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.

 

[AlexofBarbaria]

I have literally no idea what you are talking about, GURPS armor and weapons are pretty much the opposite of coarsely statted.

My claim is GURPS has few stats relative to the level of simulation they're going for. There's a preference to extend the simulation with exceptions to core mechanics and ad hoc math to core stats rather than new stats.

Adding new stats seems "unhygienic" to GURPS designers for some reason (granted I've never worked on an RPG as complex as GURPS and could be missing something).

The rule in Low-Tech that you mentioned to simulate the transformation of cutting damage into crushing on non-penetrating hits is a good example.

Low-Tech, pg. 102:

Roll damage and determine whether the blow can put at least 1 point of penetrating damage past twice the armor’s DR. If it can’t, then treat the cutting attack as merely crushing – that is, simply subtract the armor’s usual DR from damage to get injury. Such injury doesn’t actually slice through the armor, and is equivalent to blunt trauma. If the blow can penetrate twice the armor’s DR, then use the rules for cutting attacks as written – subtract the armor’s usual DR from damage and then multiply by 1.5 to find injury – and assume that the armor (and flesh!) is cut.

I strongly prefer the approach from this blog, which adds a new stat to armors called Edge Protection (basically it ties the double DR threshold off into a new stat, which is then allowed to vary). The procedure is simpler and the simulation is better.

An analogous example from D&D is when Pathfinder 1 simplified combat maneuvers by adding the CMB and CMD stats to characters.

 

[Willie the Duck]

How is that different from any other game? Rifts doesn't even bother defining what your % skills do in non-adventuring situations.

Broadly speaking, it isn't. That was the point. We play games to have characters go on some kind of adventure, and thus build mechanics that play out (have success and failure rates) that work for adventures.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Broadly speaking, it isn't. That was the point. We play games to have characters go on some kind of adventure, and thus build mechanics that play out (have success and failure rates) that work for adventures.

Not always. Plenty of games are sufficiently detailed to cover a variety of non-adventuring situations, often for reasons of simulation and/or verisimilitude.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Not always. Plenty of games are sufficiently detailed to cover a variety of non-adventuring situations, often for reasons of simulation and/or verisimilitude.

No, not always. Again, broadly speaking. I certainly want my final copy of Stonetop to have solid 'successful harvest' rules (as that is quite reasonably going to be an important outcome in the expected setting). But I also want its 'fighting' and 'climbing sheer surfaces' and 'leaping dangerously long spans' rules to be built around and facilitating the adventures a typical Stonetop PC might get up to.

And, to be clear, I was explaining why IMO GURPS is the way it is. That there might be counterexample RPGs that are not GURPS won't change it. GURPS has a resolution system that tops out at a 2% failure rate*, and notes PC-typical scores in the 63-84% success range. Why? IMO because it concerns itself with activities that have 2-98% chances of success, and expects PCs to be engaging regularly in activities to which the have a ~63-84% success chance. Where one runs into those activities outside such ranges, it has special rules like +4 to the check or not even rolling (which clearly has gaps for activities that are possible but then have less than 2%/maybe 0.5% chance of happening).
*with I think some special circumstances where a 17 can be a success, but I forget the specifics. Either way, that just caps in at 0.5%

 

[Micah Sweet]

No, not always. Again, broadly speaking. I certainly want my final copy of Stonetop to have solid 'successful harvest' rules (as that is quite reasonably going to be an important outcome in the expected setting). But I also want its 'fighting' and 'climbing sheer surfaces' and 'leaping dangerously long spans' rules to be built around and facilitating the adventures a typical Stonetop PC might get up to.

And, to be clear, I was explaining why IMO GURPS is the way it is. That there might be counterexample RPGs that are not GURPS won't change it. GURPS has a resolution system that tops out at a 2% failure rate*, and notes PC-typical scores in the 63-84% success range. Why? IMO because it concerns itself with activities that have 2-98% chances of success, and expects PCs to be engaging regularly in activities to which the have a ~63-84% success chance. Where one runs into those activities outside such ranges, it has special rules like +4 to the check or not even rolling (which clearly has gaps for activities that are possible but then have less than 2%/maybe 0.5% chance of happening).
*with I think some special circumstances where a 17 can be a success, but I forget the specifics. Either way, that just caps in at 0.5%

Sorry. Your post talked in generalities. "The reason we play games", not the reason we play GURPS.

 

[pawsplay]

Where one runs into those activities outside such ranges, it has special rules like +4 to the check or not even rolling (which clearly has gaps for activities that are possible but then have less than 2%/maybe 0.5% chance of happening).
*with I think some special circumstances where a 17 can be a success, but I forget the specifics. Either way, that just caps in at 0.5%

Just like D&D, where you might get +4 to hit a helpless foe or something.