GURPS 4th Edition Revised Announced

GURPS is getting a revised 4th edition. Steve Jackson Games has quietly announced a revised version of GURPS current edition, with a focus on cleaning up wording and layout. Announced at Gamehole Con and further detailed in this thread on the Steve Jackson Games server, the revised edition will be fully compatible with all existing 4th edition GURPS material, right down to preserving page references in existing books. There will be rule changes in the form of additions that will be added via addenda, with players able to bring in those rules as they see fit to their existing 4th edition games.

GURPS stands for Generic Universal Role Playing System and is intended to be a rules system that can be used for any kind of story or genre. Steve Jackson has long-hinted that a new edition of GURPS was on the way, although it appears that they opted to keep the current edition rather than rebuild the game or make significant changes to its mechanics.

From DouglasCole on the GURPS forums:

Since the GURPS Fourth Edition Revised monkey is out of the sack:

Zero. It won't be years. Most of the work is already done.

1. By far the biggest differences are major changes to physical layout and design. I'm not sure what SJ leaked at Gamehole Con, so I'm not going to go into detail here beyond saying, "The thing will be easier to use and read." It will not look the same, despite #3 below.

2. It is definitively not GURPS Fifth Edition, or even a GURPS Third Edition to GURPS Fourth Edition-level change! It is a GURPS Third Edition to GURPS Third Edition Revised-level change. It will not make edition-level changes to point costs, modifiers, prices, weights, etc. All rules changes will be additions, in clearly marked addenda "chapters," so that people can easily decide what to retcon into Fourth Edition campaigns.

3. Top priority is to preserve page references so that whether you use the Basic Set, Fourth Edition or Basic Set Fourth Edition Revised, an internal "p. 00" or external "p. B00" points you to the same rule. This brooks little to no rewriting outside of the addenda mentioned in #2.

4. Inasmuch as there is some rewriting, as in #3, it will be to remedy some particularly offensive or unclear passages. Not to change rules!

5+. And other minor stuff while we're at it. The above will inevitably change the size, shape, and location of art and quote boxes, so expect art and quotes to change, too. We'll update the credits to reflect additional material in the addenda, and the creatives who created the revised book. I'm sure there are 100 things like that.

#3 is the single most important element in living up to the promise of compatibility. There are literally millions of page references in 21 years of supplements and articles, not to mention community discussions. Invalidating them would mean a huge slap in the face. But #1 is the main reason to do the thing. So, it isn't a conflict . . . it's a visual upgrade that doesn't insult customers, while still providing both enhanced readability AND some extra "best of" addenda.

I can say without shilling or exaggerating that it is far, far more than a new printing. It just isn't a full edition. There are things between the two. A revision is one of those things. If all a reader cares about is the rules . . . well, there will be lots of addenda, but no, not a full revision. However, lots of readers care about readability, sensitivity, design aesthetics, being aware that it's 21 years later, etc. even if not a single rule changes.

Well, that's it for my needless leaks to follow SJ's leaks, but the takeaways:

• Better, more readable layout with different art and quotes.
• Mostly less controversial words, excepting indefinite pronouns (for economic reasons).
• More than 25 pages of "best of" rules skimmed from 21 years of system growth.
• Incidental glitch cleanup (e.g., mistaken "damage" for "injury," or "than" for "that").
• Promise of NO rules or page-reference changes to maintain total compatibility.

 

[AlexofBarbaria]

I have literally no idea what you are talking about, GURPS armor and weapons are pretty much the opposite of coarsely statted.

My claim is GURPS has few stats relative to the level of simulation they're going for. There's a preference to extend the simulation with exceptions to core mechanics and ad hoc math to core stats rather than new stats.

Adding new stats seems "unhygienic" to GURPS designers for some reason (granted I've never worked on an RPG as complex as GURPS and could be missing something).

The rule in Low-Tech that you mentioned to simulate the transformation of cutting damage into crushing on non-penetrating hits is a good example.

Low-Tech, pg. 102:

Roll damage and determine whether the blow can put at least 1 point of penetrating damage past twice the armor’s DR. If it can’t, then treat the cutting attack as merely crushing – that is, simply subtract the armor’s usual DR from damage to get injury. Such injury doesn’t actually slice through the armor, and is equivalent to blunt trauma. If the blow can penetrate twice the armor’s DR, then use the rules for cutting attacks as written – subtract the armor’s usual DR from damage and then multiply by 1.5 to find injury – and assume that the armor (and flesh!) is cut.

I strongly prefer the approach from this blog, which adds a new stat to armors called Edge Protection (basically it ties the double DR threshold off into a new stat, which is then allowed to vary). The procedure is simpler and the simulation is better.

An analogous example from D&D is when Pathfinder 1 simplified combat maneuvers by adding the CMB and CMD stats to characters.

 

[Willie the Duck]

How is that different from any other game? Rifts doesn't even bother defining what your % skills do in non-adventuring situations.

Broadly speaking, it isn't. That was the point. We play games to have characters go on some kind of adventure, and thus build mechanics that play out (have success and failure rates) that work for adventures.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Broadly speaking, it isn't. That was the point. We play games to have characters go on some kind of adventure, and thus build mechanics that play out (have success and failure rates) that work for adventures.

Not always. Plenty of games are sufficiently detailed to cover a variety of non-adventuring situations, often for reasons of simulation and/or verisimilitude.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Not always. Plenty of games are sufficiently detailed to cover a variety of non-adventuring situations, often for reasons of simulation and/or verisimilitude.

No, not always. Again, broadly speaking. I certainly want my final copy of Stonetop to have solid 'successful harvest' rules (as that is quite reasonably going to be an important outcome in the expected setting). But I also want its 'fighting' and 'climbing sheer surfaces' and 'leaping dangerously long spans' rules to be built around and facilitating the adventures a typical Stonetop PC might get up to.

And, to be clear, I was explaining why IMO GURPS is the way it is. That there might be counterexample RPGs that are not GURPS won't change it. GURPS has a resolution system that tops out at a 2% failure rate*, and notes PC-typical scores in the 63-84% success range. Why? IMO because it concerns itself with activities that have 2-98% chances of success, and expects PCs to be engaging regularly in activities to which the have a ~63-84% success chance. Where one runs into those activities outside such ranges, it has special rules like +4 to the check or not even rolling (which clearly has gaps for activities that are possible but then have less than 2%/maybe 0.5% chance of happening).
*with I think some special circumstances where a 17 can be a success, but I forget the specifics. Either way, that just caps in at 0.5%

 

[Micah Sweet]

No, not always. Again, broadly speaking. I certainly want my final copy of Stonetop to have solid 'successful harvest' rules (as that is quite reasonably going to be an important outcome in the expected setting). But I also want its 'fighting' and 'climbing sheer surfaces' and 'leaping dangerously long spans' rules to be built around and facilitating the adventures a typical Stonetop PC might get up to.

And, to be clear, I was explaining why IMO GURPS is the way it is. That there might be counterexample RPGs that are not GURPS won't change it. GURPS has a resolution system that tops out at a 2% failure rate*, and notes PC-typical scores in the 63-84% success range. Why? IMO because it concerns itself with activities that have 2-98% chances of success, and expects PCs to be engaging regularly in activities to which the have a ~63-84% success chance. Where one runs into those activities outside such ranges, it has special rules like +4 to the check or not even rolling (which clearly has gaps for activities that are possible but then have less than 2%/maybe 0.5% chance of happening).
*with I think some special circumstances where a 17 can be a success, but I forget the specifics. Either way, that just caps in at 0.5%

Sorry. Your post talked in generalities. "The reason we play games", not the reason we play GURPS.

 

[pawsplay]

Where one runs into those activities outside such ranges, it has special rules like +4 to the check or not even rolling (which clearly has gaps for activities that are possible but then have less than 2%/maybe 0.5% chance of happening).
*with I think some special circumstances where a 17 can be a success, but I forget the specifics. Either way, that just caps in at 0.5%

Just like D&D, where you might get +4 to hit a helpless foe or something.

 

[Keith Ammann]

I have to ask: is there a driving need to always follow the cultural zeitgeist? And by this I mean that I think SJG is doing the right thing with this revision, as opposed to a new edition as you suggest. Small updates, mostly to visuals and some language is all that they should do IMO.

GURPS is arguably the face of simulationist TTRPGS. Doing what you want here is IMO too much of a compromise of that playstyle (which to be fair I happen to love). Plenty of other games doing other styles.

You can have a satisfying degree of simulationism without turning character creation into tax season or slowing the game to a crawl. As I mentioned, I enjoyed GURPS tremendously, especially GURPS 3E—but even in GURPS 3E, combat encounters required a flowchart to make them playable. I made that flowchart. Then GURPS 4E came along, and I tried to update the flowchart, and I could no longer fit it on a single page. That was when I knew I was done with GURPS.

I don't think streamlining a game is "dumbing it down" (and I muted the jackhole who unsubtly implied that). It's cutting away what doesn't look like an elephant, where by "elephant" I mean "fun game." D&D didn't benefit from hit lookup tables or feat trees. Advantage and disadvantage were a game-changing innovation. So was aligning the procedures for rolling attacks, ability checks and saving throws so that they all worked the same way. The game kept its core, so it still felt like the same game, but the speed bumps were removed.

What would that look like for GURPS? Size, speed and distance could be collapsed into a few less granular categories. Skills could be reduced to one or two degrees of proficiency. Combat maneuvers added between 3E and 4E could be relocated from the core rules to an optional supplement. Certain variable modifiers could be turned into a fixed ±2, à la Pathfinder 2E—or, alternatively, have players/GMs roll an extra die and use the three lowest or three highest. The point being to take situations in which a player or GM has to keep track of a whole bunch of different things and turn those assorted things into just one high-automaticity, low–cognitive load thing. None of that would alter the heart of GURPS, which is (a) spend points to build your PC, (b) 3d6 roll under, (c) genre be damned.

I sincerely hope GURPS 4.1 is everything you want it to be, but I remain unconvinced that toil is inherently virtuous, so I'll be running my League of Extraordinary Gentlemen knockoff in Cypher.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You can have a satisfying degree of simulationism without turning character creation into tax season or slowing the game to a crawl. As I mentioned, I enjoyed GURPS tremendously, especially GURPS 3E—but even in GURPS 3E, combat encounters required a flowchart to make them playable. I made that flowchart. Then GURPS 4E came along, and I tried to update the flowchart, and I could no longer fit it on a single page. That was when I knew I was done with GURPS.

I don't think streamlining a game is "dumbing it down" (and I muted the jackhole who unsubtly implied that). It's cutting away what doesn't look like an elephant, where by "elephant" I mean "fun game." D&D didn't benefit from hit lookup tables or feat trees. Advantage and disadvantage were a game-changing innovation. So was aligning the procedures for rolling attacks, ability checks and saving throws so that they all worked the same way. The game kept its core, so it still felt like the same game, but the speed bumps were removed.

What would that look like for GURPS? Size, speed and distance could be collapsed into a few less granular categories. Skills could be reduced to one or two degrees of proficiency. Combat maneuvers added between 3E and 4E could be relocated from the core rules to an optional supplement. Certain variable modifiers could be turned into a fixed ±2, à la Pathfinder 2E—or, alternatively, have players/GMs roll an extra die and use the three lowest or three highest. The point being to take situations in which a player or GM has to keep track of a whole bunch of different things and turn those assorted things into just one high-automaticity, low–cognitive load thing. None of that would alter the heart of GURPS, which is (a) spend points to build your PC, (b) 3d6 roll under, (c) genre be damned.

I sincerely hope GURPS 4.1 is everything you want it to be, but I remain unconvinced that toil is inherently virtuous, so I'll be running my League of Extraordinary Gentlemen knockoff in Cypher.

Sounds like you have a game you like. It's clear to me that SJG made their decision on the nature of the revision based on what most existing fans of GURPS want. It's not WotC D&D and it's not trying to appeal to every gamer at once. And IMO it shouldn't. I personally far prefer games with a playstyle focus, and all those sim rules support that focus. It's obviously not the only way it can be done, but I really feel your desires here are simply too big a compromise. I know people get salty when they're advised to play a game that works for them rather than advocate for an existing game to officially change for everyone, but that's what I'm thinking here. I hope that's ok to say.

 

[Keith Ammann]

And I'm not going to get salty about it, because playing a game that works for me is exactly what I've chosen to do. But I also don't think it's irrelevant that I'm making this choice despite being a onetime GURPS superfan, and that there's a nonzero chance that I'm not the only onetime GURPS superfan who made that choice. I'm just the only one out here talking about it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And I'm not going to get salty about it, because playing a game that works for me is exactly what I've chosen to do. But I also don't think it's irrelevant that I'm making this choice despite being a onetime GURPS superfan, and that there's a nonzero chance that I'm not the only onetime GURPS superfan who made that choice. I'm just the only one out here talking about it.

If there are games that work better for others, even "onetime GURPS superfans" (and of course there are), and SJG is financially solvent without a more broadly accessible and "streamlined" GURPS (which it is), what value is there to make such a thing, or to advocate for it being made? Seems to me all it would do is turn off those you enjoy the current version. You yourself said that you enjoyed GURPS 3e. It's still available for those who like GURPS but dislike the changes 4e made, and unlike D&D, there isn’t a huge crushing weight of cultural zeitgeist constantly pushing to get on board with the latest release.