What is GURPS?

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'm planning on trying out either GURPS or HERO; the beginning of this thread sold me on HERO over GURPS, but now I'm not so sure. You guys need to make up your mind!

Personally, I'm a HERO-phile. I think its much better than GURPS at being able to accommodate intermixing PCs & Critters from all of its sourcebooks.

Part of that may be because of the assumptions about the base setting. GURPS assumes a typical campaign starting at the heroic level and working up, just like D&D has for most of its 30 years (which may be a selling point for some). Unfortunately, like D&D, as power levels increase, you may get some oddball, unbalanced results.

HERO, OTOH, assumes a superheroic campaign as its norm, and scales things down for the heroic campaign. This leads to less problems when scaling up...but some powers may be gamebreaking if used in a heroic level campaign.

I would be remiss and dishonest, however, if I didn't restate that GURPS RW supplements are some of the best in the gaming industry, and are often bought by non-GURPS players as fodder for other games & systems.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

But I still long for a good system where you can make "just a guy" and his skills and abilities develop based on where fate takes him in his adventuring career. The idea seems, I dunno, more "adventurous" to me.

Yup, GURPS can do that - easily. Just start out with "average folks" at anything from 25-75 character points (depending on how much raw potential you want them to have), and watch them grow.

 

[Particle_Man]

One thing I found with 3e (and they may have fixed this in 4e) is a "did I leave the oven on?" problem. Like, if you are a fantasy meelee warrior and you don't take Combat Reflexes, you are hosing yourself. But you might not know that going in. Point Buy systems without guidance can lead to accidentally sub-optimal characters.

I also personally don't like the slooooooooow incremental xp system. I would prefer something like 30 points per session, rather than a handful. But that is just me.

 

[robconley]

You guys are just nuts. In GURPS, an average person can inflict maximum sword damage to an average unarmored man and they would still live. To suggest that this is realistic is utterly ridiculous.

You are standing in front of a uarmored guy and let him have with a broadsword. Comes out swinging and hits...

where?

If you take a shot across the chest. Ok you have broken ribs, broken sternum, broken collar bone, etc. You will be hurting , probably down, but not likely dead. Going to need another blow to finish the guy off.

This is a body shot.

In contrast aiming for the vital areas of your chest does considerably more damage. Particularity instead of swinging you thrust.

That another point of distinction, whether you swing with the sword or thrust the sword. Thrusting does less raw damage but any getting through armor is double. On an unarmored guy a thrust to the vitals can be devasating.

You have to remember that in real combat there are few one shot kills. Most exchanges involve bludgeoning the guy to death or unconsciousness. The sword wasn't razor sharp, didn't slice guys in two aka Howard's Conan stories. If you were lucky your first solid blow breaks some bones and cause massive bruising and slows the guy down enough for you subsequent blows to finish him off.

The critical hit charts provide for the one in a million spectacular shot.

The GURPS designers, authors, and editor do the research and try to translate into a fun and well designed game. Is it a perfect simulation, of course not, but it feels more realistic than most other RPGs even in it's basic combat version. It is far more playable than most other "Realistic combat" RPGs.

 

[robconley]

Yup, GURPS can do that - easily. Just start out with "average folks" at anything from 25-75 character points (depending on how much raw potential you want them to have), and watch them grow.

Done it for two fantasy campaign and it was a lot of fun. The best combat I seen is when the group mobbed a vampire with a bunch of 50 pts characters. The party was beating the vampire into a bloody pulp, The player playing the parish priest took the vampire down with a frying pan and then another staked the vampire ending the fight.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I also personally don't like the slooooooooow incremental xp system. I would prefer something like 30 points per session, rather than a handful. But that is just me.

Well, then do hand out 30 points per session. The suggested values are just that - suggestions. Though maybe increasing an attribute by at least +1 per session is a bit much...

 

[ExploderWizard]

Our group played GURPS from about 1990 (tried one campaign of 2E D&D and didn't like it) until the release of 3E. I am currently preparing a new fantasy campaign using GURPS 4E.

The magic system is very mutable and not rigid at all. I am designing custom spell lists for different flavored casters and ignoring most pre-requisite chains. The limited mana pool can be adjusted to allow for more casting options. GURPS Martial Arts will be used to design culture specific combat styles to give fighter types a large array of options just like casters.

The only real problem I have ever had with GURPS was not with the system at all. The largest issue has been with a huge lack of adventure support. Back when I had lots of prep time I didn't care. Now that pdf sales are so common I hope to see some adventures for GURPS.

 

[Zinovia]

The newer editions may have changed this, but when I played GURPS, I found combat to be boring and repetitive. Once we'd been playing for awhile, it was too easy for me to kill the bad guys, and too hard for them to hurt me. The magic system was very restrictive, with powers building upon each other. In order to toss a fire attack, I first had to learn other simple fire spells that I didn't really care about. I could not build the powers I'd envisioned for my character in the way that I wanted. I ended up optimizing my rapier skill to insane degrees rather than focus as much on magic.

I have played Hero system only as a supers game (Champions), but enjoyed it more than GURPS. It has more stats, which makes it easier for me to define the character that I want. The powers are extremely flexible in the types of characters you can create. I like the separation of Stun (for non-lethal damage) and Body (for lethal). That's something I wish D&D had in order to resolve once and for all the debate over what hit points really represent.

Many games systems incorporate good concepts. GURPS reads extremely well, but I felt it was lackluster in play. Others love it. One of the reasons we're playing D&D right now is that we had player who was completely new to RPG's in the group. We wanted something easier than Rolemaster or Fantasy Hero, and went with D&D.

I think that class based systems have some advantages over strict point buy. It's generally easier to make characters (Rolemaster being an exception). People know more of what their "job" in the group is supposed to be. They will always be good at most of the stuff they need to do their job (weird multi-classes and PrC's made this not necessarily true in D&D either). Character levels provide an easier handle on how powerful a character is. Somehow it's more satisfying to say "I'm a 10th level rogue" rather than "I have 80 points and am good at this weapon, and those skills" (or whatever, I don't know what the numbers should be).

You pays your money, you takes your choice. I'm looking forward to trying out 4E soon, and will be sitting in the DM chair for the first time in over 10 years. GURPS and Hero are both good games as well, but I don't think our group would want to play them. I certainly don't want to GM for them. Good luck, whatever you may decide.

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

It was mentioned before, but I think it should be said again:

The magic system in GURPS is just one option. If you don't like it, take a look at GURPS: Powers. It shows you a few hundred different ways to do it.

 

[The Cardinal]

also to repeat:

GURPS3e was really good


GURPS4e is astonishing and made of awesome

- with Powers, Martial Arts, and Thaumatology it requires huge amounts of stubborn effort to run boring one-dimensional combats or create cookie-cutter warriors, wizards, supers, monks, etc. with it!