"The far too complex GURPS"

[Finnwolf]

I have been Gamemastering GURPS for few years (4 or so) and been having could time and learned to like to way GURPS handles things. Yet during all this time I have been hearing from people I know and reading in internet forums how people find GURPS complex and hard to understand. This I don't really get.

Why people feel like this? I myself always found the basic idea of GURPS very easy to grasp and the use of points buying everything simple and satisfying. You don't have to go through complex calculations in character creation and grasp many different ways of how to change your atrributes or skills.

And as a GM I really like the fact that all the math done is in 1-10 rangeof adding or substracting, sometimes maybe multiplying and dividing, but still with rather small numbers. For example in Rolemaster system you need to do lot of percentile math and go through several charts to see outcomes. I can do that too but feels way too much of trouble for gaming. And much more complex than GURPS.

I'm not saying the GURPS would be best system for everything and such, but I do wonder why people complain about it being complex. There are numerous systems that have lot more complex mechanics. Is it because of the freedom? Since you have no premade classes and you need to think yourself what your character is like? Just the mere volume of options you can have?Just makes me wonder... Time to stop rambling I guess.

[Jürgen Hubert]

It's not really that the rules are that complex or difficult to learn. But take a look at the advantages, disadvantages, and skills sections in the Basic Set - any newbie who takes a look at them is easily overwhelmed and intimidated.

GURPS has lots of options. But the sum of these options are two rather large volumes.

[DrTemp]

But that's not complexity- it is mass.

Of course, there are systems which have much less complex rules than GURPS- Risus, for an extreme example. If you come from one of those, GURPS might be seen as "complex". But from most of its successful commercial competitors, I just can't see why one could call GURPS "complex".

[Jürgen Hubert]

Originally Posted by DrTemp

But that's not complexity- it is mass.

But it is often hard to distinguish the two from a distance. When someone who is not familiar with GURPS thumbs through the Basic Set and sees that it is 500+ pages of "rules", he will immediately peg it as "complex". The whole thought of reading through all this just to start a game will intimidate him.

[Luther]

Originally Posted by Finnwolf

For example in Rolemaster system you need to do lot of percentile math and go through several charts to see outcomes. I can do that too but feels way too much of trouble for gaming. And much more complex than GURPS.
[...]
I'm not saying the GURPS would be best system for everything and such, but I do wonder why people complain about it being complex.

People complain about GURPS for the same reason you complained about RoleMaster: prejudice.

Rolemaster isn't complex at all. It plays really fast once you organize yourself.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by DrTemp

But that's not complexity- it is mass.

Which, from a certain point of view, amounts to the same thing. The basic mechanics, once play begins, are pretty simple, but the first thing a new player faces is building a character, which requires making choices between a large mass of advantages, disads, and skills. And here, the basic concept of "you have x points, these things cost y points, buy what you want within the bounds of good sense" is likewise simple, but winnowing through that to find the things you want and figuring out how to budget points for them is a complex process, involving many choices and judgement calls. Ergo, important parts of GURPS can justifiably be regarded as complex.

[Ack]

I think one problem new gamers have with GURPS is the "far too many cool things" problem. When they're making up a character, they see all the advantages, and they can't see any specific one that looks more killer than the rest (generally because they've been playtested to be that way) and they want them all, and the points mean they can't have them all, and ... well, you get the picture.

It's the old conundrum about the monkey with his hand in a jar of nuts. He has a handful of nuts, but he can't pull it out because it's too bulky. If he lets some go, he'll be able to get his hand out, but he doesn't want to let any go.

Of course, once they get past this stage, they are generally quite good players.

Cheers,
Ack

[Stephane_Theriault]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

Which, from a certain point of view, amounts to the same thing. The basic mechanics, once play begins, are pretty simple, but the first thing a new player faces is building a character, which requires making choices between a large mass of advantages, disads, and skills. And here, the basic concept of "you have x points, these things cost y points, buy what you want within the bounds of good sense" is likewise simple, but winnowing through that to find the things you want and figuring out how to budget points for them is a complex process, involving many choices and judgement calls. Ergo, important parts of GURPS can justifiably be regarded as complex.

It is overwhelming, yes, but complex?

I think it essentially has to do with perception. People assume GURPS is complex because there is so much stuff. And aside from explaining and showing that it is not, there's not much else we can do.

[Wonder Lemming]

I usually try to introduce people to GURPS with pregens, give everyone characters with completely different skills/advantage/abilities. If I can't do this I show them the list of traits in the back of Characters or the Character creation booklet that comes with the GM's screen and tell them to look up the ones they would like.

I'm currently starting a Hellboy game, I'm not running it but the GM is new to GURPS so I'm helping with the rules and chargen side of everything. One player (also new to GURPS) wants to play an amphibian Abe Sapien-esque character and was overwhelmed by the amount of options. I showed him the list of traits and told him to look up the ones that he fancied, thus preventing him from having to leaf through page after page to find what he wanted speeding up the process immensely.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Ellie the Technomancer

It is overwhelming, yes, but complex?

To choose between difficult, complex, overwhelming, and a few other possibly applicable words strikes me as quibbling over syntax. If a newbie gets lost among all the possibilities and calls it "complex," I'll not gainsay him. There's a justifiable perception that GURPS is not trivally easy, and we do ourselves and the game a disservice if we deny that.