PDA

View Full Version : Got GURPS Basic Set... Where to From Here?



The Rose Dragon
2010-04-27, 10:27 AM
So, I finally caved in and got GURPS basic set, and decided that even if I never actually play it, it is a good reference book if nothing else (though it was kind of confusing that most of the mechanics were actually in the Campaigns book).

So, where to from here? Which books will give me the most bang for my buck? Versatility is key here, though do assume that I will keep my games confined to single settings and not use an Infinite Worlds kind of scenario.

For reference, I like post-apoc settings, semi-hard sci-fi, clockpunk and cyberpunk, wuxia, urban fantasy, and fairies. Fluff is more welcome, which the basic set was sorely lacking in, but genre-specific crunch is also good.

Tinydwarfman
2010-04-27, 10:43 AM
GURPS Magic is a must if you want to run a campaign with a good magic system. It has a crapload of spells for the normal system, and introduces some other magic systems, like syntactic verb-noun magic.

GURPS Martial Arts is an amazing book for expanding the combat system, and is a must once you get to know it better, but I wouldn't recommend it to beginners.

Apart from that, Powers has tons of great mechanical stuff, and Fantasy covers everything you could want for GMing a fantasy world. Banestorm is a cool pre-establised fantasy setting, if don't like making up your own fluff. If you want to take a more D&D focused route to fantasy, the Dungeon Fantasy PDFs are great.

For genre specific fluff, just search the SJ games site for what you need. Ultratech and the Space line are good for Scifi games, and if you want to take it even further, Transhuman Space is really cool.

Pretty much every supplement I've seen from SJ games is very good. It just comes down to what kind of game you want to play. That being said, GURPS being a generic game, there are many genre without fluff books. You may need to make up your own stuff for many games.

Jyokage
2010-04-27, 10:46 AM
You have the basic set and campaign set right? Then I would Highly recommend Gurps Martial Arts, it is not only informative, it is chock full of all kinds of styles for both realistic and cinematic games. Also of significant mention is Gurps High Tech and Ultra tech, for scifi goodness. There are others as well, but I would recommend going to the sj games website and checking out the catalog. Pm me if you have any questions, I'm a pretty rabid gurps rule monster. :smalltongue:

*Edit: NINJA'D!

White Blade
2010-04-27, 11:30 AM
I own GURPs Space, Supers, Fantasy, Powers, and Infinite Worlds and have fairly regular access to Thaumaturgy. Of I recommend them in this order: Space, which except for the colossal waste of space that is the random planet generator (no matter how accurate) is amazing. Thaumaturgy is absolutely amazing for the fluff, though the mechanics are a bit sparse (I assume because of GURPs Magic taking that role). Powers is airtight, as far as designs go, and has some solid advice on dealing with powers. Fantasy is alright. It has some good comments and interesting ideas, but nothing in the book ever screamed "so worth it" to me. Supers is an excellent book on the superhero genre and helpful for running a Supers game, but not so good for any of your interests. And Infinite Worlds is only useful if you're using the setting or want to write time travel/world hopping.

I can't make any other statements, sadly, not having any of the other books where I can read them.

Severus
2010-04-27, 11:40 AM
Not to hijack your thread, But I think hero is a vastly better generic system. (Have played several campaigns with both systems)

GURPS is far too stat dependent and it is hard to balance encounters for it because of the way health rolls work. Like pretty much all systems you can make it work, but you'll need to fudge things.

That said, the advice above is good. I'd make sure that you establish clear stat limits up front.

The Rose Dragon
2010-04-27, 11:41 AM
Not to hijack your thread, But I think hero is a vastly better generic system. (Have played several campaigns with both systems)

1) I don't like Hero.

2) ???

3) Profit!

The Cat Goddess
2010-04-27, 01:10 PM
Not to hijack your thread, But I think hero is a vastly better generic system. (Have played several campaigns with both systems)

GURPS is far too stat dependent and it is hard to balance encounters for it because of the way health rolls work. Like pretty much all systems you can make it work, but you'll need to fudge things.

That said, the advice above is good. I'd make sure that you establish clear stat limits up front.

Personally, I've never found Hero system to translate well for non-superhero/non-fantasy settings. I.E. Old West, Secret Agents, Space Exploration, etc.

That being said, Hero System is vastly better at portraying traditional comic book heroics and high-fantasy Magic (characters who are dragons, etc.).

The Rose Dragon
2010-04-27, 01:11 PM
That being said, Hero System is vastly better at portraying traditional comic book heroics and high-fantasy Magic (characters who are dragons, etc.).

And M&M is better than Hero at both of those.

Tinydwarfman
2010-04-27, 01:39 PM
That being said, Hero System is vastly better at portraying traditional comic book heroics and high-fantasy Magic (characters who are dragons, etc.).

I agree with the comic book heroics (although Supers and Powers go a long way), but why high-fantasy magic? You can play a dragon in GURPS, why is Hero so much better?

mikeejimbo
2010-04-27, 03:53 PM
Having never played Hero I can't comment on the GURPS v. Hero debate going on here. But being a big fan of GURPS, I can comment on what books will be useful:

Powers is nigh essential. It adds lots of options and teaches Power-building, which I feel is really the key behind the vast versatility of GURPS.

Martial Arts is likewise a very good resource for running GURPS Combat.

That pretty much covers what they consider the "Core" rules. Pretty much from here, you get more and more specific.

Magic is pretty much essential if you're going to run a fantasy setting of any sort. Thaumatology adds lots of options for changing the magic system if you don't like it. For Urban Fantasy, there is an Urban Magics PDF supplement.

For sci-fi, from soft to hard, Ultra-Tech, Biotech and Space are all going to be useful, not necessarily in that order. (Depending on the focus of your setting). If you like Psionics in your sci-fi, Psionic Powers and Psionic Campaigns will be of use. Psionic Powers is excellent. I haven't actually read Psionic Campaigns but given that it is also by Jason Levine, I have faith it is just as good.

Don't forget that a lot of the Third Edition books are still useful, too! Some details will be out of date but there is a free PDF that explains how to update characters from 3rd to 4th Edition, so character templates are still useful. Setting information and GM advice is universal.

For your interests Cyberpunk might be useful, as well as Steampunk and Steam-Tech. I think there's even a GURPS Fairies for 3rd Edition!

Edit: Corrected myself on the title of the Urban Fantasy PDF.

Severus
2010-04-28, 06:26 PM
I agree with the comic book heroics (although Supers and Powers go a long way), but why high-fantasy magic? You can play a dragon in GURPS, why is Hero so much better?

We're currently playing a relatively low level campaign in 1880 Austria with Hero.

Hero character building is more complex than GURPS, certainly, but you can do much more with it. I am comfortable using a spreadsheet. If you aren't, then Hero may be harder for you. Though the utility that Hero sells is excellent. I am using it for the characters in the current campaign and not doing my own spreadsheets.

Why I dislike GURPS:

-Stat based. every skill has defaults. 4 numbers strength, health, dexterity, and intelligence drive pretty much everything about your character. You have to tweak the system to avoid intelligent character turning into the professor from gilligan - knowing everything. I see this as flawed design. You can work around it, but the efficiencies of high stats are so huge....

-creating encounters is non-intuitive. because of the way health is played, opponents effectively have random amounts of hit points. You make health rolls everytime they go below certain thresholds. If they make the rolls, they're still there, if not, they're not. Ditto for the players. The lack of predictability makes it hard for a GM to judge how much it will take to defeat an opponent. You can fix that by kludging the system, but...

-The Magic system is D&D. You have set lists of spells and pre-requisites. You can't build and create what you want. Range mods tend to make all mages tactical. If you want any epic feel to your mages you have to hand wave. If I'm playing a 'universal' system, I'd the the magic system not to be cookie cutter.

Hero can be every bit as gritty as Gurps by just limiting defenses. Hero, being more flexible, is also more abuseable. If it isn't gritty at the low level, it is because characters have been permitted to buy too much defenses.

Hero advantages and disadvantages allow you to change and modify existing powers and abilities to better reflect a whole range of effect whereas in gurps you mostly just have abilities you pick from a list.

But if you like GURPS, great, enjoy. Just wanted to express my experience with both systems.

mikeejimbo
2010-04-28, 10:14 PM
Hero advantages and disadvantages allow you to change and modify existing powers and abilities to better reflect a whole range of effect whereas in gurps you mostly just have abilities you pick from a list.

I'm confused by this... the entire book of Powers is about modifying the advantages and disadvantages to create almost any effect you wish. You can do a lot with the Basic Set itself, but Powers really helps you with the building of, well, just about anything.

The Cat Goddess
2010-04-28, 10:15 PM
It's much easier to simulate high magic and create a character that is a Dragon (yet not rediculously powerful compared to everyone else) in Hero system than it is in GURPS.

As for the problems the previous poster mentions:

1) Set limits on stats. Unless you want them to, nobody should have stats higher than 15.

2) GURPS did "minions" before 4e D&D. See the Supers & Martial Arts rules from 3rd edition (not sure about 4th edition). Further, if your villians don't have Health Scores above 12, they're not going to live very long once they hit -1 HP.

3) Look for the Improvised Magic & Rune Magic systems in 3rd Edition GURPS. Of course, most people don't like having to make up every spell themselves... As for the regular system being too D&D-like... it's much easier (and more fun) to make a specialist mage in GURPS. Undo-35! I undo the fighter's chainmail! :smallbiggrin:

mikeejimbo
2010-04-28, 10:24 PM
OK, I know I'm posting too much, but I have helpful 4e advice here!


2) GURPS did "minions" before 4e D&D. See the Supers & Martial Arts rules from 3rd edition (not sure about 4th edition). Further, if your villians don't have Health Scores above 12, they're not going to live very long once they hit -1 HP.

The "minion" rule is in the core set in GURPS 4e.


3) Look for the Improvised Magic & Rune Magic systems in 3rd Edition GURPS. Of course, most people don't like having to make up every spell themselves... As for the regular system being too D&D-like... it's much easier (and more fun) to make a specialist mage in GURPS. Undo-35! I undo the fighter's chainmail! :smallbiggrin:

These systems can be found in 4e's Magic and Thaumatology. (Magic introduces syntactic magic, but Thaumatology expands on it.)

warmachine
2010-04-29, 03:42 AM
Any title you like the sound of. GURPS books have a reputation for being well written even for those who'll never play GURPS. The majority don't deal with fluff because that's setting specific. A lot deal with genre explanation, which is not crunch or fluff.

Tyrmatt
2010-04-29, 03:55 AM
Post Apoc? I've got something you want, right here. Little outdated (think its 3rd Edition GURPS but not a huge problem to update) but I've started a campaign with it and it seems like a good set of rules to put over the top of GURPS to give that Fallout feel.
Link (http://www.scribd.com/doc/14646941/GURPS-Fallout-Conversion-30)

At the moment all I've done is cribbed a few things from GURPS High and Ultra tech to add to this campaign, so I'd make them your next ports of call.

Synistar
2010-04-29, 06:23 PM
Why I dislike GURPS:

Here is why I dislike beets. They taste nasty to me. However, that is not a universal law. I can dislike beets and you can love them. And none of this has anything to do with how to start a GURPS campaign.

(Personally, I think Wild Talents blows all of them away for supers campaigns). :smallamused: