Can I get an opinion of GURPS?
- Thread starter GWolf
- Start date
(To the none l33t speakers thanks alot)GWolf said:
GURPS is very good if you want a realistic and detailed RPG. The system is IMO a little time worn in places but in actual play it still very good
GURPS WW2 comes with a custom GURPS lite . so if you aren't interested in the system yet you won't need to buy the Baic set.
As a plus GURPS sourcebooks are almost statless and usable with anything. They are well worth the $22 you will pay for them
The only exception to this are "crunchy" books like Magic and Psionics. Those are mostly GURPS specific
My advice is if you like GURPS lite, grab The Basic Set and give it whirl. All the basic rules are there, including psionics, critters, gear and magic and more
'edited for context and translated from Engrish to English
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Psion said:
They aren't quite as bad as you put them Psion. I agree that And they really aren't very good. Suhadese Firedrill (from GURPS Fantasy Adventures) is funny but is a hose job. It says so right at the begining of the Adventure. Good if you like Paranoia and Ouns though
GURPS Fantasy 2e, aka the world of Yrth is pretty decent. It is also mostly statless. It would make a tolerable D&D world
Fantasy Campaigns is also due soon. It will be like GURPS Space and is IMO a must buy...
The rest of the Fantasy stuff is for GURPS heads like me only
Now GURPS Supers is ok for Batman or Daredevil. It won't work with 4 color characters like Spidey or the Hulk though. YMMV
And if you get a chance to get GURPS Wildcards, do so. it is really good and GURPS is ideal for that sort of thing
edited for context and clarity again. Sigh
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haiiro
First Post
GWolf said:
If you like the basic rules, I'd definitely consider Compendium I; it's almost essential, and comes in handy all the time.
Depending on how you feel about the combat system (and how much extra combat-y stuff is in the WWII book), flip through Compendium II as well. It offers a lot of combat options, as well as a host of other stuff; less essential than Compendium I, but still worth checking out.
In many ways, GURPS is realistic -- that was a design goal -- but in other ways it's simply complicated. Like Rolemaster, it has evolved to the point where there's a nitpicky skill defined somewhere for just about anything you assumed you could just do.
As they added more and more skills, this warped the balance between attribute costs and skill costs. If you're only expected to have a dozen skills (some physical, some mental), spending 10 points on an extra +1 DX (and thus +1 to all physical skills) might be a reasonable tradeoff. Once you need dozens of skills to define your special-ops soldier though, the point costs break down, and the GM needs to force players to spend points on things other than DX and IQ; otherwise they'll all be DX-15 phenoms with a half-point in each skill.
Also, the system doesn't scale well. For instance, defense rolls are effectively against a fixed DC. Combined with the curve of 3d6, this means that skilled combatants might never land a blow (except for critical hits).
That said, it's a largely logical ruleset, and it's easy to tweak.
As they added more and more skills, this warped the balance between attribute costs and skill costs. If you're only expected to have a dozen skills (some physical, some mental), spending 10 points on an extra +1 DX (and thus +1 to all physical skills) might be a reasonable tradeoff. Once you need dozens of skills to define your special-ops soldier though, the point costs break down, and the GM needs to force players to spend points on things other than DX and IQ; otherwise they'll all be DX-15 phenoms with a half-point in each skill.
Also, the system doesn't scale well. For instance, defense rolls are effectively against a fixed DC. Combined with the curve of 3d6, this means that skilled combatants might never land a blow (except for critical hits).
That said, it's a largely logical ruleset, and it's easy to tweak.
i agree. i wish GURPS would embrace more cinematic stuff, even if it's all compartmentalized into its own sourcebook. (GURPS Action Theatre! yeah!)Psion said:
i'd have to agree with Bryon -- i've seen way more min/maxing in 3 years of 3e than i did in 10 years of GURPS. but that's purely anecdotal evidence.
i agree that it rewards polymaths -- the geometric skill costs make it easier to pick up new skills than specialize in a core few. Dexterity and Intelligence are too cheap for what they provide in skill bonuses.
i don't agree with disads giving too many points. in most "standard" GURPS settings, characters have 40 points in disads. that's generally 3-5 moderate disadvantages. (example: a typical "paladin": Honesty, Truthfulness, Code of Honor, Sense of Duty (to religion). that would fill the character's 40 points right there. i think the HERO system has a much worse problem with the "albino one-eyed hemophiliac klepto" straw-man that many GURPS detractors trot out when disads come up in discussion. though that argument is really a straw-man in HERO as well.) i didn't typically see too many truly bizarre characters in GURPS. (well, except for Dylan's psychotic kobold with a God-complex...
) (GURPS Supers is a different story -- at that point-level, characters are supposed to pick up a lot more disads for some reason...)i tend to agree. even when i'd play GURPS for every other genre, i'd use HERO for supers. (though now i use M&M!) i think the main problem with GURPS Supers is that a lot of the point costs are just off. IIRC, being able to Absorb damage and use it to boost your own powers was slightly cheaper than Armor that just deflected the damage.
Claws are 15 points -- i add +2 damage in unarmed combat! now my punch does 1d6+2 damage!
High Technology (+1 Tech Level) is 25 points -- i can now get a rocket carbine that does 8d6 damage and divides your armor's effectiveness in half!
(yes, this is a straw-man argument, too. no self-respecting GM is going to let a Supers character get away with buying tech levels -- even though it's given as an advantage in the book.)OTOH, i kinda like Yrth (the setting of GURPS Fantasy). it's got an interesting history and backdrop. the GURPS Magic rules leave a lot to be desired IMO (though using SJRoss' UMana rules makes up for a lot), but the setting was kinda neat.
you'll get no argument from me here. even though i don't play GURPS anymore, i still collect GURPS books. however, i think it's way too gritty for an extended hard SF campaign -- with handweapons whose minimum damage will slag a normal human in one shot, it can be hard to keep PCs alive for long.
i was in a GURPS SF campaign for about a year and a half. we only averaged one combat every three or four sessions, and i still think my character nearly died four or five times. thank goodness for TL11 medical technology, though! (we actually did have one PC who died and came back as a forced-growth clone with downloaded memories -- and didn't realize it for something like nine years game-time... was quite a shocker at the climax of the campaign. "Hey Bernie, remember that time about nine years when you had to be hospitalized after your nearly fatal encounter with the biotech alien?" "Yeah?" "well, it wasn't really a nearly fatal encounter...
)
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shadow
First Post
Well I've played GURPS for a long time, so I'll chime in my opinion. The advantage of GURPS are the custom built characters. By picking advantages and disadvantages (disadvantages, believe it or not, are the most fun part of character creation) players can build nearly any type of character. However, GURPS combat is very "realistic" in that characters can be killed fairly easily. Combat also tends to be long and drawn out. Moreover, there really isn't any character advancement (players just get to up skills, they can't get new powers since advantages have to be picked at the time of character creation). Since it takes so many points to increase attributes and new skills don't really give the character "kewl" new abilities or make them harder to kill, it can get really frustrating since characters really don't "advance" in any sense of the word.
Just my 2cp
Just my 2cp
