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.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I always feel like I'm kicking someone's puppy when I say GURPS isn't popular these days.

I heard Steve Jackson is going to replace you with somebody who promises to provide encouraging GURPS sales forecasts showing positive quarter-over-quarter growth....

 

[Thomas Shey]

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.

Its the same with Hero. There are still plenty of Hero System fans out there, but it just doesn't have the presence it once did when Champions was one of the first games people thought of regarding superheroes, whether they liked it or not.

 

[The Firebird]

Another thought--there is a difference between improvements in presentation of mechanics and the mechanics as such. The switch from descending AC to ascending AC, for example, doesn't seem to me to properly constitute a new mechanic; the underlying math is the same. Rules like 'roll with advantage', 'all classes level at the same rate', and 'any species can be any class', however, are new.

With that caveat, what new mechanics have been developed that add to the experience of OD&D or B/X? I think the replacement of attack matrices was a clear winner. What about advantage/disadvantage? Mechanics from other games, like the usage die in Black Hack?

 

[SableWyvern]

I don't think anyone is saying "it cannot be done". Merely that it is a design choice that brings with it a lot of work, the payoff for which you'd have to consider before using the approach.

Sure, no one said it can't be done. But @FrozenNorth did claim that any reasonable person would agree it's objectively unwieldy, and that is why I provided an alternative perspective.

 

[SableWyvern]

I think the idea is that for any type of RPG, if the optimal one for your particular taste was written today, it couldn't be worse and would likely be better than the one written in the past - for the simple reason that the tools people knew of in the past are a subset of the tools readily available today. [Insert disclaimers about the mystery of the pyramids or whatnot.]

I have already commented in this thread that the most modern version of Rolemaster is my least favourite.

Have all of them had revised versions over the years? Were any of the changes in the mechanics? Will they never have revisions to any mechanics in the future?

No one's claiming they won't be revised or changed. We're disputing the notion that change is always (or even often) an objective improvement. In my experience, beyond fixing typos and the like, most changes in games that are already fun are matters of taste and perspective, not a simple march towards objectively better.

Edit: based on later posts, it seems it was not your intention to argue that newer is usually better, so feel free to disregard.