Help Me Understand the GURPS Design Perspective

[lordabdul]

So, maybe the issues were fixed with different editions; my experience with GURPS is from long ago, in the pre-history.

I came to GURPS on the tail end of 3e, and I found it quite kludgy indeed. I didn't play much with it, but I enjoyed the sourcebooks a lot for use with other systems. I only came to like (and actually use) GURPS when they released 4e which I would say was a very welcome clean-up and improvement overall. However, since it obviously still retains the core philosophy of GURPS, I wouldn't recommend it to someone who is allergic to DIY GM toolboxes, point-buy character creation, or simulation-based mechanics (as opposed to narrative-based mechanics).

if the "standard" scale is supposed to be normal human variance, then it gets kludge-y quickly when you need to account for the Hulk.

If everybody is the Hulk, it's probably fine. However if you mix vastly different power scales, I'll argue that no system really does it well anyway. I don't think GURPS is particularly worse on that front -- it might only be worse in the sense that it tries to pretend it's good at it when it's not really. But then again I never quite used GURPS for that so I'm the wrong person to ask. I use GURPS for gritty/street-level/human-scale games only.

 

[billd91]

Yeah, 4e fixed a bit of it, but it's still stupid how Dex and Int are dominating everything else (which is why they cost double compared to the rest).

I don't know that it's stupid. That's a design decision and I can't it's a bad one. But when something is dominant, it's OK as long as the costs reflect that dominance - which they do in GURPS. Similarly, Dexterity is an extremely important stat in Champions as well and so it costs 3x what Strength costs. If the things you're buying aren't balanced in utility, they shouldn't cost the same.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I don't know that it's stupid. That's a design decision and I can't it's a bad one. But when something is dominant, it's OK as long as the costs reflect that dominance - which they do in GURPS. Similarly, Dexterity is an extremely important stat in Champions as well and so it costs 3x what Strength costs. If the things you're buying aren't balanced in utility, they shouldn't cost the same.

And this is where GURPS basic premise falls apart a little. Strength is much more useful in a stone-age setting where all combat uses your strength for damage than it is in an ultratech one where you might be wearing powered armour that has its own strength score and combat uses rayguns.

 

[Umbran]

Two things no one has mentioned. Firstly that GURPS Supers is just a bad combination.

Um...

GURPS is probably best described by the results it gives - fairly detailed, gritty action resolution. GURPS Supers... is an artifact of calling the system "Generic" when it is really not. The core mechanics of the system are not a great model for superhero action, IMHO, but since it was supposed to be "generic" they had to try.

But, who reads the first page of a thread, anyway?

On that note have you seen the Sentinels Comics RPG? It's as close to a streamlined Marvel Heroic 2e as there is ever going to be.

Backed the Kickstarter. Hoping and waiting...

 

[practicalm]

Interesting, I didn't see much discussion about why I like GURPS better that most other RPGs.
GURPS allows me to world build the way I like to world build. I can add the different books to find the things I want to put into my game that serves a narrative or game purpose.

Do I want a fantasy world with low tech robots? Can do it.
Do I want a street level supers game? Can do it.
Do I want a space game where I can duplicate a setting from some of my favorite novels? Can do it.
If there isn't already a source book, it's not hard (if you are willing to put the work in) to make it happen.
And if you look carefully someone probably already has done some work (Star Wars, Harry Potter) even if there isn't an officially licensed book.

GURPS was built around fact checking rules. It breaks down where the facts are too far outside what can be fact checked.

Most times there just isn't a reason to get bogged down into the rules details unless that was the point of the game you are creating and you let your players know where you are taking them.
Just be aware that you have to stop the players from building characters that will not fit into the world.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I do hear GURPS isn't good at Supers-- a lot -- so I imagine I'm missing something, somewhere, since I've never had any issues. But in addition to being full of gritty detail, it's also full of cinematic, over-the-top options that make it easy to run games even more gonzo than the typical four-color supers world.

The specific issue with GURPS and Supers has to do with scaling. If you have enough points, it's fairly easy for a Superman-type to get +100 damage to their attacks, and they can also buy DR 100 against all attacks. They end up punching for 2d6+100, which means they can meaningfully interact (through punching) with anyone who has DR in the 90-112 range; if they go slightly outside that range, then the fight is over in one punch, or it's impossible.

Meanwhile, Batman is out there with his 4d6-damage exploding Batarangs, and he has to really hope that Zod doesn't bother to look in his direction, or else he's dead before he has a chance to react.

GURPS doesn't generate comic book stories. GURPS tells us what would happen if these characters existed in the real world.

 

[Beleriphon]

The specific issue with GURPS and Supers has to do with scaling. If you have enough points, it's fairly easy for a Superman-type to get +100 damage to their attacks, and they can also buy DR 100 against all attacks. They end up punching for 2d6+100, which means they can meaningfully interact (through punching) with anyone who has DR in the 90-112 range; if they go slightly outside that range, then the fight is over in one punch, or it's impossible.

Meanwhile, Batman is out there with his 4d6-damage exploding Batarangs, and he has to really hope that Zod doesn't bother to look in his direction, or else he's dead before he has a chance to react.

GURPS doesn't generate comic book stories. GURPS tells us what would happen if these characters existed in the real world.

And I think that's where it falls down. GURPS is mired in tying everything to certain genre conventions, specifically the ones outside my door. Things that slightly bend they way I'd expect the real world to operate work well, the farther we get from that the weirder the rules interactions get.

GURPS is bad at modeling the Justice League and okay at modeling the X-Men.

 

[pemerton]

if you mix vastly different power scales, I'll argue that no system really does it well anyway.

The only supers game I've ever played is Marvel Heroic RP. In my experience it hasn't had these power-scale issues.

 

[corwyn77]

Interesting, I didn't see much discussion about why I like GURPS better that most other RPGs.
GURPS allows me to world build the way I like to world build. I can add the different books to find the things I want to put into my game that serves a narrative or game purpose.

Do I want a fantasy world with low tech robots? Can do it.
Do I want a street level supers game? Can do it.
Do I want a space game where I can duplicate a setting from some of my favorite novels? Can do it.
If there isn't already a source book, it's not hard (if you are willing to put the work in) to make it happen.
And if you look carefully someone probably already has done some work (Star Wars, Harry Potter) even if there isn't an officially licensed book.

This sums up a lot of what I love about GURPS. Combined with the fact that you don't always have to tell players what the genre really is. One of my favourite campaigns ever, we started out as 25-point normal people impressed into the British army in 1752 and shipped out to a new colony port - Saint John, Newfoundland.

After a few traditional mundane adventures, we encountered a witch, then time travellers, cyborgs, a mecha-kraken, a t-rex while each of us discovered 100 points in cinematic/supernatural abilities tied to our characters' personalities - Gunslinger, Gadgeteer, Regeneration, regrowing limbs, Doctor Who-type regeneration, snatching items out of nothing, etc. and a time machine of our own.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Thing is, most low-powered Supers- good, evil or wandering in the grey- have some kind of ”plot armor.”

I mean, even though it has been written that Batman has a plan to deal with every super being he knows of, there’s no question many of the more godlike ones- Kryptonians, Daxxamites, Green Lanterns, etc.- could easily take him out simply by dropping big rocks from space if they didn’t care about collateral damage...and many don’t.

So the fact that a given RPG can deliver a Batman and a Superman within the same campaign constrictions is, in some way, faithful to a great many comic book settings.