Hello!
Posted by Mortaneus:
I can go through a GURPS combat with 10 combatants in about 15 minutes.
Hero? Probably at LEAST an hour.
What Black Omega and Psion said. The main reason Hero combats tend to last longer is because the major characters are tougher. Any Hero GM with a modicum of experience can run a ten-character combat where five 350-point superheroes mop the floor with five Viper agents in a lot less than 15 minutes...
. Combat with super-teams on both sides still don't seem to last any longer than a high-level D&D hit-point-attrition-fest. The speed chart is usually the other major gripe; it really doesn't take long to get used to (and was no trouble at all for my play group, Star Fleet Battles veterans all ...
).
Posted by Psion:
GURPS pretends to be a universal system. It's really best left towards realistic/gritty settings.
GURPS could have been universal. It's Man-to-Man with point-based character creation and a lot of add-ons. Unfortunately, many of the more significant rules mechanics add-ons are the horribly done ones from GURPS Supers (which include GURPS's version of gaming concepts like figured characteristics, and power enhancements and limitations), which were adhered to in later supplements for compatibility's sake. The firearms rules are good, the technology stuff is good (and Vehicles is a rule-of-thumb engineer's delight), the magic system is solid (and could be excellent with some tweaks regarding Fatigue), and the supplements tend to have top-flight research and good writing (though art seems never to have been a real priority in GURPS). Hopefully the much discussed 4th Edition will sweep the debris of the GURPS Supers rules additions out of the system altogether, and replace them with something more workable. The idea of the character point system representing rarity more than utility would also be better off dead; they've taken the first tentative step in that direction with the altered costs for Strength in Compendium I. Hopefully they'll run with that ball in 4e also.
Posted by Psion:
Hero is (a universal system). Or at least as close as it gets. You can do just about anything in Hero; the metamechanics lets you express nearly any effect you want.
Yes. As I've said before, the way you give your character an ability in Hero is to look at the options, then construct it if it doesn't already exist, then pay the points for it. The real way to give your character an ability in GURPS is to find the supplement containing the ability, and then pay the points for it. Both methods have their advantages and drawbacks, but the Hero method comes closer to having true universality as one of its advantages.
Hope this helps give a clearer picture of two of my favorite game systems...
