What is your Opinion of GURPS?

[Macbeth]

And this is purely subjective, but just about everyone who works at SJG is a jerk.

My Dad has actually emailed quite a bit with Steve Jackson (completely non gaming realted), and his impression was that he was a fairly nice guy... plus, I wouldn't judge system on how well you get along with the people at the company who made it. it's not like you have to game with the guys, they are just putting out rules for you to use.

 

[Sejs]

Good Side:
GURPS is a very realistic, very detailed system. It has a Fatigue/Manapool type magic system, which some people like very much. Armor primarily serves to soften a blow recieved, whereas actually deflecting an incoming attack is a function of your skill with your weapon. GURPS has a (more or less) comprehensive list of skills, focusing on the idea of 'what skills do people have in the real world' rather than 'what skills could possibly apply to an adventurer'.


Bad Side:
GURPS is a very realistic, very detailed system. There is no function of level, so gauging ability can be dodgy. Combat is deadly - if you take a solid sword blow to the head, chances are very good that you are going to die. A solid blow from a weapon to an unprotected hand will, more often than not, cripple it rendering it useless until you've had proper medical attention. Archery and magic, while potentially powerful, usually take several rounds to execute. If you want to cast a fireball, you have to concentrate (one round), then cast the spell (a second round), and if you want it to do more than 1d of damage, you have to build the spell (one or two more rounds) before you can blast some guy with it. Unless you're quite familiar with the rules, combat can take a very long time. A long GURPS fight tends to make long D&D fights look like a quick in-and-out affair by comparison.


All in all, GURPS is a good system. Apples and oranges, really. Both are good in and of themselves - some people just like one more than the other. Others like both equally.

 

[evileeyore]

Firstly, don't change any of the base rules. Just play it as is for atleast 5-10 sessions to get a feel for how the system works. You might be tempted to 'add' a stat or two, don't. Use the Advantages like Charisma, Appearance, Strong Will, etc.

Trust me. I've played GURPS for roughly 15 years and have on occasion felt tempted to add stats, or rework the Ads/Disads I didn't like. It really doesn't work. Just try the system as is.

Really would you want to be in a D&D game where the DM said "I've never played d20 before, but I changed a bunch of things I didn't like"? Would you? I wouldn't.

The only thing IMHO worth 'houseruling' is Disads. I usually have the 'heroes' start at 80 pints and 'require' 20 points of disads... Thus making them 100 point characters, with some flaws I might use. But please just try using the 'base' rules first. Think of the kittens.

Also GURPS works for almost any system except Supers. Even then it can be 'made' to work with a good group and good ST.

--EvilE--

 

[woodelf]

2. Super cripple. Even at the "standard" 100 point + 45 points of disads, characters are often a bit heavy on disads for my taste, as players try to make sure they get every one of those allowed 45 points while taking disads that won't really be disads. (I was one of the worst offenders myself.)

Min/maxing and munchkinism aren't problems with the game; they're problems with the player. (to quote Tri-Stat dX) I've yet to deal 1st-hand with a player who was any more of a munchkin in a point system than in a more strictured system like D&D. Those who're problems in one are just as much of a problem in the other, just in different ways.

Last GURPS game I ran, I banned disads. Well, actually, you could take 'em, they just didn't give you points.

Actually, i'd go a step further: i think that a lot of "disads" should *cost* points. Think of it like this: when you spend points to buy abilities, what you're really buying is story importance. By spending some points on being a great sharpshooter, you'll get to have a significant input when the game brings up a ranged combat situation. By spending points on more skills, you broaden the number of areas in which you can have meaningful input. And so on, for magical ability, superpowers, equipment, good looks, and so on. Now, there are two kinds of disads. Many of them limit your characters abilities. But even these often also increase your character's story-relevance. Let's take an easy example: hunted. Sure, being hunted means you can't do some things, and have to spend effort keeping hidden, and people may show up to make your life miserable at inopportune times. But it also means that your character gets to be in the spotlight a lot more, and your character has more influence on the plotline of the game, and your character will more often be pivotal. In this way, the "Backgrounds" in Spycraft got it right: what most games call disads and give you points for, Spycraft charges points for.

And, from a purely metagame perspective, if you charge points for all those things, instead of giving points, people'll only take them if they actually want them, not just to get "free" points--the min/maxer's incentive is no longer there.

 

[woodelf]

Gurps rewards characters who take role-playing disadvantages with power gaming advantages. AD&D never did something like that.

For instance, if you stutter, you can be a better sword fighter. Obviously, this is not a problem with all players, but most will be tempted to twink out their characters a bit.

Well, i consider the inverse to be the flawed mechanism: the idea that flaws have to limit a character in the very areas they (or, rather, the player) care about. For examples of exactly why this doesn't work, take a look at Unearthed Arcana. The Traits [yes, i know they aren't intended to be "flaws"] illustrate exactly the problem: since they give a bonus and penalty in the same area, they're useless for adjusting your character's focus, and instead provide just flavor. Similarly, the guidelines for creating Flaws (also from Unearthed Arcana) are wrong-headed: "A Flaw must have a meaningful effect regardless of character class or role....Similarly, a flaw that penalizes a character's Charisma-based skill checks only has a significant impact on teh party spokesperson--the quiet fighter or barbarian likely won't feel any impact from the penalties." But that's the whole *point* of them [IMHO]: to characterize your character. Following those guidelines makes it impossible to design a character that is mechanically limited from becoming a spellcaster, or mechanically incapable of good diplomacy. It prevents those aspects [aspects of your character that are conceptually supposed to be weaknesses] from being actual flaws. And it's a bogus, inconsistent ruling. At least two of the flaws presented give penalties on combat rolls. If you can take a penalty to attack rolls when you're playing a non-combatant wizard, and that's not munchkin, then why can't you take a penalty to social rolls when you're playing a strong silent barbarian?

The problem is not disadvantaging one area while advantaging another. The problem is allowing a character to gain points for a disadvantage that never shows up in play. All you have to do to fix the problem is make disadvantages actually disadvantageous. As GM, make a note to yourself to remind you that everyone [NPCs] is supposed to react negatively to the barbarian, if the problem is you forgetting about the flaws. If the problem is players "forgetting" their flaws (whether intentionally, or as a legitimate mistake), then only let players take disads that you trust them to remember. If you had a player who took a penalty on attack rolls as a flaw, and habitually forgot to apply it, you wouldn't blame numerical, or combat-affecting, flaws. You'd rightly blame the player. Same thing with social flaws.

oh, and, finally, is it really a problem if someone is a better sword fighter because they stutter? Everyone has the opportunity to take flaws for the extra points, so it all evens out. The important thing is to keep the magnitudes inline with one another: stuttering shouldn't be worth very many points, in any case, so who cares?

 

[woodelf]

To answer the original question: if you like GURPS, check out CORPS. IMHO, everything GURPS does, CORPS does as well or better (more realistic, for starters). And CORPS does some things that GURPS really doesn't (low-to-mid-power supers, frex). Plus, CORPS is more streamlined, better written, and faster-playing. It does in 140pp what GURPS fails to do in 250, IMHO. You can check out the CORPS Nutshell rules at http://www.btrc.net/html/downloads.html .

 

[Zappo]

I think GURPS is too rules-heavy for my tastes. Chargen takes ages, and combat is slow. It is easily abusable; while it is true that this is a problem with the player and not with the system, the system should at least try to nudge players in the right direction. Not so.

However, that opinion just might be about to change, since I will play in a promising GURPS campaign for the next month and a half. We'll see.

 

[milotha]

Perhaps this is just my experience... but...

GURPS allows you to make greatly detailed and fleshed out characters. Unfortunately, this doesn't always translate into a fun campaign. I've seen many GURPS parties where the characters have so little in common that there is no reason they would ever adventure together. Ex GURPS cyberpunk: character1:I'm a street fighter thug AND character2:I'm a paraplegic nethacker who's afraid of leaving the house. GURPS was also more subject to character inequalites. Someone who knows the system well can easily design a character that outshines someone who doesn't know the system well. I've seen numerous characters that were walking disadvantages that were maxed out to do one thing extraordinarily well.

GURPS combat can be a pain, and can take forever, especially at higher point buys where it just boils down to who can roll a critical succes on their hit and who rolls a critical failure on their dodge.

GURPS magic is also a bit archaic. They sytem takes awhile to learn all the intricacies. It's also either extremely week with the entry abilities and overpowering with the higher up the chain abilities.

Lastly, I felt that many of the GURPS extra books were just churned out junk. Published for the sake of profit and NEVER playtested. It was hard to judge the books until you invested a good deal of time reading them. Not that this doesn't happen with other gaming systems that will remain nameless.

 

[Ondo]

The new version of GURPS Lite should come out sometime before the 4th edition books in August. I think May was mentioned, but it sounded like they didn't really know yet. So it may be worth waiting for that.

 

[Psion]

everything GURPS does, CORPS does as well or better

This, I agree with.