Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
How do you get to GURPS?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 7636191" data-attributes="member: 85870"><p>So, my game group is now two sessions into our GURPS supers game (basic setting is Brandon Sanderson's "Reckoners" universe). </p><p></p><p>And here's the thing that keeps coming to me time and time again --- the system just keeps getting in the way more than it facilitates the effectiveness of the narrative. Way too much time is getting spent referring to the rules, checking equipment stats (oh my goodness, so . . . many . . . weapon . . . stats). </p><p></p><p>And because the GM claims to "love" the GURPS system, but only has a relatively passing familiarity with said rules (he's only GM'd maybe 3 or 4 times in his RPG "career"), a lot of stuff is just getting hand-waved anyway. "Oh, I don't know about that, buuuuut, I think it's sort of like this, so . . . we'll just go with that for now." </p><p></p><p>Which is fine. Except that a "hand-wavy" approach isn't really what GURPS is supposed to be about. You play GURPS because you <em>want </em>to have the level of detail presented in the rules.</p><p></p><p>I've played GURPS before, so this isn't my first exposure to it, but I'm once again reminded just how non-compelling I find the system. I'm getting nothing from GURPS in terms of character flexibility, gameplay, and narrative that I wasn't getting from Savage Worlds at 1/5 the rules complexity, and was additionally getting a much, much, much easier system to improvise with.</p><p></p><p>To its credit, I do appreciate the fact that GURPS does make it possible to fully realize nearly any character concept. My "superhero" character pretty much turned out the way I envisioned with his available "powers"/advantages/skills, so that's a notch in its favor.</p><p></p><p>But my character-building exercise further convinced me that the GURPS core-four stats aren't as granular as they need to be, while the skills are ten times more granular than they need to be.</p><p></p><p>And even if I could forgive GURPS' overbearing complexity, I've never liked GURPS' flavor of "roll under" for basic task resolution. I hate the way it seems to obfuscate the difficulty of a task---"It doesn't matter how hard something is to do, it only matters how skilled you are at it." I realize that underneath it, the math is actually just a "reverse" of "Check against a target number of 21, plus or minus modifiers." But I still despise the way it feels in play.</p><p></p><p>Anyway . . . I glad that all of you GURPS fans have the system and can enjoy it. More power to you.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="innerdude, post: 7636191, member: 85870"] So, my game group is now two sessions into our GURPS supers game (basic setting is Brandon Sanderson's "Reckoners" universe). And here's the thing that keeps coming to me time and time again --- the system just keeps getting in the way more than it facilitates the effectiveness of the narrative. Way too much time is getting spent referring to the rules, checking equipment stats (oh my goodness, so . . . many . . . weapon . . . stats). And because the GM claims to "love" the GURPS system, but only has a relatively passing familiarity with said rules (he's only GM'd maybe 3 or 4 times in his RPG "career"), a lot of stuff is just getting hand-waved anyway. "Oh, I don't know about that, buuuuut, I think it's sort of like this, so . . . we'll just go with that for now." Which is fine. Except that a "hand-wavy" approach isn't really what GURPS is supposed to be about. You play GURPS because you [I]want [/I]to have the level of detail presented in the rules. I've played GURPS before, so this isn't my first exposure to it, but I'm once again reminded just how non-compelling I find the system. I'm getting nothing from GURPS in terms of character flexibility, gameplay, and narrative that I wasn't getting from Savage Worlds at 1/5 the rules complexity, and was additionally getting a much, much, much easier system to improvise with. To its credit, I do appreciate the fact that GURPS does make it possible to fully realize nearly any character concept. My "superhero" character pretty much turned out the way I envisioned with his available "powers"/advantages/skills, so that's a notch in its favor. But my character-building exercise further convinced me that the GURPS core-four stats aren't as granular as they need to be, while the skills are ten times more granular than they need to be. And even if I could forgive GURPS' overbearing complexity, I've never liked GURPS' flavor of "roll under" for basic task resolution. I hate the way it seems to obfuscate the difficulty of a task---"It doesn't matter how hard something is to do, it only matters how skilled you are at it." I realize that underneath it, the math is actually just a "reverse" of "Check against a target number of 21, plus or minus modifiers." But I still despise the way it feels in play. Anyway . . . I glad that all of you GURPS fans have the system and can enjoy it. More power to you. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
How do you get to GURPS?
Top