What fictional worlds would be very GURPS friendly.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by MattStriker

I'll give you SAAB, it's a nice TL9^ (FTL and artificial gravity) setting.

B5, though, is tricky, particularly once combat is involved (and let's face it, with RPGs, combat always becomes an issue sooner or later). UT contains no weapons comparable to the PPG, and ultra-tech combat in general assumes everybody is wearing at least some armor (which isn't usually the case in B5).
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Given that one of the big selling points of PPGs is their _lack_ of penetration, they would probably be best represented using force weapons.

[Mgellis]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Given that one of the big selling points of PPGs is their _lack_ of penetration, they would probably be best represented using force weapons.

Another option would be the plasma warheads for bullets (UT, p. 158). Again, no armor penetration modifier, and it's burning damage, which seems more akin to what PPGs are supposed to do.

The only drawback is the need to use weapons with 10 mm. calibers or better, but since there are pistols, rifles, and SMGs that use such rounds, there are plenty of options.

[rishi]

I've found GURPS to be so dense with simple, scalable models and rules that all you need to do to make it play nice with something is subtract.

There's so many sourcebooks describing so many worlds that you will probably find at least pieces of what you're looking for in a setting. Usually you'll find most pieces of most mainstream genres in the media. And when you do find what you like, it probably has more than what you want.

But most of that complexity is a) optional and b) built on the same mechanics as the core rules. Grab the sourcebooks that sound like what you want to do and be really choosy. If the the nitty-gritty simulation gets in your way, leave it out. The rules are balanced with or without complexity.

But, since the nature of a lot of the soucebooks are in fact more "toolkit"-like, the GM may spend more time gluing together the setting than with other pre-assembled system/setting games. However, I still find the extra prep-time well worth the additional flexibility.

[Phantasm]

Star Wars is very GURPS-friendly. A lot of stuff from Space and Ultra-Tech was written with Star Wars in mind, I think. Psionic Powers works as-is for the Force, too.

On the flip-side of the TL scale, the world of the original Beastmaster movie is also GURPS-friendly. Similarly, I don't think that there are any of the old Ray Harryhausen style sword-and-sandal movies that cannot be done using GURPS.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Kymage

I was thinking, what fictional worlds out there would be a good fit to be roleplayed using the GURPS rules?

I was wondering... Are there qualities of a fictional world that make it particularly suitable for gaming with GURPS, as opposed to, say, some other generic system?

JC, really. It seems to me that there probably are not a great many that GURPS could not handle (although there are some that might be better done with other systems).

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by MattStriker

[snip] B5, though, is tricky, particularly once combat is involved (and let's face it, with RPGs, combat always becomes an issue sooner or later). UT contains no weapons comparable to the PPG, and ultra-tech combat in general assumes everybody is wearing at least some armor (which isn't usually the case in B5). [snip]

I strongly disagree; IMHO GURPS is particularly suited to B5 (and anything else that is strongly character-driven), and there's at least one decent conversion thread kicking around here IIRC. I would not run B5 with any other system.

PPGs are a ridiculous weapon that don't even really make sense with a carrot after the TL. It's just 2d6-3d6 Burning damage with no armor divisor, lousy range, and RoF 1 to privilege (or at least enable) hand-to-hand. Throw in an extra second and loud, distinctive noise for the initial ready that can't be eliminated with Fast Draw and you're cooking with (helium) gas. :]

Dropping armor may not be realistic, but it makes things easier, not harder, for Space Opera (where realism is a foreign language). My group's Prime Directive game has proven this over and over (with the GM even going so far as to completely fudge a couple of Critical Hit result rolls to avoid unarmed attacks doing nothing at all against UT armor when he wanted more dramatic results for great attack rolls, an effect that would normally have cost the player in question about 200 points for multiple uses of Super Luck to call a "Bypasses all armor result," which had the potential to seriously annoy a certain player type in a 200-point game to put it mildly)... What do we see when people fight with weapons in B5? They dive for cover and return fire, run away, or get hurt. GURPS handles this marvelously.

[mook]

I've used GURPS to run Bunnies & Burrows, Star Wars, Star Trek, Melrose Place, Forgotten Realms fantasy, and numerous others - as mentioned upthread, there aren't a lot of fictional worlds that aren't GURPS-friendly.

Having said that, my favorite setting of all time is Cynosure, from the GrimJack comics. Let's me have magic, psionics, supers, weird creatures, and all levels of technology mashed together in the same game, which is something I really dig. It's a great place to play, where all my GURPS books are useful at the same time!

[Gizensha]

Originally Posted by MattStriker

B5, though, is tricky, particularly once combat is involved (and let's face it, with RPGs, combat always becomes an issue sooner or later). UT contains no weapons comparable to the PPG, and ultra-tech combat in general assumes everybody is wearing at least some armor (which isn't usually the case in B5).

Hm? I thought it was roughly on par with the performance of a pistol circa 1995, but doing (non-inceditory) burn damage (Maybe lower RoF and significantly larger amount of shots - Was anyone ever seen to run out of ammo with one of those things? It was implied they had limited ammo per magazine/battery pack, what with a couple of scenes where a character gave one with an empty battery-pack/magazine to another character, but...)

Originally Posted by Qoltar

"TORCHWOOD".....without or without its 'DOCTOR WHO" connection

...Unless you try and find out what a realistic budget for that sort of organization in the 1890s would be (Because for some reason transposing it into Victorian times has an appeal to me. Especially after a particular S2 episode)...

...It seems to be easier to find British India's budget for that era than Mainland Britain's.

(Which simply means that 'sure, provided you don't want to give the PC's control of how to allocate the funds')

[AOTA]

Originally Posted by mook

Having said that, my favorite setting of all time is Cynosure, from the GrimJack comics. Let's me have magic, psionics, supers, weird creatures, and all levels of technology mashed together in the same game, which is something I really dig. It's a great place to play, where all my GURPS books are useful at the same time!

I would so buy this in a second. Especially with Tim Truman art.

[acrosome]

I always thought that GURPS shined especially bright in time travel settings, given it's "generic" nature. Also, it has pretty good rules for developing (or re-developing) technologies. So I always thought that adapting S.M.Stirling's "Island in the Sea of Time" series would be interesting. It avoids the big problem with time travel games- languages. You start among a large population of people who share a common language- the island of Nantucket is thrown back to 1250BC. They then spend YEARS surviving and rebuilding a technology base, so you have time to learn any local languages relevant to your campaign. In the short term, many "locals" will have impressive Gesture skills since they are used to trading with many other groups with whom they do not share a language. Also, it avoids the whole "what if the characters take a machine gun to the battle of Hastings" problem- few firearms remained on the island, so the islanders first threw together short swords and shields made from truck springs and signage, then progressed to muskets and muzzle-loading rifles, and finally reinvented brass cartridges and single-shot breach loaders with the span of a few years. Also, several ships were brought along during the event including a couple of sloops (it is Nantucket, after all), but also the USCGS Eagle was caught up and brought along and provided worldwide travel possibilities.

The series does suffer from some of Stirling's puerile obsessions with lesbians and slavery, etc., and the last book ends abruptly in a rather unsatisfying fashion. But I think it has potential far beyond what he did with it.

"Conquistador (same author) is a dimensional-travel setting that might also be interesting, though that one would center around conflict among the dimensional travelers and the setting just provides an interesting backdrop. But it was only one book so less material is available.

(I have a special interest in less advanced technologies.)

Predictably, GURPS Cthulhu always seemed incredibly interesting to me and it has in fact been done in several different ways. I'd love to see a comprehensive conversion for 4th ed, though. I think the genre is much more fun if it is just a LITTLE more survivable than the Chaosium canon, with more of a Black Ops feel to it a la the Theron Marks Society, and GURPS does that handily. There will probably never be an official conversion, though, for obvious reasons, so I slowly play around with my own. GURPS Cthulhupunk was disappointing, but certainly can be used as a starting point. There needs to be much better rules for studying tomes, though, and I think I've come up with some. (And you should see my Byakhee stats- they're a thing of beauty.) One problem is that there is simply SO MUCH material to translate- but then, they did GURPS Traveller, didn't they?