How D&D Became GURPS
Posted 13th August 2009 at 03:45 AM by pawsplay
1974: D&D published
1986: GURPS published
2004: GURPS 4e released
2008: D&D 4e published
From 1974 to about 1984 marked a first wave of game design. Although that period is usually associated with D&D, AD&D, and a host of clones and fantasy settings, it was also a time of wild improvisation and a number of departures of from the traditional fantasy wargaming model. By 1986, however, the fantasy wargaming had largely prevailed in the market, while numerous games departed notably from D&D-style game mechanics, focusing more on genre and media emulation. GURPS was, at that point, a state of the art. However, games like Ars Magica (1987) and Amber (1991) took the RPG world in new directions, culminating in the publication in 1991 of Vampire: The Masquerade, a "storytelling" game. From that time forward, RPGs were redefined as a broader genre of game encompassing not only the early fantasy wargaming style (barely departed from miniature gaming) but a new dramatic style based on poetics and psychology. RPGs remained, however, the same in that they were a shared narrative driven by special resolution mechanics. By the 21st century, GURPS and D&D are both living fossils, games built firmly in the fantasy wargaming tradition, for all that they are from time to time pressed into service as a framework for storytelling adventures. To clarify, by fantasy wargaming I do not mean boardgame play, but rather exactly that which was defined by the original D&D game: unlimited choices in an imaginary environment. GURPS has traditionally tried to simulate, especially reality but also as needed the tropes of adventure film and fiction (known in GURPS speak as the cinematic style). D&D has traditionally focused on tactical play, exploration, surprise, and power fantasies.
With D&D 3e, D&D for the first time embraced a unified core mechanic, an innovation embraced not only by GURPS in 1987 but by such diverse games as Call of Cthulhu, Talislanta, and DC Heroes. It also codified Skills (from the Rules Cyclopedia) and Non-Weapon Proficiences (from AD&D) into a more general system of Feats and Skills. In short, D&D recreated the GURPS Advantage and Skill system, after a fashion. Meanwhile, built in limitations on PCs were stripped away in favor of player choice. 4e returned D&D to its somewhat more familiar class-and-race format, but the essence of choice remained, and especially, the emphasis on unified mechanics. Moroever, player choice was channeled into explicit "builds" within classes in order to make PC creation more formulaic, more friendly, more logical, and more balanced.
GURPS began as a toolkit, little more than a set of tools for running combat, exploration, social encounters, and information gathering, with the assumption that any number of worlds could be built onto such a foundation. Bit by bit, GURPS expanded to become more generic. 3e finally made the attempt to unify GURPS, uniting all Advantages into a single source, the Compendium. With 4e, it became more universal, with a philosophy that embraced the practicalities of gaming and an increased friendiness to less realistic games. Something else happened with 3e. In addition to the realization that GMs could find some use for premade, or at least preworked, examples of campaigns, Steve Jackson Games realized there was a thirst for tools for players to make PCs more easily, while still preserving player choice. Templates began with a trickle, but by the end of 3e's developmental cycle, they were everywhere in a flood. Finally, players could say, "I want to play X," and they could simply write down X and proceed to customize from there. In this way, GURPS remained GURPS in that any aspect could be tweaked, but it at last joined the ranks of "classed games."
Simply put, White Wolf tested and proved the concept that players were looking for archetypes, while at the same time had a desire for ways to make their characters unique. This drove the Vampire: The Masquerade lifecycle and reached a level of elegance in the new World of Darkness line. At this point, players can create almost wholly unique creations without going beyond some basic choices offered in the core setting books. Vampire was originally based on skills and powers (in the form of Disciplines). Merits and Drawbacks were reluctantly introduced later in the Old World of Darkness line, then eventually embraced. In the New World and Darkness, Merits and Skills are the bread and butter of character customization.
So not only has D&D become GURPS, but GURPS has become D&D. The New World of Darkness is both GURPS and D&D, which in turn are also the World of Darkness.
Class and race, template and race, Order and Clan. Feats, skills, and powers; Advantages, Skills, and powers; Merits, skills, and Disciplines. The same evolution has shaped the Hero System, D6, Runequest, and even The Dying Earth. While every game is free to experiment, certain design elements have become relatively constant. I conclude that RPG design has truly become an art, with a body of technical, artistic, and philosphical knowledge that influence it, a culture that participates in it, and creators who nourish it with original insights.
1986: GURPS published
2004: GURPS 4e released
2008: D&D 4e published
From 1974 to about 1984 marked a first wave of game design. Although that period is usually associated with D&D, AD&D, and a host of clones and fantasy settings, it was also a time of wild improvisation and a number of departures of from the traditional fantasy wargaming model. By 1986, however, the fantasy wargaming had largely prevailed in the market, while numerous games departed notably from D&D-style game mechanics, focusing more on genre and media emulation. GURPS was, at that point, a state of the art. However, games like Ars Magica (1987) and Amber (1991) took the RPG world in new directions, culminating in the publication in 1991 of Vampire: The Masquerade, a "storytelling" game. From that time forward, RPGs were redefined as a broader genre of game encompassing not only the early fantasy wargaming style (barely departed from miniature gaming) but a new dramatic style based on poetics and psychology. RPGs remained, however, the same in that they were a shared narrative driven by special resolution mechanics. By the 21st century, GURPS and D&D are both living fossils, games built firmly in the fantasy wargaming tradition, for all that they are from time to time pressed into service as a framework for storytelling adventures. To clarify, by fantasy wargaming I do not mean boardgame play, but rather exactly that which was defined by the original D&D game: unlimited choices in an imaginary environment. GURPS has traditionally tried to simulate, especially reality but also as needed the tropes of adventure film and fiction (known in GURPS speak as the cinematic style). D&D has traditionally focused on tactical play, exploration, surprise, and power fantasies.
With D&D 3e, D&D for the first time embraced a unified core mechanic, an innovation embraced not only by GURPS in 1987 but by such diverse games as Call of Cthulhu, Talislanta, and DC Heroes. It also codified Skills (from the Rules Cyclopedia) and Non-Weapon Proficiences (from AD&D) into a more general system of Feats and Skills. In short, D&D recreated the GURPS Advantage and Skill system, after a fashion. Meanwhile, built in limitations on PCs were stripped away in favor of player choice. 4e returned D&D to its somewhat more familiar class-and-race format, but the essence of choice remained, and especially, the emphasis on unified mechanics. Moroever, player choice was channeled into explicit "builds" within classes in order to make PC creation more formulaic, more friendly, more logical, and more balanced.
GURPS began as a toolkit, little more than a set of tools for running combat, exploration, social encounters, and information gathering, with the assumption that any number of worlds could be built onto such a foundation. Bit by bit, GURPS expanded to become more generic. 3e finally made the attempt to unify GURPS, uniting all Advantages into a single source, the Compendium. With 4e, it became more universal, with a philosophy that embraced the practicalities of gaming and an increased friendiness to less realistic games. Something else happened with 3e. In addition to the realization that GMs could find some use for premade, or at least preworked, examples of campaigns, Steve Jackson Games realized there was a thirst for tools for players to make PCs more easily, while still preserving player choice. Templates began with a trickle, but by the end of 3e's developmental cycle, they were everywhere in a flood. Finally, players could say, "I want to play X," and they could simply write down X and proceed to customize from there. In this way, GURPS remained GURPS in that any aspect could be tweaked, but it at last joined the ranks of "classed games."
Simply put, White Wolf tested and proved the concept that players were looking for archetypes, while at the same time had a desire for ways to make their characters unique. This drove the Vampire: The Masquerade lifecycle and reached a level of elegance in the new World of Darkness line. At this point, players can create almost wholly unique creations without going beyond some basic choices offered in the core setting books. Vampire was originally based on skills and powers (in the form of Disciplines). Merits and Drawbacks were reluctantly introduced later in the Old World of Darkness line, then eventually embraced. In the New World and Darkness, Merits and Skills are the bread and butter of character customization.
So not only has D&D become GURPS, but GURPS has become D&D. The New World of Darkness is both GURPS and D&D, which in turn are also the World of Darkness.
Class and race, template and race, Order and Clan. Feats, skills, and powers; Advantages, Skills, and powers; Merits, skills, and Disciplines. The same evolution has shaped the Hero System, D6, Runequest, and even The Dying Earth. While every game is free to experiment, certain design elements have become relatively constant. I conclude that RPG design has truly become an art, with a body of technical, artistic, and philosphical knowledge that influence it, a culture that participates in it, and creators who nourish it with original insights.
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