And just use the main rules, none of the expansions- what would be the better choice- 3rd edition or 4th edition?  Amazon has the 3rd ed basic book for cheap.  Not looking to really start a GURPS game or stay current with it, just to read it and noodle around with the game.

Quote from: RunningLaser;807957And just use the main rules, none of the expansions- what would be the better choice- 3rd edition or 4th edition?  Amazon has the 3rd ed basic book for cheap.  Not looking to really start a GURPS game or stay current with it, just to read it and noodle around with the game.

Download GURPS Lite for each version and compare.

Before buying anything have you looked at GURPS Lite ?

 It can save you a few bucks, what the books offer is little more than extra detail, all you need to know about the system is in those 32 pages.

But if it's really to "read it and noodle around with the game" I'd say you can go with 3rd edition : it's all in one book and it's dirt cheap now. I still have my 20+ years old 3rd edition book and read it from time to time.

They're both pretty good so whichever one fits your budget better will work fine, especially if you're just reading them.  4th's better than 3rd to me, but not by leaps and bounds, I'd play in a 3rd edition game with no hesitation.

I have third. Unfortunately at this point likely to never run it. Mainly due to an increasing dislike of SJG.

Overall its a good book. The ordering of things takes some getting used to though. Past that. Its  a servicible workhorse. I did though go through mine and pencil in the errata notes.

Mine came with a sort of quickstart basic booklet. I believe SJG did and may still have it on their site as a free PDF if you want to have a glance before leaping in.

Quote from: RunningLaser;807957And just use the main rules, none of the expansions- what would be the better choice- 3rd edition or 4th edition?  Amazon has the 3rd ed basic book for cheap.  Not looking to really start a GURPS game or stay current with it, just to read it and noodle around with the game.

4th edition. It more of a toolkit.  Use this fan created PDF as a guide to the possibilities.

http://gurpsland.no-ip.org/pdf/GURPS4eAdvantages.pdf

3rd edition takes the idea of GURPS (Skills, Advantage, Disadvantages, etc) and implements for each genre. There no overall "system" that ties say Magic, Psionic, and Super Powers together in the core books.

4th edition retains some of the 3rd edition subystem notably Magic. But it explicting was designed to be more like Hero System in that the core book can be used 'as is' to construct abilities to support any genre. Instead the 3rd edition Core book is just that, the core rules that are used by all the different genres. For everything else you need to goto the genre book.

What distinguishes 4e core books from their 3rd edition counterparts is there lack of introducing new rules. Instead they focus on aides (like star system generation), implementation (like templates), or as a reference (something GURPS always excelled at).

My opinion that compared to Hero System, GURPS 4th edition is more flexible and slightly less math heavy. The advantage of Hero System it is more clear cut what you are paying points for.

Anyway with the GURPS Advantage PDF a person get quickly up to speed in using the core book to create anything they want.

Given a free hand, I would go with 4e, pretty much for the reasons already given. 4e is slightly more coherent than 3e and it contains all the cool rules spread through different supplements in 3e.

If you were to go with 3e you would really want the two Compendiums as well, which makes the total page count bigger than the two 4e books and possibly more expensive to boot. And Martial Arts, too, if you wanted more detailed combat options.  

With 4e, 99.9% of the rules are in the two core books and you really could play pretty much any genre game with it. The supplemental books are more like recipe books, explaining how to mix up different parts of the core rules to produce the genre you are looking for. But if you 'get' the GURPS philosophy and have the time / enjoy it you can work all this out for yourself.

The 3rd edition does great "gritty pulp fantasy" with zero prep work. No other books needed besides the Basic Set. If you're more into the toolkit aspect of GURPS, 4th is probably a better choice as it is much more consistent; although anymore if I was going that way I'd probably just use HERO 6th.

Also, I've seen softcover 3rd editions for $1 at HPB...it's damn cheap.

I would more recommend 4th to a novice.  It's slightly better laid out, and has a few other benefits to a newcomer:

* Ditching half-points for skills, whole numbers being slightly less confusing;

* Languages no longer as skills;

* Despite that the writers' guidelines for SJG always said not to invent new stuff and to shoehorn your needs into extant skills/advantages/disads as much as possible, a lot of people ignored that in BSIII.  Hence silly-ass skill creep resulting in the likes of Uttering of Base Coin and Abacus.  With just a couple of boneheaded exceptions (the knot-tying skill, for one), the design premise around 4th is much more that subordinate skills are presumed to be part of primary skills: that, for instance, if you're in the right tech level and culture and you have either Merchant or Mathematics skills, you'll know how to use an abacus.

Like the others, though, I strongly recommend starting with GURPS Lite.  It's free, and you can decide from there the level of complexity you want.

Quote from: Omega;807963Mainly due to an increasing dislike of SJG.

Any particular reason?

Thanks for the input.  Downloading 4th lite and will go over it as time permits.

Quote from: RunningLaser;808136Thanks for the input.  Downloading 4th lite and will go over it as time permits.

If you want a game to play, go 3rd.  If you want a game to make yourself, go 4th.

Quote from: RunningLaser;808136Thanks for the input.  Downloading 4th lite and will go over it as time permits.

Unfortunately the 4e GURPS Lite is widely recognised as being inferior to the 3e version, so please don't base your assessment on just that.

Quote from: dbm;808145Unfortunately the 4e GURPS Lite is widely recognised as being inferior to the 3e version, so please don't base your assessment on just that.

I saw this stated in a different thread by a different poster.  How so?

It contains much less of the system. You could actually play a real-world (ie no powers or magic) medieval or classic game using just 3e light but you would struggle to play any kind of game just using 4e light.