Quote from: Weru;825429I'm no GURPS Guru, but I do love 3e for low mana fantasy.

It's probably what GURPS is most good at.

Cosmetically, I love the look and feel and layout of 3rd Edition Basic. It feels warm and cozy and makes you want to delve in and discover its secrets. 4th edition lacks this appeal, reflecting the labcoat scientist that permeates Sean's being - but it's obviously more comprehensive. He and the team did a super job with the huge task they had to accomplish. The hardcover books in the series I must say, look amazing on the shelf and are still all fun to read.

Without the solo and Caravan adventure built in, 4e becomes anathema to a new convert. Like...how does this all fit?? GURPs is magic in its simplicity of mechanics. Once people see it, they seldom find anything else satisfactory.

One thing I also liked about 3e was the Random Character generator (but I'm a super fan of playing random everything, thank you EasyGurps). Make a human character for any genre and GO. Sometimes, this is the best way for a GM to get a GURPS group going. Roll 'em up and do a one-shot. Once they LIKE playing, they'll want and enjoy putting the time into a character. But, GURPS can be deadly sometimes esp for beginners - so random allows for generation without too much investment should it all go south.
Also, solo gaming is really taking off as a hobby of its own now.

So 4e lost a lot of "ease of entry".
I love DF but don't love it.

WHY CALL IT DUNGEON FANTASY IF THAT LINE ALREADY EXISTS??
You just created a good degree of confusion.

Why the 250 point character start? Starting off as super warriors without earning it isn't fun. I guess Sean wanted to show off the capabilities of the system. His sarcastic or irreverent tone talking down to the genre makes it an annoying read. If reaching newer D& D players was the goal with this box, why act as if it's all dumb but hey here you go? They haven't been around since the 80's.

But I'll take the presentation and distillation.



I was wondering if it is possible for GURPS  to do a universal "basic box" with a solo.
4E is "complete", but just needs a better point of entry, and less clinical approach and layout. Go back to warm and fuzzy 3e style.

Maybe TFT could be repacked as a basic fantasy start for GURPS (which it is, really) It's a much faster entry and start up.

I think the reasoning behind the 250 point characters is that people won't be playing long campaigns.  Also, 100 point GURPS characters spend a lot of time healing up after just a couple combats.

D&D's had this weird thing where dungeons were safer than the wilderness and player characters engaged with dungeon crawls because they were structured to be challenging relative to the character's level.

Personally, Dungeon Fantasy isn't what I'd have done, a GURPS Lite Fantasy Supplement would be my way of attracting new players, but then I don't own SJG.  Of course, Dungeon Fantasy isn't really aimed at new players, its aimed at the existing fanbase which is, I imagine, good business sense.  Something I have none of.

I have 3rd ed myself and a friend has 4th. I prefer easy solutions rather than tons of options, and I always thought 4th edition was a bloated mess that I wouldn't want. 3rd edition was really straightforward to get into.

That impression, whether it's true or not (and I believe it mostly is) is 4th edition's greatest weakness.

Quote from: RPGPundit on April 14, 2015, 11:23:24 AM

Quote from: Weru;825429I'm no GURPS Guru, but I do love 3e for low mana fantasy.

It's probably what GURPS is most good at.

Guns, Guns, Guns!

GURPS is the best system, from a crunch perspective (IMO), for modern gun-centric games, including war settings.

Honestly, it's probably the best system for a gladiator style game, too.

Edit: For whatever the reason, I've found 3e more suited to my tastes and needs as time has passed. Low-Tech and High-Tech are two of my favorite sourcebooks.

I tend to use it as a wargame for RPG's, honestly.

As noted in a few older threads.

I have 3e and while I may not like gurps, 3e is the one I like. It feels more... complete? Like 4e is missing something?

 Wow! -  the thread start of this one is really old....

As for me - I still run 4th edition GURPS.
The 'half points' in 3rd edition never made much sense to me. With 4th edition they streamlined things.

Just kind of bummed that my most recent campaign is on 'pause' or has ended abruptly. We played from May of 2022 to July of 2024. Really thought we were going to start back up on November 10th.

- Ed C.

Quote from: Two Crows on December 06, 2024, 11:39:32 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on April 14, 2015, 11:23:24 AM

Quote from: Weru;825429I'm no GURPS Guru, but I do love 3e for low mana fantasy.

It's probably what GURPS is most good at.

Guns, Guns, Guns!

GURPS is the best system, from a crunch perspective (IMO), for modern gun-centric games, including war settings.

GURPs seems to have rather odd stats for guns, though. 9mm doing more damage than .45 ACP (they have similar muzzle energy, but .45 ACP leaves a bigger hole), .357 magnum doing only 1 point less than .44 Magnum (it's about 2/3 muzzle energy and a lot smaller hole), .38 special only doing 1 point less than .45 ACP despite being much smaller and half the muzzle energy

4E GURPS is very complete and comprehensive. The problem with it is that there are no well presented points of entry. You get these two volumes of dense material packed with everything under the sun and you need to practically write your own starter book to present to players to create characters for the type of campaign that you want. I would have loved a fantasy starter box set that covered just fantasy options, varying point totals covering zero to hero up through high powered play and a GM book with a starting fantasy bestiary and some sample adventures for low,medium, and high point totals. Add in some fantasy maps for advanced combat and you have solid intro to the genre. They could do similar sets for other genres, making the core book set kind of a reference work.

That is my dream anyway.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on December 08, 2024, 08:49:36 AM4E GURPS is very complete and comprehensive. The problem with it is that there are no well presented points of entry. You get these two volumes of dense material packed with everything under the sun and you need to practically write your own starter book to present to players to create characters for the type of campaign that you want. I would have loved a fantasy starter box set that covered just fantasy options, varying point totals covering zero to hero up through high powered play and a GM book with a starting fantasy bestiary and some sample adventures for low,medium, and high point totals. Add in some fantasy maps for advanced combat and you have solid intro to the genre. They could do similar sets for other genres, making the core book set kind of a reference work.

Isn't that the Dungeon Fantasy RPG?

https://www.sjgames.com/dungeonfantasy/

And the other genres would be the "Powered by GURPS" line: Discworld, Hellboy, Conspiracy X, Vorkosigan Saga, Prime Directive, and WWII.

https://www.sjgames.com/poweredbygurps/

Quote from: jhkim on December 08, 2024, 11:37:27 AM

Quote from: Exploderwizard on December 08, 2024, 08:49:36 AM4E GURPS is very complete and comprehensive. The problem with it is that there are no well presented points of entry. You get these two volumes of dense material packed with everything under the sun and you need to practically write your own starter book to present to players to create characters for the type of campaign that you want. I would have loved a fantasy starter box set that covered just fantasy options, varying point totals covering zero to hero up through high powered play and a GM book with a starting fantasy bestiary and some sample adventures for low,medium, and high point totals. Add in some fantasy maps for advanced combat and you have solid intro to the genre. They could do similar sets for other genres, making the core book set kind of a reference work.

Isn't that the Dungeon Fantasy RPG?

https://www.sjgames.com/dungeonfantasy/

And the other genres would be the "Powered by GURPS" line: Discworld, Hellboy, Conspiracy X, Vorkosigan Saga, Prime Directive, and WWII.

https://www.sjgames.com/poweredbygurps/

Dungeon Fantasy is a high powered mindless dungeon romp game that is written with aura of disdain.Not really suitable for fantasy campaigns designed to allow for character growth and featuring adventures that include more than kill and loot.

Quote from: JeremyR on December 08, 2024, 04:33:23 AM

Quote from: Two Crows on December 06, 2024, 11:39:32 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on April 14, 2015, 11:23:24 AM

Quote from: Weru;825429I'm no GURPS Guru, but I do love 3e for low mana fantasy.

It's probably what GURPS is most good at.

Guns, Guns, Guns!

GURPS is the best system, from a crunch perspective (IMO), for modern gun-centric games, including war settings.

GURPs seems to have rather odd stats for guns, though. 9mm doing more damage than .45 ACP (they have similar muzzle energy, but .45 ACP leaves a bigger hole), .357 magnum doing only 1 point less than .44 Magnum (it's about 2/3 muzzle energy and a lot smaller hole), .38 special only doing 1 point less than .45 ACP despite being much smaller and half the muzzle energy

The .45 does more damage after penetrating (the "2d+" means multiply damage by 1.5 after armor), where the 2d+2 just means what it looks like. The .38 sits at the bottom with 2d.

An unarmored target would take, on average, 9 hp from the 9mm round (max damage 14 hp) but 10 hp from the .45 (max damage 18 hp). Their version give the 9mm a bit more penetration ability. The .38 gives the worst option, with no better penetration that the .45, and far less damage potential.

The same thing applies to the .357 vs .44 magnum rounds.  3d-1 vs 3d+, so any damage that penetrates is 150%. In this case, the .44 has more penetration and (a whole lot) more damage.

The rounds also all vary in effective range (1/2 Dmg), max range, even in ammo weight, and some vary in recoil (RCL).

(I agree this is way too much detail for most RPG's.)

I have both... I prefer the black and white of the 3rd but I prefer the streamlined rules of the 4th.
I did not practice them enough to see the difference, especially as computing the "exact" cost of this and that is not what I use GURPS for. Thus, I would recommend starting with the 4th, but you can get a 3rd edition for a cheap taste and intro to the system as well.

The cool thing about 3rd edition is that the book is somewhat slim and has all you need already. 4th starts with 2 books, and they are chucky, mostly derivated from the 3e compedium and multiple books. Mechanically we're speaking just different calculations for a skill or atribute. The philosophy is the same. Whatever you choose, if you stick with gurps for a while, you'll end up mixing all editions. So If you can buy 3rd edition cheap and just want to check out the potential, i'd go with that.