Christ on a cock, people! Can't someone ask a question here without it turning into a fucking flamefest?!?! All I wanted was some information about gurps spaceships and the next thing I see is a flame war over why gurps (sucks or rocks) with people throwing the snark at each other with catapults.

You know I asked this question on RPG.net and while there made the mistake of answering some questions about wbast I thought would be a good, rules lite RPG system for a sfrpg that included tactical combat.

Next thing I know I'm getting reerected, threatened, warned, etc by some powertripping cocksucking assholes because I tried to give someone useful answers to their questions. Ice heard about that place and looked around while I was there for a couple days. If anything what I heard was an understatement, and I thought they had to be exaggerating. So much for getting much help here.

So now I come here and ask the same question and my thread goes up in flames. Shit, RPG.net represents order take to the extreme, this place represents chaos taken to the extreme.

Why the fuck can't gamers have a major website that isn't either Stalinist Russia (RPG.net) or fucking somalia (this place)?

I guess I won't find useful answers here or there. I could go to the sjg forums and ask there but going to the sjg forums and asking if a product with Steve Jackson's name on it would be like asking the Borg collective if being assimilated was a good thing.

It's moot now, the gurps spaceships system would cost so fucking much to get it's pretty much out of consideration.
 

To the few people who at least tried to answer, thanks .

Quote from: Schwartzwald;980335Christ on a cock, people! Can't someone ask a question here without it turning into a fucking flamefest?!?!

New here are you? A bit of rough and tumble is par for most discussions. Some people consider it a feature. Others just put up with a bit of insults and cranky comments now and then as the price we pay for not having some tin plated dictator with delusions of godhood playing moderator.

Quote from: Schwartzwald;980335It's moot now, the gurps spaceships system would cost so fucking much to get it's pretty much out of consideration.

What does it cost? Let's see. SJG says

QuoteGURPS Spaceships requires only the GURPS Basic Set, but GURPS Space is highly recommended for its guidelines on stardrives, characters, campaigns, and settings.

• GURPS Space Ships | 70 black-and-white pages. * Suggested Retail Price $15.95 (softcover), $10.99 (PDF).
• GURPS Basic | 336 pages, full color. * Suggested Retail Price $49.95 (hardcover), $29.99  (PDF).
• GURPS Space | 240 black-and-white pages. * Suggested Retail Price $29.95 (softcover), $24.99 (PDF), .

If you only want a starship design system, you can get that for $10.99. Given what I've seen of the usual quality that doesn't seem too pricey to me if what I wanted was a new or different design system created by people who actually use and understand arithmetic.

If you want to actually play GURPS in Space you probably need to spring for the extra 336 pages. Or find some older version used or online shorter version of GURPS. But if you want the big tome, that will run at least another thirty bucks ($29.99) or more. While that isn't cheap, it seems in line for the cost of a lot of game rules of that size. Now we are up to $31. I'm sure I can find a cheaper space game. But does it have well-designed space ship design rules…maybe.

BTW, I have no dog in this fight. I use WEG D6, the old FASA Star Trek, or Traveller if I am going to run a game with Spaceships and I don't use GURPS for anything. But I like having starship design rules though it's not a necessity for me to GM stuff. But I own and have used successfully used stuff from some of SJG's well written supplements for Runequest or BRP and haven't found it too hard to port setting stuff over. So if the design rules for one of the other three games I do run wasn't cutting it for me, I'd take a look at GURPS. If I was going to do that though I wouldn't spring for anything more than the Spaceship supplement. I'm sure I can find some short versions of the GURPS rules online or even dig out my old In the Labyrinth or Melee and Wizard games to figure out how the ship design stuff works. If I liked the ship rules and then though I wanted to run GURPS, then I'd spring for the big book of basic rules and the Space supplement.

No,  let's look at it from a more accurate POV.

Basic gurps PDF spaceships book sans tactical combat, hex map movement, economics, trade, etc. 11 bucks.
Add in 6 more books to get all the rules. 6x(8 bucks apiece) = 48 bucks.
Then I've heard there are 2 issues of pyramid magazine you really should have with extra rules. 2 issues
 pyramid @ 8 each = 16 bucks.
Total without basic set is 75 bucks. I already have the basic set books.

Quote from: Schwartzwald;980335Christ on a cock, people! Can't someone ask a question here without it turning into a fucking flamefest?!?! All I wanted was some information about gurps spaceships and the next thing I see is a flame war over why gurps (sucks or rocks) with people throwing the snark at each other with catapults.

LOL! That wasn't a rpgsite flamewar. That was Shawn for some reason posting a sloppy general not-really-on-topic shot at GURPS in general, and others correcting it pretty tamely. And that was after you got some good tamely-worded info and had posted saying you'd decided against it.

Quote from: Schwartzwald;980344No,  let's look at it from a more accurate POV.

Basic gurps PDF spaceships book sans tactical combat, hex map movement, economics, trade, etc. 11 bucks.
Add in 6 more books to get all the rules. 6x(8 bucks apiece) = 48 bucks.
Then I've heard there are 2 issues of pyramid magazine you really should have with extra rules. 2 issues
 pyramid @ 8 each = 16 bucks.
Total without basic set is 75 bucks. I already have the basic set books.

It does add up, Pyramid back issues are unfortunately pricey though they do have good material if it's what you want. Also there's the usual problem where the rules material is split into several books mixed with a lot of stuff I don't usually want, and it's hard to tell what's inside without looking inside, which is trickier to do now that there are fewer stores with many GURPS books in stock to browse. I have many many times bought GURPS books hoping for a few more usable rules snippets.

How is someone supposed to know how many books and magazines they might want to buy, and what's in them? Annoying. The best way I know is asking on the SJG forums, which fortunately tend to be full of verbose GURPS fans.

On the other hand, I can see just getting the first book and using it without all the other stuff. If it was a system I really liked (which I could find out for $11), I wouldn't think gradually acquiring the other books would be that big a deal, even if it eventually did add up to $75. A good system I like and use is certainly worth that to me, considering the time I'll put in, the fun I get out, and the cost of other things like sandwiches and movies and games I don't end up getting much out of.

Quote from: Schwartzwald;980344No,  let's look at it from a more accurate POV.

If your only two choices are buy absolutely everything or buy nothing...well then yeah buying everything does seem pricey.

But those aren't the only two choices that I see and I'm struggling to fathom why you would want to buy all those books and articles at once instead of buying just the one book first. Especially when you don't even know if the one, single most important book for you (which is the one with the ship design rules) contains a system you even like.

Reminds me of the Biscuit's "Why is D&D so expensive thread?" Alternatives and options were provided, but the OP didn't really want an answer to start with.

Quote from: Skarg;980298I find GURPS trivial to run quickly and easily even with the advanced and many optional options in, because I've been playing TFT & GURPS for decades, and also because the rules make sense, so they fit neatly in my memory, and match the way I think about reality. I can see being overwhelmed and thinking it must be slow and rules-overkill to play, but it's really not when you have GMs who have internalized the rules at the level they use them.

Great so according to you it only takes decades of dedicated play to get Gurps to play smoothly. A real selling point!

Estar's point about the flexibility of the system to play lighter and quicker is a much more convincing argument. Seems to me though anyone playing Gurps still is doing it because they love high levels of crunch.

Quote from: Voros;980692Estar's point about the flexibility of the system to play lighter and quicker is a much more convincing argument. Seems to me though anyone playing Gurps still is doing it because they love high levels of crunch.

I wouldn't say accurate, the mix of current GURPS players still to me reflects what it has been all along. GURPS has problems but that is not one of them.

Quote from: Voros;980692Great so according to you it only takes decades of dedicated play to get Gurps to play smoothly. A real selling point!

Haha. No that's just where I am. I could play it smoothly after running a few trial combats, but I had been playing TFT (similar but simpler) for a few years before that, and that was when GURPS first came out and came in nice digestible intro products like Man To Man, Orcslayer, and the first edition Basic Set and Magic books... and I am also a wargamer who has no problem enjoying Squad Leader or Star Fleet Battles (up to a certain level, anyway).

QuoteEstar's point about the flexibility of the system to play lighter and quicker is a much more convincing argument. Seems to me though anyone playing Gurps still is doing it because they love high levels of crunch.

Well, I play GURPS because it gives me a system that feels like it does a good job of working approximately like things actually work. And because there are ways to handle almost any situation or action I want to game out, in detail, in a way that satisfies and interests me. And if it doesn't, I know how to easily house-rule an edit that corrects that. In contrast, most other RPGs seem abstract and about things that I don't recognize, and tend to resolve action in ways that don't seem like how I think things work, and so don't give me a way to play a game that feels to me like it's about the supposed situation.

Quote from: Schwartzwald;980335Christ on a cock, people! Can't someone ask a question here without it turning into a fucking flamefest?!?!

All signs point to no.

I've got a copy of GURPS Spaceships I'm not using if you want it.