In my occasional quest to try and enjoy GURPS, I picked up the book again and started making a character. I have one serious question: how the fuck did Steve Jackson decide on the point values for advantages? They're all over the place. Not needing to sleep is 20 points, but being able to dominate other characters with your mind powers is also 20 points. Altered Time rate is 100 points, but just buy up Extra Attacks to 100 points and you can attack 5 times in a round.
Tell me there's some kind of logic to these point values, because on the surface it looks like a bunch of legacy rulings without any cohesive thought behind them.
First of all, you really should post this question on SJ forum. Sean Punch, one of the rulebook authors and Gurps line director, is one of the moderators and surely can explain this better than me.
As a rule of thumb, I would say that roughly 5 points advantages buys you a +1 in determinated area (for example: Charisma) and so on so forth, but I never bothered on the math behind the advantages point cost.
Consider, though, that they did clean a lot Gurps when they pushed out the fourth edition. Before a lot of advantages' cost was tailored to the setting rather being generic, so the same advantage could have two values depending on which book you used.
Every game with advantages and disadvantages that you buy with points has set arbitrary values for them. Some, like Hero System, assume that your game is 95% about combat effectiveness and set costs accordingly for not just advantages but everything in the game. Others I'll be damned if I can guess how they arrived at the point costs. I'd either change the costs to reflect the play style or abandon the game as unusable as-is.
By the by, I like GURPS (3rd edition, at least).
I suspect the rationale behind GURPS points has shifted a bit over they years but it's based on a larger picture than combat. Utility in play. Altered time rate is good for lots of other things while attacks are attacks.
Like any additive points system GURPS has a sweet spot. It makes the most sense at around 200 points, you start to get weird artifacts like it being cheaper to mind control the entire country than it is to lift a bus.
But yeah, I hear you.
Quote from: JonWake;836349In my occasional quest to try and enjoy GURPS, I picked up the book again and started making a character. I have one serious question: how the fuck did Steve Jackson decide on the point values for advantages? They're all over the place. Not needing to sleep is 20 points, but being able to dominate other characters with your mind powers is also 20 points. Altered Time rate is 100 points, but just buy up Extra Attacks to 100 points and you can attack 5 times in a round.
Tell me there's some kind of logic to these point values, because on the surface it looks like a bunch of legacy rulings without any cohesive thought behind them.
Obviously you shouldn't be comparing all advantages together. What brilliant GM is letting their players have access to all of them during chargen? They need to pick the ones suited for their game, so things don't go Mojo Jojo.
Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;836490Obviously you shouldn't be comparing all advantages together. What brilliant GM is letting their players have access to all of them during chargen? They need to pick the ones suited for their game, so things don't go Mojo Jojo.
Absolutely. My GM-hat answer would be "You're creating a fantasy character, and you've got 125 points to do it. Counting in the Unusual Background surcharge for any one of those abilities, how exactly are you affording them?"
As far as Jon's specific examples? Well, first off, Extra Attack can be only taken ONCE by a non-super, costs 25/attack (not 20), and all it does is give you an extra Attack maneuver in combat. Altered Time Rate gives you an extra TURN in combat, never mind its huge advantages for any task involving a duration. The costs are unbalanced only if you're one of those players who believes that RPG = melee combat, and everything else is ignorable.
The Mind Control advantage is 50 points, not 20.
This is a common problem for all point buy games. The only good option I have discovered is to find THE ONE whose good parts are most enjoyable for you and whose bad parts are least bothersome. For me, TriStat was that game.
I began my point buy journey with HERO, but I don't even recognize the game anymore. For me, GURPS has always been WTF biscuit bacon, but it clearly works great for many people.
Weirdos.
:)
I did find this lite point buy a few years ago which was quite fun:
http://www.stargazergames.eu/games/warrior-rogue-mage/
Quote from: JonWake;836349In my occasional quest to try and enjoy GURPS, I picked up the book again and started making a character. I have one serious question: how the fuck did Steve Jackson decide on the point values for advantages? They're all over the place. Not needing to sleep is 20 points, but being able to dominate other characters with your mind powers is also 20 points. Altered Time rate is 100 points, but just buy up Extra Attacks to 100 points and you can attack 5 times in a round.
Tell me there's some kind of logic to these point values, because on the surface it looks like a bunch of legacy rulings without any cohesive thought behind them.
From Sean Punch (http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.php?p=1566965&postcount=3)
QuoteTo be fair, I know as a fact that in GURPS, First Edition, advantages were indeed priced for desired rarity in the game, not for their utility. I know this because the designer told me! Combat Reflexes is far more useful than most 15-point traits and many traits worth quite a bit more, but it's priced cheaply because it's common in adventure fiction and not meant to be rare. Warp costs more mostly because it's an outré superpower, and just about always rare when it's innate rather than technological.
In short Advantages and Disadvantages are arbitrary values based on Steve Jackson's judgment on how common they should be in a game.
My personal observation is that while the above is true there are two loose classes of advantage/disadvantage, the mundane and the powers.
The Mundane advantages (Combat Reflexes, etc) appear to be priced with the above logic. While the powers are priced relative to each other. I.e. a power that is twice as effective will be priced twice as much. This is especially true in fourth edition.
Also, it's a toolkit AND it's YOUR game. :-)
There is absolutely no reason you can't increase or decrease costs based on your setting/campaign. Also the aforementioned Unusual Background puts a nice premium on a list of "possible but not common" advantages that may exist.
Secondly, you can build templates that are required in the campaign. Everyone gets them. You can limit points or add more points if desired. Required disadvantages do not count towards the DA limit.
Finally, you can build Powers and restrict Advantages to those builds. This could involve an investment in Talent, one or more Powers and and one or more Skills. It also gives certain Advantages a theme that may better fit your setting.
Personally, I have never had a successful start to a game where I handed the books to players and said "make Space Heroes". It's painful. There is a PDF for GURPS that talks about making templates. I would highly encourage anyone starting a GURPS game to first invest the time to make templates.
I like GURPs well enough, but this sort of issue is what makes me enjoy the crusty grognard approach of '3d6, in order' character creation. As my daughter's preschool class teacher said: "you get what you get, and you don't get upset". I suspect the entire genre of point-buy games was created to satisfy the needs of people who can't stomach that rule.
Quote from: trechriron;836577Personally, I have never had a successful start to a game where I handed the books to players and said "make Space Heroes". It's painful. There is a PDF for GURPS that talks about making templates. I would highly encourage anyone starting a GURPS game to first invest the time to make templates.
This.
Templates are key when using these kind of chargen RPGs.
After literally years of looking at GURPS, I'm finally starting to Grok it. I still think having some unified point value would work better than Steve Jackson Fiat, and super strength is still stupid, but I've gotten to where I can bodge together a character in about 30 minutes to an hour, provided there aren't superpowers involved. You just have to do a LOT of homework before you drop it in a players lap. I've had three of my five regular players have terrible GURPS experiences with GMs that handed them the book and said "make a character".
Quote from: estar;836553From Sean Punch (http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.php?p=1566965&postcount=3)
In short Advantages and Disadvantages are arbitrary values based on Steve Jackson's judgment on how common they should be in a game.
My personal observation is that while the above is true there are two loose classes of advantage/disadvantage, the mundane and the powers.
The Mundane advantages (Combat Reflexes, etc) appear to be priced with the above logic. While the powers are priced relative to each other. I.e. a power that is twice as effective will be priced twice as much. This is especially true in fourth edition.
Wow, that thread is so full of cognitive dissonance it makes my head spin.
Person A: Hey, these costs don't make any sense.
Designer: Yup. Legacy shit.
The Mob: They make sense if you aren't a big doo doo head, doo doo head.
Quote from: JonWake;836620Wow, that thread is so full of cognitive dissonance it makes my head spin.
Person A: Hey, these costs don't make any sense.
Designer: Yup. Legacy shit.
The Mob: They make sense if you aren't a big doo doo head, doo doo head.
That's not exactly right, and kind of an assinine way of putting it.
However: I'm sympathetic. GURPS costs for super powers are, an issue and something I really don't enjoy about the game.
I know a guy who's response was to rewrite GURPS to address the issue, which is, I think, I viable option if you have the time.
Cheers,
-E.
Quote from: JonWake;836615After literally years of looking at GURPS, I'm finally starting to Grok it. I still think having some unified point value would work better than Steve Jackson Fiat, and super strength is still stupid, but I've gotten to where I can bodge together a character in about 30 minutes to an hour, provided there aren't superpowers involved. You just have to do a LOT of homework before you drop it in a players lap. I've had three of my five regular players have terrible GURPS experiences with GMs that handed them the book and said "make a character".
I don't doubt it. I've taught the system to over a hundred players, and I've only had a handful of players who were familiar with the system before joining my campaign. In
each and every case, I want them making their first characters while I'm in the room, so I can make suggestions, comments and "Nice try, but no."
While, fundamentally, GURPS has simple mechanics, I don't feel it's a beginner's system. It takes time to learn and time to master. I'm okay with that; the RPG world ought to have scope for systems beyond Lowest Common Denominator.
It also works best at low entropy -- despite all the attempts, and even though I contributed a few things to
GURPS Supers, I don't think the system ever has handled supers well. I likewise don't think it handles Star Trek/Lensman-level space opera SF well -- skills and brains solve ten times less than your widgets do.
GURPS 4e could have handled supers well, more's the pity. It comes so close but the buy Super Effort Strength, look up level on The Speed / Range table, calculate Damage and Base Lift is just clunky. True it means that at high levels super strength massively outpaces ranged attacks which does model the comics well but it gets into the points range where simply buying 20s in every attribute is cheaper. 600 points incidentally.
So if you had your druthers, how would Stats scale?
consistently?
:D
A x2 at 100 points is how first edition originally handled it but that doesn't work for Superman within the reasonable points boundaries.
The problem is that a 1001 Strength isn't really proportionately better than a 1000 Strength. There's also the relative relationship to enhanced move or area effect mind control to consider.
Someone on the SJG site suggested that what super strength should really do is reduce the weight, DR, and HP of objects rather than increasing strength and I have to admit that's an interesting observation. Supers don't tend to smear everything they touch.
Personally I'd like it more direct and straight forward than that. Probably a super strength advantage that allows cheap purchasing like they used in 3e. Let's see, 90 points for the advantage and 1 point per point for strength after that, so a 20 still costs 100 points I suppose. Includes the ground pressure equalization for free but it's a cinematic advantage.
As someone who practically memorized GURPS 3e, taking a break and then trying to read the 4e books was daunting to me, partly because they rewrote the wording of everything and changed some subtle things, and partly because they stuffed in almost every character trait from almost every worldbook (of dozens) into the Basic Set. In my decades of GURPS play, I never used any of the abilities you mentioned for anyone, because Extra Attacks in 3e was for Chop Suey kung fu heroes who were Trained By a Master (~30 points by itself), the accelerated time thing is a super-hero ability, and the mind control advantage sounds like a weird sci fi/fantasy thing that would only have been on a monster or vampire in 3e, not just something to casually consider getting instead of Literacy or Acute Hearing.
So even though they tried to sort of simplify/streamline/improve 4e, in some ways even a veteran GURPS GM can find the 4e Characters book overwhelming.
The point costs aren't arbitrary if you understand the whole system (the abilities you mentioned are for Supers or PSI or Chop Saki games and also cost high background costs), but the GM needs to understand them enough to pick and choose what's allowed or makes sense and give the players templates that explain that and limit their choices to things that will make sense. New players given the Characters book with no guidlines will no doubt have the WTF experience you had, or worse, think they can pick anything cool and then be disappointed when the GM says no or (even worse) if a GM doesn't say no and then the game is bizarre because the GM let them make a weird character with extra limbs and who knows what else.
I saw "GURPS--what the hell?" and figured that pretty much said it all.:-)
I've lobbied for more sorted and easier starting point products for years and years.
Quote from: David Johansen;837039I've lobbied for more sorted and easier starting point products for years and years.
Likewise. From gaming from a couple of the regular writers and listening to their stories, I feel it is a leadership issue (Sean Punch and Steve Jackson), along with a low priority due to the success of Munchkin and board games for the company.
Yeah the circle of writers is effectively a clique but from talking from a few of them they are "in" because they write well the material that Sean Punch and Steve Jackson want for the line. Most of who I talked too are well aware of GURPS weakness in beginner products and ready to run products.
Change is possible but even then they bork it in subtle ways particularly Dungeon Fantasy. I.e. it oriented to 250 point characters.
GURPS has become the model train manufacturer of the RPG world. They seem completely uninterested in expanding their appeal, and a few moments perusing the forums makes it obvious that most of the fan base is interested in going further and further down the verisimilitude rabbit hole. Which is cool if and only if the grunt work can get disguised and the end results are simple and playable. Some things I've seen fall into this: fixing Strength damage, changing how scaling works... but most of it is literally physics majors being self-indulgent.
For all the system tweaks that could happen (and I don't think they're anywhere as severe as the tweaks between say, DnD 3.5 and 5e) the single biggest thing GURPS could do is throw out their fucking style guide and hire some contract user experience designer. The way they present information is just godawful. Hand a new player a template and see if they can make heads or tails of it. And if the player is mildly dyslexic, they're never going to get through it.
Of course, that would mean irritating the old guard, but I think it would be worth it.
Quote from: estar;837090Likewise. From gaming from a couple of the regular writers and listening to their stories, I feel it is a leadership issue (Sean Punch and Steve Jackson), along with a low priority due to the success of Munchkin and board games for the company.
This is nothing recent, not at all. John Nowak (a noted
Car Wars writer) was in my group for a time, and I remember him going through the roof when the first edition of
GURPS Special Ops came out. "What the hell, is the United States Army opening up recruiting stations on
Krypton?" he bellowed? That was 25 years ago, long before Munchkin was a big deal.
Quote from: JonWake;837107The way they present information is just godawful.
I've long thought that one of SJG's enduring mistakes with 4th edition was to NOT put
GURPS Lite in the front of the book, with a "These are all the rules you need to play the game" in big honking red letters on the first page.
The page
after the
Lite section was done, there'd be GIANT honking red letters saying:
"Everything before this are the essential game rules. Everything after this are rules and stuff that help add richness and depth to the game. All these rules are freaking optional! You don't need them in order to play. You can do without them if you don't want to use them. You can pick and choose which ones you want. Steve Jackson won't come to your home to take your books away if you don't use them, and God won't kill a kitten. We mean it."
I'm just going to point out that Gurps is the one game I wish had gone OSR. I'd finally get a fantasy game in one book using these rules, and everything already designed for it instead of wasting hours trying to make something from the "toolkit" approach.
GURPS' only good use is in a video game. Only nuts would play a video game with pencil and paper.
I'd be more for making Lite a bit more complete and less dense. Bigger type and more artwork at least. Say it comes in at 100 pages and includes some magic and high tech stuff or something. Because nothing says," "Everything before this are the essential game rules. Everything after this are rules and stuff that help add richness and depth to the game. All these rules are freaking optional! You don't need them in order to play. You can do without them if you don't want to use them. You can pick and choose which ones you want. Steve Jackson won't come to your home to take your books away if you don't use them, and God won't kill a kitten. We mean it," than making it the core book and moving everything else to a supplement."
Quote from: danbuter;837206I'm just going to point out that Gurps is the one game I wish had gone OSR. I'd finally get a fantasy game in one book using these rules, and everything already designed for it instead of wasting hours trying to make something from the "toolkit" approach.
I agree. I didn't follow everything SJG was doing but if I recall correctly they never put out their own campaign world for a fantasy game. They should have written up a Greyhawk-like supplement and said "Here's our sandbox world, here's 10 modules to adventure through, have fun." Complete with maps, templates, weird magic, crazy NPCs, bizarro monsters, the whole shebang. But they never did.
Hero should have done that too.
Quote from: JonWake;837107For all the system tweaks that could happen (and I don't think they're anywhere as severe as the tweaks between say, DnD 3.5 and 5e) the single biggest thing GURPS could do is throw out their fucking style guide and hire some contract user experience designer. The way they present information is just godawful. Hand a new player a template and see if they can make heads or tails of it. And if the player is mildly dyslexic, they're never going to get through it.
I mostly agree with this. Even before 3e came out, the good GM's I knew would come up with well-written intros to their own campaigns, explaining the world and how to make characters for it, with lists of what was available and so on. Or, they'd do a spoken introduction and help the players make their characters. The 3e and 4e "templates" are a shorthand for this, but even I find them dense to read and in need of translation to a more digestible form, especially because it's not clear whether they should be taken as a character example or a list of possible traits, and how common/needed or rare/optional the listed things are, etc.
Quote from: Doughdee222;837245I agree. I didn't follow everything SJG was doing but if I recall correctly they never put out their own campaign world for a fantasy game. They should have written up a Greyhawk-like supplement and said "Here's our sandbox world, here's 10 modules to adventure through, have fun." Complete with maps, templates, weird magic, crazy NPCs, bizarro monsters, the whole shebang. But they never did.
They've done some of this, but you might not notice since there were so many worldbooks published and the one like this is called GURPS Fantasy, which is actually a worldbook for a world called Yrth, which has a few adventure and content supplements for it, but not enough. I agree that it would've been good to do a lot more of this, so GM's would have more examples of what kinds of things to actually make for their own games, and nice maps and counters and characters and combat-ready characters and useful stuff. With so many settings, the content books are usually only a few per each, e.g. GURPS Conan with two or three programmed adventures. For 4e there is Infinite Earths, but that's a parallel universe setting. And there's GURPS Traveller... but ya, I'd say you're right, that would be good to do / have done.
The first two GURPS pilot products, GURPS Man To Man (medieval combat only) and Orcslayer (adventure for same) seemed easy enough to learn. I'd suggest that not only should GURPS Lite be the suggested starting product for new players, but that there be a whole slew of versions of GURPS Lite, each limited to content for one genre. Have GURPS Lite Medieval, GURPS Lite Modern, GURPS Lite Space, at least, and don't include any generic universal content in them - just what's relevant to playing those settings. Then no questions like "Gee Lazer eyes seem like a good choice instead of Crossbow..."
As a veteran GURPS GM, I would buy and use GURPS Basic Set (Fantasy/medieval content only) 4e. Most of the other content is noise to me unless I want to play something else.
The advantages drove me nuts too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFpuuvV65GU Explains some of the method behind their madness.
GURPS works well only when the GM makes a lot of preparation in terms of what he will or won't allow; and then instead of letting the players look through the various choices and try to do a budgeting of points to maximize the mechanical side of things, instead having them tell the GM "I want this type of character with this sort of abilities" and having the GM tell them what they have to buy.
As much as I'm a fan of fourth edition GURPS from a mechanical stand point, third edition always worked better for just handing players the book. The more specialized stuff was in the supplements where it belonged.
But yeah, even then GURPS takes a GM with a strong spine.
I was doing some research on GURPS the other day and I was surprised that the 4th edition is still the latest and is about 11 years old. Isn't it about time for a 5th edition or is the game pretty well "set" and not much new has been done to it in the 11 years to warrant a new edition? Maybe the game is as good as it's ever going to be and will not be changed (beyond a few small details.)
4th Edition is pretty solid, and they seem happy to add settings and supplements rather than make a new edition.
I've been checking out some of the 4th Edition supplements lately and I'm pretty surprised at how good they are. I personally preferred the more focussed style of 3e over the streamlining/accessibility attempt of 4e in some ways, but 4e also incorporated several of my 3e house rules and the quality of the supplements seems far better in the 4e books compared to earlier editions.
The 4e world- and genre-books I've been looking at seem to all do a good job of what we've been talking about: listing which advantages, disads and skills etc should be used, and listing templates and lenses and sample characters so GMs and players know what to give to whom.
I just browsed GURPS 4e Warhammer, for example, and was impressed that it pretty much read like a stand-alone RPG book (though you'd also need the Basic Set to get the combat system etc). It also had rules for converting Warhammer stats to GURPS, and a sample adventure with nice examples of very simple and modest NPCs.
Quote from: RPGPundit;838453GURPS works well only when the GM makes a lot of preparation in terms of what he will or won't allow; and then instead of letting the players look through the various choices and try to do a budgeting of points to maximize the mechanical side of things, instead having them tell the GM "I want this type of character with this sort of abilities" and having the GM tell them what they have to buy.
I don't disagree; this is in fact my approach to new players. "Tell me what you want, in as much detail as it suits you to do, and I'll tell you how to get it."
Quote from: RPGPundit;838453GURPS works well only when the GM makes a lot of preparation in terms of what he will or won't allow; and then instead of letting the players look through the various choices and try to do a budgeting of points to maximize the mechanical side of things, instead having them tell the GM "I want this type of character with this sort of abilities" and having the GM tell them what they have to buy.
I do both, for most I have a series of templates and cheat sheets that do the above. For experienced players I let them have at it after they discuss their concept with me. Even then they use the cheat sheets so they don't take something they shouldn't have.
For example the Dwarven Race
http://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/Races%20-%20The%20Dwarves,%20Ver%202.pdf
A Myrmidon of Set.
http://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/Gods%20-%20Set,%20Myrmidon%20Template.pdf
The Myrmidon of set is a good example of what I try to do. I present a set of option and explain why they are what they are in terms of the template. I choose the options that reflect the typical diversity of the profession/social class/profession/etc.s
Quote from: estar;838801I do both, for most I have a series of templates and cheat sheets that do the above. ...
These are fantastic! Easy to read and understand.
Quote from: Ravenswing;838714I don't disagree; this is in fact my approach to new players. "Tell me what you want, in as much detail as it suits you to do, and I'll tell you how to get it."
Yeah, it's pretty much the only sane way to do it.
Quote from: RPGPundit;837736The advantages drove me nuts too.
They had the added issue that point costs really are not invariant based on setting. They had a clunky "unusual background" hedge and they used things like "mana level" as well, but technology can replace a lot of things and make the organic level much less important. If you have hover belts available for a few dollars, fly isn't so important. Similarly, if you can actually loot dragon hoards, filthy rich looks like a waste of points.
The costs also vary based on what the campaign is based on. It's almost too easy to take disadvantages that never come up paired with advantages that are laser focused.
It is a very interesting system (and one I have played a lot) but this piece really requires a lot of fiddling, which makes it hard for players to get creative on their own (which was one of the nice things about a toolkit).
That being said, it still has to be one of the better space rules sets and the world books are awesome.
Quote from: Votan;839294They had the added issue that point costs really are not invariant based on setting. ...
You can of course change them based on your preferences and/or setting. It is upfront work for the GM/Setting creator, but so is creating a game. :-)
Quote from: trechriron;839404You can of course change them based on your preferences and/or setting. It is upfront work for the GM/Setting creator, but so is creating a game. :-)
Yep.
One of my ongoing riffs is that GURPS isn't the easiest game out there. It's not for someone who doesn't want to do any legwork, it's not for a "lazy GM" type, and it isn't for a rookie GM who's never been on that side of the dice.
I am okay with all of this.
Quote from: trechriron;839404You can of course change them based on your preferences and/or setting. It is upfront work for the GM/Setting creator, but so is creating a game. :-)
Oh, fair enough. But this does explain why GURPS is really a game for a very advanced GM who is trying to target a niche that other games have trouble with. If you have to go through the rulebook and make dozens of decisions about what is and is not changed (and track these) then it is really only worthwhile in the context of advanced world building.
Which is okay.
The exception seems to be science fiction, as so little out there does it well and GURPS can do it tolerably well out of the box (ad extremely well with tweaks).
Yes, I agree with the above. GURPS takes experience to do well, and jumping in without an experienced GURPS GM has all sorts of potential pitfalls, unless following a nicely-prepared beginners' adventure or something, of which there are not enough.
(Off-hand there's Orcslayer (ancient), Caravan to Ein Arris, a few Conan programmed adventures, um...)
It'd be great if there were more.
It'd also be great if there were more detailed campaign starter materials. Like I wrote above, I thought GURPS Warhammer did a good job of that, especially since you could also get any/all Warhammer RPG supplements and adapt them. It'd be great if there were more of those. The worldbooks (especially before 4e) tend to not give anywhere near enough detail to actually run a campaign unless the GM does tons more work or is great at improvising. There aren't many that give a bunch of detailed ready-to-use content, and it takes some research to find out which do and which don't.
And ya, GURPS Space is pretty good, and there's also GURPS Traveller, GURPS Spaceships, Transhuman Space, etc.
Quote from: Ravenswing;839441Yep.
One of my ongoing riffs is that GURPS isn't the easiest game out there. It's not for someone who doesn't want to do any legwork, it's not for a "lazy GM" type, and it isn't for a rookie GM who's never been on that side of the dice.
I am okay with all of this.
I am inclined to disagree; Gurps was one of the first games I ran, and one of the first I truly understood. Back then, the lack of a fixed setting was much more of an issue than the rules, and sure, the characters in that game fought a lot of wild animals because the book included stats for them, and it sure wasn't some great gaming. But, I found it much more accessible than the AD&D rules of the same time, because I "got" hat the rules are supposed to represent. Intuitiveness and the idea that there is a relative clear interconnection between the rules and what they are supposed to represent is a suitble way to gain access to a system, at least for some people.
There are some issues I have with Gurps, but these are usually the same issues I have with any point-buy system. Complexity isn't one of them.
I'm also not entirely sure if the aledged complexity of GURPS is at least partially the result of GURPS players flirting with the legend of great complexity, sometimes bordering on elitism.
(duplicate post due to web browser)
Beagle, ya I think every player just has widely different ideas both about complexity and about what they like, dislike, or are or aren't used to. And GURPS games can play very differently depending on which rules players are using or not, and how.
Also, in many games, a melee combat consists manily of repeatedly choosing whom to swing at, rolling one die vs a value, and then rolling damage if you hit, until all of one side reaches zero hitpoints, with no other real mechanics.
In my GURPS games, although I can now do all of these considerations in near-zero time, the decision inlcudes what everyone is equipped with, where everyone is standing (or lying, or kneeling, or in the same hex with A grabbing B's leg while B is strangling A...), what terrain, furniture and junk is in each hex, which way everyone is facing, which weapons are ready at the moment, how injured everyone is, what my character's various skills are, what situations are going on from before (such as stun, shock, feinting, evaluation, aiming, etc), and then which combat maneuver (including Wait...), technique, target hit location to use with which weapons, where to move, and then the resolution of that action involving various modifiers, the skills and attributes and equipment of at least two characters, weapon and armor type, the target's choice of what to do about an attack (what defense to use, whether to retreat or dive for cover, which direction to retreat, what facing to turn to... oh, and whether other figures use Wait or Opportunity actions or not, and where to move and face with those) and the various effects of landing a blow (stun, shock, knockdown, knockback, damaged equipment...) and so on, and any or all of those things may be critical details which determine whether someone dies or loses an arm that turn, or not. I'm not even mentioning my house rules, or using anything from GURPS Martial Arts or Tactical Shooting...
It's entirely manageable (and delicious) for me, but compared to "whom do I attack, did I hit, if so roll damage which does nothing unless 0 HP", it is much more complex.
Quote from: Ravenswing;839441Yep.
One of my ongoing riffs is that GURPS isn't the easiest game out there. It's not for someone who doesn't want to do any legwork, it's not for a "lazy GM" type, and it isn't for a rookie GM who's never been on that side of the dice.
The issues with GURPS are in my opinion solely of presentation. It is publisher's, SJ Games, choices that GURPS is presented in a way that requires a prospective referee to build his own game out of the "toolkit".
There is nothing intrinsic about GURPS that demands this. Even with the limited resources SJ Games is willing to put into GURPS there is no reason why the line can't have both. The all-in-one toolkit and something more straightforward to rope in a larger audience.
But because of the prejudices of the line editor, Sean Punch, and the company owner, Steve Jackson, that is not going to happen. Instead they are going to work on GURPS Discworld. Which I am sure will be a excellent product with a definite audience that will google it up and do absolutely nothing for the wider GURPS line.
Hell Sean Punch even had a great article about how to do GURPS Dungeon Fantasy without points! Basically you use GURPS to figure out packages organized into menus that players can combine to create a viable DF character of a specific point value.
What happened to GURPS is Munchkin. All of the company's creativity and innovation is going into Munchkin and along with other board games as a hedge. GURPS didn't decline in design or quality, it just been in a holding pattern since the early 2000s. GURPS generates just enough sales to warrant a hardback every couple of years, and a PDF pipeline.
SJ Games was early adopter of the web and with e23 got out there with PDF publishing. However they have a in-house mentality that is causing them to miss the on-going print on demand revolution. Which again is understandable given their current focus on Munchkin, and board games.
Quote from: estar;839835The issues with GURPS are in my opinion solely of presentation. It is publisher's, SJ Games, choices that GURPS is presented in a way that requires a prospective referee to build his own game out of the "toolkit".
There is nothing intrinsic about GURPS that demands this. Even with the limited resources SJ Games is willing to put into GURPS there is no reason why the line can't have both. The all-in-one toolkit and something more straightforward to rope in a larger audience.
But because of the prejudices of the line editor, Sean Punch, and the company owner, Steve Jackson, that is not going to happen. Instead they are going to work on GURPS Discworld. Which I am sure will be a excellent product with a definite audience that will google it up and do absolutely nothing for the wider GURPS line.
Hell Sean Punch even had a great article about how to do GURPS Dungeon Fantasy without points! Basically you use GURPS to figure out packages organized into menus that players can combine to create a viable DF character of a specific point value.
What happened to GURPS is Munchkin. All of the company's creativity and innovation is going into Munchkin and along with other board games as a hedge. GURPS didn't decline in design or quality, it just been in a holding pattern since the early 2000s. GURPS generates just enough sales to warrant a hardback every couple of years, and a PDF pipeline.
SJ Games was early adopter of the web and with e23 got out there with PDF publishing. However they have a in-house mentality that is causing them to miss the on-going print on demand revolution. Which again is understandable given their current focus on Munchkin, and board games.
I think the combat round is still more complex than (for example) D&D 5E or Savage Worlds. Mostly because there are a lot of modifiers and the level of granulation is high. If people have memorized the options (or have a signature move that they keep on their character sheet) and are efficient during the round (preparing and calculating for their move) then it doesn't have to be slow. But the level of options is still both high and often requires a fair bit of math to decide between "telegraphing", a "normal strike", and a "deceptive strike".
This doesn't mean it is a bad system -- if you want combat where you could actually play out a duel in a non-abstract way then GURPS is almost the only option. But it does require a lot of system mastery in play (or a ton of hand holding). Some of how we used to make the system work was to ignore (by accident) a lot of the combat mechanics. And there are simplified versions of the combat system around.
But this goes to your more general point that the game doesn't have to be cast as a toolkit.
Quote from: Votan;840157I think the combat round is still more complex than (for example) D&D 5E or Savage Worlds..
GURPS Combat has four levels of detail. Basic, Advanced, Tactical and any of the former with supplements like Martial Arts. GURPS Basic combat is at the same complexity as D&D 3e onwards and Savage Worlds. It only when you get into Advanced, Tactical, and the supplement that everything stacks up. And it is presented that way both in 3rd edition and 4th edition.
Quote from: Votan;840157But this goes to your more general point that the game doesn't have to be cast as a toolkit.
And it may be that the Complete GURPS Fantasy RPG should only present the basic combat rules in order for it to properly fulfill it role as a gateway into the rest of the line. Personally if I was writing it would stick to Basic + a very limited selection of advanced options with the tactical option distilled to two pages for those who like miniatures. Maybe none of the advanced options depending on how it works out in playtesting.
Another way of thinking of my idea would be GURPS Lite level of detail + content (monsters, items, sample adventure, etc).
Quote from: estar;840212Another way of thinking of my idea would be GURPS Lite level of detail + content (monsters, items, sample adventure, etc).
That is the way to grow a player base. Once people are experienced with the less complex forms of the game, they can have enhancements introduced gradually. I have never been able to stay at the most basic combat level because somebody tries something complicated and . . . well, there are rules, aren't there?
But I have played and GMed in both D&D and GURPS. D&D 3.5, at moderate to high levels, was getting as complicated as GURPS. But AD&D (especially if you did early 2E) and D&D 5E are definitely less complicated than any form of GURPS we tried. Almost all of my actual GURPS play experience is 3E, which might make a difference. 4E is harder for me to judge, and I played a lot less of it.
GURP combat is conducted in one second rounds with each combatant taking their action in order of Move with Basic Speed breaking ties. On their turn a character can aim, gaining their missile weapon's accuracy bonus and up to two more points at a rate of one point per turn, move, take a step and concentrate or move and attack, or take a half move and make two attacks, a melee attack at plus four to hit, or one attack at plus two or one per die to damage all at the cost of sacrificing all defense rolls until their next turn.
If a who character didn't make an all out attack is hit with an attack they can make an active defense roll. Melee attacks can be dodged, blocked with a shield, or parried with a weapon. Missile attacks can only be dodged. Retreating a step while defending gives a one point bonus to blocks and parries with most weapons. Retreating gives a three point bonus to dodges and parries with staves and fencing weapons.
Quote from: David Johansen;840587GURP combat is conducted in one second rounds
This is the part that trips of most novice players in my GURPS. I generally explain it that you can do just one thing and one thing only. Players are really used to be able to do a long move and a action or even multiple actions during a RPG combat round. With GURPS you do a move or an actions but not both unless you are willing to suffer a huge downside.
The rest is usually easily grasped after a few combats even with the tactical options I use a part of my campaigns. Mostly because for normal type characters everything in GURPS has a one to one correspondence to real life.
I always liked GURPS Lite better than GURPS. Less calories.
Quote from: RPGPundit;841051I always liked GURPS Lite better than GURPS. Less calories.
You should sip a GURPS Ultra Light (http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/ultra-lite/), its effervescent!
Quote from: trechriron;841061You should sip a GURPS Ultra Light (http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/ultra-lite/), its effervescent!
Huh. First I hear of it.