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Old 02-12-2018, 06:32 PM   #7
Anaraxes
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Default Re: A Dungeoneering Fan, but a Total Gurps Newbie

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Originally Posted by Hrothgar Rannúlfr View Post
is GURPS really more complicated than Pathfinder?
It can be. There are a lot of options in GURPS, and you can drag in as much detail and complexity as you like. It doesn't _have_ to be complex,though. Starting with Light is a good idea. You'll get the basics of the system, and can add other things if and when they suit your needs.

Not everybody wants to track fatigue expenditure in combat while having modifiers for a defensive grip halfway up the sword while calculating the effects on magic of three hundred sympathetic magical doodads. Other people find that one or the other or something else just the feel they need for the game they want to run. Someone's already said that GURPS is a toolkit, and the hardest thing to learn is not memorizing all the rules, but learning which ones to choose to use to suit your intended purpose. Not everything in all the books even fits together sensibly (the 30s pulp of the Solar Patrol doesn't conceptually mesh with near-future hard-science transhumanism, even if the rules work together flawlessly), so there's no question of having to use it all at once.

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the 3d6 system appears to be somewhat more balanced than Pathfinder and other forms of D&D. Is it more balanced?
I'm not quite sure what you mean here. "Balance" to me means some reasonably equivalent ability between PCs to affect the story (not just combat). So, GURPS is pretty well balanced, yes, though there are any number of people on the forum that will point out their particular peeves. I don't think that has much to do with the fact that it uses 3d6, though.

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Am I correct in thinking that GURPS makes it easier to realize a concept because it's not class and level based?
Yes. In fact, it's still my favorite system for being able to realize the character I wanted, without forcing it to be not quite right because the system doesn't do that, or having to tweak and twist the concept back toward one of the twelve characters the game designer wanted me to play.


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I think I am in favor of a more stable system for all genres. GURPS seems like it will fit that bill.
That was its original purpose. And while perhaps not the first, it was certainly the system that popularized the notion of having a generic system. Everyone these days takes their setting-specific system and strips out to the detail to call it a generic system, but most of them don't really "genericize" all that well.

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If I start with the GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Boxed Set will it provide the guidance I'd need to get used to the GURPS system, character generation, combat, exploration, etc... and prepare me to move to other genres using GURPS?
It's not a bad choice. DFRPG is a bit of an odd beast in that it's a deliberate attempt to make GURPS do just dungeon-crawling fantasy, inspired by D&D as well as other old-school games like Diablo (and earlier rogue-likes). So, it uses templates and throws in rules to enforce niche protection (thieves can do things only thieves can do, got to have the fighter and cleric, then the magic-user to handle those magical problems). In that sense, it gets a bit further from GURPS as ultimately generic. But you have to start somewhere, and if you like DF (and most of us do), then it's not going to be a waste of money.

You can also buy the GURPS Basic Set, which is really all you need to run most games. There's a whole series of PDFs in the "Dungeon Fantasy" line that got a little editing and selection to become the DFRPG. So that would be another route to get there.

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Am I right in guessing that these forums would be a great place to ask for guidance on which supplements are recommended for a given genre?
Yep. It's a fairly common question, actually, and lots of people will chip in with suggestions for whatever you have in mind. There are a lot of choices, but you'll usually get a rank order for importance. And if you like to tinker yourself, there isn't a lot that you _need_ other than Basic. Lots of stuff that's great to have (I think I've got over 100 PDFs), but if your budget is limited, that doesn't mean your game experience has to be.
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