Here's my thoughts, if you're interested in feedback.

Quote from: David JohansenI'd strip something else off of Dexterity just to make it balance.

Agree. I want to split it into Agility (close combat, athletics, etc.) and Coordination (range combat, vehicle, etc.) 10 points each.

Quote from: David JohansenThe cost is 1 point for 0, 2 points for +1, 4 points  for +3, 4 points for each +1 thereafter.

Nice. Are you getting rid of Easy/Avg/Hard? I would. 

Quote from: David JohansenIf we lumped the skills into groups of five we could divide all the point costs by 5.

Not sure what you mean. Maybe combining First Aid, Physician, Surgeon, Pharmacist, etc. into one skill called Medical? That sort of thing?

Quote from: David Johansenbut I'd trim the core list considerably.

Agree. I've got it down to about 60 skills (16 combat, 42 non-combat.) The rest of the skills in Gurps are mostly "cup stacking."

Quote from: David JohansenCharisma (5 points per +1 to reaction rolls)

What do you think of Charisma as an att? It trashes reaction rolls, but I'm ok with that. I mentioned it on the Gurps Forums and they had a cow.

Quote from: David JohansenMagical Aptitude (which I'm tempted to turn into a base 10 stat...

Interesting.

Quote from: David JohansenMental (5 points per -1 to self control), Physical (5 points per -1 to skill group or 1/2 move), or Social  (5 points per -1 to reaction rolls).

Nice. 

Quote from: David Johansen3 is automatic critical success.  4 is automatic success.  6 or less is a critical success if 10 less than skill.  17 is automatic failure.  18 is automatic critical failure.  Some circumstances including stress increases the critical failure range.

I'm in favor of 3 = CF and 18 = CS. Simple and easy.

Quote from: David JohansenContests are resolved by margin of success (I don't know, I'd like something cleaner but as we're presenting GURPS as GURPS we'll go with it.)

What about a blackjack mechanic? Winner = highest successful roll.

Quote from: David JohansenReaction Rolls

I'm either in favor of tossing out Reaction Rolls, OR adopting the mechanic for the entire game. But that would make the game 3d6 roll-over.

Quote from: David JohansenCombat is played in order of Move.

One game (I forget which) had a simple initiative system: The guy who says "I attack" first-- goes first. Then everyone goes in Move order. Sort of makes sense.

Quote from: David JohansenMuscle powered weapon damage... it would help the game scale down better.

Not sure what you mean?

Quote from: David JohansenThrust damage is -1 point per die but this will be integrated into the weapon charts.

Excellent. Is it possible to do the same for the damage multipliers (piercing, slashing, imp, etc.)

Quote from: David JohansenIf an attack does more than half the target's Strength before armor, they are knocked down.  If an attack does more than half their Hit Points after armor they are stunned and -4 to defend until they can make a Health roll.  If they are at less than half Hit Points they must make a Willpower roll to go faster than half move.  If they are at 0 Hit Points or less they must make a Health Roll each round to remain conscious.  If they are fully negative and at each full multiple they must roll Health to avoid dying.

Nice.

Quote from: David Johansenspells are skills

Have you looked at Sorcery yet? Basically spells as advantages (with mods.) I've never seen it, but I'm a big fan of game balance and I think it would "Hero-ize" the game a bit. Which I think is a good thing.

Quote from: Aglondir on April 27, 2021, 09:48:22 PM

Quote from: Rhedyn on April 27, 2021, 01:53:16 PM
It's real shame GURPS does not have a book for IPs like "The Expanse", "Game of Thrones", and other gritty popular IPs that could benefit from a simulationist traditional RPG that blushes because their combat rounds are a "ludicrously long" 1-second. Basically any popular IP where people want to really dig into the world would be good for the GURPS approach.

Rumor has it that GRR Martin is a Gurps fan. Or played Gurps. No idea if it is true.

Yeah, I've read that too.  But Wild Cards was inspired by his Superworld campaign.

Aglondir, thanks for the feedback, whatever I do, it will be further from GURPS than that summary / musing.

Quote from: Aglondir on April 27, 2021, 09:48:22 PM

Quote from: Rhedyn on April 27, 2021, 01:53:16 PM
It's real shame GURPS does not have a book for IPs like "The Expanse", "Game of Thrones", and other gritty popular IPs that could benefit from a simulationist traditional RPG that blushes because their combat rounds are a "ludicrously long" 1-second. Basically any popular IP where people want to really dig into the world would be good for the GURPS approach.

Rumor has it that GRR Martin is a Gurps fan. Or played Gurps. No idea if it is true.

The Wild Card series was based on a Superworld (Chaosium) campaign that G.R.R. Martin ran. GURPS published several Wild Cards books. The two may have been conflated.

Looks like there are plans to do "Powered by GURPS" complete games from here on out. That's what the Dungeon Fantasy box was, and they've done one for Vorkosigan, and I guess maybe Transhuman Space was the first one that established the model.

I SJG just dropped a PDF for a Girl Genius game powered by GURPS on Drivethru and it has an ad at the end for an upcoming Kickstarter to fund a hardcover print. 

Seems like POD through Drivethru would be the way to go for them to me, but I'm not up on the business side. They could bring back all their books from the old saddle stitched full bleed covers to the "frame" era of 3rd and stop printing B&W soft covers of their 4th and let Drivethru/Lightning produce it as a SC, HC, Color, B&W, or premium color.

GURPS DiscWorld is also a complete game.  Before that WWII and Hellboy were also complete.  I'm not sure about GURPS Myth but I think it was as well.

GURPS Myth isn't a complete game, it's just a supplement. The other Powered by GURPS games are Prime Directive and Conspiracy X. And the Transhuman Space hardcover was powered by GURPS, but the softcover wasn't.

It was pretty random, and they often skipped the branding, so it was hard to tell what fell under that category.

Quote from: Aglondir on April 23, 2021, 02:12:27 AM
I'm not going to link to the thread at TBP nor will I quote it. It's the one where Phil Masters (of Steve Jackson Games) got a ban for explaining what the disadvantage "slave mentality" means in Gurps.

In that thread, he basically says there will not be a 5th edition for Gurps, unless the RPG market drastically changes, and the popularity for Gurps increases. It's not really a surprise, but hearing it from Phil makes it real.

What I find hard to believe is why they won't Kickstart it. The diehard fans alone would fund it, assuming it did not have an astronomical funding goal. Throw in a bunch of 4th Edition PDFs as stretch goals and it would skyrocket. The Dungeon Fantasy KS made $176,450 over a $100,000 goal, which isn't a spectacular success but it's a success nonetheless.

As a start, they could simply make a new Gurps Lite, which is something we've wanted since the beginning. Something that could appeal to D&D players who are looking for more realism or grittiness. There's definitely a market there, as evidenced by OSR games that try to do exactly that.

Who's playing Dungeon Fantasy? Not those that collected the KS printing probably.
Also, we don't need a 5th Edition of GURPS.
And if D&D players for f*cks sake aren't interested in GURPS by now, they never will be no matter how many times GURPS gets a new hardcover.

To be fair, 3e, 4e they're very playable and the only reason there is a -need- for a new edition is to inject new blood, and to DITCH THE GAWD AWFUL CGI ART of 4e.  Maybe better bindings while you're at it.

I have a SHITLOAD of GURPS books, and they're a good read and useful no matter what game I'm running (if I need historical x or y references) but they tend to the dry.

The books have always read more like textbooks than exciting novels.  Gygax and co. may have been quirky but there was a story-telling vibe in the 1st edition books.

I've recently started a GURPS Monster Hunters Campaign; it's got all the bells and whistles to play anything from Men in Black to Buffy/Supernatural... but it just seems to never have been well marketed.

Going the route of more 'Powered by GURPS' could work... but whoever chases or chooses licenses either needs to stop with their pet projects or be given something of a budget.

GURPS The Vorkosigan Saga Sourcebook and Roleplaying Game anyone?  How about Humanx?  Uplift?  New Sun?  Lensman?  (To be fair, that's the ONE I had heard of.)  Horseclans?

They had Conan, and made it... dull.  There's some book I have, based on a John Carter knock-off set on Venus (couldn't be bothered to dig for it.)

For the most part, they seem to have licensed stuff no one else wanted, or didn't push hard enough when they had a good one.  (I find the Star Fleet Battles 'timeline' of Prime Directive is FAR more interesting for role-playing.)

Full disclosure, I was a MiB for a while.  The screw job that the European MiB's got on their points, the fact that all I was ever expected to play and talk was ENDLESS games of Munchkin, and the relatively shitty Florida Convention circuit (MegaCon and.....??) got me out of it.

Quote from: LiferGamer on September 16, 2021, 09:29:56 PM
...
Going the route of more 'Powered by GURPS' could work... but whoever chases or chooses licenses either needs to stop with their pet projects or be given something of a budget.

GURPS The Vorkosigan Saga Sourcebook and Roleplaying Game anyone?  How about Humanx?  Uplift?  New Sun?  Lensman?  (To be fair, that's the ONE I had heard of.)  Horseclans?...

For the most part, they seem to have licensed stuff no one else wanted, ...

This always seems to be the case when you say: "What GRUPS IP?" and the reply is: "But, but, but they had IP x, y, z..."

Ummm, yeah, nobody cares about IPs x,y,z...

Quote from: LiferGamer on September 16, 2021, 09:29:56 PM
They had Conan, and made it... dull. 

WTF What!? I didn't know that. I had to go and look that up...

So they had one of the RPG hobbies evergreen IPs, and proceeded to go absolutely nowhere with it...

The same IP that Mongoose did two editions and piles of supplements of. The same IP that Modiphius uses their 2d20 house system that nobody cares about, yet their Conan line still sells very well for them.

I mean they had the license back in 1989, when GURPS was very much still something in the hobby, and they couldn't even leverage the Conan IP to show the GURPs system in its best light, it in their heyday!?

#wowjustwow...

So yeah for SJG, GURPS will continue a slide into obscurity. Evidently the signs were there much earlier than I had first supposed.

It seems that GURPS is a typical example of a company that had a good idea that hit, but from that point forward they just couldn't get out of their own way, and when the hobby moved on, they didn't.

More than ever I'm convinced I'm right about what I posted earlier this year back in reply #65:

I think that they just don't have it in them to take a step back, re-evaluate the system from the top down, and then take the plunge with a properly focused and supported game.

For that to happen there would have to be evidence of a surge in GURPS sales and a massive drop in Munchkin sales, and absolutely nothing else in sight.  Even then, they'd probably try to make GURPS 4e go rather than doing a new edition because, if you've got a spike in sales, why would you mess with that?

I honestly think Steve Jackson wants to sail off into retirement in peace. And given SJG is probably a single proprietorship or some other closed structure (corporation? llc? lllp?) not dealing with public stocks, I don't blame him and his last aging cadre.  You done good, SJ, milk that Munchkin for a gilded walk-in, sit-down, geriatric shower. 

Quote from: Aglondir on April 23, 2021, 02:12:27 AM
I'm not going to link to the thread at TBP nor will I quote it. It's the one where Phil Masters (of Steve Jackson Games) got a ban for explaining what the disadvantage "slave mentality" means in Gurps.

In that thread, he basically says there will not be a 5th edition for Gurps, unless the RPG market drastically changes, and the popularity for Gurps increases. It's not really a surprise, but hearing it from Phil makes it real.

What I find hard to believe is why they won't Kickstart it. The diehard fans alone would fund it, assuming it did not have an astronomical funding goal. Throw in a bunch of 4th Edition PDFs as stretch goals and it would skyrocket. The Dungeon Fantasy KS made $176,450 over a $100,000 goal, which isn't a spectacular success but it's a success nonetheless.

As a start, they could simply make a new Gurps Lite, which is something we've wanted since the beginning. Something that could appeal to D&D players who are looking for more realism or grittiness. There's definitely a market there, as evidenced by OSR games that try to do exactly that.

Was this pre-2012? It clearly wasn't permanent as Masters's account has no big red banned marker. But there's nothing on the Infractions board.

It may have pissed him off enough to no longer post, as he hasn't posted publicly on TBP since 2009. He did respond to an inquiry on his profile in 2020, but no new posts.

I suppose I could be wrong about all this though.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on September 20, 2021, 11:04:41 AM
I suppose I could be wrong about all this though.

   The recent database collapse has messed up the search function, so I wouldn't make calls on what's happened on TBP until they announce it's back to normal.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on September 20, 2021, 11:10:30 AM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on September 20, 2021, 11:04:41 AM
I suppose I could be wrong about all this though.

   The recent database collapse has messed up the search function, so I wouldn't make calls on what's happened on TBP until they announce it's back to normal.

I completely forgot about that. Very true. I'll go back to look at it in a few days or something.

Quote from: GhostmakerWas this pre-2012? It clearly wasn't permanent as Masters's account has no big red banned marker. But there's nothing on the Infractions board.

It may have pissed him off enough to no longer post, as he hasn't posted publicly on TBP since 2009. He did respond to an inquiry on his profile in 2020, but no new posts.

I suppose I could be wrong about all this though.

April 2021. I will try to find link.

edit: Found it

https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/lets-read-gurps-banestorm.877919/page-45