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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tratyn Runewind" data-source="post: 141766" data-attributes="member: 685">Hello!Black Omega, I'm both heartily thankful for the review, and horribly envious that you have your copy already <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />.  This is one product I've been looking forward to for quite some time now.  Glyfair has done a nice job of summing up the common perceptions about GURPS and Champions.  Here are a few items he didn't really go into:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Where Hero System, as Glyfair said, started out as the superhero game Champions, GURPS evolved from the fantasy end of the spectrum, with Melee/Wizardry/The Fantasy Trip and then Man to Man among its ancestors.  </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">GURPS has tried harder to emphasize simplicity.  It has kept the number of basic stats down to 4, and provided Advantages and Disadvantages (Strong Will, Extra Fatigue, etc.) to customize specific aspects of them.  Hero, on the other hand, has 14 stats for each character, 8 basic and 6 "figured" (derived in part from the basic stats).  Hero also uses a segmented speed chart, similar to that used in Star Fleet Battles and other boardgames, to time combat, while GURPS sticks with the simpler and more traditional concept of extra actions performed all at once during character's place in a rotating turn sequence.  </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">GURPS is generally deadlier than Hero in all genres, a product of its emphasis on realism and Hero's origins in the four-color comic world where major characters seldom die.  </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Point costs in GURPS often try to represent rarity of an ability as well as its usefulness - the escalating cost of character stats is the major example of this.  Especially in higher-powered campaigns, this approach can result in ridiculous character point expenditure for very little return.  The alternative ST cost chart in GURPS Compendium I is a sign of a move away from this mindset, and the fact that they would break the simple symmetry of costs for the different character abilities shows how much of a problem some thought this approach was.  Hero, on the other hand, tries to price its abilities purely by usefulness, and the 100th point of a stat you buy will cost the same as the 1st.  The major exception to this is in character disadvantages, where, to encourage variety, point values of successive similar disadvantages eventually start to decline.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Hero is closer to being a true "meta-system" than GURPS.  In GURPS, if you want to give your character an ability, what you generally do is find the rule supplement containing that ability, and then spend your points on it.  In Hero, you look around at the goodies the system has to offer, and if your ability isn't directly among them, you use them to construct the ability yourself (customizability of character abilities in GURPS is a bad joke compared to that in Hero).  The GURPS way is quicker, better defined, and given the research that goes into the supplements, generally more realistic.  The Hero way is more flexible, and doesn't require a bookcase full of supplements.</li> </ul>Hope this helps!  And thanks again, Black Omega; here's hoping you enjoy your campaign <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />.</blockquote>

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