I would love for D&D to include more of the 'simulationist' aspects of GURPS, not because I give a fig for 'realism,' so much as for the fun aspects of *choosing* to stab at the eye, or kick someone in the junk, or attempt an arm lock, instead of just 'I swing. Okay, hit.' or 'I grapple.'
GURPS, in my opinion, really shows it's roots as a child of Man-to-Man, a magicless melee combat simulator, and the armed combat system is simple and elegant, if you're used to it (and awkward and kludgey if not, just like every other game, ever). But the magic / fantasy aspects of it really never inspired in the same way, and I'm much more of a sorcery buff than a swords buff, so we ended up 'D&Difying' our games somewhat, allowing Magery to go up past 3 levels (to 1/3rd IQ, or 1/2 IQ for single-college Magery), and all damaging spells (or healing spells or other spells with levels of effect) to be able to be bumped up to as many dice as your Magery. After years of play, with Mages running around with 150 to 200 character points (this was old-school, when characters started at 100 cp, which is apparently considered 'weak' by today's standards), 5 die blasts fueled from 50 pt powerstones allowed them to blast dragons out of the sky in our epic 'reunion game.' The 200 cp earth mage created an elemental large enough to batter down the gates to the arch-nemesis' castle and we stormed in with an army of zombies raised by the necromancer (and, in GURPS, a single zombie is pretty scary, since nobody has more than 10-14 'hit points'). (We also made buying extra hit points and strength past 13 cheaper, in that game, so that the non-mages didn't get left out. Then again, we also 'sped things up' by getting rid of PD entirely, making combats run much quicker. Apparently GURPS 4E did something similar, but then added 3 to all defense numbers, *completely freaking negating the change,* but hey, at least they came close to our house rule!)
We even had to 'nerf' some things, such as Force Dome, as 'totally indestructible' turned out to be a little *too* good. (The nerfed Force Dome had DR equal to Magery and hit points equal to spell skill.)
It was as high-fantasy a game as anyone could want.
Even in an *unmodified* GURPS 3rd, the shining knight character single-handedly slew a dragon, and another fighter, more greco-roman in flavor, handily whacked the leg off of a tyrannosaurus, felling it before it could devour him (although a 'buff' spell from a friendly mage, increasing his ST by 4, helped!) and then simply backing off from the crippled beast, since two more T-Rexes were attacking his comrades!
None of this was done with over 200 cp (closer to 150, IIRC), back in 3rd edition (without any special rules to 'D&Dify' it), so it's hardly 'super-hero' power levels! GURPS can be as 'high-fantasy' or over-the-top as you want. I've both run and played in Forgotten Realms games using the GURPS rules, although our group now prefers 3rd edition D&D for fantasy. (GURPS fantasy worked much better for us than 2nd edition, which had quite a lot of stuff that didn't balance well with other stuff, once the plethora of kits, specialty priests, Complete Humanoids race and Players Options 'build your own race and class' stuff got into the mix.) We still use GURPS for some Supers games (alternating with Villains & Vigilantes and Mutants & Masterminds, since we are schizo that way).
One thing I always liked about GURPS is how you'd get 1 to 3 cp at the end of every play session, and could immediately make some minor change to your character, such as learning a skill or training one up, or mastering a new spell. In AD&D, you'd go four or more sessions between 'level-ups,' and often get a bunch of stuff at once, necessitating some dead time while everyone 'leveled up' their character. The slow gradual growth appealed to me better than the, 'Hey, by killing that last orc, I learned how to cast 3rd level spells!' Each new option had time to get integrated, instead of getting lost in the flurry of new stuff. Instead of 'evolving' every 4 or 5 sessions, you'd grow more like Batman, not gaining a bunch of new super-powers every six issues, but slowly getting better, building on his strengths. There was never a session that you walked away from thinking that you hadn't gained anything, because you hadn't leveled.
GURPS, in my opinion, really shows it's roots as a child of Man-to-Man, a magicless melee combat simulator, and the armed combat system is simple and elegant, if you're used to it (and awkward and kludgey if not, just like every other game, ever). But the magic / fantasy aspects of it really never inspired in the same way, and I'm much more of a sorcery buff than a swords buff, so we ended up 'D&Difying' our games somewhat, allowing Magery to go up past 3 levels (to 1/3rd IQ, or 1/2 IQ for single-college Magery), and all damaging spells (or healing spells or other spells with levels of effect) to be able to be bumped up to as many dice as your Magery. After years of play, with Mages running around with 150 to 200 character points (this was old-school, when characters started at 100 cp, which is apparently considered 'weak' by today's standards), 5 die blasts fueled from 50 pt powerstones allowed them to blast dragons out of the sky in our epic 'reunion game.' The 200 cp earth mage created an elemental large enough to batter down the gates to the arch-nemesis' castle and we stormed in with an army of zombies raised by the necromancer (and, in GURPS, a single zombie is pretty scary, since nobody has more than 10-14 'hit points'). (We also made buying extra hit points and strength past 13 cheaper, in that game, so that the non-mages didn't get left out. Then again, we also 'sped things up' by getting rid of PD entirely, making combats run much quicker. Apparently GURPS 4E did something similar, but then added 3 to all defense numbers, *completely freaking negating the change,* but hey, at least they came close to our house rule!)
We even had to 'nerf' some things, such as Force Dome, as 'totally indestructible' turned out to be a little *too* good. (The nerfed Force Dome had DR equal to Magery and hit points equal to spell skill.)
It was as high-fantasy a game as anyone could want.
Even in an *unmodified* GURPS 3rd, the shining knight character single-handedly slew a dragon, and another fighter, more greco-roman in flavor, handily whacked the leg off of a tyrannosaurus, felling it before it could devour him (although a 'buff' spell from a friendly mage, increasing his ST by 4, helped!) and then simply backing off from the crippled beast, since two more T-Rexes were attacking his comrades!
None of this was done with over 200 cp (closer to 150, IIRC), back in 3rd edition (without any special rules to 'D&Dify' it), so it's hardly 'super-hero' power levels! GURPS can be as 'high-fantasy' or over-the-top as you want. I've both run and played in Forgotten Realms games using the GURPS rules, although our group now prefers 3rd edition D&D for fantasy. (GURPS fantasy worked much better for us than 2nd edition, which had quite a lot of stuff that didn't balance well with other stuff, once the plethora of kits, specialty priests, Complete Humanoids race and Players Options 'build your own race and class' stuff got into the mix.) We still use GURPS for some Supers games (alternating with Villains & Vigilantes and Mutants & Masterminds, since we are schizo that way).
One thing I always liked about GURPS is how you'd get 1 to 3 cp at the end of every play session, and could immediately make some minor change to your character, such as learning a skill or training one up, or mastering a new spell. In AD&D, you'd go four or more sessions between 'level-ups,' and often get a bunch of stuff at once, necessitating some dead time while everyone 'leveled up' their character. The slow gradual growth appealed to me better than the, 'Hey, by killing that last orc, I learned how to cast 3rd level spells!' Each new option had time to get integrated, instead of getting lost in the flurry of new stuff. Instead of 'evolving' every 4 or 5 sessions, you'd grow more like Batman, not gaining a bunch of new super-powers every six issues, but slowly getting better, building on his strengths. There was never a session that you walked away from thinking that you hadn't gained anything, because you hadn't leveled.
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, to GURPS 4e. 
