Yeah, I do have to agree that there is a lot thrown at the new player.  It actually is quite modular, but there is no way to see that until you've absorbed a good chunk of the rules.  Part of it is layout (though I find their books quite attractive).  There is just so much stuff in them.  A lot of it is actually just cool ideas and not too much mechanics, but again it's hard to separate those if you are coming in for the first time.

They really need a GURPS medium à la SWEX but a little thicker and more GURPS-y.

Ultimately GURPS 4 suffers from the universal weakness of Ultimate Compendium Editions.

They become inapproachable and it's impossible to trim them down and maintain compatability in supplements and adventures because there will always be references to the complete edition that aren't covered in the supplements because there's a complete edition that covers it.

So the streamlined entry book doesn't scale up to the supplements without the inapproachable compendium.

NOTHING is wrong with GURPS 4/e.

 I'm starting to think people just whine about it too much and they should maybe just  try it.
 Is it really just a case of whiny internet voices saying : "I Don't wanna!! It looks different... I don't wanna!! It doesn't have d20s...I'm distrubed by that WAAAH!! I Don't wanna!"

Also, sometimes the arguments against it seem to boil down to "I gotta think? Make up my own mind? Thats scary...don't know if I want to...".

- Ed C.

Quote from: KoltarAlso, sometimes the arguments against it seem to boil down to "I gotta think? Make up my own mind? Thats scary...don't know if I want to...".

Sometimes I get that very same vibe from the people who claim Hero System sucks.

-=Grim=-

3e supplements fit in 4e games rather well. 4e, I think, was designed with the idea that folks would be pulling game aids for other systems anyway. 3e ones more so.

Quote from: David JohansenUltimately GURPS 4 suffers from the universal weakness of Ultimate Compendium Editions.

Huh?  There are no Compendiums in 4e.  So far, all the rules extension books are just more complex and detailed builds off of the structure presented in the Characters books.  If you want a supers game, Powers will super-charge it and give you infinite possibilities.  Same with Martial Arts for a super-nerdy, detailed combat-oriented game.  But you don't need either and so far there is no product out there that requires either of them.

SJGames has done an excellent job of keeping the core rules the core.

Quote from: KoltarNOTHING is wrong with GURPS 4/e.

 I'm starting to think people just whine about it too much and they should maybe just  try it.
 Is it really just a case of whiny internet voices saying : "I Don't wanna!! It looks different... I don't wanna!! It doesn't have d20s...I'm distrubed by that WAAAH!! I Don't wanna!"

Also, sometimes the arguments against it seem to boil down to "I gotta think? Make up my own mind? Thats scary...don't know if I want to...".

Gotta agree with Koltar here.  I've seen it in action so many times.  Got a Gamer's Day here and the GURPS GM showed up to run games.   Got all kinds of resistance from the regular players but every newbie ends up at his table.  Now he has too many players.

QuoteAnyhow, what bothers me is the stat block bloat. Especially when power modifiers are involved and with the various stats you have to list for skills these days, the stat block makes Rolemaster look awfully clean and straightforward.

The modifier system is one of the biggest headaches for me.  It's too much extra complexity.  Yes, I realize they did the same thing back in the day for psionics, but it wasn't applied across the whole goddamn system.  Ads and Disads to me should be grab-and-go.  It just feels out of place in the feel of the game, more suited to a supers game than GURPS 3e.  And of course, large numbers of those ads and disads are intentionally designed with the expectation that you'll tack plenty of modifiers on them, because the core ad itself is often either incredibly basic or nonspecific, or just way too expensive or worthless without them.  

The combat goes to the same lengths.  Rather than the clean Basic/Advanced split of the original game, everything's all lumped into the same big hunk of mechanics, with the only thing still seperated cleanly out at this point being the actual hex map rules.  

It's just not the light, simple core that GURPS 3e was.  Take the core of GURPS 3e's lists, plus Basic combat, and you've got a rather straightforward, easy to pick up game, on which you can very easily simply bolt on extra options, like Adv. Combat, or Magic and Psi, or a grab a sourcebook or netbook for the missing bits you need for a given campaign.  Hell, even the character generator I used for it, MAKECHAR, was built this way.  You could set up "genre" files, and simply pick and choose which books or rulesets were in use for a given campaign, and use that.  

That was what I loved about 3e, and I spent probably way too much time defending the game from idiots who'd simply seen the Advanced Combat chapter while thumbing through and declared "too complicated" without having actually read the fucking book, or even the paragraph at the start of that chapter that expressly states it to be optional.  

But the same just does not hold true in the current edition, no matter what it's fanboys would like you to believe.

Quote from: GrimJestaSometimes I get that very same vibe from the people who claim Hero System sucks.

-=Grim=-

I've at least PLAYED the HERO system. Its not the system I prefer, but I don't start threads running it down either.

 Quite the contrary - find it quite appealing. If I made double the income that I do I would probly have just as many HERO system books as I do GURPS books.

Actually I have bought at least two HERO system source books thinking I might blend some of the ideas in them with my GURPS stuff.


- Ed C.

I do agree generally with what J Arcane is saying.  Once you open up the Ad/Disad structure, it introduces a level of granular complexity that is just too much for many players.  Though I think the Basic book only really hints at how those work and there are tons of turnkey ads and disads there.

I played Gurps 3e for over 10 years, so I think when I say I thought the Compendium book damaged the game I do at least have experience from which to draw, though I of course accept others disagree.

For me 4e corrects some of the issues I had with 3e, but at the cost of reinforcing some of the other issues, but my dislike of it as a system nowadays is not borne of fear of options.  It's borne of boredom with for me needless complexity.

It doesn't suck or anything, it's good design even, doesn't mean I have to particularly enjoy it.

Okay by an "Ultimate Compendium Edition" I mean the edition where they take everything from every last supplement and clean up the mechanics a bit and put them in a single core game.  By this definition I'm talking every edition of HERO since third (second was the only HERO), GURPS Third and Fourth, AD&D First, Second, and probably Fourth, Rifts Ultimate Edition, Rolemaster Standard System (much as I love it I'll confess that it causes san loss, I just happened to hit 0) the new BRP will be one too.  I think Mega Traveller counts more than the Traveller Book because they didn't do any rules tweaking or try to bring the whole thing into a standardized package until MT.

Oh, got you.  I think it made sense for GURPS, but you are right there is an argument to be made that it never really makes sense.  It's not like technology.

Well, I bought the 2 core 4e books.  And I may be in the far minority, but I love the layout.  And overall, I thought the rules were pretty good.  I've also thought the supplements (though a little too slow-coming) were all very well done.

I do, however, have some of the same problems as others regarding the inclusion of waaaay too many ads/disads/skills in the core book.  It's just too much for me too weed through when trying to plan a game.  I don't want to have to come up with a giant list of "stuff you can / can not choose from" for players, nor do I want to spend hours trying to figure out which skill/adv/disad covers the specific things I am trying to model with NPCs.

I discovered this by trying to convert a relatively simple game - Star Frontiers - into GURPS.  It become obvious very quickly that trying to codify a Drasalite was just way more work than it needed to be or that I was willing to put into it.  In many ways, I prefer HERO on this front because it breaks things down to more standard effects (though HERO has its own share of things that overcomplicate it).

Conversely, the core books were way, way too light on weapons/vehicles/equipment for me.  I didn't feel it gave me enough to work with.

What I have seen, though, is a lot of people just use 4e Lite so they have the streamlined rules, and then combine them with the whole bang (!) skill concept from the core books.  That makes the game a lot more managable.

Honestly, though, the biggest reason I don't play GURPS is that I personally find the 3d6 roll under mechanic to be "dull" in play for me.  It may be silly, but for some reason I really dislike 3d6 roll-under and it limits my enjoyment of the game.

http://www.gamesdiner.com/star_frontiers_to_gurps

Just cause you mentioned Star Frontiers and GURPS in one place.

Though I'd probably look towards GURPS Powers 'Body Alteration' for the Dralasite. T-Bone didn't have Powers at the time.