Incline GURPS in 2023

[HeroMarine]

GURPS is a terrific system if you want to create highly granular characters with lots of personality and differenciation between them. It's also widely scalable and adaptable to different settings, campaigns, power levels, etc. Even the level of complexity of the rules being used can be adjusted by the GM for any given campaign or adventure, so it can play as lightweight as any OSR game or as crunchy as HERO, depending on what the GM has in mind.

In play, everything feels more real and immersive because the game's baseline "action-movie realism" feels very solidly grounded – incidentally, this makes it feel even more special when you play at higher power levels, since the departure from normal human capabilities creates a very stark contrast. The combat system is also one of the best I've enjoyed in a tabletop RPG so far, highly tactical, with lots of options for all character types. I can see why they would have wanted that for Fallout.

That's what I like about it.

On the down side, the system is let down by antiquated (i.e. non-existent) marketing and the company's stubborn refusal to do anything else but put out more and more autistic, hyper-focused mini supplements that can only ever interest a small niche of GURPS experts.

Visually, the presentation is also very dry and soulless for the latest edition (Fourth Edition) when compared to the previous one. The layout and the tone of the text sometimes makes reading the Basic Set an exercise in willpower – but once you've gotten through most of it, it becomes very easy to reference and the rules are mostly clear and sensible.

Ideally, GURPS would need a new Basic Set that has better presentation and includes some of the more lightweight/narrativist options presented in various supplements to make character creation and GMing easier – more cinematic and vaguely defined skills, on-the-fly NPC creation, simpler combat rules – while cutting down or amalgating many of the less critical content. The length and complexity of character creation is systematically the biggest obstacle to getting new players to try out GURPS (unless the GM prepares pregenerated characters for everyone, but as a player I wouldn't even be interested in trying out an RPG where I can't create my own character). People also talk about the system being too crunchy, but that's really only because of the bad presentation. The core rules are very simple and you're not supposed to use every optional rule in the book – but you have to read all of the book to grok that, which is bad design.

I don't mind this part.

 

[L'ennui]

I also don't mind that much – after all, I enjoy GURPS as a player and as a GM. However, I had to muddle through many false starts and years of not touching my GURPS books before I gave them a proper tryout and learned to love the system, not to mention that getting new players (or getting players to stick with the system) is much, much harder because of these issues.

Anyways, guess I should play solo with a GM emulator, that solves that problem and I won't be the "forever GM" anymore... just foreveralone.jpg

 

[FritzedProcess]

Unfortunately no, she was a bigtittygothgirl who turned into a Solamith rather than a Succubus...

Well, that's par for the course for goth girls. I've seen that happen over a 5 month timespan - from "8/10 hot" to "Jabba the Hut". The whole thing was pretty funny, she dumped a friend of mine from a V:TM game for the D&D GM the next table over (which led to a lot of drama) and started getting fat, like she was being force-fed doughnuts or something (the fattening rate really was astonishing, and she was pretty young back then!). I guess they see it coming and pre-emptively start wearing black.

 

[orcinator]

GURPS is for retards that can't handle real math or a crunchy system.

Mind explaining? What would be a crunchy system to you?

FATAL and that one RPG about modern firefights.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

GURPS is for retards that can't handle real math or a crunchy system.

Mind explaining? What would be a crunchy system to you?

FATAL and that one RPG about modern firefights.

Fatal isn't crunchy, it's pulverized.

 

[Stella Brando]

Are GURPS players called GURPies?

Could one say that they have GURPies?

 

[Stella Brando]

Are you itching to play GURPS, Mr. Dixon?

 

[saint amchad]

Are GURPS players called GURPies?

Could one say that they have GURPies?

I caught a case of GURPies in Thailand once. Took a lot of antibiotics to get rid of it.

You should get tested.....

 

[Stella Brando]

If it was Thailand, I may have been the one spreading it.

 

[Silva]

If you use all the rules for it, GURPS has the deepest combat of any system I've tried.

And yet it feels as dry as a granny pussy.

 

[skeletonmeister]

I like the tactical approach for the combat. Complex when you need it to be or simple, but not too abstract, if you find yourself in need to wing it.

 

[saint amchad]

I like the tactical approach for the combat. Complex when you need it to be or simple, but not too abstract, if you find yourself in need to wing it.

What percentage of people are playing rpg's without tactical combat nowadays? I've been out of the game for a long time and I had never heard of anyone playing a pure theater of the mind combat game before.

 

[skeletonmeister]

I like the tactical approach for the combat. Complex when you need it to be or simple, but not too abstract, if you find yourself in need to wing it.

What percentage of people are playing rpg's without tactical combat nowadays? I've been out of the game for a long time and I had never heard of anyone playing a pure theater of the mind combat game before.

I am talking more in tactical decisions, with actions having weight and consequences. Anyway, I would say a lot of modern games prioritize ToM over grid combat. Fate, Year Zero, CoC, 2d20 for example.

 

[Berengar]

GURPS books have always been a treat to read through, sourcebooks are a fuckin endless parade of kooky shit! but I've yet to play a game of it.

 

[Stella Brando]

I don't think anyone plays GURPS. They just read it.

 

[Demo.Graph]

I don't think anyone plays GURPS. They just read it.

It's a good read, though. Occasionally.
Just like Ars Magica.

 

[WhiteShark]

I don't think anyone plays GURPS. They just read it.

I mean, I know you're probably being facetious, but I can't help but respond. Not only is there a decently-sized community playing online, but when I bought some books at my LFGS a few years ago, some dude saw me checking out with GURPS stuff and wanted to chat about how much he enjoyed the GURPS campaign he played in. Heck, when I was a teen staying over at a friend's house, his dad let me play in a session of his GURPS 3E game. The community is out there. If someone can't get a game, it's because he hasn't looked.

 

[skeletonmeister]

I don't think anyone plays GURPS. They just read it.

I mean, I know you're probably being facetious, but I can't help but respond. Not only is there a decently-sized community playing online, but when I bought some books at my LFGS a few years ago, some dude saw me checking out with GURPS stuff and wanted to chat about how much he enjoyed the GURPS campaign he played in. Heck, when I was a teen staying over at a friend's house, his dad let me play in a session of his GURPS 3E game. The community is out there. If someone can't get a game, it's because he hasn't looked.

To be fair, it has become harder and harder to find people interested in playing TTRPGs in general. Most people I see online have an interested in the idea of tabletop games not in playing them.

 

[PapaPetro]

Most people I see online have an interested in the idea of tabletop games not in playing them.

How does that gap get bridged?