Gurps? Where do I start?

[Storm Raven]

That is a really good write up, but it brings back the question of templated stuff like races and should be done by the Gm or up to the players. I just not sure if players can be trusted for constancy purpose. My players at least.

In my experience, racial templates generally should be defined by the GM, but developing individual characters works best when the players do that themselves. I sometimes define some groups as having minimum entry requirements (for example, you might say that to be a member of the "paladins" requires a certain level of social status, wealth, magery, and certain skills), but the character design process is much more open than d20, so letting players have freedom to develop their own characters is a big part of what makes the game interesting.

 

[RFisher]

I don't know why I didn't think of mentioning this before, but Caverns and Creatures is a D&Desque supplement for GURPS Lite[sic]. (3/e, I think.)

Templates are a great tool. I can't imagine requiring them, but... They can make character creation easy for players new to Gurps. They can help players learn how to make characters without templates by demonstrating how things might be done. Plus, they can help the players get a sense of the GM's world & the spirit of the campaign even if none of the PCs actually use any of the GM's templates.

 

[jdrakeh]

You know, despite my plan to buy a box full of RMSS this pay period, both this thead and the GURPS vs HERO thread have me leaning dangerously close to re-purchasing GURPS 4e. Hmm. . . if only I could clear up my workday mornings (as mentioned previously, my window for prep time is fairly small presently).

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

That is a really good write up, but it brings back the question of templated stuff like races and should be done by the Gm or up to the players. I just not sure if players can be trusted for constancy purpose. My players at least.

I wouldn't allow it for GURPS 3E - thanks to the way attributes are scaled, it is fairly easy to get "point breaks" for attributes. For example, if a race gets +3 DX, a character playing this race could get DX 16 for a mere 60 points instead of 80 points. Designing one's own races can be easily abused by min-maxers.

This is less of a problem with 4E, thanks to the flat attribute costs and other efforts to streamline the system. Though the GM should still double-check player-made races to see if they are suitable for the campaign. I'd avoid races with lots and lots of Damage Resistance in medieval fantasy games, for instance...

 

[Kafkonia]

I'm going to give GURPS a go as well. I've been wanting a game which was reasonably crunchy, with a different magic style, deadly combat and the rules to let me model a fairly standard fantasy world (monsters, magic, outer planes etc).

I'm going to get the Basic books, Fantasy and Magic, but this thread has convinced e to give Powers a shot as well.

I would place Powers ahead of Fantasy, personally. YMMV, of course.

 

[Olive]

I would place Powers ahead of Fantasy, personally. YMMV, of course.

Really? How come?

 

[sjmiller]

I would place Powers ahead of Fantasy, personally. YMMV, of course.

Really? How come?

My reason behind that suggestion, which I would give as well, is that with Powers you can do things like create new magic systems, create psionic characters, create superheroes, create races with unusual abilites, and so on. Even though I have not fully groked Powers, I think its more widely useful than Fantasy.

 

[Eltharon]

Fantasy is useful for creating plots, settings, races, and generally defining your fantasy world. Powers is much more "crunchy". Realistically, you could run a fantasy campaign without ever looking at GURPS Fantasy, especially if you're familiar with GMing fantasy with other systems, and have your own world created. Same with GURPS Space (not that thats an issue here) or GURPS Mysteries. They're just big tomes of "how to make this kind of adventure/setting"

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

Powers is an amazing book. I'd rate it as the number 3 book you need to buy after the two Basic Set books. Magic is only necessary if you want to use the magic system shown in the Basic Set. If you do, Magic will give you a few hundred more spells and is very good in itself.

With Powers however, you can develop your own system. In my Crucible setting for example, the Sorcererous Art (kinda like D&D's arcane magic), "Divine" magic, psionics, inherited magic (kinda like D&D's sorcerers and favored souls) and nature-based magic all use different systems.

The Sorcererous Art is the only one that uses the GURPS Basic Set magic system as is, and even it is tweaked a bit to allow the sorcerers to "download" spells into their minds via a magical storehouse called the Cynosure.

 

[RFisher]

I wouldn't allow it for GURPS 3E - thanks to the way attributes are scaled, it is fairly easy to get "point breaks" for attributes. For example, if a race gets +3 DX, a character playing this race could get DX 16 for a mere 60 points instead of 80 points. Designing one's own races can be easily abused by min-maxers.

I just excluded attributes from races/templates in 3/e. Just tell the players what the normal attribute ranges for the race is so they can take that into account when buying attributes.

Powers is much more "crunchy".

(^_^) It sound almost like Powers is "Gurps: Hero system".