Grade the GURPS System

[aramis erak]

Kromm and David Culver, IMO, are part of the problem. GURPS has had the same vision for close to 30 years and sometimes that is a bad thing. We won't ever know if it could be more than that as long as Steve is alive & Kromm is in charge of the line. Steve's focus on TFT shows us that yes he built GURPS but he was just waiting to see when TFT would become available. I mean his presence & a 3rd party license are working for TFT then they certainly could work for GURPS.

Sometimes the person who founded a company shouldn't be running it.

He's not. Phil's running the company.

 

[dbm]

Phil's running the company.

Phil has stood down as CEO. Meredith Placko is now in that role [Daily Illuminator link]

 

[John Dallman]

He's not. Phil's running the company.

Phil Reed was running it until recently, but they have a new CEO now, Meredith Placko. Steve remains sole owner, so he's bound to have a lot of influence.

 

[Wolfpack48]

General Question: If the GURPS system were to be revamped/streamlined, how difficult would it be to do so, and would you be interested in a modernized version of it?

 

[Staffan]

General Question: If the GURPS system were to be revamped/streamlined, how difficult would it be to do so, and would you be interested in a modernized version of it?

I'm not sure it would be possible to streamline it to the point where I would enjoy it without completely alienating its current fans. Some things I'd like to see:

• Divorce skills from attributes. And ideally make getting a decent skill level fairly cheap - along the lines of buying from a 13 or 14 now.
• Drastically cut down the number of skills. Maybe not to a Troubleshooters-esque 30, but you could probably get by with twice that by combining skills and using optional specializations instead of mandatory ones.
• Zoom out a little in combat. There's no need to track things on a second-by-second basis, or to track shrapnel damage separately from explosion damage when throwing a hand grenade.
• The stuff from earlier about not giving points for narrative disadvantages but rather provide some kind of metacurrency reward when they become an issue.
• This would of course require some form of metacurrency in the first place.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Character Advantages and Disadvantages are not symmetrical! They play different roles in the character and in the game. Most Disadvantages are about spotlight time for your character; more broadly, flaws make characters interesting.

Games like M&M 2e, Fate, and others that treat such flaws as rewarding players when they come up play out much more naturally to my mind. Instead of the GM having to make sure that a character's flaws come up enough to justify the points, the player cooperates in making sure they come up, because they only pay off when they do!

The only problem with that approach is that it properly rewards how frequent disadvantage is, but as expressed in those games, it doesn't reward intensity.

 

[Thomas Shey]

General Question: If the GURPS system were to be revamped/streamlined, how difficult would it be to do so, and would you be interested in a modernized version of it?

I suspect it would end up fishing in the same pond that other games already do at that point.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I played in a number of GURPS campaigns back in the day and had fun... but I wouldn't touch the actual rules with a ten foot pole any more. I've never seen a system more devoted to meaningless crunch - crunch that doesn't actually matter.

Agree 100%

That, and I've come to think it's a major design mistake (a very understandable one, but still major) to give build points back for Disadvantages.

Character Advantages and Disadvantages are not symmetrical! They play different roles in the character and in the game. Most Disadvantages are about spotlight time for your character; more broadly, flaws make characters interesting.

Yeah, there's a reason why the 5 points of quirks consistently became the core conceit of many of my tables' GURPS characters

 

[aramis erak]

General Question: If the GURPS system were to be revamped/streamlined, how difficult would it be to do so, and would you be interested in a modernized version of it?

Can it be streamlined? Yes - See GURPS Ultralight.
Is it a good idea? Answers have varied.

My GURPS-loving friends love the skill detail and combat detail. And a major part of that skill detail is the skill default system.

Keep in mind that, thanks to the default system, more than 60% of the skills have a determinable level. Not always a practically useful one, but every character has a determinable skill level for almost all non-fantasy weapons. And many, many non-combat skills.

But, as Staffan notes, real overhaul would probably not be accepted by the existing fanbase.

 

[ART!]

At it's bare-bones core, it might be my favorite traditional rpg ever. Everything there works and makes intuitive sense to me.