I don't get the arguments for bioessentialism

[Ruin Explorer]

Rolemaster had a pretty big revision in the mid-90s with Rolemaster Standard System. It was still mostly the same game, but character creation became more detailed, with skills being split into Skill Categories and actual Skills (so in RM2, you'd get 3 ranks in Broadsword for +15 on top of stat and such, but in RMSS you'd have 3 ranks in both One-handed Edged weapons for +6 and 3 in Broadsword for +9). I remember they also changed parts of the magic system – RMSS gave you many more power points, at least at low levels, and had you learn spell lists rank by rank instead of spending a big chunk of points to learn 5-10 levels of spells at once. The basic structure of spell lists and such still remained the same though.

I think there's a new version in the works or released over the last few years, but I'm not up to date on how things are going with that.

RMSS baby, wow I remember spending literally like 2 days (admittedly lazy, unfocused days) with a couple of friends where we succeeded in creating precisely 1 PC each and we still weren't 100% confident we'd got it right.

At that point we decided we'd probably better stick with MERP if we were going to play that kind of game!

 

[Argyle King]

Isn't GURPS pretty much on life support? It's a great game, I cut my teeth on 3rd edition in the late 80s, even played a little 4th edition in 2005, but it doesn't seem anywhere near as popular as it was in the 90s. It used to be that I could walk into my FLGS and see tons of GURPS sourcebooks for sale. Other than Powered by GURPS games like Hellboy, I don't think I've seen a GURPS book in a game store since Clinton was president. Even my 4th edition GURPS books were purchased from Barnes & Noble.

Physical product isn't as prevalent for GURPS, but there is still a relatively steady stream of pdf and print-on-demand product.

There is also an upcoming Kickstarter for a GURPS product.

 

[Argyle King]

Thread 'Kickstarter: GURPS Mission X' Kickstarter: GURPS Mission X

 

[Staffan]

RMSS baby, wow I remember spending literally like 2 days (admittedly lazy, unfocused days) with a couple of friends where we succeeded in creating precisely 1 PC each and we still weren't 100% confident we'd got it right.

At that point we decided we'd probably better stick with MERP if we were going to play that kind of game!

I remember making an Excel character sheet for RMSS where I tried using a formula with nested IF statements to calculate skill bonuses based on rank – something like =IF(X=0;-15;IF(X<11;X*3;IF(X<21;(X-10)*2+30;IF(X<31;(X-20)+50;TRUNC((X-30)/2)+60)))), but with some additional conditionals depending on skill type. That one's working from memory, I can't be hedgehogged to go look up the actual formulas.

For the next version of that sheet I used a LOOKUP thingy with precalculated values like normal people (for values of "normal" that include "makes an Excel sheet for characters in an RPG").

 

[MGibster]

I don't know about being on life support...but I do see some GURPS action still going on at the Steve Jackson Games website. I have also seen more GURPS games advertised at VTT sites than I would've expected.

I always feel like I'm kicking someone's puppy when I say GURPS isn't popular these days. GURPS certainly has a very loyal, active fanbase. A fanbase made up of intelligent, attractive people who love tinkering around with building their own unique settings or adapting an existing setting for GURPS. Like I said, I think GURPS is a great game, but it's just not the type of game that's in fashion these days. Kudos to Steve Jackson Games for continuing to provide support for their flagship RPG even if they've been concentrating on for lucrative lines of business the last 25 years.