Will I Ever Get Into GURPS?

[Mulsiphix]

I have owned GURPS for over four years now. I have purchased many books for it but every single time I have made a real effort and reading the basic set I get discouraged along the way and move onto another project. I'm beginning to think that I will never find a way to ease into GURPS. So my question is, how unlikely is it that I might find someone or a group online that will be willing to teach me the game as we play? I'm aware a great deal of the Basic Set: Characters is nothing but lists of Advantages, Disadvantages, Technology, etc... but as a future GM I still have to at least be familiar with all of the choices.

I just cannot seem to make this commitment even though learning this All-In-One gaming tool set is one of my biggest gaming dreams. If I could take the plunge and finally commit I know it would bring me a great deal of happiness. I'm just looking for some advice on how to go about breaking this horrible cycle. To date I have attempted to read GURPS six times. I think the farthest I ever got was page (somewhere in the 50's). Any ideas, feedback, suggestions, or references to resources that might inspire would be so very appreciated.

[towishimp]

I've been playing GURPS for over ten years now, off and on. I've never read Basic straight through. I learned how to play from my GM, and it was a very much "need to know" kind of thing. When I started GMing, I appraoched it in the same way: I only read what I needed to know. Obviously some parts need to be read straight through -- character creation, combat (for most campaigns), maybe a few others. But only read what you need! Reading the lists of advantages, disadvantages, and skills is boring. So is reading the vehicle rules if you're running a campaign without vehicles. GURPS is so big that -- for me, anyways -- I can't keep all of it in my brain at once.

As an example, I'm building up for a WWII campaign that I'll be running. I put together lists of allowed advantages, disadvantages, and skills for my players, reading some of them in the process to see how they worked (e.g. Parachuting). I also had to grab High-Tech to get up to speed on WWII weapons, and compiled a chart of likely weapon choices.

So that would be the approach I'd take. Start with something managable, by planning a campaign. Pick and choose what you need to make that single campaign go, and become familier with it -- confident in the knowledge that GURPS can handle wherever you want to take it down the road. But yeah, trying to read and digest it all at once would be very, very difficult.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by towishimp

I've been playing GURPS for over ten years now, off and on. I've never read Basic straight through.

I wouldn't go that far. But I strongly recommend first decided on a campaign concept, and then going through Basic and figuring out what parts of it you want to use. If something doesn't apply, skip over it! Running even a simple minicampaign will teach you how the machine actually runs, and after that you'll have a better sense for what you want to add to it.

Bill Stoddard

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Mulsiphix

So my question is, how unlikely is it that I might find someone or a group online that will be willing to teach me the game as we play?

In Albuquerque? I think it's probably relatively easy to find some GURPS players there. It's a fairly large city, with a fairly geek-ish population. I'm aware of at least two groups playing GURPS in that area, personally, and I live 900 miles away.

I think the farthest I ever got was page (somewhere in the 50's). Any ideas, feedback, suggestions, or references to resources that might inspire would be so very appreciated.

I read GURPS books basically cover to cover, but I gather I'm pretty unusual. I don't think it's really necessary. OTOH you might want to at least familiarize yourself with the contents of each chapter.

[Delvidian]

Two recommendations:

- Build some characters for fun. GURPS is a big toolbox. Tools in and of themselves aren't exciting. It's what you can do with them, and GURPS shines at character creation. And that's going to be mostly what your characters care about at the beginning of the campaign anyway.

- Learn the GM screen: I took my screen and annotated it with the relevant page numbers of the Character/Campaigns sections. That was my safety net when I started running.

I think the majority of players are fine with helping a new GM out. Just be up front with them at the beginning. In my group, the current GM is having her first time behind the screen. Her story is so compelling and her characterizations so entertaining, we're not thinking about the rules. I appreciate that she doesn't stop the game cold to dig into the rulebook. Sometimes we propose ways of handling things, and as long as she's trying to be fair (she always is), we respect her final authority as the GM.

[Refplace]

I agree with the responses.
It is not important you know all the rules, it is more important you know where to find them and have a rough idea what is available.
Start with real simple combat and play out a few test fights with yourself and possibly a few players and you should get a feel real quick.
Also have a couple copies of GURPS Lite ready for people to refer to and browse.
Combat cards, the skill, magic and combat cheat sheets are awesome tools to have as well and there free.
Advantages are your easiest thing. Let the players look up what they want from the list and only worry about reading the ones they select.

[Gollum]

I fully do agree with what have been said above. Reading the Basic Set in a raw can be boring... It has not been written to be fun (even if it is very well written). So, here is my hint...

1) Read GURPS Lite first.

http://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=SJG31-0004

It is free. You can even download it without registering.

It is sufficient to play. All the fundamental rules are there. And they are true GURPS rules: all what you will learn will remains the same in the Basic Set.

2) Read only the sections of the Basic Set you need for the campaign you will run. Magic in a fantasy world where magic does exist, for instance...

For the rest, you just have to glance at some pages... The table of equipment is easy to use with GURPS Lite... You can also read the advantages, disadvantages and skills that your players want, and only them. Their name are good enough to know what they mean...

3) After a few games, or maybe after your very first game session, you will probably want more rules. More detailed combats. More detailed wounds... Read the corresponding chapters.

Doing that is fun, because you play as you learn. And you read what you need, not something you are enforced to read.

If you don't find any GURPS player in your city, I can propose you a play by mail game. But I'm quite busy. So, I can only write one mail per week... Just send me a private message on this forum.

[Mailanka]

Just to echo everyone else, GURPS is more like an encyclopedia than a novel. You're not really meant to read it from cover-to-cover, but rather to look up the things you need.

I used to be nervous about the game, but then I just jumped in with both feet and things have worked out surprisingly well. I've seen someone else jump in with both feet and end up with disastrous results, but those were as much about the group he was playing with and his own inexperience with GMing than anything else... and even he learned a lot and stuck with the game and ended up with a great story to tell people (it's one of my favorite gaming anecdotes!)

If you're nervous that your lack of knowledge will hinder the game, use one of the pre-made genre books, like Monster Hunters, DF or Action. The fellow I mentioned above switched to DF and all of his problems vanished. These books will ensure that your PCs have the most important traits and will highlight the important rules in bite-size pieces. As for the rest, whenever you come across a problem in the game, research it in the books and/or on the forum, and you'll find your answer.

Honestly, that's how I learned the system: templates and research.

[joppeknol]

I would recommend reading GURPS lite and start playing. If you come across a situation you don't know a rule for, invent a rule, and look it up afterwards.

If you have a group and need to GM, you might want to play the published GURPS caravan to ein arris or convert you favorite adventure from another system. I would suggest low-fantasy or modern and focus on story and pc/npc interaction besides fighting (fighting takes a lot of time in the beginning.). I personally had a great night gm-ing the converted version of http://www.chaosium.com/forms/icecream.pdf (free). I created a bunch of characters and let my players pick one of them. (my players belong to the: 'Oh, how many dice do I have to roll with to do ....' - type. They don't care about rules at all.). I use gcs to create my characters.

If you want to play on the web you can check the play-by-post forum on this site or try http://www.myth-weavers.com. There are probably more like those.

I think you can get more help if you gave more information. What kind of game do you want to play? What other rpg's have you played. Do want help on creating a sample character? Character creation is imho the most difficult part of GURPS after that, playing is quite simple if you only use Lite.

Just my 2 cents

[Kyle Aaron]

GURPS is good, but it is not for everyone. GURPS is good, but so are many other games.

Why not just run a game where you can bear to read the entire rules?