Can I get an opinion of GURPS?

[Mercule]

I'll go against the grain on this one.

In all fairness, I've only played GURPS once. It's also been a decade, so I'm mostly left with a vagueness that it sucked rather than specifics. Take my opinion with that in mind.

I was invited to join a group of gamers running a fantasy GURPS game. I did a bit of checking and the DM was well known in the local gaming community and _very_ well regarded.

So, I popped in an hour early for the session and made up a character. Now, one of the reasons I DM a lot is that I just plain enjoy making up characters. Have in pretty much any system I've ever played: D&D, Traveler, Cyberpunk 2020, Shadowrun, Wild West, Aria, Hero, etc. I enjoy that part almost as much as actually playing. Making up a GURPS character was a distinctly unpleasant experience. Oh, well -- maybe it was just rushed.

Well, play-time comes. My character is introduced. The PCs all seem pretty cool. We intereact for a bit. Yup, this DM has a pretty cool world and plot in motion. Awesome. So we head back into the dungeon. This is where things really began to suck. The basic 3d6 v. target number mechanic is pretty easy to understand. But when it comes time to actually roll dice, the game just went to pot.

I can't explain it, but the next 3 hours were probably the worst gaming experience I've ever had. Considering I went through the orignal ToEE with 24 players, 12 of whom were drunk out of their minds, that's pretty bad (3 hours to get from Hommlet to the _entrance_ to the Moathouse).

My advice, if you want a generic system, is to pick up Hero. The rule book reads like a dictionary, but it's a much better system than GURPS. I haven't picked up the 5th edition (no place in town sells it *sigh*), but I've been told that the rules are even more well-balanced.

 

[Xar]

I bought the Gurps rulebook and Gurps WWII myself a couple of weeks ago. If you like realism its a blast. The best thing of the system is that you have lots of optional rules you can use to make the game as realistic as you want. Checks can be resolved with a single roll, but there are rules that allow you to calculate the protection of sunglasses against bullets. When you use a lot of optional rules, the game can bog down, but it won't feel like a game anymore, you can just feel the impact of every single bullet, the burst of every shell. It's just much more realistic than any other system I have seen before. The game itself has nothing heroic anymore, it's just grim&gritty reality, where every wound can be fatal. I have seen players slaughter dozens of russian soldiers in a battle in Stalingrad just by having better cover, tactics and weapons, but then they got killed themselves by an unaimed spray of bullets. A single misfire by their own artillery killed several others. Sure, these 15 seconds of battle took 3 weeks to play, but those were the most exciting 15 seconds I have ever had in a RPG.

 

[Ulrick]

I bought the Gurps rulebook and Gurps WWII myself a couple of weeks ago. If you like realism its a blast. The best thing of the system is that you have lots of optional rules you can use to make the game as realistic as you want. Checks can be resolved with a single roll, but there are rules that allow you to calculate the protection of sunglasses against bullets. When you use a lot of optional rules, the game can bog down, but it won't feel like a game anymore, you can just feel the impact of every single bullet, the burst of every shell. It's just much more realistic than any other system I have seen before. The game itself has nothing heroic anymore, it's just grim&gritty reality, where every wound can be fatal. I have seen players slaughter dozens of russian soldiers in a battle in Stalingrad just by having better cover, tactics and weapons, but then they got killed themselves by an unaimed spray of bullets. A single misfire by their own artillery killed several others. Sure, these 15 seconds of battle took 3 weeks to play, but those were the most exciting 15 seconds I have ever had in a RPG.

Is it true that 1 second of game time = one round?

 

[Andor]

Is it true that 1 second of game time = one round?

Yes. It takes you more than one round of combat to hit the ground after falling out a 3rd story window.

That aside. GURPS is an excellent system for grim and gritty. The systems flaws imo are that it was originally built around gladiatorial comabt, and the numbers start to break down once you get too far away from two guys in a pit with clubs.

This will not be a problem however in a WW-2 game unless someone get shot by a tank, and who cares? It really only crops up as a problem for supers, or sci-fi or High fantasy or anime.

If you want grim WW-2 foot slogging it will be fine.

-Andor

 

[haiiro]

I've read some of the GURPS light, and most of it seems pretty cool, but does it play well? Is it good from a players prespective? How hard is it for a DM/GM to make adventures? How about realsim? Is it more of a grim n gritty or more of a action arcade game?

Definitely more grim 'n' gritty than d20. I don't have d20 Modern, but I'd assume the same holds true (GURPS is grittier).

The best part about GURPS for me has always been the character generation. With the basic set and Compendium I, you can do just about anything with your character, and most of the CC system is pretty solid. I strongly dislike that there are only 4 stats, but others enjoy that aspect of the game; YMMV. Also, the supplements are generally very well done, with tons of rules-free material, decent/good writing and great indexes.

On the downside, I've always hated GURPS combat. To me it feels clunky and counter-intuitive, but there are a lot of options available. How well it would work for a WWII game depends on your play style and tolerance for potentially cumbersome combat.

You might want to check out <a href="http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=43766:">this recent thread on game balance in GURPS</a> for other opinions. One thing that comes up there is that the CC system leans heavily towards attributes over skills -- it's much better to boost certain stats during CC, as you reap disproportionate benefits in the skills department.

For what it's worth, I've been a GURPS fan for a long time, and I own a healthy amount of GURPS books -- but I almost never play it (haven't in years). I prefer to use it's robust CC and background info as inspiration for other games and designs.

Edit: typo.

 

[Someone]

Is it true that 1 second of game time = one round?

Yes.

It´s one of the reasons I don´t quite like the system. I´ve played GURPS only once, so my opinion is not as founded as others exposed before.

However, the sourcebooks are indeed very well done. I would buy it, even if I were going to run the campaing with the D20 modern system: most of them are just very well researched and useful information.

 

[Psion]

GURPS has a pretty gritty feel to it, even when it tries not to.

Yes, Virginia, min/maxing is much more a GURPS trait that a D&D trait IME, and the system rewards polymaths and gives way to many points for disads, resulting in bizarre characters. It takes a lot of GM handholding to come up with a reasonable group IMO.

It does not handle cinematic and high power settings well. GURPS Supers is a joke, and the GURPS Fantasy line of products is amongst the worst I have ever experienced.

GURPS strength is its sourcebooks. It has a lot of well researched sourcebooks. It also isn't too bad a system to use if you want something fairly gritty like hard sci-fi.

 

[Angcuru]

It's an awesome system...if the GM knows how to run it correctly. You can run a game in ANY situation, ANY time, etc. Also, you characters can basically play ANYTHING THEY WANT.

This one time, the first time I played GURPS, this guy Wes played a character made completely out of nanomachines. He died when someone plugged him into an electrical outlet.

 

[BryonD]

GURPS has a pretty gritty feel to it, even when it tries not to.

Yes, Virginia, min/maxing is much more a GURPS trait that a D&D trait IME, and the system rewards polymaths and gives way to many points for disads, resulting in bizarre characters. It takes a lot of GM handholding to come up with a reasonable group IMO.

I think the "IME" is the most important part of this statement. From my end, I have experienced a lot more roleplaying and character devlopment in GURPS than in D&D. It may be easier to mathematically max/min in GURPS, but the difference between max and min is often much smaller than for D&D. A maxed out GURPS character can still be killed with one well placed sword swing (unless you are at very high point levels).

It does not handle cinematic and high power settings well. GURPS Supers is a joke, and the GURPS Fantasy line of products is amongst the worst I have ever experienced.

Ehh, I disagree that it doesn't do Supers well. The main genres I played were a Supers/Cyberpunk blend and Fantasy. I can easily state that GURPS SUPERS can work GREAT. I also had a lot of fun with Fantasy, though I will agree with you that most of the actual supplements for fantasy are rather poor, well below GURPS normal standards. But with MAGIC and the CORE book, you can easily invent monsters and other foes to your hearts content and play a great game without ever buying anything else.

GURPS strength is its sourcebooks. It has a lot of well researched sourcebooks. It also isn't too bad a system to use if you want something fairly gritty like hard sci-fi.

Agree 100%. Even if you want less grit than GURPS tends to be, the source books can be great.

 

[Psion]

Ehh, I disagree that it doesn't do Supers well. The main genres I played were a Supers/Cyberpunk blend and Fantasy.

Then you are in the minority, even among GURPS fans. Visit the GURPS newsgroup sometime. There is a lot of disdain for GURPS supers. And GURPS Fantasy, for that matter.

Note here, when I say GURPS Fantasy, I mean GURPS Fantsy (TM), i.e., the fantasy material put out for GURPS. GURPS Fantasy is not a generic sourcebook like the excellent GURPS Space, but a rather tepid D&D knockoff setting. GURPS Fantasy Folk is the most uninspired collection of fantasy races I have ever seen, and GURPS Fantasy Adventures are horrible adventures, seemingly designed to do nothing more than annoy the players. If you actually like this material, I daresay that you are either in denial of this is a first love nostalgia situation, because the GURPS Fantasy line is just bad.