Quote:
Originally Posted by Gollum
Sorry, I won't answer argument by argument this time because it makes my posts too long (to write and surely also to read)...
I begin to think that, actually, we almost agree. We just have a lightly different approach. Indeed, I often exaggerate my examples to make what I want to mean more clear.
GURPS won't ever change it's 3 dice against the effective skill, for instance. It was just a quick (and bad) example to tell that the system will globally remain the same, including for the Improvement through study rules which did already exist in the third edition. But I do agree with you than a lot of things have changed with the fourth edition and if it was in the good way for you, there is a high chance that the hypothetical future 5th edition also change things in a way that you will like.
For the improvement, I also think that making it harder for higher level could be a good idea (that is what the BRP system do), but just wanted to say that what sounds to be obvious is not necessarily true in reality. Of course, for role playing games, it makes sense.
And for GURPS books, you are right, of course. There is an important part of text that aren't rules and that can be used with every edition of the game. But I wanted to insist on the fact that GURPS buyers are usually fond of rules. Reading 500 pages of rules, just for the Basic Set (!) is quite special... So, I may be a bit weird, but when I see all the discussions in this forum (How to handle this? How to translate this? Is this rule realistic?), I tend to believe that rules are what interest most of us. GURPS don't offer a lot of campaigns and adventures (even if they are some). And unlike the third edition, the fourth one doesn't even offer a lot of game worlds. It mainly offers a lot of rules and hints to allow everyone to build his own game worlds or to translate those from an other publisher.
I had bought again a lot of books with the fourth edition. And I'm sure that most of us did. The idea to have to buy them again dishearten me a bit. I didn't even finish to read them all!
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I don't mind single reply mode.
I agree that some variety of Improvement Through Study rules (which in case you haven't noticed DouglasCole recently did an article about on Gaming Ballistic) probably won't disappear. GURPS appears to like it's quirky assumptions about campaign model such as that and the assumption that player characters will have houses and jobs.
Rules certainly do interest the GURPS fanbase (thankfully!) but it's important to realize that the historicals, while they generated a lot of appreciation, apparently didn't actually sell that well and didn't cater to quite the same crowd as the people who buy GURPS books in general. After the fans of the historicals famously included lots of people who didn't actually play GURPS.
Theres a fair amount of people here who only got into GURPS with fourth edition or who significantly increased their commitment to it. I know third edition for me was an option whereas fourth edition has basically become the correct choice for any games I might actually run. There are definite downside to picking up new versions of RPG books for a new edition but on the other hand when I think about it excitement is my main reaction. An improved version of a broadly applicable book that I already like? Not that I don't enjoy most of the completely new books but many of them are somewhat more niche in applicability than things like genre books, tech books, and core mechanical expansions.