, and I've had a lot of fun with it.

So now I have GURPS for my "hardcore" gritty campaign and D&D4e for my high action "over the top" campaign.

And I'm very happy with both.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 23, 2008)

pawsplay said:
			
		

> Neither is true. Most handgun wounds are not immediately fatal, and more people died of infected wounds than ever died of super ninja sword moves in history.




In my experience, many complains about the supposed lack of realism of GURPS can be traced back to that the complainant had done less research on the subject than the authors of GURPS books.

Say what you will about GURPS, but the research and playtesting that have gone into GURPS books are top-notch, and are, in fact, setting the industry standard for the most part. Only Wizards of the Coast matches Steve Jackson Games on playtesting, and even then not with all their books.


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## Storm Raven (Jun 23, 2008)

Choranzanus said:
			
		

> No, it is not. In GURPS sword does about 1D damage and 9mm handgun does 2D+2. In reality, if somebody hits you with a sword, you die; with handguns you probably die (without modern medicine at least).




I'm left to wonder about casualty lists from actual historical battles, which usually list two to three times as many wounded as killed - and the weapons normally used were swords, spears, guns, and artillery.

I guess those battles just weren't very realistic.


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## Particle_Man (Jun 23, 2008)

One word of warning, Gurps Powers is a more flexible way to do magic than Gurps Magic, which is surprisingly restrictive for a universal system.


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## Ashrem Bayle (Jun 23, 2008)

Particle_Man said:
			
		

> One word of warning, Gurps Powers is a more flexible way to do magic than Gurps Magic, which is surprisingly restrictive for a universal system.




Agreed. However, _GURPS: Thaumatology_ is coming out in August (hopefully) and it's supposed to offer all kinds of ways to tweak the basic magic system.

I'm waiting on that book to see if I want to use the basic spell system or use Powers for something more flexible.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 23, 2008)

Particle_Man said:
			
		

> One word of warning, Gurps Powers is a more flexible way to do magic than Gurps Magic, which is surprisingly restrictive for a universal system.




The system in GURPS Magic is pretty much a huge list of "standard spells" (about 700-800 or so). It works well enough for many fantasy campaigns, but it doesn't really go into much detail about fiddling around with the base assumptions of the spell system. You'll need the upcoming GURPS Thaumatology for that.   

On the other hand, GURPS Powers is awesome. It's not really a typical "book with all the rules we forgot to put into the Basic Set" like you might think from reading the book description alone - instead, it's a book full of suggestions and ideas about what you can _do_ with the Basic Set (I hope this makes sense,,,). And that's a lot more than you might have imagined.

With the suggestions in this book, and a basic familiarity of the advantages in the Basic Set, you will be able to come up with a whole subsystem for a type of supernatural powers. Want to be a sun priest who can manipulate light, but only while the sun is in the sky? A demonologist who can summon demonic allies through blood sacrifice? Someone who can control the elements, but becomes fatigued every time he uses his powers? A hermit who can command plants and animals - but only as long as he stays away from cities?

All are not only doable with GURPS Powers, but _easily_ doable - and all are already balanced within the context of the GURPS rules.


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## Ashrem Bayle (Jun 23, 2008)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> The system in GURPS Magic is pretty much a huge list of "standard spells" (about 700-800 or so). It works well enough for many fantasy campaigns, but it doesn't really go into much detail about fiddling around with the base assumptions of the spell system. You'll need the upcoming GURPS Thaumatology for that.
> 
> On the other hand, GURPS Powers is awesome. It's not really a typical "book with all the rules we forgot to put into the Basic Set" like you might think from reading the book description alone - instead, it's a book full of suggestions and ideas about what you can _do_ with the Basic Set (I hope this makes sense,,,). And that's a lot more than you might have imagined.
> 
> ...




In my current campaign, we have a "druid" who gets more powerful the farther away from civilization he becomes. In a city, he's pretty much a normal dude.

But as he gets out into the wilds, he starts getting bigger, more muscular, hairier, and more feral looking. It also gets harder for him to control his temper and he becomes prone to falling into berserk rages. In addition to that, he heals faster, his skin toughens, his senses get more acute, he gets faster, and he gains the ability to sprout claws that are nearly a foot long.


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## estar (Jun 23, 2008)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> With the suggestions in this book, and a basic familiarity of the advantages in the Basic Set, you will be able to come up with a whole subsystem for a type of supernatural powers.




I was trying to convince a friend to try GURPS 4th edition. We played together for 10 years in NERO live action roleplaying . NERO uses boffer combat and packets for spells. You say the incant "I call forth a magic missile" and throw the packet. If it hits the spell does damage and/or takes effect.

I was able to replicate the system using GURPS Powers. Not only replicate the effect but the feel of saying the incant and throwing the packet. Because GURPS is grounded in realism it was easy to simulate the physical limitation of a person throwing a bean bag with all it's limitations yet increase the magical effects that occured.

Playing NERO for 10 years has left us with a good sense of how a combat encounter should go. When we playtested it, it was eerie how accurately GURPS replicated the situations and choices we had to make. 

Sure it wasn't perfect. Some of the point values caused things to be valued way differently but still it is a testament to the quality design of the system that it could come close.


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## timbannock (Jun 23, 2008)

Knightlord said:
			
		

> Just wondering: What's GURPS, and how would you compare it to D&D?




GURPS is most certainly NOT anything like CARPS (Crappy Azz Roleplaying System), otherwise known as Wildside Fantasy Role-playing System.


Humor aside, GURPS is a great game if you like doing a LOT of prep-work.  For that, it's awesome.  If time constrains you (as it does me), I recommend 4E.  4E is also eminently more "kewl," which I enjoy.  GURPS takes a lot of work to be "kewl," and still usually doesn't feel "kewl" even then.

I like it for "gritty," but I'm sick of gritty right now.


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## pawsplay (Jun 23, 2008)

neuronphaser said:
			
		

> Humor aside, GURPS is a great game if you like doing a LOT of prep-work.




For my next trick, I am going to convert the 3.5 sorcerer into GURPS _right now_.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 23, 2008)

Note: Most of the prep work for GURPS is only relevant for player characters. After all, character points are an accounting device for player characters _only_, so there's no reason to calculate them for NPCs.

Here, for example, is a Generic Guard:

ST 11, DX 10, IQ 10, HT 11
Skills: Broadsword-12, Shield-12
Weapons: Broadsword, 1d+2 cut
Armor: Leather Armor, DR 2, Medium Shield
Defenses: Dodge 10, Parry 11, Block 11

I just made those stats up, which really didn't take up a lot of time.


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## pawsplay (Jun 23, 2008)

pawsplay said:
			
		

> For my next trick, I am going to convert the 3.5 sorcerer into GURPS _right now_.




HUMAN SORCERER

ST 9 [-10]
DX 12 [40]
IQ 10 
HT 11 [10]

Will 13 [15], Perception 11 [5], HP 12 [15]

Advantages: Charisma 2 [10], Magery 2 [25], Sorcery Energy Reserve FP 4 [20]

Skills: Thaumatology IQ+2 - 12 [16]
Expert Creatures of Magic IQ+2 - 12 [8]
Meditation IQ+2 - 12 [12]
Knife DX -12 [1]
Staff DX - 11 [1]
Axe/Axe 11 [1]
Thrown Knife DX - 12 [1]

Sorcery Power 
Power modifier: Magic -10%

Light: Perk, magical "candle" [1]
Ghost Sound: Perk, magical sound [1]
Magic Missile: Innate Attack, 2d pi, Accurate 5 (+25%), Armor Divisor (5) (+150%), Sorcery (-10%), Costs Fatigue (-5%) [26]
Sleep: Affliction 2, Unconscious (150%), Malediction (150%) , Area Effect, radius 3 (100%), Sorcery (-10%), Costs Fatigue (-5%) [97]

Total: 295 points (maybe, check my math)


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 23, 2008)

> In principle, this is a fair complaint, but
> <snip>
> * Even in 3e, telekinesis was actually one of the few ways for a "normal" character to do insane amounts of damage on a budget. Forget bowling balls... lifting tons was not out of the question, and 4e is actually kind of a TK nerf.




I chose the example using the TK rules specifically because of a heroic-level (not superheroic) campaign in which we were using psionics- my PC had to spend a great deal of build points to be strong enough to lift a bowling ball (literally, 16lbs, as I recall).  There were other splatbooks in the GM's possession (that I don't own and that he chose not to use) in which the same amount of power points spent on TK would have given the PC TK strength orders of magnitude better.  He barely had enough points left over to be a competent PI.

(I know comparing across systems is at best fraught with danger, but by way of contrast, a HERO version of the same PC in a heroic level campaign could be designed as a competent PI and could telekinetically exert full human strength, lifting about 200lbs.)


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## pawsplay (Jun 23, 2008)

pawsplay said:
			
		

> HUMAN SORCERER




Okay, I did pretty good, but I forgot Crossbow-12 [1], and my 3e trained brain forgot to include Magery in Thaumatology (saves 8 points) and buy an Innate Attack skill - 12 [1].


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## Mercule (Jun 23, 2008)

This:


			
				pawsplay said:
			
		

> my previous experience was with D&D, AD&D, TMNT and Other Strangeness, Star Wars (D6), Marvel Super Heroes, Talislanta 2e, Runequest, and GURPS. Piece of cake.



runs directly counter to this:


			
				me said:
			
		

> a green player



You, sir, are not by any stretch of the imagination a "green player".  Neither was I when I picked up the book and learned it on my own.

Once you have a certain level of mastery over multiple RPG systems, you get to bypass a whole heap of hurdles that afflict newcomers.  Yes, to an experienced gamer, Hero really isn't that bad.  It's still a lot harder for someone new to the hobby (or a casual participant) to pick up than, say D&D.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 23, 2008)

> Once you have a certain level of mastery over multiple RPG systems, you get to bypass a whole heap of hurdles that afflict newcomers. Yes, to an experienced gamer, Hero really isn't that bad. It's still a lot harder for someone new to the hobby (or a casual participant) to pick up than, say D&D.




I don't know if I can agree with that 100%.

When I picked up HERO (then called Champions) in 1982 or so, I had been playing D&D and Traveller since 1977.  Yes, that's 5 years of experience in the hobby, but it was only with 2 games.

And really, the _math_ of the system hasn't changed any- its just the number of powers from which you have to choose has exploded.

Sure, the more you play, the easier it is to pick up a new game, but I found HERO to be fairly easy to understand.  Its like RPG Legos- all I had to do was pick my PC's building bricks.  After slogging through some simple math during PC creation, the game pretty much ran itself.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 23, 2008)

Mercule said:
			
		

> Once you have a certain level of mastery over multiple RPG systems, you get to bypass a whole heap of hurdles that afflict newcomers.  Yes, to an experienced gamer, Hero really isn't that bad.  It's still a lot harder for someone new to the hobby (or a casual participant) to pick up than, say D&D.




Green players _can_ be taught gaming with GURPS. But still, you need a veteran gamer as a _GM_.

GURPS Basic Set 1: Characters is essentially a huge laundry list of options. And the GM needs to prune those options down to what he needs for his campaign - especially for newbies who will be intimidated by its sheer length.


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## Choranzanus (Jun 23, 2008)

pawsplay said:
			
		

> Neither is true. Most handgun wounds are not immediately fatal, and more people died of infected wounds than ever died of super ninja sword moves in history.



You guys are just nuts. In GURPS, an average person can inflict maximum sword damage to an average unarmored man and they would still live. To suggest that this is realistic is utterly ridiculous. With handguns it is not much better, here the system at least acknowledges that you can die from single shot (unless you have high HT or a "poor" handgun like walther PPK, that is). 

Realistic combat simply doesn't mesh well with roleplaying games.

You will note, that in GURPS handguns do different type of damage than if you run someone through with a sword. I am sure someone can explain to me how "realistic" that is.


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## Ashrem Bayle (Jun 23, 2008)

Choranzanus said:
			
		

> You guys are just nuts. In GURPS, an average person can inflict maximum sword damage to an average unarmored man and they would still live




Maximum damage to his pinky finger or his throat?

Depending on the options you are using, it is entirely possible the average man will slice open the throat of the other dude. If the initial damage doesn't get him, the bleeding probably will.

This assumes no criticals of course, which could possibly result in a severed head if the victim suffers a bad HT roll.


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## Choranzanus (Jun 23, 2008)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> You failed to make your point.
> 
> 
> 
> Min-maxers will find something to exploit in every game system - _definitely_ including D&D. True, GURPS lends itself to abuse when the GM isn't careful about what kinds of advantages and disadvantages he permits in his campaign. But with some care, most abuses are easily avoidable.



I have doubts. D&D doesn't lend itself well to minmaxing (at least compared to GURPS). Minmaxing is very detrimental to games, because it creates player imbalance and causes wrongly priced abilities or more obscure and interesting abilities to be overlooked. I am a strong believer in  class based systems, largely due to my experience with GURPS. In GURPS character creation yuo have essentialy two classes: DX types and IQ types. Niche protection is unheard of. In the end you have classes whether you wanted them or not.

And that was just character creation which is the strongest (by far) part of GURPS. The rest of rules is neither inspired nor good.


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## Storm Raven (Jun 23, 2008)

Choranzanus said:
			
		

> You guys are just nuts. In GURPS, an average person can inflict maximum sword damage to an average unarmored man and they would still live. To suggest that this is realistic is utterly ridiculous. With handguns it is not much better, here the system at least acknowledges that you can die from single shot (unless you have high HT or a "poor" handgun like walther PPK, that is).




Maximum damage with a sword or gun in GURPS would require a critical hit - which is much more common in GURPS than in, for example, D&D. With a critical hit, or a shot that hits a vital area (head, chest, etc.) a single hit kill is quite likely.


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## pr1 (Jun 23, 2008)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> I don't know if I can agree with that 100%.
> 
> When I picked up HERO (then called Champions) in 1982 or so, I had been playing D&D and Traveller since 1977.  Yes, that's 5 years of experience in the hobby, but it was only with 2 games.
> 
> ...




Hero is actually pretty easy.  Everything always uses the same few rules, over and over again, and building your own powers shouldn't be as common if you're dealing with new players.  Every contemporary book has hundreds of example powers for the thing you're looking for, even variations of it, like "More powerful TK."  It's only tweaking it that requires a lot of number crunching.


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## timbannock (Jun 23, 2008)

pawsplay said:
			
		

> HUMAN SORCERER
> 
> ST 9 [-10]
> DX 12 [40]
> ...





Well played, sir!

Perhaps I should've made mention of "getting used to the system drastically decreases prep time," which is demonstrably true.  That said, I do find GURPS still requires a lot of prep-work from the GM upfront, because -- unless you're allowing "just about everything" -- there's a lot of looking through the traits to figure out what's right for your world, and that kind of thing.

And THAT said...if you just want to run GURPS fantasy as is, you only need like 3-4 books and you're good to go, with pretty much ZERO prep-work.

So yeah...I got nothin'.  Check it out.



(But do stay away from Wildside...I was a playtester, and trust me...they didn't listen to playtesters when they finally published that piece of...)


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## WizarDru (Jun 23, 2008)

GURPS was my game of choice for nearly 16 years.  After AD&D became tedious and the 2nd edition went further away from what I wanted, I became almost exclusively a GURPS DM.  Though I still played other systems (AD&D and HERO mostly), everything I ran was GURPS.  

Where GURPS excels is in character creation and options.  You really could create a vast variety of characters who didn't adhere to any archetype.  In the same system, I created a 1920s beat cop for a Cthulu game, a superhero, a mecha pilot and of course a fantasy swordsman.  Many of these were done before there were appropriate sourcebooks.  The system's extensibility was excellent.  The combat was gritty and realistic, the core mechanics fairly simple and easy to explain.

Of course, the third edition (I've never played 4e GURPS) ran into some problems at times.  You needed to tweak certain rules to match your playstyle.  Fantasy was suitably lethal, but superheroes overly so;  the players in my supers game were far more afraid of a bunch of lunatics bearing machine guns than the main team of supervillians.  From a player perspective, the pace of character advancement in GURPS is positively GLACIAL.  In  a 10 year game I ran, the players went from 100 pt. characters to (iirc) 275 pt. characters.  And while they were much more powerful, the change was much closer to moving from 1st to say 10th in D&D...at MOST.  GURPS characters simply don't advance that far from their baseline; they become more competent and have more options, but they are never more than a few steps from death.

I used to think that Prep time for GURPS was a good deal of work.  Then I ran a high-level game under 3e.  Changed my perspective a good deal.  Even so, when I saw 3e, I knew that they'd taken what I liked most about GURPS and thrown it into D&D.  Since then, the only system I've used has been M&M for superheroes.  GURPS brought me a lot of joy, but D&D does more of what I want out of a game.


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## Kichwas (Jun 23, 2008)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> The system in GURPS Magic is pretty much a huge list of "standard spells" (about 700-800 or so). It works well enough for many fantasy campaigns, but it doesn't really go into much detail about fiddling around with the base assumptions of the spell system. You'll need the upcoming GURPS Thaumatology for that.




My biggest complaint about GURPS for fantasy has always been a too pre-defined magic system. 4E was a bit better than the past attempts with some of the on the fly casting options, but still not open enough for me to define a system as would fit a setting I might conceive.

I'll have to flip through Thaumatology when it hits retail, and see if my concerns are addressed.


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## Sanzuo (Jun 23, 2008)

Hmm....

My group had an interesting run-in with GURPS.

Our regular GM bought the 4e core book and after making the rounds we all decided that the game was really in-depth.  It may have been because it had been a completely new rules set, but we found it very complex and over the heads of some of the players who were pretty casual and had pretty much only played D&D before.

The novelty of it was still cool and we ran a few scenarios and even had a mini-campaign which turned out to be one of the most memorable science-fiction campaigns for me ever.

Still it seems the GM got burnt out on the system because of the complexity and we found it not very intuitive at all.  I find that strange considering how amazingly popular GURPS really is and I often wonder what we were doing wrong.  I have considered picking up the book again and giving it a serious read.

Probably nothing will come of it.  I already had my only recently beginning Dark Heresy game put on indefinite hold on the count of D&D 4e hype.  I'm hoping the DM will pick up the D&D torch sometime soon so I can run with my Dark Heresy game some more.

So yea, GURPS might stay shelfed for a while, which is too bad.  I actually see a lot of potential in the system.


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## Sanzuo (Jun 23, 2008)

WizarDru said:
			
		

> Where GURPS excels is in character creation and options.  You really could create a vast variety of characters who didn't adhere to any archetype.  In the same system, I created a 1920s beat cop for a Cthulu game, a superhero, a mecha pilot and of course a fantasy swordsman.  Many of these were done before there were appropriate sourcebooks.  The system's extensibility was excellent.  The combat was gritty and realistic, the core mechanics fairly simple and easy to explain.




Actually this a thousand times over.

One complaint I have about a given system is restrictions placed on you based on a decision you made in the beginning of the game (IE: Classes!).  I've accepted D&D for what it is; a tactical combat game with role playing elements.  And since then I've enjoyed it a lot more.

But I still long for a good system where you can make "just a guy" and his skills and abilities develop based on where fate takes him in his adventuring career.  The idea seems, I dunno, more "adventurous" to me.


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## pawsplay (Jun 24, 2008)

Mercule said:
			
		

> You, sir, are not by any stretch of the imagination a "green player".  Neither was I when I picked up the book and learned it on my own.
> 
> Once you have a certain level of mastery over multiple RPG systems, you get to bypass a whole heap of hurdles that afflict newcomers.  Yes, to an experienced gamer, Hero really isn't that bad.  It's still a lot harder for someone new to the hobby (or a casual participant) to pick up than, say D&D.




Well, I was thirteen years old and I learned it without a GM. Whatever you want to make of that.


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## LoneWolf23 (Jun 24, 2008)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> Note: Most of the prep work for GURPS is only relevant for player characters. After all, character points are an accounting device for player characters _only_, so there's no reason to calculate them for NPCs.
> 
> Here, for example, is a Generic Guard:
> 
> ...




Heck, someone here  made a random monster generator.  Here's an exemple:


> What on earth is this? Seems like a scaly creature looking similar to a octopus with a small maw!
> ...it that has the following stats:
> 
> Tall (SM +1)
> ...


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## Metus (Jun 24, 2008)

I'm planning on trying out either GURPS or HERO; the beginning of this thread sold me on HERO over GURPS, but now I'm not so sure.  You guys need to make up your mind!


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 24, 2008)

Choranzanus said:
			
		

> You guys are just nuts. In GURPS, an average person can inflict maximum sword damage to an average unarmored man and they would still live.




Hit him in the vitals, do triple damage, and if you are doing maximum damage that will drop the average person to -20 HP, which gives him a 75% chance of dying. Doesn't sound too unreasonable to me.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 24, 2008)

Choranzanus said:
			
		

> I have doubts. D&D doesn't lend itself well to minmaxing (at least compared to GURPS).




Not with the three Core Rules, maybe... but I'm sure that people who bought a lot of D&D supplements could give you some pointers.



> Minmaxing is very detrimental to games, because it creates player imbalance and causes wrongly priced abilities or more obscure and interesting abilities to be overlooked.




There used to be such problems, yes - but 4E is much more streamlined and improved in that regard.



> I am a strong believer in  class based systems, largely due to my experience with GURPS. In GURPS character creation yuo have essentialy two classes: DX types and IQ types.




With the repricing and redefinition of attribute costs, this is no longer the case in 4E. Indeed, "ST types" is now a rather viable concept for medieval-tech campaigns, and it is no longer as affordable to purchase really high DX and/or IQ. Add to that talents and the vast variety of advantages, and characters will look very much different from each other.



> Niche protection is unheard of. In the end you have classes whether you wanted them or not.




In my campaigns, the characters had no problems finding niches.



> And that was just character creation which is the strongest (by far) part of GURPS. The rest of rules is neither inspired nor good.




They work well enough, in my experience.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 24, 2008)

Sanzuo said:
			
		

> Still it seems the GM got burnt out on the system because of the complexity and we found it not very intuitive at all.  I find that strange considering how amazingly popular GURPS really is and I often wonder what we were doing wrong.  I have considered picking up the book again and giving it a serious read.




The biggest mistake one can make when starting out with GURPS is trying to use all of it at once. I should know - I made the same mistake.

It's often a good idea to start with GURPS Lite, plus whatever advantages and disadvantages you consider to be relevant for the campaign (suggestion: buy the electronic version of GURPS Basic Set 1: Characters from e23, and copy and paste everything you need into a separate document, complete with the racial templates for your campaign). That will make everything _much_ more manageable.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 24, 2008)

> I'm planning on trying out either GURPS or HERO; the beginning of this thread sold me on HERO over GURPS, but now I'm not so sure. You guys need to make up your mind!




Personally, I'm a HERO-phile.  I think its much better than GURPS at being able to accommodate intermixing PCs & Critters from _all_ of its sourcebooks.

Part of that may be because of the assumptions about the base setting.  GURPS assumes a typical campaign starting at the heroic level and working up, just like D&D has for most of its 30 years (which may be a selling point for some).  Unfortunately, like D&D, as power levels increase, you may get some oddball, unbalanced results.

HERO, OTOH, assumes a superheroic campaign as its norm, and scales things down for the heroic campaign.  This leads to less problems when scaling up...but some powers may be gamebreaking if used in a heroic level campaign.

I would be remiss and dishonest, however, if I didn't restate that GURPS RW supplements are some of the best in the gaming industry, and are often bought by non-GURPS players as fodder for other games & systems.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 24, 2008)

Sanzuo said:
			
		

> But I still long for a good system where you can make "just a guy" and his skills and abilities develop based on where fate takes him in his adventuring career.  The idea seems, I dunno, more "adventurous" to me.




Yup, GURPS can do that - easily. Just start out with "average folks" at anything from 25-75 character points (depending on how much raw potential you want them to have), and watch them grow.


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## Particle_Man (Jun 24, 2008)

One thing I found with 3e (and they may have fixed this in 4e) is a "did I leave the oven on?" problem.  Like, if you are a fantasy meelee warrior and you don't take Combat Reflexes, you are hosing yourself.  But you might not know that going in.  Point Buy systems without guidance can lead to accidentally sub-optimal characters.

I also personally don't like the slooooooooow incremental xp system.  I would prefer something like 30 points per session, rather than a handful.  But that is just me.


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## estar (Jun 24, 2008)

Choranzanus said:
			
		

> You guys are just nuts. In GURPS, an average person can inflict maximum sword damage to an average unarmored man and they would still live. To suggest that this is realistic is utterly ridiculous.




You are standing in front of a uarmored guy and let him have with a broadsword. Comes out swinging and hits...

where?

If you take a shot across the chest. Ok you have broken ribs, broken sternum, broken collar bone, etc. You will be hurting , probably down, but not likely dead. Going to need another blow to finish the guy off.

This is a body shot.

In contrast aiming for the vital areas of your chest does considerably more damage. Particularity instead of swinging you thrust.

That another point of distinction, whether you swing with the sword or thrust the sword. Thrusting does less raw damage but any getting through armor is double. On an unarmored guy a thrust to the vitals can be devasating. 

You have to remember that in real combat there are few one shot kills. Most exchanges involve bludgeoning the guy to death or unconsciousness. The sword wasn't razor sharp, didn't slice guys in two aka Howard's Conan stories. If you were lucky your first solid blow breaks some bones and cause massive bruising and slows the guy down enough for you subsequent blows to finish him off.

The critical hit charts provide for the one in a million spectacular shot. 

The GURPS designers, authors, and editor do the research and try to translate into a fun and well designed game. Is it a perfect simulation, of course not, but it feels more realistic than most other RPGs even in it's basic combat version. It is far more playable than most other "Realistic combat" RPGs.


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## estar (Jun 24, 2008)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> Yup, GURPS can do that - easily. Just start out with "average folks" at anything from 25-75 character points (depending on how much raw potential you want them to have), and watch them grow.




Done it for two fantasy campaign and it was a lot of fun. The best combat I seen is when the group mobbed a vampire with a bunch of 50 pts characters. The party was beating the vampire into a bloody pulp, The player playing the parish priest took the vampire down with a frying pan and then another staked the vampire ending the fight.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 24, 2008)

Particle_Man said:
			
		

> I also personally don't like the slooooooooow incremental xp system.  I would prefer something like 30 points per session, rather than a handful.  But that is just me.




Well, then do hand out 30 points per session. The suggested values are just that - _suggestions_. Though maybe increasing an attribute by at least +1 per session is a bit much...


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## ExploderWizard (Jun 24, 2008)

Our group played GURPS from about 1990 (tried one campaign of 2E D&D and didn't like it) until the release of 3E. I am currently preparing a new fantasy campaign using GURPS 4E.

The magic system is very mutable and not rigid at all. I am designing custom spell lists for different flavored casters and ignoring most pre-requisite chains. The limited mana pool can be adjusted to allow for more casting options. GURPS Martial Arts will be used to design culture specific combat styles to give fighter types a large array of options just like casters.

The only real problem I have ever had with GURPS was not with the system at all. The largest issue has been with a huge lack of adventure support. Back when I had lots of prep time I didn't care. Now that pdf sales are so common I hope to see some adventures for GURPS.


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## Zinovia (Jun 24, 2008)

The newer editions may have changed this, but when I played GURPS, I found combat to be boring and repetitive.  Once we'd been playing for awhile, it was too easy for me to kill the bad guys, and too hard for them to hurt me.  The magic system was very restrictive, with powers building upon each other.  In order to toss a fire attack, I first had to learn other simple fire spells that I didn't really care about. I could not build the powers I'd envisioned for my character in the way that I wanted.  I ended up optimizing my rapier skill to insane degrees rather than focus as much on magic.  

I have played Hero system only as a supers game (Champions), but enjoyed it more than GURPS.  It has more stats, which makes it easier for me to define the character that I want.  The powers are extremely flexible in the types of characters you can create.  I like the separation of Stun (for non-lethal damage) and Body (for lethal).  That's something I wish D&D had in order to resolve once and for all the debate over what hit points really represent.  

Many games systems incorporate good concepts.  GURPS reads extremely well, but I felt it was lackluster in play.  Others love it.  One of the reasons we're playing D&D right now is that we had player who was completely new to RPG's in the group.  We wanted something easier than Rolemaster or Fantasy Hero, and went with D&D.

I think that class based systems have some advantages over strict point buy.  It's generally easier to make characters (Rolemaster being an exception).  People know more of what their "job" in the group is supposed to be.  They will always be good at most of the stuff they need to do their job (weird multi-classes and PrC's made this not necessarily true in D&D either).  Character levels provide an easier handle on how powerful a character is.  Somehow it's more satisfying to say "I'm a 10th level rogue" rather than "I have 80 points and am good at this weapon, and those skills" (or whatever, I don't know what the numbers should be).  

You pays your money, you takes your choice.  I'm looking forward to trying out 4E soon, and will be sitting in the DM chair for the first time in over 10 years.  GURPS and Hero are both good games as well, but I don't think our group would want to play them.  I certainly don't want to GM for them.  Good luck, whatever you may decide.


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## Ashrem Bayle (Jun 24, 2008)

It was mentioned before, but I think it should be said again:

The magic system in GURPS is just _one option_. If you don't like it, take a look at _GURPS: Powers_. It shows you a few hundred different ways to do it.


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## The Cardinal (Jun 24, 2008)

also to repeat: 

GURPS3e was really good


*GURPS4e* is astonishing and made of awesome

  - with Powers, Martial Arts, and Thaumatology it requires huge amounts of stubborn effort to run boring one-dimensional combats or create cookie-cutter warriors, wizards, supers, monks, etc. with it!


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## Mercule (Jun 24, 2008)

Metus said:
			
		

> I'm planning on trying out either GURPS or HERO; the beginning of this thread sold me on HERO over GURPS, but now I'm not so sure.  You guys need to make up your mind!



I'm going to make a radical suggestion: Both games have "lite" versions that are freely downloadable (IIRC).  Check out GURPS Lite and Hero Sidekick and see which floats your boat more.

I much prefer Hero over GURPS -- in fact I put the two almost at opposite ends of the love-loathe scale.  To be honest, though, the Hero main book reads a lot like a dictionary.  Very few game manuals are particularly exciting, but the first parts of the Hero book are exceptionally... reference-y.  GURPS 3e was about the same level as D&D 2e for readability (again, IIRC).  So, even if you prefer Hero to GURPS, you aren't going to cause yourself any undue pain by reading some GURPS.

As far as what I like about Hero, you literally only ever need the single core book to play.  It has all the building blocks to assemble characters for any genre.  The expansion books are either settings or provide some templates for critters, starting builds, sample magic systems (i.e. consistent spell "feel"), etc.  But, you really don't need them.  From just the core book, I've seen Iron Man, V:tM vampires, ninjas, psychic aliens, King Arthur knock-offs, an incubus, a duelist, Ars Magica style mages, AD&D style wizards, W:tA werewolves, a semi-Incarnum style cleric, space-opera characters, hard sci-fi characters, cyborgs, an intelligent sword PC, Cthulhu-esque pulp, X-Files, and a bunch of others.  *All* of those worked extremely well without any additional books.

My understanding of GURPS is that, at least in 3e, you often needed to get the additional source books to get the powers you needed for those genres and that the different genres often did not play well with each other, in practice.  My experience is that GURPS had too few base stats (4 IRRC) and a chain of odd dependencies that resulted in odd consequences and made the presented powers hard to customize.  But, it's been over a decade since I've played GURPS, so that may be skewed.

What I will say is that one would expect my worst gaming moment would be when I tried to play the original Temple of Elemental Evil with 24 players, 12 of whom showed up drunk -- and I was sober.  That was probably even more painful than it sounds.  Playing GURPS beat it by miles.  After playing GURPS, I honestly can't imagine why it made it past 1e or why anyone would play it.  But, others apparently see something I don't.


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## Ashrem Bayle (Jun 24, 2008)

The Cardinal said:
			
		

> also to repeat:
> 
> GURPS3e was really good
> 
> ...




I agree. You'd have to _want_ it to suck.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 24, 2008)

ExploderWizard said:
			
		

> The only real problem I have ever had with GURPS was not with the system at all. The largest issue has been with a huge lack of adventure support. Back when I had lots of prep time I didn't care. Now that pdf sales are so common I hope to see some adventures for GURPS.




Well, there are a few on e23. But in general, Steve Jackson Games learned that adventures simply don't sell all that well for GURPS.

Which is understandable - after all, GURPS supports a staggeringly wide selection of campaign settings and genres, and any adventure they publish will only work for a very small number of these settings. Compare that to D&D/d20, where many of the settings start out with fairly similar assumptions and many of the adventures can be easily adjusted to the local setting...


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## Matrix Sorcica (Jun 24, 2008)

This is a very good GURPS discussion.

Now, you GURPS people. There's two (major) things that bug me about GURPS. I hope maybe you can help me out.

1. AFAIK, GURPS prices advantages after their game usefulness, right? Then how come skills are priced after how easy they are to learn vs. how useful they are?

2. Why are there three rolls in combat, i.e. why is either the attack roll or the defense roll there? Without any particular I have more or less a 50% of missing someone with a baseball bat. That's ok if the other guy is doding as crazy. But hey, after I make my 50 % attack roll - then the other guy gets to dodge!
So basically I stepping on my own toes and such to justify my immense miss chance or what.

Don't tell me that it represents the chance of landing a telling blow etc. In that case, the other guys defense should be subtracted from my chances then, and not be a separate roll.

Thanks.


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## Nadaka (Jun 24, 2008)

Matrix Sorcica said:
			
		

> This is a very good GURPS discussion.
> 
> Now, you GURPS people. There's two (major) things that bug me about GURPS. I hope maybe you can help me out.
> 
> ...




Once a defence has been used, it can not be used again in a round (there are ways of getting extra defenses). So if you have multiple attacks coming at the same target, his defenses can be overwhelmed.


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## ExploderWizard (Jun 24, 2008)

Matrix Sorcica said:
			
		

> This is a very good GURPS discussion.
> 
> Now, you GURPS people. There's two (major) things that bug me about GURPS. I hope maybe you can help me out.
> 
> ...




1) In short, yes. Do not mistake usefulness for combat effectiveness. The point value of a character is not always a measure of his/her usefulness in combat. A 300 point character could be a wealthy socialite with many allies and connections but only as good as a normal untrained person in a fight. That same 300 points could be used to build one monster of a fighter instead.

2)The D&D combat round assumes multiple swings/ defenses are happening each turn (just not all rolled for) The GURPS one second combat round assumes nothing. Your attack roll indicates that your attack was good enough to strike a foe for real effect. The attack roll of skill 10 represents someone with little training trying to hit a target while still thinking about defending. If that person really just wanted to smack his target with a bat, then he could All Out Attack at 14 skill, making his chance to score a meaningful hit much higher.

 The defense roll is a chance to actually take action against a credible attack. In GURPS terms everyone in D&D is making an all out attack every turn, increasing thier hit chance and giving up an opportunity to make an active defense. The defense roll gives combatants a bit more control over thier own fate. One can choose to swing like mad or fight in a cooler headed style. I like these options.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 24, 2008)

Matrix Sorcica said:
			
		

> Now, you GURPS people. There's two (major) things that bug me about GURPS. I hope maybe you can help me out.
> 
> 1. AFAIK, GURPS prices advantages after their game usefulness, right? Then how come skills are priced after how easy they are to learn vs. how useful they are?




A good question. The best explanation is probably that for a game that tries to cover as many genres as GURPS, it is very hard to figure out how "useful" a particular skill is going to be. I mean, the Crossbow skill can be very useful in medieval fantasy, but it's next to useless in a modern-day setting where guns are much more common and useful. Trying to figure out what a skill should cost for every possible genre would be too much work - for either the authors or the GM of a particular time. So they went with the "ease of learning" angle instead.



> 2. Why are there three rolls in combat, i.e. why is either the attack roll or the defense roll there? Without any particular I have more or less a 50% of missing someone with a baseball bat. That's ok if the other guy is doding as crazy. But hey, after I make my 50 % attack roll - then the other guy gets to dodge!
> So basically I stepping on my own toes and such to justify my immense miss chance or what.
> 
> Don't tell me that it represents the chance of landing a telling blow etc. In that case, the other guys defense should be subtracted from my chances then, and not be a separate roll.




OK, so you are assuming a weapon skill of 10. Your 50% chance to hit assumes the following:

- You don't have time to aim carefully - i.e., you are trying to hit within the space of a single second. If you are attempting to hit a completely unaware target and have time to aim carefully, a bonus would certainly be appropriate (I don't have the book with me, so I can't say what kind of bonus would be appropriate).
- You are also watching your own defense - you want to hit your opponent, but also want to avoid getting hit yourself, either by him or someone else. If you don't care about that, you can make an All-Out Attack for a +4 bonus - giving you a 90% hit chance!
- Furthermore, someone with a weapon skill of 10 is rather inexperienced - some experience and physical fitness usually translates into a weapon skill of at least 11 or 12, which means to hit chances of 62.5% or 74% - a huge difference in probabilities. True professionals - who have to fight on a regular basis - should probably have weapon skills of 13-14 or more.
- Turning Defenses into some kind of penalties doesn't work all that well with the bell curve of the dice penalties - even a small penalty can mean a huge reduction in the odds of hitting someone. Plus it's more math - GURPS has a "roll under" system instead of working with target numbers, so it makes calculating effective skill level an additional chore with which you don't want to deal during combat.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 24, 2008)

Nadaka said:
			
		

> Once a defence has been used, it can not be used again in a round (there are ways of getting extra defenses). So if you have multiple attacks coming at the same target, his defenses can be overwhelmed.




That only applies for Parries and Blocks - Dodges can be used as often as you want. Granted, Dodge is usually the worst defense, but still...


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 24, 2008)

Mercule said:
			
		

> As far as what I like about Hero, you literally only ever need the single core book to play.  It has all the building blocks to assemble characters for any genre.  The expansion books are either settings or provide some templates for critters, starting builds, sample magic systems (i.e. consistent spell "feel"), etc.  But, you really don't need them.  From just the core book, I've seen Iron Man, V:tM vampires, ninjas, psychic aliens, King Arthur knock-offs, an incubus, a duelist, Ars Magica style mages, AD&D style wizards, W:tA werewolves, a semi-Incarnum style cleric, space-opera characters, hard sci-fi characters, cyborgs, an intelligent sword PC, Cthulhu-esque pulp, X-Files, and a bunch of others.  *All* of those worked extremely well without any additional books.




That's now pretty much true for the GURPS 4e Basic Set. Granted, that's now two books - but I don't think the page count is that different from Hero.



> My understanding of GURPS is that, at least in 3e, you often needed to get the additional source books to get the powers you needed for those genres and that the different genres often did not play well with each other, in practice.




Again, that's fixed in 4E.



> My experience is that GURPS had too few base stats (4 IRRC) and a chain of odd dependencies that resulted in odd consequences and made the presented powers hard to customize.  But, it's been over a decade since I've played GURPS, so that may be skewed.




Nah, 3E indeed had some problems in that regard. But again, most of this has been fixed in 4E. And while there are still only four base stats, it's easy to modify derived values with advantages. Want more hit points than your base ST implies? Buy some levels of Extra Hit Points. The same is true for Will, Perception, Carrying Capacity and so forth. And all of these have flat costs per level, so it's much harder to min-max them.


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## ExploderWizard (Jun 24, 2008)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> Well, there are a few on e23. But in general, Steve Jackson Games learned that adventures simply don't sell all that well for GURPS.
> 
> Which is understandable - after all, GURPS supports a staggeringly wide selection of campaign settings and genres, and any adventure they publish will only work for a very small number of these settings. Compare that to D&D/d20, where many of the settings start out with fairly similar assumptions and many of the adventures can be easily adjusted to the local setting...




Thats why letting others publish adventures for those specialized markets would be so great. Requiring that such publications advertise that they are NOT SJ Games products, include no rules for play, and that they require the use of the GURPS basic rules(and whatever source/worldbook the adventure is for). Having a large base of scenarios available from 3rd party publishers may help core book sales.

The main reason I went from a decade of GURPS to 3E was the great selection of support material from guys like Green Ronin, Goodman games, and Necromancer. The WOTC adventures for 3E were kind of limited and I could get lots of great stuff from these other companies. 
Even though I liked GURPS better as a system, I just didn't have the prep time available to create everything. Its kind of frustrating to have tons of awesome worldbooks to run games in and no adventures for any of them.

A supplement (non official product) agreement from SJ Games would be great. That way other publishers could take all the risk of adventures possibly not selling and SJ just might sell more rulebooks.


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## HelloChristian (Jun 24, 2008)

ExploderWizard said:
			
		

> The main reason I went from a decade of GURPS to 3E was the great selection of support material from guys like Green Ronin, Goodman games, and Necromancer.




I wish SJG would allow others to publish under a royalty free license similar to the d20STL/OGL. I'd love to see what others came up with. Hell, It'd be great to buy a GURPS Monster Manual.


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## ExploderWizard (Jun 24, 2008)

HelloChristian said:
			
		

> I wish SJG would allow others to publish under a royalty free license similar to the d20STL/OGL. I'd love to see what others came up with. Hell, It'd be great to buy a GURPS Monster Manual.




GURPS did ok with items (Magic items books), critters (bestiary and fantasy bestiary) and the one book of general fantasy adventures was pretty cool. (I was a playtester for Fantasy Adventures 2 and was greatful it never got published) What would be cool would be scenarios for lots of different sourcebooks especially the historical settings.


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## estar (Jun 24, 2008)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> Well, there are a few on e23. But in general, Steve Jackson Games learned that adventures simply don't sell all that well for GURPS.




Because they write crap adventures. No wait hear me out. The adventure are written like mini sourcebooks. So they fail both as adventure and as a sourcebook. It sad because most have good quality writing.

Adventures should be ready to run with little or no prep. The closest that comes to that ideal is Orcslayer. 

The lack of ready to run adventures, and a decent fantasy monster manual means GURPS suffer in attracting players of the world's most popular role-playing game. 

I think it is a shame as I think GURPS could do better especially internally vs sales of munchkin. As for putting my mouth where my money is I have submitted proposals to e23 and the regular route and they all seem to go down a black hole. I suppose I should try submitting to Pyramid. 

For what is worth my recent project "Points of Light" for Goodman Games is systemless (http://www.goodman-games.com/4380preview.html). I ran a fantasy gurps game for nearly 20 years and a lot of themes I used for Points of Light were developed in that campaign. 

If you see a level like (Ftr3) multiply the level by 20 and apply the closest template and you will roughly get the character points I used for my GURPS campaign. HD I would use as a rough indicator of power level.


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## estar (Jun 24, 2008)

Matrix Sorcica said:
			
		

> 1. AFAIK, GURPS prices advantages after their game usefulness, right? Then how come skills are priced after how easy they are to learn vs. how useful they are?




One of the purpose of GURPS is to translate real world stuff. They have rules for taking X hours of experience and turning it into skill points. There is also an option for earning skill points over time for campaign that like to leap ahead in big chunks of time.



			
				Matrix Sorcica said:
			
		

> 2. Why are there three rolls in combat, i.e. why is either the attack roll or the defense roll there? Without any particular I have more or less a 50% of missing someone with a baseball bat. That's ok if the other guy is doding as crazy. But hey, after I make my 50 % attack roll - then the other guy gets to dodge!
> So basically I stepping on my own toes and such to justify my immense miss chance or what.




1) Because defending against a blow is an action that takes skill. Having a defense roll accounts for that. GURPS doesn't have Armor Class or Hero's Defensive Combat Value to abstract type of skill. In GURPS a roll = a single swing of the weapon. A defense roll represent the counter the defender choose to take.

2) This is a big debate among GURPS fans as to when the defense roll is taken. It revolves around the fact that the defender gets an advantage by knowing the attacker hit or miss. I am not going to rehash that argument but the current method is considered the most playable by SJ Games. 

A variant that is easy to implement is just have teh defender annouce what defense she is using and charge that defense to the number of times a parry, block, or dodge can be used regardless if the attack hits or misses. There are other variants as well.


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## estar (Jun 24, 2008)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> Again, that's fixed in 4E.
> .




Technically but it is still not ready to run for any particular genre. I love the game but it's myopia in trying to attract D&D players is hurting it.


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## estar (Jun 24, 2008)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> Nah, 3E indeed had some problems in that regard. But again, most of this has been fixed in 4E. And while there are still only four base stats, it's easy to modify derived values with advantages. Want more hit points than your base ST implies? Buy some levels of Extra Hit Points. The same is true for Will, Perception, Carrying Capacity and so forth. And all of these have flat costs per level, so it's much harder to min-max them.




4th edition GURPS is a better game than 3rd especially for fiddling with stuff to get the campaign you want. I like HERO too but GURPS wins on allowing the causal player to fiddle with the system. i.e. the math isn't as scary.


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## estar (Jun 24, 2008)

ExploderWizard said:
			
		

> Thats why letting others publish adventures for those specialized markets would be so great. Requiring that such publications advertise that they are NOT SJ Games products, include no rules for play, and that they require the use of the GURPS basic rules(and whatever source/worldbook the adventure is for). Having a large base of scenarios available from 3rd party publishers may help core book sales.




It not just that. We need the core rulebooks, we like to have specialized supplements, but we also need a true GURPS Fantasy that is a complete RPG that geared toward D&D players. Maybe when the Dungeon Fantasy series is done it could do that when complied but right now there is nothing that in the gamestore that allows a D&D group to pick up GURPS and just run a game.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 24, 2008)

estar said:
			
		

> If you see a level like (Ftr3) multiply the level by 3 and apply the closest template and you will roughly get the character points I used for my GURPS campaign. HD I would use as a rough indicator of power level.




My personal guideline for D&D 3.X was:

GURPS character points = (D&D level + 1) x 25

A 150 CP "heroic adventurer" would thus be the rough equivalent of a 5th level D&D character, which sounds about right.


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## estar (Jun 24, 2008)

I mistyped I meant timse 20 but time 25 works as well.


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## Mercule (Jun 24, 2008)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> That's now pretty much true for the GURPS 4e Basic Set. Granted, that's now two books - but I don't think the page count is that different from Hero.



One book or two, my meaning was "core".

It sounds like GURPS 4e might have fixed some of the biggest issues and wouldn't aggravate me (or maybe it would).  If given the opportunity, I'll try it again.  Still, I know Hero works if I want detailed, but flexible, so I'm unlikely to go GURPS.  If I want easy and flexible, I'll go for Savage Worlds.


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## ExploderWizard (Jun 24, 2008)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> My personal guideline for D&D 3.X was:
> 
> GURPS character points = (D&D level + 1) x 25
> 
> A 150 CP "heroic adventurer" would thus be the rough equivalent of a 5th level D&D character, which sounds about right.




That reminds me of an old project I did a long time ago, way before Dungeon Fantasy-it was around 1993 or so. It was called DURPS -The Dweomercraefting Universal Roleplaying System. I created "classes" with packaged Ads, Disads, and skills. All classes started at 1st level and were based on 25 points. Each level added 25 points to the class package, so a 5th level character was worth 125 points. I used a made up "XP" system to determine when levels were gained. After playing through a few levels we decided to come up with alternate packages for the various class levels thus creating several different flavors of each class. 

Those were the golden days of....................free time.


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## pawsplay (Jun 24, 2008)

Zinovia said:
			
		

> The newer editions may have changed this, but when I played GURPS, I found combat to be boring and repetitive.  Once we'd been playing for awhile, it was too easy for me to kill the bad guys, and too hard for them to hurt me.




That effect can be produced in just about any session. Why didn't the GM just crank up the bad guys? If it's so predictable, your character should have died like a dog if your GM wanted to take him out.



> The magic system was very restrictive, with powers building upon each other.  In order to toss a fire attack, I first had to learn other simple fire spells that I didn't really care about. I could not build the powers I'd envisioned for my character in the way that I wanted.  I ended up optimizing my rapier skill to insane degrees rather than focus as much on magic.




That's just the default system. Conceptually, you have to learn "fire magic" before you master more powerful spells. If you want a different system, build one. GURPS Powers is great for this.



> I have played Hero system only as a supers game (Champions), but enjoyed it more than GURPS.  It has more stats, which makes it easier for me to define the character that I want.




HERO has STR, DEX, CON, BODY, INT, EGO, PRE, COM, PD, ED, REC, Spd, END, STUN, and basic movement rate.

Equivalently, GURPS has ST, DX, HT, hit points, INT, Will, levels of Charisma, levels of Appearance, DR and limited DR, Fatigue recovery advantages, Basic Speed, Fatigue, and basic move. It lacks STUN. GURPS further has numerous Advantages and Disadvantages like Ham-Fisted or Musical Talent. 

I'd say GURPS actually wins this one, handily.




> The powers are extremely flexible in the types of characters you can create.




I assure you GURPS is no less flexible.



> I like the separation of Stun (for non-lethal damage) and Body (for lethal).  That's something I wish D&D had in order to resolve once and for all the debate over what hit points really represent.




I don't like the distinction because it's unrealistic. In genres where being knocked out is no big deal, being sliced or shot usually isn't that big a deal, either.



> I think that class based systems have some advantages over strict point buy.  It's generally easier to make characters (Rolemaster being an exception).  People know more of what their "job" in the group is supposed to be.  They will always be good at most of the stuff they need to do their job (weird multi-classes and PrC's made this not necessarily true in D&D either).  Character levels provide an easier handle on how powerful a character is.  Somehow it's more satisfying to say "I'm a 10th level rogue" rather than "I have 80 points and am good at this weapon, and those skills" (or whatever, I don't know what the numbers should be).




Strictly speaking, point-based games win, if templates are available. I can choose a "class" in GURPS, taking up most of my points, and then, if I choose, further customize the character. 

Levels are an appealing concept. I'm running a two year old 3.5 campaign right now, and I agree, levels are a handy concept and classes make character creation easy.  But levels are also artificial and sometimes meaningless, and classes can be constricting.


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## estar (Jun 24, 2008)

Mercule said:
			
		

> One book or two, my meaning was "core".
> 
> It sounds like GURPS 4e might have fixed some of the biggest issues and wouldn't aggravate me (or maybe it would).  If given the opportunity, I'll try it again.  Still, I know Hero works if I want detailed, but flexible, so I'm unlikely to go GURPS.  If I want easy and flexible, I'll go for Savage Worlds.




Sure if you want flexible HERO is great. But GURPS has the realism option as well which is does better than HERO.


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## Matrix Sorcica (Jun 24, 2008)

Thanks for the answers, ExploderWizard, Jürgen & Estar.

I'm not really sold on ExploderWizard's explaination on skill points, I'm much more for Jürgen's (  ). However, the reasoning for the defense roll is top notch you guys. Thanks.

Another thing. Many many years ago we tried out a 3e GURPS game (fantasy). Two things happened very quickly:

1) The PCs ended up making called shorts to the feet and legs, thereby crippling the opposition. Effective and exstremely unheroic, uninspiring and boring. Solutions while still using ht locations (and "let the enemies do the the same" does not work for me)?.

2) A guardsman with 12 HT can take an awful long time to kill, or what? Is not unreasonable that he will make his HT roll 5 times after being reduced to - HT, is it? Solutions?


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## Ruin Explorer (Jun 24, 2008)

estar said:
			
		

> It not just that. We need the core rulebooks, we like to have specialized supplements, but we also need a true GURPS Fantasy that is a complete RPG that geared toward D&D players. Maybe when the Dungeon Fantasy series is done it could do that when complied but right now there is nothing that in the gamestore that allows a D&D group to pick up GURPS and just run a game.




I must concur. GURPS has tremendous potential as an FRPG, potential that's rarely utilized. A hardback, colour one-main-book GURPS Fantasy (hopefully with a better name!) would be an excellent thing. Especially if they drew a little from some of their other supplements in the process.

They need an actual setting, though, one that draws people in, rather than making their eyes glaze over.


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## Fifth Element (Jun 24, 2008)

Ashrem Bayle said:
			
		

> I agree. You'd have to _want_ it to suck.



A lot of people *do* want 4E to suck.

Oh, *GURPS* 4E. Got it.


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## GreatLemur (Jun 24, 2008)

Everytime _GURPS_ comes up in discussion I start thinking "Man, I really ought to check out the new edition."  And then somebody mentions "3d6 roll under" and I lose all enthusiasm for it.  I will not try to claim this is a rational reaction.



			
				pawsplay said:
			
		

> I assure you GURPS is no less flexible.



No less flexible than _Hero_?  It's been a long time since I've messed with either system--probably a couple editions back in both cases--but I definitely remember that character options in _GURPS_ were a pick-from-a-list kind of deal, while in Hero there were very build-your-own.  I always had the impression that, mechanically speaking, the core _Hero_/_Champions_ book could do anything the whole ocean of _GURPS_ supplements could.  I'd love to hear any argument to the contrary, though.

Better yet, could anyone compare and contrast with _Mutants & Masterminds_?  I can't believe no one's brought that up, yet.


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## estar (Jun 24, 2008)

GreatLemur said:
			
		

> No less flexible than _Hero_?  It's been a long time since I've messed with either system--probably a couple editions back in both cases--but I definitely remember that character options in _GURPS_ were a pick-from-a-list kind of deal, while in Hero there were very build-your-own.




GURPS 4th added enhancements and limitations that modify advantages along with more advantages that have a basic effect like Innate Attack. 



			
				GreatLemur said:
			
		

> Better yet, could anyone compare and contrast with _Mutants & Masterminds_?  I can't believe no one's brought that up, yet.




I am not an expert in M&M but would say HERO is the ultimate flexible Superhero game capable of replicating any hero while M&M and GURPS are roughly at the same level but second to HERO. M&M and GURPS have strengths and weaknesses in different areas. Both have about the same amount of flexibity but with less math than HERO.


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## taliesin15 (Jun 24, 2008)

One key thing about GURPS people aren't talking about is its inherent sense of humor, something that is present in most of Steve Jackson's games. 

As to the question of "if you get hit by a sword you die," Steve & many people I knew when I briefly worked for him were heavily involved in SCA, some of whom had extensive martial arts backgrounds besides. As fake as SCA fighting is, you still cannot fake the pain of getting hit on an unarmored part of flesh with a big rattan stick wrapped with duct tape.

One of the elements of GURPS appears early on in another Austin-based game author's work, David Nalle's Ysgarth system. Here's one URL: http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/reviews/rev_486.html

Personally, I think both games are interesting, but I kind of prefer D&D, particularly my own pastiche of 3.0 and 1st edition.


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## AllisterH (Jun 24, 2008)

You know, I wonder...

Does anyone know WHY Steve Jackson never thought about opening GURPS up a la 3e D&D?


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 24, 2008)

Matrix Sorcica said:
			
		

> 1) The PCs ended up making called shorts to the feet and legs, thereby crippling the opposition. Effective and exstremely unheroic, uninspiring and boring. Solutions while still using ht locations (and "let the enemies do the the same" does not work for me)?.




3e favored DX - and thus, high weapon skills - strongly over other attributes. In 4e, that's less of a problem, since DX now costs a flat 20 CP per level - while ST costs 10 CP per level. So it's now an equally valid strategy to put one's points in doing lots of damage with a hit instead of having a really high weapon skill - and as an additional advantage, this works against enemy with no vulnerable locations (such as undead, slime monsters, and the like).

Furthermore, there are now other interesting options than vulnerable hit locations even for those with high weapon skills. With a Deceptive Attack, you can reduce the Defense of the target - for each penalty of -2 you take, the target gets -1 to his defenses (remember, a Defense roll is _not_ a Contest of Skills). And a Rapid Strike allows you to make _two_ attacks with a balanced weapon, at a penalty of -6 each (-3 with Weapon Master/Trained By A Master), without taking an All-Out Attack. So hitting the limbs or eyes might not be the best tactic.



> 2) A guardsman with 12 HT can take an awful long time to kill, or what? Is not unreasonable that he will make his HT roll 5 times after being reduced to - HT, is it? Solutions?




The solution is not to give "mook" enemies a HT of 12. No-name enemies  - the type that PCs are supposed to slaughter by the dozen - should never have more than HT of 11-12, a weapon skill of higher than 12, and a high Damage Resistance - otherwise the fights will just drag on. Such stats are appropriate for "elite" foes - those who will duel with PCs for a long time - but their minions and cannon fodder should be weaker.

If you want to make minions more of a threat, either increase their number (swarm attacks are still pretty nasty, especially if the PCs don't make good use of terrain - once they are surrounded, they will be in a world of hurt), or increase their Strength and Hit Points. The latter means that while they might not hit very often, the high damage they do when they _do_ hit will keep the fight suspenseful nonetheless.

One of my most memorable fights in my GURPS Eberron campaign was when the three PCs fought five ogres in the depths of Xen'drik - the fight was _very_ nasty, and while the ogres hit only rarely, they were fairly devastating when they did hit. Oh, and the two melee fighters in the party also got their shields wrecked from those blows...


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 24, 2008)

AllisterH said:
			
		

> You know, I wonder...
> 
> Does anyone know WHY Steve Jackson never thought about opening GURPS up a la 3e D&D?




I think the reasons were mainly:

- Economy of scale: GURPS is a niche RPG when compared to D&D, and wouldn't nearly get as many third party producers through the OGL.

- Quality control: SJG pride themselves on the high quality of the editing, playtesting, and research, and GURPS has indeed a good reputation with those. But if others were to produce crappy supplements for GURPS, that reputation might suffer.

Though it should be pointed out that it _is_ possible for other companies to license GURPS. This has been done for Conspiracy X and Starfleet Battles, among others.


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## ExploderWizard (Jun 24, 2008)

Matrix Sorcica said:
			
		

> Thanks for the answers, ExploderWizard, Jürgen & Estar.
> 
> I'm not really sold on ExploderWizard's explaination on skill points, I'm much more for Jürgen's (  ). However, the reasoning for the defense roll is top notch you guys. Thanks.
> 
> ...




1) You can modify the combat rules to suit your taste. Disabling limbs is a very effective tactic in realistic combat. You can make rules changes to suit the mood of the genre you are playing. For over-the-top fantasy action thats less gritty you can rule that it takes damage equal to the targets HP (instead of half) to cripple a limb. You can also rule that crippling effects don't take effect until AFTER the battle to let mighty heroes and villans fight at full capacity. Just remember that the rules as presented are gritty and semi-realistic (as much as a game can be) and that you can add or change them to desired level of larger than life action. For example in our DURPS game that I posted about earlier, as characters progressed they kept getting more and more HP. An 8th level (200 point) fighter having 30-35 HP made combat very heroic. Allowing a regular "person" to have this many HP threw out combat realism but gave us a more D&D-like feel with the amount of punishment these characters could take.

2) That depends on where and how he was hit. If he was nicked and bruised a couple points at a time it might take a while. He could be killed almost at once by a crossbow bolt to heart. ST 20 crossbow hits guard in the vitals for 10 (average) impaling damage. Guard has a mail shirt so 8 points get through. 8 x3 for a vitals shot =24 non critical points of damage in one shot. The guard needs to make a death roll after one shot. The basic rule is one extra death check for every 5 points he takes beyond this-OR he makes one roll at -1 for every 5 points (the second option is a bit deadlier) 

Keep in mind that the rules allow for taking someone out quickly without cutting them to bits. A brain blow is a good option. Damage after DR (including skull DR) is x4 and the victim is knocked out when damage equals HP/2. So the 12 HP guard can be knocked out by a blow to the brain that does 2 points of damage (after DR)

Keep in mind what you want from the rules when modifying them. If you want fighters to be difficult to disable and combatants needing to hack through HP to down thier foes then taking out that guard fast becomes much harder.


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## estar (Jun 24, 2008)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> Oh, and the two melee fighters in the party also got their shields wrecked from those blows...




How did you handle that? I am not too up on my shield breakage rules.


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## Matrix Sorcica (Jun 24, 2008)

Thanks Jürgen and ExploderW.

GreatLemur, I feel the same way about roll under. If I decide to run a GURPS campaign and convince my players (both will surely be a while, since we are still wrapping up our 3.5 campaign and going 4E afterwards for quite some time, I'm sure), it will most assuredly be converted to roll high.

Should be no big deal, though.


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## estar (Jun 24, 2008)

ExploderWizard said:
			
		

> 2) ST 20 crossbow hits guard in the vitals




Flip it around and give the guards the Str 20 crossbow and you get my campaign's Knight-Killer Crossbows.  One shot only, but boy if it hits!


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 24, 2008)

estar said:
			
		

> How did you handle that? I am not too up on my shield breakage rules.




It's an optional rule from page 484 in the Basic Set. Basically, any time the Defense Bonus for a shield makes the difference between getting hit and avoiding a hit on the Defense roll, the attack hits the shield instead. A small shield, for example, has a Defense Bonus of 1, DR 6, and 30 hit points (this assumes a wooden shield - metal shields have DR 9 and 60 HP, but cost five time as much and weigh twice as much). IIRC the ogres had ST 20 and did about 3d+3 crushing with each hit, so shield damage was definitely a factor in this fight.


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## GoodKingJayIII (Jun 24, 2008)

This thread has really intrigued me.  I started RPGs with 2nd AD&D, but most of my experience as a gamer and designer lies with the d20 system.  After giving this thread a perusal, I'm going to pick up the GURPS Lite rules, and maybe the HEROs Sidekick stuff.  Sounds like there's some great material in both systems.


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## robertsconley (Jun 24, 2008)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> It's an optional rule from page 484 in the Basic Set. Basically, any time the Defense Bonus for a shield makes the difference between getting hit and avoiding a hit on the Defense roll, the attack hits the shield instead. A small shield, for example, has a Defense Bonus of 1, DR 6, and 30 hit points (this assumes a wooden shield - metal shields have DR 9 and 60 HP, but cost five time as much and weigh twice as much). IIRC the ogres had ST 20 and did about 3d+3 crushing with each hit, so shield damage was definitely a factor in this fight.




Historically shields broke a lot. With the players experiencing this do they consider this fun at all? I like to pour on the realism but I will pull back if the rule is overaly picky.


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## sjmiller (Jun 25, 2008)

robertsconley said:
			
		

> Historically shields broke a lot. With the players experiencing this do they consider this fun at all? I like to pour on the realism but I will pull back if the rule is overaly picky.



The best part about this is, if you don't like that rule, it's optional.  Don't use it.

I have been reading this thread since the beginning.  Every time I think I should chime in and add something Jürgen comes along and says exactly what needs to be said better than I could.  I figured that now, as things have developed, I would put in my 2 character points of info.

First, I have to say, I am a bit biased when it comes to GURPS.  I played it for well over a decade, wrote a few of the creatures found in the GURPS Bestiary third edition, and playtested several books including GURPS Steampunk.  So, as you can imagine, I like the game.

I also played Hero System when it was still Champions, and later on I even played FRED Hero System.  Surprisingly, I actually had fun making characters for Champions, but I hated playing the system.  I looked at the character creation system a lot like Car Wars: add parts with modifiers, juggle the numbers around, and eventually get something that fit the chassis you picked.  The actual playing of the system drove me nuts.  The huge number of dice, remembering which ones do BODY damage, and a host of other things really annoyed me.  Now, I admit, it may have also been the GM, but the game system really interfered with the gaming experience.

GURPS, which I have only played 3rd Edition, Revised, did not seem to be nearly as intrusive.  The system of rolling 3d6 below your skill was easy, and damage was usually easy to compute as well.  You had lots of choices in advantages, disadvantages, and skill to really give you a well rounded character.  With Quirks you could add the personal touches that made each character truly stand out.  I never really had any problems with GURPS.  It just seems to be an easy to use, simple system.  Sure, you can add a lot of options to make it really complex, but they are just that, options.  Add as many or as few as you desire.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 25, 2008)

> > I have played Hero system only as a supers game (Champions), but enjoyed it more than GURPS. It has more stats, which makes it easier for me to define the character that I want.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Nope.

HERO has Advantages and Disads as well, called Talents and...Disads.  Disadvantages in particular are open ended- there are some defined in the book, but several of those are actually mere exemplars.  For example, the Vulnerability disad has several listed, but the sheer number of Vulnerabilities is limited only by imagination.

(I'm not familiar enough with GURPS 4Ed to know if it has a similar open-ended disadvantage structure.)

Then there's "package deals" which are GM/Player created groups of powers, skills, talents, disads, etc. that make one a member of a particular race, species, family, mutation type, organization, or other easily definable subgroup- like suffering from the long-term health effects from a disease or weapon, or perhaps a curse (like Lycanthropy or becoming a Wendigo).

At best, GURPS claims a draw here.


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## pawsplay (Jun 25, 2008)

GreatLemur said:
			
		

> Everytime _GURPS_ comes up in discussion I start thinking "Man, I really ought to check out the new edition."  And then somebody mentions "3d6 roll under" and I lose all enthusiasm for it.  I will not try to claim this is a rational reaction.
> 
> No less flexible than _Hero_?  It's been a long time since I've messed with either system--probably a couple editions back in both cases--but I definitely remember that character options in _GURPS_ were a pick-from-a-list kind of deal, while in Hero there were very build-your-own.




3e introduced a lot of customization options and unified a lot of costs. 4e has a complete, Hero-like advantages system.


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## pawsplay (Jun 25, 2008)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> Nope.
> 
> HERO has Advantages and Disads as well, called Talents and...Disads.
> Disadvantages in particular are open ended- there are some defined in the book, but several of those are actually mere exemplars.  For example, the Vulnerability disad has several listed, but the sheer number of Vulnerabilities is limited only by imagination.
> ...




And then some. Many things that are Psychological Limitation (Common, Strong) or Physical Limitation (Common, Moderate) are specific Disadvantages in GURPS, while Vulnerabilities and such are pretty open-ended. 

Options in HERO are fairly paltry compared to GURPS's Empathy, Lame, Smooth Operator, and so forth. HERO works for broad strokes, but if you want to tickle the details, I'd say GURPS really has it. And as of 4e, HERO can claim only the most minor advantages even in the super-power department.

While the games have their historic strengths and weaknesses, the two games have come to parity in almost every meaningful way. 

As far as detailed traits for characterizing someone, GURPS still has superior fine-ness, by a smidge. HERO still has some advantages in scaling to large values.



> Then there's "package deals" which are GM/Player created groups of powers, skills, talents, disads, etc. that make one a member of a particular race, species, family, mutation type, organization, or other easily definable subgroup- like suffering from the long-term health effects from a disease or weapon, or perhaps a curse (like Lycanthropy or becoming a Wendigo).




These are called "templates" in GURPS.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 25, 2008)

> Options in HERO are fairly paltry compared to GURPS's Empathy, Lame, Smooth Operator, and so forth.




Oh come now!  That kind of bald statement of opinion as fact needs some kind of backing before it can be accepted.



> HERO works for broad strokes, but if you want to tickle the details, I'd say GURPS really has it.




Again, I'd need some kind of concrete evidence thereof.


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## pawsplay (Jun 25, 2008)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> Oh come now!  That kind of bald statement of opinion as fact needs some kind of backing before it can be accepted.
> 
> Again, I'd need some kind of concrete evidence thereof.





Let's look at Dai Blackthorn, one of the sample characters. Besides a psychic danger sense and a warp power, he as Abolute Direction, Flexibility (a kind of minor double-jointedness), Honest Face (a 1 point Advantage), Legal Enforcement Powers, and Perfect Balance.

Absolute Direction translates without problem, LEP turns into a Perk (ISWAT agent). Flexibility would probably just be Double-jointed in Her.o Honest Face is probably not a Hero trait. Perfect Balance would hae to be constructed; it grants a bonus to DX rolls to keep your feet, a bonus to avoid being tripped or knocked down, and a +1 bonus to Acrobatics, Climbing, and Piloting. In Hero, I think you would have to do a personal Change Environment that improves balance.

Dai also has a Duty to ISWAT (Watched). He is a light sleeper, a minor Disavantage that has no equivalent in Hero. He has overconfidence and sense of duty, both psychological limitations. He's poor.

He also has 5 quirks: Dislikes deep water; loves high places; no drugs or alcohol; sensitive about his height; and showoff. Showoff translates into a very common, moderate disad, and no drugs or alcohol is probably a common, moderate disad. In HERO terms, he's already bursting at the seams in terms of PsychLims. 

There are no Hero equivalents to his disliking deep water, loving high places, and being sensitive about his height.

So as you can see, while Hero and GURPS have very similar traits, GURPS has some very fine traits that make Dai uniquely Dai.


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## DrunkonDuty (Jun 25, 2008)

Ooh what a good thread. Have really enjoyed it. Jurgen has given some very nice explanations of GURPS 4E that make me very curious to try it out.

I'm still more a fan of HERO myself but, hey, each to their own. I use HERO primarily for supers, at which it excels, but have recently bought Pulp HERO and am eager to try it out. One thing both HERO and GURPS have in common is, at normal person level combat has a way of getting very lethal, very fast. It just makes sense to try to out-think or out-talk the bad guys before going for your gun. I like that.   

GURPS (3E anyway, as implied above haven't tried 4E) has a shopping list style of advantages, powers, disads etc. This just appeals less to me than the HERO method of 'imagine something, then work out how to model it.' Of course the GURPS way is handy if you want a quicker and easier start and is more accessible for new RPGers who have suggestions to work from. I picked GURPS character gen up in minutes. Cannot honestly say the the same for HERO but now I'm used to it I really like the tinkerability of it.

Like any system though: the better you know it, the easier it is to use it and make it jump through hoops. 

cheers all.


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## DrunkonDuty (Jun 25, 2008)

> There are no Hero equivalents to his disliking deep water, loving high places, and being sensitive about his height.




Hey? Of course there is: 

Psych Lim: Dislikes deep water (uncommon, moderate) -5 

or he could be a genuine hydrophobe: Psych Lim: hydrophobe (uncommon, strong) -10

Psych Lim: Sensitive about his height (Uncommon, moderate) -5

or he could be really sensitve about his height (Uncommon, strong) -10

Or he could be picked on for it a lot more due to cultural reasons (Common, moderate) -10.

In terms of mechanics : Moderate should guide role playing. Strong requires a dice roll based on EGO to go against the psych lim. Very Strong requires a dice roll with a penalty.
Very Common, Common, uncommon just refer to frequency of an event and this depends on the campaign. (a hydrophobe in a campaign set in Atlantis gets more points.)

Tinkerability. I like it.


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## jdrakeh (Jun 25, 2008)

DrunkonDuty said:
			
		

> Hey? Of course there is:
> 
> Psych Lim: Dislikes deep water (uncommon, moderate) -5
> 
> ...




Except GURPS 'quirks' aren't actual flaws that impact game play mechanically. Hero limitations, conversely, are. . . erm. . . limiting.


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## pawsplay (Jun 25, 2008)

jdrakeh said:
			
		

> Except GURPS 'quirks' aren't actual flaws that impact game play mechanically. Hero limitations, conversely, are. . . erm. . . limiting.




In Hero terms, all quirks would be Moderate. Conservatively, assuming light sleeper is a physical disad, he has at least 80 points in Psychological Limitations if you wanted to construct his quirks as suggested. That would be considered a no-no in most Hero games.


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## DrunkonDuty (Jun 25, 2008)

As I said: at the 'moderate' level they're only supposed to inform roleplaying. Above that then yeah, they're serious disads. I'd argue that any Psych Lim. set at Very Strong implies a character in need of regular counselling.


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## pawsplay (Jun 25, 2008)

DrunkonDuty said:
			
		

> As I said: at the 'moderate' level they're only supposed to inform roleplaying. Above that then yeah, they're serious disads. I'd argue that any Psych Lim. set at Very Strong implies a character in need of regular counselling.




Hero's psychological limitations have always bothered me. Superman's vow not to kill is apparently moderate, since he has on numerous occasions made exceptions. You can either take a holistic approach, and hope the GM is lenient when you decide to roleplay the character in what you see as a realistic fashion, or you can downgrade the Psych Lims of any character who is basically sane. I would hope that a GM would intepret Superman's Code Versus Killing as Total... unless we are talking about saving a billion lives versus the life of one entity personally responsble for the impending death. But strictly by the rules, Superman gets, at best, an EGO roll at -5 to overcome his Code, if the GM decides to allow it.


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## LoneWolf23 (Jun 25, 2008)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> I think the reasons were mainly:
> 
> - Economy of scale: GURPS is a niche RPG when compared to D&D, and wouldn't nearly get as many third party producers through the OGL.
> 
> ...




Of course, it could be argued that, the way GURPS is designed, just about anybody *can* create their own material using those rules, and do so rather easily.  Go ahead, make your own "Class" templates, and you can be sure everything will be balanced out for the point total by the time you're done.

Just one advantage of point-based vs level-based design.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 25, 2008)

As others have already countered the rest of Dai Blackthorn being less realizable in HERO than in GURPS, I'll go for the one left as yet unanswered.



> Honest Face is probably not a Hero trait.




There are _a variety_ of ways to handle this in HERO- a PRE or COM bonus (possibly with limits like "Only with _______ skills), extra points spent in particular skills, skill levels with the limitation "only usable with PRE & COM based skills," a limited PRE or COM based attack or even a very small and limited Elemental Control.

As for:



> In HERO terms, he's already bursting at the seams in terms of PsychLims.




...HERO doesn't limit the number of PsychLims a PC can have, just the number from which he can gain build points at any one time.  And that limitation on them is a _suggested_ rule- if a GM wants to let his players play utter basket cases, he's free to do so.  There is no hard and fast limit- whatever limit on build points from a given disad is defined by the GM (HERO 5th, Rev., p 326).  He can even vary that number between disad_ types._



> Hero's psychological limitations have always bothered me. Superman's vow not to kill is apparently moderate, since he has on numerous occasions made exceptions.




AFAIK, he has only intentionally killed 4-5 people in the history of the comic books- Doomsday (possibly more than once) and the 3 worst inmates of the Phantom Zone- General Zod, Faora and Quex-Ul (albeit versions from the Time Trapper's pocket universe).  And he only did that after they escaped after that universe's Superboy died, and they were able to kill everyone on (that) Earth.  He killed them by first exposing them to (that universe's) Gold Kryptonite, then to (that universe's) Green Kryptonite.

His battles with Doomsday are arguably all self-defense.

The only other occurrence may have happened early in the Golden Era when dealing with a thug with a gun.

Others have died because he couldn't save them.

So I'd put Comic Book Kal-El's PsychLim against killing pretty high.

As for other media, I understand he took an action in _Superman Returns _that resulted in the deaths of 3 of Lex Luthor's henchmen, but since I didn't see the film, I can't say if that was the desired result or an unavoidable side effect.

So again, a pretty high code against killing.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 25, 2008)

PsychLim Addendum...because I'm watching _Monk_ right now.

If I talked to my GM and was persuasive, I'm sure I could justify designing a superheroic character whose psyche is much like Adrian Monk's (who is nuttier than a Pecan grove) with something like:

2 Undefined Very Common Total, 2 Undefined Common Strong and 2 Uncommon Moderate PsychLims for 90 total points.  These get defined through roleplay in a given adventure ("Am I afraid of elephants?  Let me check...hmmm...yes, just above Clowns and right below Spoiled Milk.") and the PC can NEVER buy them off.


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## DrunkonDuty (Jun 25, 2008)

I have no idea about Superman's history specifically. But in HERO terms a Code vs. Killing with an ego roll -5 is pretty hard to get around. Don't take it unless you're pretty certain that's what you want. As a GM I'd say it equates to the the great inner turmoil that the character feels at having to do something they feel is so fundamentally wrong. I would certainly allow the player to continue making Ego Rolls every action until they achieved the desired result. It would be at worst a delay. If there was no time for hesitation I'd allow the character to act right away regardless. But in either case I'd expect the player to role play the self-loathing, etc that would result. 

So in the hypothetical 1 life vs. billions: I wouldn't expect Superman to hesitate if Doomsday were about to press the button. But I would expect him to question his actions afterwards. Keep saying to himself: 'Maybe I could have done it differently. Maybe he didn't have to die. Maybe I'm as bad as Doomsday.' Then I'd give the player a dream sequence of the most hackneyed variety, possibly even bring back the dead person's ghost. As you can guess I'm a ROLEplayer.    

Of course as a GM I'd not generally put a player in the position of 'go against your severe pscyh lim or get get screwed by the bad guy.' I'd generally try to discourage psych lims taken to Very Strong level in any case. Disads, in my book, are things to hang plot hooks on; encourage role playing and exploit in combat. Very rarely, for reasons of drama, you do put the players in direct confrontation with their disads. But that is a staple of the Supers genre (and literature in general) in any case and by no means limited to HERO.

Before anyone gets up in arms about the latter and accuses me of being a confrontational GM: players get to choose if they want a specific weakness and get points based on how likely they are to encounter it. It's understood that if someone takes Susceptabilty: Kryptonite then they're going to encounter kryptonite despite the extremely low chances that fragments from an exploding planet millions of light years away would ever reach earth (at speeds of less than light speed at that!) in any case. Let alone in the sort of amounts it seems to have. 

BTW: re. 'quirks' in the GURPS specific sense: I've actually used them in HERO. Told the players 'pick 5 x 1pt quirks, just like in GURPS.' It's certainly not a difficult mechanic to import.

Mmm. Would also like to say I don't dislike GURPS. I've said, on this forum somewhere, that I _love _ the source books. They are the cats meow. In actual play I find that it leaves me a bit flat. Really not sure why. On paper it works for me. <shrugs>

PPPS: I remember Dai Blackthorn when he was just a poor lad in a fantasy faux-mediaeval city with nought but a cheap knife to his name. Now he's got a psychic knife and hot job with the psicops. He's all growed up.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 25, 2008)

> I wouldn't expect Superman to hesitate if Doomsday were about to press the button.




Just to clarify- the rogue Kryptonians were the mass murderers.  Doomsday just wanted to kill Supes, and basically bee-lined for him across the stars, killing and maiming anyone who got in his path.  Kal-El was essentially in a kill-or-be-killed situation...and died (the first time, at least).







> Would also like to say I don't dislike GURPS. I've said, on this forum somewhere, that I love  the source books. They are the cats meow.




Again, to be clear- while I hate GURPS, I can't find any fault with their source books.  Meowing cats indeed.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 25, 2008)

robertsconley said:
			
		

> Historically shields broke a lot. With the players experiencing this do they consider this fun at all? I like to pour on the realism but I will pull back if the rule is overaly picky.




They seemed to like it, all in all - it added some nice tension to fights. Mind you, I wouldn't introduce all the complex but realistic stuff (including hit locations) right at the start of the campaign, but after the players have gotten familiar with the basics, put it all in.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 25, 2008)

> Historically shields broke a lot. With the players experiencing this do they consider this fun at all?



Dude...who wouldn't like to have at least a chance to reinact the Viking duel scene from_ The Thirteenth Warrior?_  Or reinact jousts done "to the first break" and the like?

Breaking stuff in game can be KEWL if handled properly!


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## pawsplay (Jun 25, 2008)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> AFAIK, he has only intentionally killed 4-5 people in the history of the comic books- Doomsday (possibly more than once) and the 3 worst inmates of the Phantom Zone- General Zod, Faora and Quex-Ul (albeit versions from the Time Trapper's pocket universe).  And he only did that after they escaped after that universe's Superboy died, and they were able to kill everyone on (that) Earth.  He killed them by first exposing them to (that universe's) Gold Kryptonite, then to (that universe's) Green Kryptonite.




Prior to the Crisis on Infinite Earths, he helped defend Earth during the invasion from the Vegan system, during which he destroyed a number of manned spaceships. He also killed the Anti-Monitor during the Crisis. He killed Bizarro post-crisis. He has attempted to kill Darkseid. He also pulled out Metallo's heart, although Metallo was an AI, not a natural biological creature. That's off the top of my head.

He kills in both Superman III and IV.


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## DrunkonDuty (Jun 25, 2008)

> Prior to the Crisis on Infinite Earths, he helped defend Earth during the invasion from the Vegan system, during which he destroyed a number of manned spaceships. He also killed the Anti-Monitor during the Crisis. He killed Bizarro post-crisis. He has attempted to kill Darkseid. He also pulled out Metallo's heart, although Metallo was an AI, not a natural biological creature. That's off the top of my head.
> 
> He kills in both Superman III and IV.




Off the top of my head I'd rate that at: 
Code vs. Killing: only to save other lives.

Although an argument could be made that Code vs. Killing means Supes doesn't like anyone to be killed, either by himself or others, and will do what he has to to prevent that. Even if that means killing. How he deals with this conflict is another issue.

Lets face it: nothing as complex as a real moral code is ever really going to be well modelled in an RPG. 




> > I wouldn't expect Superman to hesitate if Doomsday were about to press the button.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Oops, my bad. I really don't know much about old Supes except his vulnerability to kryptonite and polo accidents.


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## pawsplay (Jun 25, 2008)

DrunkonDuty said:
			
		

> Lets face it: nothing as complex as a real moral code is ever really going to be well modelled in an RPG.




In GURPS, you just guesstimate a value based on how restrictive it is. Then you roleplay it.

You can take Pacifism (Cannot Kill) with all the guilt stuff, but it's not necessary. Superman might have Code of Truth and Justice, that requires him to use necessary force, to refrain from evil, to act on behalf of good, to respect the autonomy of free moral agents, and so forth.


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## Matrix Sorcica (Jun 25, 2008)

Guys, can we take the Superman talk to another thread and to a certain degree the GURPS vs. HERO way of modelling quirks too?

Thanks.


Ok. 1 second rounds. How does this work out? I mean - hey we're attacked by monsters. I'm 50 meters from my pals, so the fight will be over before I'm there. Or what? (An equally long time ago we played futuristic gurps and they got ambushed by snipers with HMGs. One of the players wanted to sneak up to the second floor of a nearby building. That would take approx. one minute. He looked at me when I told him it would take 60 rounds, and then just dropped it started shooting back.....)


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 25, 2008)

Matrix Sorcica said:
			
		

> Ok. 1 second rounds. How does this work out? I mean - hey we're attacked by monsters. I'm 50 meters from my pals, so the fight will be over before I'm there. Or what?




If your group starts that far apart, then that's a real possibility. Of course, you could use ranged weapons, if that is an option.

The "right" answer here is that parties that travel in a dangerous environment shouldn't walk that far spread out that they can't be ambushed individually. The same goes for NPCs, of course - if the party can sneak up on lone enemies that get separated from their group, they should feel free to pounce them while their allies are far away.



> (An equally long time ago we played futuristic gurps and they got ambushed by snipers with HMGs. One of the players wanted to sneak up to the second floor of a nearby building. That would take approx. one minute. He looked at me when I told him it would take 60 rounds, and then just dropped it started shooting back.....)




In such a situation, it's entirely appropriate to have long wait periods in which the bulk of the party hides behind cover, while the lone PC tries to sneak away undetected. The snipers can't fire all the time, either - HMGs use up a lot of ammo.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 25, 2008)

DrunkonDuty said:
			
		

> GURPS (3E anyway, as implied above haven't tried 4E) has a shopping list style of advantages, powers, disads etc. This just appeals less to me than the HERO method of 'imagine something, then work out how to model it.' Of course the GURPS way is handy if you want a quicker and easier start and is more accessible for new RPGers who have suggestions to work from.




Which is a significant issue. After all, you might not even realize that you _want_ a specific advantage until you read about it - so being able to turn something you imagine into game mechanics is not enough.

This is part of the brilliance of GURPS Powers. The 4E GURPS Basic Set is an amazingly flexible and powerful tool (much more powerful than 3E), but when you read GURPS Powers, you suddenly see just _how_ flexible it is.


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## DrunkonDuty (Jun 25, 2008)

> Jürgen Hubert wrote:
> Which is a significant issue. After all, you might not even realize that you want a specific advantage until you read about it - so being able to turn something you imagine into game mechanics is not enough.




Agreed. The inspiration that an RPG gives you is an important part of it. Of course one can get one's inspiration from ANY game or literature. Me, I like stealing from everywhere. Hence my love of GURPS source books.


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## hong (Jun 25, 2008)

GURPS is a state of mind.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 25, 2008)

DrunkonDuty said:
			
		

> Agreed. The inspiration that an RPG gives you is an important part of it. Of course one can get one's inspiration from ANY game or literature. Me, I like stealing from everywhere. Hence my love of GURPS source books.




Some of my old 3e favorites (many of which are now available at $10 each);

GURPS Cabal: Like the World of Darkness... but with less angsting about being monsters or ruthless mages! The setting works better for different types of monsters/mystics working together as well...
GURPS Creatures of the Night: Some _really_ disturbing monsters here. The author wrote them up after various nightmares he's had, and it shows.
GURPS Horror: _The_ definite treatment of the horror genre for role-playing games... at least, until they create a new edition for 4E.   
GURPS Technomancer: Fun modern-day Alternate Earth where magic returned to the world in 1945. It has a somewhat unfortunate US-centrism, however...
Transhuman Space: The definite proof that "hard SF" doesn't have to mean "boring" - and reminds us that our own future might be stranger than anything we can imagine...
GURPS War Against The Cthorr: One of the best "alien invasion" scenarios I have seen - and one that doesn't even have any active _intelligent_ aliens that anyone has seen. For a really disturbing and depressing alien invasion, accept no substitutes.
GURPS Warehouse 23: It's not just the Ark of the Covenant that's hidden in there...
Suppressed Transmission 1&2: Not GURPS books themselves, but still very, very inspirational. Weirdness at its best.


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## Steely Dan (Jun 25, 2008)

_GURPs_ was something every role-player I knew in the early 90's would make fun of.

That fact that the word generic is in the acronym is enough to leave a bad taste in my mouth for some reason.

As for the actual game (mechanics etc), I have no idea, could be awesome.


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## ExploderWizard (Jun 25, 2008)

Matrix Sorcica said:
			
		

> Ok. 1 second rounds. How does this work out? I mean - hey we're attacked by monsters. I'm 50 meters from my pals, so the fight will be over before I'm there. Or what? (An equally long time ago we played futuristic gurps and they got ambushed by snipers with HMGs. One of the players wanted to sneak up to the second floor of a nearby building. That would take approx. one minute. He looked at me when I told him it would take 60 rounds, and then just dropped it started shooting back.....)




The one second round lets you play out action in exacting detail and this can be both a blessing and a curse. One of my first GURPS combat experiences involved our party getting ambushed by some bad guys during a fantasy adventure. My big warrior started taking off his backpack to drop weight and increase his move. This took 3 seconds-a virtual LIFETIME in combat. While I was busy getting ready, our wizard was busy getting his foot pinned to the floor with a dagger. I learned that a few seconds is long time. As Jurgen stated, being far apart from your friends is dangerous. In the movies its usually the one wandering alone that dies first.

One mechanic that can help with the tight timeline is the use of combat lulls. These are breaks in the action when opponents are taking a breath, evaluating thier foes, and planning thier next moves. In the situation with the sniper, there was the possibility of a lull if any cover was available. The PC's hide behind cover which could begin a lull. One player starts to sneak away while the others give the sniper targets to shoot at such as a helmet on a pole (a cinematic classic) The GM can rule that 5-10 seconds go by between potshots from the sniper. This is a fairly accurate way to portray events assuming the sniper is a regular guy, mentally speaking, and not a crazed nutjob that just shoots nonstop until all ammo was expended.

So with a couple of lulls thrown in you can model that scenario very well. Things can be even more interesting if the sniper has allies that are doing some sneaking of thier own during this same time.


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## hong (Jun 25, 2008)

GURPS combat is perpetual bullet time.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 25, 2008)

ExploderWizard said:
			
		

> The one second round lets you play out action in exacting detail and this can be both a blessing and a curse. One of my first GURPS combat experiences involved our party getting ambushed by some bad guys during a fantasy adventure. My big warrior started taking off his backpack to drop weight and increase his move. This took 3 seconds-a virtual LIFETIME in combat. While I was busy getting ready, our wizard was busy getting his foot pinned to the floor with a dagger. I learned that a few seconds is long time. As Jurgen stated, being far apart from your friends is dangerous. In the movies its usually the one wandering alone that dies first.




And as I've said, GURPS rewards tactics that work well in real life. Ambushes are _lethal_ in real life, and GURPS accurately models this. This can work for the PCs, but also against them, depending on who is ambushing whom.

So a GM who wants to spring an ambush on the PCs should give the PCs ample opportunity to spot it if he doesn't want to wipe them out - or make sure that the ambushers are weaker than they are.

One or more PCs should probably also have a fairly high Perception...


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## ExploderWizard (Jun 25, 2008)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> And as I've said, GURPS rewards tactics that work well in real life. Ambushes are _lethal_ in real life, and GURPS accurately models this. This can work for the PCs, but also against them, depending on who is ambushing whom.
> 
> So a GM who wants to spring an ambush on the PCs should give the PCs ample opportunity to spot it if he doesn't want to wipe them out - or make sure that the ambushers are weaker than they are.
> 
> One or more PCs should probably also have a fairly high Perception...




I totally agree. That was the first GURPS campaign that I played in and the first real taste of D&D to GURPS culture shock    Once I (not my character) broke out of mental stun caused by these differences the game was fantastic as were the many that followed.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 25, 2008)

ExploderWizard said:
			
		

> Thats why letting others publish adventures for those specialized markets would be so great. Requiring that such publications advertise that they are NOT SJ Games products, include no rules for play, and that they require the use of the GURPS basic rules(and whatever source/worldbook the adventure is for). Having a large base of scenarios available from 3rd party publishers may help core book sales.




I don't think there's a huge market for those, however. Third-party adventures work well for d20/D&D, but the sheer range of settings possible for GURPS means that the possible market share for individual GURPS adventures is very, very small.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 25, 2008)

ExploderWizard said:
			
		

> I totally agree. That was the first GURPS campaign that I played in and the first real taste of D&D to GURPS culture shock    Once I (not my character) broke out of mental stun caused by these differences the game was fantastic as were the many that followed.




There are a bunch of important differences to the general _feel_ of GURPS and D&D games (I'm assuming "medieval fantasy" as the genre here - that GURPS space opera games will feel different from D&D should be obvious). Here are a few I can think of at the top of my head:

- Faster rounds, slower movement: The characters won't be zipping around the battlefield unless the map is small. Especially if they are wearing heavy armor. So it's important that the PCs are already in tactically advantageous positions before the fight starts.
- Getting surrounded is a bad idea: In D&D, getting surrounded by mooks is just an invitation to use Cleave or even Whirlwind Attack (or their 4E equivalents). In GURPS, that means that some of your enemies will hit you, and you won't be able to defend yourself against this.
- Don't bring leather to a swordfight: Armor is much more important in GURPS than it is in D&D, since it directly substracts from damage. After two or three hits with a sword, pretty much anyone without armor will go down, but someone in plate armor will have suffered only minor injuries at best. So if you go into melee combat with weak armor, you should better make very sure that your defenses are very good.
- Easy to fall down, harder to kill: It's fairly easy to injure someone to the point where he will fall unconscious, but it is significantly harder to kill someone outright, especially if he has decent HT. This means that even if PCs go down, their odds of survival are actually pretty decent. Still, the _risk_ of death is never entirely absent, so PCs should still be careful.
- Greater Character Customization: That's the biggest difference. Not only does GURPS allow a wider range of possible character archetypes to coexist within a single party (for example, you could easily have both a youngster with lots of raw potential = high attributes and lots of advantages - and an old veteran, who has put most of his points of skills, in the same party without unbalancing things), but you could have some really strange races and other characters which would be considered "unbalancing" in D&D. For example, many settings have elves which are generally just plain superior to humans. This would be problematic with the D&D game mechanics, but not in GURPS - all it means that their racial template costs more, resulting in elves with lots of innate advantages, and humans with more skills and training easily coexisting in the same party. And then there are plenty of rules and advantages for social interaction which D&D hardly even touches - if you want to play a noble with his entourage, you easily can, and the rule system easily lets you nail down just what kind of privileges the noble enjoys thanks to his social status.


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## Kichwas (Jun 25, 2008)

There are a lot of differences in feel between GURPS and DnD. The note on faster rounds, slower movement above is one of the biggest 'smacks to head' you'll get when you jump into a GURPS combat for the first time.

In looking at the books you might come away thinking an archer, who gets 1 shot every2 (or was it 3) rounds is at a severe disadvantage, unless you realize that unlike in DnD the enemy can't run 10 miles in a single round and close with you. Even in a charge, you can probably kill half of them before they close the gap if your GM starts the encounter at a logical perception range (and there aren't obstacles / walls / etc that shorten it).

The bit above me on don't bring leather - Not as true in 4E as it used to be. Hit avoidance as a tactic in combat is still a poor choice, but it is more viable than it used to be. And... one of my favorite memories as a GURPS GM was in a fight between a PC lizardman in fullplate and an Orc by the side of a river...

Trip

He actually didn't die... but it was very close by the time he managed to drag his character out of the water, and only because I, being a softy back then, fudged 2 rolls in his favor.

The weight of the gear your character carries around will matter a lot more in GURPS than it does in DnD.

In science fiction the system can break for playability. Armor and damage are in extremely high numbers, but the dice are on a bell curve that gets tighter the more of them you add. Eventually you hit a point where there are so many dice and so much armor that a slight bump up or down for either side means an almost assured outcome. Either the opposition is de-facto immune to your attacks, or at 5 less points of armor out of their 80-100 points... you can reliably one shot them.

While that might make sense... it makes those genres very hard to game in without adding in a host of cinematic optional rules.

It does do fantasy well, but the default magic system is too strongly preset, and despite the claims here that Powers presents another option, that isn't "obvious" until you are very deeply invested into the system. It should have been the other way around - the default option should have been generic, and what we get in the default option should have been presented in a setting book for 'Yrth.'

I happen to think that Hero is better at fantasy, but GURPS is a close third (first in my book is BESM), and would be in that spot even if the Magic issue I have were not there.

I find it very easy to get killed or kill in GURPS, rather than hard, but I guess that's a matter of playstyle and perception. Getting surrounded though, is always a bad idea. No playing a World of Warcraft style paladin in GURPS.


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## pawsplay (Jun 25, 2008)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> I don't think there's a huge market for those, however. Third-party adventures work well for d20/D&D, but the sheer range of settings possible for GURPS means that the possible market share for individual GURPS adventures is very, very small.





I think the market is actually pretty good sized, but not in all the settings GURPS covers.


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## Mercule (Jun 26, 2008)

pawsplay said:
			
		

> There are no Hero equivalents to his disliking deep water, loving high places, and being sensitive about his height.



Wow.  I have a hard time believing anyone who has ever made ever a single Hero character -- or even just thumbed through the disads chapter -- would say that.  Those are great examples of where Hero works quite well.



			
				jdrakeh said:
			
		

> Except GURPS 'quirks' aren't actual flaws that impact game play mechanically. Hero limitations, conversely, are. . . erm. . . limiting.



You can write down personality traits in Hero, too.  Mechanical stuff has point costs.  Non-mechanical stuff doesn't.  You don't have to pay to like Chinese food, either.



			
				pawsplay said:
			
		

> Hero's psychological limitations have always bothered me.



Psych lims can be looked at two ways.  From a purely mechanical viewpoint, they can force even the most purely gamist player to deal with significant personality issues.

Really, though, we've generally used them as a guide to how inconvenient the limitation is.  The stick exists for the GM, should you start to ignore them.  But, if you're hamming it up just fine (i.e. you're limiting yourself enough), the GM doesn't have to police it.  I've found the latter method to be much more fun and character driven -- but the numbers on the sheet still encourage the role playing.


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## Mercule (Jun 26, 2008)

pawsplay said:
			
		

> invasion from the Vegan system



Darn those vegans and their militant anti-meat agenda.

*Not an honest political quip.  Just lightening the mood.


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## pawsplay (Jun 26, 2008)

Mercule said:
			
		

> Wow.  I have a hard time believing anyone who has ever made ever a single Hero character -- or even just thumbed through the disads chapter -- would say that.  Those are great examples of where Hero works quite well.




Well, I just don't consider "does not have this same mechanic" or the alternative, "This is a psychological limitation worth 5 or more points" working well. It's not something Hero does, and I'm fine with that. I would not expect Hero to have quirks, and if I did, I would just import them from GURPS. But by default, Hero does not do this, and this is not a great example of where Hero works well. This is an example of something too specific, too below the radar, to really be a Hero trait.




> Psych lims can be looked at two ways.  From a purely mechanical viewpoint, they can force even the most purely gamist player to deal with significant personality issues.




And from a purely mechanical standpoint, they can be used to take an interesting character and a very dramatic story and run them into the ground.



> Really, though, we've generally used them as a guide to how inconvenient the limitation is.  The stick exists for the GM, should you start to ignore them.  But, if you're hamming it up just fine (i.e. you're limiting yourself enough), the GM doesn't have to police it.  I've found the latter method to be much more fun and character driven -- but the numbers on the sheet still encourage the role playing.




The numbers on the sheet, if they say Total, put the character in as serious a bind as AD&D alignment, and the specific behaviors in question may be even more vague. I don't mind GMing characters with these traits, because I take the holistic approach, as you do, but I've read some statements from some Hero GMs that make me shiver at the idea of trying to play someone like Superman in their games. The rules are not on the side of "You've earned your points, and that sounds consistent with this character." The rules say, "This disadvantage occurs approximately this often and has this effect on the character's actions."


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jun 27, 2008)

arcady said:


> And... one of my favorite memories as a GURPS GM was in a fight between a PC lizardman in fullplate and an Orc by the side of a river...
> 
> Trip
> 
> He actually didn't die... but it was very close by the time he managed to drag his character out of the water, and only because I, being a softy back then, fudged 2 rolls in his favor.




Like I said... good real world tactics will work in GURPS as well.


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## Mercule (Jun 27, 2008)

pawsplay said:


> The numbers on the sheet, if they say Total, put the character in as serious a bind as AD&D alignment, and the specific behaviors in question may be even more vague. I don't mind GMing characters with these traits, because I take the holistic approach, as you do, but I've read some statements from some Hero GMs that make me shiver at the idea of trying to play someone like Superman in their games. The rules are not on the side of "You've earned your points, and that sounds consistent with this character." The rules say, "This disadvantage occurs approximately this often and has this effect on the character's actions."



I have never found AD&D alignment to be heinous, so I guess I agree with what you're saying.

As far as Hero goes, I think I'm using psych lims as intended by the author, but it could certainly be better explained as such.  Then again, as soon as you put a line in an RPG that says "feel free to ignore this rule", someone will inevitably pull that out at beat a GM with it.  Sure, a good GM can deal with that, but a good GM doesn't need to be told he can ignore that rule in the first place.


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