GURPS is not really very complicated, especially without the advanced and optional rules, but it is very different from D&D, and the 4e Basic Set is stuffed full of rules for nearly every type of game, which makes it a reference manual that's hard (even for me) to wade through to find the core game rules. But there is GURPS Lite, and a skilled GURPS GM can teach people who have never played GURPS or never played an RPG pretty easily, or just use English and translate to rules inside the GM's head.

If you look at Man To Man or the 1st, 2nd, or even 3rd edition GURPS Basic Sets, not to mention GURPS Lite, or one of the Powered By GURPS editions, the rules are presented in much more learnable format.

It seems to me that GURPS also benefits from all its rules trying to make sense and just generate plausible logical results for things that happen, with very few things that are "just how the game works". For example, the Strength attribute affects how much you can carry, what weapons you can use without a penalty, how much damage you do, and how well you can overpower people when struggling with them, how far you can jump, etc., and work out to real-world-like results. (As opposed to, for example, having almost no effect, but giving you an experience bonus if it is high and it is the "prime requisite" for your "class".) So a good GM can also extrapolate in the absence or ignorance of specific rules.

I did run GURPS a couple of times in the 90s and early 2000s, but what I mostly used GURPS books for was the 3e historical sourcebooks.

Quote from: SCM;1056098My point is that GURPS isn't more complicated than any other system. Page 8-9 of the Basic Set is all you need to know to play. The rest is just flavor. Besides my ZA campaign I've mainly used it for fantasy campaigns and find it works better than the other major systems designed specifically around that genre.

My point is that it's just as complicated as lots of other mainstream systems.

Quote from: SCM;1056098My point is that GURPS isn't more complicated than any other system. Page 8-9 of the Basic Set is all you need to know to play. The rest is just flavor. Besides my ZA campaign I've mainly used it for fantasy campaigns and find it works better than the other major systems designed specifically around that genre.

If it's a 10 page game, they shouldn't hide it in 2 books that clock in at almost 600 pages. Someone who's experienced with the full game can certainly cut it back down, but paring something back to its essentials actually requires quite a bit of experience, skill, and knowledge. To someone who's just been introduced to the game, it's not a 10 page game, it's a 576 page game.

I played 3rd edition a lot, and really enjoyed the overwritten insanity of GURPS GULLIVER (an almost million-word fan supplement on size and scale). But even I find the dense and encyclopedic 4e corebooks hard to grok, because I never spent the time to acclimate myself to the new edition. And if that's true for someone with my background, then a newbie will be lost.

GURPS Lite works as an alternative, but if you use any sourcebooks you'll constantly run into things you don't understand, which leads to frustration. Not only that, SJG clearly intends it to be a set of training wheels, not a final product, except when it appears in those Powered by GURPS stand-alone RPGs.

Quote from: Pat;1056469If it's a 10 page game, they shouldn't hide it in 2 books that clock in at almost 600 pages. Someone who's experienced with the full game can certainly cut it back down, but paring something back to its essentials actually requires quite a bit of experience, skill, and knowledge. To someone who's just been introduced to the game, it's not a 10 page game, it's a 576 page game.

I played 3rd edition a lot, and really enjoyed the overwritten insanity of GURPS GULLIVER (an almost million-word fan supplement on size and scale). But even I find the dense and encyclopedic 4e corebooks hard to grok, because I never spent the time to acclimate myself to the new edition. And if that's true for someone with my background, then a newbie will be lost.

GURPS Lite works as an alternative, but if you use any sourcebooks you'll constantly run into things you don't understand, which leads to frustration. Not only that, SJG clearly intends it to be a set of training wheels, not a final product, except when it appears in those Powered by GURPS stand-alone RPGs.

I've found the easiest way to learn GURPS 4e by yourself is to just read the book, focusing on sections that interest you first.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1056471I've found the easiest way to learn GURPS 4e by yourself is to just read the book, focusing on sections that interest you first.

Should have been clear from my post, but I've read both books. I just haven't spend the time to develop any real degree of mastery.

Quote from: SCM;1056098My point is that GURPS isn't more complicated than any other system. Page 8-9 of the Basic Set is all you need to know to play.

As a GURPS referee since 1988, that is horseshit. Page 8 to 9 function as an overview of basic concepts with references to look up further details. All it explains are success rolls, reactions rolls, and damage rolls and focuses on the conventions of using them not how how one obtains WHAT to rule as a player or referee. For that you need the rest of the book.

So for the general point, the central tension of GURPS has been the various lists. It isn't that any one section is particularly complicated but rather by focusing on being THE generic RPG, the core books are comprised mostly of list of elements like skills or options like the different level of details with combat. (Very Basic, Basic, with a Grid). Of the two is is all the list that are the most problematic. The GURPS 4th edition core books are a toolkit from which you design the RPG you want to use for your campaign. Not many gamers are interested in doing that these days hence it's slide in popularity.

In comparison GURPS 2nd edition boxed set, which also had two book, has a comparably shorter list of elements, mostly oriented toward the fantasy genre. For that reason it was far more approachable to learn and master despite it being basically the same game as it is today.

GURPS issues are born solely of presentation not design.

It's kind of silly how "too many options" is THE complaint about GURPS basic set.

GURPS is a toolkit if players are not GM levels of invested into the system. I imagine being able to one day say, "Make 100 point characters for a TL3 fantasy game. You will get 5 characters points a session. Justify every ability, skill, or disadvantage  you get in a way that makes sense for the world."
In reality I would probably have to say, "Here are some 100 point template. Here is a list of disadvantages, take up to 50 points of them to qualify for these racial template or to select abilities/skills from this list. If you want to make custom characters please do" - which at that point, you are using GURPS as a tool kit because you just kind of made a game.

I've still got a lot of Savage Worlds games to play, but GURPS will remain a good reference until my groups want to try something different.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1056479It's kind of silly how "too many options" is THE complaint about GURPS basic set.
.....
*> "Here are some 100 point template.
*> Here is a list of disadvantages,
*> take up to 50 points of them to qualify for these racial template or to select abilities/skills from this list.

And exactly where those come from? If not from the referee having to sit down with the core books and coming up with those lists themselves. Because they are not found in the core books.

Hence the complaint GURPS is a toolkit used to design the rules for one's campaign. Compared to other RPGs that are far more ready to go and don't have this step.

In general that not an issue (for example Fate or Savage Worlds) except when the various lists grow beyond a certain point.

Quote from: estar;1056481And exactly where those come from? If not from the referee having to sit down with the core books and coming up with those lists themselves. Because they are not found in the core books.

Hence the complaint GURPS is a toolkit used to design the rules for one's campaign. Compared to other RPGs that are far more ready to go and don't have this step.

That is what I said...

And you only have to do that step when your players do not have any idea what they are doing/completely un-invested in the system. At which point the GM has to build a lighter game (hence toolkit).

Full GURPS is a game, but that requires players to give GURPS 1% the effort they gave D&D3.5, which you can't expect for a non-D&D game (for some reason)

Dungeon Fantasy.

Quote from: Eisenmann;1056486Dungeon Fantasy.

I've heard good things about it, but I would rather have one big book instead of all the little books that make up dungeon fantasy, which may just mean that I am not the target audience.

Quote from: Eisenmann;1056486Dungeon Fantasy.

A step in the right direction but it still 250 pts which results in

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2916[/ATTACH]

Which is derived from

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2917[/ATTACH]

and

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2918[/ATTACH]

When it could have been something that produced something like (although with some non-combat skills)

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2919[/ATTACH]

Using templates like this for my Myrmidons of Set

Or better yet template about as complex as these done for the fan made GURPS historical folks.

The problem is that with the last downturn in the RPG Market and Munchkins and Board games occupying the lion share of SJ Games development time, the GURPS line shifted from being approachable to something that caters to its dedicated fan base. As a consequence not only it slipped from being the #3/#4 RPG in the industry but also slipped from being the #1 generic RPG relative to others like Savage Worlds and Fate.

It stems from the initial decision of presenting 4th edition as a toolkit reference and when the line shifted to produce ready to run supplement like Dungeon Fantasy they opted for the higher point totals which brings in a lot of moving parts as in more advantages, disadvantages, skills, and abilities. Along with weird takes like going for Discworld, Mars Attacks, and focusing heavily on the kill them and get their loot aspect of dungeon crawling.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1056493I've heard good things about it, but I would rather have one big book instead of all the little books that make up dungeon fantasy, which may just mean that I am not the target audience.

The DF RPG  is different than GURPS Dungeon Fantasy. The former is a complete RPG presented as five books except bundled together. The five books are Adventurers, Exploits (Rules), Spells, Monsters, and Delvers to Go.

The latter is a series of supplements for the GURPS Core books that allow you to get doing with campaign focused on exploring dungeon. All you need are the first two. The rest are supplements expanding one or more aspects of the idea.

Yes to everything you said, Estar.

Your Sir Ellestan format is about like the format I tend to write up characters, and IMO there are too few (if any) examples in 4e of writing up a character that way - i.e. you list the values you need to play with them, in an easy-to-read-and-find-things format. Not like the published 4e examples, which tend to be a wall of unformatted text with lots of useless numbers showing how many points were spent and what the offset to an attribute is, not the value you roll against in play.

And yeah, the examples having hundreds of points for starting characters seems like madness to me, too.

There should be cut-down versions of the rules that, like 1st and 2nd edition, only include the needed stuff for one play style.