Right for me and my group: 3E or 4E?

[Flakpanzer]

Hi folks,

Although I have owned GURPS since the 1E boxed set (and Man-to-Man and Orcslayer before that), I have never actually played a game of GURPS.

I have a number of 3E supplements, and a couple of copies of the 3E rulebook, and just purchased the 4E Characters and Campaigns books. That being the case, If I am wanting to get my gaming group to try out GURPS, should I introduce them to 3E or to 4E?

Like I said, I have a ton of 3E supplements, but I don't even know how compatible those are with 4E, and I am thinking about starting them out playing a fantasy campaign similar to D&D (I did purchase the Gurps Fantasy Adventurers and Dungeons PDFs off of Warehouse 23), but I might want to run a G.I. Joe style campaign for them as well.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

[David Johnston2]

The 3E supplements can be easily used with 4E rules. Just ignore passive defense because it no longer exists, and character point totals which no longer match.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Flakpanzer

If I am wanting to get my gaming group to try out GURPS, should I introduce them to 3E or to 4E?

I'm spectacularly biased, but I would go 4e.

* It's current and fully supported
* I personally think it's better; others will disagree
* It has some support I think you'll like:

I am thinking about starting them out playing a fantasy campaign similar to D&D (I did purchase the Gurps Fantasy Adventurers and Dungeons PDFs off of Warehouse 23),

If you want Dungeon Fantasy, then you'll want 4e, to ensure the pricing and play are balanced. I'm in a DF game run by Crakkerjakk right now, and it really is cool. And with 15 supplements either out or coming soon, it's the best supported sub-line in GURPS.

but I might want to run a G.I. Joe style campaign for them as well.

In which case you'll probably want Action and Gun Fu. Both are 4e supplements.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.[/QUOTE]

[PK]

I would strongly recommend 4e. I'm about to echo Doug strongly, so if this is tl;dr and you've already read his post, I'll understand you skipping this one. :)

First, 4e is the currently supported version of GURPS, which means you'll find many more people to answer your questions about it on here and that all of the cool new supplements that come out will have 100% compatibility with it. I don't want to overstate this point, though -- truth is, 3e and 4e are not that different, so compatibility isn't a huge issue. But when converting between the two, there's also much more support for 3e>4e conversions (to let you use your old supplements with the new edition) than there is for 4e>3e conversions (to let you use the new supplements with the old editions).

Second, if you're referring to Dungeon Fantasy, that product line was designed to showcase and simplify the concepts in 4e, so it won't translate quite as well to 3e rules. This isn't a restatement of the above -- I'm saying that DF specifically is fairly dependent on 4e, more so than many other supplements.

Third, GURPS 4e is, in my opinion (and in many people's opinions) simply a better system. Many things which were complex and took too long in 3e (e.g., shooting rapid fire guns or writing/using vehicle stats) have been vastly simplified and streamlined in 4e. I'd say combat takes about 2/3 as long as it used to in a modern game, 3/4 as long as it used to in a fantasy game. All of the various systems, advantages, etc., which were bolted onto 3e after the fact have been consolidated and unified. It's not perfect, but it was definitely a net change for the better. (Again, all IMO and IMPO.)

I could go on (and I will if you wish), but I think that covers the important reasons.

[Refplace]

Like you I was with GURPS from the beginning and like the above Ill also recommend 4e over 3e.
Your source and setting books will still be useful and most of your 3e material will port over, I recommend the free GURPS Update PDF for conversion and rules help.
But 4E is just simplier and more concise so your newer players will likely prefer it.

[Peter Knutsen]

4th edition is a cleaner, more streamlined and slightly more flexible design, compared to 3rd Edition. And you already have purchased the core books, so you have everything you need.

[smurf]

This is GURPS, where later editions are improvements...

4E

[apoc527]

Ditto the above. I played quite a bit of 3rd Edition in college and burned out on it. Things just took too long and you could really cheese out on chargen using racial templates and stuff. 4th Edition is simply better in every way.

[Phaelen Bleux]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

* It's current and fully supported
* I personally think it's better; others will disagree

And while I still gleefully play 3e, I would have to confess that as a newbie, I would just start with 4e since:

*It's current and fully supported
*You'll have no frame of reference to claim it's not better.

[Kalzazz]

I'd go with 4e, though, GURPS 3e is an awesome game that I think does a lot of stuff better, so I wouldn't call you wrong for doing it that way

starslayer made the switch much earlier than I did to 4e, and I eventually just switched also since well, why not, shiny new books and all . . . . that and starslayer helped me with characters (successfully making characters is the bane of my existence no matter the system)

The biggest thing I dislike in 4e is the horrible things done to the magic system. 3e had a stellar seeming magic system, which in 4e got chopped up some . . . . I might stick with the 3e magic system for default magic (I find it horrible, just horrible, that they got rid of magic with high skill becoming a semi free action)

The biggest thing I like in 4e is probably the new Basic Lift, this is very cool, it means strong people can actually seem much stronger, instead of mildly stronger, than less strong people

Skill and stat changes in pricing and talents are probably the biggest changes in 4e I'd think . . . . it radically changes character builds I've found, particularly for gun users

RPK - I would love it if you went on and elaborated further on things