2E vs 3E: 8 Years Later. A new perspective?

[Spell]

I would love to talk to the guys from Steve Jackson Games, particularly Sean Punch, and see what went wrong when they tried this method, apparently more than once.

you got it wrong. it's not the case of them putting out stuff for GURPS 2e or something similar, but, rather, reprinting books just because the existing copies were selling for high prices on ebay (or similar channels).
these are two different things.

steve jackson is now offering pdfs of GURPS 3e on their e23. some of those pdfs, apparently, are doing pretty well. if they were offering a print on demand thing (which they might just as well... i never bought pdfs from them), i think old users would be almost toally happy, too.

Somebody on here suggested labeling a rules system "Vintage DnD". I think that is an excellent idea.

if they were going to reprint old modules, and print new stuff for older editions, i would hate it if they relabelled the systems. i can see why it would make sense, but the existing labels (up to 3e) are already different enough to make sense:
Dungeons & Dragons: BECM or OD&D (this might lead to confusion... in this case the "vintage D&D" label might work for OD&D).
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: 1e
Advanced D&D 2nd edition: 2e (doh!)

then you have dungeons and dragons again for what effectively had to be Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition.
and again D&D for 4th edition.

i blame it on postmodernism!

anyway, i don't see how this is going to happen any time soon, so why worry?

 

[Spell]

Yet people simply refuse to believe that GURPS is simpler than D&D, usually because they have "been told" or have "heard" that GURPS is an incredibly complicated system. Once you sit down and read it though, it becomes pretty clear how easy it really is.

how condescending of you! you really don't appreciate that what might be a cup of tea for you might be a pain in the neck for the next person, don't you?

looking up at tons of modifiers is my idea of killing any fun in a combat IMMEDIATELY. that's what GURPS advanced combat is. having to choose between tons of different tactical options screams BORING to me in every step of a combat. that's what GURPS advanced combat is.

yes, i know it's all optional. and i am grateful to no ends to the people at steve jackson games to design THEIR game in a way that allows me to throw that part of the system out of the window, while i add an infinitely more complex layer where i want (character creation, in my case).

i am also incredibly grateful that GURPS allows you to run your combats in the way*you* find intuitive and fun. because, you know, some day i might sit at your table and have fun.

*that* is a game design philosophy that makes me willing to buy books even if i don't plan to run a GURPS campaign any time soon, because "you never know". it's quality stuff, and i feel that *my* view as a customer (not the average customer's view) is respected. if i wanted to exagerate, i would call it the leftist answer to wizards' fascist philosophy. but that, as i said, is a huge exageration.

 

[Spell]

I enjoyed GURPS' rulebooks for their thoroughness and reading value, but the actual gameplay of the system always turned me off to it, because in addition to the lethality when using weapons deadlier than a sword, I also felt like it took two hours to resolve a seven-second long combat.

this reminded me of a quote i read somewhere... i can't remember exactly, but it might have been from the creators' of HERO. basically they said that there is no optional rule for a RP gamer, only rules that will be implemented later in the game play.

is that the case for all of you? in my experience, this idea is quite exact. many people simply feel a bit "left out" if they ignore some parts of their manuals, even if it's clearly stated that those rules are optional. maybe they dont' want to use them every day, but at least they try to "try them out" every now and then, or for special occasions.

despite of my previous posts, i'm not GURPS poster boy... but i would advice you, Henry, to give it another shot, especially for sci-fi and non-fantasy adventures, sticking to the basic combat. i think it's my system of choice for historical games, mystery campaigns, and anything with loads of modern technology. cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. might still be more intuitive and fun for handling cyberpunk, but then again i never really gave GURPS a try in that genre.

 

[Spell]

I have a problem with thinking that C&C is actually a rules light game. It's not. Any more than 2e was rules light.

no, i disagree with you here. C&C is certainly rules light. pretty much every roll is resolved by the same mechanic: the DM chooses a number to beat based on many elements *and* his judgement, and then you roll and see whether you suceed or not.
easy peasy.

on the other hand, i totally agree with you. 2e is not rule light. it's rule medium. the "lightness" perception derives, in my opinion, by the fact that you could ignore some subsystems or rules, or substitute them with something you fancied more with a minimal preparation.

I think the problem here is people seem to have very different definitions of rules light vs rules heavy. Rules light systems don't have several hundred pages of game rules.

if you consider every spell to be a different special rule, then i totally agree with you. on the other hand, i think the lightness of a system does not depend on those. 2e still had too many subsystems to be considered light, and too many convolutions in the combat. BECM would be rule-light, on the other hand, despite the spells, magical items and mosters.

 

[Spell]

This is funny I have to keep explaining this.

DnD isn't a company you can leave. It's a game you CHOOSE to leave, or return to, or start playing.

the whole confusion comes from the fact that AD&D = D&D now. i think you mean that gygax left d20 D&D (or never touched it) because *today* he prefers rule light systems.
what other people might understand is that he left TSR and AD&D (and OD&D) when he was kicked out.

don't take it personally. sometimes people genuinely misunderstand you.

 

[Spell]

Cheers!

Merric, even those time that i disagreed with you i always found your knowledge of the systems, and the history of TSR/ WotC game developments admirable.
cheers to you!

 

[SuStel]

Have you seen GURPS Dungeon Fantasy: Adventurers?

i've heard about it, but i would like to know how much is this directly related to (A)D&D (as opposed to just be a parody of sorts) before buying it.

It's not a parody at all. It's a close translation of the current D&D rules into proper GURPS templates.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

According to one site, there's probably less than 50 copies existing of ST1, and certainly no more than 600 copies ever printed.

Yeah. It was written for and sold at a relatively obscure British convention, so I imagine most of us who have them are Brits--which means the price will be even more outrageous to Americans, what with the current state of the pound against the dollar.

It's a collector's item, not a module that people buy to run.

Certainly. It's an atrocious adventure--among the worst I've ever seen written down. The "gimmick" is that the map closely mirrors the convention venue. *rolls eyes*

Even as a teenage D&D-crazed nerd, I knew instantly it sucked.

But the fact that there's a secondary market, even in stuff like ST-1, tells me there's a demand.

Yes, you've said that. However, I think having multiple Player Handbooks for sale is more like having multiple editions of the Lord of Rings, except that the reader not only has to have an edition of the Hobbit that matches his edition of the Lord of the Rings, to get full use out of the books, he also has to have the same editions of the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings as his friends...

There are certainly multiple Player Handbooks on sale. If you check on ebay right now, you'll see all kinds of them; in fact, I picked up a new 1e PHB a few weeks back.

The only question is who's selling them.

 

[Storm Raven]

how condescending of you! you really don't appreciate that what might be a cup of tea for you might be a pain in the neck for the next person, don't you?

No, I'm just talking about reality here.

looking up at tons of modifiers is my idea of killing any fun in a combat IMMEDIATELY. that's what GURPS advanced combat is. having to choose between tons of different tactical options screams BORING to me in every step of a combat. that's what GURPS advanced combat is.

"Millions" of modifiers? Please. The only significant modifier is hit location, which you can simply ignore, and either use random hit location (and if you do, there is no modifier to your attack roll) or just strike at the torso, with no modifier at all. There is a simple table of a half dozen or so hit location modifiers, and that's it.

GURPS really doesn't have many more tactical options to choose from than D&D. I'm not sure what point you think you are making by making stuff up.

yes, i know it's all optional. and i am grateful to no ends to the people at steve jackson games to design THEIR game in a way that allows me to throw that part of the system out of the window, while i add an infinitely more complex layer where i want (character creation, in my case).

Yes, it is all optional, but even if you use GURPS advanced combat with all of the features turned on, it still isn't a very complicated system, since the modifiers that get used in actual play are pretty limited, and the range of tactical options is pretty much similar to those used in other RPGs.

 

[Spell]

It's not a parody at all. It's a close translation of the current D&D rules into proper GURPS templates.

uuuhm... me wants!