GURPS-Share your thoughts

[Jürgen Hubert]

I haven't quite made up my mind whether that ability of high HT characters to be easy to cripple but almost impossible to kill is a bug or a feature.

Well, someone has to hit a limb and do 11 points of damage after substracting DR. Which might be difficult to do if the attackers aren't particularly strong.

(For the record, that character in question currently prefers to wear an enchanted set of plate mail. "Unfortunately", he forgot his helmet - which he definitely regretted when they learned they would face a mind flayer - and thus, the biggest single amount damage he received happened when a rock fell on his skull...)

 

[Jim Hague]

Do you have many players that want to play C-3PO or Spock?

Depends on the campaign. I do have plenty of happy players across two campaigns right now...a subtle indication that I'm running games to my players' satisfaction.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

One thing that I have noticed is that the one-second round leads to much greater panic on the part of the players.

In D&D, if someone is in trouble, someone else will likely say: "OK, I'll zip across the battlefield and help him out."

In GURPS, the response will likely be: "Oh s**t, will I reach him in time?"

Only being able to move five yards per turn or so will do that to you...

 

[Maximara]

GURPS supplements are excellent compendiums of related source information, and often contain great adventure ideas. I have about a half dozen that I use regularly.

On the other hand, the GURPS rules make me want to die. I loathe them with every fibre of my being. They're inconveniently and inconsistently granular, and I would NEVER play in a GURPS game.

Even though I am an avid GURPS fan I will admid the 3e rules were to put it bluntly a mess. Near the end the 3e system had grown into something that looked like it had been designed by Rube Goldberg on an LSD trip. 4e fixed a lot of the problems and intergrated things like cinematic optional rules into the core rules. For example the Cannon Fodder rule allows GURPS fighter to plow through minor NPC's with an ease rivaling that of a 10th level AD&D1 Fighter plowing through Kabols. Admitedly GURPS does require a little more thought by the GM than D&D 3.x but it is a far better cross genre system than d20 is.

 

[Chainsaw Mage]

Systems with short rounds are just ... annoying.

Amen to that, brother. That's why AD&D 1e and 2e are true MEN'S games. ONE MINUTE ROUNDS, baby. None of these 1 second/6 seconds nonsense.

 

[Shadoglare]

I'm new to the GURPS world - been playing D&D D20 for a few years, but when I decided I wanted to try GMing a game I wanted to try out a different system because I always felt the D&D rules were too unrealistic, especially when it comes to combat.

I'm planning a sci-fi campaign, and looked over a large number of game systems to see which I'd want to use... and considered D20 Future, deciding that it looked it it would likely fall under the same limitations as D&D, just with different images pasted on the game system.

GURPS, I will admit, has an absolute crapload of rules, *especially* when it comes to combat (we're talking 55 pages of rules, not even including the damage effects section - in comparison D&D has about 30 - more like 15 if you consider how much of that is taken up by graphics), which, if I'm sure I included/allowed all of them, would cause a 1-second combat round to take like 20 minutes to play realtime.

As a result I'm planning on using a basic set of combat rules, with the possibility of allowing players to use the more advanced rules only in special situations where the situation really calls for it.

I've already warned the people I'm planning to play with not to get overwhelmed by the books - because they try to cover *everything* in one book, there are a tons of rules & options - but over half of which probably won't apply to your individual campaign, so they can be ignored (for example there are if I remember right something like 60+ pages of advantages (aka feats) and disadvantages - but as I'm planning a semi-realistic sci-fi campaign, I can just tell the players to "ignore anything marked with an alien or a lightning bolt." Which is probably half of them if not more).

 

[Barak]

I'm my limited in lenght, pretty wide in scope (as in, I've played in a bunch of different settings, but never for long) experience, GURPS do their own stuff pretty darn well, and "copy" other stuff very badly. IE: GURPS:Japan was fun. GURPS:Vampire was dumb, and annoying.

That's not really that surprising. I'd -expect- a game limited to one style to be better at it than a generic game. But GURPS works pretty darn well at their own stuff.

As for players using math/game knowledge.. As a DM, I'd -never- punish that, especially for non-1st level character. That 10th level fighter in D&D will know much better than his player that moving 5' will not get a blow pass his defense, but moving 10' might.

 

[Breakdaddy]

Honestly, d20 in some ways became what GURPS tried to be, a universal multi-genre system.

/gags

 

[Breakdaddy]

If a game plays like a novel, I'd rather go read one.

If a table top RPG plays like a video game, I'd rather go play one.

 

[Maximara]

I'm my limited in lenght, pretty wide in scope (as in, I've played in a bunch of different settings, but never for long) experience, GURPS do their own stuff pretty darn well, and "copy" other stuff very badly. IE: GURPS:Japan was fun. GURPS:Vampire was dumb, and annoying.

Well the rumor mill here is that GURPS had a major headache dealing with White Wolf which is why those licenced products (Vampire, Mage the assention) turned out the way they did. For the most part when SJG does a licenced product it it usially a top notch effort as demonstrated by Conan, Castle Falkenstein, and Traveler. Yes there have been a few clunkers over the years (Fantasy II: The Madlands being the worst of the lot) but D&D has had similar mess ups.