GURPS and why you should be playing it!

[Kizara]

Remember that it was an older system. If I recall correctly, the Power Investiture Talent (or whatever Talent I used for spellcasting) gave me the ability to use spells with some discount, but the mechanic was a bit different. Since I had a low level of that Talent (though I'm pretty sure it was Power Investment; in either case, it should be on the Religion supplement if available), I couldn't use spells at an advantage like regular spells do.

Also, the Attribute/Ability Score system was a bit different IIRC. I recall wasting about 50 points or so on Attributes, and the ST and DX (or was it ST and HT? Perhaps, if my DX was 10 or so...) were enhanced by the GM with an "item" to compensate with the level of the other people (who were playing for about a year or two). I think I also had some extra XP to balance things up. In either case, it wasn't a tried-and-true 100-point character.

Power Investature (which is in the Basic Characters book), functions extremely similarly to Magery. The biggest difference is that you have a pre-defined list according to your god (that your GM has to essentially make for you), but that you don't have to worry about the prerequisite tress that other mages do.

Perhaps it was that, since I fell into negative HP pretty quickly. All I recall was that I had such a high HT, I barely got over 13-14 (or whichever my HT really was; my memory is a tad hazy). I finally failed, IIRC, with a roll of 15.

Also, do triple 1's count as critical successes and triple 6's as botches? The thing that I can correctly identify is that GURPS uses bell curve.

The following are criticals:

Success Roll: Equal or less than attribute. ST 12 for a strength check passes with a 12 or less.

Critical Success: 3-4 always. 5 if effective skill is 15+, 6 if effective skill is 16+.
Critical Failure: 18 always. 17 if effective skill is 15 or less. Roll 10+ effective skill.

Well, oddly enough it wasn't a zany story, but a serious story. It was that the group was dysfunctional at its core. But still, it managed to do its work as it should.

Heh.

As for those who think in D&D terms: GURPS is a tad more balanced in the term of "magic trumps mundane". Being a point-based system, a mundane character could have better stats, and better advantages while choosing little disadvantages. As well, you can enhance what you can do with skills, which is crucial since the rules work differently (if my memory is hazy, you roll a target number, your bonus or penalty with the skill modifies that target number, and if you exceed that number, you fail). Magic requires a specific talent, requires an expenditure of points between that and skills, and you must pump those spells you learn to cast them better separately, as well as each spell having a prerequisite (you can't learn Resurrection unless you have several other spells, which imply having the equivalents of Cure X Wounds, Regeneration, and one other spell to do it at a slight penalty). Bell curve aids a lot, but mages aren't the end-all be-all of the game; having low IQ hinders your magic ability, and having low HT hinders you through Fatigue Points. Finally, you can have Magical Resistance as a talent, which forbids you from using magic but makes magicians harder to affect you.

So yeah, so much for "I cast magic, I win". It requires a different level of thinking to achieve that, and you will be in a bit of disadvantage compared to someone who used his or her 70 points on skills and other talents.

This is largely all correct. I'll also point out that in 4e, IQ and DX are 20 pts instead of 10, and they earn every point with how useful they are (especially IQ for a mage).

Also, GURPS =/= Storyteller/Storytelling system(s). It's rewarding for roleplayers, but it lends itself quite well to hack & slash parties, since the battle rules are simple enough. Heck, IIRC social encounters are roleplayed here, not enforced by rules. But then again, I've played so long ago that it may be different. The idea is "GURPS is different", not "GURPS is mundane/social RP and thus won't apply to munchkins".
For that, go play Munchkin RPG by Steve Jackson.
You can't say much until you try.

Honestly, while you can pare GURPS down to steamline it enough so that you can run it as a very rules-light system, you are really missing the point if you do that. Unified resolution mechanics, ad-hoc character generation and other 'semi-freeform' styles of mechanics are the opposite direction of this system.

If you do not desire to have a system that can accurately protray almost anything you want to RP (sometimes with a bit of work, granted), and have that entity both feel and mechnically function distinctly from something else (A gun is not the same as a bow, or a fireball, or a sword, or a energy blaster, in a great many more ways then different amounts of damage dice.), and accurately protray almost action that said character could take, then I suppose GURPS isn't for you. To me, the amount of immersion and RPing options this gives me is completely invaluable. Did I mention it's not nearly as difficult or headache inducing as 3.5 to run?

I will say that while GURPS has some social interaction mechnics, they are fairly light and actually functionally far more useful then ethier 3e or 4e DnD's ones. It works like this:

Witty PC: *roleplays tricking the guards with a cunning lie and diversion*
GM: Ok, roll vs Fast Talk (the PC's skill) *GM modifies the check based on roleplaying, how guillible he feels the guard is, how hard the con is, and so forth*
Witty PC: Success by 3!
GM: *gives feedback, roleplaying continues*

Really, if this is too rules-heavy for you, you may wish to consider not using anything more rulesy then Wushu for your roleplaying.

[arkol]

This thread is really making me curious bout GURPS. Since I'm in a place where I can't even get a dnd book, getting a GURPS one will be impossible so I ask, is there any kind of SRD or something floating around on the web for GURPS?

[T.G. Oskar]

Power Investature (which is in the Basic Characters book), functions extremely similarly to Magery. The biggest difference is that you have a pre-defined list according to your god (that your GM has to essentially make for you), but that you don't have to worry about the prerequisite tress that other mages do.

Oh really!? Well...that's a big change. Originally, Basic Rules only had Magery and it was a bit more complex.

But yeah...mostly that. Except the GM mostly went for specific schools of magic instead of a specific spell list. Perhaps it's because it was 3rd Edition. Though, I recall it was somehow tied to Religious Rank? Or perhaps houserule; in either case, I was better because of Power Investment/Investiture.

The following are criticals:

Success Roll: Equal or less than attribute. ST 12 for a strength check passes with a 12 or less.

Critical Success: 3-4 always. 5 if effective skill is 15+, 6 if effective skill is 16+.
Critical Failure: 18 always. 17 if effective skill is 15 or less. Roll 10+ effective skill.

Yeah, I kinda forgot about that. Though perhaps that 4 is critical success rule is new? But yeah, most rolls are attribute checks, with the penalties or bonii for the specific skill. It's pretty simple, actually. Also, critical successes and botches were pretty amazing indeed.

This is largely all correct. I'll also point out that in 4e, IQ and DX are 20 pts instead of 10, and they earn every point with how useful they are (especially IQ for a mage).

Well, DX isn't that crucially important in most cases. Not something to keep low, but not something to keep high unless you want to be a fast kind of person. If you're going for shields and parrying, dodging isn't that important. You might lose a bit on the costs of DX vs. specific weapon, but if you're going for a specific weapon and want mostly a decent attack rate, paying the points for the skill ends up a bit more rewarding. +2 bonus on the weapon hit rate is about 12 points (but for a single weapon), while Dex requires about 40 points for that (but acts for all weapons). If you're going for a +2 on more than 3 weapons, then it's better to have DX than on separate skills; otherwise, if it's one, then it's better to pay the +2 on the skill and perhaps add 1 more to DX. If for two weapons, then DX and pay for the +1 on the weapons. That should give about a regular range of 12, which is only on top of the bell curve average roll. Going a bit more tactical, and you can save the 20 points for better stuff.

Of course, if you have over 200 points, then it's reasonable to have awesome stats.

(Which begs the question: 17 ST? How come!?)

Magic is a bit different: IQ for the base, then you buy the level of proficiency of each spell separately (IIRC); you start at a -3, and then go up to a +2.

[warmachine]

To counter this fanboyism, I will state that point buy freedom means you cannot be bad at maths and if a player has munchkin tendencies, the GM must be at least as good at maths and assertive as him. For example, a PC with DR 10 would be near invulnerable in a standard medieval fantasy or IQ 17 would grant professional level in all untrained, IQ-based skills. The rules don't block these because they can make sense in a high power level campaign but they don't in typical, heroic power levels. A GM must understand his genre and campaign conventions and stamp on any munchkins who try to break them. GURPS is a toolkit and you must understand your tools.

EDIT: Mind you, if you're on this forum, you can probably character optimize and spot maths abuses in the abstract, rules-heavy D&D. So you should be fine.

[Kizara]

This thread is really making me curious bout GURPS. Since I'm in a place where I can't even get a dnd book, getting a GURPS one will be impossible so I ask, is there any kind of SRD or something floating around on the web for GURPS?

That would be the intention, of course. :)

And you can get GURPS Lite for free off their site, but its too late right now for me to get you a link. Just Google GURPS Lite.



Oskar:

Religious Rank "often accompanies" higher levels of power investature, but isn't mechanically hard-linked to it.

DX is wroth its point cost, if you want a DXy character. If you are going to take alot of Dex-based skills; such as sneaking around, many weapons, etc, and want a high Basic Speed, then its wroth it. Otherwise, no, just buy the few DX-based things you need and deal with not being quite as fast on the draw.

Also, assuming you already have a few points in it, its 4 per level to continue to level a skill.


As far as my character's 17 ST, I have 2 things to say about that:

1) Its a fantasy character, having above-norm abilities isn't outrageous. Its 17, not 30.

2) Strength is "more open-ended then other attributes" and "humans could have even 20 strength or higher! World record-setting weight lifters are extremely strong!" to quote the book a bit.

So, basically, I spent 70 pts on it cause I wanted to. I feel that every aspect of that ST benefits my character: the HP, the weapon damage and the basic lift. Moving around in layered plate armor is bloody hard without high lifting strength!

[Kizara]

To counter this fanboyism, I will state that point buy freedom means you cannot be bad at maths and if a player has munchkin tendencies, the GM must be at least as good at maths and assertive as him. For example, a PC with DR 10 would be near invulnerable in a standard medieval fantasy or IQ 17 would grant professional level in all untrained, IQ-based skills. The rules don't block these because they can make sense in a high power level campaign but they don't in typical, heroic power levels. A GM must understand his genre and campaign conventions and stamp on any munchkins who try to break them. GURPS is a toolkit and you must understand your tools.

This is true, except that it does say that IQ 17 is not suitable for human characters (for everything but ST, 15 is the human limit, it spells this out very clearly).

But yes, DR 10 would be pretty lame, although it would cost him 50 pts. If you were playing a lower power level campaign, at say 125 pts, he would have a hard time having anything else for his character with such a huge dump of points.

The system is fairly self-balancing, but you do need to pay attention to what is going on, especially if you don't trust your players. Its perhaps not the best system for 12 yr olds that are more interested in fighting with each other about a game then actually roleplaying.

[Aotrs Commander]

Personally, when I want a system that goes anywhere and does anything, I use Rolemaster. It's awesome.

(When I'm not playing 3.5 or it's deriviatives in D20 Star Wars and Sg-1 hybridised together.)

If I tried GURPS, I'd only make just as many pages of house-rules anyway. Because no system that I have ever, ever played, wargames or roleplaying, escpaes without moderate to heavy houseruling...

(And I'm not too fond of Add Multiple Dice systems anyway, which as I recall GURPS is - and I might be wrong, sicne it's been a while since I looked at Discworld GURPS.)

[Morty]

I have to say, GURPS sounds quite fun. A simulationist, realistic system that tosses the "rule of cool" and "cinematic elements" where they belong, i.e. the trash is a system for me, and I've been trying to gear my own system towards just that. I'm a bit unsure about the rules-heaviness though, as they can bog the game in a more distracted group - and my group is one of them - even if the GM understands everything just fine. Also, I'd have to houserule Vancian casting into it somehow...

[Thespianus]

Personally, when I want a system that goes anywhere and does anything, I use Rolemaster. It's awesome.

Didn't Rolemaster end up being an excercise in table-rolling? :)

Anyway, I love to see someon going FROM DnD to one of the many other systems out there. I love this thread.

I'm the other way around, I'm coming TO DnD from a background that's been built up over the years by games like MERP, Twilight 2000, the "original" Vampire-system, Call of Cthulu, Amber (diceless), and, yes, a bit of GURPS too.

Going to DnD from this motley crew of systems is weird. Some of these systems are not using experience points or levels for character power advancement, and things like magic are implemented in a plethora of different ways.

However, DnD appeals to me due to (amongst other things) the very "engineery" way one generates and builds characters. There are, obviously, tons of balancing issues, and at first I found the use of a tactical battle grid very odd too, as I've never really used that kind of physical representation of the characters before going into DnD (AD&D was my first DnD system)

[Gnaeus]

I love gurps. It is a great system.

There are a few things I would point out as potential drawbacks though.

Character creation can take a long time, especially in you are using a lot of setting books with additional character options to sift through. I can easily spend 3+ hours making a gurps character. Now, you can do it in less time, and I am a player who enjoys building complex characters, so it is 3 hours of fun for me, but it is a huge level of complexity above (roll 24 d6, arrange, write down class and race and pick 1-2 feats, drop a handful of skill points into a short skill list.)

Dangerous combat makes this worse. When you spend a lot of effort on a character, and he walks into a combat and immediately dies as a result of a crit, and you know you have to go through the process all over again, it can be a bit disheartening.

On the other hand, there are dozens of popular games on the market where designers put a lot of work into their setting but have a bad system, and my first reaction to those is almost always "Hmm. I would just run that in GURPS".

[Gnaeus]

Didn't Rolemaster end up being an excercise in table-rolling? :)

Rolemaster just needs a DM who is very familiar with the system, and a photocopier to copy the charts for every weapon or spell the players will commonly use so that you can staple them to the character sheet.

[kjones]

Character creation can take a long time, especially in you are using a lot of setting books with additional character options to sift through. I can easily spend 3+ hours making a gurps character. Now, you can do it in less time, and I am a player who enjoys building complex characters, so it is 3 hours of fun for me, but it is a huge level of complexity above (roll 24 d6, arrange, write down class and race and pick 1-2 feats, drop a handful of skill points into a short skill list.)

Dangerous combat makes this worse. When you spend a lot of effort on a character, and he walks into a combat and immediately dies as a result of a crit, and you know you have to go through the process all over again, it can be a bit disheartening.

I think both of these apply to D&D as well. (Character creation takes a very long time if you're starting above 1st level.)

[Rasilak]

Yeah, GURPS is a really nice system - If you don't mind a little homebrew, you can do almost anything with minimal effort. But I find the magic system kinda klunky (not necessarily compared to other systems, but to the rest of GURPS - those skill trees just don't fit the "spirit" of the other rules). However, they can quite easily corrected to be as simple as everything else. (I use a skill for each school of magic, and if the player wants to use magic, I just make up a modifier, duration and fatigue cost - if you want, you could write some short guidelines for it, but you really don't need to. No need to learn spells, you just raise the skills to be able to make harder checks for bigger effects. The skills are based on IQ modified by Magical Aptitude - how exactly depends on what "magic level" I want in my setting. For low-magic I use 1/3 of IQ per point in Magical Aptitude, for high-magic I use it as written)

(And I'm not too fond of Add Multiple Dice systems anyway, which as I recall GURPS is - and I might be wrong, sicne it's been a while since I looked at Discworld GURPS.)

Yeah, GURPS is 3D6 roll low. But there's an optional rule to use 1D20 for more random results (and less math while playing).

and @ rules heavyness: You can play GURPS with minimal rules. Most of it is optional, and you probably won't need more than 2-3 sourcebooks in any setting (except if you're trying to do some mega-mashup of everything).

EDIT:

On the other hand, there are dozens of popular games on the market where designers put a lot of work into their setting but have a bad system, and my first reaction to those is almost always "Hmm. I would just run that in GURPS".

Yeah, that's probably my #1 use for GURPS, too.

[Gnaeus]

I think both of these apply to D&D as well. (Character creation takes a very long time if you're starting above 1st level.)

Its a matter of degree. D&D does not take as long per character creation as gurps in general (If you have all the D&D books in play vs. gurps core only it could, but overall gurps is a more complicated system that requires a lot more decision making at start). And it is very easy to die by accident in gurps, and much harder for the party to pull out a raise dead scroll and put you back into play quickly.

[Kylarra]

I'm not really sold. The OP's previous statements and biting commentary on anyone that dares to not want to try GURPs are a pretty big turnoff for me. They say a product should sell itself, but when its primary proponent is rather offputting, the product isn't going to get much love there. So you may want to turn it down a few notches.


From a mechanical standpoint, I don't want to be figuring out a half dozen+ different modifiers and calculate the most optimal way to debilitate my opponent on every single basic attack. While simulationism is a fun endeavor, with my current group, trying to do that would take forever (which I realize is not necessarily the issue with every group, so don't say "oh that's a group issue and not a system one"). Heck, sometimes it takes them a while to figure out what they're going to be doing on their turn in 4e, and that's "relatively simple" with the math written out for them.

I've also seen how long character creation takes them in the Storyteller System (Scion), so I know that point-based systems will need to be "utterly spectacular" viewed through my own criteria, before I'd consider buying a book and/or suggesting it to the group.

So in an effort to keep things on topic,

Approximately how diverse can power levels along the same point buy become, assuming not necessarily uber-optimized, but say math majors who are unfamiliar with the system versus your average shiny-explosion loving teenager become? Let's assume average optimization for the MM and "rule of cool" for the latter. "Spike" vs "Timmy/Johnny" in MtG terms, if you understand those. One of the issues we had with Scion is that with some basic application of the value of exp vs bonus points in the beginning, certain players were able to create characters who were strictly better (ie, exactly identical, but with more exp left to spend) than another character. Note: this was a thought exercise and not just some player being a jerk to another.

Supplementary, how easy is it to create someone focused on social or mental aspects, but have decent secondary prowess in combat? Another problem we had in Scion is that our Mental character managed to create someone with minimal combat applications (neither command skills, nor combat skills, nor useful tricks, I realize that this is a build-fault and not a system fault per se, but I was curious how easy it was to say, create a "scientist" who is still half decent at defending herself.)

With the myriad of immersion options that you're promoting as a good thing in GURPS, approximately how long does combat take, assuming battles between equivalent or near equivalent powers?

I'll probably have more queries later, but that should be a good enough start I think.

[Yahzi]

If you honestly, actually have these complaints then I'm afraid GURPS is not for you... cause, you know, its playable...

Oh, GURPS is for me. I've been amazed by it since Melee/Wizard. I wrote a 70 pg source book that customized my world to my own design, and wrote a computer program to generate every single noble and mage in the 5 kingdoms. With only slightly more work than it takes to make a single high-level adventure in D&D that makes any kind of sense at all. GURPS is definitely for me.

It's just not suitable for my cheese-eating players.

2-3 dozen (even inept) characters targeting a single target and eventually killing it.

My point was that in GURPS, a large enough number of basic guards/soldiers can still kill the heroes. That number being something in double-digits.

Contrast that to D&D, where a properly built 10th level fighter is able to destroy thousands of 1st level guards. If not an infinite quantity.

So yes... sarcasm.


Oh! Oh! I just thought of another flaw! Mages in GURPS don't render all other character classes redundant by the end-game. And Clerics don't even exist - you can't be a Fighter and Mage with virtually no penalty to either class. Also, combats take way to long. In any good D&D game over 10th level, combat is reduced to rolling initiative. In GURPS you actually have to play it out, and it might take more than 3 rounds!

[AshDesert]

I've been fairly interested by GURPS recently, and I want to know how a couple of character concepts I've had floating around in my head for a little while that I just haven't been able to pull off in DnD no matter how much I try.

The first is an assassin/alchemist character that's more of a stealthy, covert, sneak into the castle and poison the duke kind of guy. I also imagine him having some sort of item (magical or biotech) that lets him turn invisible and incorporeal while granting him flight a few times per day for a few minutes each use. Would that be conceivable in an average heroic power GURPS campaign, while still letting him get some skill-monkey type abilities?

The second I've been thinking about is a semi-dragon (not quite half, but more dragon blood than a Sorcerer in DnD) with somewhat functional wings (a few minutes of sustained flight per day and gliding from high places) and a short-range breath attack, some scales (light natural armor), while also being a competent melee warrior (thinking more two-handed weapons than sword-and-board).

Again, would either of those character concepts work in an average power GURPS campaign? I've been interested in it for a long time and I've heard a lot of good things about it. Hearing that my two pet-concepts could actually work would probably be enough to encourage me to at least try it out with my group.

[Tehnar]

I played a few sessions of GURPS around 1996 (since I am not sure what version was then). This was at the start of my foray into roleplaying games. The other system I tried was DnD.

The reasons I stuck with DnD were:

- long and complicated combat resolution (we were using blocks, dodges and parries), leading to long combat. This is actually more important for me now, as my typical session is around 4 hours. Actually the question is, how long does combat take for a typical group compared to 3.5?

- very slow character advancement, or the character gets more powerful very slowly. Has that been changed with the editions?

[Kylarra]

The second I've been thinking about is a semi-dragon (not quite half, but more dragon blood than a Sorcerer in DnD) with somewhat functional wings (a few minutes of sustained flight per day and gliding from high places) and a short-range breath attack, some scales (light natural armor), while also being a competent melee warrior (thinking more two-handed weapons than sword-and-board).

Semi-OT

but I saw this and thought "Diamond Dragon". It's a prestige class from Dragon Magic that allows you to mimic some draconic abilities and has an 8/10 manifester progression. It's not perfect, fluffwise, but psionics are the best way to approximate limited use/day wings and such. You can enter as psion/wilder 6 or psywar 7. It's only average BAB progression, but if you take mostly self boosting powers, you should still be fine.

Sorry, I just really like dragons.

[Foryn Gilnith]

I'm not really sold. The OP's previous statements and biting commentary on anyone that dares to not want to try GURPs are a pretty big turnoff for me. They say a product should sell itself, but when its primary proponent is rather offputting, the product isn't going to get much love there. So you may want to turn it down a few notches.

I second this, although I think its original wording is a bit insulting. Your original post is too enthusiastic, too many exclamation points, too much yelling. It's like the obnoxiousness of Billy Mays combined with the untrustworthiness of Vince Shlomi. I start to think you're hiding something, and begin to discount you as a fanboy and disbelieve your statements.


But enough of the negativity. I have supportive questions for you.
1) I only have the Characters book. How important is Campaigns?
2) How can I learn to play GURPS? I'm estranged from a real gaming group, and use PbP for most everything.

[Yahzi]

Again, would either of those character concepts work in an average power GURPS campaign?

No.

They would work in a WuShu cinematic game, where the heroes are absurd constructs that have no relation to the world they live in, and wield powers so removed from the NPCs that they might as well be invading kindergarden classes.

You're still thinking in D&D terms. Half-dragon? What the *&*^ does that even mean? How the hell do you walk around with wings and not get instantly attacked for being a demon? Only in D&D can an obviously extra-planar professional murderer expect to be allowed free access to a city until he decides to start eating peoples' faces.

The alchemist is a pretty good idea, except for the part where he can also become a ghost to deliver his poisons in ways that cannot be blocked, defended, or protected against. If such characters existed, how is it possible that there would be any Dukes left in the world? They would have all already been poisoned to death.

Again, the point of GURPS is not "The PCs have 10+ splat books of ridiculous powers and the NPCs have a pointed stick." NPCs in GURPS usually don't sit around waiting for the players to show up and murder them. I realize that's a statement about setting, not rules; but the rules do affect the setting, and the whole tone of GURPS is just like that.

I can't figure out why you can't do those characters in D&D. Well, except for the Alchemist of course, since poison is a stupid joke in 3.0/3.5.

[Melamoto]

I can't believe nobody thought of doing this already. If you really want to help convince, there is a Free 32 Page E-Book that explains the basic rules and was specifically mentioned as a tool to introduce new players to the game. Check it out and see if you like it.

[Yahzi]

I second this, although I think its original wording is a bit insulting. Your original post is too enthusiastic, too many exclamation points, too much yelling.

On the other hand, I found the OP to be dynamic and entertaining.

YMMV.

But enough of the negativity. I have supportive questions for you.
1) I only have the Characters book. How important is Campaigns?
2) How can I learn to play GURPS? I'm estranged from a real gaming group, and use PbP for most everything.

1) You can get by without it if you want to.
2) There's the rub. Everybody plays D20. And the reason why is...

- very slow character advancement, or the character gets more powerful very slowly. Has that been changed with the editions?

Nope. This has not changed. Characters in GURPS are not expected to go from nameless peasants to god-kings in the space of 3 months. That's pretty much contrary to the entire spirit of the game, and if you play it that way, it won't be very satisfying.

[Kylarra]

You're still thinking in D&D terms. Half-dragon? What the *&*^ does that even mean? How the hell do you walk around with wings and not get instantly attacked for being a demon? Only in D&D can an obviously extra-planar professional murderer expect to be allowed free access to a city until he decides to start eating peoples' faces.

Eh, break it down into generic terms.

He wants a character with some sort of dragon heritage. Done and done. In the right campaign with no particular crunch boosts, it's just a matter of writing it on his paper.

Going further he wants:

A ranged energy attack that can be generated from the mouth.

Limited flight (hopefully manifested somehow as walking around with wings in non-D&D settings is, as you said, absurd).

Melee competence

Scales - Damage resistance/reduction. Possibly with some sort of visibilty flaw (either fluffed or crunch)

On the other hand, I found the OP to be dynamic and entertaining.

YMMV.

Well in my defense, I was referring to things like:

The only reason to pick 4e over GURPS is if you desire a system that artbitarily pigeonholes you and cares more for MMORPG conventions over one that gives you an unprecedented ability to customize your characters (and good tools to do it with!) and provides you with a deep, engaging and immersive roleplaying experience.

But I said my piece and I'll drop the subject unless specifically addressed for it from now on.

[Milskidasith]

Eh, I'm not sold on Gurps. It doesn't, in fact, seem to be easier to play than D&D at all, which would have been a major point.

You say it's easier to play than D&D because you don't need to have an absurd number of modifiers... but I've looked at character sheets, and they have a list of skills longer than my post up to this point. Not only that, but I can't see character creation being the only long point. From what you've said, a typical attack would be: "Pick a body part, attack, roll 3d6, roll for something to limit the opponent, opponent picks a type of way to not get hit and rolls against you, then you have a few more rolls if you get hit." That seems more complicated than D&Ds "Roll a d20. Huh, you beat his AC. He's hit."

Not only that, but with the sheer number of modifiers you listed that could be changed in a single action (a guy takes -4 on his attack skill to give the opponent a -2 to parry while attacking his arm which gives him some other negatives and may permanently disable the arm) is far more than D&Ds "Write your temporary modifier if you get a buff/debuff spell cast on you, and keep track of what your modifier is with just your normal gear."

You've tried to pass GURPS off as the holy grail, but I just can't see it from this. You say it's easier to run than D&D, more complicated than D&D in a good way but not as complicated in all the bad ways (huh?), that it has less modifiers to keep track of and that you can attack in a bunch of ways to lower or increase your modifiers, that it's very easy to make an exact character concept but that character creation seems to take forever, etc. It seems fun if you want a full simulationist game, but I just think GURPS would take forever and maybe a bit longer to run compared to D&D.

[Cybren]

Hm, I have to say I'm not sold.

I like my games focusing on storytelling with combat rules mostly as a tool to determine at which actions the PCs succeed and at which they fail. And social interaction rules seem to reduce roleplaying instead of supporting it.
And as people tell here, GURPS is apparently more detailed than d20, so I guess it would be even less useful to me.
If you want to have drawbacks and quirks, just say that the character has them. You don't have to include very tiny penalties to very specific situations to do that. Or roll for both characters if one of them tries to hit the other. It all takes extra time and makes the players think more abot the number than about the "play" they are staging.

Meh, does not sound like a game for me.

The entire purpose of awarding points for selecting disadvantages is to subsidize them. Who will play a one-armed character if all it means is they've got a huge disadvantage?

[Melamoto]

If you're not sold, try having a quick skim through the basic rules I linked above. Seriously, it should let you know if you'll like the system or not.

[Kylarra]

You've tried to pass GURPS off as the holy grail, but I just can't see it from this. You say it's easier to run than D&D, more complicated than D&D in a good way but not as complicated in all the bad ways (huh?), that it has less modifiers to keep track of and that you can attack in a bunch of ways to lower or increase your modifiers, that it's very easy to make an exact character concept but that character creation seems to take forever, etc. It seems fun if you want a full simulationist game, but I just think GURPS would take forever and maybe a bit longer to run compared to D&D.

Stop being more eloquent than me. It makes me sad inside.

Your post is pretty much an expanded form of what I was trying to ask about combat durations.

[OverdrivePrime]

GURPS is a system I've always admired, but have only played twice. I love the complexity and detail of character creation, and I honestly do love spending 4-10 hours tweaking out all aspects of my character. And then spending another 2-3 days writing a backstory and detailing the town that he's from. A lot of my players feel the same, and we'll happily spend a session just making characters rather than playing.

My one problem with GURPS comes from way back in the day when I played (probably GURPS 2nd edition), and combat took *forever*. I loved my options, and I had fun envisioning the parry and counter attacks, and the frosty effect of my ice weapon spell crippling my enemy, but one combat between two (new) player characters and four NPCs took three hours. We had gotten into a random fight with some brigands, and whoop - that was it. No time for more of the game.

It sounds like in GURPS I could finally create the 'ranger' character I've always imagined (think of a 3.5 ranger without the favored enemy or the goofy reliance on either TWF or Archery, and then spell casting with the bard progression, but from the druid list). Next time I'm at half price books, I'll have to see if I can find a copy of the new rules.


For those out there who've played both systems, how does the GURPS 4e system compare with Shadowrun 4e in matters of ease of play?

Also - are there any downloadable spreadsheets or online programs available to speed GURPS combat?

[Cybren]

Approximately how diverse can power levels along the same point buy become, assuming not necessarily uber-optimized, but say math majors who are unfamiliar with the system versus your average shiny-explosion loving teenager become? Let's assume average optimization for the MM and "rule of cool" for the latter. "Spike" vs "Timmy/Johnny" in MtG terms, if you understand those. One of the issues we had with Scion is that with some basic application of the value of exp vs bonus points in the beginning, certain players were able to create characters who were strictly better (ie, exactly identical, but with more exp left to spend) than another character. Note: this was a thought exercise and not just some player being a jerk to another.

There are some ways to squeeze out the same ability for less points. It's inevitable with the way the rules work but they're all pretty obvious. (the Combat Reflexes advantage was intentionally under priced to encourage characters to take it, for example).

Supplementary, how easy is it to create someone focused on social or mental aspects, but have decent secondary prowess in combat? Another problem we had in Scion is that our Mental character managed to create someone with minimal combat applications (neither command skills, nor combat skills, nor useful tricks, I realize that this is a build-fault and not a system fault per se, but I was curious how easy it was to say, create a "scientist" who is still half decent at defending herself.)

It will vary from campaign to campaign, as that will change what abilities the GM will let you take. But getting the ability to defend yourself is not difficult.

With the myriad of immersion options that you're promoting as a good thing in GURPS, approximately how long does combat take, assuming battles between equivalent or near equivalent powers?

It depends on what those powers are. Two classic Brick superhero's slugging it out becomes a war of attrition. A skirmish between a group of adventurers and a band of orcs might be over in an instant if the adventurers take their enemies by surprise.

You say it's easier to play than D&D because you don't need to have an absurd number of modifiers... but I've looked at character sheets, and they have a list of skills longer than my post up to this point. Not only that, but I can't see character creation being the only long point. From what you've said, a typical attack would be: "Pick a body part, attack, roll 3d6, roll for something to limit the opponent, opponent picks a type of way to not get hit and rolls against you, then you have a few more rolls if you get hit." That seems more complicated than D&Ds "Roll a d20. Huh, you beat his AC. He's hit."

Not only that, but with the sheer number of modifiers you listed that could be changed in a single action (a guy takes -4 on his attack skill to give the opponent a -2 to parry while attacking his arm which gives him some other negatives and may permanently disable the arm) is far more than D&Ds "Write your temporary modifier if you get a buff/debuff spell cast on you, and keep track of what your modifier is with just your normal gear."

Characters have long list of skills because GURPS is a skill based game. Skills are the characters bread and butter.

Those extra combat options (take a penalty on attack to give enemy a penalty of defense, or feints, or move and attacks, etc) are best compared to the way D&D uses powers, or feats, or spells. It's no more complicated than D&D, and with everyone using the same set of abilities people learn the rules faster.

Mind you, GURPS combat is one of those things with lots of toggles. You can get rid of all the extra options but in my opinion that stops making it GURPS. (And will require a GM to understand how that effects the rest of the game).