Help Me Understand the GURPS Design Perspective

[lordabdul]

@John Dallman is completely right, and I think this "GURPS is a toolbox" thing is way too often overlooked. People say that GURPS is crunchy, and they're mostly right, but that's not totally correct either: I know people who run GURPS with just the super basics (either GURPS Lite or GURPS Ultra-Lite rule sets). It's very important to not only pick the rules that you need for a specific game and nothing more, but also try not to expose the players to all the stuff you didn't pick. I made the mistake a couple times of giving the Basic Set book to my players, telling them "here, but try and make a normal FBI agent", instead of printing out just the relevant bits, some character templates, etc...

So who is it for? I compare GURPS to Linux, really. It's like Debian or something. It's for tinkerers and DIY people. From this complex toolbox, they're going to make something hopefully user-friendly (like, say, Ubuntu), hiding most of the work and only exposing what's needed for a good game. And I totally realize that me turning this into a Linux analogy might actually lose half the people that this analogy is supposed to help

And what is it for? It's for any game where you want a specific way that mechanics work. Remember, a decade or two... or three... ago, there wasn't such a wide breadth of game systems, so if you wanted something specific, you kinda had to design it yourself... or hope that GURPS had some rulebook for it, which it often did. Nowadays, arguably, there's a lot less of a need for something like GURPS, because we have sooooo many different game systems that do so many amazing things in their own way, but I still find GURPS very effective for gritty games, modern games with firearm combat, or any game where you need some "original" magic system. Other people might find it useful for other things too. My players really like the point-buy system (so that there are mechanics to back up their character choices), and the player agency in mechanical effects (as in: they can say "I do this thing but I do it this way" and it often has a simple modifier or outcome bonus or something that makes it interesting, instead of always boiling down to the same roll).

As for the "high input dependent exception based design" comment, it's indeed possible to end up there. I think it happens when the GM puts too many rules in play, i.e. "takes too much of the toolbox out". It could get ugly pretty quick with GURPS 3e, actually, and to me the Compendiums were a symptom of that problem... if your GM uses the Compendiums for more than one or two odd rules, that's a red flag for me. GURPS 4e streamlined a lot of this "exceptions explosion", and there's no Compendium in sight so far. There shouldn't be "high input" though -- in theory GURPS front-loads information at character creation/advancement so that when you're in play, there aren't many factors to take into account (unless you find that looking distance penalties is "high input" in which case you should tell your GM you want something less crunchy). In practice, our GURPS action scenes tend to play as fast, if not faster, than our D20 action scenes.

All in all, I'd say GURPS, at its core, still has some very particular "feel", and I can totally imagine people not liking it. I know people who don't like D20 systems, or dice-pool-based systems, or whatever. That's all fine, like I said, there are hundreds of other games waiting to be loved.

 

[Retreater]

I tried to get into it a decade ago, but it wasn't for me. I would say that it was the one system that failed my group in execution the greatest of anything I have tried. Lasted three sessions.

 

[innerdude]

There's a level of detail in GURPS seldom found elsewhere in rpg-ing. This, from 4e GURPS Low-Tech, is, I think, a good example of your concept of exception based design -

At TL3-4, glasses are held up to the eyes by the frame or a handle (a lorgnette design), occupying a hand, or are clamped to the nose (a pince-nez design). Pince-nez fall off on a roll of 12 or less on 3d if the wearer moves faster than a walk; they’re often attached to a chain.​

Right ---- EXACTLY. Like, there's soooo much to unpack in just this one little "throwaway" item. It's a fantastic example of the GURPS mindset. The fact that the game's creators took any amount of effort AT ALL to even fabricate this item's mechanical effects speaks volumes about what they see as "important," and by association, what the players should see as important as well.

As a player you're being subtly told, over and over again, that to "have fun," you must successfully compartmentalize these details. The very existence of this item as an actual, codified snippet of rules naturally presupposes that the group as a whole has already agreed that these kinds of mechanical effects are relevant, germane, and necessary to have a successful play experience. If you want to have a pince-nez pair of glasses, it's your job as a player to mentally compartmentalize its conditional effects.

And then you have to do it for every single rule that may be even remotely applicable.

So as I try to answer my own question---"Who is the system actually for?"---the answer actually is starting to become a bit more clear.

GURPS represents an RPG experience that is most readily enjoyed by someone who derives satisfaction from the ability to mentally compartmentalize the totality of the system's bits and pieces. Actually creating a roleplaying story or experiencing any sense of drama or stakes in the fiction is secondary to the experience of the mental satisfaction of spinning the wheels and cogs and levers of the GURPS machine, and the emotional satisfaction that the game world has the highest possible levels of "similitude" and "fictional transparency."

As I think about this more, GURPS' most vocal proponents have invariably fallen into one of two categories:

Group 1 --- People who, if not actually on the autistic spectrum, exhibit similarly obsessive attention to detail and logical construction. Computer programmer types who absolutely revel in this kind of mental gymnastics. They're actually somewhat in heaven when they get to mentally engage in a system like GURPS. And this isn't entirely unrelatable for me; I enjoy board games a great deal, and in some ways my mental state when I'm progamming Javascript/SQL feels much the same as playing an intricate strategy board game.

But even I have my limits of complexity when it comes to board games. Terra Mystica is a fantastic board game, but I have to really, really want to spend 2.5-3 hours being mentally taxed at every turn to want to play that game. That's what every GURPS session feels like to me mentally---a 4.5 hour deep dive into an incomprehensible game whose rules span no less than seven or eight thousand printed pages.

Group 2 --- The ultimate, far, far extreme end of the power gamer spectrum. They LOVE GURPS, because it so thoroughly rewards system mastery with power. They are abundantly willing to tackle the mental compartmentalization needed, because once their system mastery reaches an overwhelmingly complete and unapproachable level, no one---player or GM---stands a chance against them. It's about being and feeling in control. These are the ones, in my experience, who loudly declare that starting a GURPS character at less than 350 or 400 points is a waste of time, and absolutely insist that every possible optional rule should be allowed.

I'm sure there are other reasons people might enjoy playing GURPS, but of the 15 or so people I've met who were absolutely passionate about the system, 100% belonged to one or both of these general categories.

EDIT --- It may or may not be noteworthy that the GM of our current GURPS campaign would absolutely, unequivocally fall into the "Group 2 Powergamer" category when he's a player and not the GM. He's not as far-end-of-the-spectrum as some of the other GURPS players I've gamed with, but it is hands-down his default mode of play.

Aside from that you're dealing with a genre (Supers) that requires highly proactive villains that bring the protagonists into action, and it sounds like you have a GM that is trying instead to wing a loose sandbox game and you've ended up in a rowboat world. Rowboat worlds are characterized by complete freedom of choice but no real content to interact with and often very limited ability to carry out a plan even if you had a clue which way to go.

'Supers' as a genre by reputation requires players that counter-intuitively prefer low melodrama as a primary aesthetic of play. To make it work I think requires players that actively RP with each other.

100% this, in every conceivable way. You couldn't have described the way the GM is running our game any better. Especially this: "Rowboat worlds are characterized by complete freedom of choice but no real content to interact with and often very limited ability to carry out a plan even if you had a clue which way to go."

I've been feeling this way FOR THE ENTIRE CAMPAIGN. There are no meaningful choices to be made, because there's no meaningful way of interpreting the absolutely scarcity of information we've been given.

 

[pemerton]

Hm. No, GURPS is not designed for the system to deliver the fiction. The system rather strictly does not itself offer much in terms of new elements or action in the fiction that wasn't intended by one of the actors in the fiction. This, as compared to, say, Cortex+, which explicitly has moments where new elements get added to the fiction that were not planned by players or GM.

Cortex+ and GURPS have almost nothing in common beyond the bare fact of being dice-based RPGs. Cortex+ is laden with fortune-in-the-middle and authorship-based resolution. GURPS and allied systems have none of that.

 

[pemerton]

GURPS represents an RPG experience that is most readily enjoyed by someone who derives satisfaction from the ability to mentally compartmentalize the totality of the system's bits and pieces. Actually creating a roleplaying story or experiencing any sense of drama or stakes in the fiction is secondary to the experience of the mental satisfaction of spinning the wheels and cogs and levers of the GURPS machine, and the emotional satisfaction that the game world has the highest possible levels of "similitude" and "fictional transparency."

That's why Ron Edwards called it purist-for-system.

Rolemaster falls into the same category. Runequest certainly can as well. So can Classic Traveller, especially if you follow the lead suggested by some of the refereeing advice and some of the published modules.

 

[Umbran]

Cortex+ and GURPS have almost nothing in common beyond the bare fact of being dice-based RPGs. Cortex+ is laden with fortune-in-the-middle and authorship-based resolution. GURPS and allied systems have none of that.

Yep. And Cortex+ came much later than GURPS, which is from an age where we were primarily thinking of a system as a way to resolve tasks in a simulated world, rather than as a way to resolve challenges in a fiction.

 

[lordabdul]

As a player you're being subtly told, over and over again, that to "have fun," you must successfully compartmentalize these details.

Absolutely not. Again, if that's the case, your GM is doing GURPS completely wrong, and no wonder you seem to feel so angry about this... which, by the way, you shouldn't internalize, and instead communicate to the GM that you're unhappy with that aspect of the game. If the GM isn't changing anything, you might as well find another group. No RPG is better than a bad RPG.

 

[John Dallman]

To me the difference with GURPS lies in that every exception is "high input dependent"---the frequency and breadth of inputs needed to adjudicate a single rules application is high. At least, if you're playing rules-as-written.

I think that may be at the root of your problems, apart from having a GM who doesn't tell you much (my preferred tactic for GMs who persist with that is to start doing things myself and ignore their attempts to impose their plot, at least for a while).

No GURPS players that I know try to use all the applicable RAW. It is, as you say, too much like hard work. However, this does not "unbalance the game". It may lead to less-than-optimal tactics, but suggesting better ones is something the GM, and even the other players, can and should do.

In the two overlapping GURPS groups I play in, it's completely normal for the different players to be operating at different levels of system mastery. This doesn't have to upset anyone, because suggesting better GURPS tactics usually maps onto applicable real-world tactics.

For example, you want to shoot someone. If the gun you're using makes sense for shooting your target in the default location, the torso, then you have a decent tactic, and nobody will try to coach you. If you have a low-powered pistol, the target is wearing body armour, and the primary objective is to capture them, it's reasonable for another player to suggest shooting them in the leg, both in GURPS and real-world terms.

Yes, this means that the players aren't usually in competition with each other. That's fine with me. The groups I play in are mostly composed of people in their fifties or older; we have someone in her thirties, but she's not playing or GMing at present because she's just had a child.

She's a college librarian; the rest of the people in the groups are computer programmers or sysadmins, a professional games writer, and an accountant. They are all people who are happy with a fair amount of detail, but none of them seem to be on the autistic spectrum. They are willing to think about the games they play in outside sessions, make plans, and think about the plots they're interacting with.

 

[innerdude]

Any 'fan' saying that should be ignored... in the same way you'd naturally ignore someone proclaiming that the only way to play D&D is to use books X-Z and 'anyone not using those books isn't playing 'real D&D'."

This is a great sentiment . . . . but literally, EVERY SINGLE GURPS GROUP I'VE EVER PLAYED IN, this has been the default mode of thinking. For a fantasy campaign, the BARE MINIMUM material they expected to be allowed to use was core + Fantasy + Magic + Psionics + Compendium I and II + Martial Arts + Swashbucklers. 3 of the 5 players essentially refused to play in the campaign if that wasn't the minimum available material, and 2 of those 3 were begging to be allowed to use more.

And that probably should have been my first warning that I wasn't going to enjoy playing with that group (I didn't), even though I really liked the GM's core concept a lot.

 

[innerdude]

She's a college librarian; the rest of the people in the groups are computer programmers or sysadmins, a professional games writer, and an accountant. They are all people who are happy with a fair amount of detail, but none of them seem to be on the autistic spectrum. They are willing to think about the games they play in outside sessions, make plans, and think about the plots they're interacting with.

Did you miss this part of my previous post?

GURPS represents an RPG experience that is most readily enjoyed by someone who derives satisfaction from the ability to mentally compartmentalize the totality of the system's bits and pieces. Actually creating a roleplaying story or experiencing any sense of drama or stakes in the fiction is secondary to the experience of the mental satisfaction of spinning the wheels and cogs and levers of the GURPS machine, and the emotional satisfaction that the game world has the highest possible levels of "similitude" and "fictional transparency."

......

People who, if not actually on the autistic spectrum, exhibit similarly obsessive attention to detail and logical construction.

A Librarian. Computer programmers. System administrators. Accountants. Are you seeing the trend yet?