What is GURPS?

[pawsplay]

HUMAN SORCERER

Okay, I did pretty good, but I forgot Crossbow-12 [1], and my 3e trained brain forgot to include Magery in Thaumatology (saves 8 points) and buy an Innate Attack skill - 12 [1].

 

[Mercule]

This:

my previous experience was with D&D, AD&D, TMNT and Other Strangeness, Star Wars (D6), Marvel Super Heroes, Talislanta 2e, Runequest, and GURPS. Piece of cake.

runs directly counter to this:

a green player

You, sir, are not by any stretch of the imagination a "green player". Neither was I when I picked up the book and learned it on my own.

Once you have a certain level of mastery over multiple RPG systems, you get to bypass a whole heap of hurdles that afflict newcomers. Yes, to an experienced gamer, Hero really isn't that bad. It's still a lot harder for someone new to the hobby (or a casual participant) to pick up than, say D&D.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Once you have a certain level of mastery over multiple RPG systems, you get to bypass a whole heap of hurdles that afflict newcomers. Yes, to an experienced gamer, Hero really isn't that bad. It's still a lot harder for someone new to the hobby (or a casual participant) to pick up than, say D&D.

I don't know if I can agree with that 100%.

When I picked up HERO (then called Champions) in 1982 or so, I had been playing D&D and Traveller since 1977. Yes, that's 5 years of experience in the hobby, but it was only with 2 games.

And really, the math of the system hasn't changed any- its just the number of powers from which you have to choose has exploded.

Sure, the more you play, the easier it is to pick up a new game, but I found HERO to be fairly easy to understand. Its like RPG Legos- all I had to do was pick my PC's building bricks. After slogging through some simple math during PC creation, the game pretty much ran itself.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Once you have a certain level of mastery over multiple RPG systems, you get to bypass a whole heap of hurdles that afflict newcomers. Yes, to an experienced gamer, Hero really isn't that bad. It's still a lot harder for someone new to the hobby (or a casual participant) to pick up than, say D&D.

Green players can be taught gaming with GURPS. But still, you need a veteran gamer as a GM.

GURPS Basic Set 1: Characters is essentially a huge laundry list of options. And the GM needs to prune those options down to what he needs for his campaign - especially for newbies who will be intimidated by its sheer length.

 

[Choranzanus]

Neither is true. Most handgun wounds are not immediately fatal, and more people died of infected wounds than ever died of super ninja sword moves in history.

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. With handguns it is not much better, here the system at least acknowledges that you can die from single shot (unless you have high HT or a "poor" handgun like walther PPK, that is).

Realistic combat simply doesn't mesh well with roleplaying games.

You will note, that in GURPS handguns do different type of damage than if you run someone through with a sword. I am sure someone can explain to me how "realistic" that is.

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

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

Maximum damage to his pinky finger or his throat?

Depending on the options you are using, it is entirely possible the average man will slice open the throat of the other dude. If the initial damage doesn't get him, the bleeding probably will.

This assumes no criticals of course, which could possibly result in a severed head if the victim suffers a bad HT roll.

 

[Choranzanus]

You failed to make your point.



Min-maxers will find something to exploit in every game system - definitely including D&D. True, GURPS lends itself to abuse when the GM isn't careful about what kinds of advantages and disadvantages he permits in his campaign. But with some care, most abuses are easily avoidable.

I have doubts. D&D doesn't lend itself well to minmaxing (at least compared to GURPS). Minmaxing is very detrimental to games, because it creates player imbalance and causes wrongly priced abilities or more obscure and interesting abilities to be overlooked. I am a strong believer in class based systems, largely due to my experience with GURPS. In GURPS character creation yuo have essentialy two classes: DX types and IQ types. Niche protection is unheard of. In the end you have classes whether you wanted them or not.

And that was just character creation which is the strongest (by far) part of GURPS. The rest of rules is neither inspired nor good.

 

[Storm Raven]

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. With handguns it is not much better, here the system at least acknowledges that you can die from single shot (unless you have high HT or a "poor" handgun like walther PPK, that is).

Maximum damage with a sword or gun in GURPS would require a critical hit - which is much more common in GURPS than in, for example, D&D. With a critical hit, or a shot that hits a vital area (head, chest, etc.) a single hit kill is quite likely.

 

[pr1]

I don't know if I can agree with that 100%.

When I picked up HERO (then called Champions) in 1982 or so, I had been playing D&D and Traveller since 1977. Yes, that's 5 years of experience in the hobby, but it was only with 2 games.

And really, the math of the system hasn't changed any- its just the number of powers from which you have to choose has exploded.

Sure, the more you play, the easier it is to pick up a new game, but I found HERO to be fairly easy to understand. Its like RPG Legos- all I had to do was pick my PC's building bricks. After slogging through some simple math during PC creation, the game pretty much ran itself.

Hero is actually pretty easy. Everything always uses the same few rules, over and over again, and building your own powers shouldn't be as common if you're dealing with new players. Every contemporary book has hundreds of example powers for the thing you're looking for, even variations of it, like "More powerful TK." It's only tweaking it that requires a lot of number crunching.

 

[timbannock]

HUMAN SORCERER

ST 9 [-10]
DX 12 [40]
IQ 10
HT 11 [10]

Will 13 [15], Perception 11 [5], HP 12 [15]

Advantages: Charisma 2 [10], Magery 2 [25], Sorcery Energy Reserve FP 4 [20]

Skills: Thaumatology IQ+2 - 12 [16]
Expert Creatures of Magic IQ+2 - 12 [8]
Meditation IQ+2 - 12 [12]
Knife DX -12 [1]
Staff DX - 11 [1]
Axe/Axe 11 [1]
Thrown Knife DX - 12 [1]

Sorcery Power
Power modifier: Magic -10%

Light: Perk, magical "candle" [1]
Ghost Sound: Perk, magical sound [1]
Magic Missile: Innate Attack, 2d pi, Accurate 5 (+25%), Armor Divisor (5) (+150%), Sorcery (-10%), Costs Fatigue (-5%) [26]
Sleep: Affliction 2, Unconscious (150%), Malediction (150%) , Area Effect, radius 3 (100%), Sorcery (-10%), Costs Fatigue (-5%) [97]

Total: 295 points (maybe, check my math)

Well played, sir!

Perhaps I should've made mention of "getting used to the system drastically decreases prep time," which is demonstrably true. That said, I do find GURPS still requires a lot of prep-work from the GM upfront, because -- unless you're allowing "just about everything" -- there's a lot of looking through the traits to figure out what's right for your world, and that kind of thing.

And THAT said...if you just want to run GURPS fantasy as is, you only need like 3-4 books and you're good to go, with pretty much ZERO prep-work.

So yeah...I got nothin'. Check it out.



(But do stay away from Wildside...I was a playtester, and trust me...they didn't listen to playtesters when they finally published that piece of...)