GURPS 4th Edition to be Released at GenCon

[Wrahn]

I enjoy GURPS. I have not found it broken. I'll leave it at that.

I would not deny you your enjoyment of the game

Just relating my experiences with it. (I have played in more than one GURPS campaigns that have lasted over a span of years and have enjoyed them, Just the high end of the game got a little... problematic.)

 

[The Cardinal]

Are you sure 13 Character Core books are enough at the table? Get a 14th, mang, it's the only way to be sure!

well, the reason for this is simply that this is a really good opportunity to coerce my players to buy their own damn books - at least when it comes to GURPS.
More than 80% of all our games use GURPS - but the majority of my players never bothered to buy one bleeding GURPS book! OTOH for the 15% of all our games that use D&D almost everyone bought himself at least the PHB - simply because the Player/DM book split implies (for them at least) that as a player you *need* the PHB. When it comes to GURPS, however, they often simply seem to think: The GM has tons of GURPS books, he knows every damn rule by heart, and he'll always help you out when you need to build a new PC - so why bother with the books?
This time I will simply force my players to support the one gaming company from which they get most of their entertainment - and woe to the poor bastard that I catch downloading GURPS books from Kazaa...

 

[tauton_ikhnos]

Cardinal: not a bad idea. May push for something similar here.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

one last thought: how is this going to affect ongoing GURPS lines like Transhuman Space and WWII?

From various comments made by company employees, I think there won't be any printed books for TS after the upcoming Toxic Memes. But apparently, it will be possible to write books for "e23", which they plan to be an online shop similar to RPGNow - and that's apparently the destination for the current TS proposals. We will have to see how this will work out in practice.

As for WWII, BANZAI will apparently have conversion notes. It's likely that some small supplements will also be released as PDFs for e23...

(Note: It is entirely possible that I misunderstood some of the details, so don't take any of this as the last word on these issues.)

 

[Numion]

well, the reason for this is simply that this is a really good opportunity to coerce my players to buy their own damn books - at least when it comes to GURPS.
More than 80% of all our games use GURPS - but the majority of my players never bothered to buy one bleeding GURPS book! OTOH for the 15% of all our games that use D&D almost everyone bought himself at least the PHB - simply because the Player/DM book split implies (for them at least) that as a player you *need* the PHB. When it comes to GURPS, however, they often simply seem to think: The GM has tons of GURPS books, he knows every damn rule by heart, and he'll always help you out when you need to build a new PC - so why bother with the books?

If your players buy the GURPS books and actually learn them .. minmaxing will run rampant, I fear. At least 3rd ed GURPS was prone to serious minmaxing. You're asking for it here! Well, maybe they've fixed those problems and GURPS 4e won't be about minmaxing, but I doubt it.

This time I will simply force my players to support the one gaming company from which they get most of their entertainment - and woe to the poor bastard that I catch downloading GURPS books from Kazaa...

Whats wrong with that? You're aim was to get everyone have their own copy and learn the rules. If they can do it with Kazaa, why not? Do you allow your D&D players to use the SRD, or do you force everyone to buy their own official copy?

 

[Stone Dog]

If your players buy the GURPS books and actually learn them .. minmaxing will run rampant, I fear. At least 3rd ed GURPS was prone to serious minmaxing. You're asking for it here! Well, maybe they've fixed those problems and GURPS 4e won't be about minmaxing, but I doubt it.

A friend of mine had a problem player that was all about tweaking the numbers in a GURPS game. It was an easy fix. "Make a well rounded character. If there is anything I see that I don't like I take it away and you don't get the points back." This worked out very well. The player made an excelent character with great background and there was nothing wrong with it. Of course this only worked because the player wasn't a twink and the GM was respected and fair.

I usually ask for a one page write up on the characters background, training and education then make it myself. That works out pretty good too.

Gurps does need some watching in the character generation phase, but there are ways around it.

Whats wrong with that? You're aim was to get everyone have their own copy and learn the rules. If they can do it with Kazaa, why not? Do you allow your D&D players to use the SRD, or do you force everyone to buy their own official copy?

These are not the same things. The SRD is a free resource put on the web by the creating company. Downloading a book from Kazaa is (arguably)stealing. Now I wouldn't force everybody to buy their own full books, but I would encourage it and I certainly would pass around copies of GURPS Lite since those are free.

 

[evileeyore]

What?! They're releasing another edition of GURPS already? But we were just getting used to the last edition of GURPS.

I swear, $teve Jack$on Game$ is just trying to screw gamers out of more money.

[/i]I know[/i] man I've only had my Compediums for like 8 years and already they are going out and rewriting rules. KAHN!1!

On a side note my first reaction was:

GLEEE!!!!!

Ahem now back to your regularly sized forum...

 

[tauton_ikhnos]

Note on cover art comments. SJ Games still has not confirmed/denied, but I did some research (which I should have first ).

http://www.das-brisingamen.de/zeleznik/zelez01.htm

That's the named artist who is doing the covers. No way did he make covers shown.

 

[d4]

If I recall correctly, I came to D&D before GURPS; but I have probably spent more total gaming years on GURPS.

you know what, i probably fit that demographic too.

started D&D in '82, stopped somewhere around '86 (so 4 years), and have been playing 3e since 2000 (for a total of 8 years). played GURPS from '90 to 2000 -- 10 years.

i still have a shelf-full of GURPS books and i still regularly buy them (just picked up All-Star Jam last week). i'm interested to see what the new edition will look like, but before i see some previews i'm not too worked up about it.

(just like i didn't care about "the new D&D" before i found Eric Noah's site.)

 

[buzz]

That's the named artist who is doing the covers. No way did he make covers shown.

Looks like the same guy to me, only with the GURPS covers not being his best work.