New to GURPS. What should I get?

BillyN831 · 03-05-2017, 10:35 PM

I ordered the basic set characters and campaigns and was wondering what books I should get.

I'm playing GURPS lite and a fan made zombie apocalypse adventure Wednesday with four friends and am getting the books Friday.

I was wondering what books are good.

We might take a vote Wednesday what to run or we might pick space.

I just want to know a general selection.

I'm a big fan of Warhammer 40k and like the concept of gods vs space marines.

Fallout introduced me to GURPS.

My friend likes WWII and hates fantasy.

Thanks.

ericbsmith · 03-05-2017, 10:50 PM

That's a loaded question, because what is useful very much depends on what genre you want to play.

If you like Fallout you should check out GURPS After The End.

For Sci-Fi the GURPS Spaceships series and GURPS Space are good for "spacey" games; GURPS Ultra-Tech and GURPS High-Tech provide a plethora of weaponry and equipment for modern and future tech games.

There are a number of WWII PDFs available, but they were originally designed for GURPS 3e, so while they are useful you need to keep edition differences in mind if you want to use them with 4e. I do have a template conversion document hosted on my website that converts most, if not all, of the templates from the WWII series to 4e. And, of course, GURPS High-Tech and GURPS Pulp Guns 1 & 2 (especially Vol 2) could be useful there.

Refplace · 03-05-2017, 11:00 PM

Try reading this thread
http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=146009

dcarson · 03-05-2017, 11:18 PM

For high power characters like demi-gods Powers

trooper6 · 03-06-2017, 12:14 AM

I'd say stick with the Basic Set for a while...and then see where you want to go from there. You don't *need* anything more than the Basic Set, while other things are useful, they aren't mandatory.

Now, let's say you decide you really want to do a WW2 thing. Well, High Tech might be really useful. After that? Depends on the sort of campaign you want to run. Maybe you want Mass Combat if you plan on doing Mass Combat. Maybe you want Tactical Shooting if you want more realistic and detailed shooting rules that what you get in Basic. Maybe you want to grab some of the 3rd Edition WW2 line and convert them to 4th Edition (pretty easy). Maybe you want GURPS Horror...because you are going to do that sort of WW2 game.

But you know what? You could still do it all with just the Basic Set.

lachimba · 03-06-2017, 12:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by trooper6

.

But you know what? You could still do it all with just the Basic Set.

Agreed.

Fans get excited and suggest all sorts of books. But to be honest the Basic Set is remarkably good enough for everything.

There's no harm in patiently accumulating books as you go.

Anders · 03-06-2017, 01:01 AM

EVERYTHING!

:o)

But if you're playing a zombies campaign, there is such a thing as GURPS Zombies...

johndallman · 03-06-2017, 01:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BillyN831

I'm playing GURPS lite and a fan made zombie apocalypse adventure Wednesday with four friends and am getting the books Friday.

I was wondering what books are good.

We might take a vote Wednesday what to run or we might pick space.

I just want to know a general selection.

Welcome! The standard of GURPS books is very high, but each is for its particular purpose.

The important thing to realise is that GURPS is not a game in a can, ready to play, but a toolkit for making your own games. There aren't many published adventures, and almost all of what people play is "fan made", usually by the GM, for the group they're running for.

There is quite a bit of material to help you with doing that. For example, GURPS Zombies is about all the kinds of zombies in fiction, and how to run campaigns based on the genre. Zombies: Day One is a set of "campaign seeds", different situations that start a zombie outbreak, and advice on how to develop them.

Anaraxes · 03-06-2017, 06:18 AM

I'll add another vote to start with Basic (Characters + Campaigns), and see where you need to go from there. There are a lot of good GURPS books, but the ones you want will depend on the games that you're playing.

To add a new one for consideration to the list so far, I'll suggest How to Be a GURPS GM. Along with some general advice on GMing (how to construct adventures and so on), the book has some advice on selecting the overall parameters of your game -- realistic versus cinematic, power levels, style of the game, various optional rules and which ones you might want to turn on and off, etc -- as well as GURPS-specific advice on topics like the way damage types or skills affect combats. As has been said, GURPS is a toolkit you use to construct the game you want, and this book provides at least some guide to the process of doing that construction. If you're new to GURPS and feeling disoriented or swamped by the multiple decades accumulation of choices and rules, this book might help you orient yourself.

Also, I'll point at a couple of "genre" books that are actually pretty useful outside their labelled genre. That would be GURPS Action 2: Exploits and Dungeon Fantasy 16: Wilderness Adventures. Those books can be useful even if you never intend to run those specific genres.

Action 2 has rules for the sorts of things you find in action movies, but also a lot of adventures at any tech level -- climbing, breaking into places, researching and using contacts to gather information, blowing stuff up, false ID, etc. It also has a system for doing chase scenes. And there's a little bit about getting some use out of your organization, assuming you have one. (Social Engineering: Pulling Rank covers that thoroughly; the Action rules are much smaller and earlier, but it's a nice thing to have when someone wants to know what their rank in The Company or the US Army is supposed to do for all those character points.)

Wilderness Adventures covers exactly that -- outdoor travel, weather, sickness, terrain hazards, scouting and tracking, and so on. You might find a lot of those situations in a zombie apocalypse game, for instance, so it could be useful even if you intend never to run a fantasy game of any sort. (There's probably some overlap here with After The End or Zombies.)

GM Joe · 03-06-2017, 07:12 AM

I pretty much agree with what Anaraxes said. Keep it simple and learn the Basic Set first. There are dozens of very useful GURPS volumes, but there's no need to go crazy. :) It's great that you've started with GURPS Lite! The next step you're taking -- the GURPS Basic Set -- is a big one all on its own. Give yourself some time to get comfortable with that stuff, first.

The only exception is How to be a GURPS GM, really. That one is so useful it should be considered part of the Basic Set.

After you've digested all that, yeah, there are some supplements that you're highly likely to find useful, such as the ones Anaraxes mentioned.

03-05-2017, 10:35 PM	#1
BillyN831 Join Date: Mar 2017	New to GURPS. What should I get? I ordered the basic set characters and campaigns and was wondering what books I should get. I'm playing GURPS lite and a fan made zombie apocalypse adventure Wednesday with four friends and am getting the books Friday. I was wondering what books are good. We might take a vote Wednesday what to run or we might pick space. I just want to know a general selection. I'm a big fan of Warhammer 40k and like the concept of gods vs space marines. Fallout introduced me to GURPS. My friend likes WWII and hates fantasy. Thanks.

03-05-2017, 10:50 PM	#2
ericbsmith Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Binghamton, NY, USA. Near the river Styx in the 5th Circle.	Re: New to GURPS. What should I get? That's a loaded question, because what is useful very much depends on what genre you want to play. If you like Fallout you should check out GURPS After The End. For Sci-Fi the GURPS Spaceships series and GURPS Space are good for "spacey" games; GURPS Ultra-Tech and GURPS High-Tech provide a plethora of weaponry and equipment for modern and future tech games. There are a number of WWII PDFs available, but they were originally designed for GURPS 3e, so while they are useful you need to keep edition differences in mind if you want to use them with 4e. I do have a template conversion document hosted on my website that converts most, if not all, of the templates from the WWII series to 4e. And, of course, GURPS High-Tech and GURPS Pulp Guns 1 & 2 (especially Vol 2) could be useful there. __________________ Eric B. Smith GURPS Data File Coordinator GURPSLand I shall pull the pin from this healing grenade and... Kaboom-baya. Last edited by ericbsmith; 03-06-2017 at 06:46 AM.

03-05-2017, 11:00 PM	#3
Refplace Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Yukon, OK	Re: New to GURPS. What should I get? Try reading this thread http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=146009 __________________ My GURPS publications GURPS Powers: Totem and Nature Spirits; GURPS Template Toolkit 4: Spirits; Pyramid articles. Buying them lets us know you want more! My GURPS fan contribution and blog: REFPLace GURPS Landing Page My List of GURPS You Tube videos (plus a few other useful items) My GURPS Wiki entries

03-05-2017, 11:18 PM	#4
dcarson Join Date: Mar 2008	Re: New to GURPS. What should I get? For high power characters like demi-gods Powers

03-06-2017, 12:14 AM	#5
trooper6 Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Medford, MA	Re: New to GURPS. What should I get? I'd say stick with the Basic Set for a while...and then see where you want to go from there. You don't need anything more than the Basic Set, while other things are useful, they aren't mandatory. Now, let's say you decide you really want to do a WW2 thing. Well, High Tech might be really useful. After that? Depends on the sort of campaign you want to run. Maybe you want Mass Combat if you plan on doing Mass Combat. Maybe you want Tactical Shooting if you want more realistic and detailed shooting rules that what you get in Basic. Maybe you want to grab some of the 3rd Edition WW2 line and convert them to 4th Edition (pretty easy). Maybe you want GURPS Horror...because you are going to do that sort of WW2 game. But you know what? You could still do it all with just the Basic Set.

03-06-2017, 01:01 AM	#7
Anders Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Gothenburg, Sweden	Re: New to GURPS. What should I get? EVERYTHING! :o) But if you're playing a zombies campaign, there is such a thing as *GURPS Zombies... __________________ “When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...” Marcus Aurelius*

03-06-2017, 06:18 AM	#9
Anaraxes Join Date: Sep 2007	Re: New to GURPS. What should I get? I'll add another vote to start with Basic (Characters + Campaigns), and see where you need to go from there. There are a lot of good GURPS books, but the ones you want will depend on the games that you're playing. To add a new one for consideration to the list so far, I'll suggest *How to Be a GURPS GM. Along with some general advice on GMing (how to construct adventures and so on), the book has some advice on selecting the overall parameters of your game -- realistic versus cinematic, power levels, style of the game, various optional rules and which ones you might want to turn on and off, etc -- as well as GURPS-specific advice on topics like the way damage types or skills affect combats. As has been said, GURPS is a toolkit you use to construct the game you want, and this book provides at least some guide to the process of doing that construction. If you're new to GURPS and feeling disoriented or swamped by the multiple decades accumulation of choices and rules, this book might help you orient yourself. Also, I'll point at a couple of "genre" books that are actually pretty useful outside their labelled genre. That would be GURPS Action 2: Exploits* and *Dungeon Fantasy 16: Wilderness Adventures. Those books can be useful even if you never intend to run those specific genres. Action 2 has rules for the sorts of things you find in action movies, but also a lot of adventures at any tech level -- climbing, breaking into places, researching and using contacts to gather information, blowing stuff up, false ID, etc. It also has a system for doing chase scenes. And there's a little bit about getting some use out of your organization, assuming you have one. (Social Engineering: Pulling Rank* covers that thoroughly; the Action rules are much smaller and earlier, but it's a nice thing to have when someone wants to know what their rank in The Company or the US Army is supposed to do for all those character points.) Wilderness Adventures covers exactly that -- outdoor travel, weather, sickness, terrain hazards, scouting and tracking, and so on. You might find a lot of those situations in a zombie apocalypse game, for instance, so it could be useful even if you intend never to run a fantasy game of any sort. (There's probably some overlap here with *After The End* or *Zombies*.)

03-06-2017, 07:12 AM	#10
GM Joe Join Date: Oct 2014 Location: Chicagoland	Re: New to GURPS. What should I get? I pretty much agree with what Anaraxes said. Keep it simple and learn the Basic Set first. There are dozens of very useful GURPS volumes, but there's no need to go crazy. :) It's great that you've started with GURPS Lite! The next step you're taking -- the GURPS Basic Set -- is a big one all on its own. Give yourself some time to get comfortable with that stuff, first. The only exception is How to be a GURPS GM, really. That one is so useful it should be considered part of the Basic Set. After you've digested all that, yeah, there are some supplements that you're highly likely to find useful, such as the ones Anaraxes mentioned. __________________ GMing Since 1982.