How do you get to GURPS?

Michele · Jun 6, 2019

DMMike said:
As a non-GURPS player, the idea of making a "300 point build" sounds pretty intimidating.

First, the GM would help you.

Second, there's 300 and 300. If you want an extremely versatile wise man who also dabbles with magic and can keep one swordsman at bay with mundane combat, then you'll have a large number of Advantages and a very large number of Skills and Spells. That's feasible with GURPS, but probably not entirely recommendable for a beginner.

OTOH, if you want a super who is extremely strong and who has one remarkable superpower, you probably sink 200-250 of your 300 points in just those two items. That simplifies things.

The Crimson Binome · Jun 6, 2019

practicalm said:
I think that when you have high level skills the goal is to be using feint and other maneuvers to make things more interesting.

Cosmic level super powers are harder to run in GURPS but a duel between two skilled fighters should be like Princess Bride where Wesley and Montoya are playing around because they are the best.

A swordfight between two high-skill swordfighters actually is a lot like that fight in Princess Bride, in that you'll have dozens of exchanges without anyone landing a blow. You can have fun with the narration, but even then, it's not terribly satisfying from a gameplay perspective.

MichaelSomething · Jun 7, 2019

Is there an awesome GURPS stream you can show them? Streams are what all the cool players do

Michele · Jun 7, 2019

I guess it would depend.

First, what's the time frame? When armor was a thing, then swordplay (also often featuring a shield) did not necessarily imply entirely avoiding all hits. When armor went out of fashion, you got fencing, and then yes, the training stressed preventing all hits, for good reasons.
GURPS can represent realistically both situations.

Secondly, if the player has come up with a character who is an excellent swordsman, with plenty of points invested in Dexterity, the relevant Skills, and the optional Maneuvers and Perks, and he has invested time in reading up all the optional rules of GURPS Martial Arts,... then he'll probably be pleased with a chance to put to good use all of that, even if that turns into a long sequence of parried blows.

uzirath · Jun 8, 2019

DMMike said:
As a non-GURPS player, the idea of making a "300 point build" sounds pretty intimidating.

Yeah, if the GM gives a player a stack of GURPS books with a zillion options, creating a character from scratch is daunting. The template system, however, makes this much easier. A template provides a list of options for a given archetype. A first-timer, as with most RPGs, will need to look up (or ask about) the details of features (advantages, disadvantages, skills, and spells) in order to understand the mechanics, but they don't have to try and digest the entire system at once, and they don't have to worry about all the options for other genres. Once they've played a few sessions, they'll be able to create new characters from a template in a few minutes.

GURPS Supers includes templates in the 500-1000+ point range. GURPS Monster Hunters runs at 400 points. GURPS Action and GURPS Dungeon Fantasy (or the boxed all-in-on Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game) templates are worth 250 points. GURPS Banestorm and After the End are at 150. There are others, of course, spanning the possible point values. There's even a short guide, GURPS Template Toolkit, to help GMs who want to build their templates from scratch.

Templates won't convert someone into a GURPS fan if the system is otherwise anathema to their preferred game design, but I've found that they largely eliminate any barriers to entry during the character creation process. (I have middle-schoolers routinely whipping up characters from templates after a short introduction to the process.) If I were running a custom game where I was hoping to attract new-to-GURPS players, I would definitely invest some time into creating a set of evocative templates.

Rory Fansler · Jul 13, 2019

Michele said:
I've been a GURPS GM for two decades now. I never thought in terms of "conditioning" people towards a more complex version of GURPS.
Rather, since my friends understandably wanted magic and wizards in our initial fantasy setting, rules concerning magic were introduced. I did so gradually, after a few games with mundane-only stuff. After that initial gaming group, I continued to do so for new players.

A player came up with a character concept who could be described as a specialist bare-handed wrestler. That was why I introduced more detail as to close combat and bare-handed fighting, and eventually GURPS Martial Arts. Another player loved his character's brute strength and greatsword and he never cared to learn the subtleties of close combat; actually his standard tactics was to avoid close combat.
So the first player learned the details and maneuvers and tricks, the other player did not and simply trusted me and the first player to handle all of that.

In short, it's the players driving the amount of complexity, not me (the GM). They want it more complex, it can be more complex. They want it simple, it can be simple.

This is easily done with GURPS, by the way, because it's not just universal - it's modular.

Yep, that modularity is the real secret to GURPS. I also let my players choose the complexity they desire. I may offer suggestions to suit their concept and style of play, like "You have a high skill, try Deceptive Attacks or Feint to penalize your targets defenses" but most things are along the lines of "If you don't use magic you don't need to learn the rules for it" or "Just roll the dice and I'll tell you if you succeeded (say disarm a trap, hit the target, etc.) or not.

Rory Fansler · Jul 13, 2019

uzirath said:
If the "fire" in this metaphor is "complex game mechanics," then I would say that my job as GM is akin to being the engineer who manages the ship's boilers. The rest of the crew have different jobs and should enjoy the voyage without getting burned.

I like that framing. I'm with you and Michele. Start off simple, use aids like combat cards or holding points back for skills and advantages as they are needed and start off easy if possible. Complexity and choices can be expanded later. I consider complexity to be a trade off for more freedom of choice and options. Its neither a bug nor a desired feature, just a trade off.
A major benefit to GURPS is that different players at the same table can choose the level of complexity and trade off themselves.
In combat if the GM knows the rules and modifiers pretty well its mostly simple addition and subtraction. Range penalties is about the only table I have to look up in play.

Rory Fansler · Jul 13, 2019

Johnny3D3D said:
For example, one of the first campaigns I ran for my friends was a street-level Supers game, and an early combat turned into a high-speed chase and a combat on a moving vehicle. I didn't know the rules well enough to know exactly what I was doing, but following the general rules upon which the game is built and (being transparent about) making a few guesses about how things should work to keep the game moving produced results which were palatable and serviceable to the group. Later, I went back and compared to my notes to the better understanding of the game I had acquired with time and found that I wasn't too far off from what the game would have said I should do anyway.

In addition, a lesson I learned from D&D 4E which I applied to GURPS is that enemies don't necessarily need stats for everything. I have a good enough grasp on the system that I can mentally hash out a police officer, shopkeep, or orc mook without too much trouble. I only need a general idea of what I feel their 4 primary stats should be and a guess at 2 or 3 skills which make sense for their primary skills. I may need a few minor adjustments based upon genre... say an extra point of strength or some fancier weapons for a high fantasy town guard versus the same dude in a low fantasy or sword & sorcery game, but it's all relatively consistent regardless of what I'm doing.

These are important guidelines to follow and GURPS makes it pretty easy.
Modifiers have a simple range and GURPS Basic p. 345 breaks it down pretty simply in an easy to remember way. Looking that up or just internalizing it gets you pretty far in situations where you just want a fast number and will look things up later.

Also a LOT of GMs make the mistake of statting up NPCs. Just give them stats reasonable for their role and move on. No need to worry about point totals. The skill level section at the beginning of the skills chapter helps a lot here. Want a competent but unremarkable professional? Skill 12. An expert, pretty respected by those who seen his work? Skill 14. A widely recognized expert or master of the field? Try skill 16-18, 20 in more cinematic setting, 25 for over the top. If your off a few levels no one will really notice or care.

Rory Fansler · Jul 13, 2019

Saelorn said:
A swordfight between two high-skill swordfighters actually is a lot like that fight in Princess Bride, in that you'll have dozens of exchanges without anyone landing a blow. You can have fun with the narration, but even then, it's not terribly satisfying from a gameplay perspective.

Thats when you add in Deceptive Attack and Feints or even use the optional rules in GURPS Martial Arts I think titled "Duels Between Masters". I've found the players who like high skill over brute force tend to enjoy those fights.Its generally more fun then just killing by attrition (wearing down a large HP total).

As for Supers I find them the most difficult and frustrating for players. The problem is so many options and they have to really understand the setting and baselines.
My current group has a Venom type, speedster, Namor/Aquaman type, and one guy still trying to work it out but basically a leader/tactician type.
The easiest for the player and build I'm most happy with is the Aquaman type. The player told me the concept and I was able to give him guidelines and parameters as well as suggested advantages. The others seemed to focus on the mechanics first and a simple goal rather than the concept.

The Crimson Binome · Jul 13, 2019

Rory Fansler said:
Thats when you add in Deceptive Attack and Feints or even use the optional rules in GURPS Martial Arts I think titled "Duels Between Masters". I've found the players who like high skill over brute force tend to enjoy those fights.Its generally more fun then just killing by attrition (wearing down a large HP total).

On the one hand, sure. On the other hand, the game is already pretty complex at the baseline, so I'm not terribly eager to add in a bunch of optional rules.