From 4E to GURPS: D&D and Simulationism

[darjr]

I love GURPS. I also don't run it with all the options on. I highly recommend you try that first.

As far as DMing prep, don't use the rules for character gen to create your antagonists. Give them what they need.

One more thing, absolutely use other character stats to base skill checks on. An example would be the classic one where you have a high dex fencer facing a high skill fencer. Some of the combat should be using the skill as an int based check. Or even a health based check for a long drawn out fight. That big skill character will then shine against the big dex lower skill character.

It's a GURPS innovation that is subtle and really is an 'option' in the 4e core, but has since been adopted as a core mechanic. It'll keep your players honest.

As far as point rewards and character advancement, there isn't any real reason not to give lots and lots of points if you want, or none at all. Consider giving out abilities and boosts to skills and stats directly instead.

And absolutely check out 'dungeon fantasy', if you like the style, it'll save you a ton of work. GURPS is very toolkit and can be some work to define a campaign, DF has done a ton of this for you.

Oh, one last thing, don't get hung up on the adv/disadv system. I've seen it used to really detail a great character, but in the begining I'd just worry about the 'BIG' issues of a character and just freeform the rest. Kinda like you'd do for a D&D character without the dis/adv system.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I'm tired of building a big bad NPC for hours in the GUPRS character creation system for a PC to "one shot kill" with a master strike to the eye.

Uhm...

Why are you doing that? Character points exist purely as an accounting device for player characters, and there is no point at all in using them for NPCs - especially since they don't measure combat effectiveness (unlike D&D monster levels). Just give the NPC the precise stats you want without worrying about the points - the result will be "rules-legal".

One of my other big gripes with GURPS is the lack of character development. Sure you can earn points, but this amounts to roughly 2x advantages or +2 stat (or buying off a disadvantage) in a YEAR OF PLAY (playing 4-6 hours every other weekend!)

On average, you should get about 3 CPs per typical gaming session. If you play every other weekend, you should end up with about 80 CP after a year of gaming. This will get you (in GURPS 4E):

+ 4 to IQ or DX (and these attributes are significantly more powerful than in D&D).
+ 8 to ST or HT
+ 20 in any one skill
+ A number of low-key advantages, or one or two really powerful ones.

Admittedly, using the base assumptions characters don't get as powerful as quickly as D&D characters - but that doesn't mean that their advancement is slow (and it could be argued that advancement in D&D is spectacularly fast). And if this is too slow for everyone's tastes, the GM can vary the rate of advancement.

Also, while GURPS has plenty of material available, most of it is background or so vague you really have to spend alot of time developing every session.

It is easy to run GURPS with almost every setting out there. I've run GURPS for Eberron and Warhammer Fantasy, and I know of a guy who has used it for an extended Forgotten Realms campaign.


Regarding GURPS combat: It can be tedious, but it doesn't have to be if you do it right. Here is some advice for "mook" enemies which I found useful:

- Don't give them a HT of more than 12, or else it will take them forever to fall unconscious.
- Don't give them a high Damage Resistance (DR 4 - the equivalent of chain mail - at most), or else your PCs will only be able to kill them with the "Death of a Thousand Cuts", which will get boring quickly.
- Don't give them a weapon skill of more than 12, or else they will be too good at parrying attacks.

If you want to make such mooks more dangerous, either give them higher ST and hit points (one of the most memorable fights of my campaign was three PCs against five ogres - the ogres didn't hit often, but when they did hit, they were in for a world of hurt, thus keeping the PCs on their toes. Using the optional Shield Damage rules also added to the fun - the shields of the PCs gradually disintegrated over the course of the fight...), or make them more numerous - this way, the fight will last as long as if you had used fewer but tougher opponents, but the players will have a definite sense of progress as each mook falls down.

Ignore these restrictions for "elite" foes - the kind of enemies who would warrant names of their own instead of just "generic guard #7". But there shouldn't be more than two of them unless it's a truly epic fight - instead consider giving them more mooks as buffers.

 

[Skallgrim]

I myself love GURPS (and I really urge everyone out there who hasn't looked at it to download the FREE PDF and look at it).

However, D&D does have its strengths (and, I think, one of the strengths of 4e is recognizing and playing to D&D's strengths). The critical one, for me, as a GM with relatively little prep time available to me, was the availability of published, prepared, adventures. This was a godsend.

For a GM with the time, skill, and inclination to create their own adventures, GURPS is a very flexible, fun system that can encourage a lot of player creativity.

 

[DragoonLance]

Well, for example we ran a Wierd War 2 campaign for the last 3 years. Nazi soldiers are laughable mooks, even SS; they were never any kind of threat, even at platoon or company strength plus heavy weapons. When characters actually use cover, are really trained at their primary weapon (and in GURPS who woudn't pour points into a single weapon skill?) Only tanks or Stukas were actual threats, and even then a bazooka or heavy sniper rifle could cause massive damage thanks to hit locations. The wierdness of the GURPS range system and the IMO overinflated damages for WW2 weapons are roughly the equivlent of everyone firing Save or Die spells at long range. For those not familiar with the system, an average human has 10-15 HP, and a battle rifle inflicts 7 or 8D6 damage.

I'm not always the GM, in the game we play on alternating weekends the GM is very stingy, sometimes handing out 1/2 a point for a game session. In this setting character development is a joke. In this fantasy setting I find myself as a player bored to tears in combat, simply repeating the same hack or fireball against ork #2342 ad nauseum.

Disposable mooks are not the problem although they contribute greatly to boredom in combat. Uberbosses that are immune to gunfire arn't the solution either cause then players feel railroaded and just roll their eyes. I'm not complaining about the material available as such, it's great for getting a feel for a setting, but for example in trying to build a Greek "Clash of the Titans" campaign there is NO MATERIAL that directly provides anything greater than adventure hooks. No premade missions, maps, etc. Its too "generic" for my tastes anymore. I won't say the players didn't have fun with it, but as a GM I had to try something different or face burnout.

 

[darjr]

However, D&D does have its strengths (and, I think, one of the strengths of 4e is recognizing and playing to D&D's strengths). The critical one, for me, as a GM with relatively little prep time available to me, was the availability of published, prepared, adventures. This was a godsend.

Preach it!

SJGames needs more published adventures. I know they have some, and they have some micro settings that are essentially this, but there needs to be more. I dunno the current state of GURPS third party licensing but I'd really like it if they could open up the gates a bit more on this.

I'm hopeing that their whole PDF push goes a bit in this direction. I'd like them to put out a line of little adventures. Something good for a nights play or two. I understand the issues about genre, but I think just picking a genre and getting a few out, then picking the next one, would go a long way to help us GMs.

 

[pawsplay]

He wanted a well-rounded character, not a superhero.

In other words, just throwing more points at the problem does not make it go away.

Yes, it does. A character can be quite round on 1000 points.

 

[pawsplay]

I'm tired of building a big bad NPC for hours in the GUPRS character creation system for a PC to "one shot kill" with a master strike to the eye.

Surely you've gotten your time's worth out of them by then. A memorable NPC needs development, even if you run them in a fairly deadly game. I hope you are not building complete NPCs from points, down to their hobby skills, unless they are significant personae. The way I see it, a 500 point NPC in GURPS takes no longer to make then a 10th level D&D NPC, and the fact that they can die quickly is just a potential time saver.

And, of course, there is no reason at all why an NPC has to die so easily. You can make combat less deadly, make the NPC tougher, or use any number of optional rules to give you some control over the situation. If you create Doctor Doom, by all means give him Super Luck with the defensive option.

 

[Ariosto]

I played GURPS a fair bit when it was first released, and on into the second edition. As an old fan of The Fantasy Trip, I found some of the basics of the combat system pretty familiar and pleasing. Various other bits and bobs are nifty, too ... but the whole shebang eventually lost its appeal for the fellows with whom I was playing, and for me.

Different people tend to like rules-heaviness in different areas. Also, there is no direct correspondence between that and "realism" in any sense. D&D 4E is by my standards a notably rules-heavy game -- but way down in the rankings in terms of verisimilitude.

The GURPS magic rules can bring home the inflexibility of a complex system, if one has a quite different view of how that aspect of a fantasy world is to work.

For a D&D-style game, I prefer ... good old D&D! I have never needed a heap of complicated rules to make it satisfyingly realistic. That comes from paying attention to the imagined world -- the first-order phenomenon -- not from getting buried from the start in a removed approximation.

 

[Ariosto]

The older Hero System is geared more to the fantastic, while offering (having pioneered them) many of the game-mechanical features one might find appealing in GURPS.

GURPS sourcebooks (and indeed the basic rule book itself) can be excellent material to have on hand, even if one is not running a campaign with the system.

 

[Umbran]

Yes, it does. A character can be quite round on 1000 points.

But, that can create rather different problems. Assuming that GURPS 4e handles character advancement in a manner similar to earlier editions: 1000 points is high - we played gritty Dark Ages style on... 300 or so, I think. I think 500 to 1000 was what was normally considered appropriate for GURPS Supers, no?

As with point buy systems in general, large point totals can make you a well-rounded character. It can also make you a focused character that is nigh-broken by comparison. The dichotomy between rounded and powergamed characters is heightened by point-buy, so if your players aren't all on board with what style you want, you can have problems by throwing points at the problem.

Which is not to say that throwing points at it will not work for you - merely that there's a trade-off to be made with that solution.