Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Goodwin
Good points as well. Except I'd call GURPS and Champions half-sibling children of TFT.
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This made me think of something - in many ways GURPS is a blend of TFT (small number of stats; 3d roll vs attributes in particular) and Champions (points used to buy everything). That is meant as a compliment, by the way, as both systems are excellent (in my opinion). I don’t think the GURPS combat system is as complex as Champions, but it’s more complex than TFT. And while the GURPS character generation system is more complex than TFT, I don’t think it is as complex as Champions. At least this is applicable to the mid-1980s versions of both games.
I seem to recall that a lot of time passed between the announcement of GURPS and the publication of Man to Man. And a fair amount of time between Man to Man and full blown GURPS. This implies that Steve took a lot of time to polish GURPS and “get it right”. From what I infer from articles in the Space Gamer, ITL was a much more rushed project.
Also, GURPS was explicitly a universal RPG. Just guessing, but I imagine that this required far more robust testing of the mechanics than a fantasy only RPG. It really wasn’t the game I wanted to play, but it’s obviously a strong design. And while the number of “splatbooks” exploded when the d20 OGL arrived, through the late 80s and 90s, GURPS provided a huge resource of supplements that could be adapted to any RPG. Oh, and Steve brought back the Third Imperium...a personal thanks for that. To this day, my GURPS supplements are a valuable resource.
But I digress.