Transhuman Space

[HellHound]

However, their advertisement in the latest issue of Dragon says, "It comes with a customized version of GURPS Lite , so Transhuman Space is all you need to start." Those last two words worry me: "to start". This isn't like the old D&D Basic boxed sets that are limited to character levels 1-3, is it? I don't want to buy this book and discover after a couple months play that I have to buy GURPS this, that, or the other to continue playing.

Does anyone know the story?

I can't judge based on this book, as I am boycotting SJGames.

But I'll give my "related" story.

A while back I bought GURPS DISCWORLD which is also a "powered by GURPS" game. It ocmes bundled with GURPS lite and claims to be playable as is.

It is.

As long as you don't want to include MAGIC in your discworld game. Yup... NO MAGIC. No Unseen University, No Rincewind... nada...

They didn't bother to include rules for several elements of the magic system that require you buy not only GURPS core but also GURPS Compendium to get.

When I complained that this was false advertising, I was told to suck it up, more or less.

Feh.

Thus, now I have bought GURPS, GURPS Compendium and GURPS Discworld, but I can't run them because I get ticked off whenever I look at them, which is far from the right mood to run Discworld.

Thus, I am boycotting SJGames books.

 

[Xeriar]

Re: Re: Transhuman Space

Originally posted by HellHound

Thus, I am boycotting SJGames books.

I can't really judge your story, seems a little silly in my opinion, magic is rarely a simple subject...

But, for that, I will now order another half-dozen GURPS books, just because they're cool, and just because someone else is boycotting them because they couldn't pack things in an 8 point font

 

[Fade]

I have the hardback and the rules are complete, but a bit patchy. The setting section often refers to rules than are not included in the back.

 

[Voneth]

That will require a lot of work, though - especially for all the PC "species"...

That depends on which game system you use. Mutants and Masterminds (d20), d20 Silver Age Sentinels, Big Eyes Small Mouth and Champions are all systems where there is enough flexiblity to assign abilitites to mimic any sort of funky race.

 

[HellHound]

Re: Re: Re: Transhuman Space

I can't really judge your story, seems a little silly in my opinion, magic is rarely a simple subject...

But, for that, I will now order another half-dozen GURPS books, just because they're cool, and just because someone else is boycotting them because they couldn't pack things in an 8 point font

They claim it is a complete game.

It isn't.

I bought the products through their own on-line store and asked for a refund, or at least the rules I needed to play the game as a complete game.

They said no.

I am not asking anyone else to boycott them. I feel that a majority of the DJgames products are quite good. In fact, I think that GURPS Discworld is freaking AWESOME, if you have both GURPS and GURPS Compendium I.

But I didn't, because I was lead to believe that the game was self-contained. If you buy an RPG and it claims you odn't need to buy any other book to play the game... and in the game they include a bunch of characters and chracter classes that use magic and magic spells.... but then never actually give the rules for the magic system, the spells they name, and so on... wouldn't that seem like false advertising?

Combining that with the absolute and total brush-off I received from SJGames on the issue, I have elcted to boycott them myself. Entirely personally, and am not asking anyone else to do it along with me. I still read their books when my friends buy them, and admire a good number of them. But I will never sink another dollar into their products.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Re: Re: Re: Transhuman Space

I can't really judge your story, seems a little silly in my opinion, magic is rarely a simple subject...

But, for that, I will now order another half-dozen GURPS books, just because they're cool, and just because someone else is boycotting them because they couldn't pack things in an 8 point font

I don't know how silly it is, because I don't know much about Discworld. If magic is integral to the setting, and the GURPS version doesn't accomodate magic yet claims to be a complete game, then the complaint isn't silly at all. What if D&D claimed to be complete, yet didn't have a magic system?

 

[Geoffrey]

Hmm. It sounds like I'm going to have to look at the Transhuman Space hardback very, very closely before deciding whether to purchase it. HellHound's story makes me a bit worried as to how complete the TS book is.

 

[haiiro]

I seem to remember most GURPS books including a little section at the front that tells you what else you will need or might want in order to fully enjoy that particular book. Unfortunately, I've never seen Transhuman Space and all of my GURPS stuff is in storage...so I can't even check GURPS Discworld (the other example thus far) to see if it mentions GURPS Magic and Compendium I inside.

Have you picked up a copy of Transhuman Space at your FLGS and paged through it?

Particularly for GURPS, I would recommend picking up the main rulebook and Compendium I regardless of what you're playing. I would be very surprised if Transhuman Space includes anywhere near as much in the way of rules as the core rulebook, and the extra goodies in Compendium I are quite useful. Are you opposed to buying other GURPS products if you find out up front that they're required or recommended in TS?

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I think the only rules question in the TS Core book that isn't explained by the customized GURPS Lite rules is the "Extra Arms (6)" advantage in the Astropus Species template - but that one should be self-explanatory...

Sure, GURPS Basic and the Compendia will give you more stuff to play with, especially if you want to expand on the combat system (like introducing hit locations, for example). But none of this is required.

So yes, TS is far more complete than GURPS Discworld.

 

[Darkness]

GURPS Discworld includes 14 spells in the GURPS Lite part and further 22 Discworld-specific spells...

What is missing that you would have needed, HellHound?