GURPS 4th Edition Revised Announced

GURPS is getting a revised 4th edition. Steve Jackson Games has quietly announced a revised version of GURPS current edition, with a focus on cleaning up wording and layout. Announced at Gamehole Con and further detailed in this thread on the Steve Jackson Games server, the revised edition will be fully compatible with all existing 4th edition GURPS material, right down to preserving page references in existing books. There will be rule changes in the form of additions that will be added via addenda, with players able to bring in those rules as they see fit to their existing 4th edition games.

GURPS stands for Generic Universal Role Playing System and is intended to be a rules system that can be used for any kind of story or genre. Steve Jackson has long-hinted that a new edition of GURPS was on the way, although it appears that they opted to keep the current edition rather than rebuild the game or make significant changes to its mechanics.

From DouglasCole on the GURPS forums:

Since the GURPS Fourth Edition Revised monkey is out of the sack:

Zero. It won't be years. Most of the work is already done.

1. By far the biggest differences are major changes to physical layout and design. I'm not sure what SJ leaked at Gamehole Con, so I'm not going to go into detail here beyond saying, "The thing will be easier to use and read." It will not look the same, despite #3 below.

2. It is definitively not GURPS Fifth Edition, or even a GURPS Third Edition to GURPS Fourth Edition-level change! It is a GURPS Third Edition to GURPS Third Edition Revised-level change. It will not make edition-level changes to point costs, modifiers, prices, weights, etc. All rules changes will be additions, in clearly marked addenda "chapters," so that people can easily decide what to retcon into Fourth Edition campaigns.

3. Top priority is to preserve page references so that whether you use the Basic Set, Fourth Edition or Basic Set Fourth Edition Revised, an internal "p. 00" or external "p. B00" points you to the same rule. This brooks little to no rewriting outside of the addenda mentioned in #2.

4. Inasmuch as there is some rewriting, as in #3, it will be to remedy some particularly offensive or unclear passages. Not to change rules!

5+. And other minor stuff while we're at it. The above will inevitably change the size, shape, and location of art and quote boxes, so expect art and quotes to change, too. We'll update the credits to reflect additional material in the addenda, and the creatives who created the revised book. I'm sure there are 100 things like that.

#3 is the single most important element in living up to the promise of compatibility. There are literally millions of page references in 21 years of supplements and articles, not to mention community discussions. Invalidating them would mean a huge slap in the face. But #1 is the main reason to do the thing. So, it isn't a conflict . . . it's a visual upgrade that doesn't insult customers, while still providing both enhanced readability AND some extra "best of" addenda.

I can say without shilling or exaggerating that it is far, far more than a new printing. It just isn't a full edition. There are things between the two. A revision is one of those things. If all a reader cares about is the rules . . . well, there will be lots of addenda, but no, not a full revision. However, lots of readers care about readability, sensitivity, design aesthetics, being aware that it's 21 years later, etc. even if not a single rule changes.

Well, that's it for my needless leaks to follow SJ's leaks, but the takeaways:

• Better, more readable layout with different art and quotes.
• Mostly less controversial words, excepting indefinite pronouns (for economic reasons).
• More than 25 pages of "best of" rules skimmed from 21 years of system growth.
• Incidental glitch cleanup (e.g., mistaken "damage" for "injury," or "than" for "that").
• Promise of NO rules or page-reference changes to maintain total compatibility.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I did say there were exceptions. Savage Worlds has always had some metacurrency, but most of its rules, like those of most traditional games IME, are simulative of something real in the setting. Most of the time, that's what I want.

I just think there are some pretty old games--and you know in my case, I'm meaning more than a decade or two--where the mechanics are representative, but not simulationist; what I mean by that is even though they largely predate metacurrency, some of their mechanics are still leaning into genre conventions rather than anything anyone in the world involved would acknowledge are real. You've given the nod to superhero games before, but there are others that do that too, like horror and some pulp representation.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I just think there are some pretty old games--and you know in my case, I'm meaning more than a decade or two--where the mechanics are representative, but not simulationist; what I mean by that is even though they largely predate metacurrency, some of their mechanics are still leaning into genre conventions rather than anything anyone in the world involved would acknowledge are real. You've given the nod to superhero games before, but there are others that do that too, like horror and some pulp representation.

Can you give some examples? I haven't played games like that in a while.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Can you give some examples? I haven't played games like that in a while.

Unfortunately, almost all the ones I used that way back in the day (and thus have stuck throroughly in my head) were Hero System based, but I know there were plenty of others in the 80's and late 90's. Chill, maybe, on the horror end?

 

[Swanosaurus]

Their choices in presentation and 3PP content have led to GURPS' decline compared to other RPGs, even though they were once #4 in the market. Even their attempts, like Dungeon Fantasy, have been marred by glaring blind spots that a robust 3PP ecosystem could have headed them off from pursuing. Namely, that the presentation revolved around detailed and complex 250 pt templates with dozens of items to track.

TBH, I still consider Dungeon Fantasy a weird choice to draw in new people ... While I can see why anyone who already plays GURPS might like a ready-made powercrunch fantasy implementation, but I do not know why someone should choose it over D&D, or DCC, or any other more classic Dungeon RPG.

Infinite Worlds and Banestorm are settings that seem to be much more in tune with the implications of GURPS and could be sold as something exciting and different. Presenting either of them (or something else along the lines) as a full-fleged, curated mid-crunch GURPS would have seemed a lot more promising to me and could have re-established a recognizabel and appropriate core identity for GURPS. Like "GURPS is that dimension hopping RPG, but you can also buy the full, setting-agnostic rules encyclopedia, and it has lots of other setting and rules supplements, which goes really well with dimension-hopping."

 

[Swanosaurus]

Can you give some examples? I haven't played games like that in a while.

Pendragon might be a case - it really enforced certain themes of honour and chivalry romance through the rules.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Pendragon might be a case - it really enforced certain themes of honour and chivalry romance through the rules.

Pendragon is a good one, and definitely falls into my exception category for genre-appropriate play (although I appreciate all the representational mechanics it has as well).

 

[VHawkwinter]

TBH, I still consider Dungeon Fantasy a weird choice to draw in new people ... While I can see why anyone who already plays GURPS might like a ready-made powercrunch fantasy implementation, but I do not know why someone should choose it over D&D, or DCC, or any other more classic Dungeon RPG.

I picked it up as my introduction to GURPS, but I was someone happy with the rough premise of D&D but largely frustrated over the mechanics of the editions and clones I was aware of at the time, and it took me years to get there. I picked it up as a more approachable way to get into GURPS after finding Basic Set a bit overwhelming... That said:

Infinite Worlds and Banestorm are settings that seem to be much more in tune with the implications of GURPS and could be sold as something exciting and different. Presenting either of them (or something else along the lines) as a full-fleged, curated mid-crunch GURPS would have seemed a lot more promising to me and could have re-established a recognizable and appropriate core identity for GURPS.

I've never been especially interested in the 'GURPS Sliders' Infinite worlds, and Banestorm didn't grab me, but I would 100% pick up a self contained Transhuman Space RPG (Ideally bundled with the GURPS Spaceships series or with prebuilt ships and pointing you at Spaceships for more, and pointing you at GURPS Space).

Like "GURPS is that dimension hopping RPG, but you can also buy the full, setting-agnostic rules encyclopedia, and it has lots of other setting and rules supplements, which goes really well with dimension-hopping."

I can see how that could make for a good default identity though I suppose, even if it's not a setting I would pick up.

 

[dbm]

I still consider Dungeon Fantasy a weird choice to draw in new people ... While I can see why anyone who already plays GURPS might like a ready-made powercrunch fantasy implementation, but I do not know why someone should choose it over D&D, or DCC, or any other more classic Dungeon RPG.

Dungeon Fantasy gives solid mechanical support for dungeon exploration and creative engagement with the environment. That’s one of the strengths of GURPS - you can apply logic and creativity to problems and it won’t be just a simple skill check or GM call. And characters can have a breadth of detailed skills to make that interesting with different approaches.

It also addresses the ‘linear fighter, quadratic wizard’ with a 180 flip - martial characters boss combat in Dungeon Fantasy and magic is much more useful for tactical application than damage dealing. Explosive Fireballs are prohibitively expensive, and you are better off with a buff or debuff to help out the martials.

The brief of Dungeon Fantasy is not to be a GURPS version of D&D - its brief is to apply GURPS strengths to dungeon exploration and raiding.

 

[Staffan]

Can you give some examples? I haven't played games like that in a while.

TORG, in addition to having Possibilities as metacurrency as well as cards that let PCs influence things, has built-in narrative mechanics. The biggest is that each invading realm has its own Axioms and World Laws. Axioms determine how advanced that realm is in various ways (Spiritual, Magical, Technological, and Social), which is what sort of thing its natives can do, and what sort of things interlopers can do easily. For example, the Living Land is limited to stone age tech, so when someone comes along with an M-16 it does not work. At least not for long. On the other hand, it is full of the spiritual power of the goddess Lanala, allowing the natives to work amazingly powerful miracles... but only inside the Land. In addition, each realm has World Laws which determine things in addition to the axioms. For example, the Living Land loves life and abhors dead things. So living things heal faster, and dead things decompose and are destroyed faster. Your clothes will tear, your gear will rust, and your food will rot. The natives use miracles to make plants grow into weapons and equipment that are still alive and can be replanted, but interlopers will usually not have such advantages.

Similarly, other realms have their own world laws. Nippon Tech/Pan Pacifica (slightly advanced intrigue-filled realm with a good dose of Hong Kong-style action – it was renamed in the reboot) has the Law of Betrayal, stating that any organization large enough will have at least one traitor. Aysle, the fantasy realm, has the Laws of Honor and Corruption which state that being honorable or corrupt will show, and can grant certain benefits. The Nile Empire (30s pulp action) has the Law of Action, which makes everything even more action-filled than the default. And so on.

 

[Argyle King]

Didn't SJG already try that? I could be wrong but my impression was that it didn't really rekindle the GURPS flame.

Sorta, but most of the effort was focused on Dungeon Fantasy, which still starts at a high power level.

As a drive-by shot at GURPS, I've been reading it lately and have been disappointed given its reputation for elegance.

Here's the Feint rule:


Uh, this is not what I'd call elegant. This should be something like:
"Make a Weapon Skill Opposed Check vs. your opponent. If you win, on your next attack they take a penalty to their defense equal to your margin of success."

That's what it says. Quick Contests are GURPS terminology. However, that may be an example of where the update could make things clearer.