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.

 

[MGibster]

Yes, but that's exactly the problem: The price tags can't really take into account that one and the same dis/-advantage can be of radically different value depending on your campaign, setting, even the current scenario ... so the idea that all 175-point characters should be able to apply roughly the same amount of influence to the world is jut an illusion. Depending on you campaign frame, they will be wildly different.

While I acknowledge the flaw, I don't consider it a serious flaw. Really, it's a flaw with near ubiquity across many, many game systems.

But putting a fixed price tag on everything is just pseudo-objectivity. Either the price tag is campaign-dependent and each settig needs its own list, which is not necessarily compatible with the others in terms of point costs, or you go the Fate route where you pay/are paid when something comes up in play.

Pseudo-objectivity is all we have. Not putting a price on Rank or other Advantages would be even worse I think.

 

[Ghost2020]

I bought the two core books three months ago.... same bad luck as with Numenera 3e.

I started creating a GURPS 4e fantasy character but never finished it. Had to ask for help on the GURPS Facebook group. It felt like the game was written for people who have prior knowledge of GURPs. That is not a good look for an RPG. I'll give it another try this Winter.

This is worth looking at.... GURPS Character Sheet it has a great program and there are videos on youtube.

Also, check out GURPS Lite, it's a free PDF. Worth a look.

If you feel like GURPS 4th is too dense, and honestly it is, try GURPS 3rd edition. It's far more accessible and easier to read.
Actually, try GURPS 3rd ed Lite. It's even better!

 

[dbm]

Just posted in the forums on SJG:

Here's a follow-up to the earlier "What is this?" info that Doug shared and that I elaborated on. I was just cleared by Steve and by Marketing to share more – though not everything. None of this is likely to change, however . . . it will just be better-worded in official publicity. And no, I have no date as yet.

—

Bigger​

• A single omnibus volume. Like most modern RPGs. Eliminates duplicate endpapers to make room for game content.
• 16 pages longer. Allows even more game content.
• 27 pages of bonus content. We have filled the extra space with best-of and popular rules and traits, curated from 21 years of GURPS supplements and Pyramid issues.

Better​

• Rewording to improve clarity and address FAQs.
• Errata fixes.
• Sensitivity revisions for the modern reader.

More Accessible​

• Modern PDF. Allows better rendering, and faster searches and page-flipping.
• Two-column layout with more spacious pages. Easier to read for all.
• Machine-readable icons.

Plus Bells and Whistles​

• Prettier. New, distinctive cover, and new interior color art culled from the entire GURPS opus to better illustrate the material.
• Informative box quotes. Gone are filler pull quotes, replaced with rules clarifications and summaries, and pointers to related rules and supplements.
• Total backward compatibility. No rules changes – just clarity and errata fixes – and no page-reference changes.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, I like GURPS, but I wouldn't for example want to use it to run Forgotten Realms. I think it's ill-suited to the task.

Though they've at least moved away from the tendency early in the first edition to think the core magic system is an all purpose power tool (to be fair, it looked positively generic compared to things like the D&D magic system, but that's damning with faint praise, as the Witch World sourcebook's attempt to cram it into that setting showed) and have done a large number of more specialized magic systems. Even Hero struggled with that sort of thing, and it was better set up to customize magic systems out the gate because of its origin.

 

[Thomas Shey]

While I acknowledge the flaw, I don't consider it a serious flaw. Really, it's a flaw with near ubiquity across many, many game systems.


Pseudo-objectivity is all we have. Not putting a price on Rank or other Advantages would be even worse I think.

At the very least it would require more end-user design work than probably makes any sense to expect. BESM did that with its skill costs, but it didn't attempt to do it with everything else.

 

[Ron]

I have great sentimental attachment to GURPS, but let's be frank: The system is outdated. The Zeitgeist has moved past its level of crunch. If SJG is going to do anything with it, it's time for a fifth edition. Do for GURPS what D&D 5E did for v3.5. Streamline it. Edit out the problematic bits. Make it easier to start playing GURPS than it is to play, say, the Cypher System. There will always be a market for a universal RPG system, but the market for this universal RPG system moved on to other things 10 years ago. Minor revisions won't cut it.

Both Steve Jackson and I were at Gamehole Con this weekend. I wish I'd had the opportunity to say this to him directly.

I played a ton of 3rd edition back in the day. Honestly, I always felt it was way more complicated than it needed to be. But instead of streamlining things, SJG went the other way and crammed a bunch of the supplement rules into the core book, making it even messier.

I still think GURPS has potential if they ever decide to simplify it. But let’s be real, it seems like SJG isn’t aiming to grow the player base anymore. They’re probably just focused on squeezing what they can from the folks already in the ecosystem.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I played a ton of 3rd edition back in the day. Honestly, I always felt it was way more complicated than it needed to be. But instead of streamlining things, SJG went the other way and crammed a bunch of the supplement rules into the core book, making it even messier.

I still think GURPS has potential if they ever decide to simplify it. But let’s be real, it seems like SJG isn’t aiming to grow the player base anymore. They’re probably just focused on squeezing what they can from the folks already in the ecosystem.

Like I said, they can try to make the already extent ecosystem happier, or they can spend a lot of time and effort trying to push their way into the lighter generic market, which is already pretty saturated. If they're going to bother at all, I know which one I'd think made more sense.

 

[VHawkwinter]

Though they've at least moved away from the tendency early in the first edition to think the core magic system is an all purpose power tool (to be fair, it looked positively generic compared to things like the D&D magic system, but that's damning with faint praise, as the Witch World sourcebook's attempt to cram it into that setting showed) and have done a large number of more specialized magic systems. Even Hero struggled with that sort of thing, and it was better set up to customize magic systems out the gate because of its origin.

Yep. My favourite GURPS magic system is houseruling and repurposing GURPS powers.

 

[Staffan]

I played a ton of 3rd edition back in the day. Honestly, I always felt it was way more complicated than it needed to be. But instead of streamlining things, SJG went the other way and crammed a bunch of the supplement rules into the core book, making it even messier.

I still think GURPS has potential if they ever decide to simplify it. But let’s be real, it seems like SJG isn’t aiming to grow the player base anymore. They’re probably just focused on squeezing what they can from the folks already in the ecosystem.

I've mentioned this in other threads about GURPS, but as I recall GURPS 2e and original 3e had fairly reasonable lists of skills and advantages. Then came approximately three billion sourcebooks about all sorts of stuff, many written by people who were experts on that topic, and since they were experts they knew things in more detail than the original game designers. This lead to many more skills and advantages and other rule bits being created within that narrow topic. This then got multiplied by approximately three billion sourcebooks, with some of it brought into the core itself and other things brought into the two Compendia, and later turned into 4e. And now we have a game where Electronics Operation (media)/TL X is distinct from Photography/TL X and they default to one another at a humongous -5, where Physiology/TL X is distinct from Physician/TL X, and which has a skill for Packing.

 

[Argyle King]

Ever thrown a grenade in GURPS?

yes

Full damage from direct impact.
Damage is less if farther away from the explosion.

That makes sense.

Some grenades create shrapnel, which is treated roughly the same as a rapid fire projectile weapon (margin of success determines hits)

In short: standing at ground zero of an explosion is bad for your health; being farther away or having cover increases your chances of survival