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<blockquote data-quote="Mercule" data-source="post: 4328059" data-attributes="member: 5100">I'm going to make a radical suggestion: Both games have &quot;lite&quot; versions that are freely downloadable (IIRC).&nbsp; Check out GURPS Lite and Hero Sidekick and see which floats your boat more.I much prefer Hero over GURPS -- in fact I put the two almost at opposite ends of the love-loathe scale.&nbsp; To be honest, though, the Hero main book reads a lot like a dictionary.&nbsp; Very few game manuals are particularly exciting, but the first parts of the Hero book are exceptionally... reference-y.&nbsp; GURPS 3e was about the same level as D&amp;D 2e for readability (again, IIRC).&nbsp; So, even if you prefer Hero to GURPS, you aren't going to cause yourself any undue pain by reading some GURPS.As far as what I like about Hero, you literally only ever need the single core book to play.&nbsp; It has all the building blocks to assemble characters for any genre.&nbsp; The expansion books are either settings or provide some templates for critters, starting builds, sample magic systems (i.e. consistent spell &quot;feel&quot;), etc.&nbsp; But, you really don't need them.&nbsp; From just the core book, I've seen Iron Man, V:tM vampires, ninjas, psychic aliens, King Arthur knock-offs, an incubus, a duelist, Ars Magica style mages, AD&amp;D style wizards, W:tA werewolves, a semi-Incarnum style cleric, space-opera characters, hard sci-fi characters, cyborgs, an intelligent sword PC, Cthulhu-esque pulp, X-Files, and a bunch of others.&nbsp; All of those worked extremely well without any additional books.My understanding of GURPS is that, at least in 3e, you often needed to get the additional source books to get the powers you needed for those genres and that the different genres often did not play well with each other, in practice.&nbsp; My experience is that GURPS had too few base stats (4 IRRC) and a chain of odd dependencies that resulted in odd consequences and made the presented powers hard to customize.&nbsp; But, it's been over a decade since I've played GURPS, so that may be skewed.What I will say is that one would expect my worst gaming moment would be when I tried to play the original Temple of Elemental Evil with 24 players, 12 of whom showed up drunk -- and I was sober.&nbsp; That was probably even more painful than it sounds.&nbsp; Playing GURPS beat it by miles.&nbsp; After playing GURPS, I honestly can't imagine why it made it past 1e or why anyone would play it.&nbsp; But, others apparently see something I don't.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mercule, post: 4328059, member: 5100"] I'm going to make a radical suggestion: Both games have "lite" versions that are freely downloadable (IIRC). Check out GURPS Lite and Hero Sidekick and see which floats your boat more. I [u]much[/u] prefer Hero over GURPS -- in fact I put the two almost at opposite ends of the love-loathe scale. To be honest, though, the Hero main book reads a lot like a dictionary. Very few game manuals are particularly exciting, but the first parts of the Hero book are exceptionally... reference-y. GURPS 3e was about the same level as D&D 2e for readability (again, IIRC). So, even if you prefer Hero to GURPS, you aren't going to cause yourself any undue pain by reading some GURPS. As far as what I like about Hero, you literally only ever need the single core book to play. It has all the building blocks to assemble characters for any genre. The expansion books are either settings or provide some templates for critters, starting builds, sample magic systems (i.e. consistent spell "feel"), etc. But, you really don't need them. From just the core book, I've seen Iron Man, V:tM vampires, ninjas, psychic aliens, King Arthur knock-offs, an incubus, a duelist, Ars Magica style mages, AD&D style wizards, W:tA werewolves, a semi-Incarnum style cleric, space-opera characters, hard sci-fi characters, cyborgs, an intelligent sword PC, Cthulhu-esque pulp, X-Files, and a bunch of others. [b]All[/b] of those worked extremely well without any additional books. My understanding of GURPS is that, at least in 3e, you often needed to get the additional source books to get the powers you needed for those genres and that the different genres often did not play well with each other, in practice. My experience is that GURPS had too few base stats (4 IRRC) and a chain of odd dependencies that resulted in odd consequences and made the presented powers hard to customize. But, it's been over a decade since I've played GURPS, so that may be skewed. What I will say is that one would expect my worst gaming moment would be when I tried to play the original Temple of Elemental Evil with 24 players, 12 of whom showed up drunk -- and I was sober. That was probably even more painful than it sounds. Playing GURPS beat it by miles. After playing GURPS, I honestly can't imagine why it made it past 1e or why anyone would play it. But, others apparently see something I don't. [/QUOTE]

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