What is your Opinion of GURPS?

[Vigilance]

I think all game design is choices. I think GURPs went for detail and realism and they succeeded.

However, for every game for which that makes GURPs a great system, there's a game for which it makes GURPs terrible.

I ran Special Ops under GURPs and it was great. I ran Supers.... let's call that experience not great.

Chuck

 

[Staffan]

Good Side:
GURPS is a very realistic, very detailed system. It has a Fatigue/Manapool type magic system, which some people like very much.

Mana pools, I like. The problem with GURPS magic is that casting a spell fatigues you, and your pool of fatigue points is dependent on Strength. Thus, wizards have a tendency to look like Ahnuld.

 

[d4]

Think of it like this: when you spend points to buy abilities, what you're really buying is story importance.

that doesn't quite work in GURPS though. remember that a lot of skills and abilities are costed by how hard they are to learn, and not by how useful they are.

for example: Mathematics is a Hard skill. Guns is an Easy skill. it costs less points to get a high score in Guns than in Mathematics. however, in almost any type of campaign you can name, having a high Guns skill is going to be more important than having a high Mathematics skill.

design choices like that i find frustrating.

 

[d4]

Mana pools, I like. The problem with GURPS magic is that casting a spell fatigues you, and your pool of fatigue points is dependent on Strength. Thus, wizards have a tendency to look like Ahnuld.

if you use the optional rule from the Compendium (which will be official in 4e), Fatigue is based off of Health.

of course, then you have all your wizards looking like Bruce Willis from Die Hard.

 

[VirgilCaine]

if you use the optional rule from the Compendium (which will be official in 4e), Fatigue is based off of Health.

of course, then you have all your wizards looking like Bruce Willis from Die Hard.

This might not be a bad thing. In a magic system that works like that, this only makes sense.

I could rationalize a "post-atomic fantasy" where you use radiation as "mana" and you have to resist it and refocus it outwards to get rid of it, in the form of spells. This idea bears further thought.

 

[hong]

if you use the optional rule from the Compendium (which will be official in 4e), Fatigue is based off of Health.

of course, then you have all your wizards looking like Bruce Willis from Die Hard.

Or Thulsa Doom, or Mola Ram in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Heck, in D&D your average high-level PC wizard has a Con of at least 14, because not having enough hit points is bad. I can picture the average adventuring wizard in GURPS being very healthy quite fine.

(Non-adventuring wizards could be quite unhealthy and thus be limited in spellcasting, but that's okay.)

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I would probably only use the GURPS Lite rules and not buy any of the books, but I might consider buying one or two.

Any pitfalls of GURPS? Advantages? Disadvantages? Things to avoid?

First of all, it is vital that you don't have to use all the rules - and in fact, with a group that's just starting out with GURPS, you probably shouldn't.

In my fist attempt at GMing GURPS, I brought a dozen books to character creation.

This campaign went down like a flaming wreck.

In my second attempt, I sent the players the URL for GURPS Lite, and a few small files that contained all the equipment and setting-relevant advantages, disadvantages, skills, and house rules. With this, they could create any character on their own with the exception of mages (for this they needed GURPS Magic).

This campaign rocked, and lasted for a year with weekly sessions.

So keep it simple - you can always throw in more stuff later once your players are familiar with the basics...

Oh, and a 4E version of GURPS Lite is supposed to come out in May, and the Basic Rules in August...

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

Uhm... You don't happen to post at RPGNet under the handle of "NPC Jeremy", would you?

Seriously, I've had lengthy polite conversations with many SJG employees (most notably David Pulver), and they never struck me as jerks.

- Chargen is tedious, as was already mentioned. Sure you can do anything, but would you want to? It's easy to make characters who focus only on important skills and put 1/2 point in everything else. I found that running GURPS, the GM has to do a lot more handholding than many other systems.

Half-points are gone in 4E, thankfully.

- Too few attributes, attributes too influential, leads to many character being "Jacks of All trades dextrous" or "Jacks of all trades intellectual."

With higher point costs for IQ and DX (a flat 20/level), as well as the adjusted skill costs, these should be less viable character concepts...

My problem with the game is that for a 'generic' system I did not think it really did a great job for all the different genres. 'Supers' for example, was an abomination. Whereas 'Horror' was pretty good. I am not sure that many people played Fantasy because, well, D&D was so much easier.

GURPS Supers is widely considered to be "broken" even among die-hard GURPS fans. I have high hopes that David Pulver, who is one of the main writers behind 4E (and who is very knowledgeable in game design - see BESM2E) was able to fix the issues with that book...

Mana pools, I like. The problem with GURPS magic is that casting a spell fatigues you, and your pool of fatigue points is dependent on Strength. Thus, wizards have a tendency to look like Ahnuld.

Thankfully, that will also be fixed in 4E - Fatigue will be based on the Health attribute (while hit points will be based on Strength - since Strength also usually represents bulk). You can also buy up your Fatigue pool with character points...

 

[Sir Elton]

What do you think of GURPS?

I have downloaded the GURPS Lite .pdf a while ago, and I think GURPS might be a better fit for my ideas about games than D20M is.

D20 is nice, but I really want something that has a more realistic intent to it than D20M's "cinematic" feel. The way [modern] body armor is done especially seems better.

I would probably only use the GURPS Lite rules and not buy any of the books, but I might consider buying one or two.

Any pitfalls of GURPS? Advantages? Disadvantages? Things to avoid?

4th Edition GURPS is on my 'must buy' list for the Summer. I make it a point to buy other People's Games to see how they did it. I have several different games, and each one has their own advantages and disadvantages. fortunately, for GURPS, their Supplements put most D20 Campaign Settings to shame. (for Shame, for shame!). Especially their Historical Supplements. When SJ said that we could use their supplements for any game, it just about floored me . . . (I'm energetically spent for the night!).

Anyway, the Best Supplements to buy for your D20 Game for GURPS are GURPS Low Tech, GURPS Religion, and GURPS Wizards. GURPS Low Tech helps make your D20 Setting more realistic on the tech side. GURPS religion helps you flesh out religions, and GURPS Wizards provides for you ideas for prestige classes for Wizards if nothing else. Including the all popular Charlatan.

 

[The Goblin King]

I played GURPS for a long time before D&D3e came out. I think its pretty good and I will be giving 4th Edition a look. I never liked casting spells from Fatigue so we used Unlimited Mana. It was High Fantasy with 250 point characters and all kinds of crazy stuff. It was fun and I was sad when we had to break up because of RL issues (school, jobs, ect).

 

[Stone Dog]

Thanks for bringing up Unlimited Mana. It is a great varient rule with wonderful customization oppurtunities. If you want low magic, high magic, dark magic or wild magic just tinker with the thresholds and calamities and you have instant flavorful magic.

Plus GURPS sourcebooks are amazing. I have two shelves of GURPS books and haven't ever run more than one or two sessions and played in only one campaign. I don't regret a single GURPS book I have ever purchased.