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.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm not entirely sure its really narrative weight the way you usually use it; as I said, it a set of worlds some of which overtly work by genre conventions and the like that people who travel across them are well aware of. Probably a good comparison is some of the baked in horror rules Ravenloft deals with.

Ravenloft was always one of my favorite settings.

 

[Micah Sweet]

There's a new edition of GURPS coming out and I can find Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, and BattleTech on the shelves of my local game store. Obviously Star Fleet Battles is poised for a big comeback.

I wouldn't say no...

 

[AlexofBarbaria]

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

Yeah, I read about Quick Contests later. They're not explained until pg. 348, despite the term being used many, many times before that, which is crazy. I'd suggest moving the explanation of core mechanics to the beginning of the game -- but the page references, won't somebody please think of the page references

I found out why the Feint rule is so awkward: it's because the mechanic is subtly different from a normal Quick Contest. In a normal Quick Contest, your margin of victory includes your opponent's margin of failure, if they failed their roll. In a Feint, your bonus is capped at your margin of success; it never includes your opponent's margin of failure.

I hope this fiddly difference is necessary to prevent high Feint bonuses from somehow breaking the game, because it's pretty ugly.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

.

 

[Staffan]

(shrug) GURPS never really excelled at original settings, in my opinion. Banestorm was fine, but just fine. Infinite Worlds felt too heavy-handed, leaning too much on the “mission of the session” concept, and it didn’t get enough support from freelancers to make it truly come alive.

GURPS Technomancer is a nice bit of genius IMO. It's just too bad it's extremely strongly tied to the GURPS system.

The idea is that the first nuclear test explosion created some kind of rift that increases the ambient mana in the world, turning the world from the "normal" low-mana real world into normal mana, with high mana within some distance of the explosion (I want to say about 100 miles but I can't be bothered to check – anyway, a fair bit into Mexico as well). Now it's 50 years later and magic has become an industry, very much based on how GURPS magic works assisted by rules from a supplement (Grimoire?) that had stuff about using mundane power to enhance magic. So you have assembly-line mages working to create magic items, which include things like kevlar magic carpets used by special forces for surreptious intrusion. If a high-value worker calls in sick, they teleport in a healer who casts cure disease on them. And rocketry never developed much beyond the V2 – because of the effects of that first nuke (and a second one the Soviet Union used in Antarctica, which caused a MUCH larger effect) nuclear weapons were pretty much abandoned. The space program is alive and kicking though, but uses teleportation instead.

 

[Argyle King]

Yeah, I read about Quick Contests later. They're not explained until pg. 348, despite the term being used many, many times before that, which is crazy. I'd suggest moving the explanation of core mechanics to the beginning of the game -- but the page references, won't somebody please think of the page references

I found out why the Feint rule is so awkward: it's because the mechanic is subtly different from a normal Quick Contest. In a normal Quick Contest, your margin of victory includes your opponent's margin of failure, if they failed their roll. In a Feint, your bonus is capped at your margin of success; it never includes your opponent's margin of failure.

I hope this fiddly difference is necessary to prevent high Feint bonuses from somehow breaking the game, because it's pretty ugly.

Thanks for pointing that out. I've been playing the game long enough that I didn't even realize that was so late in the book. When I was first starting out, I also used a copy of GURPS Lite to help.

That could be the case with Feint. The game does have some built-in things like that in a few areas. I'm away from books at the moment, but I believe there are similar limitations on trying to resist mind control powers. Like many games, specific trumps general.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Ok, I didn't know that's how TORG works; like I said, never played it. If those are the laws of the setting, then IMO the mechanics are simulation and get a pass.

Yeah. Masterbook is a descendent of TORG and uses the same kind of mechanical constructs as TORG without those in-setting elements justifying them, but TORG was very much its own thing in this regard, and from what I understand of your position, your acceptance of it.

(One advantage I have in these discussions with you is I interacted with some of the really old-school simulationists on rec.games.frp.advocacy, and their positions were pretty close to yours, so I can understand your mindset even if I don't really share much of it.)

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah. Masterbook is a descendent of TORG and uses the same kind of mechanical constructs as TORG without those in-setting elements justifying them, but TORG was very much its own thing in this regard, and from what I understand of your position, your acceptance of it.

(One advantage I have in these discussions with you is I interacted with some of the really old-school simulationists on rec.games.frp.advocacy, and their positions were pretty close to yours, so I can understand your mindset even if I don't really share much of it.)

Well it is appreciated. It also helps that we're not talking about WotC D&D (it angries up the blood)!

 

[bergec]

(shrug) GURPS never really excelled at original settings, in my opinion. Banestorm was fine, but just fine. Infinite Worlds felt too heavy-handed, leaning too much on the “mission of the session” concept, and it didn’t get enough support from freelancers to make it truly come alive.

I dunno, man. I love Transhuman Space to death.

 

[kronovan]

The only way I'd buy into GURPS again, would be if there was also a new Character Set book which had templates that included a pared down skills list of all those appropriate to the genre a character belongs to. I no longer care to cobble my own together from suggested primary, secondary and background skills and then match it up against other character types that are suitable to the same genre. I thought I might get that in the few genre books I bought - nope. I guess what I'm asking for is pared down, genre-based skill lists.

It's too much lifting IMO for the GM for a session zero. And I don't want my more creative, enthusiastic players getting bogged down and burnt out on reading through the 350+ skills, whether it be while initialy building, or going through character development. And man oh man, could someone at SJG please improve the layout of character templates - IMO those are near to butt ugly. And while they're at it here'd be a novel idea; a bit of artwork depicting at least some of the templates.

I can't argue that the core mechanics of GURPS is solid, but the execution of them into published books is IMO poor.