GURPS-Share your thoughts

[Conaill]

The other issue I'd bring up here is the way GURPS resolves tasks: rolling 3d6. Unless you memorize the probability tables, determining the exact effect of a penalty on the odds of success is more difficult. In fact, depending on the character's target number, the same penalty will affect characters in different ways. A flat probability die roll is a LOT easier to intuitively grasp, especially when dealing with bonuses and penalties (which affect the odds of success in exactly the same way).

Actually, I'd have to strongly disagree with this. It's an issue I've heard brought up before by people who are used to D&D's flat d20 roll.

To me, the outcome of a 3d6 mechanic is much *more* intuitive, even though I can't necessarily calculate the exact probabilities in my head. "Intuition" has nothing to do with being able to do statistics on the fly. Rather, it has everything to do with being able to follow your gut feeling. Our human brain has to deal with bellcurve-shaped probabilities in the world around us every day. So once you can get away from the bad habit of trying to do statistical calculations when you should be roleplaying, 3d6 actually winds up being more intuitive than d20...

 

[Numion]

Heh - If a game plays like a video game, I'd rather go play one.

Huh. Didn't see that one coming.

Besides, I doubt that differences in combat system make another game like video game or another like a book.

I just don't see the Gurps system making anything seem other than an excerise in math :\

And if we shift from the combat system to other aspects .. just whoah. The Gurps system is based on point-whoring the most mechanical advantages for conditional RP penalties that never come in to play, I think you get the picture from there. Like, whats the penalty for terminal illness if you know your characters isn't likely to make it for that long anyway?

I bet the WoD crowd would be just laughing off their asses right about now, if they knew D&D crowd arguing the Gurps crowd as to which system is better at creating novels

 

[Umbran]

Um, no. Did you read my post?

Yes, I read it. My apologies if I didn't get out of it what you intended. Note that I specifically reported what you seemed to be saying. I did that because there's always the possibility of miscommunication, and not admitting that possibility is hubristic. I'd take it as a kindness if you'd do me the favor of considering that possibility yourself, rather than suggest that I didn't read at all.

If your experience is the opposite, fair enough - could it be that you know d20 better than GURPS? I never see people post such an admission. It's always GURPS is slower - period.

I already did admit that I wasn't familiar with the newest addition (but nobody's suggested that the new edition has things that make it particularly faster). Back with previous editions, when I formed my opinion, I was quite familiar with both. I used GURPS for a couple of major adventure design projects and had to get pretty solid on the nitty-gritty before I was done. It took longer for my players to grasp GURPS in detail than d20 in detail, and even after getting up to speed, GURPS ran more slowly in combat. Sorry, but that's the way it worked out.

I've never had problems with how quickly the rules worked outside of combat, but one hardly notices any game mechanic when you're not in a scene that needs lots of task resolution.

I never said or implied that those who didn't agree with me were "GURPS haters".

Sorry - this is why I noted it as perhaps unintientional. It is rather easily inferred from, "Excluding rabid fanboys and haters from either side of the aisle, I'll try to give you an objective assessment." That's implying that someone has to be in those other camps, now doesn't it? You shouldn't be surprised when someone starts to think about who you mean by that

I also fail to understand how stating that it's a tough choice for me to pick between Conan and GURPS as my preferred system places me in the biased-GURPS-advocate camp.

Some of this may stem to a difference in terminology. Where I come from, objectivity isn't about "fair and balanced reporting". It is about universal truth - the speed of light in vacuum is an objective fact, measurable as the same by everyone. An objective report is listing things that all people will find to be true. Your opinion of GURPS is dependant upon your personal experience, and therefore subjective.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I just don't see the Gurps system making anything seem other than an excerise in math :\

And if we shift from the combat system to other aspects .. just whoah. The Gurps system is based on point-whoring the most mechanical advantages for conditional RP penalties that never come in to play, I think you get the picture from there. Like, whats the penalty for terminal illness if you know your characters isn't likely to make it for that long anyway?

If your campaign will last shorter than that time span, then your GM is fully justified in hitting you with a rolled-up newspaper. A cardinal rule of disadvantages is:

"A disadvantage that isn't disadvantageous to the character isn't worth any points."

A great many disadvantages (and advantages, for that matter) are inappropriate for many campaigns. This is intentional - with GURPS 4e the authors wanted to have everything for creating any conceivable character inside the Basic Set. This was a different design goal than what the creators of D&D intended, which focuses on a specific genre, and it is not an inherent weakness of the system.

I mean, just because it is possible within the rules to buy Social Status 7 and proclaim: "My character is the President of the United States!", there is no reason why the GM should allow this unless he plans a GURPS West Wing campaign. Likewise, if the campaign is a one-shot adventure that lasts only for short time frame, there is no reason at all why he should allow "Terminally Ill". This disadvantage is only suitable for longer campaigns where racing to either find a cure or some sense of closure for the character adds dramatic tension to it, and any GM worth his salt should realize.

To sum it up: If you are the sort of GM who will let his players walk all over him even though they are obviously min-maxing things without regard to what is appropriate to the campaign...

...then you probably shouldn't GM GURPS. Run another RPG that is less dependent on GM choice.


EDIT: I've realized that I was a bit snarky here. There is nothing wrong with an RPG that does much of the campaign preparation for you - when I started my D&D Forgotten Realms campaign last year I simply told my players: "Create 1st level characters", and that was it (until they showed me all sorts of "optional" books they wanted to use, but that's another matter...). GURPS forces the GM to put some more thought into what is and what is not permissable in a campaign. But I think it is worth it.

 

[Ethernaut]

however, it is a lot of work for a GM, while running D&D one can just pull out the monster manual and be good to go (combat wise, and in a time crunch)

I guess it depends on what type of games you run and what your "home system" is. I've been running GURPS games for almost 20 years now (though, I confess, I've only run one GURPS game in the last 4... Buffy and Risus have been taking up most of my time). I find that since I'm more accustomed to thinking of characters in the GURPS style of attributes, advantages, disadvantages, and skills... running a D&D/D20 game can be maddening as I try to shoe-horn a character concept into the D&D constraints.

Of course, it helps that I've developed a nice shorthand for non-player characters and monsters. I almost never pay attention to points for my non-player characters unless it matters for creating allies/patrons/enemies for the players. Paying that much attention to the rules is asking for trouble, though character creation software mitigates this somewhat.

For the record, I've run the following genres in GURPS:
- low-magic sword & sorcery (Lankhmar)
- Vampire & Voodoo meets Cyberworld
- Vampire & Voodoo & Supers meets Atomic Horror
- Vampire & Voodoo meets Age of Napoleon
- Vampire & Voodoo in the Roaring Twenties
- Riverworld
- Castle Falkenstien
- a D&D-like fantasy world (the only 4e game thus far)

 

[Ethernaut]

general, I think GURPS suffers from a simple fact - it is usually better to use a tool designed to do a specific job than to use a tool that's designed to do many jobs. A dedicated screwdriver will almost always d4rive screws better than the thing you find on your pocketknife. And these days, you have to go quite a way to find a genre that isn't reasonably covered by another system.

Ah, but what if your campaign crosses so many genres that your need that versatility? That's why I use Gurps. My games are cross-genre by definition and I'd rather have all my NPCs and characters in one game system (or least game systems that are easy to convert between).

 

[Ethernaut]

There may be more painful and unpleasant game systems to run, but I haven't found one.

Er. Rolemaster.

And I'd put anything D20 as being more unpleasant to run than Gurps, but that's just me. I love *playing* in D20 games but I find that it doesn't match my GM style at all.

 

[Ethernaut]

Honestly, d20 in some ways became what GURPS tried to be, a universal multi-genre system. There isn't one single "d20" book for all genres, but it's a system that just about every gamer is at least passingly familiar with, and it's been adapted to virtually every genre and setting out there (either officially or unofficially). GURPS strength is in the suppliments, not the rules.

The reason D20 will never be an acceptable universal system for me is that it never seems to have the right rules for the setting that I want to run. You have to hunt through dozens of supplements to find off bits of rules that *may* work in your game, but you have no idea if they'll really work in practice. GURPS (especially 4e) can be used to build 90% of the types of games I'd like to run.

You know, I've never really understood why people think GURPS is all that complicated. Character generation can be long and drawn out, especially as compared to whipping out a no-nonsense D&D character. But the basic mechanic of rolling 3d6 vs a target is no more complex than the d20 method. Gurps adds active defense, while D&D has attacks of opportunity. The other reason that I find D20 games hard to run is that I find that I have to learn more rules to run a combat than I do in Gurps.

I just want to come to the defense of my old standby game system. I don't particularly want to trash D&D or D20. I've been involved in far too many kick-ass D20/D&D games for that. As far as I'm concerned, any system is as good as the GM. And a GM should run any system that they are personally comfortable with.

 

[Ethernaut]

QUick question for anyone who has it: is CthulhuPun worth getting?

It's *ok*. I've even used a good deal of it for my Near-Future Horror game I used to run. But many people aren't fond of the Cyberpunk setting (which is getting very dated these days). It is also nowhere near the top of the list of best GURPS supplements to buy and doesn't approach the quality of most CoC supplments either.

 

[Conaill]

Character generation can be long and drawn out, especially as compared to whipping out a no-nonsense S&S character.

Yeah, character creation can definitely take a lot more time than in D&D. Just like using pointbuy in D&D will take more time than rolling stats.

On the other hand, this extra effort is only a one-time cost, paid up-front. Updating the character between sessions will typically take much *less* time than in D&D, so over the course of the character's life span you actually spend way less time doing character creation than in D&D.

Heck, I've seen people plan out their "build" for a D&D 1st level character all the way up to 10th level and beyond. That alone probably winds up taking more time than creating a beginning GURPS character from scratch. (And invariably they wound up scrapping the plan at pretty much every level, so they put even more time into their D&D character creation...)