GURPS - What is it?
- Thread starter Decamber
- Start date
GURPS is Steve Jackson Games' Generic Universal Role Playing System ( http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/ ). It is essentially the same type of rules system that d20 is, in the sense that it is a core set of fairly universal and generic rules that can be adapted or expanded easily to fit into any genre game. The actual mechanics do vary greatly from D&D and other D20 games though, GURPS being a more realistic (read: lethal) rules set that uses a character generation system that is almost entirely point buy, meaning you have little or no randomness in building your character.
All you really need is the GURPS Basic set ( http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/Basic/ ), which is $29.95 USD. There are something like 60 or 70 "worldbooks" which you can buy to expand into different settings or genres, but these are optional. They are very good in general though, and are packed with enough non-rules background material and ideas to make them useful even if you don't use the GURPS system.
If you want to give the system a try, SJG offers GURPS Lite ( http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/lite/ ), a 'fast play' style downloadable introductory version of the game. It's complete enough to run a few one shot adventures to decide if the system is right for you, so I definately recommend downloading it and giving it a shot.
One thing worth mentioning that a lot of ENWorlders will find important is that GURPS is available in a few different language editions too. Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, French, Italian, German, and Spanish are all available, as well as a Braille edition for the vision impaired gamers out there (I may be wrong, but I believe SJG is the only RPG company that offers Braille versions as a standard edition of their games).
All you really need is the GURPS Basic set ( http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/Basic/ ), which is $29.95 USD. There are something like 60 or 70 "worldbooks" which you can buy to expand into different settings or genres, but these are optional. They are very good in general though, and are packed with enough non-rules background material and ideas to make them useful even if you don't use the GURPS system.
If you want to give the system a try, SJG offers GURPS Lite ( http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/lite/ ), a 'fast play' style downloadable introductory version of the game. It's complete enough to run a few one shot adventures to decide if the system is right for you, so I definately recommend downloading it and giving it a shot.
One thing worth mentioning that a lot of ENWorlders will find important is that GURPS is available in a few different language editions too. Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, French, Italian, German, and Spanish are all available, as well as a Braille edition for the vision impaired gamers out there (I may be wrong, but I believe SJG is the only RPG company that offers Braille versions as a standard edition of their games).
Bran Blackbyrd
Explorer
I'll leave it to one of the more ambitious posters to flesh this out, but basically...
GURPS stands for Generic Universal Roleplaying System. The bare minimum required to play would be, other than a pencil and paper, dice, friends, and the basic rulebook. A calculator might be a good idea too.
There are a lot of extra books, some are whole campaign settings, and some are add ons. Books for vehicles, books for superheroes, books on playing in the land of the Aztecs, the list goes on. Bunnies and Burrows is a GURPS setting where the PCs are rabbits, based in no small part on the novel Watership Down. There are Horror settings, Illuminati, Futuristic, conversions of exsting RP systems...
I have a few of the books, but have never actually played the game. D&D players are rare in this neck of the woods, GURPS players are almost unheard of. The concept of the ultimate flexible system was what got me to buy the books, and I won't pass judgement since I never actually played, but it seemed a bit clunky to me.
HTH.
GURPS stands for Generic Universal Roleplaying System. The bare minimum required to play would be, other than a pencil and paper, dice, friends, and the basic rulebook. A calculator might be a good idea too.
There are a lot of extra books, some are whole campaign settings, and some are add ons. Books for vehicles, books for superheroes, books on playing in the land of the Aztecs, the list goes on. Bunnies and Burrows is a GURPS setting where the PCs are rabbits, based in no small part on the novel Watership Down. There are Horror settings, Illuminati, Futuristic, conversions of exsting RP systems...
I have a few of the books, but have never actually played the game. D&D players are rare in this neck of the woods, GURPS players are almost unheard of. The concept of the ultimate flexible system was what got me to buy the books, and I won't pass judgement since I never actually played, but it seemed a bit clunky to me.
HTH.
Bran Blackbyrd
Explorer
Corndog, you won the quickdraw contest this time, but I'll have my eye on you come high noon...
The Cardinal
First Post
GURPS is and has been my favorite system for the last 7 years now. I own more than 100 books for it - but all you really need to start of is GURPS Lite (for free on the sjg website).
Good basic GURPS library:
Basic Set
both Compendiums
Martial Arts
Magic & Grimoire
Psionics
Great genre stuff:
Illuminati
Cabal (the world of darkness done *right*)
Warehouse 23
Horror 3e (coming up - by Ken Hite himself [and with additional material written by yours truly...])
Swashbucklers
Steampunk & Steam-Tech
Atomic Horror
Cthulhupunk
Equipment & Goodies:
Low-Tech
Steam-Tech
High-Tech
Ultra-Tech 1&2
Bio-Tech
Great Settings:
New Sun
Technomancer
Reign of Steel
Transhuman Space
Cabal
Good basic GURPS library:
Basic Set
both Compendiums
Martial Arts
Magic & Grimoire
Psionics
Great genre stuff:
Illuminati
Cabal (the world of darkness done *right*)
Warehouse 23
Horror 3e (coming up - by Ken Hite himself [and with additional material written by yours truly...])
Swashbucklers
Steampunk & Steam-Tech
Atomic Horror
Cthulhupunk
Equipment & Goodies:
Low-Tech
Steam-Tech
High-Tech
Ultra-Tech 1&2
Bio-Tech
Great Settings:
New Sun
Technomancer
Reign of Steel
Transhuman Space
Cabal
WizarDru
Adventurer
Darklance said:
GURPS is designed to scale more with your level of preference. Ultimately, like d20, there are really only a few core mechanics, but also like d20, it can become very complex if you use the whole tool set.
Creating a character is more complicated than a D&D character, but not high math...it just takes getting used to.
Chief complaints that I know of are that it is broken at higher power settings (it can made to work, but it requires patching...having run a GURPS Supers game for 8 years, I know). It is prone to min/maxing....but so are most systems, so I don't really value this as a valid claim.
Another complaint is that the generic nature of the core system makes for bland gameplay, even with different settings. This is a vulnerability, but it can be addressed.
YMMV.
I played GURPs for several years, so I am probably qualified to identify some pros and cons. Let's start with the cons and the reasons why I don't play GURPS anymore:
1. Complexity: GURPS features a point-buy character creation system using a single, rather large (100+ pts) pool to buy all of a PC's abilities, including attributes, skills and special traits. The large number of skills, advantages and disadvantages available can be confusing, especially if you own many sourcebooks.
Apart from character creation itself, GURPS offers a very realistic and rather deadly combat system (which in itself is no disadvantage, at least IMO), but using the full rules can be cumbersome (you don't have to, but the group I played with more or less insisted). In essence, you get a quite detailed tabletop combat game.
2. Balance Issues: The point-buy character system appears balanced on the surface, because it sets a value for everything. But it is not and IMO, real balance is unachievable in this way, so all it does (and did for my group!) is to invite min/maxing. Getting extra points to spend for taking mental disadvantages that have only roleplaying effects is just the tip of the iceberg here. I removed this option from my game, clearly separating PC personality and statistics, but was still not happy with many of the traits with game-mechanical effects.
The skill system is also problematic, as new skills are rather cheap to learn. So PCs tend to have a longish list of "standard" adventuring skills, whether they fit the character concept or not. I really got fed up with discussions like "So you are a bookish mage type - WTF have you learned "Running" skill?!" (a skill which makes you faster, even if you put just 1/2 a point in it
).
So these are the reasons I don't play GURPS anymore. While it worked ok with my old gaming group at school, when I tried introducing it to a new gaming group at university, it turned out that it was confusing the players and detracting from the fun.
What I liked or still like about GURPS:
1. Flexibility: It has been mentioned by other in this thread that there are a lot of sourcebooks for various genres and settings, as GURPS is a generic system. The advantage of the character creation system is obviously that you can create exactly the character you like (at the power level set by the point total).
2. Quality: The setting-specific sourcebooks are usually very well researched and full of good stuff. And they contain lots of non-rule information, making them valuable for GMs using other game systems. E.g. I would recommend GURPS "Discworld" as resource to anybody planning a Discworld campaign, though I would not recommend using the GURPS rules, which are far too "heavy" for comic fantasy.
1. Complexity: GURPS features a point-buy character creation system using a single, rather large (100+ pts) pool to buy all of a PC's abilities, including attributes, skills and special traits. The large number of skills, advantages and disadvantages available can be confusing, especially if you own many sourcebooks.
Apart from character creation itself, GURPS offers a very realistic and rather deadly combat system (which in itself is no disadvantage, at least IMO), but using the full rules can be cumbersome (you don't have to, but the group I played with more or less insisted). In essence, you get a quite detailed tabletop combat game.
2. Balance Issues: The point-buy character system appears balanced on the surface, because it sets a value for everything. But it is not and IMO, real balance is unachievable in this way, so all it does (and did for my group!) is to invite min/maxing. Getting extra points to spend for taking mental disadvantages that have only roleplaying effects is just the tip of the iceberg here. I removed this option from my game, clearly separating PC personality and statistics, but was still not happy with many of the traits with game-mechanical effects.
The skill system is also problematic, as new skills are rather cheap to learn. So PCs tend to have a longish list of "standard" adventuring skills, whether they fit the character concept or not. I really got fed up with discussions like "So you are a bookish mage type - WTF have you learned "Running" skill?!" (a skill which makes you faster, even if you put just 1/2 a point in it
).So these are the reasons I don't play GURPS anymore. While it worked ok with my old gaming group at school, when I tried introducing it to a new gaming group at university, it turned out that it was confusing the players and detracting from the fun.
What I liked or still like about GURPS:
1. Flexibility: It has been mentioned by other in this thread that there are a lot of sourcebooks for various genres and settings, as GURPS is a generic system. The advantage of the character creation system is obviously that you can create exactly the character you like (at the power level set by the point total).
2. Quality: The setting-specific sourcebooks are usually very well researched and full of good stuff. And they contain lots of non-rule information, making them valuable for GMs using other game systems. E.g. I would recommend GURPS "Discworld" as resource to anybody planning a Discworld campaign, though I would not recommend using the GURPS rules, which are far too "heavy" for comic fantasy.
Negatives?
Every 100 point character is actually a 145 point character with -45 points of disadvantages. The bulk of these that can reasonably be taken by an adventuring type fall into the "mental" category - and in order to make sure these role-playing disadvantages have a sufficient impact on gameplay, they are exaggerated to the point where they go far beyond personality traits or quirks and into the realm of mental illness.
In every GURPS game I've played (admittedly, I haven't played in many) the characters were basket cases - compulsive liars or thieves, characters with no sense of humor whatsoever, bad-tempered lunatics with a good chance of flipping out every other time things got heated in negotiations (gee, when does that ever happen in a typical adventure, eh?
), people with crippling phobias... Even if taken at lower levels, this means the character ends up with several mild mental conditions, that would probably make life miserable for an everyday shmuck with an undemanding job, never mind an adventurer dealing with high stress levels...
Then there are the so-called "balanced" characters... It's nice that everyone is supposed to be equal, built on a 100 points, but it means that, despite the vaunted flexibility, many character types aren't possible, only caricatures. 100 points are not a lot, so if you're (reasonably) strong and tough, there's no way you'll be smart, or fast, and vice versa... No way to play a big, burly mage, for example. In GURPS the average strength for a 6'1" man is listed as 14, which costs 45 of the 100 starting points... Let's say, hypothetically, that I'm 6'1", of average strength for my height, at least as smart as I am strong (compared to an average guy), and slightly more dextrous and sturdy than average. This means two 14's and two 11's - costing 110 points, and that's without any skills factored in. A college graduate with a degree in a hard science will probably have a good 15 or 20 points of skills relating to his chosen field of study alone. A 100 point character is nobody special, and while you can, theoretically, increase this number, many people will raise the cry of "munchkin" at this, and, because of the way advantages are priced, once you have more points to play with it does get easier to break the system.
Then there is the combat system with the 1-second (yes, that's ONE second) combat round, which requires you to declare actions to change facing, ready a swing with a wepaon, nock an arrow, etc. - while it is a nicely done system, it is much too detailed and, because of the myriad of detail, too slow for many people... The hit-location system is also a bit unusual - because you only roll 3d6 to determine what was hit, the number of outcomes possible is not really enough in relation to the number of hit locations - which results in strange things like, on shots aimed at center of mass, people getting shot in hands and feet a lot more often than, say, in the head, and actually getting hit in the torso only about one time out of three... In a couple of cyperpunk games I've played, several grim-and-gritty combat sessions degenerated into slapstick, when after two or three dozen shots being fired by both sides, the bad guys were lying on the ground - in pain, but still very much alive - after being shot virtually ONLY in hands, feet, forearms and calves
Every 100 point character is actually a 145 point character with -45 points of disadvantages. The bulk of these that can reasonably be taken by an adventuring type fall into the "mental" category - and in order to make sure these role-playing disadvantages have a sufficient impact on gameplay, they are exaggerated to the point where they go far beyond personality traits or quirks and into the realm of mental illness.
In every GURPS game I've played (admittedly, I haven't played in many) the characters were basket cases - compulsive liars or thieves, characters with no sense of humor whatsoever, bad-tempered lunatics with a good chance of flipping out every other time things got heated in negotiations (gee, when does that ever happen in a typical adventure, eh?
), people with crippling phobias... Even if taken at lower levels, this means the character ends up with several mild mental conditions, that would probably make life miserable for an everyday shmuck with an undemanding job, never mind an adventurer dealing with high stress levels...Then there are the so-called "balanced" characters... It's nice that everyone is supposed to be equal, built on a 100 points, but it means that, despite the vaunted flexibility, many character types aren't possible, only caricatures. 100 points are not a lot, so if you're (reasonably) strong and tough, there's no way you'll be smart, or fast, and vice versa... No way to play a big, burly mage, for example. In GURPS the average strength for a 6'1" man is listed as 14, which costs 45 of the 100 starting points... Let's say, hypothetically, that I'm 6'1", of average strength for my height, at least as smart as I am strong (compared to an average guy), and slightly more dextrous and sturdy than average. This means two 14's and two 11's - costing 110 points, and that's without any skills factored in. A college graduate with a degree in a hard science will probably have a good 15 or 20 points of skills relating to his chosen field of study alone. A 100 point character is nobody special, and while you can, theoretically, increase this number, many people will raise the cry of "munchkin" at this, and, because of the way advantages are priced, once you have more points to play with it does get easier to break the system.
Then there is the combat system with the 1-second (yes, that's ONE second) combat round, which requires you to declare actions to change facing, ready a swing with a wepaon, nock an arrow, etc. - while it is a nicely done system, it is much too detailed and, because of the myriad of detail, too slow for many people... The hit-location system is also a bit unusual - because you only roll 3d6 to determine what was hit, the number of outcomes possible is not really enough in relation to the number of hit locations - which results in strange things like, on shots aimed at center of mass, people getting shot in hands and feet a lot more often than, say, in the head, and actually getting hit in the torso only about one time out of three... In a couple of cyperpunk games I've played, several grim-and-gritty combat sessions degenerated into slapstick, when after two or three dozen shots being fired by both sides, the bad guys were lying on the ground - in pain, but still very much alive - after being shot virtually ONLY in hands, feet, forearms and calves
