GURPS can change your life

[jimminy]

I’m always the first to be sceptical of such claims as, ‘Role-Playing games teach you things!’. I can’t say that the words ‘polearm’ or ‘psionic’ have been of much use to me away from the gaming table.

However, it struck me yesterday just how much GURPS has added to my life.

Really, GURPS started a few fascinating threads which have run through the last few years. I picked up the GURPS WWII book knowing nothing about the war. It excited an interest and soon I was reading osprey books, then history books, then ‘WWII Day-by-Day’ cover to cover, more history books, and then everything I could find. It strengthened my knowledge of geography and also of political systems and events that have greatly influenced modern existence. Also, because of my newfound obsession, I wrote a story set in WWII for my Honours year in Creative Writing which earned me the top overall grade in English at my university. The story was also, at its core, a deep analysis of why young men have the urge to adventure, which is a theme I find myself preoccupied with after years of role-playing games. In an earlier English literature essay I also mentioned the luminiferous ether and the Victorian theory that humans went through all the stages of evolution in the womb, which are ideas I first encountered in GURPS Steampunk. Because of my new love of history I particularly sought out some specific spots in Europe I might not have visited otherwise. I am very glad to have seen the mountains of Bavaria, the rolling farmlands of Belgium or the serene but magnificent beauty of Normandy, even besides their value as WWII places of interest. And all of this was all thanks to that little spark I got from picking up a GURPS resource.

Now I’m running a Crusades game so I’ve been learning all about the Crusades. Last Christmas I saw the timeless city of Istanbul because this new interest drew me there. It felt like being able to step inside your own role-playing game! Istanbul is a magical place and is now one of my favourite cities (GURPS also improved my girlfriend’s life, because I took her there too as a Christmas present!). I’ve been reading the Bible, and though I’m completely irreligious the book is culturally important and I am glad to be familiar with it. Next I will start reading the Koran, but meanwhile I have come to know about people, places and ideas that I never would have learned of otherwise and yet all these things have a direct bearing on the modern world. I feel as if having some understanding of them makes me a better person.

All of this is besides the countless hours of wonderful fun I’ve had with good friends playing GURPS on Sundays, laughing and imagining together.

Anyway, I just finished a book on the ‘Saracens’ yesterday and I thought I should sit down and write this little thankyou. Thanks for all those hours of fun and thanks for the well written books. And who knew! Role-playing really can change your life.

[Gollum]

My experience is quite different, but GURPS changed my life too.

I'm a french roleplayer and, during the eighties, I was looking for a generic system, a system with which I could GM in any world without having to learn new rules…

In 1990, I found GURPS in a London shop. The third edition. 256 pages, all in English! I had learnt English at school, but not enough to speak it fluently. And not enough to read it directly in a book! No matter! The desire was too strong. I bought a little dictionary (one I was able to bring everywhere) and began to read GURPS, looking for every one word I didn’t understand. It was long, of course, but how fascinating!

Few years later, I took an exam to become a school teacher. I choose the English translation option… And I got a 16 (in France, everything is graded out of 20). For this exam, a 16 meant at least 60 places and, without these 60 places, I wouldn’t have got my job!

So, thanks to GURPS, I am a school teacher… It changed my whole life.