It's been so long since the last GURPS edition, that the present day is now in the "future" tech level

[Celebrim]

There was never any "Dark Age."

sigh This old argument again.

Egypt had three dark ages before the rest of the world even learned to write. They are not particularly unusual in history.

However, it would be a mistake to make one of the two common misconceptions about the European dark ages. First, that the whole world was plunged into "darkness" as opposed to only a formerly prosperous and highly literate culture - namely the Latin west of the Roman Empire. Obviously, the Eastern Roman empire while diminished continued along just as literate as ever. And two, that this period of darkness lasted the whole of what is now called "the Middle Ages" or the Medieval Period. Rather, what you tend to see is a relative paucity of writers from this region for a rather "brief" period of a few hundred years beginning just after the fall of Rome until say about the time of Charlemagne. By the 11th century, Europe was "bright" again in the sense of we have many authors disclosing to us much about their world, and by the 13th century it was enjoying a renaissance in thought, art and engineering the like of which has rarely been seen in world history.

Some explanation for the "darkness" can be attributed to just a geographic shift. Northern France, England, or Germany was never before this point a particularly literate part of the world anyway, so shifting the focus of history to that area does come with a reduced number of authors. But to say that there was no darkness, in the sense of there were not only a decreasing number of writers whose works were created and preserved in the period, but also a great many works winking out of existence for lack of scribes recopying them, is I think to be disingenuous for the purpose of selling books.

Please do not assume that my opinions or use of the term "Dark Ages" are out ignorance or lack of study of the period. I took medieval history under Richard Gerberding, and I've read extensively on the period - particularly the economic history of the period.

 

[uzirath]

There was never any "Dark Age." View attachment 391311

Heh. I enjoyed that book, and, at least tangential to the thread topic, I’ve run numerous GURPS adventures for one of the author’s kids!

 

[Argyle King]

The problem is that's rarely the kind of issue someone has with GURPS (or any heavy rules system). If you're not using magic, the magic rules being there are just pages in the book; they're easy to collectively ignore because they're encapsulated. The problem is when you're using guns, but the totality of the gun rules seem excessive, and worse, its not clear which ones are load-bearing. The latter requires at least a fair knowledge of the rules.



Though to be fair, you'll at least get most of your surprises right up front, and likely advancement won't drop a whole lot of new ones on you. That's true of most non-zero-to-hero games.

I'm not sure what you mean by load-bearing.
The rules for guns still work off of how Ranged attacks work.

There does exist additional detail for rate-of-fire, but that's not that hard.
The rules for shotguns are a little hard to digest at first. (Though, I would say that's because they're presented in an odd way that ignores something basic like using slugs.)

I'm not saying that the system doesn't have flaws. It does. However, a lot of the "too complicated" reputation of GURPS can be solved by writing things down on your character sheet (just like you would in any other game).

Though, with that being said, I would also say that the official way of presenting information leaves something to be desired. I understand doing it the way that SJ Games does it from the perspective of saving space, but I've found that there are better ways of presenting information to players. (While they may have very different approaches, playing D&D 4e taught me a lot about how I could present information clearer when playing GURPS. FWIW, some pieces of GURPS influenced how I designed Skill Challenges.)

I can't speak for anyone else, but (for me) the WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) default nature of GURPS made it easier for me to understand than some aspects of D&D.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'm not sure what you mean by load-bearing.

I mean things that will have ripple effects on the game that are undesirable if you remove them.

The rules for guns still work off of how Ranged attacks work.

There does exist additional detail for rate-of-fire, but that's not that hard.

Its not a question of "Hard", its a question of whether ignoring those rules will produce undesirable side results.

I'm not saying that the system doesn't have flaws. It does. However, a lot of the "too complicated" reputation of GURPS can be solved by writing things down on your character sheet (just like you would in any other game).

That helps a player, but isn't likely to be practical for a GM.

 

[stonehead]

Anecdotally, I've found that using the Barrett does require different (but related) skills compared to the typical uses of an m4.

I would agree that some of the same techniques translate. The system does too, and that is why some skills can default off of other skills. In the case of comparing using a m4 vs a bolt-action rifle, the only obstacle is a familiarity penalty (assuming you're using those,) and that goes away after spending a little bit of time with the weapon

I think part of the problem is that GURPS assumes all characters are this specialized. You aren't a competent character who can specialize in one type of gun if you want, you're a gun specialist, who can pay extra to be able to use another type of gun.

In most systems, characters are generalists by default, and can optionally invest resources into specializing in something. Usually, a character buys their general "melee weapon skill" and then if they want to be a master swordsman, they take "weapon focus" or something to make their skill in different weapons be different. And then because it's part of their build, it's easier to remember. Lines on the character sheet are much easier to remember than lines in a 500+ page rulebook.

I think the other part of the problem is that default penalties are way too harsh. There's no default at all from swinging a sword to swinging an axe. That just seems way too strict to me. Playing the traditional adventure who uses whatever magic weapon is found in the dungeon is incredibly expensive.

I'm not trying to claim that swinging an axe is the same as swinging a sword, or that a sword fighter should be able to effortlessly switch to using an axe. I am claiming though, that a master sword fighter would be much better at swinging an axe than I would be. I'm sure swinging a weapon to hit your opponent has more transferrable skills than playing a sport would.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'm not trying to claim that swinging an axe is the same as swinging a sword, or that a sword fighter should be able to effortlessly switch to using an axe. I am claiming though, that a master sword fighter would be much better at swinging an axe than I would be. I'm sure swinging a weapon to hit your opponent has more transferrable skills than playing a sport would.

Its one of those things where there's progressive tiers of skill. On the top level, just being used to fighting in melee will teach you some things that port over to any other weapon whatsoever in a way someone not used to doing that would have. At the bottom level there are specifics of a given weapon design that are different enough to make some difference until you adjust to them. And a whole range in between.

But that's fussy even by GURPS standards, so its not factored.

 

[Argyle King]

I mean things that will have ripple effects on the game that are undesirable if you remove them.



Its not a question of "Hard", its a question of whether ignoring those rules will produce undesirable side results.



That helps a player, but isn't likely to be practical for a GM.

For me, understanding the effects of ignoring those rules is intuitive because those rules say exactly what they do.

If I ignore range penalties, doing damage to things from far away is easier.

If I ignore reload times, I can fire a weapon every round.

If I ignore all of it, I might be on a D&D thread talking about how ranged combat is OP compared to melee.

There are plenty of things that you can ignore and likely won't notice at all. Most of those are the optional rules for things like Malfunction numbers.

Trying to use every GURPS optional rule together is likely insanity, especially for a new group. The core set doesn't assume that you use all of it. Maybe that could be stated better.

A lot of the extra small details that are presented aren't necessary.

After the End has a lot of good worked examples of how to simplify ammo types. I've adopted some of it for my games in general.

 

[Thomas Shey]

For me, understanding the effects of ignoring those rules is intuitive because those rules say exactly what they do.

May I suggest that someone as obviously experienced as you are with the rules may be seriously underestimating how less-than-evident that may be to someone new to the system?

As an example, it may not be obvious how much ignoring the -4 for firing every round limits the ability to do other things like aim for locations. Because that requires you to not understand how much that rule already incentivizes high skill (beyond what you may need at a lot of combat ranges otherwise), but also means it means less than it otherwise would. I am unconvinced someone who hasn't used the game for a while will recognize that dynamic.

There are other similar elements among rules not treated as optional, but which may seem cumbersome to someone who doesn't get how the pieces fit together.

 

[Argyle King]

May I suggest that someone as obviously experienced as you are with the rules may be seriously underestimating how less-than-evident that may be to someone new to the system?

As an example, it may not be obvious how much ignoring the -4 for firing every round limits the ability to do other things like aim for locations. Because that requires you to not understand how much that rule already incentivizes high skill (beyond what you may need at a lot of combat ranges otherwise), but also means it means less than it otherwise would. I am unconvinced someone who hasn't used the game for a while will recognize that dynamic.

There are other similar elements among rules not treated as optional, but which may seem cumbersome to someone who doesn't get how the pieces fit together.

I would agree that having time with the system has made understanding it easier. So, I think that's fair.

At the same time, for me personally, what prompted me to originally buy the Basic Set was that the rules lead to results that mostly seemed intuitive to me. Fire behaved like fire (or at least how I imagine it behaved,) being stabbed in the face was a bad thing, etc.

In contrast, it took me a little while to fully understand how "unbalanced" and "unready" interact with melee weapons. That could be explained a lot better. I think, had they been named something different, it may have helped. Better examples of using the various weapons would help too.

I think the biggest obstacle to understanding GURPS is that it approaches things from a different mindset than most games with which people are already familiar.

I also think that a lot of the system would benefit from what computer techs might call a GUI interface. Much like MS Dos, the information is there, but it isn't always in a format that is easily digestible by someone unfamiliar with it. Hence, Windows.

In my own games, I sometimes take time to figure out how I can rewrite things in a format that's easier for my players to understand. For example, most new players don't necessarily need to know exactly how I built a power for their character; they need to know what it does and how it is used.

On the DM side of things, I don't necessarily need to know the points at all.

I think it's natural to be hesitant about modifying a system before understanding how it works. I made mistakes when first learning GURPS. But that was also true of when I first learned D&D.

To be fair, maybe learning GURPS didn't seem that bad at the time because I was coming from D&D 3rd Edition. As I said upthread, I was learning D&D 4th Edition and GURPS 4th Edition at the same time. That experience lead me to borrow things from both games to use with each other.

 

[darjr]

I have to say that a thread about GURPS has a positive life to it here at ENWorld is very nice.