What's wrong with GURPS?

[rorikdude12]

I read through GURPS 4e, and am trying to find folk to play it with. However, especially on these forums, people seem to dislike it. Why?

[Jack of Spades]

Opinion seems pretty mixed as far as I've seen, but I'll try:

GURPS is faced with the challenge of attempting to be both general, and universal (also a role playing game ). Thus, it is required to have a pretty universal system (a plus) with a huge amount of raw rulesyness to work with the more specific cases. That is what drives people away: in order to find the stuff that works for your game, you have to dig through all the other stuff. That creates the illusion of complexity where in reality there's pretty much a point-buy d6 dice pool system.

Then again, as someone who's mostly ambivalent toward GURPS, I'm not the best source.

[Hiro Protagonest]

...Rules are complicated? It's always second best? Aren't willing to shell out the money for the required splatbooks for whatever game they want?

Ultimately, though, it's not particularly disliked. But look at Finding Players. 3.5 dominates the section. Couple Pathfinder games. Maybe a Total War. Possibly a freeform god game. Couple White Wolf games. Occasionally a D&D 4e. Some obscure RPG I've never even heard of is probably on there, with a half-dozen replies. Barely ever see a FATE game except for a Dresden Files or two. GURPS might show up (looking at it now, a game has shown up, and you made the most recent post).

[Inglenook]

Hi, my name is Stories and I'm a GURPSaholic.

GURPS seems like it handles "real-world/grittier" games better than high fantasy (which is probably the most popular genre of tabletop game). Add in a steep learning curve, a massive and modular ruleset (thus the splatbooks), and the relative lethality of combat and it's not surprising that there aren't many GURPS games on here.

[navar100]

I like leveling. I enjoy my character getting better at what he does and being able to do cool new things as the campaign develops. GURPS doesn't have that. You get diddlysquat character points upon adventure completion that maybe allow you to improve one skill from a 14 or less success to a 15 or less success. You can never get more advantages. You can never increase your ability scores. A spellcaster is lucky to get a new spell by half a point. Your character does the same things over and over for adventure after adventure never significantly improving. It gets boring.

[Inglenook]

I'd say that's more of an issue with the low amount of points given (and the fact that they're given at the end of an adventure instead of throughout), rather than the way you can apply them to your character. To which I sort of agree—if I ever GM a game of GURPS, I'd probably make it so that monsters are worth XP, and whenever you accrue, say, 500 XP, you gain an ability point.

Skills can be raised by using them, though, not just through spending AP on them. And advantages/disadvantages can be earned through gameplay and roleplaying at the GM's discretion.

And I always thought that ability scores could be raised? Although I imagine it would be godawfully expensive to do so.

[1337 b4k4]

Haven't had a chance to look through the 4e books, but GURPS 3 was my first system (minus the dragon strike board game that I never really got a chance to play) so I can tell you what turned me off as a new player when I was trying to learn the system.

1st, the book is full of rules. Lots and lots of rules that you may never actually use. As a new player that was particularly daunting, especially since its not made clear (and as a new player you don't yet know) that 90% of those rules are perfectly optional, and you can keep or ignore as you see fit and you really won't break anything.

2nd, the default magic system is (at least in 3e) somewhat confusing and doesn't well support the sort of high fantasy swords and sorcery stuff that most players think of when they think of TTRPGs

3rd, it only uses d6. That's no fun if you're looking to use some funky dice.

That said, I think it's a pret decent system and it certainly accomplishes the goal it sets out to, have generating a generic and universal system for multiple genres and types, you just might need to invest in a few other books as well to get exactly what you're looking for. Having gone from that, to VtM, to a home brew system, to 4e, to OSR, I've come to more appreciate how flexible the rules system can be, and looking back on it now, I can see what I might have thought were flaws back then are more the result of my lack of experience with RPGs in general.

[Hylas]

I like leveling. I enjoy my character getting better at what he does and being able to do cool new things as the campaign develops. GURPS doesn't have that. You get diddlysquat character points upon adventure completion that maybe allow you to improve one skill from a 14 or less success to a 15 or less success. You can never get more advantages. You can never increase your ability scores. A spellcaster is lucky to get a new spell by half a point. Your character does the same things over and over for adventure after adventure never significantly improving. It gets boring.

Man, I just finished a d20 game and I was level 2 when we started but at the end of the session I WAS STILL LEVEL 2! I didn't improve at all! My sorcerer couldn't even create another plane at that level either. I couldn't get all of the feats I wanted at first level and my abilities aren't improving at all. On top of all this I didn't learn any new spells, and my class skills are chosen for me, so toss out any option of customization. It's pretty lame if you ask me. </sarcasm>

Anyways, in my experience what you can and can't get after character creation is really up to do the DM. In any system a DM can award more or less exp than another DM for the same adventure. Technically you can allow anyone to put points into anything they want to improve about their character, including advantages, spells, and ability points, but this can change depending on the settings. Maybe your mage can learn spells all on their own or maybe they need someone to instruct them or they need to read a book for 2 sessions to learn a new spell. Maybe the DM requires that a skill get used before you can improve it or maybe not. For the big advantages you'll generally need to save up over multiple sessions. I know one person who saved up 150 points once because he couldn't decide what to do with them, but the DM allowed anything to be purchased.

As for why the GURPS hate, it can be pretty involved as far as the rules go. You have rules for playing as cavemen, you have rules for playing a 1950s spy, you have rules for sci-fi space marine, so you have to know what to filter out which is very hard for someone new to the rules. That chapter and those books on firearms? Well maybe your medieval setting doesn't require you to know them inside and out. My first character involved me talking about a concept and the more experienced players picking out my stats, advantages, disadvantages, and skills. I got to pick out a few things that I liked for myself or that looked interesting, but they did all of the crunch.

[Knaight]

I'm pretty ambivalent towards GURPS, and do like it as a player - that said, it isn't my favorite generic system by any stretch of the imagination. This largely comes down to a few issues:

Attributes: I don't particularly like the GURPS attributes. Essentially, there are the games which have attributes that work for them (e.g. Qin) that are better at what they do, then there is my preferred generic system that has the attributes I want, as it doesn't have a set list.

Lists of Stuff: GURPS is very list based, you pick skills off a list, advantages off a list, disadvantages off a list, etc. Added to that is that these are very long lists, and it generally makes character creation involve too much searching for my taste. I also prefer systems I can memorize, and GURPS is in no danger of being one of them.

Skill Breadth: GURPS skills are too narrow for my taste. I use a range of skill breadth's, depending on the game, but I never get as narrow as GURPS does. Do you really need a different skill for every slightly different variety of sword, or to pilot every slightly different variety of ship, or whatever else?

Disadvantages: GURPS gives points up front for disadvantages that come into play later. This creates an incentive to pick disadvantages that have little effect, or that overlap significantly to gain points. A system where disadvantages got you points as they were used would incentivizes playing a flawed character who's flaws are relevant to the story, and there are a lot of systems that do this and as such handle Disadvantages better.

Sheer Data: GURPS characters have a lot of statistics that even basic NPCs need to have known, GURPS is full of tables you have to reference to finish making a character (e.g. the strength table for damage), GURPS has a skill system that involves a bunch of skill defaults that you need to track, etc. It's really kind of obnoxious as a GM, and is the primary reason I don't GM GURPS.

[Killer Angel]

There are few wrong things in GURPS, it's a good and balanced system, and (as a player) I like it.
I've never been a gurps' DM

[rorikdude12]

...Rules are complicated? It's always second best? Aren't willing to shell out the money for the required splatbooks for whatever game they want?

Have you read the 4th ed rules? They're mostly quite simple. Apply modifiers to your skill, try to roll under.

Second, there are no "required" splatbooks. The core rulebook has an extensive amount of optional rules on it's own if you want to use them

... GURPS might show up (looking at it now, a game has shown up, and you made the most recent post).

yep. still not that much, unfortunately. It's only a single PbP game, compared to many PbPs and large amounts of Skype games that 3.5 and Pathfinder draw.

I like leveling. I enjoy my character getting better at what he does and being able to do cool new things as the campaign develops. GURPS doesn't have that. You get diddlysquat character points upon adventure completion that maybe allow you to improve one skill from a 14 or less success to a 15 or less success. You can never get more advantages. You can never increase your ability scores. A spellcaster is lucky to get a new spell by half a point. Your character does the same things over and over for adventure after adventure never significantly improving. It gets boring.

Hylas beat me to this. There are rules IN THE CORE RULEBOOK about training skills through the game without expending character points. Instead, it revolves around spending in-game time. Also, spells count as skills, so those can be improved without spending character points. In addition, the core rulebook talks about gaining advantages and disadvantages through play: If you lose an arm, you gain the One Arm disadvantage. If you get a good reputation with the merchant crowd, you get the reputation advantage. If you get a submachine gun implanted into a prosthetic arm you had, you get Innate Attack with a bunch of modifiers.

@Knaight

Thank you for your post. Though I disagree on some cases, your statements are understandable.

[DigoDragon]

GURPS can seem complicated at first, but with some experience its not any more difficult than a d20 system. The newest member in my gaming group is now using GURPS for the first time and he's picking up on it pretty quickly.

[Morty]

I've never got the impression that GURPS is disliked here. Sure, it's overshadowed by D&D of all stripes in discussion and PbP games but so is everything else. It's not disliked any more than any other system. For the record, I quite like it.

[Ashtagon]

This site is a forum supporting The OotS comic, which is to a large extent dependent on in-jokes about D&D.

GURPS isn't D&D. That's why GURPS isn't so popular here.

Imagine going to the SJG forums and asking about D&D. You'll get an equal and opposite reaction.

[Origomar]

This site is a forum supporting The OotS comic, which is to a large extent dependent on in-jokes about D&D.

GURPS isn't D&D. That's why GURPS isn't so popular here.

Imagine going to the SJG forums and asking about D&D. You'll get an equal and opposite reaction.

The old Newtons third law of forum posting.

[Hiro Protagonest]

yep. still not that much, unfortunately. It's only a single PbP game, compared to many PbPs and large amounts of Skype games that 3.5 and Pathfinder draw.

Do you know how many Spirit of the Century games I've seen since I heard of FATE? One.

I've probably seen three or four Dresden Files RPG games.

There are a bunch of new 3.5 threads every week. Because this is a forum that attracts D&D players.

[mcv]

GURPS has many, many redeeming features. It's main problem is that it's a very heavy weight system (though 3.5 and Pathfinder are pretty heavy weight too). In its attempt to simulate absolutely everything, it has an enormous number of rules, modifiers, etc for all sorts of things, and there's still always something missing. Of course every system has that problem, but most systems take a holistic approach and pretend that the stuff it can't do isn't that important, is kinda covered by something else, can be fudged, or it simply ignores it. GURPS pretends to do anything, and therefore it has tons of stuff and still falls short just like any other game.

It's main feature that can be either a strength or a limitation is that it's mainly aimed at gritty realism (though if you go far enough, it still falls short there). There are optional rules for cinematic and/or D&D-style play, but those will always feel bolted-on instead of baked into the core of the system.

Its main strength is obviously the flexible character creation. Classes are straightjackets, and if you want something unusual, you can never quite get what you want without getting lots of stuff you don't want and still missing something important. Not so in GURPS. If you have enough points (obviously), you can make whatever you want. Realistic characters are the easiest, but if you break open all the weird powers, there is truly no limit.

Here's another thing that's both an advantage and a disadvantage: while GURPS is a comprehensive system that covers everything, D&D classes are ad-hoc collections of abilities that need to be balanced by hand. That means you can't just make your own D&D class out of thin air and expect it to be balanced, but with sufficient creativity and testing, game designers can make absolutely anything with their own set of subsystems and have it work. This makes D&D very much a patchwork with countless subsystems, whereas in GURPS, you have to work really hard within the system to figure out how to make it do what you need, and when you're done, you do get a point cost for it, but by that time there's no guarantee anymore that it represents a fair and balanced point cost. And at that point, what is really the benefit of that complicated system?

In the end, though, it's all about playstyle. Every single system has its own niche where it shines. D&D is simply designed for dungeoncrawls and straight up fantasy combat. It can do more, but this is the core. GURPS shines in realistic tactical situations covering a wide variety of subjects.

Savage Worlds strikes me as a system that's somewhere in between these two: you can create any kind of character you want, like in GURPS, it has some very class-like Edges that put you in a classic D&D class, but you can combine or ignore those. And it shines at pulpy, fast paced, slightly cinematic action, ranging from massive combats (dungeon or not) to car chases, without getting into too much detail.

Other systems are more aimed improvising all sorts of effect, various story-driven mechanics, relationships, interactions, goals, whatever. Each system has its niche where it's awesome, and other areas where it sucks. GURPS's niche was pretty popular in the 90s, but maybe not so much nowadays.

[valadil]

I've played a bit of GURPS. I've had fun with it, but it's hardly my favorite system. I don't like bashing it, but as long as you asked.

I too like leveling. I think it's more dramatic to get your bonuses all at once than piecemeal. I've only recently realized that I like leveling because it lets my specialist advance at his specialty. In GURPS, if I play a sniper I'll max out is weapon skill at game start. I might gain a point or two, but nothing dramatic. Meanwhile, my team mates catch up with me. By the end of the campaign, my sniping is actually less impressive than it was at the beginning, relative to the rest of the players. Point buy is great for generalists, but it's hard to shine as a specialist.

GURPS is a framework rather than a game. It's up the to GM to select a good subset of rules to represent the game he wants to run. I don't think this is an inherent problem, except that GMs aren't always aware of it. GURPS just has too many options for all of them to make sense in the same game.

Too much math during character creation. I'm of the opinion that RPG math should stop at fractions. Any time you see players whipping out their calculators, the math has gone too far. GURPS is pretty good about this during play time, but it can get awful during character creation, especially if powers are involved. In particular I get annoyed by powers with limitations. If my power comes out to 3.4 points, I might as well tack on other abilities or restrictions to try to get it down to 3.0 or up to 4.0 so as to not waste the point.

Too many rules. I say this not because I feel bogged down by rules, but because it makes GMs afraid to improvise. There are just so many exceptions and one off conditions that we spend more time looking through books than actually playing. I'm glad to have a GM who has a pretty good mental index of what rules are available, but this completely puts me off from GMing.

Balance is poor. Especially with magic. Some options are just straight up better than others. It's not unplayable, but don't pretend that it's balanced.

Too many exceptions. I can't remember the specifics, but there's something about certain weapons breaking others during a parry or some weapons causing knockback. The rules kind of made sense for some weapons, but when a shield blocks a battering ram with no chance of breakage, you've killed my suspension of disbelief.

[Dimers]

Other people have talked about mechanics. I'm fine with those, because my brain likes to make up mechanics and has no problem fitting concepts into GURPS. The reason I've drifted away from GURPS is the feel. For a game that actually makes use of character flaws for practical purposes, for a game in which you can build any character you imagine*, it leaves me feeling awfully out-of-character. It feels dry ... sanitized ... cut into little pieces, none of which has any of the character's essence in it.

When I play GURPS, I have to start with a very firm character concept and try to fit many little pieces of rules around it. I can't say "hey the party needs a healer", dive in, and somehow end up with a character. The books don't really inspire ideas in me.


*exaggeration, of course, but I do think GURPS is better for it than a lot of others

[Cybren]

The only real problem with GURPS is a shrinking marketspace

[mcv]

Other people have talked about mechanics. I'm fine with those, because my brain likes to make up mechanics and has no problem fitting concepts into GURPS. The reason I've drifted away from GURPS is the feel. For a game that actually makes use of character flaws for practical purposes, for a game in which you can build any character you imagine*, it leaves me feeling awfully out-of-character.

Speaking of character flaws, one of the main problems with GURPS is that Disadvantages rarely really matter in game. The burden of making the advantages relevant during play lies entirely with the GM. The approach in games like Serenity/Cortex where you get plot points for making your flaws relevant is much better.

It feels dry ... sanitized ... cut into little pieces, none of which has any of the character's essence in it.

When I play GURPS, I have to start with a very firm character concept and try to fit many little pieces of rules around it. I can't say "hey the party needs a healer", dive in, and somehow end up with a character. The books don't really inspire ideas in me.

I must have made about a hundred stand-alone characters for GURPS over the years. In a way, GURPS does encourage more self-sufficient, well-rounded, stand-alone characters more than a specialist-oriented game like D&D. All of my characters really did have character. Some on my best characters ever were GURPS characters, despite never really having done a big GURPS campaign (well, one by email).

Nevertheless, I've left GURPS behind. I probably have more GURPS books than all my other RPG books put together (well over a hundred, I think), but I've discovered I want something different from a game. I don't care about all the intricate detail. I want something quick and light and fast and with tons and tons of atmosphere, and those were never GURPS's strong points.

It's great that the system can differentiate between a hundred different types of assault rifle, but during play, I just want a gun that looks cool and kills people. That, in a nutshell, is the problem with GURPS.

[Cybren]

It's great that the system can differentiate between a hundred different types of assault rifle, but during play, I just want a gun that looks cool and kills people. That, in a nutshell, is the problem with GURPS.

Out of curiosity have you seen the lines Action and Dungeon Fantasy and etc?

[rorikdude12]

Thanks guys. When I made the thread, I was a bit crazy since I had just found GURPS. I like the idea of systems where you have a lot of differences, and a spear is different than a gun with comparable damage. I also like games where it's a bit of a mishmash, where you can smack genres together and make it work. (The Wizard assualts the orcish fortress with air support from the starfighter pilot)

You guys have given many good reasons. Though this is the only PbP board I have really used, and the first PbP forum I played on, I'll consider branching out.

Thank you for your civil and useful information.

[mcv]

Out of curiosity have you seen the lines Action and Dungeon Fantasy and etc?

I have seen Dungeon Fantasy, but have never played it. It seemed to me like a cumbersome way to emulate a D&D playing style, though I've heard good stuff about it since then.

[navar100]

Hylas beat me to this. There are rules IN THE CORE RULEBOOK about training skills through the game without expending character points. Instead, it revolves around spending in-game time. Also, spells count as skills, so those can be improved without spending character points. In addition, the core rulebook talks about gaining advantages and disadvantages through play: If you lose an arm, you gain the One Arm disadvantage. If you get a good reputation with the merchant crowd, you get the reputation advantage. If you get a submachine gun implanted into a prosthetic arm you had, you get Innate Attack with a bunch of modifiers.

News to me. (not sarcasm) I guess GURPS actually learned something since I last played it . . . over 15 years ago.

[Jerthanis]

Disadvantages: GURPS gives points up front for disadvantages that come into play later. This creates an incentive to pick disadvantages that have little effect, or that overlap significantly to gain points. A system where disadvantages got you points as they were used would incentivizes playing a flawed character who's flaws are relevant to the story, and there are a lot of systems that do this and as such handle Disadvantages better.

This is the big one for me... I actually was once a big GURPS hater almost entirely for the extensive Disadvantages section. I had vitriol fueled rants about all the reasons I hated Disadvantages and the way GURPS does them.

I actually have considered running after someone suggested to my stupid face the idea of running without allowing disadvantages.

[Inglenook]

Disadvantages do often amount to free points, yeah. Of course, it suddenly turns quite nasty when the GM works the story so that your disadvantages are brought into frequent use. I took "Thalassophobia" on a lark, and much of the next session involved traveling by boat to a lost continent. My character spent most of the journey having a mental breakdown in the hold, and the ordeal aged him several years.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Disadvantages do often amount to free points, yeah. Of course, it suddenly turns quite nasty when the GM works the story so that your disadvantages are brought into frequent use. I took "Thalassophobia" on a lark, and much of the next session involved traveling by boat to a lost continent. My character spent most of the journey having a mental breakdown in the hold, and the ordeal essentially aged him several years.

I remember once, someone posted that as a joke, one of his D&D characters had a custom flaw. I forget what the name was, but it meant "the fear of being chased by wolves around a coffee table while wearing socks", IIRC.

[Mikeavelli]

I remember once, someone posted that as a joke, one of his D&D characters had a custom flaw. I forget what the name was, but it meant "the fear of being chased by wolves around a coffee table while wearing socks", IIRC.

You mean this one?

Luposlipaphobia. The mechanics for it are pretty great too.

[TheOOB]

For me, I like game systems where the mechanics and the setting work together. GURPS is trying to be everything for everyone, but it doesn't actually do any one thing as well as it could. If I want to play a high seas pirate game, I'll play 7th Sea, heroic high fantasy, D&D, post apocalyptic zany fun, Paranoia.

Think of it like a tool. A crescent wrench is a useful and versatile tool, and it can do a lot of jobs good enough, but in almost all cases having a fixed wrench the proper size for the task is better than using an adjustable wrench if it's available. And since there are hundreds of RPG's out there, the better tool is usually available.