Gurps? Where do I start?

[Lord Rasputin]

Thanks for the info. I am thinking about getting 3rd ed GURPS for only 11 bucks. How important if at all is it to have gurps's newest ed?

Not horribly. You can house-rule some of the major changes. You could use the new version of GURPS Lite to override stuff in the 3e Basic Set.

You might also want to check out the SJG fora: http://forums.sjgames.com/.

 

[DungeonMaester]

Not horribly. You can house-rule some of the major changes. You could use the new version of GURPS Lite to override stuff in the 3e Basic Set.

You might also want to check out the SJG fora: http://forums.sjgames.com/.

What would I override?

---Rusty

 

[Lord Rasputin]

What would I override?

Off the top of my head, 4e has a better attribute pricing scheme. In 3e, folks would buy starting attributes at 13 minimum because that's where the point break was.

 

[DungeonMaester]

So, using gurps lite and 200 points, I came up with this character.

St 15 Hp15
Dx 15 Fp 14
Iq 12 Will 12
Ht 14 Per 12
Bs 7 Dodge 10

Disadvantage
Code of Honor: Gentlemen
Vow: Poverty (Wont take more then he can carry)
Bloodlust: Will always kill a enemy when in a duel or in war


Advantage
Fearless +4
Hard to Kill +4

Reputation
Feared berserker +2 reaction

Skills
Brawling (dx/e[a+2]) 17
Climbing (dx/a[a+1]) 16
Observation (iq/a[a+0]) 12
Melee Weapon (dx/a[a+1]) 16
Search (iq/a[a+0]) 12
Survival (iq/q[a+0]) 12
Trcking (iq/q[a+0]) 12

Weapons
Bastard Sword [16] Dmg [2d+4] Parry [11]

Punch [17] dmg [2d+2] Parry [11]

What am I missing?

 

[Clueless]

By Jove, I think he's got it!

Which is to say - it looks good. I think, like any game, the more you fiddle around with making characters and testing them out in combat and game - the more you'll learn how the system works and any min-maxing techniques you want. You may want to play with making a magic user once you get the right source books for it, so you'll know how many skill points can get utterly absorbed by spells. Also, be wary of engineering style characters - their points can be rapidly absorbed by seemingly useless engineering skills.

I think you're pretty much right on track.

 

[DungeonMaester]

other then armor (which he does not have) and encumbrance (which I never use) is there anything I am missing on my character sheet?

---Rusty

 

[PhantomNarrator]

I'll just add that . . .

. . .regardless of whether you like the rules, GURPS has some of the best written and researched supplements out there. The wealth of information you can find in many GURPS books is astonishing. The HERO system also has excellent amounts of detailed information on various genres and historical settings. Both SJG and Hero Games produce excellent resources, no matter what system you prefer.

 

[sjmiller]

As a quick experiment, and trying to use as many of your ideas as possible, here's a potential character. You will notice I did not make the attributes as high as you did. You do not really need your ST as high as you put. All the points you are spending are not giving you a good return on investment. You should also remember that you get a certain number of disadvantage points you can take. This allows you to take more skills and advantages, at the cost of giving you "handles" for roleplaying. Anyway, here's my quick (made in 15 minutes in the middle of the night) character idea. Let me know if you have any questions. Sure, it's not min-maxed or anything, but where's the fun in that?

Name: Swashbuckler
Race: Human

Attributes [140]
ST 12 [20]
DX 14 [80]
IQ 12 [40]
HT 10

HP 12
Will 12
Per 12
FP 10

Basic Lift 29
Damage 1d-1/1d+2

Basic Speed 6
Basic Move 6

Ground Move 6
Water Move 1.2

Social Background
TL: 3 [0]
Cultural Familiarities:
Languages:

Advantages [46]
Ambidexterity [5]
Combat Reflexes [15]
Enhanced Parry (Rapier) (1) [5]
Fearlessness (4) [8]
Hard to Kill (4) [8]
Rapier Wit [5]

Disadvantages [-72]
Bad Temper (12 or less) [-10]
Code of Honor (Gentleman's) [-10]
Obsession (Long-Term Goal) (12 or less) [-10]
Pacifism (Cannot Harm Innocents) [-10]
Sense of Duty (Individual) [-2]
Vow (Will only take as much as he can carry) (Minor) [-5]
Wealth (Dead Broke) [-25]

Quirks [-3]
_Unused Quirk 2 [-1]
_Unused Quirk 3 [-1]
Trademark [-1]

Skills [39]
Acrobatics DX/H - DX-2 12 [1]
Area Knowledge (local) IQ/E - IQ+0 12 [1]
Brawling DX/E - DX+2 16 [4]
Climbing DX/A - DX+1 15 [4]
Cloak DX/A - DX+0 14 [2]
Main-Gauche DX/A - DX+1 15 [4]
Merchant IQ/A - IQ-1 11 [1]
Navigation/TL3 (Sea) IQ/A - IQ+0 12 [2]
Observation Per/A - Per+0 12 [2]
Rapier DX/A - DX+1 15 [4]
Savoir-Faire (Swashbucklers) IQ/E - IQ+0 12 [1]
Seamanship/TL3 IQ/E - IQ+1 13 [2]
Search Per/A - Per+0 12 [2]
Stealth DX/A - DX-1 13 [1]
Survival (Salt-Water Sea) Per/A - Per+0 12 [2]
Tracking Per/A - Per+0 12 [2]
Whip DX/A - DX+1 15 [4]

Stats [140] Ads [46] Disads [-72] Quirks [-3] Skills [39] = Total [150]

 

[Najo]

Thanks every one for the post.
One of the big turn off my players had was playing games like WoD and Shadow Run which implement the use of millions of d10s and d6s respectively. the idea of adding up tons of dice was boring unless it was a roll of a epic fireball or a flurry of greatsword cleaving through a opponent.

Actually, those games both use dice pools where the dice are not added together but compared to a target number. The exception with Shadowrun being you reroll a six and add it to itself again, but that is not the same as adding 10-20 dice together. The way both games work is roll your handful of dice and then those equal or higher than the target threshold succeed. You count the successes, and that tells you the degree of success.

Dice pools are actually more realistic. The pool gives a good curve over the skill range of the roll, instead of unnatural all or nothing type rolls that happen in linear dice tests (i.e. d20). While the degree of success gives you a more accurate result of how well they do. Both WoD and Shadowrun have tight systems tested over many editions and years, so either is worth playing. Shadowrun mixes magic and technology welll, and its premise is great for D&D style adventuring while WoD is moody and got great style behind it, the concepts of the games might be a bit much for how closed minded your group sounds. I would go with Shadowrun and just learn to use dice pools correctly.

My guess is they won't like gurps either btw. It uses 3d6 to test, its options are all over the place and there is no predetermined setting at all, it is all up to you to paint the canvas and choose what you want to go with it from the rules. Your players sound like they will hate you for it.

 

[Sir Brennen]

My guess is they won't like gurps either btw. It uses 3d6 to test, its options are all over the place and there is no predetermined setting at all, it is all up to you to paint the canvas and choose what you want to go with it from the rules. Your players sound like they will hate you for it.

I also have a feeling that a group of strictly d20 lovers won't be an easy sell for GURPS. But still, they might surprise you.

On the setting thing though... while it's true that there is no set background in the core rules, that's what the supplements are for. If you go with 3E, pick up GURPS Fantasy, which is pretty much the same as the 4E Banestorm, as previously mentioned. Note that the 4E book entitled Fantasy is *not* the same. That one is a cookbook of all kinds of fantasy options to build your own world from.

Some of the things off the top of my head that changed between 3E and 4E:

Passive Defense is gone (this was sort of like AC in D&D - the chance that your armor deflects a blow completely and added to your Defense roll. Now it's just a flat +3 for all Defense rolls.)

Point costs for DEX and INT are higher than STR and HT.

Point costs to advance in skills have been juggled a bit. Compare your 3E books to the GURPS Lite doc.

I can't remember if there's a whole lot different about Magic except for the general changes to skill costs. Psionic powers, however, have really been revamped to make them a lot more flexible to define specific abilities and their limitations.

One other difference is a design philosophy in 4E that no new rules will be introduced in supplemental books. Everything is in the core rules. Not to say the supplements aren't crunchy - they are, very much so. They simply show how to build off of the existing rules to get the options you want (and possibly eliminate a lot of GM/player arguments about point costs of limitations of abilities and the like by giving spelled-out examples. GURPS Powers is chock full of these.)