What GURPS needs... now

[philreed]

Originally Posted by Andrew Hackard

We made that decision well before 4E; the first sidebar-less GURPS book was GURPS Atlantis, back in 2001. I remember the discussions about it because Phil pushed hard to try it as an experiment in a book that was already a bit experimental, and it worked so well that we adopted it immediately.

Atlantis really was a pleasure to work on. I'm proud of the job we did on that one.

[DerfmeisterP]

My, this is a long thread. If my points have probably been repeated ad nauseam somewhere else in this, forgive me.

But Ill add my drei-pfennig anyway;

Many people have mentioned 'out-of-the-box-playablity' as something missing in GURPS and I have to agree somewhat. I started my interest in gaming (and got others into gaming, so as to have a group to play with!) on the back of the DnD 3.0 corebooks and a single adventure; however thats not what hooked teenage me, but the art. Art gives you an instant hit of creativity which gets your creative juices flowing, and in the game itself it gives you some gnarly graphic which can shown to players as indicative or explicative of places, objects, (former-) people or what have you. Those DnD books have been in storage for a long time now, but I still remember the artists signatures, let alone their funky monsters.

Unfortunately I cant say the same about most of the art in GURPS books, though it is perfectly functional (with the exception of Magic, which I find actively repellent I'm afraid), it simply lacks je ne sais quoi. I understand though, that this is a feature of finance limitations, and of producing lots of generic and rules heavy books rather than setting books. In many ways I respect SJGames for strongly favoring crunch over fluff; when I first encountered nWoD books I was horrified at the amount of space they devoted to derivative fluff and collage art. After all it wasn't for the fluff that I bought the GURPS Basic Set, and continued buying GURPS products since....

[Pipedream]
One final comment. What has really killed me during my time rigging-up settings with GURPS is the fine tuning the system requires you to do make the most of it, since its main strength (and the pleasure of its use) is its great customizability. I would quite possibly kill to be able to buy a 'custom basic set' drawn from the rule-sets already published as PDFs and selectable via checkbox/toggle, including the optional rules and switches that are often squirreled away in one supplement or another. I know its silly, I Own the PDF's, why don't I just print and splice to my hearts content? I feel somehow that having all the rules right there in one place for easy reference is just reassuring. Further, its a task that is begging for automation, so long as your tolerant of white spaces and strike throughs.
[/Pipedream]

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by DerfmeisterP

[Pipedream]
One final comment. What has really killed me during my time rigging-up settings with GURPS is the fine tuning the system requires you to do make the most of it, since its main strength (and the pleasure of its use) is its great customizability. I would quite possibly kill to be able to buy a 'custom basic set' drawn from the rule-sets already published as PDFs and selectable via checkbox/toggle, including the optional rules and switches that are often squirreled away in one supplement or another. I know its silly, I Own the PDF's, why don't I just print and splice to my hearts content? I feel somehow that having all the rules right there in one place for easy reference is just reassuring. Further, its a task that is begging for automation, so long as your tolerant of white spaces and strike throughs.
[/Pipedream]

We already have something almost like that in How to Be a GURPS GM and I think others. even the Other Campaign sections in most books.
But a nice editable PDF with a set of pages and advice?
So
Martial Arts with a Gritty, Realistic, Cinematic, Over The Top sections and the rules switches that fit into each mode with check boxes and page references.

I'd buy that

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

I combined and edited my pdfs of the Basic set into one document so the "go to page" function would work through both of them. So I'd definitely support something like this.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by SilvercatMoonpaw

I combined and edited my pdfs of the Basic set into one document so the "go to page" function would work through both of them. So I'd definitely support something like this.

I'm honestly surprised SJG doesn't have this on Warehouse 23.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

I'm honestly surprised SJG doesn't have this on Warehouse 23.

I have seen a trait sorter somewhere, maybe Tbones site?

[tbone]

Originally Posted by DerfmeisterP

I would quite possibly kill to be able to buy a 'custom basic set' drawn from the rule-sets already published as PDFs and selectable via checkbox/toggle, including the optional rules and switches that are often squirreled away in one supplement or another. I know its silly, I Own the PDF's, why don't I just print and splice to my hearts content? I feel somehow that having all the rules right there in one place for easy reference is just reassuring. Further, its a task that is begging for automation, so long as your tolerant of white spaces and strike throughs.
[/Pipedream]

Well, SJG does do that in a way. Dungeon Fantasy, Monster Hunters, and After the End do the work of customizing GURPS into something ready to play. Lots of stand-alone settings books and world books do a similar job.

These things do their job by adding books, and may still leave lots of choices for GMs to make. So they're not really what you describe. There's nothing like an automated, select-just-the-parts-that-you-want tool that pares down pages into your own custom Basic Set.

Then again, there is DFRPG! Pared down by SJG, not the user, and through hard manual labor, not automation. But it is a lovely example of GURPS reworked into a smaller, focused product.

The idea of a "create and download your own custom GURPS" tool pops up now and then. I don't know how hard that would be for SJG to build (very hard, I imagine!), but out of curiosity: Is there any game system out there that does offer this sort of tool for its books? I don't think I've heard of any.

Originally Posted by Refplace

I have seen a trait sorter somewhere, maybe Tbones site?

No, not me. SJG has a trait sorter; is this what you're thinking of?

http://www.sjgames.com/gameaids/gurps/sorter/

(Note the links for a disad sorter and skill sorter, too. Useful!)

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

I'm honestly surprised SJG doesn't have this on Warehouse 23.

I think I asked once why they didn't, but don't remember the answer.

[DerfmeisterP]

Originally Posted by Refplace

We already have something almost like that in How to Be a GURPS GM and I think others. even the Other Campaign sections in most books.

Yes we do, and I have made great use out of advice given in the published books. GCA has been another boon in that regard, since with a few core books selected and perhaps a handful of self-made templates and advantages I have the character creation for a given setting nicely delineated. But whilst I love GCA its not something I can easily hand over to a player unfamiliar with it or GURPS as it takes time to learn and can sometimes be confusing even for someone who does know it well, not helped by the (wholly understandable) lack of rules, fluff and somewhat dated presentation. If, paperless-office-be-damned, I do character creation the old fashioned way I will have to hand my players a stack of perhaps 7 or more books (and print the ones I only have PDF's for, which is most of them) -and- then explain which parts of which books to use, which to use with what caveats, which campaign options are in effect and so on and so forth.

Ultimately though, [Pipedream] is Pipedream; Whatever I might want I dont think SJGames is in a position to do much about this, if there is manpower available for pipedreams like mine, they really should use it for supporting existing lines like DF, MH, TS etc. first. Which seems to be exactly what they are doing (Im looking at you, second print DF).

I dont want to sound ungrateful, though, because GURPS really is very well supported by SJ and the community, and to a pretty consistently high standard.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by DerfmeisterP

Yes we do, and I have made great use out of advice given in the published books. GCA has been another boon in that regard, since with a few core books selected and perhaps a handful of self-made templates and advantages I have the character creation for a given setting nicely delineated. But whilst I love GCA its not something I can easily hand over to a player unfamiliar with it or GURPS as it takes time to learn and can sometimes be confusing even for someone who does know it well, not helped by the (wholly understandable) lack of rules, fluff and somewhat dated presentation. If, paperless-office-be-damned, I do character creation the old fashioned way I will have to hand my players a stack of perhaps 7 or more books (and print the ones I only have PDF's for, which is most of them) -and- then explain which parts of which books to use, which to use with what caveats, which campaign options are in effect and so on and so forth.

It's not actually necessary to do that.

When I do character creation, I sit down with the players, discuss the campaign theme with them, and ask them to agree on which characters each of them will play, so I get a congenial set. Then I talk with them about how to choose characteristics, advantages, disadvantages, skills, and so on. My goal is to have a sheet with a rough sketch for each character. I have my books, and they're welcome to look through them, and I may also show them specific traits that seem relevant; but I don't ask them to learn the system before they create the character.

And then I take away the character sheets, go through them, check the math, check the rules legality, think about what traits are needed for the character to be in that role, or will make the character a better designed adherent of their profession, or might be interesting and entertaining given what we already know, and I do a couple rounds of e-mail about it.

I never treat character creation as a mandatory test for the player. I treat it as a collaborative process where the player and I try to come up with a character concept that (a) makes them happy and (b) suits the campaign and setting.

The other thing I want to say is that before I hold that session, I write a few pages of "campaign protocols" that discuss, among other things, the variant rules; the allowed and encouraged traits; and the likely options for character creation.

I hope this is some help.