Gurps? Where do I start?

I am looking to get into gurps, deciding to take a break from D&D from after 15+ years of playing.

I chose gurps because I all ready failed to get my players into Palladuim, Throwing Stones, and WoD. Its a last ditch effort, where do I begin?

---Rusty

Ok. Start by knowing that when you walk into GURPS you're walking into a game where you are handed tools and told : "Do what you want with them - it's your game." As a GM you're going to making a number of up front decisions and there's a chunk of initial work you'll have to handle.

You *will* need to limit your source books, don't be afraid to.
You *will* need to pick a magic system to go with. I'm fond of the voodoo or hellboy style magic, but your mileage may vary.
You will also have to address a number of other basic questions re: power level of campaign, availability of 'weird' stuff for character creation, and how lethal you want it to be - unlike DnD, combat in GURPS even at high power can get bad, fast.

What worries me is that you've mentioned your players had a hard time jumping into other systems. Can you tell us why? That'll give me a much better idea what sort of advice you're going to need to make the transition easiest.

Are they reluctant to learn a new complicated system? If so - you're going to want to bury the idea of character creation away from them at first as it's the most complicated hurdle with GURPS. Just get their character concepts and make their initial characters for them. Give them some spare points to add where ever they need to after a session or two in case they play the character differently than you initially designed. I'd reserve about 20 to 40 pts for them to customize with - they'll learn the creation system after having already found out they like the game. I've seen too many players declare that they hate GURPS without ever having actually played it.

If you are the GM, you will need GURPS basic, Characters, and Campaigns. You may also want to look into a genre book like GURPS fantasy.

The problem is that GURPS is a spendy game to get into and find out your players don't like it.

Aye, if you don't have the source books up front it can be pricey. Thankfully a lot of 3rd edition stuff is out there used and at least basically compatible with 4th. How much GURPS experience do you have as a DM if any?

And get ready to house-rule combat. Each round represents, get this, ONE SECOND!

I bought into it and decided I liked True20 better. Both are toolkits for DMs who like to fiddle with bits, and if you're players don't mind swimming through lots of different advantages, disadvantages and skills, it's an OK system.

If you want to kick the tires before buying the books, I suggest downloading GURPS Lite, which is available through SJGame's virtual game store. It's about 20 pages long and covers the basics.

Otherwise, if you're players like the D20 concept, but you want to try something different, True20 can handle most any kind of genre, except superheroes. That's why there's Mutant and Masterminds!

Clueless said:

Ok. Start by knowing that when you walk into GURPS you're walking into a game where you are handed tools and told : "Do what you want with them - it's your game." As a GM you're going to making a number of up front decisions and there's a chunk of initial work you'll have to handle.

You *will* need to limit your source books, don't be afraid to.
You *will* need to pick a magic system to go with. I'm fond of the voodoo or hellboy style magic, but your mileage may vary.
You will also have to address a number of other basic questions re: power level of campaign, availability of 'weird' stuff for character creation, and how lethal you want it to be - unlike DnD, combat in GURPS even at high power can get bad, fast.

What worries me is that you've mentioned your players had a hard time jumping into other systems. Can you tell us why? That'll give me a much better idea what sort of advice you're going to need to make the transition easiest.

Are they reluctant to learn a new complicated system? If so - you're going to want to bury the idea of character creation yaway from them at first as it's the most complicated hurdle with GURPS. Just get their character concepts and make their initial characters for them. Give them some spare points to add where ever they need to after a session or two in case they play the character differently than you initially designed. I'd reserve about 20 to 40 pts for them to customize with - they'll learn the creation system after having already found out they like the game. I've seen too many players declare that they hate GURPS without ever having actually played it.

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1) Unlike D&D Gurps gets bad fast at high level? I hate Epic level D&D camapign. Its Nothing more then a pissing contest for who character is the most powerful.

2) My players are anti non d20. I dont know why. the rejected 1st ed campaign after 10 min of play.

Clueless said:

Aye, if you don't have the source books up front it can be pricey. Thankfully a lot of 3rd edition stuff is out there used and at least basically compatible with 4th. How much GURPS experience do you have as a DM if any?

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None. I am considering GURPS because BESM was not as bad as I thought it was. However, reading over t20, it did not have enough options, so Gurps was choice 1 for Non anime (*Relief*) rp.

bento said:

And get ready to house-rule combat. Each round represents, get this, ONE SECOND!

I bought into it and decided I liked True20 better. Both are toolkits for DMs who like to fiddle with bits, and if you're players don't mind swimming through lots of different advantages, disadvantages and skills, it's an OK system.

If you want to kick the tires before buying the books, I suggest downloading GURPS Lite, which is available through SJGame's virtual game store. It's about 20 pages long and covers the basics.

Otherwise, if you're players like the D20 concept, but you want to try something different, True20 can handle most any kind of genre, except superheroes. That's why there's Mutant and Masterminds!

Click to expand...

I am looking over Gurps lite now. Not all to sure what everything means, but that is because I dyslexic when I read rules.

Thanks every one for posting.

---Rusty

mcrow said:

If you are the GM, you will need GURPS basic, Characters, and Campaigns. You may also want to look into a genre book like GURPS fantasy.

The problem is that GURPS is a spendy game to get into and find out your players don't like it.

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That's actually not true. If you want, you can actually start out and play with just GURPS Lite. It has the basic rules for character creation, combat, magic, and psionics (I think, it's been awhile since I looked). There's enough there that you can run several game sessions. Heck, there's even a free fantasy scenario you can get to try out the rules. All in all, to try out GURPS costs you exactly nothing.

DungeonMaester said:

2) My players are anti non d20. I dont know why. the rejected 1st ed campaign after 10 min of play.

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If that's true, then you are hosed. GURPS uses 3d6 for just about everything.

If you want to know more about GURPS and ask questions of people who know the system, go check out the forums at www.sjgames.com You can get a lot of helpful advice from people who play not only GURPS but D&D and other systems too.

Rules

I love Gurps, I have over 200 of thier books in my collection, but thats what I do, I collect. The game plays well if you don't mind wading through rules, there are a LOT of them. You mentioned in your last post that you don't do well with lots of rules, so this may not be the game for for you.

I ought to add, most of the rules that create the complexity are optional, but I find the temptation not to use them nearly irresistable.

DungeonMaester said:

2) My players are anti non d20. I dont know why. the rejected 1st ed campaign after 10 min of play.

Click to expand...

If they can reject something that quickly, there's probably not much hope of them liking anything you do that isn't d20.

1) Unlike D&D Gurps gets bad fast at high level?

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Well, what do you consider high level? Really, you should be able to get a year or so out of a weekly D&D game before you start getting into the higher levels. Throttle XP some, and you can draw it out as long as you like. Or just go with the True20 method and tell them they level when you feel like it.

GURPS doesn't substantially change at hgher point values in some ways. In other ways it might; I haven't played a GURPS campaign for any real length of time to be able to tell.

One thing they will learn early on is that unless you use certain combat options, GURPS is not the wahoo cinematic game that D&D is. Character death is much more likely from things that even a medium level D&D character will shrug off. A single crossbow bolt can kill you if you're a 100 or 500 point GURPS character (which points up more a difference in what is considered useful in GURPS than a real combat example, but it's certainly possible).

GURPS values things against their absolute utility to a character instead of just their combat values. Thus, being immortal is an amazingly expensive advantage even though in the course of play it might affect your character very little at all. But being immortal is an astounding advantage when considered among the various normal human traits. Thus, it can be hard to look only at point costs of things and make a value judgement if all you're looking at is combat effectiveness.

If cost is a consideration (and it sounds like you don't want to invest too much with this group), definately check out GURPS Lite. It's free. I ran an entire mini campaign using just that book. You could even just use GURPS third edition, which you should be able to pick up cheaply; the GURPS Lite for Third Ed is a much better product in my opinion; it comes with simple psi and magic rules as well, to the point that you could run a low level fantasy game just with that free book and maybe a creatures book.